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You are here: Home / Politics / Activist Judges! / Thursday Morning Open Thread: Ratify the ERA

Thursday Morning Open Thread: Ratify the ERA

by Anne Laurie|  June 28, 20185:06 am| 164 Comments

This post is in: Activist Judges!, Don't Mourn, Organize, Open Threads, Women's Rights Are Human Rights, All we want is life beyond the thunderdome

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Back at the end of May, Illinois became the thirty-seventh state to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment. (Thirty-eight states are required for ratification.) Even though I didn’t post about it at the time, events of the past few weeks have confirmed my conviction that embedding the ERA in the Constitution is one of our best weapons against the creeping authoritarianism of the revanchist GOP and its dishonest brokers in all three branches of government. And I’m not alone!

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in 2014 remarks at the National Press Club said if she could choose any amendment to add to the US Constitution, it would be the Equal Rights Amendment. “I think we have achieved that through legislation, but legislation can be repealed, it can be altered,” Ginsburg continued. “So I would like my granddaughters, when they pick up the Constitution, to see that notion — that women and men are persons of equal stature — I’d like them to see that is a basic principle of our society.”

It will probably not come as a surprise that the states which have so far failed to ratify are those of the Confederacy, plus Utah and Arizona. That doesn’t mean any of these states are unflippable, not even Arkansas (hello, Senator Doug Jones) or Georgia. The original 1970s impetus to revive the ERA — which, it should be remembered, was first proposed in 1923 — was vitiated by a series of state-level legal and social changes. But Anthony Kennedy’s retirement, and the Reichtwing jubilation greeting the Oval Office Occupant’s chance to steal another seat on the Supreme Court, make it clear that the ERA is every bit as essential to our continued existence as a free nation as the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments. Without protection at the highest level, our rights to equal protection will never be more than provisional.

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Previous Post: « On the Road and In Your Backyard
Next Post: Thursday: The End Of The Beginning »

Reader Interactions

164Comments

  1. 1.

    Quinerly

    June 28, 2018 at 5:10 am

    We are living in a nightmare.

  2. 2.

    Quinerly

    June 28, 2018 at 5:11 am

    We are living in a nightmare.

  3. 3.

    SiubhanDuinne

    June 28, 2018 at 5:11 am

    Senator Doug Jones is from Alabama, not Arkansas.

    Good morning, everyone ?

  4. 4.

    Citizen Alan

    June 28, 2018 at 5:12 am

    Can the era be ratified at this point? My understanding was that there was a time limit that has since run out. But I’m happy to be shown wrong.

    In other news, the still refuses to Remember My Name and email.

  5. 5.

    Quinerly

    June 28, 2018 at 5:13 am

    @SiubhanDuinne: Good morning. I have slept less than an hr.

  6. 6.

    rikyrah

    June 28, 2018 at 5:19 am

    Good Morning , Everyone ???

  7. 7.

    rikyrah

    June 28, 2018 at 5:19 am

    @Quinerly:
    Morning to Poco and the tribe ??

  8. 8.

    rikyrah

    June 28, 2018 at 5:21 am

    @Quinerly:
    Can’t disagree with you. Especially since it didn’t have to be this way.?

  9. 9.

    SiubhanDuinne

    June 28, 2018 at 5:21 am

    @Quinerly:

    I am going back to bed and see if I can get a little more sleep. Can’t function on many more of these insomnia-laden nights. We need all our wits about us. Good luck.

  10. 10.

    JPL

    June 28, 2018 at 5:23 am

    @Quinerly: I slept four times longer than you! All I know is that I want the bastard gone.

  11. 11.

    Bruuuuce

    June 28, 2018 at 5:27 am

    I have no doubt that if the ERA 8s ratified, the Dunce-in-Chief would demand that SCOTUS find it unconstitutional

  12. 12.

    JPL

    June 28, 2018 at 5:27 am

    @SiubhanDuinne: The March for our Lives “Road to Change” kids are going to be in Roswell and Sandy Springs on 7/30. There isn’t more information released yet, when I hear more, I will let you know.

  13. 13.

    JPL

    June 28, 2018 at 5:28 am

    @Citizen Alan: I read that also.

  14. 14.

    Barbara

    June 28, 2018 at 5:47 am

    When I read about ERA now I feel like I just ran into an old boyfriend I once had a passionate relationship with. I am not sure how much emotional energy should be spent keeping up. Our system has become sick and decrepit. It all comes back to voting. Will be volunteering on Monday.

  15. 15.

    Chet

    June 28, 2018 at 5:56 am

    @Citizen Alan:

    There is some debate about whether the time limit on ratifying the ERA is constitutional. When this story about Illinois came out, I read the Wikipedia article and found it informative.

  16. 16.

    SiubhanDuinne

    June 28, 2018 at 5:58 am

    @JPL:

    Oh, thanks! I was wondering when they were coming here!

  17. 17.

    Quinerly

    June 28, 2018 at 6:01 am

    @SiubhanDuinne: The only thing that saved me yesterday was my very kind (but apolitical) retired Boeing electrician. He is helping me at $20/hr on some wiring that a “friend” fucked up on this little apartment I’m putting in my lower level walk out. He’s also finishing the job since I fired this fucking friend. I took a little break, glanced at my news feed and saw the Kennedy news. I couldn’t “blow” in front of him so I had to remain calm for several hours and stay focused on pulling wire and helping him. That remaining calm during the day took its toll last night, though.

  18. 18.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    June 28, 2018 at 6:03 am

    “what concerns me is that you have many white working class people who are voting against their own best interest. These are guys getting hung up on gay marriage issues, they`re getting hung up on
    ABORTION ISSUES and it is time we started focusing on the economic issues that bring us together, defending Social Security, defending Medicare, making sure that Medicaid is not cut, the veterans programs are not cut.”

    Wilmer, October 2013

    Wilmer’s dream finally came true. He won’t have women pestering him about reproduction rights anymore. He can concentrate fully on his precious WWC

  19. 19.

    satby

    June 28, 2018 at 6:03 am

    Ironic how we have to keep fighting battles already won once.
    So many Gen X and millennials just can’t imagine a world without easily available birth control, for example. I’ve been telling them for years that the anti-choice folks were gunning for reversing Griswold and they treated me like I was talking about getting kidnapped by space aliens. They still don’t believe it, though seeing it discussed on the news gives them pause.
    Let’s see if they start to get a clue this November.

  20. 20.

    Quinerly

    June 28, 2018 at 6:05 am

    Meanwhile…… https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/dont-miss-this-9

  21. 21.

    Amir Khalid

    June 28, 2018 at 6:06 am

    @Quinerly:
    You can say that again.

  22. 22.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    June 28, 2018 at 6:08 am

    Annie Linskey
    ‏Verified account @AnnieLinskey
    11h11 hours ago

    Bernie Sanders at a book party in DC says “in many ways we did win the election.”

    2,189 replies 313 retweets 751 likes

    He claimed victory on the night when the end of fundamental women’s rights became a fait accompli.

  23. 23.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    June 28, 2018 at 6:10 am

    @Citizen Alan:

    The original deadline was March 22, 1979. That was later extended to June 30, 1982. Wikipedia says that therefore it is unclear whether Nevada’s ratification in 2017 and Illinois’s in 2018 are legal. Probably awaits a court test.

  24. 24.

    Barbara

    June 28, 2018 at 6:11 am

    @Quinerly: Bolton is now Putin’s puppet’s puppet. I guess it’s better than war with NK.

