Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

The words do not have to be perfect.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

Innocent people don’t delay justice.

We’ll be taking my thoughts and prayers to the ballot box.

Spilling the end game before they can coat it in frankl luntz-approved dogwhistles.

Everybody saw this coming.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

In my day, never was longer.

Let’s finish the job.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

Come on, man.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

You are here: Home / Past Elections / Election 2016 / GOP Projection Open Thread: Which Hunt?

GOP Projection Open Thread: Which Hunt?

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I know GOP voters have been carefully trained to believe what Fox News tells them over the evidence of their own lyin’ eyes, but I still think today’s hearing was, among other things, a gift to Andrew Janz’s campaign ad writers:

When California Republican Rep. Devin Nunes sat before a committee Wednesday to testify on a bill, Democrats tried to use the opportunity to question the House Intelligence Committee chairman on his investigation of Russian meddling and the 2016 presidential race.

But the Republican chairman of the House Rules Committee — Rep. Pete Sessions of Texas — allowed Nunes to leave the hearing before Democrats could fire off their questions, prompting criticism from Democrats…

Rep. Norma Torres, a California Democrat, started asking a question about Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and a statement he previously made to the House Intelligence Committee.

Sessions interrupted her and abruptly broke up the committee for a five-minute recess to discuss the questioning with the top Democrat on the committee, Rep. Jim McGovern.

They resumed the hearing 18 minutes later, and Sessions dismissed Nunes from the witness table before Democrats could ask him more questions.

Democrats took issue with Sessions’ dismissal of the House intelligence chairman.

“In all my years on the Rules Committee, I don’t ever recall an instance where any member was prevented from asking questions of a witness,” McGovern said in a statement. “What is Chairman Nunes trying to hide?”…

Reader Interactions

164Comments

  2. 2.

    Comrade Colette Collaboratrice

    Please to be un-stomping D. Anderson. His post below is important.

  3. 3.

    Villago Delenda Est

    They are all so pathetic, but that’s OK, the morons who keep voting for them are pathetic, too.

  5. 5.

    Mai Naem mobile

    I know I am looking at this in a partisan fashion but I think Stzork kicked the Republicans’ asses. Also I would bet Stzork is/was a Republican.

  8. 8.

    Shell

    @Mary G: But….are the people who need to see this, watching?

    And if they are, theyd probably find a way to brand C-Span, “Fake News.”

  9. 9.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Mai Naem mobile: I would say Stzork was uncivil to that Republican loon which more is needed, but it is worth keeping in mind that flank of the GOP is conspiracy there territory were everything reinforces The Conspiracy.

  10. 10.

    jl

    @Mai Naem mobile: Thanks for link to Janz. I was going to go down to that district and bunk with a cousin and do some GOTV against Nunes. Looks like the Dems got a good candidate in Janz.

  11. 11.

    lamh36

    Sounds to me like the GOP got their azzes handed to them by FBI Agent Strzok…! Can’t even find ONE soundbite where the GOP didn’t come off as partisan jackasses…and Russian stooges!

    And of course Chuckles got that John Podhz…whatever his name is guy…to hold water for the bullshit done by GOP congress folks

  12. 12.

    The Dangerman

    Tulare/Visalia is beet red; I haven’t seen a poll, but if Janz lost in single digits, it’d be amazing.

  15. 15.

    James E Powell

    @Mary G:

    I think this show has backfired on the Republicans. They look like unhinged loons.

    I’d like to believe that, but nearly everybody said the same thing when they nominated Trump. The sad fact is that about 40% of Americans either are or fully support unhinged loons. And I’m not just talking about Trump and current Republicans. Since the 1994 election, that party has put nothing but unhinged loons and hateful bigots into the senate and house. And the craziest and most bigoted are the ones that are the most popular with their base.

  17. 17.

