Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

Second rate reporter says what?

This blog will pay for itself.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

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

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

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

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

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

A last alliance of elves and men. also pet photos.

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

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

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

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

Today’s GOP: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

You are here: Home / Past Elections / Election 2018 / Local Races 2018 and earlier / Monday Morning Open Thread: This, Too, Is America

Monday Morning Open Thread: This, Too, Is America

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Remember to vote in your primary tomorrow, Californians!…


 


 

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131Comments

  2. 2.

    Patricia Kayden

    Hope Democrats vote correctly in California. Would love to see Issa and his ilk voted out in November.

  4. 4.

    Montanareddog

    I had no idea that Cindy had married her guitarist, either. She is by far the coolest thing in this video, for example:

    ETA: fix to borked link:

    video

  5. 5.

    gene108

    NJ also has a primary on Tuesday. Did some door knocking, on Saturday for the first time, to remind people. Our candidate, Andy Kim, in NJ-03, is running unopposed in the primary, but the campaign wanted to drive up turn out to hopefully spook the odious Tom MacArthur.

  10. 10.

    oatler.

    When I lived in OR Merkley was My Senator Hero. I wish he’d have a sex scandal so I could stop looking up to a… politician.

  12. 12.

    satby

    Good morning all and @rikyrah: ?!

    No primaries here, but Indivisible South Bend was at the Farmer’s Market Saturday to register voters, which is a positive sign. They didn’t just man a table either, they went through the market talking to everyone.

  14. 14.

    JPL

    Have we heard from Betty from Dominica recently? She checked in a few times after the storm while visiting in the U.S., but it’s been awhile since I’ve seen her comments.

  19. 19.

    Lee

    When I was in the military I know when a senator arrived we rolled out the red carpet.

    Does ICE think it is exempt from congressional oversight?

    Merkley should have taken a R house member along just to cover all the bases for a new investigation.

  21. 21.

    debbie

    If anyone has time, it’s worth digging out video of Carlos Santana’s description of his performance at Woodstock. They thought they weren’t scheduled to play until the next day, so they all dropped acid. Unfortunately, some group was a no-show, so they ended up playing while tripping their brains out. Carlos’s performance was unbelievably intense, but he said that was because he hallucinated that the neck of his guitar was a snake and he was afraid to let go of it.

  22. 22.

    Baud

    Like many ambitious young scientists, José Pastor-Pareja came to the United States to supercharge his career. At Yale University, he worked in cutting-edge laboratories, collaborated with experts in his field and published in prestigious journals. 
But the allure of America soon began to wear off. The Spanish geneticist struggled to renew his visa and was even detained for two hours of questioning at a New York City airport after he returned from a trip abroad. 

    In 2012, he made the surprising decision to leave his Ivy League research position and move to China. 
“It is an opportunity not many take,” Pastor-Pareja said. But the perks were hard to resist — a lucrative signing bonus, guaranteed research funding, ample tech staff and the chance to build a genetics research center from scratch.


    After decades of American dominance, Chinese science is ascendant, and it is luring scientists like Pastor-Pareja away from the United States. Even more China-born scientists are returning from abroad to a land of new scientific opportunity.

    WaPo

  23. 23.

    J R in WV

    I’m amazed that a U S Senator got treated like an impudent reporter, piking his nose into private business like that!! Holy crap, that was arrogant plus the acted like they had major criminal shit to hide from someone who has every right to look into such a facility.

    I would have been tempted to come back with cops and a warrant. But I’m not a politician. Frankly, keeping a US Senator out is to me indication of nothing so much as that they have nasty things in there to hide, which would be cause for a warrant. The gall of those ICE monster!

    Indictments can’t come too soon!!!

  25. 25.

    satby

    @Lee:

    Does ICE think it is exempt from congressional oversight?

    ICE is safe enough as long as Republicans are in charge. And they know it.

  26. 26.

    HeleninEire

    Morning all. Last day of my vacation. Bank Holiday today and then back to work tomorrow. I have to say I have seriously lucked out with the weather, both here and in London. Good week all around.

  28. 28.

    debbie

    @Lee:

    Merkley should have taken a R house member along just to cover all the bases for a new investigation.

    Probably wasn’t able to find one.

  29. 29.

    Baud

    Melania is supposed to appear at a public event tonight, but no pictures because press isn’t invited, according to Today show.

  30. 30.

    Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)

    I’m bracing myself to call my internet provider. I can receive email but not send it. I get a message that says it doesn’t like my encryption. I assume something’s gone wrong on their end since I sure haven’t touched any settings.