  25. 25.

    OzarkHillbilly

    June 28, 2018 at 6:18 am

    @Quinerly: Putin, grabbing us by the pu$$y.

  26. 26.

    SiubhanDuinne

    June 28, 2018 at 6:21 am

    @Quinerly:

    I went to see West Side Story on the big screen yesterday. Saw the Kennedy news when I checked BJ during intermission. Similarly, I couldn’t allow myself to lose it at the theatre, but you’re right, it plays out in badly disrupted sleep patterns.

  27. 27.

    satby

    June 28, 2018 at 6:21 am

    @Steeplejack (phone): a court test with the current SCOTUS will invalidate the last two ratifications. Even if stare decisis dictates otherwise; maybe especially if it does.

  28. 28.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    June 28, 2018 at 6:23 am

    @satby: I told the kid once that they’ll come after birth control, she said “they won’t really do that”. The hell they won’t.

  29. 29.

    BlueDWarrior

    June 28, 2018 at 6:30 am

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: They are looking to erase all the Progressiveness that has come from anything for the last 120+ years.

    They won’t stop until their idea of a proper chokingly conservative world comes to furition, and if they have to beat progress down with the arm of the State, then they will.

    So anyone on the side of continued progress, as halting as it is, need to take stock and assess to figure out what we are going to do not only tommorow, but next year, the next 5 years, the next 10, the next 20, the next 40, etc etc.

    We didn’t get here in 18 months, it’s taken the Right-Wing 50+ years since Brown to create these conditions, and maybe it will take longer to right the ship, maybe shorter. But the one thing we can’t do is say “It’s all fucked, where’s the meteor”.

    Because at that point, they truly have won. They don’t truly win until they break us and we give up. Lord knows they didn’t quit after Brown, the VRA, Medicare, the Civil Rights legislation in general, Roe, and so on were decided. So if they do get the chance to overturn it, then we steel ourselves to put it right back.

    If the public wants political war where things whipsaw back and forth depending on who is sitting in the chair at any given time, well… a wiser man once said “now is a time for choosing”, they had better get to choosing what world they are gonna live in instead of just coasting on the inertia created.

  30. 30.

    MagdaInBlack

    June 28, 2018 at 6:32 am

    I am not sure which makes me more angry/depressed : the current state of our country or the people around me that are absolutely F’ing oblivious. I feel as if I’m over-reacting because no one I know is even aware.
    How the ever luvin F can you be unaware?

    With regard to the topic, I was HS age first time around and the arguments against were every bit as ridiculous as yould expect : OMG women will be drafted etc.
    Now I hear how we dont need this. IGMFU oblivious….as always.

    I am adrift in a sea of stupid.

  31. 31.

    JPL

    June 28, 2018 at 6:33 am

    Where’s Ozark? Whoops, he is here. My comments aren’t updating again, unless I leave a message.

  32. 32.

    BlueDWarrior

    June 28, 2018 at 6:35 am

    @MagdaInBlack: People want to be oblivious because knowledge is a burden. They don’t want to know because if they knew, then they would feel compelled to do something about it.

    Yes it’s terribly childlike and completely detrimental to the progression of a democratically-derived form of self-government, but we go to election with the polity we have, not the one we wish we had.

  33. 33.

    MomSense

    June 28, 2018 at 6:39 am

    @Quinerly:

    I was so upset and I think put all that fretting into obsessively working on my knitting project until it was finished. My youngest was playing his guitar. He’s learning Boots of Spanish Leather and listening to him learn a song I associate with my hippie childhood was very comforting. I stayed up very late but did manage to sleep.

    This feels like a coup.

  34. 34.

    MomSense

    June 28, 2018 at 6:43 am

    @Quinerly:

    Like I said, a coup.

  35. 35.

    Platonailedit

    June 28, 2018 at 6:43 am

    I seriously doubt women voting for dems if their senators bow to the fugly thug on the next sc nominee. Make a stand at least now, senators.

  36. 36.

    JPL

    June 28, 2018 at 6:46 am

    When religious liberty passes, how many gays will be turned away from inns? No room at the inn for you.

  37. 37.

    SenyorDave

    June 28, 2018 at 6:46 am

    Meanwhile, here’s a depressing story out of Florida:

    This week, new polling data shows why Scott’s decision to offer Trump public birthday wishes may be viewed favorably in his home state: Among likely voters, Trump’s approval rating has risen to 53 percent, a CBS News poll found. In that same poll, Scott tops Nelson by 46 percent to 41 percent, but an NBC News/Marist survey released a day earlier had Nelson leading 49 percent to 45 percent.

    How the fuck could 53% of any group of people approve of Trump? What the fuck is wrong with this country? Other than praying for him to stroke out while on the toilet, it should be impossible for more than 50% of people coming together on anything regarding Trump.

    I’ve come to the conclusion that Mueller is our only hope, because its obvious that if Trump officially surrendered the country to Putin at least 40% of the people in this country would cheer him on.

  38. 38.

    satby

    June 28, 2018 at 6:50 am

    @Platonailedit: yeah because the alternative is what, exactly? There’s one sane political party in this country, the third party spoilers won’t amount to anything.
    Other than help Republicans entrench further that is.

    @David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: Wilmer was a willing stooge for Putin too. He and the orange festering boil are overdue for dropping dead.

  39. 39.

    JPL

    June 28, 2018 at 6:52 am

    @Platonailedit: If I lived in ND, or IN I’d vote dem no matter what. The alternative is worse.

  40. 40.

    Schlemazel

    June 28, 2018 at 6:57 am

    There was a 7 year time limit on ERA. Passing it now is like peeing yourself. Sure, it makes you feel warm but it is not particularly helpful. We would need to start again and thanks to the efforts of the Kochs and people like them the GOP controls more states now than in the 70s and the GOP is hardened even more against it.

    Votes like this remind be of the Tom Lehrer song, “Folk Song Army”

    Remember the war against Franco, A war where each of us belongs.
    They may have won all the battle, but we had all the good songs!

  41. 41.

    The Thin Black Duke

    June 28, 2018 at 6:57 am

    What happens in November is going let all of us know what kind of America people want to live in. No time for bullshit, folks, because this is our last shot.

  42. 42.

    Soprano2

    June 28, 2018 at 7:00 am

    I just heard a woman from some right-wing organization lying her ass off on “Morning Edition”. “No, we aren’t anticipating repeal of Roe, that’s fearmongering”, she lied. “No, we don’t think gay marriage will be revisited”, she lied. As you can imagine, there was barely any pushback on it. “We want a qualified candidate, blah blah blah”, and “Gorsuch is most like Kennedy”. They’ve sure got their talking points ready, and don’t get challenged much.

    I didn’t sleep well last night, either.

    Fuck Wilmer sideways with a rusty chainsaw. In what way does he think “we” won? Asshole.

    Today we’re doing “Day of Caring” which is a United Way thing where we get paid by our employer to do charitable work. It was moved from August to try to avoid really hot days, but it’s going to be 95 degrees today! This week sucks…..

  43. 43.

    Schlemazel

    June 28, 2018 at 7:00 am

    @JPL:
    I just noticed that too. That is a real oddity. The not remembering me is understandable but I even left the thread and came back in but comments didn’t update – that is weird

  44. 44.

