Some breaking news on the immigration front:
Trump administration will stop prosecuting migrant parents who cross the border illegally with children, official says
The dramatic about-face comes just one day after President Trump signed an executive order ending his administration’s widely denounced practice of separating families apprehended at the Mexico border.
Trump’s order said the government would maintain a “zero tolerance” policy toward those who break the law, but a senior U.S. official, when asked to explain how the federal government would change enforcement practices, told The Washington Post that Border Patrol agents have been instructed to stop sending parents with children to federal courthouses for prosecution.
“We’re suspending prosecutions of adults who are members of family units until ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) can accelerate resource capability to allow us to maintain custody,” the official said.
Sounds like they got out over their skis and simply don’t have the capacity to intern entire families yet, so they’ll go back to the Obama-era status quo until they do. Imagine the headlines at Fox News, WSJ, etc., if Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton had suffered an embarrassing reversal on a signature policy, crapped out a face-saving EO to fix it, then had to scrap that 12 hours later, even temporarily. The mind reels.
Also, the Third Lady is making a “surprise visit” to one of her odious husband’s shameful stolen child incarceration centers to see “what’s real,” according to CNN:
McAllen, Texas (CNN)First lady Melania Trump touched down in McAllen, Texas, Thursday making a publicly unannounced and hastily planned trip to get a first-hand look at the crisis affecting immigrant families at the US border.
In doing so, she becomes the first Trump family member to personally witness the situation that has captured the country’s attention over the past several weeks.
“She wants to see what’s real,” said the first lady’s spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham told CNN during a 10-minute press briefing en route to Texas. “She wanted to see as close to what she had been seeing on TV. She wants to see a realistic view of what’s happening.”
The article implies this was the Third Lady’s proactive decision rather than something orchestrated by Trump’s White House minions:
Acting or commenting from the sidelines apparently was not enough for Trump, who fewer 48 hours ago informed her staff — and her husband, the President of the United States — that she had decided she needed to see for herself the family intake and unaccompanied children facilities.
Yeah, right. I suppose she could surprise us, but this is the woman who backed up her pig-husband’s racist birther lies, attacked fellow immigrants for behavior she herself engaged in and excused Trump’s many sexual assaults by calling his accusers liars, so my expectations are subterranean.
Looks like the GOP immigration bills – both shitty and even shittier – are going down. No surprise there.
And finally, The New York Post reports that evil Trump aide Stephen Miller was heckled in a DC-area Mexican restaurant a few days ago – before DHS ghoul Nielsen suffered a similar fate:
White House adviser Stephen Miller was accosted at a Mexican restaurant by a patron calling him a “fascist” — two nights before Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen was hounded out of another south-of-the-border eatery, sources told The Post…
“Hey look guys, whoever thought we’d be in a restaurant with a real-life fascist begging [for] money for new cages?” another customer at the Mezcal joint snarled at Miller, according to a source who saw the encounter.
Miller didn’t respond and scurried away, the witness said.
“Scurried away” — that’s perfect. It’s small potatoes in the scheme of things, but I relish seeing any evidence that these bastards are paying for their atrocious behavior. Power centers being what they are, social costs are likely all we’ll ever extract from the Trumps and their evil cabal, so I want those costs to be maximized, including, at the very least, a life of ordering take-out food under fake names.
Open thread.
LAO
NCSteve
I’m sure Camp Director Potemkin will ensure Czarina Melania gets a clear and accurate understanding of conditions there.
westyny
Trump on TV right now lying at machine gun rate and attacking Democrats. Has there ever been as divisive a President? I mean since Obama? /s
Kelly
@NCSteve: perfectly in the center of the bullseye.
D58826
Der Fuhrer just ripped Mexico over NAFTA and the immigrants but wants them to solve the problem. At least he didn’t demand they pay for the wall
PPCLI
Reposting from the previous now moribund thread:
It isn’t a coincidence that two high Trumpist officials were dining in Mexican restaurants in the last few days. The Trumpists love nothing more than to change the subject by claiming that they are so oppressed by evil liberals. I’m sure they were hoping against hope that someone would threaten physical violence, so that Fox could howl about it 24/7 for the next week.
rikyrah
Is this real or a lie?
I’ll wait and read trustworthy folks to tell me the truth about what’s really going on.
PPCLI
Trump needs a new version of Truman’s sign for his desk: “The Buck Stops Anywhere But Here”.
Chris
@LAO:
This. Let’s wait a few weeks and see how many other announcements like this he makes.
jonas
Re: Melania’s visit to the border: 1. of course they’re only going to let her see some nice, spruced-up section of a facility with just a couple of kids who look like they’re having a great ol’ time, and have probably been viciously threatened to behave or else they go in the hole again. 2. their accommodations are beside the point. They could be put up at the Ritz and still suffer from permanent trauma from having been taken from their parents and never told when or if they would see their mommy or daddy again, or what’s happened to mommy or daddy.
This was nothing more than an attempt to use the psychological torture of children as negotiating leverage to scrap immigration and asylum laws and fund the stupid wall boondoggle.
LAO
I’ve had about enough of this shitheel:
TenguPhule
Sorry, this sounds like they intend on sending them to the gas chambers instead.
Wag
@PPCLI:
What I wanna know is how were Miller and Nielsen’s taco bowls before their dinners were so “rudely” (read rightly) interrupted?
TenguPhule
@LAO:
Projection all the way.
Now we know what happened to the girls and toddlers.
PaulWartenberg
Just my ranting today about the sins of Minority Party Rule – where the Republicans do not reflect the true will of the Majority and yet retain power through corrupt means.
PPCLI
No need to make the trip, Melania. Just ask your husband or Sessions or Miller. It is unspeakably awful there, and it is that way because it was intended to be.True, it is worse even than planned, because this administration always adds its signature mind-numbing incompetence and corruption to its evil cruelty. But the Trump Tent Hotels are the way they are by design. So just ask the designers. They are proud of their work, and will be happy to share the details with you.
JPL
Who knew that building concentration camps took so long? They don’t have anywhere to move the united families.
Trump’s proposing merging Dept of Education and Labor Dept.
good times
Betty Cracker
@LAO: That language plays directly into the Qanon nonsense. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, count your many blessings — name them one by one. Sounds like he’s desperate to me, which is to be expected when a malignant narcissist suffers a public humiliation.
TenguPhule
@rikyrah:
i don’t think it means what Betty seems to think it means. That’s not how these assholes do things.
There’s always a “something worse” attached. Always.
Worst possible interpretation: They’re gonna accelerate the process of getting rid of those locked up. By any means necessary.
Platonailedit
Will believe it when we see it. Both are unlikely.
