Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

Hell hath no fury like a farmer bankrupted.

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

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

These are not very smart people, and things got out of hand.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

If a good thing happens for a bad reason, it’s still a good thing.

Everything is totally normal and fine!!!

Anne Laurie is a fucking hero in so many ways. ~ Betty Cracker

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Washington Post Catch and Kill, not noticeably better than the Enquirer’s.

Wake up. Grow up. Get in the fight.

Disappointing to see gov. newsom with his finger to the wind.

The real work of an opposition party is to hold the people in power accountable.

Second rate reporter says what?

How stupid are these people?

Disagreements are healthy; personal attacks are not.

People are weird.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the gop

Republicans: The threats are dire, but my tickets are non-refundable!

Celebrate the fucking wins.

You are here: Home / Politics / America / This is the Sound of President Trump’s America

This is the Sound of President Trump’s America

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For those unable to listen or unwilling to subject themselves to it, here’s how ProPublica describes the recording (from The Texas Tribune because ProPublica’s server is overwhelmed):

The desperate sobbing of 10 Central American children, separated from their parents one day last week by immigration authorities at the border, makes for excruciating listening. Many of them sound like they’re crying so hard they can barely breathe. They scream “Mami” and “Papá” over and over again, as if those are the only words they know.

The baritone voice of a Border Patrol agent booms above the crying. “Well, we have an orchestra here,” he jokes. “What’s missing is a conductor.”

Then a distraught but determined 6-year-old Salvadoran girl pleads repeatedly for someone to call her aunt. Just one call, she begs anyone who will listen. She says she’s memorized the phone number, and at one point, rattles it off to a consular representative. “My mommy says that I’ll go with my aunt,” she whimpers, “and that she’ll come to pick me up there as quickly as possible.”

An audio recording obtained by ProPublica adds real-life sounds of suffering to a contentious policy debate that has so far been short on input from those with the most at stake: immigrant children. More than 2,300 of them have been separated from their parents since April, when the Trump administration launched its “zero tolerance” immigration policy, which calls for prosecuting all people who attempt to illegally enter the country and taking away the children they brought with them. More than 100 of those children are under the age of 4. The children are initially held in warehouses, tents or big box stores that have been converted into Border Patrol detention facilities.

Much more at the link.

Given the audio above, Secretary Nielsen is obviously a liar:

Stay angry!

Open thread.

Reader Interactions

255Comments

  2. 2.

    Mary G

    I’m trying to get all the way through, but after three tries am only on 4:36 of 7+ minutes. Here’s ProPublica’s description:

    The desperate sobbing of 10 Central American children, separated from their parents one day last week by immigration authorities at the border, makes for excruciating listening. Many of them sound like they’re crying so hard, they can barely breathe. They scream “Mami” and “Papá” over and over again, as if those are the only words they know.

  5. 5.

    JPL

    I read that the reporters listened while waiting for Sarah, and now Nielsen. I wish they would make Nielsen listen to it over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over.

  6. 6.

    Mary G

    More description:

    The baritone voice of a Border Patrol agent booms above the crying. “Well, we have an orchestra here,” he jokes. “What’s missing is a conductor.”

    Then a distraught but determined 6-year-old Salvadoran girl pleads repeatedly for someone to call her aunt. Just one call, she begs anyone who will listen. She says she’s memorized the phone number, and at one point, rattles it off to a consular representative. “My mommy says that I’ll go with my aunt,” she whimpers, “and that she’ll come to pick me up there as quickly as possible.”

  7. 7.

    ruemara

    I can’t even. Not a little not a lot. I was left with relatives when I was about 1 by my mother. These were relatives and it was traumatic. I can’t listen to children crying and wailing. I have to function for the next 6 hours, not collapse with PTSD for the rest of the day. I will never forgive these people.

  9. 9.

    r€nato

    Lying Fucking Nazi Cünt.

    And Buchenwald was just a work camp where those lucky ducky Jews got free room and board and didn’t have to pay any taxes.

  10. 10.

    TenguPhule

    @JPL:

    OMG I can’t finish it. This is who we are.

    This. is. not. us.

    THIS. IS. THEM. Republicans are Nazis. They are Nazis.

  11. 11.

    RedDirtGirl

    I’m glad I’m at work and can’t listen right now. Will see if I have the stomach for it when I get home….

  13. 13.

    r€nato

    …hey, Alex Jones is all over this, right? I understand he and his audience live in perpetual fear of the Big Bad Gummint rounding people up and putting them in camps.

  14. 14.

    The Ancient Randonneur

    I listened to it earlier today. Gut wrenching.

    ETA: Never forget. Never

  15. 15.

    MisterForkbeard

    I’m refusing to listen to it. I’ve got two young daughters and even thinking about this makes me want to cry.

    Fuck the Trump Administration, and fuck the horse they rode in on. And while you’re at it, fuck the rest of the Republicans who offer soothing words and then do NOTHING to help these poor children. By which I mean, they need to all be voted out as soon as possible. November can’t come soon enough.

  16. 16.

    JPL

    What happens when they won’t let the aunt pick up the six year old? How do we rid ourselves of these monsters?

  17. 17.

    jl

    I couldn’t listen to it all the way through.
    I heard on the news this morning that Session is still running around eagerly yammering that this is all intended as a deterrent, which makes it utterly disgusting. But, on the bright side, it also apparently makes it illegal and will get courts more likely to intervene on the right side of the issue.

    Is Sessions really that stupid and incompetent? From the disgusting display we’ve seen from other Trumpsters over last week, not surprising if he is. And, Trump just issued the ransom demand for his hostages. Grotesque immorality in every way here. Lying, racial incitement, human rights abuses played for a vicious counterproductive and evil policy. I hope they fail.

  18. 18.

    TenguPhule

    Hillary Clinton
    ✔
    @HillaryClinton
    What’s happening to families at the border right now is a humanitarian crisis. Every parent who has ever held a child in their arms, every human being with a sense of compassion and decency, should be outraged.

    But her emails.

    Pick a side. And if you refuse to pick, fuck you Jill Stein.

  19. 19.

    MisterForkbeard

    Then a distraught but determined 6-year-old Salvadoran girl pleads repeatedly for someone to call her aunt. Just one call, she begs anyone who will listen. She says she’s memorized the phone number, and at one point, rattles it off to a consular representative. “My mommy says that I’ll go with my aunt,” she whimpers, “and that she’ll come to pick me up there as quickly as possible.”

    $10 says this will be used by various republicans as evidence that the parents are planning on sneaking their kids in illegally. This kid KNOWS someone in the States! They’re taking advantage of the system! Waaaaah!

  20. 20.

    Mnemosyne

    The audio of this recording needs to be played at every public appearance by every Republican politician for the rest of their fucking lives. Where do we rent some of those vans with big loudspeakers on the top?

  21. 21.

