The more we learn about Trump’s immigration walk-back, the worse it looks. Though it has provisions to intern entire families indefinitely, etc., it doesn’t even address reuniting the 2,342 kids US officials already stole from parents at the border under Trump’s zero tolerance policy. We need to keep the pressure on to make sure those children are returned to their families.
Meanwhile, Paul Ryan is using the occasion to try to pass one of two terrible immigration bills today. The two Republican bills can best be described as “a shitty bill” and “an even more shitty bill.” Both would cut legal immigration and fund Trump’s racist vanity wall without providing a clean path to citizenship for American kids in DACA status.
It looks like the Freedom Caucus nutbags may tank the “moderate” shitty bill since it’s not mean enough to suit them. But it’s probably a good idea to call your rep and make your voice heard on the issue anyway.
That means I have to call the office of Trump butt-plug Vern Buchanan, the grifty meathead who represents me in Congress. Not looking forward to it, but I want the corrupt cockwaffle to hear the footsteps coming for him in November, if nothing else.
Lots going on today, but I’m super busy, so open thread!
OzarkHillbilly
Trump’s immigration walk-back, won’t survive it’s first 5 mins in court. As was planned.
Platonailedit
This is the typical trumpian shitsandwich the traitorous thug has been handing out his entire life. No wins for anyone except him. This should be denounced even louder.
EdTheRed
When you’re calling your reps today, maybe tell them that you support voting rights for citizens of the District of Columbia. Since, you know, we don’t have anyone to call ourselves…and we wouldn’t be in quite such a big mess if there were two senators representing DC.
I cannot begin to describe the feeling of powerlessness that comes from living in a “representative” democracy committing such terrible acts in your name, yet having no actual representatives to vote on your behalf. I mean, I love my city, I was born here, and I’m not planning on leaving, but this is killing me.
The Ancient Randonneur
Where are the girls?
Peale
So the republicans have once again taken to negotiating with themselves on a bill that needs democratic support to pass and hoping that when the Democrats vote against it, the Dems will be blamed for not solving the problem that largely exists because they have riled up their base with stories of Muslim rapist gangs in Germany.
kindness
Since neither bill will get 60 votes in the Senate the whole thing is kabukli theater. And why isn’t the press asking why bills have no Democratic support? Where are the Democrats names? That’s what they should be asking if they were serious about this democracy thingy.
EZSmirkzz
You know Betty that most Americans are not steeped in political philosophy so I’m passing along this link to explain our current political state, which is being directed by malevolent actors towards the people of the United States. It makes for great television and news copy. The rain will eventually wash the blood of the ignorant off the street.
http://drcarman.info/horzvlnc.pdf
This isn’t direct at you or any other individual in particular, but all individuals.
The American people are being played and they really need to snap to the fact.
frosty
My rep is just as Teaparty as Mark Meadows. What should I tell him to support? S.3036? Vote against both shitty bills? Impeachment hearings?
Platonailedit
Time magazine cover is calling out the thug.
Betty Cracker
@frosty: Your call will be just as futile as mine since Meadows is the shit-stain who is tussling with Ryan over the even shittier Bill. Neither will pass, but I think it’s worth calling because I want the bastards to know that 1) we see through the Trump EO, which solves nothing, 2) we want an accounting for ALL the stolen kids, 3) American kids in DACA status need a path to citizenship, and 4) no cuts to legal immigration.
Aleta
Aura Bogado Retweeted
Ida Bae Wells @nhannahjones 12h12 hours ago
This is the time when it’s so painfully clear why newsrooms should have hired and need to hire a lot more Latinos and Spanish speakers. Period.
Platonailedit
MelissaM
I have a Trump butt plug, too! Rodney Davis, IL. What a putz. I call and the letters I get in response don’t even match my issue. Ass-licking putz.
Peale
@kindness: I think though that it’s important that these bills get voted on. One so that we finally get the names of these so called “moderate” republicans and can see just how “moderate” they are. Especially since the press likes to portray them as the true compassionate heart and soul of the nation and party. Second, we need a reminder as to what’s really at stake.