Olivia
@LAO: When he makes accusations, especially horrific ones, it is nothing but projection.
JPL
@PPCLI: Initially I thought it was sweet, but then they delivered a propaganda speech extolling their virtues.
D58826
According to Der Fuhrer it’s all the fault of the democrats. So Hillary is now driving one of the buses bring the refugees from Honduras?
Adam L Silverman
Somebody better do a welfare check on Stephen Miller. Also, if I was a woman advertising escort services on Craigslist or other sites in the DC area, I’d go on hiatus as he’s likely going to need to go full Buffalo Bill for a few days…
TenguPhule
@PPCLI:
She doesn’t care. This is a photo op/alibi for her future war crime tribunal defense.
Betty Cracker
@rikyrah: Chris Hayes, who is at the border, says adults with kids weren’t being sent for prosecution. Sounds like a logistics thing.
Adam L Silverman
@LAO: As I predicted two days ago.
TenguPhule
@Adam L Silverman:
Those online sites were banned back in March by Congress and are no longer available.
PPCLI
@Wag: What’s the Spanish word for “sputnum”?
Though it wouldn’t surprise me at all if both Nielsen and Miller already had reservations for a different restaurant lined up in advance for when they up and left the Mexican place as planned. Even they aren’t foolish enough to swallow any of the food they would be served.
Adam L Silverman
@LAO: Here you go:
Gonna be just like yesterday where first they said they were reunifying the kids already in detention and then said they weren’t. They used grandfathered into the policy change for both the will and won’t answer. Methinks someone at HHS needs a test of spoken English.
TenguPhule
@Adam L Silverman:
Predicting that nobody could predict what’s going on isn’t exactly the Oracle of Delphi these days.
Kay
@PPCLI:
It’s just silly. She must know better. Yes, Melania, the pre-planned arrival of the First Lady is a surprise drop in visit.
What’s “real”. Guffaw. News reports are fake but her publicity stunt is “real”. I am so, so sick of these people lying. They are incapable of an honest statement or straightforward action. It just isn’t in them.
TenguPhule
@Adam L Silverman:
Why do you hate test administrators?
Ruckus
Not only should they only be able to order takeout, they should have to pay cash only for everything. McDs, utility bills, housing, everything. They should have to prove every single time, up front, that they have the money. Including drumpf.
Adam L Silverman
@westyny: I understand that Millard Fillmore made his cabinet secretaries line up as shirts and skins at cabinet meetings…//
TenguPhule
@JPL:
I believe Notmax came up with “Department of Child Labor” as the result.
ruemara
@PPCLI: I don’t care. Fuck them. That propaganda will only work for their base & fools, who are nearly the same group & already believe bullshit.
Re: The First Cardboard Cutout. Fuck her, too. Bitch can go home & run around in American flag thongs in Louboutins. That’s all she was ever qualified to do, besides be the handler for Putin’s Little Asset.
Adam L Silverman
@PPCLI: Or they just like guacamole.
TenguPhule
@JPL:
They’re spending extra time on the showers.
/And FSM I hope this remains a bad joke.
trollhattan
@PPCLI:
I see a couple ways this could go–they can show her a real holding place where she will make some concern pouts for the cameras and then rename it “Camp Be Best” or they take her to a McAllen WalMart and claim “See, pretty nice, right? And just look at those bargains! Do you see the Ivanka clothing racks over there?”
lollipopguild
@westyny: President Hilary Clinton has proven that she can be very divisive.
LAO
@Adam L Silverman: Thanks!
@Betty Cracker: This Qanon nonsense is crazy — and dangerous.
rikyrah
Phuck.outta.here.
Don’t nobody believe her.
Until the journalists, Senators and Congressmen get into talk to the kids…
Nothing,but nonsense.
TenguPhule
Via Wapo. Jared has been busy.
JPL
@TenguPhule: Appropriate, since Trump is already following Kim Jung-un’s lead.
? Martin
There’s something else at work here. I posted this yesterday:
A lot of these kids will never be reunited with their parents. I would be willing to bet that at least a few are either dead or missing with effectively no way to identify them. Some of the abuses elsewhere in the system are probably being documented now internally. My guess is that reality has started to work up the chain and they’re dealing with at least some level of administrative pushback from professional staff that don’t want to face criminal charges. Note that they aren’t ending the practice, just that they’re going to pause things while they find bigger prisons.
The other possibility is that the pushback is jeopardizing other efforts that they care more about. Microsoft is starting the feel the heat for having ICE contracts, with employees furious. The airlines are ending their work with ICE. At some point less controversial federal programs are going to be affected, and the folks in charge of those efforts are going to be livid that ICE is fucking things up for everyone.
Kay
I know most of you disagree with me, but I want you to consider the vulnerability of assholism :)
They are afraid that people will see they are mean-spirited assholes. That’s important to them- that their base not perceive them as nasty. There’s some evidence for this, too, as far as Democrats. In Virginia and Alabama Democrats basically ran on “we are not vicious, petty assholes”. The PETTY part seems key to me- SMALL. It makes them SMALLER. Easier to beat :)
Trump and his supporters don’t want to be small. They want to be big. Expansive. But they’re really ungenerous and mean-spirited and resentful so it doesn’t come natural. They gravitate to the small, crabbed, petty, ungenerous, stingy. That’s the vulnerability.
PPCLI
@TenguPhule:
@Adam L Silverman:
I conjecture that part of what is going on is the administration’s normal strategy of having 10 different officials say 10 different things, so that everyone will hear what they want and ignore the rest. But I wonder if this isn’t a legal dodge as well. “Not persecuting” doesn’t mean “not detaining indefinitely”. Maybe the Flores rules only apply to people who are being charged, and to they are going to keep them detained in some kind of procedural limbo where no-one is sure exactly who has jurisdiction or what rules apply or what the status is. So nobody knows what court to sue in, nobody knows that agency to talk to, etc. (Usual disclaimer applies: IANAL.)
hitchhiker
Matt Yglesias over at Vox had it right this morning. This is an actual, real-world, complex problem. Those migrants from thug-ridden Central America are not faking and not trying to get something for nothing; they’re afraid for their lives and their kids’ lives, or they wouldn’t haul themselves all the damn way through Mexico on the slim chance of being taken in here in the USA.
Just b/c Trump bleats at high volume about his latest me-strong-man fantasy does not change the fact that they’re real, desperate human beings. The play about family separation was always to somehow out-thug the drug lords and gangsters …. really?
He just has no idea what to do, and neither do his fans in the congress. No amount of posturing is going to persuade a Salvadoran parent that the guy threatening their children with actual murder isn’t real.