    Quinerly

    June 28, 2018 at 7:02 am

    Thanks for the reply comments. I’m watering my courtyard and will check back in later. Because I love the morning crew, I’m giving you this this morning. Hope you love it as much as I do. I’m having trouble with links. If the link doesn’t paste properly, someone please fix it. More to come in a bit. https://youtu.be/y0O8YHi-vAI

  45. 45.

    BlueDWarrior

    June 28, 2018 at 7:02 am

    @SenyorDave: Remember, Republicans were with Nixon until right as the Impeachment proceedings were coming to conclusion to ‘indict’ him. Republicans were with Reagan until Iran-Contra and they started getting squishy on him (hence the years long rehabilitation of his image amongst the center-right and far right). Republicans were with Bush 43 until Katrina happened and Iraq turned so sour no one could deny it anymore. Republicans will be with Trump until he gets a ‘loser’ stink about him, maybe from these mid-terms, maybe from failing on something else.

    It’s just who Republicans are, they fall in line with the leader until the leader loses their faith, at which point they fall in line behind someone else who can claim successorship.

  46. 46.

    JPL

    June 28, 2018 at 7:05 am

    @Schlemazel: I’m on Windows 7 and use google chrome. I tried on firefox, but firefox is slow on my computer.

  47. 47.

    rikyrah

    June 28, 2018 at 7:06 am

    Just a reminder of what is at stake

    https://twitter.com/lynnv378/status/1012037042086309889

  48. 48.

    Jeffro

    June 28, 2018 at 7:16 am

    @BlueDWarrior: thank you (seriously). We are still 4+ months out from the midterms, folks, and the actual data from all these races and primaries shows that Dems are energized and ready to vote against anything with an R next to its name. No reason to coast of course, but let’s do everything we can do – register folks, organize, donate, beat on the media, write an op-ed – and keep the faith!*

    (*yes, Twitter Dick Nixon is rubbing off on me, why do you ask? =)

    I’m off to go swim laps for an hour. Consider taking a walk or whatever else starts your morning off right/eases the stress we’re all under. It’s a marathon, not a sprint, as they say.

  49. 49.

    BlueDWarrior

    June 28, 2018 at 7:17 am

    @rikyrah: Like I said earlier: you can set the list at “Anything that has happened since Reconstruction that wasn’t a Constitutional Amendment and can in any way be construed as being ‘liberal’.”

    ‘They’ want the future to be Handmaid’s Tale for the poor, and Shadowrun or Snow Crash for the ‘wealthy’.

    [Insert your favorite other combinations of overly-religious and overly-corporate dystopias here…]

  50. 50.

    Luthe

    June 28, 2018 at 7:22 am

    @Steeplejack (phone): I would wonder if the deadlines themselves were Constitutional, considering the amendment about a sitting Congress not being allowed to vote itself a pay increase languished for 100+ years before being ratified by enough states.

  51. 51.

    Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism

    June 28, 2018 at 7:24 am

    @rikyrah: Yup. I was in too much shock yesterday to process it quite that far, but the alarm bells for Brown were ringing in my head at about 2 this morning.

    Losing the right to privacy would kill Lawrence, too.

  52. 52.

    debbie

    June 28, 2018 at 7:24 am

    Pompeo cancels next week’s meeting with reps from India. Could this mean all the eggs are going into Putin’s basket?

  53. 53.

    Quinerly

    June 28, 2018 at 7:26 am

    @MomSense: It is a coup. It just picked up steam.

  54. 54.

    Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism

    June 28, 2018 at 7:28 am

    BTW, we’re losing our nyms because the cookies are set to expire after 30 minutes. I’m experimenting with manually setting a longer expiration.

  55. 55.

    Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism

    June 28, 2018 at 7:28 am

    Nope. Posting resets the expiration date.

    Fewmets.

  56. 56.

    BlueDWarrior

    June 28, 2018 at 7:29 am

    @Quinerly: Hrm, I want to quibble with the particular usage of the word ‘coup’, but I cannot think of a better word to describe “one governing party that just unilaterally decides to ignore any power or rights of the other governing party(ies).”

    Even if it’s not technically a coup d’etat, it will function all the same.

  57. 57.

    Dorothy Winsor

    June 28, 2018 at 7:30 am

    @Platonailedit: I don’t understand this. Of course I’ll vote Democratic. They’re the best alternative available to me. Can they be better? Sure. But this is reality.

  58. 58.

    Matt McIrvin

    June 28, 2018 at 7:30 am

    @MagdaInBlack: Just as with trans rights, I remember people flipping out about bathrooms. OMG, if there’s an ERA we’ll all have to pee in the same room. End of the world!

  59. 59.

    daveNYC

    June 28, 2018 at 7:33 am

    @BlueDWarrior:

    Republicans will be with Trump until he gets a ‘loser’ stink about him, maybe from these mid-terms, maybe from failing on something else.

    I can’t think of anything that would cause Republicans to completely abandon Trump. Even the baby snatching didn’t crash his support, and now that’s been moved off the front page to make way for Trump getting another nominee on the Supreme Court.

  60. 60.

    Quinerly

    June 28, 2018 at 7:35 am

    Speaking of a coup. And don’t bitch at me b/c it’s a Slate piece.? We are all in this together: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/06/the-people-and-institutions-that-were-supposed-to-constrain-trump-are-failing-us.html

  61. 61.

    BlueDWarrior

    June 28, 2018 at 7:36 am

    @Dorothy Winsor: Sometimes I think there are too many people on the nominal left that wants to live in as rich a fantasy land as many of our ‘brethren’ on the right. Hence all this kvetching about how the Democrats could have a permanent majority of 60+ Senators and 230+ Representatives if they only just did ‘this’ or ‘that’.

    People have to learn that nothing is permanent; and everything you do, no matter how right you think it is, will produce a backlash. The question is being able to blunt the backlash and proceed along with progress anyway. I think that’s where the left, if I have to fault it somewhere in the Obama years, failed. It didn’t know how to deal with the ‘counter-revolution’, if we want to call Obama’s election a revolution.

    Well, we’re going to have to figure out how to deal with it, or start talking about how to balkanize the big urban states into pseudo-nations while the rest of the country goes to pot under unquestioned Republican rule.

  62. 62.

    rikyrah

    June 28, 2018 at 7:36 am

    Uh huh

    Joy Reid (@JoyAnnReid) Tweeted:
    RT @ABCPolitics: ANALYSIS: Justice Anthony Kennedy’s retirement could have the biggest impact on abortion and gay marriage https://t.co/AJU… https://twitter.com/ABCPolitics/status/1012290023859900416?s=17

  63. 63.

    rikyrah

    June 28, 2018 at 7:38 am

    Joy Reid (@JoyAnnReid) Tweeted:
    RT @NormOrnstein: Anthony Kennedy has now cemented his legacy. Not as a “centrist” or “swing vote.” As a partisan Republican who single-han… https://twitter.com/NormOrnstein/status/1012042190393151488?s=17

  64. 64.

    NotMax

    June 28, 2018 at 7:40 am

    As it’s an open thread and as I’m in no mood to ponder politics at 1:40 in the a.m., do we really need cauliflower pretzels?

    (Went and looked up the ingredients on those, BTW, and what most stood out was a surfeit of salt.)

  65. 65.

    BlueDWarrior

    June 28, 2018 at 7:40 am

    @Quinerly: The crux of that piece cannot be overlooked. Trump is doing what he is doing because he has executed a hostile takeover of the Republican Party, and anyone who thinks of object is subject to the braying of the Trumpeproletariat that makes up 90%+ of that party’s base.