    TenguPhule

    @JPL:

    How do we rid ourselves of these monsters?

    Tumbrels, firing squads, hemp rope and lampposts.

  23. 23.

    Roger Moore

    @JPL:

    How do we rid ourselves of these monsters?

    I think they had the right approach at Nuremberg.

  25. 25.

    Yarrow

    I cannot. I’m sick and I don’t have the energy for it today. Has someone called the number the little girl says?

  27. 27.

    JPL

    I’m crying, because you know the one persistent one won’t be released. Thank you to whoever released this audio, because the truth must be heard.
    @TenguPhule: You’re right, there are monsters among us.

  28. 28.

    r€nato

    @JPL: I understand that there are two million NRA members who vehemently insist the Constitution guarantees their right to use lethal force against tyrannical government. I’m sure they will come to the rescue.

    …

    HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

  29. 29.

    Mnemosyne

    @ruemara:

    Mental health tip: do NOT feel obligated to listen to or watch things that you know will be triggering for you. It’s okay not to. You already know how bad it is from personal experience, so you don’t need to watch or listen. It’s the people who are in denial who need to listen and watch.

  30. 30.

    TenguPhule

    Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen pushed back Monday at the growing condemnation of her agency’s practice of separating migrant families at the border, telling a gathering of law enforcement officers, “We will not apologize for the job we do.”

    In a speech at the meeting of National Sheriffs’ Association in New Orleans, Nielsen drew rousing applause when she directed her remarks at “a selected few in the media, Congress and the advocacy community” whom she accused of mischaracterizing the Trump administration’s border crackdown.

    “This department will no longer stand by and watch you attack law enforcement for enforcing the laws passed by Congress,” Nielsen said. “We will not apologize for the job we do, or the job law enforcement does, or the job the American people expect us to do.”

    Reposted from the prior thread.

    The Nazis are here. They’re wearing government uniforms.

  31. 31.

    The Moar You Know

    This. is. not. us.

    THIS. IS. THEM. Republicans are Nazis. They are Nazis.

    @TenguPhule: It is us. We are all responsible for this. Do you think the world ever tried to separate Nazis from decent Germans (and there were quite a few)?

    Not a chance…nor should they have. They Germans own that, just as much as we all now own this.

    America will never be the same.

  33. 33.

    satby

    Share the hell out of this on every platform you can: Facebook, Twitter, emails. Become as relentless as the trolls who try to both sides this.

  35. 35.

    r€nato

    @jl:

    Sessions is still running around eagerly yammering that this is all intended as a deterrent

    And if that doesn’t work, he could come up with a more drastic and *ahem* final solution.

    He could select at random some NRA member to blow out a detained kid’s brains on national TV. That would sure fire up the base, own the libs, and be a hell of a deterrent, amirite? And it would all be the fault of the parents for bringing them here. Besides, the Buybull condones capital punishment so it’s all reich.

  36. 36.

    JPL

    @TenguPhule: Sarah Sanders refused to do the hearing, that is why they had to fly back Nielsen.

    Sarah needs to be strapped down and made to listen over and over and over.

  37. 37.

    MisterForkbeard

    @jl: Yeah. My dream candidates for 2020 would say “We’ll investigate and refer the Human Rights abuses of the Trump Administration”, but realistically I understand why that won’t happen.

    I’m remembering an argument with a high school friend during the 2016 election. He said he was a liberal, but couldn’t vote for Hillary because she was a war-mongering, corrupt horrible woman. You fucker, people like you OWN this shit. You were warned it would happen, you insisted on your own purity, and you caused this to happen. Along with the Russians and the Republicans, of course. But you should have known better.

    @JPL: Is that a guess, or is it a known thing? Because you’d think that crushing Sarah Sanders’ soul would have happened before now, if she had one.

  38. 38.

    Ruckus

    @MisterForkbeard:
    I don’t have any kids. But I helped raise cousins, I changed diapers when I was 7. I’ve never told the cousins that I did that, maybe it’s been long enough now. I’ve lived with a woman who had a young daughter, I helped raise her while I was living there.
    I’ve heard children crying. Crying for missing mom, crying for being hungry, crying for no reason at all.
    I’ve heard children crying. I’ve never heard crying in desperation that I know of.
    I’m not starting now. I’m enraged enough.

  42. 42.

    zhena gogolia

    @Yarrow:

    Yes, it explains in the article. She can’t go pick up the girl.

    I can’t get anything done, I feel so sick and helpless.

  43. 43.

    cain

    We need a full scale boycott of the 4th of July. There is nothing to celebrate here. Our country has turned its back on its ideals. We’re moving into fascism with ICE as the Stasi. I’m particularly pissed off at my fellow indians who gleefully back Trump because they are anti-muslim. Fucking assholes.

  44. 44.

    Mary G

    @Mnemosyne: That’s why I put in the written description. It needs to be seen, because not many people will be able to listen.

    @Yarrow: There are consular workers from what appears to be El Salvador and Honduras there trying to help, but it’s a lot of chaos. The recording cuts off as the one from El Salvador is looking for the child to go call the aunt.

  48. 48.

    Betty Cracker

    The White House press briefing got pushed back and pushed back again today, and Huckabee-Sanders announced a while ago it will be at 5 pm and Nielsen will be there too to answer questions about “immigration.” Goddamn it, I hope the press corps plays that audio for them and refuses to budge off questions about why they’re tormenting these children in our name.

  49. 49.

    Luthe

    Just for the record, is this policy also being enforced the Canadian border? What about European and Asian families that outstay their visas? Cubans coming over by boat (ahahaha)?

    Because it seems like there’s something different about the people coming over the Mexican border, but I can’t quite put my finger on it…

  50. 50.

    the Conster

    @cain:

    like when the time comes, the brown shirts will care about the differences between the brown people [eyes roll out of head, and across the floor]

  55. 55.

    Betty Cracker

    Here’s a link to a live stream on YouTube of the press briefing with Mouth of Sauron and Ilse Koch. It starts at 5 pm. I almost never watch these briefings, but I plan to watch this one.

  56. 56.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @JPL:

    Oliver Darcy @ oliverdarcy
    A White House official tells jeffzeleny that PressSec didn’t want to do the briefing today amid questions on child separation policy, so SecNielsen is being flown in from New Orleans to take questions.

  57. 57.

    Dev Null

    @Mnemosyne: Amen.

    Boko Haram.

    Don’t negotiate with terrorists.

    Crimes against humanity.

    Child-snatching.

    (from comments to a recent Betty Cracker post.)

  58. 58.

    cain

    @The Moar You Know:
    This. It’s on all of us. We all own this crime against humanity. The only thing we can do is get our asses out there and vote rip the house and senate from feckless Republican party and show Donald Trump what happens when one branch finally becomes an equal member.