It’s like everything else that I keep asking myself about this insane year — at some point don’t people see that there are no new coal jobs, that there is no plan to address the opioid crisis, that their insurance policies are worthless, that their tax cuts barely exist, that their president is a fool?
Don’t they? At some point?
Adam L Silverman
@rikyrah: Probably a bit of both. They are completely overwhelmed. They have no funding to do any of what they’ve been ordered to do with the policy change. There has been no new and/or supplemental appropriation to cover any costs related to the zero tolerance policy. So they have no funding to do anything but what they were doing before it was put in place. My guess is that CBP, ICE, and HHS’s ORR have already burned through their budgets for the year. They don’t have the personnel to cover down. And they can’t give more work to their existing indefinite
finitedeliveryuration/indefinitefinitequantity (IDIQ) omnibus contractors because they don’t have the money to pay the new contracting fees. So something has to give.My guess is this will be walked back, just as yesterday’s announcement that they were going to reunite the children that had already been separated was walked by, within a couple of hours or so because the President hasn’t actually rescinded his instructions to the Attorney General and Sessions hasn’t rescinded his policy memo that implemented the change to zero tolerance.
D58826
@westyny: After listening to Der Fuhrer I think it’s time to put the English language on the endangered species list.
Frankensteinbeck
@PPCLI:
Given the popularity of Mexican food and the utter and well demonstrated cluelessness of Trump’s administration officials as to how the public sees them, I think ‘coincidence’ is very likely.
@TenguPhule:
So, a meaningless piece of paper. THAT’S expert diplomacy!
TenguPhule
@PPCLI:
Don’t worry, none of the assholes administering Trump’s orders are either.
NotMax
Hypothetically, could the owners of the Mexican restaurants claim “sincere religious convictions” and refuse service to either or both Secretary of Child Trafficking Nielsen or Stabsscharführer Miller?
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@Adam L Silverman:
Forgive me, but I don’t understand the Buffalo Bill reference?
Adam L Silverman
@LAO: He was completely off the chain and unhinged. Total stream of consciousness. And he just blew up whatever it is that Ryan was hoping to push through the House and try to jam the Senate on in regards to immigration today.
schrodingers_cat
@Kay: I don’t. They do want to be loved and are upset when you call them on their BS. They are angels in their own mind.
Mark
I find your writing style very much to my liking Betty.
Peale
@LAO: I was kind of joking on a thread from LGM that we need to bring back dueling. I was kind of joking. But now, I’m not so certain. Perez is probably a better shot than Donald, so just let’s have him meet at dawn one day. Then bring over Rush and Alex Jones and Susan Sarandan.
trollhattan
@Kay:
Racists squeal “no fair!” whenever they’re called racist, but that doesn’t change their behavior. Not sure this is any different, to be honest.
TenguPhule
@? Martin:
Sadly, I think you’re being too optimistic.
I think the numbers are going to worse then any of us could possibly have believed. And I am damn sure what little records they have were ordered destroyed. These assholes have learned the golden rule of the American justice system. Don’t keep a paper trail of your crimes.
schrodingers_cat
@Adam L Silverman: Both those bills were pretty horrible. So no loss. Plus Ryan has egg on his face for the nth time. He can cry me river. He deserves humiliation and worse.
Amir Khalid
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?:
Read The Silence Of The Lambs, or watch the movie.
TenguPhule
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?:
Silence of the Lambs.
Adam L Silverman
@TenguPhule: We’ll explain this to you further when you’re older…//
trollhattan
@Adam L Silverman:
Reap the whirlwind jerks, you built this. Perhaps the sole thing Trump is really, really good at is whirling.
A Ghost To Most
@Adam L Silverman: Hey Miller! Come to Denver; I’ll give you a ride into the mountains. Out, not so much.
PPCLI
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: I believe it’s a reference to the creepy character “Buffalo Bill” in The Silence of the Lambs, combined with the widespread observation that Miller radiates a similar unsettling serial killer vibe.
Kay
I want us to consider the downside of being assholes. Because we’re sort of buying their worldview if we equate “mean spirited and vindictive” with “strong”. We don’t believe that, right?
They can’t help themselves, either. They spent months planning to rename government agencies and include the word “welfare”. This meanness is CENTRAL to Trumpism. It’s who they are. It can be used against them.
TenguPhule
@Adam L Silverman:
Selling the girls into sexual slavery and toddlers into trafficking would help them self-fund this.
westyny
@trollhattan: So much whirling . . .
LAO
@Adam L Silverman: Well, that made me truly laugh out loud. Live by the moron, die by the moron.
Adam L Silverman
@TenguPhule: Appreciate the congrats…
Betty Cracker
@ruemara: “Putin’s Little Asset” — tee-hee!
NotMax
DHS now stands for Department of Human Suffering.
Frankensteinbeck
@TenguPhule:
I am usually one of the more optimistic people here. In this case, I agree with you. At the very least, we are going to find out that almost no records were kept, and a serious percentage of these children cannot be reunited with their families because no one knows who their families are. That’s why they’re not being returned already. And I suspect many deaths among the youngest, and stories of abuse of every group.
I hope I am wrong. We’ll find out.
MJS
@NotMax: I would much prefer they inform the cooks exactly who the meal is being prepared for.
Peale
@Adam L Silverman: This just seems like a replay of 2014 – when Hannity or whomever started bleating on about the poor treatment of the unaccompanied kids (oh the tears!) to make Obama look bad, but then the right organized protests whenever they tried to move the kids to better conditions and refused to budget any more money for better facilities. (I think that is the reason why the kids are moved at night, btw. Back in 2014, you couldn’t move them in the day because the right would protest that they weren’t being treated more harshly). They aren’t going to pay 1 cent more to resolve this problem they created, even though they are in charge this time, because doing so would be admitting that these aren’t animals who need humane treatment.
Mark
I wonder who is going to have to take the fall for this mess? We know the Buffoon is looking for a scapegoat. Sessions? Nielsen?
sukabi
It could be that DoD decided to NOT assign JAG lawyers as prosecutors like was reported late last night... Someone pointed out on Twitter that that would violate posse comitatus
LAO
@NotMax: OMG — I’m stealing that, just so you know.
TenguPhule
@hitchhiker:
Sadly no. They will always believe that so much horseshit means there’s a pony at the end of it somewhere.
opiejeanne
@PPCLI: She ain’t going to Tornillo, she’s going to the closed Walmart which looks like a clean environment and probably has AC, She should go to Tornillo, but I’m sure she will not. The kids will be, as someone earlier said, too scared to complain to her or cry, and these are boys 10-17, not toddlers or the missing girls or babies crying for their parents with no one to comfort them.