    In other words, Trump Voters want the government to bend society and culture back to what it was when conservative thought was prime; and if it can’t, it will call for elected officials even more insane and crazy to make it.

    They are going to keep pounding that square-peg into the round hole until it goes in or the whole toy shatters.

    And Democrats can’t do a damn thing to stop it except find enough voters on their side to outnumber the now fully radicalized Republican party and get them to the polls for the next 20+ years consistently.

  66. 66.

    rikyrah

    June 28, 2018 at 7:41 am

    @ezraklein: McConnell is politically ruthless in a way few politicians are. He’s not popular and he doesn’t care that he’s not popular.… https://twitter.com/ezraklein/status/1012068746620530688?s=17

  67. 67.

    rikyrah

    June 28, 2018 at 7:43 am

    @chrislhayes: There is something just so perfect about Anthony Kennedy, one of the most morally vain figures in American public life, ha… https://twitter.com/chrislhayes/status/1012100207994134529?s=17

  68. 68.

    rikyrah

    June 28, 2018 at 7:46 am

    Jacob Soboroff (@jacobsoboroff) Tweeted:
    BREAKING via @ckubeNBC: DHS asks DOD “to house and care for an alien family population of up to 12,000 people.”

    “If facilities are not available” DHS asks DOD to build tent camps for 4,000 in 3 locations, preferably TX, AZ, NM or CA.

    DHS asks DOD to house 2,000 within 45 days. https://twitter.com/jacobsoboroff/status/1012131516326047744?s=17

  69. 69.

    Patricia Kayden

    June 28, 2018 at 7:46 am

    @Quinerly: Yes we are. A nightmare that may slow down in November if we are able to flip Congress. Trump must be ecstatic given how these past few weeks have gone. And he’ll soon meet with Putin to get his marching orders in person. Oh joy!

  70. 70.

    Peale

    June 28, 2018 at 7:46 am

    @debbie: they are going all in on Iran, so there’s no point in meeting with India. India was served notice that it will face severe sanctions unless it drops its Iranian oil imports to zero by November 4. There’s no point in meeting with them.

  71. 71.

    ArchTeryx

    June 28, 2018 at 7:46 am

    @MagdaInBlack: Scar from The Lion King said it best: “I’m surrounded by idiots.”

    Sometimes it takes a villain to sum it all up pithily enough.

  72. 72.

    HeleninEire

    June 28, 2018 at 7:48 am

    WOOT. Power went down at work this morning and they sent us home at noon. Currently sitting in a restaurant window seat overlooking the River Liffey and enjoying an adult beverage.

  73. 73.

    Patricia Kayden

    June 28, 2018 at 7:49 am

    @rikyrah: McConnell gets things done for his Conservative supporters. That’s all that matters to him. Democrats need to stop being polite and play hardball if they get the Senate in November.

  74. 74.

    Quinerly

    June 28, 2018 at 7:51 am

    @BlueDWarrior: But, but, but…. Susan Sarandon said something, something… a couple of years ago…..

  75. 75.

    NotMax

    June 28, 2018 at 7:53 am

    @HeleninEire

    (raises glass and very gently taps it against monitor screen)

    Cheers1

  76. 76.

    Quinerly

    June 28, 2018 at 7:53 am

    Here’s another one: https://youtu.be/IuftbiZqOag

  77. 77.

    Elizabelle

    June 28, 2018 at 7:53 am

    @HeleninEire: Sucks to be you, eh?

    Good morning, jackals.

  78. 78.

    Matt McIrvin

    June 28, 2018 at 7:54 am

    @SenyorDave: “Likely voters” = “white people”.

  79. 79.

    Elizabelle

    June 28, 2018 at 7:55 am

    @rikyrah: Not popular and doesn’t care.

    Yup. That makes for someone who can be extra ruthless and dangerous.

  80. 80.

    JPL

    June 28, 2018 at 7:56 am

    test

  81. 81.

    JPL

    June 28, 2018 at 7:59 am

    @Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: Would that effect the comments also?

  82. 82.

    NotMax

    June 28, 2018 at 8:00 am

    FYI, as of June 27, some things at Whole Foods became more affordable for Amazon Prime members nationwide.

  83. 83.

    Another Scott

    June 28, 2018 at 8:06 am

    ‘morning all.

    ERA YES! Pass it anyway, even if they throw a fit about the time limit. It needs to be part of the public discourse again.

    I just donated again to DougJ’s Balloon-Juice Nowhere To Hide Thermometer. We’re getting closer, but we need to keep it moving.

    I also donated to VoteRiders, the ACLU, and the NAACP. We need to continue to support groups that are fighting to make positive change possible. I also too donated to Trauner for Wyoming. IIRC, he’s a B-J reader and we need such people in the Senate.

    Keep up the fight, everyone. Change is in our hands, if we work like hell for it.

    131 days to go. Eyes on the prize.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  84. 84.

    oldgold

    June 28, 2018 at 8:07 am

    Roe is toast.

    Gay marriage is safe.

    Again, a matter of Timing and Time.

    Hit the accelerator Bobby Three Stripes.

  85. 85.

    SiubhanDuinne

    June 28, 2018 at 8:09 am

    @rikyrah:

    Just heard a report (NPR) that they also want to build tent cities on Alabama’s Gulf coast. Alabama, to their credit, seems to be opposed to that idea.

  86. 86.

    Starfish

    June 28, 2018 at 8:09 am

    @Soprano2: Thanks for the warning. NPR has had a lot of bullshit Republicans lying their asses off on Morning Edition lately.

  87. 87.

    Elizabelle

    June 28, 2018 at 8:10 am

    FYI: Alain’s new thread, The End of the Beginning, is about World Cup soccer.

    I was wondering “what has happened now?”

  88. 88.

    NotMax

    June 28, 2018 at 8:13 am

    @SiubhanDuinne

    Land on the coast is limited, and there are still casinos to be built.

    /cynic

  89. 89.

    rikyrah

    June 28, 2018 at 8:13 am

    @Quinerly:
    Thanks ?

  90. 90.

    JPL

    June 28, 2018 at 8:13 am

    @Elizabelle: Same

  91. 91.

    SiubhanDuinne

    June 28, 2018 at 8:14 am

    @Elizabelle:

    Yeah, that thread title freaked me the fuck out for a split-second there.

  92. 92.

    Quinerly

    June 28, 2018 at 8:16 am

    Just being pushed aside now in the news cycle: https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/a3abjz/listen-to-a-distraught-guatemalan-child-call-his-mother-from-a-us-immigration-shelter

  93. 93.

    Cheryl Rofer

    June 28, 2018 at 8:18 am

    I’m way to the right of Ocasio-Cortez, but a lot of this looks pretty damn good to me. https://t.co/z2SxXGx3Z9

    — Daniel W. Drezner (@dandrezner) June 28, 2018

  94. 94.

    Peale

    June 28, 2018 at 8:19 am

    @SenyorDave: I saw the recent Harvard poll with Trump’s approval up to 47% with a ten point boost from Latinos. This came after he signed that EO that ended the family separations. So he was probably getting credit for being a humanitarian…after creating the problem in the first place. A little disheartening that.

    The other thing to remember about the likely voter modeling is that it takes into account whether someone voted in previous mid term elections, which as we recall, the Dems largely sat out last time.

