In typical Trump administration fashion, the Department of Homeland Security is patting itself on the back for meeting yesterday’s deadline to reunite the children it jacked from immigrant parents under Jeff Sessions’ cruel “zero tolerance” policy. But they’re lying. Via CNN:
As a court-ordered deadline to reunite all eligible families the Trump administration separated at the border elapsed, one in three children still remained away from their parents, with no clear indication when they would be reunited.
According to a court filing, the government has reunited 1,442 families with children aged 5 and older by late Thursday. The government says an additional 378 children have already been released under “appropriate circumstances,” according to the court filing. That includes children released to another family member or friend who can care for them, children who were released to parents already out of government custody and those who have turned 18.
But there are more than 700 children still left in government custody, unable to be reunited with their parents any time soon. The government maintains that it could not or should not have reunited all of those children, including hundreds of parents who were apparently deported and others who the government says declined to be reunified or have criminal histories…
In a call with reporters, officials emphasized that they had met the obligations as they saw them, noting that there would be no parents and children in the country who could be reunited by the end of the day left.
Like their boss, who had a photo-op meeting with Kim Jong-Un and declared the North Korean nuclear conundrum solved, the Trump administration thinks they’re done here. Far from it. According to the article, the government didn’t share any plans to reunite the remaining children with parents, some of whom were likely deported and difficult to reach:
“Parents that did return home without their child did so after being provided an opportunity to have that child accompany them on the way home,” Albence said, later adding the parents “declined” that offer. “Yes, they’ve been deported. We don’t keep track of individuals once they’ve been deported to foreign countries…”
“We cannot force a parent to take a child with them,” he said. The ACLU has filed a number of affidavits to the court alleging numerous parents did not know what they had signed when they relinquished their right to be reunified.
I’ll believe the ACLU over the lying Trump administration, every fucking time. Recall that DHS Secretary Nielsen straight-up lied in our faces about the existence of this vile policy in the first place, even after thousands of children were already stolen:
We do not have a policy of separating families at the border. Period.
— Sec. Kirstjen Nielsen (@SecNielsen) June 17, 2018
She should have been forced to resign, but luckily for her career, the entire administration is stocked with amoral, lying, corrupt buffoons from top to bottom. Unlike Nielsen, Rep. Karen Bass is telling the truth (h/t: valued commenter Rikyrah):
Last week, I spoke to a grandmother (in a cage) who the government had deemed "ineligible" to stay with her grandchild because she was not his mother.
The boy was shipped off to foster care and in 6 months, can be put up for adoption in Texas.
That’s what “ineligible” means. https://t.co/DkofFDKtNn
— Congressmember Bass (@RepKarenBass) July 27, 2018
We’ve got to stay focused on this shameful episode, fellow citizens, until every child has been accounted for — about a third are still in limbo. The minute we take our eyes off the ball, Trump administration-affiliated “Christian” charities will probably pounce on these kids and sell them off. This is being done in our name, so it’s up to us to hold the bastards to account.
germy
Leslie Moonves (“Trump may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS”) is apparently the focus of a new Ronan (gulp!) Farrow investigation.
MaryLou
Still confused: these numbers apply to kids 5 and older. What’s the current status of the kids younger than 5? How many of them are still separated from their families? Not finding much (any) reporting on that…
Corner Stone
@germy: I wonder which comes first. Are assholes gifted with the combo that makes them rich, or does fabulous wealth corrupt otherwise normal levels of assholishness?
frosty
Would it accomplish anyrhing to call my teahadi Rep? Sen Toomey?
The Moar You Know
Pretty sure what the Trump admin has done to these families and kids rises to full “war crimes” offenses.
Bush and Cheney can’t leave the country and I see no reason Trump should be allowed to either. Step up, world. We obviously can’t handle this ourselves.
TenguPhule
@MaryLou:
The children under 5 were all supposed to have been reunited with their parents by July 16, under the judge’s deadline. Naturally as soon as the deadline passed, the media assumed that HHS did it and forgot all about it.
TenguPhule
@The Moar You Know:
Why should we be punished like that? Kick them out and let the Hague deal with them.
Corner Stone
@The Moar You Know:
For God’s sake, if Trump wants to go I say let him go.
TenguPhule
@Corner Stone:
Yes.
rikyrah
When I think about this entire human right abomination, I just go into a rage.
Because, it always comes back to this for me…
THEY.NEVER.HAD.ANY.INTENTIONS.OF.REUNITING.THESE.CHILDREN.WITH.THEIR.PARENTS.