#WhereAreTheGirls
Kay
@schrodingers_cat:
You saw that thing on Twitter where the writer wondered if Ivanka though she could “power thru” and remain a high faluitn member of society? Yes! Yes she does believe that! It’s vitally important to her. They believe they are great, huge, with big ideas. But this shit is just petty and mean-spirited. They’re reduced to hammering people for the equivalent of a traffic ticket.
Reduced. Made smaller. That’s what they can’t bear but it is actually what they are.
Yarrow
@LAO: Projection, projection, projection. When the Trump Models trafficking story breaks it’s going to get really crazy.
efgoldman
@LAO:
Since it’s always projection with these assholes….
joel hanes
@? Martin:
A lot of these kids will never be reunited with their parents.
That was one of the desired outcomes of the Sessions/Trump policies.
Trump and Miller and Sessions see deliberate, permanent destruction of families as just retribution for these brown people having dared to want to come to America, and as a measure that will be popular with their xenophobic base.
jonas
@? Martin:
Step 1 would probably get rid of that wannabe fat-headed Heydrich running ICE.
LAO
@sukabi: Six months ago I handled a ridiculous misdemeanor assault case in federal court up near West Point. The alleged assault took place in a VA hospital and the matter was prosecuted by a JAG officer acting as a “Special AUSA.” It was the first time I had ever encountered that but I was informed it’s typical in areas with large Military bases. I don’t think this is/was as extraordinary as the people have made it out to be.
Frankensteinbeck
@TenguPhule:
I doubt there will be a lot of this, at least. A few fringe cases may come up, strictly on the scale of an individual or squad doing the business. There just isn’t the organization for it large scale.
efgoldman
@JPL:
Which can only be done by congress.
New tagline: “Make it so only works in Star Trek”
TenguPhule
Via Wapo.
CFPB has been raped and left to die in the sewer.
TenguPhule
@Frankensteinbeck:
I think the reason we’ll find out about it is precisely because they didn’t organize it well.
Brachiator
This is Trump. And he feels more emboldened. He has thrown off the restraint of advisers who tried to get him to tone it down, to be more deliberative.
And again, he gains strength from the adulation of his base. And he doesn’t try to placate them. He is giving them what they want. And they are behind him 100 percent. From the Guardian.
Trump is resentful and cruel and encourages this in his supporters.
It is like Serbian and Croatian extremist leaders fanning old hatreds.
Trump will continue to do this until he is voted out of office. The Republican Congress continue to back Trump and must be voted out as well.
ETA. I give Melania some small credit. Trump doesn’t care about photo ops. He cares about loyalty. Anyone who defies him in any way is suspect. How many Republicans have stepped up to show any independence?
NotMax
@Frankensteinbeck
Also too, these are the folks who couldn’t figure out how to operate a light switch.
Spanky
@Adam L Silverman: I just busted out laughing at my desk. That was, shall we say, an over-the-top exercise in exasperation.
LAO
PPCLI
@Adam L Silverman:
@Frankensteinbeck:
Fair enough. I can get blinded by how dishonest and whiny these goniffs are so that I forget they are also clueless bunglers.
? Martin
@TenguPhule: No, I expect that as well. Mostly I only reference a few because I’m expecting the administrative incompetence to be so high that they would only have a few documented. So far their answer to ‘where are the kids’ is generally ‘oh, they’re fine, don’t worry about it’ which means they have no fucking idea if they’re okay or not.
A cell phone has circuitry that gives it a unique ID that is being broadcast pretty much the entire time the phone is powered. You can track any arbitrary cell phone around the world without much difficulty – after all, that’s how when someone dials your number, it knows how to get routed to the tower you are closest to. This is done with extraordinary reliability and efficiency. People aren’t like that. If you pick up a naked 1 year old, the ONLY way to figure out the identity of this person is to hope to hell someone comes looking for them and then run a DNA test. That’s it. If that connection never gets made because you airdropped the adult in Guatemala and they don’t know which of the 300 million Americans is in charge of that child and empowered to run that DNA test, then the child is forever unidentifiable. The paper trail that accompanies that child must be flawless, and given that none of the people demanding this system are even willing to recognize that child as having as much worth as a cell phone, that simply isn’t going to happen.
Turner Hedenkoff
People should let Nielsen and Miller enjoy their chimichangas in peace. I’m sure the kitchen staff worked hard on them. #that’snotmole
Spanky
@Peale: Dueling? Challenge them to a game of Russian (heh!) Roulette.
With a Glock 9.
They go first.
PJ
@Kay: I think you’re right, but I wonder to what extent. All of these characteristics were on display in 2016, and he still got almost half of the popular vote. I’d guess at least 30% of the population support Trump precisely because he is selfish, mean, vindictive, short-sighted, petty, cruel, and completely lacking in empathy. Some portion of the other 20% of voters don’t care about any of those characteristics as long as they think a tax cut is going to put them ahead, or as long as they think Trump is going to save the defenseless fetuses.
ruemara
@Adam L Silverman: Yet, that person will vote for whatever and preserve this fucking dangerous traitor’s seat in the WH in exchange for an insane, dominionist, neonazi agenda. Fuck him/her with a rusty chainsaw.
Arclite
Good to know that Melania has a heart, as little influence as she has.
Leto
@sukabi: @LAO:
https://mobile.twitter.com/steve_vladeck/status/1009608742785159173
trollhattan
@Turner Hedenkoff:
One of many things I already miss about Anthony Bourdain was his consistent praise and respect for restaurant workers at the back of the house, who are overwhelmingly immigrants from Latin America. Out of sight out of mind, just like much of the rest of our food chain.
If they all decamped for “home” our farms and ranches, our processing and distribution networks, our food service industries would fall silent. These Republican assholes (but I repeat myself) think Cliven Bundy IS our agricultural industry.
ruemara
@TenguPhule: But Hillary made speeches for money as a private citizen.
NotMax
One can’t help but suspect that Mattis is drinking extra heavily these days.
@Mark
Kelly.
danielx
@LAO:
One of those phrases I’ve always liked. Courtesy of Urban Dictionary:
Ranks right up there with clusterfuck, and applicable to just about anything having to do with Hair Furor’s administration.
Betty Cracker
From media organization clips shown on Twitter, it appears our suspicion that the Third Lady’s “surprise visit” to the border was a White House-orchestrated photo-op has been 100% borne out.
Betty Cracker
@Arclite: Nope. Just. Nope.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@Brachiator:
I like how these idiots give out their full names and where they live (assuming they are their real names). If things get crazier and more unhinged, I think Mary is going to regret ever giving out this information.
Spanky
Geez! This whole losing track of the kids thing could be easily solved by giving each kid a number and, I don’t know, maybe tattooing it someplace? An arm, maybe?
schrodingers_cat
@NotMax: It was his brainchild as the DHS secretary, so if he gets fired for this, he is not a scapegoat but because he bears responsibility. This is on him and his “protege” Nielsen and the of course the Orange in the WH.