    I can imagine that ICE would want to keep children out of the public eye even if they weren’t being mistreated. But as always with this administration, no one was prepared for anything that might happen. Given the furor, you know a politician was going to show up

  31. 31.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Baud:

    Melania is supposed to appear at a public event tonight, but no pictures because press isn’t invited,

    Not sure how that makes any sense at all. If it’s public, pictures can be taken.

  36. 36.

    Platonailedit

    @satby: Hopefully when the dems get the majority, they will change the federal laws on oversight of ice thugs and make them answerable.

  42. 42.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Baud:

    I don’t know if they are stripping attendees of their cameras and phones.

    Having been to 2 political events, there is no way I would allow them to strip me of anything (I doubt very much I would ever see it again) and I can’t imagine there are more than a dozen or so Luddites like me in any locale who are willing to be phone free for the 1 or 2 hours (maybe more) such an event would consume. But who knows with these clowns.

  45. 45.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Platonailedit: Congress already has oversight powers, it’s in the Constitution. What they don’t have is a majority with a will to use them.

  46. 46.

    bystander

    Meeka just announced that Bill Clinton is the reason we have twitler in the WH.

    My only other observation is that the entire defense of twitler is predicated on the “of course he’s guilty but naaah naaah na na” gambit.

  48. 48.

    Kay

    @J R in WV:

    Well, he managed to make the news, even if it’s mostly social media. Which is quite the accomplishment, considering it’s All Trump, All the Time. They’re more concerned about Melania Is Missing than they are with ICE.

    God, I hope she’s not being held in an ICE facility. Apparently they can pick up anyone.

  49. 49.

    Phylllis

    Tangential to the Kubrick meme, I’m currently reading Space Odyssey by Michael Benson, about the creation and filming of 2001. Terrific read; Benson is a good writer.

  54. 54.

    Kay

    @bystander:

    Well, except Bill Clinton was impeached. Which blows a hole in that theory. I know that even though I’m not a national political pundit. Really have to delve into the footnotes of history.

  57. 57.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Kay:

    God, I hope she’s not being held in an ICE facility. Apparently they can pick up anyone.

    That’s funny, I hope the exact opposite. Maybe they’ll “lose” her too./////

  59. 59.

    Brachiator

    Love the Kubrick thing, because “fake moon landing” believers are so stupid.

  61. 61.

    Baud

    @Kay: Reagan wasn’t impeached. Maybe someone on that show should blame him.

    Plus, not even Trump kicked off his campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi.

  62. 62.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @rikyrah: I think they are referring to the now complete expungement of any vestiges of actual conservatism from the GOP.

  65. 65.

    Baud

    @OzarkHillbilly: How so? The only thing they’ve given up is their opposition to servitude to Russia. They still nominally oppose trump on trade, although they don’t have the balls to do anything about it.

  68. 68.

    Platonailedit

    Sure, twitler will help them miners.

    A US government fund that helps coal miners sickened with black lung disease is beset by billions of dollars in debt, according to a government watchdog report obtained by CNN. Now, some congressional leaders worry the miners could lose their benefits.

    the tax on coal companies is scheduled to be cut by 55% at the end of this year, a long-planned reduction. President Trump’s budget does not call for the cut to be canceled. Congress hasn’t taken any action to address the cut, either.

    “Coal miners are dedicated, hard-working, great people. It’s a dangerous job. It’s a hard job,” he added. “It just seems like coal miners are used for what they’re worth, and when it’s time to compensate them for their hard work and their dedication, they’re forgotten sometimes.”

    He said he would feel “betrayed” if his benefits were ever cut.

    “Supposedly, [Trump] is for the forgotten man and woman. If this isn’t addressed, then that’s a bunch of people that are forgotten,” he said.

  71. 71.

    Immanentize

    Ugh,. This week in ICE already makes me crazy.

    Somehow Merkley going to ICE and getting turned back reminds me of Congressman Leo Ryan’s fateful trip to Guyana to investigate Jim Jones….

    I got a bad feeling about this.

  72. 72.

    But her emails!!!

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    I think they are referring to the now complete expungement of any vestiges of actual conservatism from the GOP.

    I think this is probably true – also that Trump has 90% approval rating with self identified Republicans. Technically, I don’t think the takeover will be officially completed until after the midterms when what’s left of the conservatives either follow through on their retirement plans or are retired.

  75. 75.

    rikyrah

    @Immanentize:
    Which is why there needs to be an entire group of them going. I meant it when I said EVERY DEMOCRAT, BOTH HOUSE AND SENATE, on the committees that oversee DHS, need to go.And, get arrested, if necessary. They need to stop this mealy mouth bullshyt ?