    But I hope there is some change in who advises our democratic leaders because swear to god, I think it’s all right of center advisors. Nobody wants to stand up for left of center. If you don’t have a purity of purpose you’ll never hold those positions going forward. Dems spend too much time vacillating about everything because of optics. Part of that is because of the media. Obama had it right, ignore those asshoes.

  60. 60.

    schrodingers_cat

    @cain: The only Indians I see backing T are the deluded Modi bhakts in India. Indians along with other South Asians overwhelmingly voted for HRC in 2016 and Obama before that (2008 and 2012)
    Link
    ETA: Anecdata != Statistics

  61. 61.

    zhena gogolia

    I made it through about 5 seconds.

    Unnecessary, cruel infliction of suffering. That’s what this country represents now, thanks to
    Putin
    Comey
    Racist idiots
    The Electoral College
    the Media

  62. 62.

    Elizabelle

    @JPL: This is not who WE are. Knock that off.

    This is who THEY are. Period.

    If you want to call us all Nazis and psychopaths, have at it. But please stop with the universal statements.

    Is this who the Parkland students are? Is this who all the women and friends of women who marched and have been turning out to vote are? Please stop with the WE.

    They haven’t made you anything. You are not complicit.

  63. 63.

    Dev Null

    @The Moar You Know: from a comment to an earlier post, possibly at another blog (apologies that I don’t have the link):

    Q. What do we now call Germans who collaborated with the Nazis not from ideology but from an expectation of personal benefit?

    A. Nazis.

  67. 67.

    dm

    I knew that it’s always projection with Republicans, but I never would have thought those pizza parlor stories were projection, too.

  69. 69.

    cain

    @John:

    @MisterForkbeard: Ann Coulter has already publicly accused the children of “acting”. These people have no souls, no conscience.

    Everything is fake. Even if they were actors, they are still children! Is a 2 month baby an actor??! FUCK.

  70. 70.

    Barbara

    I watched children in a Sunday school nursery yesterday and one of them could not stop crying. These kids are mostly immigrants too. I spent the whole day thinking about this two year old kid standing at the glass door and watching out and sobbing for his mother. I just can’t listen to this recording.

  71. 71.

    Baud

    Debating whether this is “us” or “them” seems like academic bullshit. The answer doesn’t change what we have to do.

  73. 73.

    cain

    @schrodingers_cat:

    @cain: The only Indians I see backing T are the deluded Modi bhakts in India. Indians along with other South Asians overwhelmingly voted for HRC in 2016 and Obama before that (2008 and 2012)

    Was talking with an indian friend of mine and it seems like a lots of her faimly (gujaratis) are big Trump supporters. I’m glad the statistics panned out, but there are Indians who are on the train.

  74. 74.

    JPL

    @JPL: I just read the Tribune.

    “It was the hardest moment in my life,” she said. “Imagine getting a call from your 6-year-old niece. She’s crying and begging me to go get her. She says, ‘I promise I’ll behave, but please get me out of here. I’m all alone.’”
    The aunt said what made the call even more painful was that there was nothing she could do. She and her 9-year-old daughter are seeking asylum in the United States after immigrating here two years ago for the exact same reasons and on the exact same route as her sister and her niece. They are from a small town called Armenia, about an hour’s drive northwest of the Salvadoran capital but well within reach of its crippling crime waves. She said gangs were everywhere in El Salvador: “They’re on the buses. They’re in the banks. They’re in schools. They’re in the police. There’s nowhere for normal people to feel safe.”

    @zhena gogolia: What happens now?

  78. 78.

    Yarrow

    @dm: Why not? Everything they accuse others of is projection and a tell. Everything. Once you figure that out it’s easy to figure out what they’ve done and are doing. Sicking stuff, but easy to figure out.

  79. 79.

    Elizabelle

    @Baud: I know that.

    But I am seeing hysteria on this thread, and I don’t know how that, or self-flagellation for something you didn’t do(!), is helpful.

  81. 81.

    jl

    @Betty Cracker:
    ‘ Nielsen will be there too to answer questions about “immigration.” ‘

    Nielson? That will be interesting. From news I heard, she said it wasn’t happening, then that she had no clue, then that whatever it is, it rocks. She seems as on top of some coherent and speakable plan as any of them are.

    Has Big Don got one of the kids up on camera holding today’s newspaper as part of his ransom demands yet? Or is the Trump hostage taker broadcast from whereabouts unknown already over?

  82. 82.

    VeniceRiley

    @ruemara:

    I can’t even. Not a little not a lot. I was left with relatives when I was about 1 by my mother. These were relatives and it was traumatic. I can’t listen to children crying and wailing. I have to function for the next 6 hours, not collapse with PTSD for the rest of the day. I will never forgive these people.

    Come sit by me. We got you. Over here on the ratty sofa in the *ladies who will never be able to retire* section.

  83. 83.

    Miss Bianca

    I don’t think I can listen to this.

    I’m supposed to go do a radio show where I play a lot of nice Celtic music for the next two hours, and all I feel like doing is ranting.

    That…would not end well. : (

  84. 84.

    Dev Null

    @Elizabelle: I could be wrong, but I seem to remember that, in the two decades after WW2, and the horrors of the Holocaust, there was a general sense, even among Germans, that something had gone badly wrong with Germany, and by extension, with Germans.

    Not interested in a flame war, but if you believe that American concentration camps for brown children won’t taint all of us …

    … I admire your determination to see the positive.

    Me, I think we’re all tainted, no matter that we opposed Putin’s poodle.

    But that’s just me.

  85. 85.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Adam L Silverman:Well they wish they could be Steve Miller, they have dreams, what can I say?

    ETA: Plus, grifters gotta grift.
    ETA2: Yes there are some prominent Indians in highly visible posts in this admin and shame on them. I was talking about the overall demographic in statistical terms

  86. 86.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Nielson floated up to the podium like she’s selling timeshare. She’s a sick individual.

  88. 88.

    zhena gogolia

    @Elizabelle:

    It’s not self-flagellation. In a democracy, you are responsible for what your government is doing. When your government is doing evil things, you have to work to change the government.

  89. 89.

    TenguPhule

    @O. Felix Culpa:

    The trick is to remind yourself that this could be worse. That some of them are, of course, not in cages. (This is a fact of which Breitbart.com is quite proud. They are not all in cages.) When they are literally torn from their mothers’ breasts, which you thought happened only in the careless metaphors of people losing online arguments, they are not also smeared with soot like Dickensian orphans and given coarse rags to wear, at least not on the footage released to media. They are orphans, sure, but there is nothing Dickensian about them.

    The trick is not to admit that this is happening. The trick is not to see pictures of it, except the footage the Department of Health and Human Services provides that barely shows any children at all, mostly long shots of murals (a poster of the Justice League; a lingering shot of a seasick-looking Superman, himself an illegal alien, smiling miserably down from a wall) with the occasional glimpse of children that do not show any of the running and screaming and attempting suicide.