    Betty Cracker

    @zhena gogolia: I feel for the guy. My husband and daughter have a Polish last name that features a similar string of consonants. We’ve had a lot of laughs at the variations of spellings and pronunciations received over the years. When we make dinner reservations, etc., we use MY last name, which is even easier to spell and pronounce than “Cracker.”

  21. 21.

    trollhattan

    It’s been a long day, so….

    LONDON (The Borowitz Report)—Queen Elizabeth II has cancelled a scheduled Friday meeting with Donald J. Trump after complaining of a “flare-up of bone spurs,” Buckingham Palace has confirmed.

    The announcement took many royal watchers by surprise, because in her sixty-six-year reign the Queen had never before complained of bone spurs.

    But, according to the Queen’s spokesman, Peter Rhys-Willington, Elizabeth had intentionally kept her chronic bone-spur condition a closely guarded secret until now. “Her Majesty is a very brave woman, and has not wanted to unnecessarily worry her subjects,” Rhys-Willington said. “And so, for decades, she has suffered in silence.”

    The Queen referred to her bone spurs obliquely in an official statement issued on Thursday. “We are sorry to have to cancel the engagement, but we feared that meeting Donald Trump would be most painful,” the Queen’s statement read.

    Would so love it if….

  22. 22.

    Luthe

    Since this is an open thread, I will take the opportunity to complain.

    One autoplay ad is annoying. Two is annoying but bearable. Three is too much. And motherfucking *four*? Cole cannot possibly need money that badly unless he’s started paying the front-pagers by the word.

    So yeah. Can we get one or two of those fuckers removed? Please?

  26. 26.

    mad citizen

    Lots of small stuff happening today it seems. Was just on CNN and the Stormy Daniels charges are dropped. What a surprise.

    I didn’t watch the hearing but it sounds like a shitshow. But I doubt many people are even aware of it–just the news junkies.

    trollhattan asked earlier whether Indiana was worried about Ohio taking our place as the Alabama of the Midwest. Don’t worry, once God installs President Pence the spotlight will shine bright on our state again.

    On another front, will there be a front page post on the magnificent fall of Papa John? He built his business out of Jeffersonville, Indiana, so another Hoosier success story!

  27. 27.

    ? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?

    @different-church-lady:
    I’d say no. I originally imagined that phrase to be deployed against TenguPhule when he gets particularly myopic.

    “Drink your Victory Gin, Winston” should totally be a thing people say. That or “Be Sure to Drink Your Victory Gin”.

  28. 28.

    MisterForkbeard

    @lamh36: …did we need the transcript? Wasn’t the ‘interview’ conducted live?

    Or are they referring to the closed testimoney they’ve kept under lock and key?

  31. 31.

    Immanentize

    @Betty Cracker: I like to think that in the Czech version of Wheel of Fortune, when a contestant says, “I will buy a vowel, Stash,” he will reply, “There are none!”

  32. 32.

    ? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?

    @lamh36:
    Come on Paulie, don’t you give one shit what your legacy will be? You’re resigning at the end of this year, what do you have to lose? Do you honestly want Pedo enabler Jordan to be on the shortlist for Speaker?

  33. 33.

    Mart

    Read the lead story on Strzok at the Washington Post. Low information folks reading it will be certain he belongs in jail, and have no idea the NY FBI threw the election for Rump. Really upset me. I am more afraid every day. Democracy does indeed die in darkness.

  37. 37.

    Aleta

    Tali Sharot is an associate professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London

    Emotion plays an important role in constraining dishonesty….In one study, students who were given a pill called a beta-blocker, which reduces emotional arousal, were more likely to cheat on an exam than students who were given a placebo. In other words, without that uncomfortable physiological feeling that accompanies dishonest behavior, people were more likely to cheat.

    Research we conducted at University College London …which was published in 2016 in Nature Neuroscience, showed that the intensity of the emotional response people experience when they act dishonestly is reduced every time they lie. And this reduction (called emotional adaptation) makes them likely to lie more over time.

