.
Former NYT ombudsman Margaret Sullivan is predictably dubious that such a policy could be implemented under the current system, but kudos to her for headlining it anyways. From her current employer, the Washington Post:
Last week was a particularly rough one for journalists and truth-seeking citizens.
President Trump declared the news media the nation’s worst enemy. And time after shocking time, his acolytes demeaned or threatened reporters for doing one of their most basic jobs: asking questions of those in power…
And the president’s anti-media campaign is convincing at least some citizens that journalists have no worth.
Enter George Lakoff. An author, cognitive scientist and linguist who has long studied how propaganda works, he believes it’s long past time for the reality-based news media to stop kowtowing to the emperor…
Unlike those who insist that what the president says is news and therefore must be reported, Lakoff proposes a radical reimagining of how the news media reports on Trump.
Instead of treating the president’s every tweet and utterance — true or false — as newsworthy (and then perhaps fact-checking it later), Lakoff urges the use of what he calls a “truth sandwich.”
First, he says, get as close to the overall, big-picture truth as possible right away. (Thus the gist of the Trump-in-Singapore story: Little of substance was accomplished in the summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, despite the pageantry.) Then report what Trump is claiming about it: achievement of world peace. And then, in the same story or broadcast, fact-check his claims.
That’s the truth sandwich — reality, spin, reality — all in one tasty, democracy-nourishing meal.
Avoid retelling the lies. Avoid putting them in headlines, leads or tweets, he says. Because it is that very amplification that gives them power.
That’s how propaganda works on the brain: through repetition, even when part of that repetition is fact-checking…
Lakoff is not the only one who has suggested radical changes in how the news media conducts itself in the Trump era.
Jay Rosen of New York University sums up one such proposal in three words: “Send the interns.”
White House briefings, since the very beginning of Sean Spicer’s efforts to defend the indefensible about the size of Trump’s inauguration crowd, are no place for talented, highly compensated reporters to spend their time and energy…
So, Rosen says, go ahead and continue to staff these briefings. But send the interns…
The White House already treats reporters like unruly adolescents — I’d kinda enjoy seeing them face a roomful of actual Youngs with media. If only because it’d be highly entertaining to watch Huckabee-Sanders or Kellyanne Conway’s face as they realized they’d been relegated to the scrub team!
Gin & Tonic
I know Olivia Nuzzi comes in for some abuse here, but when she saw she wasn’t going to be called on, she started playing that ProPublica audio in the WH briefing room. Good for her.
Mike R
Not possible, that would mean that the media especially the villagers would have to admit both sides aren’t the same.
Yarrow
Yep. This is exactly right.
As for sending the interns, they might ask better questions because they aren’t as steeped in access journalism as the rest of the WH press corps are.
Mary G
Based on the Parkland kids, I would love to see a bunch of interns who’ve mainly known Obama as president do the WH briefings. They don’t know the “rules of the game” the way established journalists do and might be much tougher and almost certainly more ruthless and rude when the bullshit is spewed. Remember Emma Gonzalez’s “We call BS” speech.
Fair Economist
Her description is more like a “shit sandwich” because it’s Trump’s shit that is in the middle, not the truth. She’s proposing using truth as the bread.
khead
There are four lights.
randy khan
The real point here is to figure out what actually is news. Trump’s opinion isn’t actually news; the policies and actions are news, and should be given priority.
It’s hard to break the habit of treating everything the President does as news, but it’s also lazy reporting.
I kind of feel like political reporters might want to take some lessons from sports reporters – the lede in every sports story tells you the most important thing that happened, and the side-show stuff always goes towards the bottom.
Humdog
I read Possum Queen refused to do the the press briefing because didn’t want to take questions on the family separations. They brought in DHS chief instead because she defends it.
Hungry Joe
From Victor Klemperer’s “I Will Bear Witness: A Diary of the Nazi Years”
Friday evening, March 10, 1933
“Hitler Chancellor … it’s astounding how easily everything collapses … The the wild prohibitions and acts of violence. And on top of that the never ending propaganda on the street, on the radio, etc. … On Saturday, the fourth, I heard part of Hitler’s speech from Konigsberg. The front of a hotel at the railway station, illuminated, a torchlight procession in front of it, torchbearers and swastika flag bearers on the balconies and loudspeakers. I understood only occasional words. But the tone! The unctuous bawling, truly bawling, of a priest.”
debbie
I’m not sure I agree. Trump needs to be exposed for the lying sack of shit he is, and there’s no better way to do that than to publish his actual words.