TS (the original)
@The Ancient Randonneur:
If this is correct – some of them are in New York
Via LGF and twitter
BREAKING: NYC Mayor DiBlasio confirmed 239 girls separated from their parents were being held at a detention center in E Harlem. The youngest is 9 months old, she’s been there for a MONTH.
He went on to say the only reason he knew about the girls is because it was leaked to him.
Platonailedit
Didn’t the pos promise 5% growth?
John S.
Everyone knows it’s the Democrats’ fault, and the media is lying about it all – just ask Trump. His cult members believe him.
Platonailedit
@John S.: The cult is mindless and far fewer in numbers. Dems need to move their asses in Nov.
harlequingnoll
Best case scenario all girls/babies detained are under media blackout because they are more sympathetic than boys who can be more easily labeled (future gang members)
debit
@John S.: Sinclair Lewis would spit on her. On behalf of my state, I apologize for Mary Reuter, who has shit for brains.
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone ?? ?
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker: My problem is saying all that with out calling them all (including the intern answering the call) soulless black holes of morality in service to an ignorant demented fascist.
John S.
@Platonailedit:
Agreed.
But you kind of have to marvel at the militant ignorance of a Trump supporter who is proud of coming from the hometown of Sinclair Lewis.
A man who is best remembered for It Can’t Happen Here, a novel about the election of a fascist to the American presidency.
Leto
If we don’t demolish all of Trumpov’s buildings, then I suggest this: Spite buildings: when human grudges get architectural – in pictures
schrodingers_cat
Some of the children have been given to an adoption agency called Bethany Christian services run by the Devos family in Michigan.
normal liberal
@MelissaM:
Same here. Calling Rodney a putz is a massive understatement. I wish I thought he was vulnerable in the fall.
gene108
@John S.:
Fox News needs to be first against the wall, when the Revolution comes, along with the rest of right-wing media. The you are evil people, who spread the evil of their masters to the wider public.
schrodingers_cat
@Peale: What is really at stake is the fate of democracy.
schrodingers_cat
@gene108: FWIW its the weaselly MSM lead by the NYT that does more damage.
OzarkHillbilly
@Platonailedit: They haven’t “dynamically scored” the economic numbers yet. Once they do we will all know the true numbers, not this fake news.
John S.
@gene108:
The only thing I can take comfort in with regard to Fox News is that it came about in our lifetime.
Can you imagine if Fox News existed in 1939?
Sure, there were propaganda mills and slanted media outlets back then (Hearst did a pretty good job), but nothing on the scale of Fox News. They have literally created a culture where truth are lies and lies are truth.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Presented for the reading pleasure for your Wingnut relative.
Stephen “More American than thou” Miller’s great grand father failed his naturalization test
https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-aide-stephen-miller-meet-great-grandfather-flunked-naturalization-test-203424658.html
Miller is right, many immigrates are pure scum, as Miller should well know from personal experience.
zhena gogolia
Just saw Kristof’s headline today, something like “Family Separation Isn’t New, but It Is Evil.” Both sides!
Peale
@John S.: yep. Just keep denying the reality of Latino families. I’m
Sure that’ll work well for all parties involved. Only white families exist anyway. Or so I’ve been told that our supposedly strong families in America are the true bedrock of our greatness. As if they don’t exist elsewhere.
frosty
@Betty Cracker: I left a voicemail for Perry (spit): a) I’m angry at what’s happened on the border, b) Trump’s EO will do nothing, c) both house bills are bad and he should co-sponsor S.3036 and d) this has been an abomination and he should start impeachment hearings.
As if.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
There’s nothing I can do, which makes me happy, since it means I’m only represented by Democrats, from the U.S. Senate all the way down to the county board of supervisors. But it also makes me sad because there isn’t anybody I can call to bitch at to get them to change their votes.