    We gave a group of 80 individuals the opportunity to lie again and again in a financial task in order to gain money at another person’s expense. We found that the volunteers started with relatively small lies, cheating by only a few cents, but slowly over the course of the experiment lied more and more. While they were doing so we recorded their brain activity using a brain imaging scanner. We found that the emotional network in the brain responded less with each additional lie. The greater the drop in the brain’s sensitivity to dishonesty, the more people lied the next time they had a chance.

    Repeated dishonesty is a bit like (becoming desensitized to a perfume). Similarly, it appears that our response to our own acts of dishonesty is strong at first, but over time decreases. Like students taking beta-blockers, your capacity for being dishonest increases.

    … Individuals adapt not only to their own dishonesty but also to that of others. Research by Harvard professors Francesca Gino and Max Bazerman shows that people are less likely to criticize the unethical actions of others when such behavior increases gradually over time. Politically speaking, this suggests that voters (and perhaps even the president’s own advisors) may desensitize to the president’s falsehoods, … making them less likely to act to correct this pattern of behavior. The absence of sanctions could in turn be interpreted as a “green light” by the president.

    Indeed, in a recent study of 2,500 U.S. citizens, the psychologist Birony Swire-Thompson found that Trump supporters’ intentions to vote for him were not affected by learning that the president had provided false information. And a recent Gallup poll showed that while the percentage of Americans who believe the president is “honest and trustworthy” has decreased from 46 percent in February to 36 percent in April, his approval ratings remained relatively stable. Indeed, in the past few months his approval rating continues to rise.

    It is thus likely that we will observe a continuing increase in the number of falsehoods emanating from the Oval Office, accompanied by less and less outrage from the public.

  38. 38.

    jl

    @Elizabelle: ” Betty Crzckyr ”
    She obviously figured (correctly?) that the BJ commentariate could never learn to spell her real name?

  43. 43.

    jacy

    @? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?:

    Come on Paulie, don’t you give one shit what your legacy will be?

    No. Paulie Blue Eyes is a sadist. He doesn’t care about anything but the joy he gets from hurting other people. He just sees that in the current environment he needs to take his proclivities private instead of attempting to legislate them.

  44. 44.

    SenyorDave

    House Speaker Paul Ryan says the House Ethics Committee would not look at wrestlers’ claims against Rep. Jim Jordan because the alleged events occurred before he was in office.

    I hope whoever runs against Jordan has almost nonstop ads about what did Jordan know and when did he know it. And make sure that people understand that maybe the doctor could have been stopped much earlier.

  45. 45.

    joel hanes

    @Betty Cracker:

    Kid in my middle school was named Tommy Trcka

    It was a laff riot watching the gym teacher try to say that aloud when calling roll at the beginning of each school year.

    (The family pronounced it “THURCHka”

  47. 47.

    hueyplong

    Bone spurs…. Didn’t someone else once claim to have bone spurs to get out of an engagement?

  48. 48.

    jl

    @Quinerly:
    ” Trump slams May’s Brexit plan as not ‘what people voted for’ and urges her to take a tougher line on immigration ”
    Trump has a pinch of a kernel of a correct point there, if only his ideas on what the UK should do were not worse.

    I saw a news item someplace that Trump admitted his foreign BS stunts are mainly for domestic consumption by his bigot base.
    He said it signals to his desperate disciples that he is a populist who is fighting for them against the elites.
    If he’s right, then he’s cornered the market on dopes in the US.

  50. 50.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @trollhattan:

    The announcement took many royal watchers by surprise, because in her sixty-six-year reign the Queen had never before complained of bone spurs.

    But, according to the Queen’s spokesman, Peter Rhys-Willington, Elizabeth had intentionally kept her chronic bone-spur condition a closely guarded secret until now.

    Suuuure, except for using it to keep herself out of the Army. Oh, wait…

  52. 52.

    different-church-lady

    @jl:

    I saw a news item someplace that Trump admitted his foreign BS stunts are mainly for domestic consumption by his bigot base.

