Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

“Just close your eyes and kiss the girl and go where the tilt-a-whirl takes you.” ~OzarkHillbilly

Chutkan laughs. Lauro sits back down.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

Baby steps, because the Republican Party is full of angry babies.

There is one struggling party in US right now, and it’s not the Democrats.

“Why isn’t this Snickers bar only a nickel?”

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

We need to vote them all out and restore sane Democratic government.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

Republicans would impeach Biden if he bit into a whole Kit Kat rather than breaking the sections apart.

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

Republicans do not pay their debts.

He really is that stupid.

When we show up, we win.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

It’s not hopeless, and we’re not helpless.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

I also would like a pony to improve my balloon juice experience.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

Putin dreamed of ending NATO, and now it’s Finnish-ed.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Happy “Loyalty Day”

Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Happy “Loyalty Day”

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Of course Trump didn’t invent it — he couldn’t invent a fart after a baked-bean supper, which explains why so much toxic gas spews from the other end of his digestive tract. Per the Washington Post:

… First observed in 1921, it was then called Americanization Day to counter International Workers Day, promoted by socialists and Communists to honor workers on May 1. In 1955, Congress recognized it as a special day, as did President Eisenhower, and three years later legislators passed a law making it an annual holiday. Since then, every president has issued a proclamation to mark the day — every single year…

So, it’s a shifty rebrand of a well-meaning socialist rebrand of a longstanding celebration of winter’s end, the triumph of hope and fertility…


 

Much better reading for a May Day morning:

Reader Interactions

112Comments

  1. 1.

    Amir Khalid

    So “Loyalty Day” is what you guys have on May 1 instead of Labour Day? I never heard of it before now.

  2. 2.

    Amir Khalid

    I just polished The Girl’s frets and changed her strings, and she looks all beautiful now.

  3. 3.

    hervevillechaizelounge

    The twice-divorced liar-in-chief wants to celebrate loyalty? How touching; I think all republican ex-wives should take to twitter to celebrate the undying devotion of the party of personal responsibility.

    Let me guess; tomorrow is not going to be Honest Self Reflection Day!

  4. 4.

    Geoduck

    @Amir Khalid: You say “You guys”, but I would wager that 90% of Americans aren’t even aware that Loyalty Day exists. (And ditto for May Day, for that matter.)

  6. 6.

    sharl

    I’m glad that last Popehat tweet was included in the post. While noisy student protesters can and do go Full Asshole sometimes, it’s the donor class that is the greater worry:

    Documents prove Kochs bought power over faculty hires at public university in VA – contrary to denials https://t.co/5zIRrlvkJ2— Jane Mayer (@JaneMayerNYer) April 30, 2018

    FAIRFAX, Va. (AP) — Virginia’s largest public university granted the conservative Charles Koch Foundation a say in the hiring and firing of professors in exchange for millions of dollars in donations, according to newly released documents.

    The release of donor agreements between George Mason University and the foundation follows years of denials by university administrators that Koch foundation donations inhibit academic freedom.

    University President Angel Cabrera wrote a note to faculty Friday night saying the agreements “fall short of the standards of academic independence I expect any gift to meet.” The admission came three days after a judge scrutinized the university’s earlier refusal to release any documents.

    The newly released agreements spell out million-dollar deals in which the Koch Foundation endows a fund to pay the salary of one or more professors at the university’s Mercatus Center, a free-market think tank. The agreements require creation of five-member selection committees to choose the professors and grant the donors the right to name two of the committee members.

    The Koch Foundation enjoyed similar appointment rights to advisory boards that had the right under the agreements to recommend firing a professor who failed to live up to standards.

  7. 7.

    Citizen Alan

    @sharl:

    It is often breathtaking to me to contemplate how many of this nation’s problems could be solved by taking every single person with a net worth of over a billion dollars, relocating them to an island in the South Pacific, and dropping a hydrogen bomb on it. And then a second hydrogen bomb just to be sure.

  8. 8.

    satby

    @Citizen Alan: or taxing them at rates we had during the Eisenhower administration. The Kochs obviously have more than they need if they’re blowing millions on endowments just to buy a few professors.

  9. 9.

    satby

    @Amir Khalid: yeah, no one’s really ever heard of it. Anyway, most of America, even the part that doesn’t like immigrants, is getting ready for Cinco de Mayo. Because everyone likes Mexican food, cervesa, and margaritas.

  10. 10.

    satby

    Happy May Day to everywhere else in the world.

    I can’t remember a Midwestern spring so dry in my life that we’re already at fire hazard warnings.

  11. 11.