They DELIBERATELY took children and didn’t have any plan on giving them back.
They all belong at The Hague.
Eljai
I have heard pundits on my TV tell me that people who say we’re in a constitutional crisis are being shrill. But if the only thing we need to do to comply with a court order now is say “nah, it’s fine, we’re good” contrary to the evidence, then I’d say we’re in a constitutional crisis.
TenguPhule
Point of order, Betty.
That’s “according to HHS” which didn’t keep accurate records in the first place.
I think they’re still lying.
The Moar You Know
@frosty: YES.
And I’ll take this opportunity to remind everyone: Letters best, phone calls right up there with letters, faxes not bad, emails worse than useless.
Betty Cracker
@MaryLou: Last I heard, 38 of the kids under five hadn’t been reunited with their parents, most because the parents had already been deported. The ACLU newsletter is a good place for updates.
TenguPhule
Am I the only one who immediately saw a sinister alternative meaning to those words?
TenguPhule
@rikyrah:
And they’ve been lying about everything about it from the start.
Emerald
@The Moar You Know: Absolutely. I can’t understand why there isn’t a full international outcry over this.
TenguPhule
It seems the quarterly review didn’t go well. Trump has been called to the home office to account for his failures.
Brachiator
Money is tight, but I have to put aside something for the ACLU (and also Planned Parenthood).
Emerald
@TenguPhule: I’m good with it as long as he stays there. Russia can grant him asylum and set him up in a nice condo next to Snowden.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@TenguPhule: One week after the Annual Performance Review is pretty quick for the boss to be scheduling a follow up.
AnonPhenom
Wow. G. Greenwald has deleted about 3 years (27,000) twitterthingies.
Not strange.
Nope, not at all.
rikyrah
Awful story, great journalism. Immigrant youth shelters: “If you’re a predator, it’s a gold mine” https://t.co/NQSpRdlyod
— Ken Dilanian (@KenDilanianNBC) July 27, 2018
germy
@AnonPhenom: Now that’s shoe-leather journalism.
AnonPhenom
Link.
TenguPhule
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
We can only hope Trump has failed Putin for the last time.
frosty
@The Moar You Know: OK then, I made the calls. Thanks everyone for the news updates and the encouragement. I told them the administration was making excuses and we needed to spend whatever time and money it took to go to Central America, find the deported parents and reunite the families.
germy
@Corner Stone: I think they’d be assholes even if they were living in a bus down by the creek, picking cracker crumbs off their shirts. The wealth and power just gives them better lawyers.
Frankensteinbeck
@rikyrah:
I honestly don’t think the question even occurred to them. When you’ve stopped thinking of your victims as human, it’s easy to overlook even obvious human needs. Now throw on top of that extreme, mind-boggling levels of incompetence and being distracted by malicious glee at making brown people suffer. I think the plan ended at ‘Take the children away’, and even ‘Where do we keep them now?’ came as a surprise they had to scramble to deal with.
Brachiator
@Emerald:
There has been, and it continues. From a June Vox story.
Trump insists that the world respects him. This is fake news.
trollhattan
What I could glean from the radio this morning sounded like the new administration-ICE talking point is these leftover/remaindered/past sell-by date kids have been “surrendered” by the parents upon said parents being sent away. Figure that means somebody jabbering to a Guatemalan lady in English and pointing to sig lines on a stack of forms. She didn’t know the twelfth has her saying “Kid? I don’t want that kid.”
It’s too cynical to be merely called cynical. I’m out of vocabulary.
Cheryl Rofer
Philadelphia ended its data sharing with ICE today.
MomSense
These children were stolen. Our government had no intention of reuniting them.
Hoodie
@TenguPhule: Maybe, but it looks like directly talking with Putin in person is the only way Trump can get orders without being intercepted by intelligence agencies or relying on untrustworthy intermediaries. Remember when they were going to establish direct communications using Russian facilities? They were serious. Trump is just a spray tanned, combover version of Victor Yanukovich.
Mr Stagger Lee
There will be no excuses, from either the Democratic leadership,if they come to power,nor from some the party supporters if these bastards in the DHS are not brought up to account.
burnspbesq
@frosty:
Probably not, but there’s no downside.
Jaker
I’ve got a nice new name for “ICE” & it is “ICEIS”!