    America first.

  53. 53.

    Mart

    @SenyorDave: The day I learned of Jim Jordan’s troubles, I commented he walks. Obviously a target of the deep state what with the committees he is on and whatnot.

  55. 55.

    debbie

    @Mary G:

    They look like unhinged loons.

    Even more, they look like hypocrites. Let’s not forget all those GOP state and federal officials who said far worse things about Barak and Michelle Obama. All we got to show for those outrages were a bunch of non-apology apologies. Not one single hearing for any of them.

    Why didn’t the Dems fight back with this?

  56. 56.

    Emma

    @Uncle Cosmo: I love the fact that she actually was in the army. She was in the Women’s Auxiliary Territorial Service during World War II, known as Second Subaltern Elizabeth Windsor, and trained as a mechanic and military truck driver.

    Personally, I think this is the polite response to Trump’s speech attacking May’s Brexit plans and his needling her on immigration. All in all the royals are very much on the side of the immigrants.

  57. 57.

    SenyorDave

    @Mart: I agree he walks, but IMO this has to be a campaign issue. At least keep it in the public eye so this shitbag has trouble becoming speaker. As bad as Ryan is Jordan is much worse.

  60. 60.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Mart: I’m still kind of amazed by the whole thing.

    Jordan clearly knew this doctor was molesting his students and just decided that he didn’t care. The entire brouhaha could have been avoided if he just said “You know, I thought all of the discussions were in the nature of a joke and that turned out to be wrong. I should have acted on it, and I would if I’d ever had a formal complaint.” Instead, he’s going lying, getting Fox to lie for him, and getting the entire republican establishment to lie for him despite the fact that he’s obviously lying and his defense makes no sense.

    But then, that’s basically the entire Republican line of thought. The fact that the FBI gave Trump preferential treatment to Hillary proves that they secretly wanted to take down Trump. I don’t even know what to say to that.

  62. 62.

    A Ghost To Most

    I did not think it possible anyone could make Peter Strzok seem a sympathetic figure in this hearing, but Louie Gohmert did. His behavior toward the witness was bullying and insulting, and elicited no information.

    – Brit Hume
    2:06 PM – Jul 12, 2018

    Womp womp

  63. 63.

    Anne Laurie

    @? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?:

    Come on Paulie, don’t you give one shit what your legacy will be? You’re resigning at the end of this year, what do you have to lose? Do you honestly want Pedo enabler Jordan to be on the shortlist for Speaker?

    Paul Ryan doesn’t give a flying fart what happens to Congress the minute after Paul Ryan skips town. But if he *did*, being replaced by Jordan (or Gohmert, or Steve ‘Pig Muck’ King) is his best chance of looking better in retrospect, so there’s that…

  69. 69.

    germy

    Charges dropped against Stormy.

    You’re going to see a lot of jokes about this, but this is exactly what authoritarian countries do to government opponents. Haul them in on unrelated minor offenses to harrass them into shutting up. https://t.co/TgccPBuv1K

    — Matt Novak (@paleofuture) July 12, 2018

  70. 70.

    Aleta

    @different-church-lady: Exactly! Also seems similar to people desensitizing to authoritarian regimes, which is countered by the amount of visible opposition . Offhand I think of the desensitizing as a learned response, not automatic like the perfume analogy. Whether a person comes to believe that it’s not worth the energy to confront the perpetual liar over and over.

  76. 76.

    JMG

    Chuck Todd (dumb) and Ezra Klein (not dumb, but living in Washington is doing bad things to his brain) have opined the hearing was a big win for Trump because it will turn off independents. Todd thinks the very existence of the Democratic party turns off independents, so forget him. Ezra’s deal stems from his own personality. He’s obviously a nice person for whom insane shouting and screaming is a big turn off. So in time-honored DC pundit fashion, he projects that onto the minds of tens of millions of people he’s never met.