  79. 79.

    Platonailedit

    Pretty remarkable stat from this morning's Sunday show.

    Of the 11 headliner interview, TWO were Dems (and neither a serving lawmaker).

    More remarkably, there was just ONE woman across all four programs: Chrystia Freeland.

    — Sam Stein (@samstein) June 4, 2018

    fucking fourth estate fifth columnists.

  81. 81.

    Immanentize

    @rikyrah:
    Agreed:
    Now I’m thinking of Alice’s Restaurant Massacre:
    First one person (Merkley) and then they think he’s crazy; then… We’ll take it away Arlo:

    Shrink, You can get
    Anything you want, at Alice’s restaurant. “. And walk out. You know, if
    One person, just one person does it they may think he’s really sick and
    They won’t take him. And if two people, two people do it, in harmony,
    They may think they’re both faggots and they won’t take either of them.
    And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking in
    Singin a bar of Alice’s Restaurant and walking out. They may think it’s an
    Organization. And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day, I said
    Fifty people a day walking in singin a bar of Alice’s Restaurant and
    Walking out. And friends they may thinks it’s a movement.

    This should be a movement. Merkley could get a court order to visit. Create a movement where Senators and Congresspeople get orders for every children’s detention facility everywhere all on one day…. I am writing Merkley to suggest he organize it.

  83. 83.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    Side note: Not only is the mobile site not retaining my name, it’s discarding my posts entirely. Without comment or feedback. Just gone, pool.

  84. 84.

    JPL

    No one is above the law except

    As has been stated by numerous legal scholars, I have the absolute right to PARDON myself, but why would I do that when I have done nothing wrong? In the meantime, the never ending Witch Hunt, led by 13 very Angry and Conflicted Democrats (& others) continues into the mid-terms!

    https://twitter.com/RealPressSecBot

  85. 85.

    Immanentize

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym:
    It is probably really disorganized — kids unsupervised, warehoused, insufficient staff, maybe even kids restrained. And ICE was clearly ordered not to let anyone in. I am actually worried for the kids.

    ETA. Like old school juvenile detention facilities which were just warehouses of abuse.

  87. 87.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    Huh. I see my “disappeared” mobile comment showed up at #80. And now FYWP won’t let me edit either one.

  89. 89.

    JAFD

    Greetings from New Jersey !
    Am ‘looking forward’ to getting up at 3 AM tomorrow, to get act together, be at firehouse at 5:15, get polls ready to open at 6. Hope y’all come by and vote!
    Weather this morn has gone from rainy to cloudy. Supposed to be fair, 70’s high, tomorrow. Was 90 Saturday, 60’s yesterday, me old bones aching…
    Hope all you Juicers, people and animal alike, have a great week. Looking forward to Friday, the grown-ups (?) who still play with toy soldiers will be getting together in Edison – njcon.org for info.

  91. 91.

    Quinerly

    @JPL: These weeks come fast and furious. It’s like we never get a break. Relentless. I’m exhausted before I get dressed. Venting…..

  92. 92.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Immanentize: I saw this in a minor way years ago. 2004 in New York. Republican convention. My then 17-year-old daughter went up to join some rallies, perhaps march. She was in a group that was swept up by police just as they were gathering (cordoned off the whole block with fencing and arrested everyone inside the fence, including the odd tourist and local resident).

    The never-charged prisoners were moved from one massive holding cell to another, in disgusting conditions, at one point in a cell with some unidentified caustic tar all over the floor, finally ending up (thought they didn’t know it) in the courthouse in lower Manhattan. That’s where I went to camp out and try to get updates. People were telling me that by law anyone arrested had to have a hearing within 24 hours.

    And I watched as hour after hour, day after day, people other than the political prisoners came into the court and had their cases heard, but the political group remained out of sight.

    And I watched as hour after hour, day after day, increasingly angry judges issued court orders to charge the prisoners or release them, to let lawyers talk to them, to let the ones who needed medical attention see a doctor, to get medication to the ones who were locked up without it, etc.

    And I watched the lawyers go up to the holding area with those court orders, and the officers would open the door, read the order, laugh, and close the door.

    The whole ordeal lasted until W gave his speech uptown, when without warning and without notification to those of us still waiting in the courtroom, all the prisoners had been quietly dumped out a back door onto the street.

    So that view of the officers sneering at the court orders while a couple thousand people are illegally detained without charges, is the other echo I have when I see this. And I realize, as my daughter did in 2004, how fragile the Constitution and the rule of law are.