Know what I mean?!
burnspbesq
Court needs to appoint a special master to oversee this process, get daily reports from the special master, and start jailing people for contempt if there is continued non-compliance—starting with Sessions and Neilsen.
lowtechcyclist
Congressmember Bass isn’t bullshitting about the “in 6 months, can be put up for adoption in Texas” part. They’ve got a horrible fast-track adoption system that will adopt kids into new families if there are any legal problems with their real parents.
burnspbesq
@lowtechcyclist:
I’d be curious to see data on who’s doing the adopting in these scenarios. My spidey-sense says it’s likely wingnut fundies.
oatler.
We should have killed every one of those confederate crackers in the “Reconstruction”. Not that I’m trying to incite a New Civil War, copyright and screenrights pending.
TenguPhule
Health and Human Services New Motto: “Work will set you free!”
We are fighting brain eating zombies.
satby
@lowtechcyclist: Texas is where the kids were adopted from that were murdered by their adoptive mother driving the family high-end off the cliff in California.
Not a good record of vetting adoptive parents.
Mr Stagger Lee
You can bet, you will hear stories of those kids, as they become adults. Trying to find their real families,Similar to those in Argentina the children of those who opposed the junta, who were stolen to be adopted by RW familes
ruemara
Really can’t put into words my disgust at this.
TenguPhule
I do believe we have found the stupidest man on the face of the Earth.
Trump Claims the U.S. Would Save Money Without Trade. That’s Not What a Trade Deficit Represents.
Warning, FYNYT link.
rikyrah
@TenguPhule:
These muthaphuckas met last week….
smintheus
Putting stolen children up for adoption: Isn’t that what South American dictatorships do?
Bruce K
The longer this lasts, the more I think that every abettor in the administration and all their abettors on Capitol Hill should be thankful if they don’t end up hanging by piano wire from traffic lights.
Mnemosyne
@TenguPhule:
Technically I suppose my co-worker’s sister is “able-bodied” since her problem is grand mal seizures that tend to break through despite medication, but it turns out no one in food service or retail is willing to hire someone who could have a severe seizure at any moment.
But, hey, I guess if she wanted medical treatment, she shouldn’t have been born with a medical condition that makes it impossible for her to work.
hitchhiker
The stolen kids story is the one that threatens to destroy my ability to process information. It just fucking can’t be true, but I know that it is.
Yutsano
@lowtechcyclist: And not just any families. Good “Christian” Quiverfull families who will treat the new spawn like chattel since if they act up sorry not a citizen you’re deported!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@rikyrah: Obviously, the employee has not met expectations for improvement that was outlined in his annual review.
Aleta
They may say they have no names or records, but you can bet they have the records of what they billed for as prisons and for-profit centers. They have numbers for each day–how many individuals were there and how many in in each room, how many meals, the list of drugs administered and billed for, the number of beds and cages and supplies they ordered, their staff time sheets, their hiring records and records from their contractors. How many people came off a bus or left for a plane or van. They may not have cared about humanity but they absolutely watched over and recorded the numbers.
We need a complete record for now and for history. Every person who came in contact with a child as an employee should be required to be interviewed. Even if all they say is “I was just following orders.” What were they told to do, who told them, who answered their questions, who else was there, doing what. What did they see each day. Every detail they remember about each child. Every person who gave an order should be under oath.
We need people who can do what historians and volunteer researchers and oral history takers have done to trace the movement and fate of people captured in slavery and during the Holocaust.
TenguPhule
@Mnemosyne: I know, its fucking nuts. They fucking lost a court battle over this and they’re still going right back and starting the process to get it done all over again.
Zombies. Fucking braineating zombies.
patrick II
Can someone go to jail for this? Abducting children, government or not, is a criminal offense. If there is a law in place, say because the parent is a child abuser, the government has the right to remove a child. But there is no law that allows them to any child they want for any made up reason. And the reason has been stated by the White House as intimidation. And it is now clear there was never to be any attempt to return the children to their parent(s), so it seems straight up kidnapping to me. They are at least acting extra-legally if not illegally. If Kelly and Miller and Sessions drafted a directive to shoot the children I would hope that someone would be sent to jail. Kidnapping is nearly as serious. I would love to see Kelly and Miller in jail for this.
Is there any state law kidnapping violates? Is there any state Attorney General willing to press charges? Or am I just being totally ignorant and the feds can do whatever they want? If a brown person is reading this, hold your children close.
lowtechcyclist
@burnspbesq:
Not always. I’m sure that’s the intent, though.
I really want every person associated with this policy to be thrown into prison and left there to rot for the rest of their lives. And should that come to pass, I hope they all live a long, long time.