  77. 77.

    Elizabelle

    @germy: Improves it, by adding the penultimate ugliest dog.

    (And RIP to Zha Zha, this year’s ugliest dog winner, who went to dog heaven just weeks after her victory.)

  78. 78.

    Adam L Silverman

    Oh goody, Goodlatte and Gowdy decided it was a good idea to let Gaetz have the microphone.

  80. 80.

    germy

    @JMG:

    Chuck Todd and Ezra Klein have opined the hearing was a big win for Trump because it will turn off independents.

    They always frame these things in terms of the “horse race” rather than discussing exactly what happened and why. It’s all about the horse race with these assholes.

  81. 81.

    Adam L Silverman

    @lamh36: Was he wearing his blue sweater? He looks like Grimace when he wears it. And he’s dumb as a stump, but he’s a nepotism case. He, like Bill Kristol, are neo-Con royalty.

  82. 82.

    sukabi

    @SenyorDave: the head coach is acknowledging that there were complaints about the Dr. That he had personally told the Dr. That showering with the wrestlers was inappropriate.

    Don’t think Jordan gets out of this. Think he’ll try and tough it out, but will ultimately opt to spend time with his family.

  83. 83.

    Brachiator

    Trump at dinner in the UK. A few protesters, too.

    A large police presence has been building up outside Blenheim Palace. Police officers estimated there were more than 1,000 people demonstrating before Mr Trump’s arrival.

    A group of protesters has also gathered outside a fenced-off area in Regent’s Park, close to the entrance of Winfield House, where Mr Trump is staying.

    Among those attending the black-tie dinner at the ancestral home of former Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill are cabinet ministers and business leaders.

    Guests are dining on Scottish salmon, Hereford beef fillet and strawberries with clotted cream ice-cream.

    Only one person, the digital entrepreneur and philanthropist Baroness Martha Lane-Fox, has publicly refused the invitation.

    No doubt, Trump himself is skipping the salmon and beef fillet and having a hamburger.

  91. 91.

    Elizabelle

    Gotta love this lead paragraph from, unbelievably, the NY Times:

    WASHINGTON — Hoping to delay his trial in Virginia on charges of bank fraud and money laundering, Paul Manafort instead managed this week to get himself transferred from a jail where prosecutors said he described his treatment as “V.I.P.” to one where his lawyers claim he is worried about his safety.

  92. 92.

    Tilda Swintons Bald Cap

    @germy: Well if you’re not a political junkie what you heard today is the FBI guy broke the rules, so yeah probably better for Trump.

  93. 93.

    Adam L Silverman

    @MisterForkbeard: This was from his closed door testimony two weeks or so ago. Goodlatte and Gowdy have been selectively leaking bits and bobs to weaponize it.

  100. 100.

    Patricia Kayden

    Really hoping that the good folk of the Californian district which is represented by Nunes boots him out of office this November. He’s a Russian bot in the flesh.

  101. 101.

    Elizabelle

    @Adam L Silverman: That is so unethical.

    What I saw today really disturbs me, because the Republicans are literally unhinged and dangerous. Preview of what will come once Mueller lowers the hammer.

    I want all of them cleared out. They’re freaks and crooks. Literally. They’re drunk on their own ugliness.

  103. 103.

    lamh36

    @atrupar
    19m19 minutes ago
    More
    WOW — Strzok GOES IN on @RepMarkWalker: “Sir, I’m here under oath. I’m not lying. I never lied under oath and I never will. So the comment that you somehow say that ‘you have an integrity issue’ is insulting. I take offense. It’s incorrect.”

  105. 105.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Anne Laurie:

    being replaced by Jordan (or Gohmert, or Steve ‘Pig Muck’ King) is his best chance of looking better in retrospect

    It’s a particularly repulsive convergence of the Greater Fool Theory with the Turtles All The Way Down Theory.

  108. 108.