    Woman deserves to take over the FTFNYT and purge the Nazis from it.

  93. 93.

    Adam L Silverman

    @schrodingers_cat: I should say I could also go with the following for my own tribe:
    Miller, Cohen, Mnuchin, Jared, Ivanka, Cohen-Watnick, Adelson, Cohen, etc…

  98. 98.

    Dev Null

    @jl: Reposting a late comment at Betty Cracker’s earlier thread: why don’t people talk about Nielsen’s record of accomplishment?

    Like, uh, Hurricane Katrina.

    Serious question.

  100. 100.

    Anonymous At Work

    @Mnemosyne: Needs to be entered into the Congressional Record.

    I mean that in a very literal and serious way. Anyone got good pull with their Congress-critter?

  103. 103.

    TenguPhule

    @Dev Null:

    why don’t people talk about Nielsen’s record of accomplishment?

    Like, uh, Hurricane Katrina.

    Serious question.

    Press has the collective memory of a squirrel.

  104. 104.

    hilts

    @JPL:

    Maybe Sarah just needed to take a break from shoveling the bullshit.

    Whatever the reason, Sarah and every single member of the Trump admin is scum and they all deserve to burn in Hell.

  105. 105.

    sukabi

    @JPL: the aunt’s fear is that they will grab her and her daughter as well. And since in one of the articles posted last night, it was stated that they were using the kids as bait, she’s not wrong.

  107. 107.

    TenguPhule

    @JPL:

    someone in the briefing room just started whistling the imperial march

    Old version or the cheery remix from Rebels?

  108. 108.

    lamh36

    @ABC
    Follow Follow @ABC
    More
    DHS Sec. Nielsen: “Congress and the courts created this problem, and Congress alone can fix it.

    “Until then, we will enforce every law we have on the books to defend the sovereignty and the security of the United States.” https://abcn.ws/2M2adbH

  109. 109.

    D58826

    Katy Tur on the immigration crisis – ‘you only put your child in a boat if the situation on the land is worse’

  110. 110.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Yarrow: The thing is, she probably WAS just following orders. That she believed in. From Sessions and Trump.

    They all need to resign over this. Like, yesterday.

    @lamh36: Well, she’s going to rot in Hell. This is a complete, factually provable lie. Hopefully some of the reporters in the room call her on it.

  111. 111.

    TenguPhule

    @lamh36:

    Congress and the courts created this problem, and Congress alone can fix it.

    The FC doubles down.

    And my F doesn’t stand for feckless. Something more obscene.

  112. 112.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Elizabelle:

    I am seeing hysteria on this thread

    With all consideration, I don’t think it’s hysteria to be upset about our government-sanctioned child abuse.

  113. 113.

    cain

    @schrodingers_cat:

    @cain: You need better friends. We have our 20% crackpots and grifters or just plain deluded.

    My friend wasn’t in that camp. Just comparing notes. I don’t have a lot of trump supporters in my family other than the older generation but everything is seen through either “muslim hate” or some empty gesture that Trump did like celebrating Diwali or something like that.

  115. 115.

    Mary G

    I can’t watch Nielsen lie. Are they asking her tough questions, like where are the girls, or just throwing softballs?

  117. 117.

    Dev Null

    @TenguPhule: But I don’t see her record mentioned here. I expect that most of us know about her role, but it galls me to see her described as if she were a responsible administrator who just happened to find herself working for Trump. I don’t know anything about her other than Katrina … I’m sure some / many / most commenters here know more than I.

    But I wonder if everyone does.

  118. 118.

    TenguPhule

    @O. Felix Culpa:

    With all consideration, I don’t think it’s hysteria to be upset about our government-sanctioned child abuse.

    The only reason my parents and grandparents weren’t interned the last time this shit happened was because there were too many of us in Hawaii doing too many important jobs as part of the work force.

    Fuck this shit. Not this time.

  120. 120.

    Roger Moore

    @Baud:

    Debating whether this is “us” or “them” seems like academic bullshit. The answer doesn’t change what we have to do.

    It seems to me that the difference between “them” doing it and “us” doing it is whether we stand up to it.

  121. 121.

    lamh36

    @jbendery
    17s17 seconds ago
    More
    Q: How is this not child abuse?

    Nielsen: Which part?

    omg.

  122. 122.

    lamh36

    @ddale8
    3m3 minutes ago
    More
    Asked if she’s seen the photos of children in cages or heard the audio that came out today, Nielsen says, “I would reference you to our standards.”

  124. 124.

    TenguPhule

    @Dev Null:

    . I expect that most of us know about her role, but it galls me to see her described as if she were a responsible administrator who just happened to find herself working for Trump.

    Discussed long and hard here in the posts around her nomination. We know. Its the Fucking media that keeps forgetting.

  125. 125.

    MisterForkbeard

    @lamh36: At least they’re asking SOME good questions. Maybe they can break out the literal pitchforks next time.

  126. 126.

    sukabi

    @Luthe: I want to know if it’s being applied to Russian families…I understand there is a large undocumented Russian / eastern European population living here as well.

  127. 127.

    Ruckus

    @Dev Null:
    Well there is a small difference. Hitler got a lot of support and the vast majority of German people didn’t fight back.
    There is a not insignificant number of American people who are fighting back in a number of ways. Registering voters, running for office against conservatives, marching, calling, fighting the NRA, voting, donating……. If we could get a significant percentage of the media riled up, there will be more fighting, because they will know what’s really going on.
    We aren’t at the tipping point but we are close. It’s possible that this recording, if played at today’s press conference, could be that point.

  129. 129.

    schrodingers_cat

    @cain:Well good for your friend, then. Why the Muslim hate? What have Muslims ever done to anyone in your family? You need to push back. Silence enables the haters.
    My family is from Maharashtra I know these fucking Sanghis inside and out. They (Modi and his minions) have the temerity to criticize Nehru and Gandhi when the so called leaders of the Sangh and Hindu Maha Sabha were fucking British collaborators.

  130. 130.

    TenguPhule

    @lamh36:

    Q: How is this not child abuse?

    Nielsen: Which part?

    omg.

    Parsing that question is a really bad sign.

  131. 131.

    lamh36

    Good for Kristin Welker staying on this lying bitch (yes I said bitch…cause I’m pissed)

    Kristin is the reporter who Chump said told be quiet

  132. 132.

    ruemara

    @Elizabelle: Honey, this is who we are because the history of America is as full of moments like these like stars fill the sky. We are also the Parkland kids, but think about how horrible that supposed triumph is. These kids never even got to fully grieve for friends, because adults have been too chicken shit to say no to unfettered gun access. Fuck “the kids will save us” & FUCK “this isn’t who we are”. This is largely who we are and why we’ve made improvements. It is also who we revert to the minute we forget that the wicked streak in the human soul never rests.