Paula
@debbie: He’s long-since been exposed. By constantly reporting his actual words – often without context or with weak-context – he trains people to allow his lying. The approach taken to date by most journalists have validated Trump and his hench-scum rather than exposed them.
debbie
@Hungry Joe:
Have you read Erik Larson’s “In the Garden of Beasts”? Gently, slowly lowering that frog into boiling water. That’s how these things happen.
debbie
@Paula:
I disagree. There’s attention paid, but no validation given. Seriously, how could anyone possibly believe how stupid Trump is unless they heard/read his actual stupid words?
lamh36
I think the press briefing with that smiling, lying woman…broke the camel’s back…
Ted Cruz is of course being showed u by Beto…so I’m not surprised he’s trying to introduce his own bill
jonas
@debbie: The point wasn’t to not report what Trump says — the point is not to make his lie the headline or lede. “‘Democrats at fault for separating families, says President,” is a typical example. That’s what a reader sees and is like “oh, those Democrats are up to it again…” and usually doesn’t peruse down a couple of paragraphs where the reporter — if they’re a real reporter — will note that “no law on the books requires separating families seeking asylum…”
lamh36
jonas
@lamh36: You know if Repubs are moving on this, their switchboards are getting lit. And good for Beto. Rub stupid Cruz’s face in this shit for the next six months.
MisterForkbeard
@lamh36: And his bill just mandates that they put the whole family in a cage instead of separating the kids into their own cages. Way to miss the point, Senator Numbnuts.
Phoenix_Rising
@debbie: Everyone agrees that we have to reckon with his actual words. Because he has a broadcast channel (Twitter) that requires no stenography, his actual words are out there.
The point is his actual words have to be boxed in by the truth. Let me show not tell:
“An embattled Pres Trump whose immigration policies–touted since his first campaign rally–are rejected by 73% of American voters as too harsh took to Twitter again today.
{insert lies about Germany}
In fact, crime in Germany is at its lowest level since 1992, reflecting a nation that has assimilated at last 2 generations of immigrants from points south and east.”
See, it’s not hard. I’m day drinking & not a reporter! But I was super professional and didn’t use the verb ‘brayed’. Also note I tied the racist rhetoric that got him elected to the policy action. The 27% are hopeless, but a LOT of regular GOP voters are uncomfortable with the racist braying. Let’s needle them where it hurts.
Platonailedit
@Hungry Joe: Ironic that Germany today has more refugees while us of a has more nazis.
The lead story of BBC, AJ, CNN International, DW etc. is the horrible results of twitler’s tantrum on immigration.
debbie
@jonas:
Okay, this might work.
Dan B
I’ve been harping on the way the right eing has been using modern communication techniques with great effectiveness for decades while the left has labeled their message as unbelievable. At the same time the left talks about “Himmler’s propaganda techniques” while refusing to learn how to use them to their advantage.
Get everyone to use the same message: message discipline.
Keep it simple.
Repeat, repeat, repeat.
Build an infrastructure that gets the “message” / talking points out to influencers. (requires building trust and persuading the skeptical)
The Stoneman Douglas kids are practicing this. It’s no wonder that David Hogg’s father worked in intelligence.
The GOP come from business and mega-churches. Both groups are comfortable with marketing. Time for us to put resources where they’re needed. Really big resources.
Hungry Joe
@debbie: Yes. Great book. I remember one section in which the ambassador’s daughter — who at first was somewhat bedazzled by the Nazis and the “spirit” they injected into the country — was starting to realize what was happening. She said that Germans seemed, overall, like normal people. And then one day they weren’t.
TenguPhule
@Gin & Tonic:
That absolves her of many past sins.
cain
@Yarrow:
Better, just send some high schoolers, and let them bring a Nintendo Switch and let the whole place sound like video games.
Phoenix_Rising
@Dan B: In marketing/b-school, this technique Lakoff is describing is referred to as ‘the shit & cream cheese sandwich’. To persuade people to swallow something they instinctively recoil from (as lifelong Republicans must from the truth of their party’s catastrophic situation), the unpalatable part has to be wrapped in something they know is correct, even cliched.