    JPL

    In elementary school we would make May Day baskets and fill the basket with flowers.

  15. 15.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @satby: April is typically dry here in the Ozarks. If it stays this way thru May that will be abnormal.

  16. 16.

    Baud

    Has anyone seen the Trump proclamation? It mentions the United States, right?

  17. 17.

    raven

    Amberjack season opens for one month today and snapper season kicks in 1 June. We’re going to the Gulf the 26th so I’ll get a shot at both!

  20. 20.

    satby

    @rikyrah: Good morning ?!

    @OzarkHillbilly: we’ve had some short rains, but not as much as a normal spring. It all came, with snow, over winter and caused the flooding we had. Now the red flag warnings cover all of Indiana and lower Michigan, just when the farmers are planting. But rain’s expected later this week.

  30. 30.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @satby: They’re actually expecting a bit of snow in the local mountains(@ over 5500′). This is pretty rare for this late in the season.

    @Baud: When the site goes live, probably late this week or early next week. I have to finish up a contact page and about page, also decide on pricing.

    ETA: Though getting to my Smugmug site is pretty easy, just type my nym+’.com’.

  36. 36.

    Amir Khalid

    @satby:
    I always thought the big American holiday this month was on the Fourth — you know, Star Wars Day.

  40. 40.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    I keep thinking that things are headed to a fork in the road – in one direction, Trump, Bolton, Netanyahu, and members of both governments stand in the dock at a war crimes tribunal (hopefully somewhere like Beijing, where they still have capital punishment). The other direction winds up with mass hangings in Fenway Park and pockmarks from bullets at the Boston Globe press room.

    I hope I’m wrong.

  47. 47.

    Aleta

    Pence’s wife’s doctor blew the whistle on Jackson. So full speed ahead with GOP campaign against Tester for ‘smearing’ Ronnie.

  49. 49.

    OzarkHillbilly

    US government scientists have detected a weedkiller linked to cancer in an array of commonly consumed foods, emails obtained through a freedom of information request show.

    The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has been testing food samples for residues of glyphosate, the active ingredient in hundreds of widely used herbicide products, for two years, but has not yet released any official results. But the internal documents obtained by the Guardian show the FDA has had trouble finding any food that does not carry traces of the pesticide.

    “I have brought wheat crackers, granola cereal and corn meal from home and there’s a fair amount in all of them,” FDA chemist Richard Thompson wrote to colleagues in an email last year regarding glyphosate. Thompson, who is based in an FDA regional laboratory in Arkansas, wrote that broccoli was the only food he had “on hand” that he found to be glyphosate-free.
    …………………………
    Thompson’s detection of glyphosate was made as he was validating his analytical methods, meaning those residues will probably not be included in any official report.

    Separately, FDA chemist Narong Chamkasem found “over-the-tolerance” levels of glyphosate in corn, detected at 6.5 parts per million, an FDA email states. The legal limit is 5.0 ppm. An illegal level would normally be reported to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), but an FDA supervisor wrote to an EPA official that the corn was not considered an “official sample”.

    When asked about the emails and the agency’s testing, an FDA spokesman said only that the FDA had not found any illegal levels in corn, soy, milk or eggs, the four commodities it considers part of its glyphosate “special assignment”. He did not address the unofficial findings revealed in the emails.

    The FDA’s official findings should be released later this year or early in 2019 as part of its 2016 annual residue report. The reports typically are released two to two and a half years after the data is collected.
    ………………
    Other findings detailed in the FDA documents show that in 2016 Chamkasem found glyphosate in numerous samples of honey. Chamkasem also found glyphosate in oatmeal products. The FDA temporarily suspended testing after those findings, and Chamkasem’s lab was “reassigned to other programs”, the FDA documents show. The FDA has said those tests were not part of its official glyphosate residue assignment.

    I know everybody here is just shocked to learn this.

  50. 50.

    debbie

    I guess if Mueller doesn’t want to question Trump over Collusion, there must not be any:

    So disgraceful that the questions concerning the Russian Witch Hunt were “leaked” to the media. No questions on Collusion. Oh, I see…you have a made up, phony crime, Collusion, that never existed, and an investigation begun with illegally leaked classified information. Nice!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 1, 2018

    I hope his blood pressure is higher than ever.

  52. 52.

    Sm*t Cl*de

    @debbie:

    So disgraceful that the questions concerning the Russian Witch Hunt were “leaked” to the media.

    Imma taking that as an admission that the leak came from Team Trump.

  53. 53.