EZSmirkzz
Just to be clear, I am 19 years clean from alcohol addiction, and a natural born liar ala John Caare, as he said of himself in an interview I can’t find. I know manipulation, and We the People, are being manipulated. It’s more commonly called divide and conquer, one of the oldest manipulations of rulers in human history. Horizontal violence isn’t rocket science, it’s what we live because it’s who we are. No one has an abundance of time on their hands to study the Enlightenment writers, like the founding fathers did, or The Wealth of Nations, much less Mein Kampf or Das Capital, but everyone sees one everywhere. I doubt even the titans of Wall Street got past the Cliff Notes of Adam Smith’s work or they wouldn’t be as hostile to labor as they are.
I just want to be clear that democratic republics, dictatorships, and democracies are political systems while capitalism. communism and fascism are economic systems, all of which, by hook or crook, diffuse the power of the masses and channel it into the power of the few. Our current state is precisely what the founding fathers feared and abhorred.
I don’t expect anyone including myself to become phd,’s in all of these things, I just want to express my desire that we all quit burning holes through our souls for the benefit of the malevolent who use hatred as their acid.
VOR
I’ve got a Trump butt-plug too, Jason Lewis. He had a long career as a wing-nut radio host and yet somehow his opponent was unable to harvest that record as decent oppo research. One of his initiatives is a plan to cripple the local board, appointed by the Governor, which runs the local transit system. You see, the transit system wants to build another light rail line.
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: Well I expect no better from the Nazi propaganda broadsheet covering the ample ass of our orange emperor without clothes.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@zhena gogolia: Kristof is always guided by his own unfailing righteousness.
rikyrah
WHERE.ARE.THE.GIRLS?!!
WHERE.ARE.THE.BABIES?!!
rikyrah
New CNN poll:
Dems lead on the House generic ballot by 50-42.
Dems have added three points since May.
Dems also hold an enthusiasm edge: 50% of Ds are extremely/very enthusiastic about voting, versus 43% of Rs:https://t.co/CxX7Ygpup7
— Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) June 20, 2018
rikyrah
YOU DON’T THANK THE KIDNAPPER FOR RELEASING THE HOSTAGES https://t.co/ecLSmuiidc
— Dan Pfeiffer (@danpfeiffer) June 20, 2018
rikyrah
I find it entirely fascinating that Ivanka thinks she can just cheerfully motor her way through all this and that her name and brand and reputation and her husband’s reputation and her welcome in polite society the second Daddy departs 1600 Penn aren’t destroyed forever and ever. https://t.co/Tub5TtoLkj
— Susan Hennessey (@Susan_Hennessey) June 20, 2018
Platonailedit
Good to see some lawsuits finally.
JoeyJoeJoe
@normal liberal: Some of the best known election predictors like Larry Sabato and Charlie Cook do have IL-13 as a seat that Democrats could win this year
rikyrah
Americans finding ways to work against Trump immigration policy
Rachel Maddow points out the many ways that Americans are working in different capacities to undercut Donald Trump’s policy of separating migrant children from their parents, whether by politics, business, protest, leaks to the media, or donations to advocacy groups.
rikyrah
DoD agrees to DoJ request for extra lawyers on immigration cases
Rachel Maddow reports exclusive news that the Department of Justice has asked the Pentagon for help processing immigration cases and the DoD has agreed to send active duty JAGs to Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico to serve as special assistant U.S. attorneys.
lowtechcyclist
As I recall, that’s the seat that was stolen from Christine Jennings back in 2006.
hedgehog mobile
@John S.: Fuck the cultists. We cannot reach them.
Aleta
More outrage. (OK to skip.)
Sorry to say, especially after so many grievous reports this last week, I think these stories may need a trigger warning for institutional abuse.
1. AP report
(TW, Physical violence)
Young immigrants detained in Virginia center allege abuse
2. Report by Reveal news organization
About Shiloh Treatment Center, a government contractor (since 2013) south of Houston that houses immigrant minors. Reports date to 2014.