When I submit a draft of copy for internal review, I often get back only one comment: Needs more cream cheese.
Platonailedit
sukabi
@Mary G: also have zero chance of being invited to the cocktail parties, so aren’t worried about “special access”.
The questions would likely be more to the point and and less bureaucratic word salad. Plus the urge to “make a name for themselves” would push them to ask tougher questions and not take Bullshit for an answer.
cain
@sukabi:
Well, not sure.. they could still be put off the cocktail party list. I have no idea why you would want to hang out with vile people who support shit like separating children from their parents.
lamh36
trollhattan
@Platonailedit:
Zombie Nancy Reagan–still undecided.
jl
@randy khan: Give the national affairs press a two week vacation and send in some reporters who are expected to do more legitimate news work: sports, gardening, science, chess/bridge column, traffic, weather, crime, pretty much anything. It would be Biblical reportorial massacre (metaphorically).
Problem is that the network anchor news celebs wouldn’t be able to show any of it, or do any interviews with real reporters at the WH, without revealing what frauds most of them are.
Schlemazel
I wonder if we all realize how dangerous it is right now to be a journalist. I have a gut feeling that reporters will be injured or killed by the flying monkey battalion hair furor commands, It is all academic unless you are out there & worried it is your ass at risk. We really need to be more strident in demanding the GOP put an end to this madness or be complicit in what follows
Yarrow
Some good news:
Phoenix_Rising
@Schlemazel:
Yes, this is going to happen, unless the fucking stenographers who want to maintain their badges and access in the WH Briefing Room get up on their hind legs and demand answers. In one voice. No matter who asks first, no, we’re not moving on until the question has been substantively addressed.
What we’re asking a small group of citizens to do is their goddam jobs, for 30 minutes on weekdays.
Gin & Tonic
@TenguPhule: Absolution is not mine to give, nor even request. I’m just pointing out that she did something. Everyone else in the room could have.
sukabi
@debbie: the point is that you DON’T use his lies as a headline. You DON’T open your article repeating them.
Most people scan headlines and opening paragraphs and that’s what gets stuck in their heads. By opening with a headline and opening paragraph with truth on the subject you’re not helping spread the Bullshit. Bury the Bullshit further down in the article and immediately rebut it in the closing.
It’s one of the reasons I find it troubling when “our side” uses the Bullshit as sarcasm…it feeds the lie.
jl
Different type of intern, but I heard an interview of a polisci program director at a major university this weekend, said that the Trumpsters can’t get interns for WH or executive branch No students want to go, not even the standard campus conservatives, at least the ones at a normal university. She aid they were going to Trump loyalists at places like Liberty U and really obscure little fundy schools, ‘below fourth tier’ places.
Kay
@Yarrow:
Guffaw. I don’t know if you followed it, but in addition to being a racist Kobach is a horrible lawyer.
He doesn’t work! All he does is head fake commissions and run for office and yet he prepared not at all.
Lazy. A lazy grifter.
Gin & Tonic
@Schlemazel:
In the US? It is to laugh. Ask Jan Kuciak. Or Anna Politkovskaya. Or Georgiy Gongadze. Or Pavel Sheremet.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@Phoenix_Rising:
Well done.
Mary G
lamh36
Josie
This (Lakoff’s suggestion) is just what Kay was looking for, a new way to deal with the constant spewing of lies. It sounds like a promising idea. I would be interested to know what she thinks of it.
ETA: Oops, sorry, Kay. I had not read the comments and did not realize you were here. What do you think?
jl
@Kay: Lack of attention span and rank incompetence of these people have been the country’s salvation, so far. I hope they keep up their track record.
And their BS is so transparent that only the diehard base can be exposed to it without laughing. I hard a clip of Trump this weekend, after I guess he got over his tantrum about not getting enough credit and good press for the North Korean meeting, where he said that thanks to him that ‘the problem is largely solved!’.