    I can only hope though it isn’t going to happen. But I’ve kinda been on edge if the immigration issue overshadows all others in the fall. It’s not a winner for us. Hope I’m wrong, hope past performance is not a predictor of future failure.

  95. 95.

    Quinerly

    June 28, 2018 at 8:19 am

    @rikyrah: Here’s another one: https://youtu.be/57TEkf3iMHY

  96. 96.

    Cheryl Rofer

    June 28, 2018 at 8:19 am

    Also, can any of our legal eagles tell me why it’s okay to put toddlers in immigration court as if they were adults? We don’t let people vote until they’re in their late teens because we think they need a certain degree of maturity to make those kinds of decisions.

  97. 97.

    Luthe

    June 28, 2018 at 8:20 am

    @NotMax:

    Land on the coast is limited, and there are still casinos to be built flooded.

    FTFY

  98. 98.

    J R in WV

    June 28, 2018 at 8:21 am

    @Peale:

    So, there will be sanctions on every nation in the world we have ever done any business with, then? OK.

    Just wait, Trump is going to crash the world economy. I just fear that it won’t happen before the end of October.

  99. 99.

    rikyrah

    June 28, 2018 at 8:21 am

    @benchmarkpol: Throw out all of the Senate polls from red states. The Supreme Court issue and what happens after July 31st and the retir… https://twitter.com/benchmarkpol/status/1012046697105625091?s=17

  100. 100.

    Quinerly

    June 28, 2018 at 8:23 am

    @Cheryl Rofer: Did you see that post on my Book of Faces page where the toddler was climbing around on the table during the court proceedings?

  101. 101.

    Cheryl Rofer

    June 28, 2018 at 8:26 am

    @Quinerly: Yes. This is what toddlers do. How is this legal?

  102. 102.

    RedDirtGirl

    June 28, 2018 at 8:26 am

    @Jeffro: The NYC free outdoor pools opened yesterday and the lap swimming program starts on the 5th. I can’t wait. Nothing like an evening swim outside under the summer sky!

  103. 103.

    Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism

    June 28, 2018 at 8:28 am

    @JPL: You mean the people who are only seeing some of the comments? It’s possible that your web browser is getting a bad time stamp from the server, thinks there has been no change, and is showing you the old page again. It could be bad communication between the host server and a CDN between you and the host.

    It’s not a behavior I’ve seen, so I don’t have a sample to dig into. I just started seeing the lost nyms this morning.

  104. 104.

    Paul W.

    June 28, 2018 at 8:28 am

    I know there are many cat lovers here… and I’m freaking out so could use some advice.
    I just transported an older kitty that my gf and I adopted to separate her from a rambunctious new kitten we also got. The ol gal seems to have played too hard and is limping.
    But, when I get her home she has this huge clear gook on her right eye that might be nothing or might be her third eyelid. Either way we just at took her to the vet a few hours ago and that wasn’t there and now I’m afraid I’ve injured the girl on the way home.

    She seems to be acting normal but it looks scary, i went to sleep to try and let her sleep it off but it is still like this in the morning. Should I take her to the vet again before even going to work? Does anyone know what to do?

  105. 105.

    Cheryl Rofer

    June 28, 2018 at 8:33 am

    @Paul W.: Take her to the vet, if only for your peace of mind.

  106. 106.

    OzarkHillbilly

    June 28, 2018 at 8:33 am

    Light a firecracker in car’s trunk, WCGW? You people need a laugh.

  107. 107.

    Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism

    June 28, 2018 at 8:34 am

    @oldgold: The effort will be to invalidate Roe by eliminating the right to privacy. This will allow Griswold and Lawrence to be overturned. At that point, there is no equal protection argument for gay marriage, since the central behavior in a gay marriage will not be consistently legal across all 50 states.

  108. 108.

    oldgold

    June 28, 2018 at 8:36 am

    We are being gish galloped.

    We need to pick 2 or 3 issues and bang, bang, bang on them from now until the election.

  109. 109.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    June 28, 2018 at 8:37 am

    @rikyrah: Hmm I they’ve had decades to over turn Row Verse Wade. That’s not the goal, it’s protecting Corporate Citizenship. The poling also shows it’s not even a big issue with Conservatives.

    Not to mention

    I'm seeing Republicans possibly overplaying their hands this morning. Mike Rounds on CNN about how Roe v Wade will be challenged.Roe v Wade has incredibly high support. Last Pew poll:Oppose overturning: 69%Favor overturning: 28%This could have an interesting effect.— Benchmark Politics (@benchmarkpol) June 28, 2018

    Remember, with the MSM, everything is good news for Conservatives. Except why does this Kennedy retirement feel like it’s being snuck threw at the last second if it’s such awesome sauce for the GOP?

  110. 110.

    Kay

    June 28, 2018 at 8:37 am

    @rikyrah:

    They don’t know that it will be “massive”. They’re all promoting the idea it will be massive, and beneficial to Trump, but they don’t know that’s true. It could also bring out anti-Trump voters as they realize he’s solidifying one Party power in all three branches with no oversight or accountability.

    They are really far Right now and the “institutions” that were supposed to provide some check on them are failing one and after another, like dominoes. Reining them in at the lowest level, with individual votes, is literally the last check on them that is still standing.

    That’s a pretty compelling argument for Democrats and that’s the traditional midterm argument- that the Party in power is over-reaching and should be checked.

    I don’t want to let political media talk us out of participating or resisting this. They are trying to set a narrative where it isn’t worth it for Democrats to vote, that we all have to bow to King Trump like they do. We still have votes (well, some of us, in some states). It’snot much power, one vote, but it’s something. We need to hang onto it.

  111. 111.

    Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism

    June 28, 2018 at 8:37 am

    @Paul W.: Take her to the vet. I’ve never seen the third eyelid stay out unless kitty isn’t feeling well.

    If she played too hard, she could have gotten a scratch in the eye. I’ve managed to save a cat’s eye after an injury, but only because we acted quickly.

  112. 112.

    MomSense

    June 28, 2018 at 8:39 am

    @NotMax:

    I just stopped my Prime membership. Increased gas, food, and health care costs just don’t make it possible. I’m cutting back on a lot. It’s starting again. The stock market is at small pinhead bubbles and heating up.

  113. 113.

    NotMax

    June 28, 2018 at 8:40 am

    @OzarkHillbilly

    True story.

    Years ago, a friend (ridiculously wealthy and as nuts as the day is long) decided to drive from PA to MD to buy fireworks.

    Loaded up the back seat of his BMW to the brim. Driving back on the interstate, flicked his cigarette butt out the window. The wind blew it back in, into the back seat.

    What followed needs no delineation.

  114. 114.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    June 28, 2018 at 8:41 am

    @oldgold: Consider this insidious thought – all the news is about Trump now. That means anything else going wrong is doing it unnoticed until becomes a real crises.

  115. 115.

    PPCLI

    June 28, 2018 at 8:41 am

    @Soprano2: The fact that Republicans have prepared talking points to avoid the issue of Roe shows that they think it is a big losing issue for them. Even Ted Cruz avoided the question when it was put to him yesterday. Press them on it! TRUMP EXPLICITLY STATED THAT WHEN HE GETS HIS COURT NOMINEES IN PLACE, ROE IS GONE. REPEAT THIS OVER AND OVER AGAIN. One of the few good things about Trump is that he actually says the things that politically astute Republicans dissemble about. Force him to own it.