    @Mnemosyne: Yeah, I read the transcript. I seriously cannot take true fear screams & desperation crying. I know better, but I can’t stop myself from wanting to prevent them. Fuck the people who made this nightmare US possible.

  134. 134.

    Gravenstone

    @Roger Moore: I have a college friend with a (likely apocryphal) story of this father witnessing the intentionally botched hanging at Nuremberg of an unabashedly loud and proud Nazi convict. I can think of quite a few Trump admin monsters I wouldn’t mind having that happen to, for reals. I’ve never been a particularly nice person, but they’re making me worse every day.

  135. 135.

    lamh36

    @MEPFuller
    7m7 minutes ago
    More
    At this exact moment, taxpayers are paying to have the Secretary of Homeland Security lie to us from a White House podium.

    We even paid to fly her in because the White House Press Secretary didn’t want to do the lying today.

  136. 136.

    Adam L Silverman

    The Press Corps is doing a good job following up on each other’s questions because Nielsen isn’t allowing follow ups from the original questioner.

  138. 138.

    lamh36

    @morningmika
    Follow Follow @morningmika
    More
    You don’t know where the girls and toddlers are? You have no idea. Madame Secretary you are lying to the American people. And THIS is new.

    4:31 PM – 18 Jun 2018

  139. 139.

    TenguPhule

    @Adam L Silverman:

    The Press Corps is doing a good job following up on each other’s questions because Nielsen isn’t allowing follow ups from the original questioner.

    I’m surprised to find that even the White House Press Corps has standards.

  140. 140.

    Spinoza Is My Co-Pilot

    Nielsen’s quote in DJ Judd’s tweet:

    The right always relied heavily on propaganda and obfuscation (still does, of course), then brought dog-whistles to the fore (as Lee Atwater famously admitted), and more recently added projection as a key messaging component (“Liberal Fascism”, for instance).

    Now gaslighting’s all the rage, and her statement is a classic of the genre.

  141. 141.

    Sherparick

    @r€nato: It’s always projection with these people. Actually, we have long tradition of this kind of shit, starting with 250 years of American slavery & 250 years of genocidal wars against American Indians. Most are fellow citizens are no different then their ancestors who massacred dying or gravely ill immigrants at Duffy’s Cut, Pennsylvania.

  142. 142.

    TenguPhule

    @lamh36:

    You don’t know where the girls and toddlers are? You have no idea. Madame Secretary you are lying to the American people. And THIS is new.

    Sex slaves or mass graves.

  144. 144.

    Adam L Silverman

    @schrodingers_cat:

    were fucking British collaborators.

    Request for clarification: are you stating they were collaborating with the British or having sex with those who did? Or, perhaps, both?

  146. 146.

    Dev Null

    @TenguPhule: OK, thanks … I’m hit-or-miss on reading comments. Rarely miss reading a post, but comments … not so much.

    Still, I would be happier if references to her included the descriptor “that incompetent git Nielsen”, but that’s just me, I guess.

  147. 147.

    Adam L Silverman

    @lamh36: That’s because she’s both an African American woman and a Jewish woman all at the same time. So she hit the trifecta.

  149. 149.

    MisterForkbeard

    …Has it occurred to anyone else that Trump and Co keep making various women defend their awful fucking policies? “Look, this woman is a mother! Therefore she’s qualified to take the blame, I mean defend the policy as not-horrible.”

  151. 151.

    TenguPhule

    @Dev Null:

    Still, I would be happier if references to her included the descriptor “that incompetent git Nielsen”, but that’s just me, I guess.

    Too long to keep posting all the time.. Easier to abbreviate her to FC.

  152. 152.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Gravenstone: I think that was Streicher, who had largely been isolated and on the outs with Hitler and the party leadership since the late 1930s. When they released the trap on the gallows his neck didn’t break and he slowly asphyxiated at the end of the rope.

  154. 154.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Adam L Silverman: Collaborating with the British. Modi and his minions make me madder than T and his acolytes.

    Most devoted Sanghis (members of the parent organization of BJP, the RSS) like the current Prime Minister take vows of celibacy. Perhaps they would be less hateful if they were you know, actually fucking.

    RSS=Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh
    BJP= Bharatiya Janata Party

  156. 156.

    Adam L Silverman

    @TenguPhule: Yep. Sanders is up and she looked at Nielsen on the way out like: “NO!!! DON’T LEAVE ME ALONE UP HERE!!!!!”

  157. 157.

    Gravenstone

    @lamh36:

    Nielsen says, “I would reference you to our glaring lack of standards.”

    Fixed that for ya, Ilsa of the SS.

  159. 159.

    Dev Null

    @ruemara:

    … the history of America is as full of moments like these like stars fill the sky.

    This.

    Reading Gjelten’s Bacardi and The Long Fight for Cuba.

    It’s goddamn embarrassing. So no, let’s not get all hysterical about American racism and cruelty. That positively wouldn’t do! ~sarcasm~

  164. 164.

    Dev Null

    @TenguPhule: Well, OK, but … not seeing references to Nielsen as feckless. Not even in these comments.

    Search function, friends, etc.

    I know, I know … I’m quibbling.

  167. 167.

    lamh36

    @ddale8
    53s54 seconds ago
    More
    Sanders on the separations: “I feel like we keep ignoring the fact that the president isn’t the one that creates the law.” These people are very big liars.

  168. 168.

    trollhattan

    @JPL:
    I’d get out before they start playing “Rains of Castamere.” Nielson can probably dance to it.

  169. 169.

    Dev Null

    @rikyrah: I think you are missing a point.

    I still remember American youth in Yurp during the Vietnam era sewing maple flags on their backpacks to avoid the taint.

  170. 170.

    MCA1

    @Dev Null: All that matters is whether or not Americans, on their own, can defeat these modern-day fascists in our midst, and come out clean on the other side. Germans pre-WWII, as a whole, didn’t – they stumbled further and further into the horror and completely lost control, needing to be violently shut down by the rest of the world and then rebuilt under everyone else’s close scrutiny. If we make this a blip, historically, then we’re not all tarred to the same degree.

    I think the bigger point declaring that “This is who we are” instead of “they,” is to recognize that there’s a significant enough percentage of Americans who are OK with what’s happening, that it’s actually happening, and we’d better all wake the fuck up before we’re too far gone.

  171. 171.

    Ian G.

    I don’t need to listen to this. The description is enough.

    Shitgibbon’s fatal heart attack cannot come soon enough. Stephen Miller, I want it to be slow suffering. ALS. Pancreatic cancer. Kelly should just go to prison with Radovan Karadzic.

  173. 173.

    satby

    @Dev Null: Hell, my friend and I did that in Denmark in 1971. Where everyone wanted to ask us why were in Viet Nam and why we hated our black citizens.
    To the rest of the world, it’s the collective United States doing this, and they don’t understand how we can let the government stand if we’re so opposed to what it’s doing.