(TW, Psychiatric abuse)
“At Reveal’s request, forensic psychiatrist Mark. J. Mills assessed materials from 420 pages of children’s medical records and statements filed in California federal court this April.
The records were filed in connection with an ongoing class-action status lawsuit alleging poor treatment of immigrant children in U.S. custody. An attorney representing the children said youth separated from their parents often become depressed, angry, anxious (–) and that, in turn, encourages prescription of inappropriate medication. (–) Dosage recommendations at Shiloh gave orderlies what Mills called an unusually wide berth to determine how much medicine to give the children.
(–)
In December 2014, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Houston, called for Shiloh to be shut down, citing reports from the Houston Chronicle of “physical violence, unreasonable and excessive use of physical restraints, administering emergency medications without notice to governmental authorities, and several deaths of minor children while in custody,” she said in a statement.
But the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services continued sending children and funds to Shiloh – a total of more than $19 million after the congresswoman called for its closure, according to federal payment records.
Shiloh has contracted to house immigrant children since 2013. Last year, the most lucrative yet under its agreement, Shiloh collected $5.6 million.”
rikyrah
Trump detaining babies, toddlers breaks from child welfare policy
Garance Burke, national investigative reporter for the Associated Press, talks with Rachel Maddow about “tender age” facilities where the Trump administration is keeping babies and toddlers taken from parents seeking asylum in the U.S., and why the U.S. hasn’t had orphanages for decades.
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: How honorable is Mattis, now?
There were three honorable generals in the cabinet
Guarding our democracy from the Russian stooge
One got fired
And then there were two
One revealed himself to be a white supremacist
And then there was one
One was an enabler
And then there were none
jonas
@rikyrah: If they’re not in jail, I want them to have to sneak out of the country in the dead of the night using some ODETAA ratlines (Organization der ehemaligen Trump Administration Angehörigen) and have to live in Uruguay under assumed identities or something.
rikyrah
Nielsen struggles with Trump immigration policy as protests grow
Rachel Maddow notes a number of protests around the U.S. against Donald Trump’s family separation policy and notes the difficulty HHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen has had defending it to Americans.
rikyrah
Trump migrant family policy adjustment faces overburdened system
Jeh Johnson, former Secretary of Homeland Security, talks with Rachel Maddow about Donald Trump’s adjustment to his migrant family separation policy and how its application is challenged by an already overcrowded system.
rikyrah
Johnson warned Comey on Trump volatility before dossier briefing
Jeh Johnson, former Secretary of Homeland Security, tells Rachel Maddow about concerns he raised with James Comey about how Donald Trump would react to news of the Christopher Steele dossier.
rikyrah
@schrodingers_cat:
TELL IT!!
TELL IT!!
gene108
@John S.:
I think, it would be worse, if Fox News existed in the 1950’s and 1960’s. We would still have segregation and we would still Ben fighting the Vietnam war.
@schrodingers_cat:
The NYT and MSM can be bad, and they fuel people’s cynicism towards politics, but that cynicism has been there for decades. My take is the cynicism really started as a backlash to Watergate and “losing” the Vietnam war. And has just been exploited by Republicans
Basically, the MSM and NYT, are composed of people, who either came of age during Watergate or have known nothing else but cynicism towards the government, regardless of who is in charge. They are bad, most of the time, but it is as much due to a symptom of the greater “spirit of the times” we live in, than a deliberate desire to be the mouth piece of evil.
Right-wing media, on the other hand, exists solely to sway the swayable, like Ms. Reuters, that their beloved Republicans are doing nothing wrong. They convince their listeners, readers, and viewers that blame always rests with Democrats and/or the victims, so having a rational argument with right-wing media consumers becomes impossible. There is no outrage, crime, or traitorous action Republicans can do that will cause their voters to turn against them, because right-wing media will find a way to justify it.
You can argue with people, who take the NYT’s seriously, and help them see the error of their ways sometimes. Folks like Ms. Reuters are beyond reason, because of right-wing media. And there are millions of Ms. Reuters out there.