Maybe he’ll do that with the federal kidnapping policy, and demand that Canada pay for the wall next. Why not?
schrodingers_cat
@Gin & Tonic: Or Gauri Lankesh or Shujat Bukhari.
lamh36
sukabi
@cain: well I don’t either, but the current crop of WH press corps has been hobnobbing with the goblins for a couple of decades now…granted the goblins have gotten much worse in the last 2 years, but it’s an incestous relationship that shouldn’t exist.
sukabi
@lamh36: oooohhh, Smokey eyes has stepped in it now.
lamh36
@lamh36:
Kay
Because she has no idea what is going on. There are 200 random people on Twitter who know more about her policy than she does. She was talking out of her ass, which was obvious to anyone listening. They planned this for months and none of them even know how it’s supposed to work., let alone how it does work. Everything she says is wrong because she doesn’t know what she’s talking about.
lamh36
jl
@sukabi: Then why are Trump and Sessions running around all over the country bragging that the policy is their brilliant idea to deter the brown hordes taking over our country? What preposterous and vicious dumb asses.
Edit: also, today Trump bragged it was a great idea to get the US taxpayers to pay for his BS border wall.
waysel
miaminewtimes.com/ has an article about a 1000 kid holding pen in Miami right now.
Platonailedit
@lamh36: This is exactly the type of ‘news reporting’ that perpetuates this shitstain’s lies. Fuck you, cbs.
jl
@Kay: From bits I just heard, she knew enough to read a list of talking point lies and BS someone handed to her.
Edit: It’s like they had a list of 20 incoherent and obviously mutually contradictory lies and nonsensical BS to run through. Except instead of having the wits and discipline to time them properly so as produce a cloud of confusion, they decided to yell them all out at once during less one news cycle.
Kay
@lamh36:
Smoky eye cut and ran on the baby snatching policy. Turned it over to the boss, who knows even less about it than she does.
They should retain a competent immigration lawyer, call a mandatory meeting, and train the Trump appointees.
sukabi
@jl: he’s replaced the photos of him and Macron with photos of Kim Jung In and him
Think he liked Kim’s nice soft hands better than Macron’s
Vlad’s going to be ?.
TenguPhule
@lamh36:
Hope for something with a higher chance of success.
TenguPhule
@Kay:
Why? What crime did the lawyer commit to be punished in that fashion? Or do we nominate SteveattheATL?
Kay
@jl:
She’s unprepared. She can’t answer the simplest questions and when she does manage an answer it’s incorrect.
It’s like listening to DeVos. These people have very strong opinions but they don’t know what they’re talking about, and they’re too lazy and sloppy to learn anything. I don’t really blame Smoky Eye for cutting and running. Not her job.
jl
@waysel: do you mean ‘big shiny new chain link cage’?
? Martin
Just a reminder that this has been covered before… right down to the ‘America First’ shirt.
jl
@Kay: Devo songs made a lot more sense. And nice melody, had a beat, you could dance to it.
TenguPhule
@Kay:
Worse, they probably no longer have those girls in their custody.
They kept no fucking written records. They’ve moved them around different states. Nobody is there to hold them accountable for what they do.
Sex slaves or dead.
Kay
@TenguPhule:
There’s a lot of them! The Trump Administration can’t turn up a single one? God, just hire one and put these appointees out of their misery. They need help!
? Martin
@Kay: I think we’re past training. Send them to The Hague.
I see that Trump has decided the US needs to make Voltron.
Platonailedit
See gop senators? If you want it, you can do it.
The vote was 85-10. Wonder if the chinese will now demand their millions of dollars bribe back.
jl
Some PR flack knows that, given what the pix of the separations and the little boys and male teens have done, pix of little girls in those nice big shiny new chain link cages, crying and sobbing will make the reaction an order of magnitude worse.
But, then, if you refuse to show evidence that you know where they are and what the conditions are… same thing.. just longer fuse to public outrage.
Probably, they can’t win on this. Which is very unfair them. Deep State’s fault. (/s)
TenguPhule
Am I dreaming, the FTFNYT actually got a headline right for a change.
sukabi
@jl: Sessions and Drumpf are pushing hard on this because it’s do or die time. Trapped animals.
The more they try and pin this on someone else, the more people who KNOW it’s a lie will come forward. You think Laura Bush is going to let them smear her name with this? They’re already wearing the shame from Abu Ghraib, she’s not going to let them load this on her family too.
Baud
@Platonailedit:
I think I see the flaw in your theory.
different-church-lady
@Phoenix_Rising:
Are we sure Trump’s people actually recoil from shit?
Baud
@TenguPhule: The story probably says Hillary alone is to blame.