  174. 174.

    rikyrah

    @ruemara:
    I can’t listen to it. I just look at the pictures and cry. And cry. The level of hatred that I feel can’t be good for me, but it is what it is.???

  175. 175.

    lamh36

    @jonlovett
    36s36 seconds ago
    More
    10 members of the Democratic caucus voted to confirm Nielsen

  176. 176.

    Dev Null

    @MCA1:

    All that matters is whether or not Americans, on their own, can defeat these modern-day fascists in our midst, and come out clean on the other side. Germans pre-WWII, as a whole, didn’t – they stumbled further and further into the horror and completely lost control, needing to be violently shut down by the rest of the world and then rebuilt under everyone else’s close scrutiny. If we make this a blip, historically, then we’re not all tarred to the same degree.

    No offense, but tell that to the brown children in cages. Tell that to everyone listening to the audio.

    I get your point, but we failed. The constitutional order failed.

    That failure won’t be any less a failure just because we (prospectively!) avoided gas chambers.

  179. 179.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    David Folkenflik @ davidfolkenflik
    Sanders turns to Newsmax reporter for lifeline under relentless Qs over immigration policies toward children. He challenges POTUS’ truthfulness over untrue claims there’s been a spike of violent crime in Germany under Merkel.

  181. 181.

    condorcet runner-up

    Don’t believe the press.

    That’s just … horrifying to hear from a government official. More horrifying is that we’ll see it repeated in comment sections by morons and bots over and over.

  182. 182.

    debbie

    Fucking Nielsen. I listened to some interview where they were talking about well the kids were being treated, what with AC, shipped-in water, etc. They spoke about setting up schools with desks and books. All I could think about was how nice Theresienstadt looked in photographs.

  183. 183.

    PPCLI

    I understand why the names of ICE agents have to be kept confidential. It’s a sensible rule. But I do hope that at least one or two people But when I hear that border patrol guard mocking those little kids were crying in despair, I do pray that some of the people who live close to him, some of the people at his church, some of the people at the local PTA, his children’s teachers, his physician, …. hear that broadcast and recognize his voice. I hope the word spreads. So that everyone he knows can admire what a big strong man he is, delighting in the trauma of helpless children.

  184. 184.

    Calouste

    @lamh36: Has any “journalist” asked which “law” they are referring to? You know chapter/verse, code number, whatever it is.

  185. 185.

    Dev Null

    @satby:

    Where everyone wanted to ask us why were in Viet Nam and why we hated our black citizens.
    To the rest of the world, it’s the collective United States doing this, and they don’t understand how we can let the government stand if we’re so opposed to what it’s doing.

    Collective punishment – karma – is a thing.

    Intent is cheap. Results matter.

    Life is unfair.

    As the kidz say, “Deal with it.”

    Some of the kidz, anyway.

  190. 190.

    Gravenstone

    @Adam L Silverman: The quote attributed to the executioner by my friend’s father was “that SOB can go to Hell” as the convict kicked and thrashed and tried to breathe. It was taken to mean the “botch” was intentional.

  191. 191.

    Dev Null

    @debbie:

    All I could think about was how nice Theresienstadt looked in photographs.

    Showers. Delousing.

    Your best interests in mind. We’re doing this for your health.

  192. 192.

    jimmiraybob

    And now I pause for a moment of reflection. In Trump World, Oscar Schindler and all those that helped rescue Jews are the bad guys. Nazi Germany was a nation of Laws! In Trump World.

  193. 193.

    Gravenstone

    @lamh36: If she doesn’t know where the girls and infants are, then she’s an incompetent administrator and should resign her position in shame immediately. Of course, the fact that she’s just bald faced lying is another reason she should resign, right before being brought up on charges of kidnapping and human trafficking.

  194. 194.

    Yarrow

    I just saw some of the Nielsen bit of the press conference. She is the face of evil. She smiles while she talks about separating children from families. Horrible person.

  195. 195.

    different-church-lady

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Sanders turns to Newsmax reporter for lifeline under relentless Qs over immigration policies toward children. He challenges POTUS’ truthfulness over untrue claims there’s been a spike of violent crime in Germany under Merkel.

    Still want to wait until the end of the year to walk away, Sarah?

  196. 196.

    Mary G

    New Yorker piece this morning:

    In the past two months, the government has taken some two thousand immigrant children away from their parents. Under the zero-tolerance policy, border crossers are arrested and charged with a crime before being placed in immigration detention. If they came with their children, the children are turned over to O.R.R. and treated as though they travelled to the U.S. alone. No protocols have been put in place for keeping track of parents and children concurrently, for keeping parents and children in contact with each other while they are separated, or for eventually reuniting them. Immigration lawyers, public defenders, and advocates along the border have been trying to fill the void.

    What Kelly said was literally true, we send them to foster care or whatever without making any notes on whose child is sent where or any plans on how to reunite them.

  197. 197.

    bluehill

    I haven’t read Arendt and not sure how accurate this post from brainpickings is, but given the current environment it seems to fit. Also Arendt’s “banality of evil” seems to describe many in the Trump admin as well as his followers. I think there’s another group of head-in-the-sand, they’re-not-coming-for-me types that are perhaps worse.

    Arendt paints loneliness as “the common ground for terror” and explores its function as both the chief weapon and the chief damage of oppressive political regimes. Exactly twenty years before her piercing treatise on lying in politics, she writes:

    “Just as terror, even in its pre-total, merely tyrannical form ruins all relationships between men, so the self-compulsion of ideological thinking ruins all relationships with reality. The preparation has succeeded when people have lost contact with their fellow men* as well as the reality around them; for together with these contacts, men lose the capacity of both experience and thought. The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist.”

    What perpetuates such tyrannical regimes, Arendt argues, is manipulation by isolation — something most effectively accomplished by the divisiveness of “us vs. them” narratives. She writes:

    “Terror can rule absolutely only over men who are isolated against each other… Therefore, one of the primary concerns of all tyrannical government is to bring this isolation about. Isolation may be the beginning of terror; it certainly is its most fertile ground; it always is its result. This isolation is, as it were, pretotalitarian; its hallmark is impotence insofar as power always comes from men acting together…; isolated men are powerless by definition.”

  202. 202.

    Adam L Silverman

    Someone just hit the panic button!

  203. 203.