    ETA: I said “minor” above, meaning compared to Guyana. Nobody died.

  94. 94.

    WereBear

    @Baud: After decades of American dominance, Chinese science is ascendant, and it is luring scientists like Pastor-Pareja away from the United States. Even more China-born scientists are returning from abroad to a land of new scientific opportunity.

    Brought to you by the part who doesn’t believe in science.

    Nonetheless, science believes in us.

  95. 95.

    JPL

    @Quinerly: @Immanentize should explain to the pres that he is not above the law. It would have to be pro bono since the pres doesn’t pay his bills.

  98. 98.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Immanentize: If there’s a filter judging whether a comment adds value to the conversation, I’m in big trouble.

    OT: Speaking of software reading your words, is anyone else here a Gmail user? I really hate the auto-response thing, where Gmail suggests appropriate one-line answers to email: “Sounds good, see you there!” “Good suggestion” “I’ll do that”. That sort of thing. Obviously some sort of natural-language processor is reading the emails and understanding enough to produce eerily-appropriate replies.

    It freaks me out a little, and I’m a guy who has been interested in machine learning and AI much of my professional life (though I haven’t had too many opportunities to actually develop any). I find it oddly reassuring when the response isn’t quite appropriate.

    It also bugs me for privacy reasons, wonders how much of this processing and info is going up the mother ship.

  99. 99.

    JPL

    Has there been studies connecting spelling errors with aging and dementia?

    The appointment of the Special Councel is totally UNCONSTITUTIONAL! Despite that, we play the game because I, unlike the Democrats, have done nothing wrong!

    Trump has been told the correct way to spell counsel, but appears to be incapable of remembering.

  100. 100.

    NotMax

    FYI.

    Paramount Network’s Heathers reboot will not see the light of day on a Viacom-owned cabler or platform.

    The satirical reboot of the 1980s cult hit film has been scrapped at the former Spike TV as Viacom aggressively searches for a new home for the anthology. The decision comes four months after Paramount Network opted to push the anthology from its planned March 7 premiere to a launch later this year in a move originally designed to be respectful to the victims, families and loved ones following the deadly school shooting in Parkland, Florida, that left 17 dead. A new premiere date was never set. (Sources say Paramount Network considered an early July return for Heathers, but then the Houston-area Santa Fe school shooting happened.)
    [snip]
    The decision to pull the plug on the anthology — which was poised to feature a largely new cast in its second season — came after multiple meetings internally with Paramount Network president Kevin Kay, Cox and senior vp development Brad Gardner, as well as Viacom corporate execs including CEO Bob Bakish. Ultimately, the decision to not air Heathers on any Viacom platform was made after the youth-focused conglomerate supported the movement that sprang out of Parkland by going dark across all of its brands for 17 minutes in a show of support for the victims in the Florida high school shooting. Those connected with the series were informed of the decision Friday afternoon. Sources say multiple castmembers are relieved that the series will not currently air.

    However, “pull the plug” doesn’t necessarily mean what it says.

    Meanwhile, Cox and company are actively trying to find a new home for the drama, which follows a new set of popular-yet-evil Heathers as the outcast become high school royalty, as Paramount Network executives strongly believe in the Heathers reboot. The original TV Land pilot was filmed in November 2016 — as Cox says, “before the climate changed.” (Heathers was originally envisioned as a half-hour comedy, but was expanded to an hour after the pilot came in at 44 minutes and network execs decided to make it TV Land’s first hourlong show.)

  102. 102.

    Brachiator

    @Phylllis:

    I will have to check out the Benson book. Thanks.

    I absolutely loved 2001, and devoured one of the first “making of” books about it. And in reading about how Kubrick created the movie, I learned a ton about cinema as an art form, and was inspired to learn as much as I could about movies as visual storytelling.

    There are also any number of excellent video essays about the making of 2001 on YouTube which provide wonderful, full bodied visual examples of the set design, camera lens choices and cinematography, editing, use of music cues, direction and the acting choices of the performers.

  106. 106.

    Brachiator

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym:

    Speaking of software reading your words, is anyone else here a Gmail user? I really hate the auto-response thing, where Gmail suggests appropriate one-line answers to email: “Sounds good, see you there!” “Good suggestion” “I’ll do that”. That sort of thing.

    I’m lazy enough to have used it as a quick response to a received email. It doesn’t bother me at all.

    Of course Google reads your emails. Supposedly, everything is anonymized. At this point in the game, it’s a bit late to worry about it. I don’t know whether there’s a setting to disable the feature.