TenguPhule
@Bruce K:
I hope they don’t get a chance to be thankful because they’re hanging from piano wires.
frosty
@smintheus: I’ve adopted 2 children from South America, one from a recently ended dictatorship and one from a soon to be ended one. I can assure you that based on the documentation from the courts, foster care, orphanages, and adoption agencies that this is not the process that a South American dictatorship goes through.
Amir Khalid
@burnspbesq:
I take it the ACLU’s next move is to tell the judge that the US Government is not complying, so that she can remedy that by appointing the special master.
TenguPhule
@patrick II:
Unlikely. Sovereign immunity covers a lot and this was an official action of government.
Unless we throw them to the Hague, the courts will not get involved.
Corner Stone
@TenguPhule: This stupid buffoon. If we didn’t import cheap goods we’d have inflation that would make a Venezuelan Jimmy Carter blush.
TenguPhule
@smintheus:
They have better paperwork and records then HHS.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Frankensteinbeck: That’s sure what it looked like. Even if you were evil enough to think taking the kids was a good idea, the incompetence with which it was done is surely stunning.
rikyrah
@MomSense:
say it for the bleacher seats.
Mnemosyne
@Frankensteinbeck:
I’m even more cynical than you — I think they didn’t keep records because they know that’s how the Nazis got prosecuted for crimes against humanity. They decided that if they didn’t document things, they could play dumb and incompetent and never face prosecution.
TenguPhule
@Aleta:
Five will get you ten that any numbers reported are inflated to allow the centers in question to grift on the “ghost” children they billed for. Short of vigorously interrogating every single person involved in the process, we may never get the true numbers.
patrick II
@TenguPhule:
I have always understood that in the context of the government having some, even if remote, justification under law for their actions. Can Donald have the children shot and still be covered because it was an official action of government? Where is the line on that? I would certainly draw it on the other side of kidnapping, which is not a word that has been used, but it should be.
I am obviously not a lawyer, but I get your point. It just seems so wrong.
Mnemosyne
@frosty:
He’s thinking of Chile, where the children of imprisoned or murdered dissidents were given away to government officials who didn’t particularly want them.
rikyrah
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
how can it be incompetence?
You have NO intention of giving back the children, so why would you have to set up any practical tracking system?
Just pure evil.
Kay
Let’s make voting easy! and convenient! and friendly!, and then Republicans can take the other side- difficult and time consuming and grim – like a BATTLE :)
I feel we’re not capitalizing on the fact that they’re mean-spirited assholes who really have no interest in serving the public- enough- we’re not saying that enough.
rikyrah
@TenguPhule:
you bet your azz those numbers were inflated. …..
Teddys Person
@TenguPhule:
How do we do this? I’m in for the GoFundMe campaign.
TenguPhule
@patrick II:
The line is whatever five justices on the SC decide it is.
TenguPhule
@Kay:
Its not sexy and doesn’t fit on the bumper of a Prius. //
Mel
@frosty: Even if it doesn’t immediately impact things, the more people who call, the more often we call, write, email, and then accurately record and report their responses (or lack thereof) online, to all the people we know, and in newspaper letters to the editor, the more they are going to feel the heat.
Whether that impacts their behavior or not, it still accomplishes a couple of things, in my opinion:
1. exposes to voters the difference between what the reps say that they are doing and what they are actually doing / not doing. It’s a little difficult for them to keep up the “I’m dedicated to solving the problem” spiel if they refuse to provide constituents with concrete proof of action, or refuse to respond to constituent requests for contact.
2. educates their interns / aides, and perhaps impacts their future decisions. Most of these youngsters have been raised in extremely right wing homes, and are fed propaganda daily at work. Many will be junior assholes and not hear you. Some, however, will listen, learn, and express genuine surprise that “the other side” is made up of real people, not cardboard monsters. Any small amount of inside doubt or pressure that can be brought to bear is helpful.
Also, talk to any good candidate who is running in your locale. If they are responsive and forthcoming, write a letter to the editor contrasting the difference between the attitudes, actions, and responsiveness of your rep versus the candidate.
Can’t hurt. Might help. It’s worth it.
Mary G
It’s just pure evil. There have been reports that CBP was ordered to destroy records of who was detained with who and that needs to be punished starting at the Cabinet level with jail time – that means you, Sec. Nielsen. We need to demand access to detainees for lawyers and immigration advocates, diplomatic outreach to Guatemala, Honduras and every other country where we will pay for DNA tests for people who come forward saying they were deported without their children, and many other things I can’t think of right now.
Gin & Tonic
@rikyrah: Yes, but if they meet in Moscow, then the Finns will find it much harder to record their conversation and give a copy to the CIA.