Leto
Add to the ever growing petulant man-child list: Ian Bremmer: Trump tossed candy to Merkel at G-7, said ‘don’t say I never give you anything’
TLDR:
Yarrow
Good morning, everyone. Where’s Anne Laurie? No late night thread and no morning thread. Did she say she was not going to be posting?
Yarrow
@schrodingers_cat:
Yes. This.
Ohio Mom
I just talked to one intern from one of my Rep’s offices, and two from two of Portman’s (whose ongoing causes include chid trafficking, ironically enough). That’s it for today. I have to refocus on some small family fires and I find these calls very discombobulating.
I started each call out with an old family story. After my uncle finished serving in WWII, he went to college in upstate NY. He went home to the Bronx on a break and for reasons only a twenty-something young man can fathom, he decided to enter the apartment via the fire escape.
When he opened the kitchen window as climbed in, instead of my grandmother, there stood a short man with bright red haired who only spoke Hungarian.
Neither one knew what to make of the other but fortunately my uncle remembered enough of his childhood Hungarian to introduce himself.
The redhead was my grandmother’s brother’s son — or put another way, my uncle’s cousin Sam. As a Holocaust survivor, he had been brought from a European displaced persons camp to the Weiss apartment by the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society.
I told those sullen young interns that if the HIAS could get Sam to his family back in those days, the United States, the richest, most advanced nation in the history of the world, armed with the internet, the phone system, easy photography, DNA, a wealth of translators and a robust transportation system, could get those 2,000+ children back in their parents’ arms ASAP.
I like to think stories like mine might capture those young whippersnappers’ attention but today I could tell that with two of them, I was kidding myself. They were empty, hollow pyscopaths with good manners.
Leto
@schrodingers_cat: Add to this that on Maddow last night, she reported that the DoJ requested from DoD active duty military JAGs (lawyers) be sent to 5 boarder towns to act as immigration prosecution lawyers. DoD approved that request. I’m fairly certain Mattis would have needed to approve that request. We have 21 AD JAGs being sent for 179 days to be immigration prosecution lawyers who have no training in this area (immigration). This is on top of having kids being detained on military bases. Everything, everything Trump touches turns to shit. Every part of the government is being corrupted.
Dorothy Winsor
@Leto: If I’m the Starburst PR person, I’m now holding my head.
OTOH, I’m considering shipping hundreds of the things to the Trump family.
schrodingers_cat
@Leto: Mattis is complicit, then. That the generals would save us, was always a fairy tale.
Ksmiami
@gene108 props to them they always said liberals were full of hate and they got their wish. I want them utterly destroyed
Yarrow
@Dorothy Winsor: Send nothing to the Trump family but your disdain.
If you want to send something to someone, buy Starbursts’ competitors’ products and send them to another place–a homeless shelter, a Boys and Girls Club, a local organization for low income families, perhaps. Then contact the Starbursts company and tell them what you’ve done. Tell them Trump destroys everything he comes into contact with and you will no longer be buying their product until they disavow it being used by the president to disgrace the United States.
Make them own it. Sure, they didn’t choose for Trump to use their candy. Too bad. We (those of us who didn’t vote for him) didn’t choose him to be our president, but there he is disgracing all of us. Destroying our country. Everyone, all companies he’s connected to, all products he prefers, need to pay a price for that connection. Make being connected to him impossible for companies to support. It should be already.
The Ancient Randonneur
@Leto:
They probably found some government lawyer who gave them a pretzel logic opinion that it wasn’t a violation of Posse Comitatus.
Gelfling 545
@John S.: She shpuld be inundated with copies of the book. I’m presuming she can read.
Spanky
Because someone sat and thought “Hmmmm, how could I make the govt work against its own citizens even more?”
Anyone who has worked in the corporate world knows how this would turn out … if he could ever pull it off.
Leto
@Dorothy Winsor: Remember Kevin McCarthy, Leader of the House Cockwaffle Caucus, gave Trumpov a bag of only pink and red Starbursts back in January? Had an aide pick out just those colors so he could present it to dear leader himself. Fucking shitbirds.