TenguPhule
@Kay:
And none of them want to work for Trump. Why force them to? You know they won’t get paid for it.
lamh36
Kay
@TenguPhule:
I wonder how it works. There’s elaborate rules on moving kids who are in state custody. How do they have authority to put them on a plane? How does the federal government put a 6 year on a plane in Arizona and take them to Florida?
If you move a child who is in state custody to another state you have to follow this process, where there’s an unbroken chain of adult (state) responsibility. It requires individual orders and the two county agencies have to communicate and coordinate. You don’t just move them around willy nilly. Some specific entity has to be responsible for them all the time. There’s no question about whether they’re “lost”- they board the plane in the custody of (for example) X Ohio county and land in the custody of Y Florida county. They don’t get lost. It’s unimaginable not to know where they are- the state is acting in the capacity of the parents.
Baud
@lamh36: I see why Republicans prefer Kim Jong Un.
TenguPhule
@Baud:
Its a day for miracles apparently. Not a single mention of Hillary Clinton in the entire story.
jl
@sukabi: After I read that Laura Bush was a hidden force who tirelessly pestered W into initiating or completing what few good policies in his administration, I started thinking better of her. So, she made a poor choice in life one could argue but most anyone can redeem themselves. If that story I read is true, she is a determined plugger who will not give up. So, let’s hope she doesn’t back down.
Anyway, stupid and toxic (edit: and very knowingly dishonest) reaction to her letter from WH.
Edit: immigration was one area that W had genuinely good impulses. And he is eager for Trump to help save the reputation of the horrible disastrous no good and previously unbelievable bumbling incompetence of the W presidency, so I imagine there will be push back.
Baud
@TenguPhule: Call the police. The NYT has been taken hostage.
Actually, don’t call the police.
lamh36
Thread…the same “what ever happened to Nielsen folks are the same one who asked what happened to John Kelly.
Newsflash: THIS IS WHO THEY HAVE ALWAYS BEEN!!!
https://twitter.com/juliettekayyem/status/1008849805974622211
JPL
Why can’t we have one day where we can all decompress? A friend who grew up in Brooklyn, whose grandparents were able to immigrate here before our borders were closed to Jewish people, called in tears. She’s pretty strong and doesn’t get emotional often, but today was different. She said we can’t decompress because that is when the really bad things happen.
Annie
I don’t have time to look this up but I seem to recall that during Watergate at least one newspaper usually referred to Richard Nixon as “Mr. Nixon” not “President Nixon.” I’ve always thought we should do the same for Dolt 45.
TenguPhule
@Kay:
If the transfers are being done by ICE its pretty simple, “X boys and X girls in custody” No names, no signatures for transfer. Verbal authorization and “someone else’s problem” once the handoff is complete. Next batch coming through, just following orders! The agency head will have a security memo stating that certain obstructive procedures have been waived in the interests of national security, and the memo will be classified to prevent FIOA requests from revealing it.
if its HHS? A little trickier. More standard rules would have to be broken, but again, orders from the top and the right mindset for those selected to again “make this someone else’s problem”. Bribery is probably helping too. No written records of even simple stuff like names and who the parents are is a big tell.
Kay
@TenguPhule:
One of the contractors said if the kids run away they can’t stop them, which implies they’re not in the custody of the federal government. But they got rid of their parents. So who is responsiible for them? There can’t be a gap. They have to be in the custody of someone or something, a relative or a state entity. They’re not old enough to be emancipated.
different-church-lady
@JPL: Nope. Not one day. That’s what was so horrifying about election night: the knowledge that there would be no letting down until term expiration or removal.
zhena gogolia
@Kay:
Trump’s Katrina presided over by one of the architects of Bush’s Katrina.
Platonailedit
@sukabi:
Me too. Both sides do it / I blame Hillary mocking memes here tend to become self-fulfilling prophecies.
Mary G
@Kay: There is nothing like that, according to the New Yorker article I linked in the last thread – no systems or procedures at all.
They aren’t writing anything down to avoid the inevitable investigations, and just winging it.
Hungry Joe
Another takeaway from “In the Garden of Beasts,” about the American ambassador to Germany in the ’30s: It took him a while to see through the flash and the bluster, but he came to realize that most high-ranking Nazi officials were incompetent. They were bozos. Idiots.