Aleta
@TenguPhule: “work and community engagement requirements for these populations”
So they also intend requirements for companies and community groups to hire and train and supervise? To fill out government forms on bad programs that crash and lose information?
Aleta
@Mary G: And seize computers.
Old School
TenguPhule
@patrick II:
Federal Torts Claim Act.
Old School
“A mom told us her relationship with her 8yo daughter would never be the same. Officials lied to the daughter, saying her mom abandoned her. They said she’d live in a shelter until she was 18. When they reunited, the daughter believed that and wanted nothing to do with her mom.”
Corner Stone
@Gin & Tonic: And seeing as how Putin purged several people suspected of working for the West after Trump burned them, it’s probably a little more difficult to get any inside intel smuggled out.
Mary G
Don’t any of these idiots understand the internet and it’s wayback machine capabilities?
Starfish
@MaryLou: They were supposed to be reunited at an earlier deadline.
Mary G
Since it’s an open thread, Fareed Zakaria’s column in the WaPo brings up a problem I had no idea was occurring:
Being Fareed, he goes on to explain why this may have nothing to do with the fact that the world hates our current president, but that’s just ass-covering. This will do infinite damage to the American economy if it isn’t stopped now.
Gravenstone
@The Moar You Know: “Crimes against humanity” but let’s not quibble overmuch over semantics. It’s simply an atrocity.
TenguPhule
@Mary G:
infinite damage it is then.
Seriously, any investor with even a little brain can see we’re a serious capital risk.
sheila in nc
@Kay: I don’t know if you saw my story in a thread a few days ago, but my experience with motor-voter tells me that it doesn’t obviate the need for follow-up to make sure that the registration actually happened. Multiple voters in the precinct I was working were caught on primary day with no registration, having signed up at the DMV and thought they were all good to go. Of course, who knows what’s going on in NC with voting… perhaps California will make more of a good-faith effort to complete the process properly.
rikyrah
New evidence raises doubts about Trump admin’s Census claims
07/26/18 10:00 AM—UPDATED 07/27/18 09:27 AM
By Steve Benen
The Trump administration announced in March that that the 2020 Census would include a question about citizenship status, which immediately drew swift condemnations. The criticisms were rooted in fact: the question is likely to discourage immigrants’ participation in the census, which would mean under-represented communities in the official count, affecting everything from political power to public investments.
Almost immediately, the White House defended the move with false claims. Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters, for example, “This is a question that’s been included in every census since 1965.” That wasn’t even close to being true.
But more important was the larger rationale: the administration said the move was precipitated by the Justice Department’s concerns about enforcing the Voting Rights Act. There’s new evidence that suggests that wasn’t true, either. The New York Times reported:
smintheus
@frosty: The dictatorships in both Argentina and Chile in decades past stole children from imprisoned and ‘disappeared’ people and secretly put the kids up for adoption.
TenguPhule
Okay, its official. We’re all in Hell.
nonynony
@Mary G:
If I were a foreign investor I’d be utterly terrified in investing in the US post-Trump. Trump has shown a willingness to tear up international agreements and start a trade war based on apparently nothing but racial grievances against foreigners. What’s to stop him from waking up tomorrow and deciding that foreign investments in the US are intolerable and to start doing something to steal them from the investors?
I mean, there may be laws in place to stop it and he can’t just do it with executive authority. But – he just started a massive trade war using only his executive authority and the GOP in Congress isn’t trying to stop him. As an outside observer I wouldn’t be able to judge whether or not I should trust those laws at all given the climate.
The US used to be a very safe place to invest – you never had to worry about someone deciding to nationalize your investments in the US. Trump ups the risk factor substantially – I’m not surprised by the lack of foreign investment even among folks who aren’t all that sympathetic towards boycotting the US for Trump’s antics.
Mnemosyne
@smintheus:
That’s probably why frosty ran into so much red tape when his family was going through the adoption process — a lot of South American countries cracked down on foreign adoptions once Pinochet was overthrown and the truth came out.
Corner Stone
Why is there a world where I even know who Emily Jane Fox is?
Steeplejack (phone)
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Trump is on a pretty tight “performance improvement” plan.
smintheus
Who would have guessed that these facilities for kidnapped children are rife with child abuse.
TenguPhule
A Single Trump Appointee Was Responsible For Keeping Hundreds Of Kids Locked Up Longer. He’s the same guy who blocked a teenage migrant who’d been raped from obtaining an abortion.
Hattip to Digby.
JFC.
I can’t even….
…..