    How many times did Republicans repeat over and over again “You didn’t build that”?* They built their entire Romney-nominating convention around that one phrase, which they repeated over and over and over again. Trump talking about Roe being a thing of the past should be on constant twitter rotation. We need our own bot army.

    Also we should keep reminding people that Trump said, on camera, that THERE MUST BE PUNISHMENT FOR WOMEN WHO GET ABORTIONS. When the forced-birth crowd pointed out to him that you aren’t supposed to say that because it’s politically a massively losing issue, he stopped. But that is what he said. Force him and his people on the defensive about it. Have commercials 24/7 with Trump saying it. Over and over again.

    *Dishonestly, of course, since Obama was referring to things like the roads in front of the business and the sewer system, not the business itself when he used “that”. Where was that Republican fascination with context that suddenly appeared when Trump was smearing immigrants as “animals”?

  116. 116.

    Quinerly

    June 28, 2018 at 8:41 am

    A stroll down memory lane: https://www.salon.com/2018/06/27/listen-up-progressives-anthony-kennedy-was-not-your-friend/

  117. 117.

    JPL

    June 28, 2018 at 8:42 am

    @Cheryl Rofer: If they didn’t want to go to deportation court, they shouldn’t have crossed the border. Although I snark having a three year old go to court does untold damage on the child. I’d like to think it would do untold damage on the judge, and others in attendance but I feel they probably sold their soul ages ago.

  118. 118.

    Kay

    June 28, 2018 at 8:43 am

    We’ve had far Right Supreme Courts before. This is worse because we also have a far Right President and far Right Congress and our “institutions” are falling over like lawn chairs in a stiff wind, BUT, we’ve had far Right judges who didn’t reflect the vast majority of the country before, and we overcame them eventually.

  119. 119.

    MomSense

    June 28, 2018 at 8:44 am

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    This is what happens when the president and the AG decide that immigrants are animals.

  120. 120.

    OzarkHillbilly

    June 28, 2018 at 8:46 am

    @NotMax: I guess he got out alive but was he still in one piece?

  121. 121.

    JPL

    June 28, 2018 at 8:46 am

    My pet peeve is that MSM is talking about banning abortion. All the court can do is ban safe abortion, unless they want to imprison females.
    The court can also revisit public education for children of undocumented immigrants.

  122. 122.

    NotMax

    June 28, 2018 at 8:47 am

    @MomSense

    Please believe me when I say I empathize. Living each month on the knife’s edge is a constant for this old fart as well.

  123. 123.

    Planetjanet

    June 28, 2018 at 8:47 am

    Oh, the things Balloon Juice does to my mind. So I clicked on the musical interlude thread last night and enjoyed the Beach Boys songs. It is now an earworm this morning. But it morphed into Kokomo, a very perverse version of Kokomo. The chorus of “Aruba, Jamaica, ooh I want to take ya” has been replaced with one of the rotating tag lines. So my brain is singing “enormous, mendacious, disembodied anus”. Please make it stop.

  124. 124.

    Kay

    June 28, 2018 at 8:48 am

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    It’s ludicrous, Cheryl and they know it. They’re doing it because that’s the process but they all know it makes a mockery of the court and due process and it must be incredibly depressing to take part in any of it because it’s a SHOW. It means nothing. It’s a fake hearing. They know 3 year olds can’t explain why they need refugee protections. It must be soul-killing, taking part in it. The defense lawyers will make broad arguments but obviously they can’t get specific information from a 3 year old, so they’re just talking to fulfill the requirement of a “hearing”.

    They’re making a mockery of their own court system. They all probably hate it but that’s what they’ve been given so that’s what they’ll do.

  125. 125.

    NotMax

    June 28, 2018 at 8:48 am

    @OzarkHillbilly

    Unhurt, unsinged.

  126. 126.

    Paul W.

    June 28, 2018 at 8:50 am

    @Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:

    I called then loacal vet, they set me up with an appointment tomorrow. Should I just take her in immediately instead? She isn’t pawing at it or seeming you be irritated, but I don’t want to take unnecessary risks.

  127. 127.

    PPCLI

    June 28, 2018 at 8:50 am

    @Soprano2: “fearmongering” is obviously one of the go-to words in the playbook. Whenever there is something that is politically unpopular that you plan to do, say that the people who point out your plans are “fearmongering” and don’t discuss it any more. Don’t let them skate on this.

    Case in point: When Michigan had a referendum on gay marriage, the proposal was crafted so broadly that it would make domestic partner benefits illegal for state-associated employers (universities, for example). When the RWNJ attorney general was asked about this, he dismissed it as “fearmongering”. After the referendum passed, that same attorney general filed an anti-domestic partner benefits lawsuit the very next day, indicating that he had had it prepared and waiting for awhile.

  128. 128.

    rikyrah

    June 28, 2018 at 8:51 am

    Democrats

    Get the attitude of Ted Lieu

    https://twitter.com/tedlieu/status/1012200135927967744

  129. 129.

    Quinerly

    June 28, 2018 at 8:53 am

    He’s tweeting incoherently this AM about HRC and the DNC. I still think he will try to have her arrested. People rolled their eyes at me when I said it shortly after the election. Did we think two years ago he would put Brown babies in cages?

  130. 130.

    OzarkHillbilly

    June 28, 2018 at 8:53 am

    @Planetjanet:

    So my brain is singing “enormous, mendacious, disembodied anus”. Please make it stop.

    Heeheehee….

  131. 131.

    Quinerly

    June 28, 2018 at 8:54 am

    @rikyrah: great tweet.

  132. 132.

    Kay

    June 28, 2018 at 8:54 am

    @JPL:

    They do want to imprison females. The idea that far Right law won’t include punishment provisions is ludicrous. Of course they’ll imprison women. They say abortion is murder. They have to charge and try and punish people for murder. One of their intellectuals wants women hanged for abortion, for God’s sake. That idea is acceptable on the Right.

    If they DON’T imprison women it could end up even worse for women, because that follows the far Right idea that women are as children- not adults with agency and the capacity to make decisions and be responsible for them. That’s worse.

  133. 133.

    JPL

    June 28, 2018 at 8:55 am

    @Quinerly: I heard that he tweeted that Russia said they didn’t interfere with the election.

  134. 134.

    A Ghost To Most

    June 28, 2018 at 9:00 am

    @Planetjanet:
    Your earworm is contagious. Must go listen to music before it burrows in.

  135. 135.

    MomSense

    June 28, 2018 at 9:00 am

    @Kay:

    Trump told Chris Matthews that he thought there had to be some kind of punishment for the woman. That was the not really a debate event where Matthews interviewed both Trump and Clinton – the one where Matthews joked off camera about slipping a rape drug to Hillary.

    Ha ha, very funny MOTHERFUCKER.

  136. 136.

    Kathleen

    June 28, 2018 at 9:00 am

    @Quinerly: The election was a new phase of a coup put in motion when Obama was elected. The 2016 election was stolen. They’ve turbo charged the intensity this week. This is to keep us off balance and dispirited. We will prevail.

  137. 137.

    Mai naem mobile

    June 28, 2018 at 9:02 am

    @Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: I know IIA being optimistic here but I don’t see the USSC getting rid of gay marriage. It’s done and gone. They’ll work in adoptions and allow9ng discrimination In the workplace but not hay marriage.