Redshift
Complementary to Lakoff, Sam Wang presents the science behind why reporting the lies makes people more likely to remember the lies as possibly true, even if you also make clear that they’re lies.
Kay
@TenguPhule:
They specifically say they’re not in custody when they reach the holding area. As you know, “in custody” is a term of art. It comes with a whole set of responsibilities. You have made this person helpless so you are RESPONSIBLE for what happens to them. That’s literally what it means. It comes with a duty for the state. Once you take them and send their parents away they are YOURS, until you transfer them back to another adult or entity. There’s no gap for kids. They’re either in the custody of an adult guardian or the state is the guardian.
TenguPhule
Two for two so far. Somebody at the FTFNYT has standards.
TenguPhule
@Kay:
The human traffickers have them. The gap has been resolved by money. I’m afraid we’re going to find that these people got bribed very cheaply to break the laws and procedures of custody.
JPL
@Hungry Joe: That was an amazing book, and my only disappointment was that it just ended.
Kay
@Mary G:
That is wild. I suppose they couldn’t just shove it on state/county-where there’s a process and rules- they would be overwhelmed. I read they’re doing DNA testing. Who gives them permission to test a minor? They can give emergency treatment but kids can’t consent to medical testing. In one case I read they determined parentage. Under what authority do they change the recorded parentage fron the country of origin? Judges have to do that. You and I can’t declare that someone is not the natural child of another.
TenguPhule
@Kay:
Only applies when there is a sense of duty and responsibility by those in charge.
These assholes don’t fucking care. They’re not keeping track of children, they’re simply monitoring inventory. I will bet anything the missing girls are being sold and not all of them are surviving long enough to make it to market, so to speak.
Mart
The news also misses how fast they move the goalposts. A week or so ago, Sessions says no asylum seekers will be allowed. Well that is a done deal with almost no comment; as the new policy is to rip families apart; so who cares about last week’s policy?
Thoughtful David
@Annie:
I never refer to him as anything but Trump. No title of any sort.
I also will never refer to Trumpanzees as anything but that. “Trumpers” or “Trumpists” is too anodyne.
That’s for when I’m not using my Anglo-Saxon words.
efgoldman
@Schlemazel: @Phoenix_Rising: Jesus Fucking Christ on a mandelbrot. You guys leading the cowering parade?
Look: There are some nutcakes out there who shoot up theaters or concert venues or schools. We don’t do enough to spot them and deter them, and they will always be with us. But the majority are Keyboard Kommmandos; they drink their beer and smoke their meth and get together and bitch. If any body confronts them for real, they dissolve into puddles. COWERING LETS THEM WIN!
Vote, march, tell them to go fuck themselves. There’s way more of us.
TenguPhule
@Kay:
You and I have standards. These agents don’t. They are literally doing that in the field now just to get the children into these camps and disappearing.
Kay
@Mary G:
Thanks Mary. I’ll read it.
Shana
@jl: She also was the force behind the National Book Festival which still happens, or at least did up through last year – it’s usually in the autumn. She was a librarian after all.
MagdaInBlack
It occurred to me on my drive home (ty NormanGoldman on Chicago progressive radio)
that it was just a few short weeks ago Trump called these immigrants “animals.”
And now, there they are, in cages.
Quite the slippery slope.
TenguPhule
@efgoldman: A.S. has already predicted this on the front page posts repeatedly.
Mike in NC
So it seems like Fat Bastard’s “historic” summit with Kim is already old news and the media has moved on to his cage-the-children scandal. Sad that he’ll never hold a Nobel Peace Prize in his greasy little fingers.
NotMax
Will state again, for the umpteenth time over the past year and a half, that the lede of ANY story about Dolt 45 by rights ought to be:
This is not normal. This is aberrant and perverse.
Platonailedit
@Kay:
A chilling deja vu.
Bobby Thomson
Frankly, most of the interns would probably ask better questions and do more follow up.
Litlebritdifrnt
@JPL: After listening to that video all I wanted to do was decompress. I seethed all night. Then I went to Farm Heros Saga and turned on the music (which I have had turned off for years) and just let it wash over me, totally mindless pap, nothingness. The best I can do to stop screaming at the moon.
Yarrow
@Mary G: Not knowing, not writing things down, not having a paper trail of what they’re doing should also be a punishable offense.