Omnes Omnibus
@TenguPhule: I don’t agree with you often, but when you are right you are right.
Aleta
@TenguPhule: It’s a lot of detail to go after, but an effort is not beyond our capability. It will be even harder and less complete if done later; as historians and political scientists and legal scholars take it on. Or if a different Congress calls for an official investigation.
I agree they inflate and lie. Public record and the names of who signed the records would at least make them sweat over charges of fraud and discrepancies. Some might turn each other in.
Opening the records now might prevent something worse later.
Corner Stone
@nonynony: If Trump is dumb enough to believe the US is better off without foreign trade (he is), then who knows what crazy ass belief system he may have for foreign investment?
Catherine D.
@smintheus: And I just went back into my music library to listen to Hay Una Mujer Desaparecida. Deja vu all over again.
rikyrah
54 parents wrote a letter to the American public after they were separated from their children at our southern border. Their stories go against the core of who we are as a nation. We came together to share them. WATCH: #FamiliesBelongTogether pic.twitter.com/KqiKH3rY5G
— Senate Democrats (@SenateDems) July 27, 2018
TenguPhule
@Aleta: I agree its something that needs to be done and the sooner the better. I’m just saying its going to be the federal audit from Hell.
rikyrah
@TenguPhule:
I rebuke thee!!!
This is something that got an involuntary gag from me.
DISGUSTING.
WaterGirl
@rikyrah: The Trump administration considers the parents animals, so what does that make the children of animals? Surely nothing that matters. Children under 4 representing themselves at the hearings? Crimes against humanity.
smintheus
@Mnemosyne: I’d like to know whether US agencies can adopt children out without parent’s permission or a ruling from a genuine court that the parents have no rights.
Ruckus
@rikyrah:
I believe there is a term for that. Let’s see…. oh yeah Fucking Kidnaping.
And in this case Fucking Official Kidnaping. What law did congress pass and a president sign that gives them the right to kidnap children? Cause I don’t remember that.
And haven’t people been executed for kidnaping? I’m against the death penalty on general principles but I’m leaning towards exceptions. Kidnaping or murder under color of law, especially when no law actually exists would be one.
smintheus
@TenguPhule: This is ine specific guy who I hope will end up in jail for abuse of his office.
WaterGirl
@burnspbesq: That’s a great idea. Are there any court cases that could lead to that?
frosty
@smintheus: OK I stand corrected.
Ruckus
@trollhattan:
I’m not. Of course most of the vocabulary I have left is swearing. See, I did learn something in the navy.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@TenguPhule: I blame
ObamaTrump.Steeplejack
@Corner Stone:
Glad you brought her up. I don’t know what it is, but she makes my spidey sense tingle a little. She is MSNBC’s go-to reporter on all things Michael Cohen, and she seems to have really, really good access to him. Like: “Well, I talked to Michael two hours ago, and he said . . .” And that’s on a day when shit is blowing up all around him.
I’m not suggesting anything sexual, but I wonder if it might come out later that they have some special relationship beyond reporter and source. Like maybe she gets premier access in exchange for shading things more favorably, or with less damage, to him. I dunno; there’s just sort of a New York in-crowd vibe there.
Next time we can address my unfounded suspicion that Elise Jordan is some sort of legacy/nepotism plant on Morning Joe.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Ruckus: Heh, I was not in the Navy but raised by a Chief.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@TenguPhule:
Is it possible to like mayonnaise in small amounts in things like sandwiches but think mayo flavored ice cream is disgusting? Because that’s how I feel.
frosty
@Mnemosyne: And don’t forget the rumors that Americans were adopting foreign babies to harvest their organs.
ETA Chile after Pinochet was one of them.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: Turkey and BLT, anything else is gross.
Steeplejack
@TenguPhule:
I like mayonnaise, but mayonnaise-flavored ice cream is right out.
burnspbesq
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Was he put on a PIP at the meeting in Helsinki, or is that what the Moscow meeting is for?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@burnspbesq: I’m thinking Helsinki, the Moscow meeting is a follow up.
Ruckus
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Native American or Naval?
Corner Stone
If there was any doubt, it can be removed. Manafort is fucked.
35 people to testify against him during his trial, most with banking/financial ties. Per MSNBC.
Mnemosyne
@rikyrah:
They’re faking incompetence to escape prosecution. I really hope it doesn’t work.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Ruckus: Naval, but also a quarter Native American.
Gin & Tonic
@Corner Stone: Too bad, so sad.