@The Ancient Randonneur: Yeah, I thought of that too. I would hope all 21 would resign their commission, but I also hope for my home in SC to burn down, my wife’s eternal student debt to be gone, and to be able to run a 5 minute mile.
rikyrah
This woman was deemed ‘ too qualified’ to volunteer at a shelter.
THREAD
https://twitter.com/nursegalmom/status/1009602217765163008
Steve in the ATL
@Platonailedit: Time magazine has been great under new editor Ed Felsenthal, Memphis University School class of 1984. I like to think that I was a mentor to him on the Owl’s Hoot, our school newspaper, except that he was older and smarter and was a better writer.
Leto
@Spanky: I do have to ask, is this something the executive branch can unilaterally do, or does this require Congressional approval? For the Buzz Lightyear force he wants to create, that requires Congressional approval. But for this?
Spanky
@Leto: Details are for the little people.
rikyrah
BREAKING
Sara Netanyahu indicted!
— Anshel Pfeffer (@AnshelPfeffer) June 21, 2018
Yarrow
This story keeps churning along.
Waiting for Bibi’s turn.
lgerard
An actual interesting article on Yahoo
Trump aide Stephen Miller, meet your great-grandfather, who flunked his naturalization test
Yarrow
Our media is so oblivious to who these people are. Glad she’s waking up, but why did it take this horror show to make that happen?
OzarkHillbilly
Heh:
rikyrah
THE LAST WORD WITH LAWRENCE O’DONNELL 6/20/18
Lawyer named in Trump executive order responds
The President’s executive action orders Jeff Sessions to challenge a court order that prevents the actions that are actually included in the President’s Executive order! One of the lawyers Sessions now has to challenge explains that families could end up jailed on military bases. Lawyer Peter Schey, tells Lawrence how he will respond in court to Sessions and Trump.
Yarrow
This story got buried by the horror of the children separation story. Republicans like that. They’ll use that story as cover. If you’re calling your reps, let them know you’re watching them on this issue as well. We have to stop them.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Yarrow: In fairness, Soledad O’Brien has been speaking out pretty strongly for a while now, I’m guessing since she left CNN, but TBH I don’t follow her that closely, or on twitter. But she left the Village in her review mirror.
chopper
@Yarrow:
i just keep wondering what the fuck summer camps these people went to as kids. it’s like when the abuse at abu ghraib came out and limbaugh was all ‘it’s like being hazed at a fraternity’. ffs.
FlipYrWhig
@Yarrow: Good for her, though it’s like nails on a chalkboard to me for a journalist to say “comfortability” instead of the perfectly good “comfort.”
rikyrah
@Yarrow:
They never ever deserve the benefit of the doubt.
Leto
@Spanky: Agreed, which is why we’re seeing military lawyers being drafted in to do immigration prosecution. But I’m wondering if he can just sign an executive order stating, “I’m merging DoL and DoE. Done!”, or does this require Congress to pass legislation authorizing it to happen? If he does it via EO then it really will be a shit show of epic proportions. If it has to be done via Congress (ala Buzz Lightyear) then it stands a much better chance of never happening.
Edit: words are hard.
Dorothy Winsor
I’m listening to MSNBC from last night. You know how networks blur out visuals they think are obscene and bleep out audio? I want something that will blur and bleep Trump.
Platonailedit
@Steve in the ATL:
Congrats. Looks like he did turn out fine.
Platonailedit
@Yarrow: As corrupt as her husband. What a team.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Dorothy Winsor: Maddow has said in the last couple of weeks that she avoids playing any video or audio of trump. I forget exactly how she phrased it, but pretty much that it adds nothing to any actual discussion
The Moar You Know
@OzarkHillbilly: That’s very smart. Vegas wouldn’t let him put gaming machines into Trump Las Vegas for those reasons (and probably some folks from Atlantic City had some shit to say about it as well). Only place in Vegas with no machines.