Ruckus
@Thoughtful David:
I refuse to even type his name. I use the term dumpf. Uncapitalized as well. I will capitalize Hitler but only because he’s been dead for a few decades. If I’m still around in a couple of decades and can speak ill of the dead, then I might type the name he uses. I’ll have to install a spittoon though, I’m old school and say that name requires spitting whenever it’s uttered or typed.
debbie
@JPL:
Your friend’s right. We can’t stop being vigilant. We can’t relax for a single second until these nightmares are flushed out of office and away from polite society.
Steve in the ATL
@Kay: ha!
I myself had 6 hours of continuing legal education this very day, but on the subject of employment discrimination, because I’m not an idiot who lies and gets in trouble with judges.
dww44
@Steeplejack (tablet): Agreed and so impressed, I’ve shared with some friends and family. thanks.
Mary G
@Kay: If you can bear to read it, the Texas Tribune has a story about a Brazilian woman who arrived at a port of entry and sought asylum along with her 16 year-old-grandson, who has epilepsy and autism. She was separated from him for 10 months now. (They are even lying about when this policy went into effect.)
The story of her status is really complicated, she had a visa, she didn’t have a visa, she lied about working under the table, whatever, but the judge in her case has already indicated that he thinks she doesn’t have a valid asylum claim.
So the poor kid’s just going to stay locked up for five more years, then put out of the country, I assume.
I AM SO ENRAGED.
lamh36
“”There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children.”
— Nelson Mandela
Schlemazel
@efgoldman:
At no time did I suggest reporters not do their job. But we need to recognize how dangerous it is for them, particularly after 30 years of not bothering to do it. The rest of us need to say these things out loud, to make people aware that this is not normal and not acceptable. We need to make the GOP fear the backlash that will come when it happens.
Maybe people in third world countries are used to violence against reporters but it is a new thing here in the modern America.
debbie
@Hungry Joe:
And also the difficulty of the ambassador trying to convince his superiors of the impending danger.
efgoldman
@Platonailedit:
OTOH, they started the Evening News with an eleven minute takeout on the story, and pulled absolutely no punches.
Viva BrisVegas
@Dan B:
What happens in every debate on any political topic is that the right is allowed to define the the terms used in the debate.
A prime example: “The Left”.
The current opposition to right wing policies isn’t from the “Left”, it’s from the “Center”.
The Left believes in the dictatorship of the proletariat and the nationalization of the means of production. They barely exist.
The Center believes in not torturing children and not victimizing the weak. It is the Center that is under attack by the Right today, not the Left.
By accepting the terms the the Right defines, you allow them to control the terms of the debate. You allow the press to define you in the terms that your enemies use.
Refugees applicants are now “illegal”. Who says so, and why do we accept that framing?
The opposition to the new fascism is from the Center. What happens if the Center cannot hold?
Platonailedit
@Hungry Joe: And today’s american ambassador to Germany is all in with altright nazi thugs while Merkel is fighting them.
JPL
So I guess this is how he plans on changing the subject.
Kay
@Mary G:
My husband and I took a 16 year old who was in the custody of Ohio to Michigan once, so he could participate in a competition our son was also in. Not a criminal issue fr him- he had done nothing wrong- he had been adjudicated neglected so he’s the responsibility of the state of Ohio until he’s emancipated. We had to get a juvenile judge’s order and we were his interim custodians until we brought him back three days later. He’s not just loose in the world. If they aren’t in the custody of their parents the rules are stricter, not nonexistent.
TenguPhule
Both sides. Fuck her.
TenguPhule
@JPL:
Begun, the Trade Wars have.
lamh36
JPL
@TenguPhule: I’ll double that fuck her, fuck her.
TenguPhule
@Kay:
Welcome to the new GOP world order. Where responsibility means absolutely nothing.
JPL
@TenguPhule: lol Marketwatch is saying that he is threatening up to 400 billion.
Mary G
Shakestweetz dogs hearing the crying children audio:
My cat did the same, as did a whole line of other people’s pets in the replies.
lamh36
Chump co think they are slick. They dont’ want to show the girls or toddlers because they know their racist base sees those immigrant boys and sees threats…but seeing a young girl or toddler in a cage…may just break the hearts of even the dumbest Chump deplorable.
TenguPhule
@lamh36:
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!