    Weaselone

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    Nah. Just a “Hillary really needs to shut up for realz you guys and not because she has a vagina. She totally keeps blaming other people for her loss and that’s totally unfair because the press shouldn’t need to self examine and complaining about rigged elections is Bernie’s thing. Why must everyone be so unfair to Bernie? Also the media has nothing to do with how much coverage she receives and our laserlike focus on this topic despite all the other things Hillary says. OMG, you mean I still need to write more to get to my word count? Bernie rules Hillary drools. Crayons sausages, the color red, redrum, redrum is murder spelled backwards. Made it. Another dynamite piece. You can just hand me the Pullitzer now.”

  55. 55.

    Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)

    @debbie: That tweet certainly raises my blood pressure. Actually every time I see Trump, hear his voice, or read his tweets, my blood pressure shoots up these days.

    I was just reading a story saying those leaked questions read like notes of a discussion Trump’s people had with Mueller over what’s likely to be discussed in a Trump interview. The grammar isn’t even proper. I suspect we’re seeing Giuliani working the media.

  56. 56.

    Betty Cracker

    @raven: Snapper is the best tasting fish, IMO. Especially hog snapper, which is almost impossible to catch unless you’re into spearfishing. Best of luck!

  57. 57.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @debbie:

    So disgraceful that the questions concerning the Russian Witch Hunt were “leaked” to the media.

    I guess that means he’s going to fire his lawyers then.

  60. 60.

    Weaselone

    @Baud:
    No. They didn’t hire me because I referred to Hamlet as the story of a vengeful cheese danish in my writing sample.

  61. 61.

    Luthe

    @Brachiator: My alma mater is doing that on Sunday. After the Morris Dancers and the parade, but before the parachute filled with rose petals and the feminism chanting.

  62. 62.

    rikyrah

    I was listening to Maddow read those questions last night and just had to laugh. There wasn’t a one that Dolt45 could answer without perjury ?????

  63. 63.

    Kathleen

    @sharl: I really despise so many so called journalists but Jane Mayer is a treasure, a perfect role model for all real reporters. David Corn is another good one.Habetman and her ilk aren’t fit to tie their shoes.

  64. 64.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @MomSense:

    “But her emails!”

    Let us all remember that the Benghazi fiasco all started over the thoughtcrime of criticizing a trailer trash preacher for burning a Koran on video, which provoked mass uprisings. The emails sprung from that.

    Also keep in mind that the trailer trash preacher who did that (and was deemed “unfairly criticized” on the right) has another lovely video up of his trailer trash congregants saying “n****r” over and over and over again.

  67. 67.

    WaterGirl

    @sharl: Just horrible! All public institutions should be required to make public any agreements like that.

    I’m sure salaries at the top of these universities are at least partially dependent on the money they bring in, so these people get to sell the integrity of the institution and get a higher salary in return. That should not be legal.

  69. 69.

    zhena gogolia

    @Kathleen:

    Yesterday I finally finished reading Mayer’s story on Christopher Steele. It is hair-raising. The Republic could have been saved at so many junctures, but everyone failed.

  70. 70.

    WaterGirl

    @Baud: I was about to say “breathing” but you got there first, of course. I do applaud your open mind in considering that Hillary might have actually said or done something to engender a response. how quaint!

  71. 71.

    Eric S.

    @Amir Khalid: that coincides with my father’s birthday. He took me to see Star Wars (the original) when I was 5. 40+ years later I’m still hooked while acknowledging they have real short comings.

  76. 76.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Kathleen:

    “While Commander Waterford would never suffer criticism at the WHCA banquet and would just hang everybody there while sending their families to the colonies out of principle, his decisiveness and willingness to make tough choices to satisfy his goals is a real game changer insofar as running the government is concerned”.

  77. 77.

    Kay

    “That document was provided to The Times by a person outside Mr. Trump’s legal team.”

    I’m concerned about this. The questions don’t tell us anything we didn’t already know – any one of you would guessed Mueller had questions like this based just on the indictments. I’m concerned that Trump’s sleazy associates (Guiliani et al) will stink up the investigation with leaks and such. The professionalism of it is important. It’s the source of the credibility. “Mueller” isn’t credible. it’s the process he’s conducted that is credible. Comey forgot that. Comey thought it was about “James Comey- Eagle Scout and Great American” but that it isn’t it at all. ANYONE should be able to run the process as long as they stick to the rules. That’s the beauty of it- it isn’t dependent on “good” or “bad” people. YOU aren’t dependent on good or bad people. YOU can rely on process.

    I’m afraid the Trumpsters will sleaze it up and turn it into a circus. Because they WANT a circus. They WANT it to be a joke. Clowns work in circuses. They have to create a situation where their skills are required.