Brachiator
@Corner Stone:
Oh, Trump clearly is in favor of foreign investment. Look at how much Putin has invested in Trump, for example.
burnspbesq
@rikyrah:
The idea that a DOJ headed by Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III has any interest in enforcing the Voting Rights Act is too silly to be taken seriously.
ChowderHead
This entire, ongoing humanitarian disaster is the bridge too far for me. Separating children from families as an intentional cruelty, as a “deterrent” policy (when really all it is is just more red meat to throw at the base), with no plan to reunite them, is the action of truly monstrous people. It is truly, profoundly evil.
I simply cannot get past it.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@Mnemosyne:
Has incompetence ever been an adequate excuse to escape criminal consequences?
ruemara
@TenguPhule: I only like my own mayo. And I wouldn’t make that into an ice cream because I have god given common sense.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
I like potato salad (that has mayo in it, right?). But yeah, mayo is only good in small amounts and on a limited number of things.
Mel
@Ruckus: Kidnapping and, in many cases, transportation across state lines.
Brachiator
@TenguPhule:
Shit, I don’t even like mayo flavored mayonnaise.
Yarrow
@Corner Stone: LOL. So sad.
Mnemosyne
@Kay:
My CA county is also planning to switch from having hundreds of separate polling places to having about a dozen centralized places that will be open continuously for the two weeks before the election. If they can pull it off, it will be really great, especially for people who live an hour or more away from their workplace — if they live and work in LA County, they’ll be able to go to the voting center that’s most convenient for them.
And it will all still be Scantron ballots.
Ruckus
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?:
Or lack of knowledge of the law?
IANAL but my mind/memory says no to both.
Calouste
@TenguPhule: The shitgibbon apparently thinks that if you go to the supermarket and buy something, you lose money. You should just grow everything at home, including coffee beans and bananas.
SiubhanDuinne
@Old School:
This just breaks my heart. Absolutely unforgivable. That poor mother. That poor daughter.
Ruckus
@Mnemosyne:
LA county already does this, I checked the last election and the number of places I could go was pretty amazing. They weren’t election day polling places, for example the Pasadena Library had a locked election deposit box, I walked there and dropped off my ballot. So when mail in balloting goes 100% live it will be even better than the last 12 yrs, which I’ve been a permeant mail in voter. I did have to argue with the lady at the office as my mailing address was my business address, not a residential address and I was told I couldn’t get my ballot. I asked one simple question, “What does a homeless person do to get a ballot?” Didn’t need to say another word, mail in ballots ever since.
SiubhanDuinne
@TenguPhule:
In that picture? Mayonnaise ice cream looks like pus.
Uncle Cosmo
@TenguPhule: Why, this is Hell…man.
Could be worse. Could be Miracle-Whip flavored ice cream…
SiubhanDuinne
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?:
I agree. Mayonnaise is fine as a binding ingredient (in, e.g., tuna/chicken/egg/pasta salad). I’ve even learned to tolerate a thin layer of it on a slice of sandwich bread, though I’d never choose it for myself. It’s an ingredient, not a food.
I feel exactly the opposite about raisins. Always happy to eat them straight from the box, the way god intended, but Do.Not.Put.Raisins.In.My.Tapioca.
Mnemosyne
@Ruckus:
No, this is a new thing that the legislature just approved in 2016. It’s so you can do early in-person voting. Right now, if you don’t do a mail-in ballot, the only way you can early vote is to go down to Norwalk. This will make early voting available all over the county.
Gin & Tonic
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?:
#NotAllPotatoSalad. Here you go.
J R in WV
@patrick II:
This is my position also. I think when this first started members of Congress should have gone to a federal judge for a set of warrants, including search warrants and arrest warrants, and taken those, along with a team of US Marshals, to the cage sites. Put people in interrogation rooms, under oath, with a prosecutor specialist in the child abuse criminal field. Lean on them hard, every order they received, every order they issued.
These people are child abusers, starting with Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and working all the way down to the uniformed abusers who picked up a child and walked away from their parent with them. Sec. Nielsen has perjured herself before Congress, caused children to be illegally removed from their families, deliberately destroyed record keeping requirements that would have made it possible to unite kidnapped children with their families, and all this (but the perjury) is true of everyone involved with stealing these children from their families.
Because you know under the Obama administration these families were properly tracked so that deported or not, families were together when the system spat them out, whether in Central America or in Houston TX. But under Trump’s administration, as executed by Secretary Nielsen those records were somehow not kept at all. Much to the astonishment of the Judge in charge of the cases.