  107. 107.

    NotMax

    Missed this one in late May. Someone screwed up, bigly.

    A federal judge in California ordered a law firm linked to Stormy Daniels’ attorney to pay $10 million on Tuesday to a lawyer who claimed that the firm had misstated its profits and that he was owed millions.

    The judgment came after Jason Frank, who used to work at Eagan Avenatti LLP in Newport Beach, Calif., alleged that the law firm failed to pay a $4.85 million settlement he had reached in December. He said in court papers that the settlement was personally guaranteed by Michael Avenatti, who has garnered national attention as the attorney for Daniels, the porn actress who is suing President Donald Trump following an alleged 2006 affair.
    [snip]
    The judgment is final and cannot be appealed, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Catherine Bauer said in her ruling. Source

  109. 109.

    Brachiator

    @WereBear:

    Brought to you by the part who doesn’t believe in science

    We’ll always have religion, ignorance and superstition. Make America Stupid Again!

  110. 110.

    Immanentize

    @JPL: This is so crazy. Mueller is not a “Special Counsel” like Ken Starr was. That outside-of-DOJ statute doesn’t exist anymore. Mueller is a DOJ employee, working in the DOJ for the DOJ. Or maybe Trump believes he cannot even be investigated at all? What are his lawyers feeding him?

    Someone should ask Trump whether Bill Clinton’s impeachment was unconstitutional….

  111. 111.

    Brachiator

    @JPL:

    As has been stated by numerous legal scholars, I have the absolute right to PARDON myself.

    Are we getting close to an admission of guilt?

  116. 116.

    LAO

    @Immanentize: Trump’s twitter feed on this topic has been “Alice through the looking glass” — every single one of his lawyers should either be disbarred or disgraced out of the practice of law.

  117. 117.

    jonas

    @Platonailedit

    : He said he would feel “betrayed” if his benefits were ever cut. “Supposedly, [Trump] is for the forgotten man and woman. If this isn’t addressed, then that’s a bunch of people that are forgotten,” he said.

    something about “I never thought the leopards would eat *my* face…

  118. 118.

    jayjaybear

    @bystander: Mika’s dad has to just groan and smack his forehead daily over her spineless toadying.

    Not to mention her spineless toad fiance.

  120. 120.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @jayjaybear: @bystander: Mika’s dad has to just groan and smack his forehead daily over her spineless toadying.

    Hasn’t Zig gone to his reward? I do remember a clip that went viral where he said to Joe something like, “Your understanding of international geo-politics is remarkably shallow”, with a little chuckle that was even more dismissive than his actual words. I’ve read (in the tubes so FWIW) that he was a crusty old codger whose unwillingness to suffer fools included his own children

  121. 121.

    JPL

    This is not good..

    A call about trade and migration between US President Donald Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron soured last week after Macron candidly criticized Trump’s policies, two sources familiar with the call told CNN.
    “Just bad. It was terrible,” one source told CNN. “Macron thought he would be able to speak his mind, based on the relationship. But Trump can’t handle being criticized like that.”

    https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/04/politics/donald-trump-emmanuel-macron-call-terrible/index.html

  123. 123.

    The Moar You Know

    It also bugs me for privacy reasons, wonders how much of this processing and info is going up the mother ship.

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: Google told you upfront when you signed up for their email service: all of it.

  126. 126.

    Amir Khalid

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:
    Wikipedia says he died May 27 last year at 89.

    @Brachiator:
    Close? I thought Trump’s public statements were already conclusive evidence of guilt as far as conspiring with the Russians was concerned. On the obstruction of justice thing Didn’t he already confess to it on TV?

  130. 130.

    But her emails!!!

    @Amir Khalid:

    Close? I thought Trump’s public statements were already conclusive evidence of guilt as far as conspiring with the Russians was concerned. On the obstruction of justice thing Didn’t he already confess to it on TV?

    Pretty much. Trump’s son, son-in-law and campaign manager met with Russian operatives because these operatives claimed to have dirt on Hillary Clinton. Trump then dictated a misleading cover story for this meeting. All of this is now public and documented information. He’s guilty, but nothing matters anymore.

  131. 131.

    Brachiator

    @Amir Khalid:

    Close? I thought Trump’s public statements were already conclusive evidence of guilt as far as conspiring with the Russians was concerned. On the obstruction of justice thing Didn’t he already confess to it on TV?

    We’re going beyond “evidence of guilt.” Rudy G and Trump are suggesting that Trump could openly commit and confess to a crime, and then pardon himself.

    I hope that Trump takes his own bait.

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