He’s good at finding people’s vulnerabilities. Let’s find his and start hitting him where it hurts.
benused
@John S.:
I just watched the msnbc rally clip on Rawstory woman crying that trump tries so hard. As a northern Minnesotan, I can only say they are Minnesota’s “best” people who fall for trump, our share of dolts. It’s bad enough to watch these dipshits from all over the country but that these people are living in a bluer state with a lot of services that they take for granted and I wish they’d all move to some confederate state.
JPL
@rikyrah: Every time I hear tender age facility, I truly want to hit something.
rikyrah
They have the nerve to turn down help?
https://twitter.com/MarkLGoldberg/status/1009646429898326021
cain
It seems that Republicans have gone to war with the rest of us. Cuts to the social net, institutions breaking down, grift everywhere and then stealing of children.
OzarkHillbilly
@Dorothy Winsor: I have one of those. It’s called the “on/off” button.
schrodingers_cat
@JPL: Its an orphanage for children who aren’t orphans.
Leto
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I think she said, “I’m not showing, or listening to, that fucking liar on my show.” Though I’m probably not remembering that correctly as I know she doesn’t cuss, but she has continually called him a liar.
rikyrah
@JPL:
It’s a BABY PRISON.
Phuck that Frank Luntz -approved language.
BABY PRISON.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@benused: I saw the other day that Pawlenty is running for gov as a trumpist. I was a bit surprised, wasn’t he one of the great moderate hopes of the Beltway back in the day?
JPL
@Dorothy Winsor: That’s what I thought after seeing that yesterday morning. Mail him starburst wrappers.
Proudgradofcatladyacademy
@John S.:
I am until 7 days from now from Duluth, MN and enraged at this community that they filled up the larger arena with Northern fascists. Proud of the protesters though! I hate I wasn’t there with my protestor community and riendsbut I seriously need to focus on my recovery and leaving here in seven days for good. This time the life saved has got to be mine so I can be around to help more people later.
However I realized something after moving back here 10 years ago, Duluth was never as liberal as we thought we were, and Minnesota nice actually is masquerading as passive-aggressiveness cloaking white hot anger over how privileged white people get screwed when it comes to politics. It’s sad because people here and on the Iron Range forget how much “dirty hippie commie socialist ideas” back in the 1900s actually got them unions and other vast improvements they take for granted now. Like good healthcare and immigrant worker protections for Finnish miners.
JPL
@Yarrow: The Washington Post had an article about the budget cuts.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2018/06/19/house-gop-plan-would-cut-medicare-social-security-to-balance-budget/?utm_term=.35009d102a75
JPL
@rikyrah: That is exactly what I call it.
JPL
@Proudgradofcatladyacademy: How many protesters were there?
burnspbesq
Good read.
https://www.justsecurity.org/58269/zero-tolerance-detention-children-torture-international-law/
Money quote:
hitchhiker
This must have been said here on the blog in the last couple of days — repeating for emphasis.
Go watch the last episode of The Handmaid’s Tale if you want a dramatization of what it looks like when a loving parent is forced to hand over a child.
Even if you’re not up to speed on the show, even if you don’t like television, even if it squeebs you out to know that Elizabeth Moss is a Scientologist … the second half of that show is just shattering, and so weird to watch during this of all weeks, knowing that it was filmed many months ago.
zhena gogolia
A friend of mine here was just saying that her 20-something daughter (of whom I’ve never heard anything to indicate that she’s political) has been screaming, “It’s the holocaust! It’s the holocaust!” and playing her the audio of the children crying. I think perhaps this story is reaching people who aren’t political junkies. I pray fervently that that translates into votes.
zhena gogolia
@Yarrow:
Soledad O’Brien has always been good.
gvg
@Yarrow: No. this is a silly waste of our time when serious things aren’t getting addressed because of the volume of shit happening. Starbursts didn’t ask for this and didn’t do anything to attract the idiots attention. they were just unlucky. I’ve got more important things to boycott.