After the children were stolen, they were abused, malnourished, caused to be filthy, denied medical treatment, and could have died at any time from this abuse. Why aren’t people in jail for these abusive crimes?
low-tech cyclist
@Old School:
This is the part that really gets me. Some alleged human being had to tell this girl that lie, for no other reason but to hurt her terribly.
And this lie was clearly told to a number of different children. I don’t hate many people, but I sure hate the fuckers who would do a thing like that. If I had my way, I’d find out what is the most lawless place on earth, and have them deported there.
Ruckus
@Mnemosyne:
I understand, that’s why I said it wasn’t an actual polling place, just a drop off. The only drop off places used to be, as you said the county election offices. This drop off system seems to be a lot better because I’m putting my ballot directly into a locked election box, rather than being handled by the post office. The drop off places are part of the rollout, which is a rather major change in how things have been done for a long time. Shorter, it’s a lot better. It’s going to be even better when fully implemented.
nymofnyms
@low-tech cyclist: Not doubting, but could you provide the link to that story?
J R in WV
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) :
I quit using mayo in potato salad and switched to olive oil and vinegar, usually rice wine vinegar. Onions, celery, a little smashed garlic, salt and pepper, olive oil and vinegar, stir and let marinate in the fridge.
Part of why I dropped the mayo is that at a picnic, the mayo can go bad on a warm day, but oil and vinegar takes a lot more abuse to go bad on you. Works for me.
TenguPhule
@low-tech cyclist:
Florida?
TenguPhule
@J R in WV:
Two words, Sovereign Immunity.
Yutsano
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Dad was a COB my last two years of high school. Mom used to host wayward Marines for Thanksgiving. I learned a few choice phrases.
Mnemosyne
@TenguPhule:
Sovereign immunity doesn’t apply to crimes against humanity.
WaterGirl
@J R in WV: I hate mayo but otherwise would love potato salad. I am temped to try it. How is rice wine vinegar different from regular vinegar?
TenguPhule
@Mnemosyne:
Which is why I said the only way to prosecute them is probably throwing them at the Hague and let the Swiss hang the bastards. Our federal court system isn’t going to accept the case because Sovereign immunity in the performance of official duties actually does Trump crimes against humanity in the American Justice system.
TenguPhule
@WaterGirl:
Smoother and not as harsh as regular vineger. Its what goes into sushi rice.
dopey-o
i haven’t seen anyone make the connection before (i am old and have slow internets), but doesn’t someone think there’s a connection between putin shutting down adoptions of russian children and the hundreds of adoptable muchachos at the southern border?
and how much do you think a grateful RWNJ family might contribute to trump’s 2020 re-election campaign?
Brachiator
@dopey-o:
No.
Jaker
If any of these missing children or indeed the children who are now back with their parent/mother/father were abused while they were missing & especially sexually abused then Trump/Sessions/Nielsen should be held totally responsible, period. The world as we live in today is ridden with opportunistic paedophiles the world over & no different in USA. In fact, a lot of these nasty people find a way into the institutions of the state. In fact, USA is on the top of the world charts for abuse against children and has been in that top spot for the last decade at least.
These children have been sent all over the place & ICE have said themselves they think a number of these children will never see their parent/s again. And I have to ask the questions, “WHY”? When they split up the parents & especially the children did they not keep records of each individual? I mean if they were dealing with parcels of drugs would they keep records of where they are stored for future evidence? Of course they would. But these are human beings & maybe Commander in Chief Trump told the head people of ICE not to worry if they get lost because they’re literally not as important as drugs or anything else lost. Women & children fleeing war & atrocities & rape & the rest can be lost for who would care?
We see that Trump & Co & cronies & even Melania (the time she wore that cheap (to her) green jacket) with those cruel words that was planned to inflict more hurt on them, don’t really care much. This shambolic government headed by Trump who in his inauguration speech said that he was going to represent everybody equally in the USA well, that was his first lie as President before many thousand more lies followed. That he was going to represent the people equally. Is there no charge of impeachment for lying in your inauguration speech? There should be.
But the decent people of US have shown & are still showing that care for these unfortunate women & children who fled persecution & all the other dastardly things in their lives in the country’s they fled from. Trump only cares for himself first with his me, me, me, me, selfish mindset, and then the only other one after that he cares about as much as himself it seems is (sorry Melania, not you) “Vladimir Putin”!
dopey-o
@Brachiator: Ok, maybe not a “Connection” but a fearful symmetry.
Tehanu
Karen Bass is my Congresswoman and I’m so glad I’ve always voted for her every time she’s run. If there’s a female version of the word “mensch,” she’s it.