  79. 79.

    D58826

    Some what OT. Just saw a tweet from Der Fuhrer that he is proposing to skip the idea of a neutral site for his meeting with Kim. He thinks it should be held at Panmunjom. Now I’m not an expert but the image of the leader of the free world traveling 12k miles to meet with kim, in what is in effect Kim’s home court, just seems like a bad idea. He already gave Kim a big win just by agreeing to meet with him w/o preconditions.

  80. 80.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Kay:

    There’s a stench of “Great Manism” wafting about, not unlike that from a really greasy shart.

    They’re men who believe that their vision and the autocratic imposition of it will cause them to be remembered as great leaders. Putin, Trump, Erdogan, Netanyahu, that Hungarian dude whose name I forget all believe themselves brilliant and indispensable.

  81. 81.

    Jeffro

    @rikyrah: that’s exactly why he’s in even more of a panic than usual…can’t fire Mueller, can’t answer the questions, can’t NOT answer the questions etc etc

    Goose = cooked

    Obstruction referral dropping later this month, too

  83. 83.

    Weaselone

    @Kay:
    This statement by someone who is ostensibly a reporter is very sleezy. It’s not actually denying that the Trump team was the source of the questions, but implies it and by doing so implicates Mueller’s team. The statement would still be technically true if Guliani had sent it by courier, or it was dropped off by a Secret Service agent

  84. 84.

    Vhh

    @Baud: So has Trump. Melania doesn’t seem so inclined, and Donald has too much surveillance to go visiting porn stars. Could his rages be the result of finding himself an incel?

  85. 85.

    SFAW

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:

    The other direction winds up with mass hangings in Fenway Park and pockmarks from bullets at the Boston Globe press room.

    I need some clarification/explanation re: the Glob press room comment. Are you suggesting that the lie-berals at the Glob will be rounded up after a gun battle? [If that’s not what you’re suggesting, you can safely ignore the rant below.]

    Because, if so: the Glob is no longer a liberal paper. John Henry, after buying it NN years ago, has seen to that. The closest thing to left-wing is Scot Lehigh. Although I like Scot, and he seems to have moved left since Shitgibbon’s installation, he’s not a liberal. The Always-Clueless Joan Vennochi is just a misogynist (when it comes to strong/successful women) in sheep’s clothing, Jeff Jacoby is still a moron RWNJ, and they apparently had a guest Op-Ed today from RWNJ hagiographer and all-around-clueless-bastard Niall Ferguson.

    David Nyhan is dead, too damn young, Tom Oliphant, HDS Greenway, Derrick Jackson, and a host of the former lib crew were let go or are no longer carried, and the Glob is carrying water for Rethugs when they can get away with it.

    Yeah, the destruction of the Glob is one of my pet peeves/hot buttons.

    To borrow from the esteemed efgoldman: Fuckem

  87. 87.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Kay: I’m not. Why else would they feel the need to stipulate this?

    That document was provided to The Times by a person outside Mr. Trump’s legal team.

    and do so in such a mealy mouthed way that it merely tells us they are using 3rd parties to facilitate the leaks? Because Giuliani is just stupid enough to insist they use this phrase.

    It already is a circus, it was always going to be a circus.

  89. 89.

    Chyron HR

    @SFAW:

    the Glob is no longer a liberal paper.

    If the MAGA revolution comes, every single print news outlet will be purged regardless of their political leanings, simply because reading is for liberal elitist homos.

  90. 90.

    But her emails!!!

    @SFAW:

    The Globe has been reduced to a more expensive source of coupons and bird cage liner than the Herald.

    That doesn’t really matter, because their turn from reasonably liberal to conservalite wouldn’t save them in an authoritarian regime. See the purge at Redstate as an example.

  91. 91.

    Matt McIrvin

    Loyalty Day is so obscure that it’s very common for people in the party opposed to the current President to assume he just invented it and decry it as creeping totalitarianism. Blame Eisenhower, I guess.

  92. 92.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @D58826: Technically, Panmunjom would be neutral, Trump wouldn’t actually have to step foot in North Korea to meet Kim. Though no military parade there, he’d have to go to Pyongyang for that.

    ETA: Also, apparently KJU doesn’t do airplanes, so that limits how far they could meet from Pyongyang.

  95. 95.

    Kay

    @Weaselone:

    I don’t care about the media angle in all this. I mean, I do, but I;ve given up on that. Their only standard is authenticity. They don’t care about the investigation. I do care about the investigation. I want to know what happened in the 2016 election and Mueller is the best shot I have to find that out, to a greater or lesser extent, I’m not asking him to unravel all the strings because a lot of it isn’t criminal or even actionable- it was just bad faith sleazy people doing what they do.