  138. 138.

    lowtechcyclist

    June 28, 2018 at 9:02 am

    Forget the old ERA. The Dems should say that when they retake Congress, they’ll start a new ERA, and this one will include equal rights for gays and transgender persons as well as women.

    Actually, they should promise a whole slate of amendments:

    1) New, improved ERA
    2) Voting rights (everybody 18+ gets to vote, no exceptions, no one can be barred from voting or have their vote not counted without the state or locality proving why that individual is ineligible in that locality)
    3) Banning imprisonment due to debt, including inability to pay fines and fees
    4) Right to privacy
    5) Right to organize for purposes of collective bargaining

    That’s off the top of my head. Might be able to think of one or two more, given time.

  139. 139.

    Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism

    June 28, 2018 at 9:05 am

    @Paul W.: Tomorrow will likely be fine. You might want to look up how to make a boric acid eyewash and see if you can get a few drops into her eye tonight. You would know already if it was a serious injury. With Star, we got the third eyelid to retract after a couple of days of washing her eye regularly, but the scratch had gotten infected, so it was off to the vet for an antibiotic eye cream.

  140. 140.

    Cheryl Rofer

    June 28, 2018 at 9:06 am

    @Kay: I agree that the officials forcing toddlers to “represent themselves” must be soulless and deeply corrupt. But I’m the kind of stickler who wants to know what part of the law they are citing to try to give themselves cover. I also hope that someone is taking their names for the truth and reconciliation commissions to come.

  141. 141.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    June 28, 2018 at 9:06 am

    @Kay:

    They do want to imprison females. The idea that far Right law won’t include punishment provisions is ludicrous.

    It’s close they want a reason to punish the wrong kind of women – minorities and feminists. I am sure even the Evangelicals will happily decide Jesus wants their daughter to get an abortion if she is knocked up.

  142. 142.

    J R in WV

    June 28, 2018 at 9:09 am

    @PPCLI:

    I have some good friends who are lawyers, and then again there are lawyers I have asked other friends not to bring around to our house again. Like any group, there are good people and bad people in the group. Obviously the AG you speak of is a lying despicable rat bastard type of lawyer.

    The guy we asked not to be brought around again fought workers comp cases for the employers. Best story about that, they had a “private eye” videoing an injured former employee, and caught him both painting his house, an activity much less stressful than working underground in a coal mine, and then carrying a heavy concrete bird bath around his yard. He was painting for about an hour each afternoon, and making slow progress.

    In court, they showed that video of him carrying the bird bath around, and then his lawyer picked it up with one hand – it wasn’t concrete at all, it was plastic. Judge was not happy with Tom’s lawyering, and said so pointedly. They were ordered to leave their victim alone henceforth. But that was his job, full time, every injury case was fought as if it was a death penalty case. Horrible in my book. Almost as bad as the AG in Michigan lying to screw gay folks.

  143. 143.

    Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism

    June 28, 2018 at 9:09 am

    @Quinerly:

    Did we think two years ago he would put Brown babies in cages?

    Actually, yes. What I wasn’t sure about is what would happen in response and whether it would happen before the media was completely compromised.

  144. 144.

    MomSense

    June 28, 2018 at 9:11 am

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques:

    If you have money you can just take a shopping trip to Toronto, AKA an abortion excursion.

  145. 145.

    Peale

    June 28, 2018 at 9:17 am

    @Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: yep. I knew it would happen. Deportation involves quite a lot of cruelty, especially to long time residents who are snatched. It easy to rile up voters about gangs and whatnot, and that has to be done because deportations are cruel. So when he promises to deport 8 or 12 or 20 million, I knew it would end like this. There aren’t enough gang members to get 8 million deportations. Lots of working families, though.

  146. 146.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    June 28, 2018 at 9:17 am

    @MomSense: the one where Matthews joked off camera about slipping a rape drug to Hillary.

    calling her “The Queen” and insulting her with other snotty little comments, and yesterday Tweety was screaming about how Democrats have to stop this nomination, no excuses!

  147. 147.

    Kay

    June 28, 2018 at 9:21 am

    @JPL:

    They took an 8 month old away from his mother to punish her for the equivalent of a misdemeanor. You really think they won’t prosecute women for abortion, which they describe as “murder”?

    Sessions will hold a press conference and announce it proudly. Sessions and Kelly bragged about the child separation policy and Stephen Miller assured Trump it would have “90%” support with Trump’s base.

    They’re big on punishment, the crueler the better. It’s how they measure their own power.

  148. 148.

    JPL

    June 28, 2018 at 9:28 am

    @Kay: Sad but true.

  149. 149.

    Kay

    June 28, 2018 at 9:28 am

    Daniel Dale
    ‏ @ddale8
    Follow Follow @ddale8
    More
    The president says Ivanka Trump told him to expand the tax credit, but “I said nobody knows what it is.” He says Ivanka responded, “The women, know, Dad. The women know.”

    Ivanka’s on another promotional campaign. The “conversations” she had with “dad” are being promoted, by dad and Ivanka.

    It must suck to be an elected representative dealing with her. The Senate is reauthorizing the law for career and technical education. Everyone knows this will pass because it’s a 40 year old program and it’s popular.

    Ivanka goes to the hearings. She’s figured out that if she shows up at “gimmee” reauthorizations she can take credit for popular programs. It would kill me if I were a Senator. It’s just such self-promoting bullshit and she’s making them all a party to it. I honestly think I would refuse to play along. Work so hard to become a senator and then watch as this phony manipulates the coverage to benefit herself. I could not go along with that. So much of capitulating to Trump involves a really profound lack of self respect. They’re humiliated- made smaller. Their work is devalued. But they do it to themselves.

  150. 150.

    Kay

    June 28, 2018 at 9:34 am

    Kyle Kondik
    ‏@kkondik
    Follow Follow @kkondik
    More
    Been some chatter here about why Kennedy would feel secure w/ Trump making the pick for his replacement. It makes more sense if you think of it as the Heritage Foundation/other conservative think tanks making the pick, or at least constraining Trump’s options to their preferences

    The valiant effort to pretend institutions are working continues! Whistling in the dark.

    “Everything will be FINE” has become the sole function of political media. I don’t even think it’s for the benefit of the public- it’s for the benefit of THEM. Theyr’e an institution that failed and continue to fail. They gotta believe.

  151. 151.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    June 28, 2018 at 9:35 am

    @MomSense: Joan Rivers, loony right-winger, used to do a joke about girls from her leafy patch of Long Island suddenly going on vacation to IIRC Puerto Rico. Everyone knew what that meant in country clubs in the 1950s

  152. 152.

    SiubhanDuinne

    June 28, 2018 at 9:35 am

    @Planetjanet:

    Another rotating tag is “All your base are belong to Tunch.” Every time I see it, my mind kicks in with the tune of the old French Christmas carol Il est né, le divin Enfant.

  153. 153.

    rikyrah

    June 28, 2018 at 9:37 am

    The Left’s Politics of Self-Destruction

    Say what you wan about Right wing dingbats. But they vote. They fall in line. They don’t spend every waking moment of friendly presidencies trying to discredit the captain of their own team.

    Do you know why? This is why:

    Justice Anthony M. Kennedy announced Wednesday that he is retiring from the Supreme Court, a move that gives President Trump the chance to replace the court’s pivotal justice and dramatically shift the institution to the right, setting up a bitter partisan showdown on Kennedy’s successor.