    SFAW

    @joel hanes:

    Kid in my middle school was named Tommy Trcka
    It was a laff riot watching the gym teacher try to say that aloud when calling roll at the beginning of each school year.
    (The family pronounced it “THURCHka”

    I knew of a guy whose last name was spelt “Luxury-Yacht,” but was pronounced “Throat-Wobbler-Mangrove.”

  110. 110.

    Adam L Silverman

    @sukabi: What’s going to get him will be the civil suits. All of the coaches are going to get sued. By hundreds if not thousands of victims.

  113. 113.

    Aleta

    @Quinerly: From wiki:
    Stewart Detention Center is a private prison operated by Corrections Corporation of America. Stewart was named one of ten ICE facilities targeted for closure by the Detention Watch Network in 2012, citing the March 2009 death of inmate Roberto Medina-Martinez reportedly caused by medical neglect, among many other serious issues.

    Stewart was also identified by the ACLU of Georgia in 2012 as one of four ICE detention centers that demonstrate that “ICE has consistently shown that it is incapable of protecting the basic human rights of immigrants under its care.”

  114. 114.

    Tilda Swintons Bald Cap

    @? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: After watching Republicans make Fort Knox size vaults of propaganda gold out of mouse turds I’m skeptical that this is a “win” for us. And as Kay keeps saying the “Deep State” is perfectly OK with this….

  115. 115.

    Elizabelle

    @Adam L Silverman: I was watching the hearings and thinking there are any number of actors who could play Strzok in a movie.

    And that the GOP would all clearly be villains. No way you could make them into the heroes, by their own words and by their very demeanor.

    It was enlightening and frightening.

  116. 116.

    trollhattan

    @lamh36:
    Oh maaaannnn, the mind boggles. What if he got them all to do a “Throw the Jew down the well” singalong?

  119. 119.

    Mart

    @Elizabelle: Sorry zoned out linking to WaPo Strzok story -https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/embattled-fbi-agent-to-appear-before-congress/2018/07/11/7754ad14-854e-11e8-8553-a3ce89036c78_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.8f99d6630e00

  121. 121.

    Adam L Silverman

    @germy: I did a comment on this yesterday, but am happy to repeat. He’s completely unqualified for the position he’s in. He was appointed because Sessions doesn’t know who he can trust and this guy is a trusted agent as a former staffer. This is what’s going to happen now: 1) The same office that informed and required Sessions that he had to recuse, will inform and then require Benczkowski to recuse. 2) After the first few weeks all the senior career people’s (SESes and senior GSes) will have their suspicions confirmed that he has no idea what he’s doing substantively because he’s never done any trial law, neither criminal nor civil. Has absolutely no experience with it. 3) At that point the career SESes and senior GSes that are direct reports to him will basically just operate on UNODIR (unless otherwise directed) and better to beg forgiveness than ask permission. They’ll just do their jobs to their best of their abilities according to DOJ policy. 4) At the same time they’ll start shaping all the materials that need to go to him for decision making purposes to limit his choices so he can’t screw anything up to badly. 5) Rosenstein will still be overseeing Mueller. 6) Should Benczkowski try to get read on to whatever Mueller’s doing, Rosenstein will prevent it because he doesn’t have a need to know at this point and there are multiple reasons to not read him on (he was Sessions senior aide when Sessions met with Kislyak several times, he worked on the transition and recommended to Sessions that Comey be fired once Sessions was confirmed, he then went to work for Alfa Bank).

  124. 124.

    Tilda Swintons Bald Cap

    @germy:

    @Bencjacobs
    INBOX: Statement of Judge Roy Moore on Sasha Cohen’s CBS/Showtime series, Who is America?

    Link

  126. 126.

    germy

    @Adam L Silverman: I read somewhere (I think it was the walls street journal) that Rosenstein supported his nomination, which surprised me because so many people were calling Benczkowski inexperienced.