J R in WV
@TS (the original):
He needs to get with a judge and a police commander, get a wide open search warrant, and go bust that place wide open, with the intent to arrest everyone there if they don’t have the proper papers for every child present, with IDs of the parent for each child.
Then go for the owners of the facility, and jail them for child abuse as well. Then get them to squeal on their federal contacts, and go for them. Everyone in NY State at least. and Issue bench warrants for the arrest of those NOT in NY state up to Reischleiter Neilsen in DC.
That would bust this scam wide open, and until someone does this it will continue to be our secret sin.
benused
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Isn’t that the only way for a republican to run for office now, try to pass as a trumper?
Platonailedit
@Yarrow: I have watched Soledad and she never gave me the impression of being a bw hack.
benused
@Proudgradofcatladyacademy:
Yes, it’s been heartbreaking to see pretty decent people come out as a lot more racist and callous hearted since trump came on the scene. That’s what several decades of listening to wingnut media will do to susceptible brains. The rightwingers here separate their immigrant ancestors from today’s brown and middle eastern immigrants, those not lily white into the hardworking, responsible immigrants who learned English and “blended” in vs today’s “others” who supposedly are lazy, won’t learn English and refuse to assimilate. All wrong. They forget the discrimination in the old days against Irish and in MN, the darker European immigrants. Rewriting history in fairy tales.
VeniceRiley
@J R in WV: I hope they get Underwood on that immediately. I have great faith in her abilities as NY AG.
Citizen Alan
@John S.:
I’ve said for years that a Fox News had existed in the 1930s, we will be a fascist white supremacist dictatorship to this day, and the non-white percentage of u.s. citizens would be a fraction of what it is today. Just enough blacks, Hispanics, and Asians to provide slave labor in the service economy, and that’s it.
Cckids
@OzarkHillbilly: I know I’m very late here, but never forget: When Trump was opening his hotel in Vegas, the NV Gaming Commission WOULDN’T GIVE HIM A LICENSE. That’s why it doesn’t have a cas1no. Not the BS excuses he gives. He was considered to be a person of such poor character that he didn’t qualify for a license. Think on that.
MCA1
@John S.: Point well taken on the almost absurd contrast of this woman’s “perspective” coming from the hometown of Sinclair Lewis. Pedantic point – I think the author is far more well-remembered for Main Street (and maybe even Elmer Gantry and/or Babbitt) than for It Can’t Happen Here.
Seconding the notes of other Minne ex-pats and residents here, that it’s shameful to see my home state, which had perhaps the strongest rural area/Democratic and progressive politics alliance in America for most of the 20th century, harboring a measurable number of these shitstain Drumpfenproletariat. These people have now hived themselves off into the same reductionist Fox-only bubble of resentment and revanchism as rural folks in most of the rest of the country. No sense of history, anti-intellectual, anti-progress, anti-pluralism, despite no actual exposure to any of those things. The social contract is broken in this country if people from f’ing Sauk Center, Minnesota can’t be made to care about their fellow man.
MCA1
On a brighter note, I do have a hopeful feeling about some of the everyman reactions I’m seeing to the child separation shitshow. I’ve heard a lot more people than I would have expected outside the confines of this blog saying one of (a) Trump created this fake crisis, why should he get any credit for cleaning it up? or (b) There’s no need for an Executive Order – all he has to do is make a phone call to stop it!
Like, maybe there’s a sufficient proportion of the population, among the 80% of people who really can’t be bothered to pay attention to government and politics, that’s awakened to the realization that the emperor wears no clothes. Just need to get those people to the voting booth this Fall.
Marcopolo
@MelissaM: Hey, in case you see this, I hope you’ve volunteered for Betsy Londrigan. Davis is beatable in Nov if the wave is strong enough and she’d do a great job representing you.
No One You Know
@rikyrah: What I don’t understand is why she has that much time. How is she any more repugnant after Daddy leaves the White House? Haven’t both “first ‘ladies'” made themself as loathsome as possible already?