TenguPhule
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: Its amazing how so many of these “average citizens” interviewed turn out to be local GOP party chairs.
LAO
@Leto: Thanks , very interesting.
Adam L Silverman
@TenguPhule: He and Greenblatt have been in Saudi meeting with MBS for the past week about this. It’s DOA.
Also, they indicted Bibi’s wife today.
trollhattan
@Betty Cracker:
It’s “working” insofar as grabbing a few headlines away from…everything that’s real. Even BBC web has it above the fold.
Not to worry–Donny’s got this!
Leto
@Betty Cracker: This is my surprised face. See me surprised? Ok, back to our regularly scheduled dystopia.
NotMax
I ask again: Is the Walton family being paid for use of the ex-store? Are they thus knowingly complicit in this?
Adam L Silverman
@? Martin: Yep. On the nosey! Unfortunately…
Mike in NC
After the Czarina’s little field trip to the border she’ll be in need of a shopping spree in Houston or Dallas.
MP
@Adam L Silverman: Hopefully, Bibi is the type of stand-up guy that won’t let his wife go to prison alone.
trollhattan
@NotMax:
Think it’s safe to assume the answer is “yes” unless proven otherwise. Any old Walmart store is part of their real estate portfolio and the site probably has restrictions on it prohibiting opening a big box store that would compete against the bigass new Walmart that replaced the closed store. So converting it to a prison is a big ol’ win!
burnspbesq
@LAO:
It happens in other areas as well. At least since the 1990s, significant numbers of IRS field lawyers have been disignated as SAUSAs in order to represent the IRS in Bankruptcy Court.
DOJ never has all the headcount it needs. I’m surprised that using JAG officers like this hasn’t happened before (and FWIW, I am decidedly unconvinced by the posse comitatus argument).
Shana
@TenguPhule: Interesting article in last week’s New Yorker about the tRump administration’s cluster fu&k that is their MidEast policy with lots of idiocy about Jared. Worth a read.
dww44
@westyny: I agree. He criticizes Dems so much and so blatantly that even the GOP cannot fail to acknowledge the dissembling. At least, intellectually, I think they have to see through this Trump tactic that’s way past being old and trite, although those on my Facebook feed don’t seem to have gotten the message. I now understand, firsthand, how Hitler conned the German peoples.
The Dangerman
@TenguPhule:
Not quite; they’ll be adopted out to “approved families” (meaning, they only watch FOX news). It’ll be kinda like the Turpin Family in SoCal; you’ll grow up to vote Republican or no dessert for you.
sigaba
Washington Post just corrected their story: CBP no longer referring migrant families to Justice for criminal prosecution.
Justice maintains their have a zero-tolerance policy still in effect, but it appears they cannot force CBP to refer arrested immigrants.
trollhattan
@MP:
Bibi out loud: “This is a witchhunt by my enemies and I will fight to the end to see her exonerated!”
Bibi to self: “Well, it’s sad but I can always get another wife. Plenty of precedent for that.”
Mary G
M4, if you’re around: after determining that everyone, including a family in Wales, who claimed to be his owner was lying, LA Times reports that Chubbs has been adopted.
Roger Moore
@? Martin:
And it will be impossible from the outside to tell the difference between kids who never get reunited with their parents because of genuine screw-ups with the system and kids who were deliberately trafficked out of the system. So instead of preventing child trafficking, we’ve enabled it. Heck of a job, Brownie!
Adam L Silverman
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: The serial killer in The Silence of the Lambs who was trying to make a suit out of women’s skin so he could become a woman. Played by the same guy that played the police captain on Monk.
Adam L Silverman
?BillinGlendaleCA
@? Martin: They could go “old school” and use tattoos. //
Kay
@PJ:
I don’t believe the 20% “don’t care”. I think they’re Right leaning and they do care – a big part of the ideology is “we are morally superior”. Trump’s whole brand is “big” – great, awesome, no one has ever done this before, millions and billions pouring across the border, etc. It loses its power if it’s small and stingy and mean-spirited. Ityy bitty Sessions with his mean little mouth in a grim line, taking 2 year olds to detention. People saw the smallness behind the big talk with this one- they saw the individuals- LITERALLY small people- children-and the Trumpsters were abusing them. All the boasting about the wall and “sovereignty” and our cuture, all that bragging, came down to putting 6 year olds in poorly-run facilities. And it will ALWAYS come down to that, because it’s really true- these are small, petty, shallow people. They got some power and completely predictably they used it to punish people they don’t like.
Mike in DC
@Brachiator:
The best way to encourage Republican pols to stand up to Trump is by voting a bunch of them out of office and citing their support for Trump as the primary reason. Losing power is the one unforgivable sin to them.
trollhattan
@Shana:
Got around to watching Colbert’s Natalie Portman interview and the Kushner portion was pretty revealing, including the part where he asked if Jared was a good student.
Daddy’s money, well-spent.
Gravenstone
@D58826: Yet …
Leto
@NotMax: I’ll go with yes until proven otherwise. This situation is a cash cow for corporations looking to make a quick grift/profit off of human suffering. The Walton’s aren’t exempt.
@LAO: I still can’t believe that any active duty JAG would go along with this. It’s just… apparently part of the request was for attorneys who have some federal court room experience, and an immigration law refresher/CBT would be given (WTF???). It’s another part of the wholesale corruption being levied upon us/the government by Trumpov and ReTrumpicans? Trumpicans? Eh, BC had it right: Cockwaffles. I’m waiting for active duty military to be deployed as “security measures” in 2020. He’s not going to voluntarily leave.
trollhattan
@Adam L Silverman:
Not to worry Republicans, take three voter suppression pills and call the Supreme Court in the morning. Roberts’ got yer back.
Mary G
More breaking news:
germy
Sara Netanyahu, wife of scandal-plagued Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has been charged with misusing state funds. She was indicted this morning.
From CNN:
Adam L Silverman
@sukabi: It doesn’t. Congress passed a law in 1986 that made it legal for staff judge advocates (SJAs), which are commonly referred to as JAGs, to be authorized to function as special assistant US Attorneys and detailed to the DOJ. I think they were envisioning using them for more routine things, such as prosecuting actual crimes that occur on military bases involving non military personnel, which they do actually do. Regardless, this is kosher under Title 32.
danielx
@Kay:
I don’t often disagree with you, Kay, but in this instance I have to. Trump’s base is a group of nasty, mean-spirited assholes, and the nastier and more mean-spirited he is the better they like it. I mean, watch video of one of his Nuremberg-style rallies – his most assholish lines draw the biggest applause. Never mind that the other, say, 70% of Americans think he’s shit on roller skates – as long as he hears those cheers he’s sure he’s doing fine. As to others prominent in his administration, I don’t think Stephen Miller or Mick Mulvaney, to name just two, give a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut about how they are perceived as long as their policy priorities are going through.