  127. 127.

    lamh36

    @trollhattan: I saying….like what dafuq did they say or what types of questions did they willing answer…that they are NOW putting out statement about being tricked…when the interviews were obviously done MONTHS ago!!!

    I am intrigued…

  129. 129.

    TS (the original)

    @Quinerly: And he doesn’t want those other countries interfering in US affairs

    For no reason I can understand (except he works for Putin) trump wants the demise of Europe. He would have been Hitler’s best friend back in the 1930s.

  131. 131.

    sukabi

    @lamh36: Cheney’s done a commercial for his spot…saw it the other night…WTF is HE doing on my screen…lol.

  132. 132.

    Aleta

    @Quinerly: He died at a center operated by a private contractor formerly named Corrections Corp. of America, which has been renamed CoreCivic.
    From CNN, a story that describes abuse by private prison contractors, esp. by GEO Group:

    Just two years ago, GEO Group and other private-prison companies saw grim prospects ahead. Several lawsuits over wrongful deaths and many other issues had led to growing public and political concerns over conditions in private prisons. These concerns came to a head in the waning months of the Obama administration. In August of 2016, the Department of Justice’s Office of the Inspector General released a report concluding that, compared with federal facilities, private prisons had higher rates of assault, contraband and lockdowns. The report also identified problems with overuse of solitary confinement and poor medical care.

    A few weeks later, Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates issued a memo directing the federal Bureau of Prisons to phase out the use of private prisons as existing contracts expired. GEO Group’s stock price fell 40% in one day.

    The top private-prison companies have long been active politically. In the 2016 election cycle, GEO Group alone donated more than $1.2 million to candidates, parties and outside interest groups, with other operators, such as CoreCivic (then named Corrections Corp. of America) and Management & Training Corp. donating about $317,000, according to Federal Election Commission records analyzed by the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan nonprofit that tracks spending in US politics.

    GEO Group donated $275,000 to a Trump-aligned super PAC and $250,000 to Trump’s inaugural committee, according to FEC data. It also spent $1.7 million in lobbying last year, including $550,000 through Ballard Partners, a firm run by former Trump campaign Florida finance chair Brian Ballard.

    Within weeks of Trump’s inauguration, a White House memo to Homeland Security leaked, describing plans to nearly double immigration detention housing to handle more than 80,000 people a night, as first reported by the Los Angeles Times.
    The following month, newly appointed Attorney General Jeff Sessions rescinded the Yates memo. GEO Group’s share price, which had fallen to as low as $13 the day the Yates memo was released, soared, climbing by late April to $34.12 a share.

    That month, GEO Group was awarded the first new immigration detention contract under the Trump administration, a 10-year agreement for a 1,000-bed facility in Conroe, Texas, expected to generate $44 million a year in revenues. In May 2017, the Bureau of Prisons awarded GEO Group a pair of 10-year contracts, expected to generate $66.4 million a year in revenues, to house immigrants convicted of crimes.

    Today, GEO Group operates 141 prisons, detention centers and community re-entry facilities. In October, the company moved its annual leadership conference from Boca Raton, Florida, where it is headquartered, to the Trump National Doral, a Miami golf resort owned by the President.

  133. 133.

    Adam L Silverman

    @lamh36: The problem is they’re trying to stuff about 350 lbs of Podhoretz into a sweater designed for maybe, at most 175 lbs of Podhoretz.

  134. 134.

    scott (the other one)

    @Elizabelle: Is it unbelieveable, though? Hasn’t the FTFNYT been terrible for years? From Whitewater through Judith Miller through to their soft-peddling of Trump’s awfulness and this kind of thing?

    Seriously, yes, we love Paul Krugman and Charles Blow, but it’s time to stop thinking of the FTFNYT as anything but a conservative rag, because that’s what it’s become.

    I truly wonder what the Russians have on whom at the FTFNYT.

  139. 139.