Platonailedit
Where are all the susan sarandons on this and other traitorous thug’s atrocities ? Fuck’em.
lamh36
I know folks defends Manchin here and that’s fine. But here’s what I can say I will never voluntarily go to WV if I ever can help it…fine he’s a Dem. But if Manchin is the kidna Dem a majority of the people in WV support, then my black azz will not voluntarily step foot inside WV.
Sorry/not sorry. Any WV will have to come to see elsewhere.
So why not sign off on the Dem sponsored bill…nope the fucker has come up with a sponsered bill with GOP.
I don’t trust Manchin…Dem or not…cause if the polls says so, I’d bet dollars to donuts, that FUQ’er would switch to the GOP in a fuqn’ hearbeat.
Is the “Keep Family Together Act” the Dem bill ?
TenguPhule
@lamh36:
Or excite them in the worst possible way. I put no depravity beyond them anymore.
efgoldman
@TenguPhule:
I like and respect Adam (he’s a hockey fan, after all) He knows a lot more about a lot more things than I do. but I think what he said was referring to how to be safe at demonstrations with counter demonstrators,
If he predicted a generalized RWNJ rebellion, I missed it.
STOP COWERING!
TenguPhule
@lamh36:
And you would be correct.
If Trump would have bothered to use the fig leaves and dog whistles, Manchin would have gleefully turned his coat. To our dubious fortune, Trump fucked that up through sheer incompetence.
TenguPhule
@efgoldman: No, he’s predicted that someone in the media is eventually going to get hurt and/or killed by Trump supporters, because the message from Trump is prepping them for just such an event.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@lamh36: yeah, all 49 Dems are now officially co-sponsors, Dianne Feinstein just said on the Hayes show she’s willing to take out the language Susan Collins is pretending is the reason for her not supporting it
TenguPhule
@lamh36:
Yes. Not Cruz’s Gulag bill.
efgoldman
@lamh36:
Arbeit macht frei
Platonailedit
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Yay. And screw susan, the windsock.
different-church-lady
@lamh36: Jesus fuckin’ Christ on a bed of lettuce, this has got to be the first totalitarian regime where the propaganda is aimed at the despot just as much as the population!
lamh36
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Good to hear
I still do not trust that FUQ’er Joe Manchin…I truly believe if the polls showed that WV was moving more towards the GOP, I believer he’ll switch so fast from DEM to GOP we’d all get whiplash.
And again sorry/not sorry, but I have no plans to ever see or visit WV. I sincerely try my best to stay away from places where I think my brown skin makes me an “other” to too many folks.
Sorry Cole, et al…but if you happen along NOLA way…I’ll be glad to see ya.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@lamh36: I don’t either. I think he’s dumb.
Word is that trump went after him hard to switch parties, and he didn’t. I wonder how much of Manchin’s reasoning is/was the assumption that trump would be dragged down by Russia et al
Steve in the ATL
@lamh36: dude, WV could not move much more to the GOP. It’s incredibly republican. Don’t be fooled by John Cole and JR!
Omnes Omnibus
@lamh36: @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Nah, he is a real live Conserva-Dem. He won’t switch and he will be a pain in the ass a lot of the time. But we will get his vote in the important procedural things.
Peale
@JPL: yeah. That’s basically 80% of our imports.
Yarrow
@lamh36: You don’t have to go to WV, but in a state like that a conservative Dem is the best you’ll get. Practically speaking, he’s voted with Dems most of the time. We’re better off with him than trying to run a more liberal Dem and having him lose in a conservative state. He knows his state and is saying the things that will help him keep his seat.
It’s frustrating as hell but he’s better than a Republican. That’s how I view him and others like him.
Gelfling 545
@lamh36: Gillibrand says on FB that all Dems have now signed on.
randy khan
@TenguPhule:
Manchin has had multiple opportunities to switch and he hasn’t.
Millard Filmore
@TenguPhule:
“Both sides”, aka “Democrats Must Surrender”.
s herl
Send the interns idea is a good one but guess who would be dead set against the idea? The WH press corp flacks who have been milking this nothing job for years. Talk about a waste of time and talent. But who wants to go out and do some real journalism when you can ask one polite question to power every few days and knock down a 6 figure paycheck.
J R in WV
@TenguPhule:
“A.S. has already predicted this”
Who the hell is A.S.??? Why abbreviate and obfuscate stuff?