Kay
@sigaba:
How Sessions maintains is beyond me. Just the utter humiliation of defending child abuse and then having to do a 180, not because he realized the DOJ cannot be in the child abuse business, but because Trump saw the political disaster- Jesus.
Not a shred of self respect. None. He has the worst of both worlds. He promoted child abuse and his own government let him, and then revealed him as a psychopath. It’s the same for Conway and Kelly. They revealed what they are and now they don’t even get the policy. They sold their souls for nothing.
It’s delicious, what happened to them as a result of this. I don’t think liberals are enjoying it enough. Dear Leader screwed them, again.
ruemara
@Adam L Silverman: Kanye shrug. I live in a CA college town. I know enough Latinos to be horrified at how anti-immigrant some of them are. Virulently racist, Republican and as mentally shuttered as any of those good evil white folks that populate NYT stories. The Church, the culture and a real smug “we’re better because we’re legal/hear earlier” attitude. The increasing population does no good if their current crop of Latinos don’t get their heads out of their asses.
Brachiator
@TenguPhule:
I have been dismayed to find these noxious sentiments echoed almost word for word by people I encounter on a daily basis. And there is an open nastiness that I have not seen as often before. As always, your mileage may vary.
Adam L Silverman
@LAO:
ProudGradofCatLadyAcademy
I need to get my eyes checked but i read the start of the last paragraph on BC’s post as “White House adviser Stephen Miller was accosted at a Mexican restaurant as White House Holocaust Advisor Stephen Miller and thought to myself- “well, at least they are being honest on his true agenda…” These are the old pair of glasses I have on, or maybe it’s just my brain reading the truth after all.
My old cohorts in protest in 2017, Socialist Action -The Northern Worker– estimated 1000+ protesters- in answer to prior open thread’s question on how many people -They have a picture up on their FB page, it’s totally awesome to see that turn out. If I knew how to post a copy here I would for sure, but here’s a link. Someone asked on the last thread.
https://www.facebook.com/thenorthernworker/?ref=search
Bobby Thomson
@LAO: sounds ominous. He sold the girls and now he’s trying to shift blame.
Als, too, he definitely beat Melania up.
LAO
@burnspbesq: I must say, the JAG officer was a pleasure to deal with (the second one, actually) and I purposely declined to call him by his rank because it was a civil courtroom.
Kay
@danielx:
It’s fine to disagree. What I want is for us not to get so married to our theories. We need new ideas, new approaches.
Our political system-the “soft” system- media and political debate- is not working in this environment. Let’s see if there’s a new way of looking at it. If we decide what they are then we decide what we do and I feel like we’re going around in circles.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@TenguPhule:
I don’t know about her being the local GOP party chair, but if this is the same Mary Reuter in Saulk Centre, Minn, she apparently works at the Central Minnesota Life Care Center https://givemn.org/organization/centralminnesotalifecarecenter
Doesn’t seem bad in and of itself, but the fact that she works here, supposedly to help mothers find options so they don’t have to get an abortion, doesn’t jive well with her opinion that all of the suffering of young immigrant children is “fake news”.
She can’t even comprehend that separating children from parents at such a young age is harmful and is not the same as when US parents go to jail. Those kids at least usually get to stay with family members or foster families.
Bobby Thomson
@danielx: this.
eric
@Mary G: how does one say it? Oh yes. ‘womp womp motherfucker’
Adam L Silverman
@Spanky: There is no Glock 9. GLOCKs chambered in 9×19 (9mm/9mm parabellum) are the G17 (full size), G19 (compact), G26 (subcompact doublestack), G43 (subcompact singlestack/micropistol), G34 (competition), G17L (full size with the competition long slide).
Please know your GLOCKs. Learn them, love them, live them.//
jacy
@TenguPhule:
The only saving grace is that this group is too stupid and incompetent to pull off even a smaller-scale genocide. They just aren’t smart enough. And even those who aren’t natively stupid are so cosseted in their bubble that they don’t understand the simplest concepts of real-world mechanisms. The best of them only possess a low cunning. Eventually that will be their undoing, but we’ll have to see how much they destroy first.
Mike in DC
@Adam L Silverman: The better question is, in what year will the number of registered Latino voters in TX outnumber registered white voters?
MisterForkbeard
@LAO: Yeah. I don’t know what to do about this – the media doesn’t publicize this as the truly evil shit that it is, and exposing this to his followers just makes them happier.
I’m starting to think that we really are going to have to arrest Trump after he leaves office for human rights abuses. I don’t know what else we can do to discourage it.
Adam L Silverman
@MP: My guess is Bibi is trying to cut a deal that if he testifies against her, he’ll get immunity from prosecution. Because he is that kind of guy.
LAO
Did I miss this story — Fucking Maine!
I can’t believe this is happening.
germy
@Mary G:
That should hit him right in his wallet.
So many of the people, I find myself wondering “But what do they do for money? Surely they don’t send resumes to temp agencies” (“proficient in Word and Excel”). Then I remember all the money they rake in on the speechmaking circuit. This should hurt him.
Maybe he can launch a patreon account.
eric
@Adam L Silverman: he could ask Congress to pass a law waiving extradition. i put it at 50-50 with this crew,
raven
@Adam L Silverman: It’s pretty hard to play roulette with a magazine fed weapon.
frosty
@Adam L Silverman: I work under some IDIQ contracts.
Ours say Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity. A little more manageable than Infinite…Although I like the idea there’s an infinite upset limit.
Chet Murthy
This comment at Crooked Timber by Glen Tomkins regarding this child separation policy really opened my eyes
He’s pretty convincing that this is also a scorched-earth tactic to ensure that GrOPer pols have nowhere to go except to the right.
raven
It’s pretty hard to play roulette with a magazine fed
raven
what the fuck is this moderation bullshit
waspuppet
“… so they’ll go back to the Obama-era status quo …”
It’s almost as if the policies regarding huge, complex problems are there for reasons, and the unearned bluster of a senile, racist failed real estate developer from Queens doesn’t magically fix everything.
germy
@raven: Happens to the best of us.
Mnemosyne
@LAO:
I know what this signifies but, damn it, I would love to see an actual goat rodeo. It would be the greatest day ever. ?
But I don’t want a goat rodeo running my government.