    I knew Guilaini wouldn’t head to Fox like he did during the campaign and personally deliver messages from Trump supporters in the NY FBI ofiice. I knew it would be slimier and below board.

    It’s just a shame. I don’t know if we can weather another institution going down for the count. We don’t have many left.

  96. 96.

    D58826

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: Still looks like Potus is the supplicant. Could do it in Beijing. Neutral ground. Kim can go by train and Der Fuhrer can smooze with Xi at the same time.

  97. 97.

    The Other Chuck

    @Kay:

    Their only standard is authenticity

    Are you talking about the same media? Maybe individual journalists care, but media outlets on the whole these days pretty much prize entertainment value and not a god damned thing else.

  100. 100.

    Kay

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    I’ll just give you an example. One in this case and then one in another. “Collusion”. Trump promoted that standard and I’m not sure that’s the standard. Comey said “coordination” which is probably a term of art- a word that has a specific meaning that may or may not be the same as the common language meaning. I know “coordination” is used in campaign finance prosecutions. All the usual suspects seized on “collusion” but is that the right standard?

    I watched this happen with another story that turned into a fucking train wreck. “Targeting” in the IRS fake-scandal. And make no mistake- that was 100% fake, that scandal. They seized on the word “targeting” as if meant “targeting conservative orgs” and that’s not AT ALL what it meant. It meant targeting non profit apps. It wasn’t an ideological category- it was a tax code category. Even smart careful people did this- Kevin Drum did it. One word. Led to that entire fucking freak show.

    It happens A LOT. “Classiifed” with the emails- another example that had HUGE implications.

    That’s what Team Trump wants. They want a mess. It isn’t that he’s this mavericky innovator who just shoots from the hip. He CREATES a mess. Deliberately. He’s done it his whole life. It’s to obscure the truth.

  101. 101.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Kay:
    Credibility is meaningless here. Mueller isn’t indicting Trump in the court of public opinion. He is indicting Trump in an actual courtroom. The news is already stuffed with every rumor, guess, and hot take imaginable. Everyone except Mueller’s team leaks like a sieve, and from day one reporters have done their best to suggest they got their latest leak from inside the investigation anyway.

  104. 104.

    Shana

    @sharl: any time you listen to NPR and they have folks on talking about economics (and they do often since George Mason is near DC) remember this

  106. 106.

    MomSense

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:

    I’ve been going back and rereading the history of the early abolitionist movement in Boston, organized against the Fugitive Slave Act. We are going to have to know how to communicate, how to recede, how to support each other, and on and on.

    Part of my worry stems from all the stories I grew up with from my stepdad who managed to escape prison and worse as a Hungarian Jew and so many teachers who were WW II survivors, Soviet defectors, and resistance fighters.

    I think we should all hope for the best and work our asses off to beat them at the ballot box in November but I also think we need to be prepared for fuckery.

  107. 107.

    Jeffro

    @Kay: as long as the charges against these assholes read “conspiracy against the United States” then I am all for it

  110. 110.

    TenguPhule

    @Citizen Alan:

    It is often breathtaking to me to contemplate how many of this nation’s problems could be solved by taking every single person with a net worth of over a billion dollars, relocating them to an island in the South Pacific, and dropping a hydrogen bomb on it. And then a second hydrogen bomb just to be sure.

    Hey now! Think of the environmental damage!

    Napalm is cheaper, faster and just as effective.

    And less damaging to the surroundings in the long term.

  112. 112.

    No Drought No More

    Fantastic! Happy Loyalty Day to everyone, and many happy returns.. Here’s a Loyalty recollection I’d like to share. Enjoy.

    “Be sure you’re right, then go ahead”.

    So Fess Parker as Davie Crockett as produced by Walt Disney counseled the American generation which soon after fought America’s War in Vietnam AND ultimately forced it to a halt. Which is to say, not long before he died the iron clad laws of unintended consequence had smacked Walt Disney in the face like a [iron clad] mackerel. It came to pass, then, because the man so resented the stinking, long haired hippies for acting on that bit of good advice, that it was decreed their money was no longer good at his park in Anaheim. If they wanted in, they had to cut their hair. To be sure (and if memory serves), that actually happened after he died. But don’t kid yourself: that short-lived, ill considered prohibition into his park of long haired people with money may not have lasted long, but it was surely a stipulation in Disney’s will. Or so I’ve always assumed.

    Lt. Calley- now there was a clean cut looking kid.

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