    The Supreme Court is the single most pivotal institution in setting law that is not subject to popular will. It can broaden the scope of Constitutional rights, or it can outright sanction racism, misogyny, xenophobia, homophobia, and other forms of bigotry. The Supreme Court can prevent discrimination against working people, or it can codify an employer’s right to bust unions and dictate the type of health care its employees can receive.
    ……………………………….

    But all of that did not satisfy those on the Left who demanded that President Obama wave a magic wand and usher in liberal utopia. It did not satisfy those on the Left who wanted the banks to be nationalized. It caused the loudest supporters of single-payer health care to call President Obama a weak sellout and assert that the Affordable Care Act, by working within the existing system, would make it more difficult to make the case for a single-payer system (under the theory that one must burn down a village in order to build it). Some of them even went on Fox News to denounce President Obama.

    The efforts of President Obama and Congressional Democrats were ridiculed as too little and ineffective by the ideological Left as much as it was the radical Right. If President Obama’s historic efforts to expand the role of diplomacy was slammed by the Right, his commitment to orderly withdrawals of troops from wars begun by his predecessors earned him the title of warmonger from militant pacifists.

    No sooner had the Democratic party had gained uniform control of the elected branches of the federal government than the Left’s loudest ideologues began a fight against the team with the best possibility in decades to deliver on progressive priorities. Instead of confronting racist right wingers who challenged the citizenship of the country’s first black president, the predominantly-white ideologue Left found ways to pile on Obama using their own offensive language. Rather than fight the unified Republican opposition to President Obama, the hysterical Left found ways to trash Democrats. Instead of defending the president and the Democratic Congress, they focused on making the ideological case that no real difference existed between Republicans and Democrats. Heck, they even called for people to stay home and protest non-vote.

    ………………………

    The blocking of Merrick Garland should have been the equivalent of a thousand sirens for the Professional Left. McConnell made it clear that he was holding the vacant seat open for the possibility – however unlikely it may have seemed at the time – that Donald Trump would become president and nominate an archconservative to the bench with the backing of a Republican senate.

    No such sirens ensued. The Left’s clickbaiters not only used their own indignation to trash the Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, both before and after she had secured the nomination, they full-on subscribed to the Russian Trump-friendly propaganda machine in the form of Wikileaks. The overwhelmingly white Bernie Sanders ideologues not only papered over mounting evidence of Sanders’ ignorance – if not willful negligence – of race as a defining issue in America, they were so busy indignant about Clinton that they couldn’t be bothered to rally against Trump’s fast-moving racist election train. Some (I’m looking at you, Susan Sarandon) even equated Hillary Clinton with Donald Trump and claimed their conscience required abstinence in the 2016 election.

  154. 154.

    Kay

    June 28, 2018 at 9:41 am

    @JPL:

    No one., not a state, not a city, not a private adoption agency- NO ONE takes custody of someone else’s children and does not track them.

    The Trump Administration did. They don’t believe those children are human. They treated them as having less value than property. They had no system in place to protect those children and return them to their family – they didn’t bother to put one in. You can only do that if you believe the 8 month old is not really a human being.

    They knew NOTHING about those kids. Not a medical history, nothing. That 8 month old could have died in their custody. They don’t know anything about him. What if he had health problems, heart or lungs or an intolerance for baby formula? They didn’t care. They grabbed him anyway and shipped him hundreds of miles away.

  155. 155.

    rikyrah

    June 28, 2018 at 9:45 am

    Kennedy’s retirement is about abortion (but that’s not all it’s about)
    06/28/18 09:22 AM
    By Steve Benen

    Soon after Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement, Rachel told MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace that the retiring jurist is “probably the reason we have abortion rights in this country, and I think within a year, abortion will be illegal in half of the United States.”
    That may have struck some people as a bold, almost inflammatory, prediction. It wasn’t. This is simply a matter of being about to count to five.

    Clarence Thomas is the only sitting justice who has publicly declared opposition to the ruling, having joined the dissent in the court’s 1992 landmark ruling in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which upheld much of Roe. That dissent explicitly argued that Roe was “plainly wrong.” […]

    But many advocates and some legal scholars nonetheless predicted that the three other conservatives on the court – Chief Justice John Roberts, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch – would likely join the new Trump-appointed justice in rulings that would target abortion rights and chip away at the protections of Roe.

    Indeed, the likely scenario is already in sharp focus: Trump will keep his promise to nominate a justice who opposes abortion rights; Senate Republicans will confirm him or her; the Supreme Court will take up an abortion case; and Roe v. Wade will be overturned before the next presidential election.

  156. 156.

    Peale

    June 28, 2018 at 9:51 am

    @Kay: oh FFS. Just because they wear suits at the federalist society doesn’t make them any less culture warriors than other conservatives. They may have more concerns than their single issue brothers, but it certainly is not the position of the federalist society that, say, school prayer is wrong and people have a right to privacy. And they aren’t liberatarians over there.

  157. 157.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    June 28, 2018 at 9:53 am

    @rikyrah: and Roe v. Wade will be overturned before the next presidential election.

    I’m only skeptical about that because I think Roberts is enough of a politician to prefer the death of a thousand cuts strategy to outright overturning.

  158. 158.

    rikyrah

    June 28, 2018 at 9:58 am

    The consequences flowing from Justice Kennedy’s replacement cannot be overstated. They are not confined to only those facing minority groups. They will be pervasive throughout our society for decades. It is time to fight like hell! #WakeUp #WhateverItTakes

    — Michael Avenatti (@MichaelAvenatti) June 28, 2018

  159. 159.

    Planetjanet

    June 28, 2018 at 10:01 am

    @SiubhanDuinne: Much better. I will try to change to that.

  160. 160.

    Leto

    June 28, 2018 at 10:02 am

    @Cheryl Rofer: @Quinerly: John Oliver did a piece about toddlers representing themselves back in April. It’s a 17 min piece. It’s informative, infuriating, and heart-breaking. And still, sadly, extremely relevant. Immigration Courts: Last Week Tonight

  161. 161.

    rikyrah

    June 28, 2018 at 10:11 am

    @Kay:

    “Everything will be FINE” has become the sole function of political media. I don’t even think it’s for the benefit of the public- it’s for the benefit of THEM. Theyr’e an institution that failed and continue to fail. They gotta believe.

    Tell it, Kay.

    I still say that they don’t want to accept THEIR RESPONSIBILITY for where we are because THEY DIDN’T DO THEIR PHUCKING JOB IN 2016.

  162. 162.

    rikyrah

    June 28, 2018 at 10:12 am

    @Kay:

    The Trump Administration did. They don’t believe those children are human. They treated them as having less value than property. They had no system in place to protect those children and return them to their family – they didn’t bother to put one in. You can only do that if you believe the 8 month old is not really a human being.

    YES……

    THIS IS THE BOTTOM LINE…

  163. 163.

    schrodingers_cat

    June 28, 2018 at 10:38 am

    @rikyrah: Actually they did do their job, they helped a Republican one totally unfit and unprepared for office to ascend to the WH. Their job is to be a propaganda arm for the Republicans. There are a few exceptions but this is true by and large.

  164. 164.

    Steve in the STL

    June 28, 2018 at 10:43 am

    @Kay:

    we’ve had far Right judges who didn’t reflect the vast majority of the country before, and we overcame them eventually.

    Yeah, eventually. Fuck that shit. We are supposed to have the rule of law here, now, based on our laws, not the Spanish Inquisition with maybe things getting better for our grandchildren.

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