Adam L Silverman
@LAO: This is the map of where CBP claims it has jurisdiction based on the “within 100 miles of any port of entry into the US”. This is also where approximately 70 to 75% of all Americans live.
https://www.wired.com/images_blogs/photos/uncategorized/2008/10/22/imagemap.gif
trollhattan
@Adam L Silverman:
Oh my. [/Sulu]
What kind of clip do they take? :-P
Adam L Silverman
@eric: Why would he need Congress to do anything. This is an Israeli court. In Israel. Where he’s the prime minister.
LAO
@Mnemosyne:
Too late.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Kay,
I don’t know if I have disagreed with you all the way.
I honestly believe that they don’t care. They really don’t.
When I say that they want to party like it’s 1948, I mean that.
I think what bothers them is that we- OUR SIDE- hasn’t even tried for the middle ground. They’re so used to us trying to ‘ make nice’. They thought that it was automatic.
WHERE is our deference to him as President, and thus, by extension, deference to them for voting for him?
Instead, we’ve told him to go Phuck Off.
We tell the MSM to stop with the ‘ this is his pivot’ bullshyt.
And, we’ve told them to stop with the phucking articles about his voters.
WE are holding them accountable for voting for him.
YOU articulated it best, Kay, when you pointed out, all those months ago, that their vote for him defines THEIR LACK OF CHARACTER.
Ever since you put that into words, I never forgot it, and have used it repeatedly, because you nailed it.
They are so angry that we haven’t cowed to them.
I don’ think that they care about us, Kay. They just want us to ‘understand’ how much better they are over us.
If they are concerned about anyone seeing them for who they are, it’s that idiot ‘center’. Because, usually, they are able to throw some shiny object to give them a figleaf to explain their support. That hasn’t happened.
NotMax
@LAO
Repeating from this past autumn (emphasis added).
delk
Probably going to have to say goodbye to my sweet dog, Gav this evening.
Chip Daniels
I would love to be a fly on the wall watching the kitchen staff prepare Miller and Nielsen’s food.
“Special sauce” indeed.
Adam L Silverman
@frosty: Brain fart. Thanks for catching that, I’ll go back and fix it.
Brachiator
@Mike in DC:
I don’t think this will change their beliefs or behavior. But I want to be rid of them all the same.
Elizabelle
@delk: I’m sorry, delk. You gave Gav the absolutely best life and best chance you could. All the best you and your partner and Gav.
Adam L Silverman
@frosty: To Indefinity and Beyond!!!//
Elizabelle
@LAO: I rather like goats. Useful, curious, social animals.
Trump rodeo? Uh, no. Toxic off the charts.
Adam L Silverman
@raven: Snap caps mixed in with live ammo.
rikyrah
@? Martin:
I read this yesterday, and sadly, couldn’t disagree with a word you said.
Kelly
@LAO: If stopped I would with wide eyed innocence, earnestly and relentlessly talk to the Border Control folks about the dangers to their souls from working for an evil organization. Probably wave me thru fairly quickly. A similar conversation ended all phone calls from right wing outfits.
Leto
@LAO: @Adam L Silverman:
From the ACLU article, THE CONSTITUTION IN THE 100-MILE BORDER ZONE:
And there’s more at the link. Everyone should take a look at it just for general knowledge in case we run into something like this.
PJ
@Kay: I am open to anything that changes the political direction of this country in a positive way, and I agree that standard political debate and media presentation in 2016 did not cut it (not helped, obviously, by media manipulation by the Russians, collaboration between the Trump campaign and the Russians, and voter suppression in important states (and I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that Russians had hacked the polls in some states)). But I believe there are three main policies the Republican party pursues and that most Republicans support:
1) Reduction and ultimately elimination of taxation of the wealthy;
2) Reduction and ultimately elimination of regulation of industries controlled by the wealthy;
3) Restricting the right of likely non-Republicans (i.e., non-white and young people) to vote.
I don’t know if the Steve Schmidts and Rick Wilsons of America fall into that group, but the people who are in favor of these policies are not going to vote for Democrats.
That still leaves some “independents” who are reachable, I think. We need to:
1) Aggressively challenge media representation of liberal ideas and policies, emphasizing how they benefit all or most Americans, not just a few, and objecting to every instance of bothsiderism and horserace handicapping.
2) Emphasize how Republican policies are often cruel and vicious and usually only a benefit a small portion of the population. We also need to emphasize the complete corruption of the Trump Administration and how much of what they do is for the benefit of Russia.
3) Not worry about “civility”, show respect where it is due but not where it is completely undeserved.
4) Emphasize how many of our basic rights are at stake in presenting a positive vision of the country we could be.
5) Get out every vote possible, particularly among the young.
I know none of this is new, but I think a large part of the problem in changing things is that the media is often reluctant to present the truth and Americans are often reluctant, if not totally opposed, to hearing the truth. We are working against almost 40 years of right-wing claptrap dominating public discourse such that any deviation from it sounds like heresy.
LAO
@Adam L Silverman: @NotMax: I’m embarrassed that I did not know this. Thanks to both of you for the links/information.
@Elizabelle: As was previously pointed out, Goat Rodeo has a particular definition:
From the Urban Dictionary
Spanky
@delk: shit.
We all know what awaits us at the end when we sign on, but it’s always hard to get through.
I wish the best to you, and a peaceful passage for Gav.
LAO
@Kelly: I’m fairly certain that if I were stopped by the Border Patrol, I’d be arrested. Thankfully, I know of few dozens defense attorneys.
Adam L Silverman
@Chet Murthy: Yep, Miller calls it “constructive controversy—with the purpose of enlightenment.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/05/stephen-miller-trump-adviser/561317/
rikyrah
@Adam L Silverman:
I had not thought of the money. Yeah, where IS the money for all of this coming from?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Adam L Silverman: The word is Miller was abused as a kid so that’s why he such a shit as an adult and apparently Miller gets off on this kidnapping nonsense. . So I assume you weren’t snarking about Miller going serial killer.
eric
@Adam L Silverman: I am assuming he has to flee the jurisdiction to live off his ill gotten wealth somewhere other than Israel
Adam L Silverman
@delk: I’m so sorry to read that. Keeping good thoughts for you both.
NotMax
@Adam L. Silverman
By rights ought to read “luxuriates in their revulsion.”
Adam L Silverman
@Leto: I’ve read it.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@TenguPhule: Like the real death camps, it’s about who gets the construction contracts.
Leto
@rikyrah: Medicare/Medicaid/SNAP/other programs to help the poor/less fortunate. That was part of the “compromise” immigration bill that was offered up by the Granny Starver. They’ll find the money by continuing to hurt those that need help the most.
Mart
@? Martin: @rikyrah: Chips. They need to put chips in the kids and parents. That should work well for tracking and would be very popular with the base. FEMA prison camps with chip implants in the prisoners. In Texas. Perfect… as long as it only applies to the blahs.