    Mary G

    More from the New Yorker article because I forgot to link it, and this is more horrible:

    Although the zero-tolerance policy was officially announced last month, it has been in effect, in more limited form, since at least last summer. Several months ago, as cases of family separation started surfacing across the country, immigrant-rights groups began calling for the Department of Homeland Security (D.H.S.), which is in charge of immigration enforcement and border security, to create procedures for tracking families after they are split up. At the time, D.H.S. said that it would address the problem, but there is no evidence that it actually did so. Erik Hanshew, a federal public defender in El Paso, told me that the problems begin at the moment of arrest. “Our client gets arrested with his or her child out in the field. Sometimes they go together at the initial processing, sometimes they get separated right then and there for separate processing,” he said. “When we ask the Border Patrol agents at detention hearings a few days after physical arrest about the information they’ve obtained in their investigation, they tell us that the only thing they know is that the person arrested was with a kid. They don’t seem to know gender, age, or name.”

  207. 207.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Gravenstone: Even worse. If she couldn’t anticipate that question and made sure to have a proper answer ready, she’s terrible at strategic communication. And her comms staff is too.

  209. 209.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Yarrow: My guess is the polling is showing Beto very strong. The campaigns’ internal polling in their states and districts, which they never release, is almost always much, much better than any other polling as they know what to ask, how to ask it, and who to sample and survey.

  211. 211.

    sukabi

    All these assholes hiding behind “we’re just enforcing the law” need to have every stone in their lives overturned, and every infraction of the law they’ve committed noted and be brought up on charges on all of them. Everything from jaywalking to tax fraud.

  212. 212.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @JPL: I’m sure Cruz’s bill is much different, and gives the Rs whose phones have been rining off the hook all day an answer other than “The Senator hasn’t made a decision…” weaseling

  213. 213.

    MisterForkbeard

    @JPL: You answered your own question.

    He’s not interested in stopping it. He’s interested in not getting blamed for it. If it DOES get stopped, then he might as well take credit for it… and he (and other Republicans) will try to blame Democrats for not signing onto his CYA bill.

  215. 215.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    In other news…

    Mike Mcintyre @ mmcintire
    Days after I sought comment from Wilbur Ross about his investment in a Kremlin-linked shipping firm, he shorted stock in the company, then sold it after my story with @ sashachavkin came out, per @ DanAlexander21

    Sure sounds like insider trading. That’s illegal, isn’t it?

  217. 217.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Yutsano: Only in the US could a Latino Canadian move to Texas and reinvent himself as a white supremacist.

  218. 218.

    lamh36

    @Adam L Silverman: guess they all are hearing the alarm!

    @dellcam
    21m21 minutes ago
    More
    In a statement, @RepMikeCoffman, a Republican, says basically he’s willing to introduce any companion bill in the House that ends family separation at the border, whether it comes from a Democrat or GOP lawmaker

  219. 219.

    Mnemosyne

    @Roger Moore:

    It seems to me that the difference between “them” doing it and “us” doing it is whether we stand up to it.

    Yes. This. It becomes “us” if we do nothing.

  220. 220.

    Roger Moore

    @JPL:

    Why not just sign on to Diane’s bill?

    This might help to explain:

    Cruz wants to replace family separations that add up to child abuse with indefinite detention that add up to family gulags. And he's cynical enough to think many in the media will report that he wants to end family separations without this context. https://t.co/6A7aIRAj2x— Frank Sharry (@FrankSharry) June 18, 2018

  221. 221.

    J R in WV

    @TenguPhule:

    Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen pushed back Monday at the growing condemnation of her agency’s practice of separating migrant families at the border, telling a gathering of law enforcement officers, “We will not apologize for the job we do.”

    We do not want an apology from Nazi Obergruppenführer Kirstjen Nielsen – we want that Nazi Bitch IN JAIL for 12,000 counts of child abuse!!

    Senator Rafael Cruz belongs in the cell next to Obergruppenführer Nielsen. The Donald will be in the basement, beneath all the cells.

  222. 222.

    lamh36

    @lamh36:

    @dellcam
    11m11 minutes ago
    More
    Seems like the White House plan to “blame Congress” is poised going to backfire spectacularly. Instead of an immigration bill funding his wall, we’re just as likely to end up with popular bipartisan bills in both chambers this week outlawing a Trump administration policy.

  223. 223.

    MisterForkbeard

    @lamh36: This is just an anecdote, but on Facebook the various news articles about the IG and “Why won’t you arrest Hillary” all have double-digit levels of comments. Even the ones that have been around for hours.

    The article on Nielsen’s press conference is less than an hour old and is getting close to 1000 comments or more. Other articles on this clusterfuck are similar. It’s clearly getting attention and unlike the IG report there’s no way to spin it as favorable for Republicans other than bald lies… which the press are actually calling them on, for once.

  224. 224.

    lamh36

    @lamh36:

    @dellcam
    6m6 minutes ago
    More dell cameron Retweeted Sen. Lisa Murkowski
    GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski calls on White House to “end the cruel, tragic separations of families.”

    She adds: “To blame previous administrations for a wrong committed today is not acceptable.”

  225. 225.

    Tilda Swintons Bald Cap

    @JoaquinCastrotx
    We visited the Infant Room where four very young children, including Roger the 8 month old, were being looked after by staff. We picked up and carried the children.

  226. 226.

    Cckids

    @ruemara: I’m with you. My mother died when I was one; Dad packed us up & moved from WA back to NE to be with his family. We lived (with my dad) for two years with an aunt & uncle, then when Dad remarried we got our own place. And my first, deepest memories/feelings are of abandonment & loss. And we always had a familiar, loving adult with us, we were in a stable, comfortable home. These kids will be changed and damaged forever by this evil.

  227. 227.

    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 bil

  229. 229.

    different-church-lady

    @MisterForkbeard:

    unlike the IG report there’s no way to spin it as favorable for Republicans other than bald lies…

    That’s actually exactly like the IG report.

  230. 230.

    MisterForkbeard

    @different-church-lady: Mostly true. In that case, they can latch onto the fact that Strzok really disliked Trump and…. then pretend it means something.

    In this case, they can’t even find a supporting truth to support the lie.

  231. 231.

    jl

    @lamh36: The WH plan to blame Obama, Congress, Congressional Democrats, GW Bush is such a bunch of ridiculous lies that it won’t work. Fact that Trump and Sessions are running around yelling the truth out might be the final straw for the media. They can’t even report the news, or show Trump without giving away the truth.

    The vicious idiot Trump essentially did a livestream from the kindnappers’ lair this morning announcing his ransom demands.

    Saw someplace polling that 27% of country supports this immoral lawbreaking. So, they down to scraping the bedrock of the crazy base for support.

    Maybe they plan on just going down through presidents to blame, skipping Reagan, of course. I predict by next week poor Chester Arthur will be the scapegoat. Or, maybe DemocRAT race-leveler and corrupt!, US Grant? We’ll see.

  232. 232.