    Adam L Silverman

    @sukabi: The doctor who did the abuse died in 2005. Statute of limitations is passed for all of these crimes. It will be civil suits. The university as a whole, the entire coaching staff and athletic director leadership. That’s what is going to ultimately get Jordan.

  141. 141.

    debbie

    @lamh36:

    Worse is the cop who wouldn’t help her, but instead turned his back. Hope he’s enjoying his desk jockeying.

  142. 142.

    joel hanes

    @debbie:

    Why didn’t the Dems fight back with this?

    Identifying Republican hypocrisy has been a major activity of Democrats for decades.
    The press barely pretends to care, sometimes.

    Republicans are not shamed when shown to be hypocrites; they, like Trump, think “that makes me smart” when they break the same rules that they insist that Democrats must follow.

    And Republican voters don’t care about hypocrisy at all.
    For many of them, hypocrisy is a key competency, required to deal with the conflicting demands of tribal identity, professed Christianity, and their own actual lives.

  144. 144.

    Immanentize

    @germy:
    Biscayne Fucking Park.

    There are dozens if small police forces in the Miami area. El Portal, Opa-locka and Biscayne Park have been considered among the worse since the ’80’s

  145. 145.

    Cckids

    @Omnes Omnibus: I share a last name with Hillary & Bill, and people spell it wrong. During Bill’s administration, when asked to spell it, we’d say “like the President”, and get entirely blank looks.

  146. 146.

    Geeno

    I hope everyone (who can) has shot at least a couple of bucks to the cause in the post below.

  149. 149.

    Aleta

    WaPo:

    The two largest private prison contractors in the United States, GEO Group and CoreCivic, house thousands of immigrant detainees across the country. These corporations now face allegations that they force immigrant detainees to perform unpaid labor inside their facilities.

    Since Trump took office, immigrant detainees have brought five separate human trafficking and forced labor lawsuits against these two private prison companies. (An earlier case was filed in 2014.) The lawsuits allege that GEO Group and CoreCivic compelled the detainees to work cleaning toilets, showers and communal housing units without pay and under threat of punishment.

    Two San Diego residents, Sylvester Owino and Jonathan Gomez, brought one such suit. Owino and Gomez allege that at various times between 2005 and 2015, they were detained for immigration violations at a CoreCivic-run facility called the Otay Mesa Detention Center. They claim that during their respective detentions, CoreCivic forced them and other detainees to scrub bathrooms, wash windows and clean other parts of the facility, all under threat of physical restraint and solitary confinement. Now, they are seeking to recover what they say they are owed — and trying to prohibit CoreCivic from profiting from such practices in the future.

    Additional suits filed against CoreCivic in California, Texas and Georgia make similar allegations. The company also maintains that its programs are “completely voluntary” and follow federal standards.

    But if the allegations are true, then both companies are violating federal human trafficking laws that prohibit forced labor and involuntary servitude.

    Courts are taking these lawsuits seriously. Just last month, a federal judge in California — a Republican appointee — rejected CoreCivic’s argument that human trafficking laws do not apply to private detention facilities under contract with the federal government, thus allowing the case to continue.

    eta: Many of the immigrants detained at GEO Group and CoreCivic facilities would not legally be permitted to work outside the detention centers’ fences. These lawsuits make a startling claim: Private detention corporations, touted as “job-creators,” are using detainee labor to avoid creating jobs for U.S. citizens.

  157. 157.

    ? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?

    @Tilda Swintons Bald Cap:
    What other possible point could you have by saying the stuff you do? You make it quite you believe everything is hopeless.

    I’m just taking your POV to its logical conclusion.

  160. 160.

    The Lodger

    @divF: For years I predicted the American Spectator and the Weekly Standard would merge to become the American-Standard.

  163. 163.

    J R in WV

    @Elizabelle:

    Where is schrodinger’s cat?

    We can’t know that. We can only know that she’s moving.

    More seriously, probably taking a break to gather her strength. Several favorite commenters are scarce from time to time these days.

Comments are closed.