Gravenstone
@jonas: Honestly, I wouldn’t be shocked if they took a page from the Republican Hymnal of Projection and brought in some child actors, with the actual refugee kids turfed off somewhere else (worse) in the interim. Maybe even share some bright and shiny pictures of those happy little buggers.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@hitchhiker:
Take heart, it’s clear with this child abuse scandal people’s eyes are stating to open. After all it’s a very short step from having their babies take to having your baby taken.
Adam L Silverman
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: There is no credible evidence I’ve seen reported that he was abused. None of the recollections by any of the folks he went to school with, as well as guidance counselor, make any mention of extra familial abuse. I’ve seen one anonymous source indicate that he was mistreated by his peers. His immediate family are the Santa Monica equivalents of slum lords, that suffered when the real estate market crashed. His rabbi is on the record as saying “we did the best we could with him”. Between nature and nurture he is what he is. A sociopath raised by bigots who was coddled by authority every time they caved to his outrageous demands. He learned he could get away with anything if he threw a big enough tantrum because the adults just wanted him to go away because they had more important things to deal with.
Adam L Silverman
@NotMax: I’m not the Stephen Miller whisperer.
rikyrah
@TenguPhule:
I can’t disagree with anything you’ve been writing about this situation.
Leto
@Adam L Silverman: Lookit mr bookworm here… /s :P
The Moar You Know
@delk: I am truly sorry. You know that day is coming the first day you get them, but there’s nothing that can prepare you for it, even if you’ve done it before. I have, twice. I can honestly say that I think the only thing worse would be the death of one of your own children.
Godspeed, Gav. We’ll see you soon enough.
NotMax
@Adam L. Silverman
Some numbers.
Related.
Call me cynical but I find it difficult to imagine that the regulations in Texas are particularly stringent.
patroclus
The Democrats are bringing it on the House Floor today! This is riveting TV! The few Republicans speaking are all, like, “yeah we know it’s terrible but it’s the best we can do.” And the Dems are all, like, “YOU WILL BE JUDGED BY YOUR MAKER FOR THIS HOLOCAUST!!” For any of us who criticize Dems for being mealy-mouthed and timid, not today.
? Martin
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Not to diminish the horribleness of the practice, but it was one of the most effective identity systems ever developed. May it never be put to use ever again.
rikyrah
@Chet Murthy:
that was a reply that makes one think
Leto
@NotMax: General Dynamics is looking to pocket at least $15M so far.
NotMax
@Leto
Don’t have a link but am sure I read that Halliburton has its claw thrust into this stinky pie as well.
BillyGintheD
Hey, France,
How you doing, man? Que pasa, eh? (Knew that seventh grade French was gonna come in handy!) Listen, need a favor. That statue, you know, lady with the torch, teeming refuse of our fetid shores, etc etc. Well, can you maybe take her back? Turns out we’re not into that anymore. Pick it up early July? First Wednesday of the month would be fine.
Yours,
America
CindyH
@Kay: I doubt they care because they believe anything disparaging is fake news – as one of them who I was once friends with posted on Facebook about the immigration debacle:
“Only one party in this country is trying to do something.Many democratic Presidents could of [sic] done something but chose not to. Party for the people has absolutely no platform or candidate to do anything but disagree with POTUS. Why he won and will again.”
They believe the crap spewed on Fox, One America, Newsmax, etc. They are Tools.
westyny
@Elizabelle: Though some part of me would rather enjoy Trump keeping my lawn trim by eating it as part of his community service. It would also become the only family friendly definition of “Trump trimmer” to be found on Urban Dictionary.
catclub
@trollhattan:
wasnt there some war game something helm maybe, that was going to use walmarts to round up red blooded americans? I guess the Obama admin shoudl have shredded those plans.
google says: Jade Helm
satby
@delk: oh delk, I’m so sorry. I’ve been seeing the updates on Gav and know you’ve been battling to save him for a while. I’m sorry that the time appears to have come. Gav has had a doggie heaven on earth, the love and care of his person. And you gave him that,all Gav could want. Peace for you both.
NotMax
@catclub
And it turns out the whole Jade Helm conspiracy mishmash was cooked up and actively promoted by a country whose name starts with R and ends with ussia.
joel hanes
@Adam L Silverman:
What the ICE officer won’t tell you is that he’s asking a question that you are not legally obligated to answer. It’s a lie by omission.
They don’t have legal authority to actually demand your papers except at the border.
People can and should refuse. Some do.
When they do, they are allowed to proceed, because the fascist goons know that they have no legal leg on which to stand.
Spanky
@raven:
That was my point about “They go first”.
Gravenstone
@Adam L Silverman: Ask Brandon Lee how that mix turned out.
catclub
@NotMax: hoocoodanode?
les
But a US Senator can’t visit without 2 weeks notice. There’s just no end to the shit.
hugely
@hitchhiker: ah but the anger of the liberals is real
Ksmiami
@MisterForkbeard: again it’ll be scaffolding or orange jumpsuits with this administration. Crimes against humanity etc
Ksmiami
@CindyH: I call them mushy headed fox-addled soulless zombies, but tool works too.
cmorenc
@Betty Cracker:
And even with take-out ordered under a fake name, they would be forever at risk of Uber delivery drivers finding out who the real party was they were delivering for, and spitting in their food on the drive over. They could never be sure the kitchen or delivery person wasn’t on to them and did something nasty but difficult to immediately detect to their food.
J R in WV
@LAO:
If there is actually “a massive child smuggling industry” in the world, why hasn’t President Trump started a professionally run law enforcement operation to stop it?
He has control of the worlds best government, surely he can stop child abuse? Introduce control of illegal trafficking of little girls?
Or can he? Least competent manager in the history of America, for sure.
TenguPhule
@J R in WV:
Because he’s the one who’s running it. Where do you think they got the money for the internment camps in the first place?
TenguPhule
@Ksmiami:
Porque no dos?
Mike in Pasadena
@Frankensteinbe6917I doubt we will find out.
Lizzy L
@delk: I’m sorry. I hope it’s a peaceful passing.
The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion
@delk: My thoughts, my heart are with you.
J R in WV
@raven:
“It’s pretty hard to play roulette with a magazine fed weapon.”
True, but… We win every game that way ~!!!!~
ljdramone
@NotMax:
Um, not to be an *ahem* German translation Nazi or nuthin’, but I’m not sure Miller deserves the rank of a senior NCO.
I’d go for “Standartenführer Miller” myself. Makes him a zero (roughly equivalent to colonel), and translates to “Standard [in the sense of a flag] Leader” to match his role in the Trump misadministration.