    Gvg

    Awhile after I realized our torturers were not being prosecuted, I decided if I was in charge I would start charging all the low level actual torturers and not play fair and not charge the minions just because I couldn’t prove the case against the high bosses like President, AG or General.
    My reasoning is that either next time low level staff know they must not obey that kind of order, or it turns out the low level can prove someone higher gave the order and that staffer can prove higher orders etc. that near moron woman Sargent that got blamed for a bunch of things in Abu Gahab and was clearly a tool. At first I felt sorry for her but we really just ca’t have people getting away with this shit.
    I’d like to remind us of this now because I think it’s relevant. It’s easier to prove the ones who actually carried out these things. Then we get the next level and the next. Prosecute at every level.

  233. 233.

    Sab

    My 30+ stepdaughter just posted to Book of Faces about her own childhood.

    My husband adopted her out of fostercare when she was 10. She had been there since she was 4, after disabling disease sent her mother to a nursing home and her mother’s best friend couldn’t keep her any more. Everyone explained to her what was happening. She understood the language and the culture. But she was absolutely terrified, and she has never really gotten over that fear and sense of abandonment.

    I became her stepmother when she was in high school, and it has taken her 15 years to halfway trust me.

    These kids are already damaged for life. They came here accompanied by parents who risked everything to bring them to safety, and this is how we chose to respond.

  234. 234.

    J R in WV

    @Mary G:

    Thanks for posting this quote from the New Yorker:

    No protocols have been put in place for keeping track of parents and children concurrently, for keeping parents and children in contact with each other while they are separated, or for eventually reuniting them.

    These people doing this are despicable criminals, kidnappers of children, and the answer to the question “Where are the little girls?” is horribly, being bought and sold into abhorent slavery. This Obergruppenführer Nielsen is guilty of 12,000 kidnappings, and “Just following orders!” won’t cut it any more than it did at Nuremburg.

  238. 238.

    different-church-lady

    @jl:

    Maybe they plan on just going down through presidents to blame, skipping Reagan, of course. I predict by next week poor Chester Arthur will be the scapegoat. Or, maybe DemocRAT race-leveler and corrupt!, US Grant?

    Jackson will also be skipped over, natch.

  240. 240.

    Ruckus

    @Sab:
    How many people have stories or know someone with a story like this?
    More that a lot of people would like to admit. Life can be very tough, and for any one, anywhere. That’s why this is causing such a stir. You have a stepdaughter. My aunt died in her early 40s when her oldest was 11-12. She left 4 kids aged 1 thru 12. The oldest has twins and raises special needs foster kids. The person that I think suffered the most was the 1 yr old. She’s been in trouble most of her life and really, never had a mother she’s known.
    This may not be all that common but it’s not that uncommon either, that kids end up with one or no parents, in this country.

  241. 241.

    MoCA Ace

    I steeled myself and hit play… 58 fucking seconds. The first intelligible “Daddy” almost killed me. I weep for the children and I mourn for my country.

  242. 242.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Mary G:

    Maybe someone else has answered (I’m still making my way through all the comments). He posted on FB a few hours ago that Lil Bit was awaiting surgery. Said she was being treated a lot better than the kids in cages at the border.

  243. 243.

    bemused

    Kevin Drum:
    Republicans are mean as hell.
    Republicans are mean and getting meaner.
    They’re just plain mean and they’re proud of it.

  244. 244.

    Bonnie

    What is the Trump administration doing with the girls???? Is he preparing the acceptable ones for his Miss USA Pageant.

  245. 245.

    MoCA Ace

    Fuck these soulless monsters and everyone who still supports them. At the moment I feel it would be extremely generous to let live those who now disown their fuhrer and agree to have their voting rights permanently removed.

  246. 246.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Bonnie:

    Is he preparing the acceptable ones for his Miss USA Pageant.

    Oh, hadn’t thought of that, but it would be just like him to monetise these children.

  247. 247.

    Mnemosyne

    @jl:

    skipping Reagan, of course

    They don’t use his name, but the whining about “amnesty” is a veiled criticism of Reagan’s amnesty of illegal immigrants.

  248. 248.

    burnspbesq

    @Miss Bianca:

    I’m supposed to go do a radio show where I play a lot of nice Celtic music for the next two hours

    There is a lot of thoroughly pissed off anti-Brit music from the 1970s and 80s that you could play that would fit your mood. The Wolfe Tones, etc.

    ICE are our Black and Tans.

  249. 249.

    Sebastian

    @Adam L Silverman:

    And I got shit for suggesting yesterday that Beto should have put together a posse, best accompanied by hundreds of middleaged moms, and just rescue the children.

    The images alone …
    He’d win the Presidency in 2020 in a landslide. Alas, a missed opportunity.

  250. 250.

    Sab

    @Ruckus: I know childhood trauma happens a lot in this country. What makes me so utterly angry about these kids is that we have a lot of government employees acting in our name and on our payroll choosing quite deliberately to inflict this trauma on families who have already been through a lot. It’so completely unnecessary.

    My stepdaughter was unlucky. With these kids there is a lot of active malice by hundreds of people.

  251. 251.

    Percysowner

    I can’t listen to this. Every day I go take care of my 4 month old granddaughter. She smiles, she’s happy, she only cries when she’s hungry or wet or overly tired. That’s how it should be for every child. No child should suffer and no child should be used as leverage in some sort of sick game.

    I used Resist to contact my worthless Senator Rob Portman today, and I’m going to do it every day. I will also give Sherrod Brown a call, to tell him how much I appreciate him.

    I will now spend a half hour reminding myself that I don’t believe in Hell, because right now I kind of want to, and I want to send the people responsible there, but I also don’t want to be as evil as they are, so, No, I still won’t believe in Hell.

  252. 252.

    Miss Bianca

    @burnspbesq: Forget it, Burnsie. According to what I just found out today, apparently I’m not even supposed to announce a freaking Irish music CONCERT on the air if the mention hasn’t been sanctioned by the Programming Committee. Because God forbid the local “community” redneck bar should lose some patrons some night because some people listening to my show decided to go out of the Valley for entertainment. Getting all political on the air would be a COMPLETE no-no.

    I just resigned my DJ-ship over the unsanctioned concert mention bullshit. because fuck that bullshit. Because I could have been horseback riding instead of dealing with that bullshit. This child torture and kidnapping by our government is making me feel sick and stabby.

  253. 253.

    J R in WV

    @Miss Bianca:

    I don’t know if you’ve heard of them, but my favorite Irish Rock band is called Black 47, they’re marxists who chant about taking the fooken bosses down, and the Dirty Brits down, and the Black and Tans down. Punk Rock with a bagpiper.

    Not always what you want, but some days they really hit the spot. They’re big in NYC last I heard… guess what they think about Herr Fuhrer Trump…

  254. 254.

    Miss Bianca

    @J R in WV: Yeah, I know about Black 47, all right. You’re right, they’re not for all occasions, but there are times when they just hit the spot.

  255. 255.

    grumbles

    These are #Donnieskids, and I think every decent human should refuse to talk to him about any other topic.

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