Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

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

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

The willow is too close to the house.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

The GOP couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

You are here: Home / Organizing & Resistance / Don't Mourn, Organize / Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Respect the Experts

Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Respect the Experts

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I am not a historian, but I endorse this thread:


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106Comments

  4. 4.

    msb

    Kevin M. Kruse is right. The battle over history doesn’t just take place in academe, but also out in the public square, and online resources allow anyone to play. It’s important for professionals to participate in this discussion, not least to help people learn to evaluate the quality of sources that they access and to push back against garbage and lies. This doesn’t stop bad faith actors like pardoned felon D’Souza, but can help promote an honest and accurate public discussion.

  8. 8.

    Bjacques

    I think it goes for any subject in which you have hard-won expertise. You owe it to the community to help defend it from charlatans.

  9. 9.

    Baud

    I thought the last thread was the morning thread. Now I’m going to be off for the rest of the day.

    By all means engage D’Souza’s lies. Just do it with contempt.

  10. 10.

    satby

    @msb: it’s on everyone to push back against the lies and nonsense. I do it as often as I can (boy, am I popular! /), but without a counter argument the lie builds and propagates.

  13. 13.

    Anne Laurie

    @debbie:

    And yes, that little girl is a hoot.

    Whichever ‘trusted’ adult patiently taught her that routine is gonna be in trouble. And the little girl on her left just doesn’t want to share the blame!

  17. 17.

    Cermet

    So, more bad news – like all blood sucking parasites like tRump and his hanger-on’s, a new invasive tick – the Asian Longhorn – has been found in seven Eastern States. Unlike most ticks, this one can carry’s a very deadly virus: it is claimed in 538 that 15% of the people infected with that virus die! So like the thug party and its plague of blood sucking losers. I bet another benifit of human induced climate change (AGW.)

    Oh, and good morning fellow Jackals.

  23. 23.

    rikyrah

    I appreciate Kruse, not because I believed D’SOUZA, but because he supplies the rest of us with receipts that we can call up later.

  24. 24.

    Betty Cracker

    Glad Kruse pushed back on that garbage argument. The idea that we should ignore lunatic ravings in the hope that they’ll dissipate through lack of attention is partly what put us in our current pickle.

  25. 25.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    I’m driving to Iowa today by myself. Doc says it’s ok. I’m packing pills and feel like an official old person. But I’m going to stay with my friend who’s an FBI agent and am hoping for good gossip that she would never put in writing.

  27. 27.

    raven

    First day of school here. We love the kids walking down our street but miss those who have moved on to middle school.

  29. 29.

    Immanentize

    Hello all! Like Ozark we are looking at another “peak energy use!” day here in the Boston area — read “hot as hell and humid as well.”

  34. 34.

    Amir Khalid

    @debbie:
    “Democarate” doesn’t even make sense as an incorrect spelling.

    Or maybe it’s deliberate — you know, to tick off you Democrats and yo’ fancy lernin.

  35. 35.

    Leto

    Onion or real life? (you already know the answer)

    EPA is now allowing asbestos back into manufacturing

    One of the most dangerous construction-related carcinogens is now legally allowed back into U.S. manufacturing under a new rule by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). On June 1, the EPA authorized a “SNUR” (Significant New Use Rule) which allows new products containing asbestos to be created on a case-by-case basis.

    According to environmental advocates, this new rule gives chemical companies the upper hand in creating new uses for such harmful products in the United States. In May, the EPA released a report detailing its new framework for evaluating the risk of its top prioritized substances. The report states that the agency will no longer consider the effect or presence of substances in the air, ground, or water in its risk assessments.

    ‘Approved by Donald Trump’: Asbestos sold by Russian company is branded with the president’s face

    Asbestos, a fibrous silicate mineral that was used widely in industrial and commercial purposes such as construction in the United States, has fallen out of favor in many applications after a large body of scientific evidence connecting exposure to serious health concerns. Its use is restricted in the United States, though it has never been outright banned, as it has been in at least 60 other countries.

    But Trump has long expressed skepticism about its potential health effects after it is applied. In his 1997 book, “The Art of the Comeback,” he wrote that he believed that anti-asbestos efforts were “led by the mob.” In 2012, he tweeted that the World Trade Center would not have burned down had asbestos, which is known for fire-resistant properties, not been removed from the towers.

    The bold part is some mealy mouth bullshit on the WaPo’s part: asbestos causes bronchogenic carcinoma at a MUCH higher rate, and asbestos is the only known cause of mesothelioma. I guess this is another gift to the TV lawyer lobby. /s

  38. 38.

    randy khan

    My theory in pushing back against obvious right wing trolls/true believers (as if there’s a difference) is that I’m not trying to persuade them – although occasionally I do shame them into silence – but that I’m writing for other people who might come across the threads. So, kind of the same idea as Krause has.

  39. 39.

    Matt McIrvin

    As replies to Harwood’s tweet pointed out, “white people without college degrees” is not a narrow base. It’s half the country.

  40. 40.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Leto:

    has fallen out of favor in many applications after a large body of scientific evidence connecting exposure to serious health concerns.

    What is mealy mouthed about that? Is not bronchogenic carcinoma a serious health concern?

  41. 41.

    Melusine

    @rikyrah:

    How many legal illegal immigrants has shitgibbon employed at his properties over the years?

    I mean, besides his wives…

  42. 42.

    OzarkHillbilly

    The contributions are being collected by the Patriot Legal Expense Fund Trust, a vehicle established by Trump allies in February and managed by former New York GOP Congresswoman Nan Hayworth. It is designed to pay for legal fees for Trump aides who are roped into special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Aides to former President Bill Clinton had a similar arrangement for congressional and special counsel probes during his administration.

    The only money raised in the fund’s first quarter, which ended March 31, came from a Virginia-based consulting firm called ProActive Communications, which chipped in $22,000. The firm is owned by Mark Serrano, a onetime consultant to Trump’s presidential campaign who is also the spokesman for the legal defense fund.

    In all, the fund raised about $200,000 from February to the end of June. It released its required first- and second-quarter paperwork Monday, after watchdog groups filed complaints with the IRS that the fund had missed a July filing deadline.

    “I expected to see millions of dollars raised already,” said Craig Holman, a lobbyist with the nonprofit Public Citizen, which filed a complaint with the IRS. “Clearly, there has not yet been a comprehensive effort to raise funds and support the legal costs of administration officials.”

    Ya don’t say…..

  44. 44.

    Mathguy

    @Leto: ‘m trying to figure out who would knowingly buy something with asbestos in it. Oh, that’s right, MAGAts.

  46. 46.

    lowtechcyclist

    If I had the money, I’d put up a billboard somewhere that said something like:

    Dear Wingnuts: you’re not ‘owning the libs.’

    When the Republicans repealed Obama’s overtime rules, you ‘owned’ workers who won’t get paid for their overtime.

    As Trump sabotages Obamacare, you’re ‘owning’ working families that can’t afford to go to the doctor.

    When Trump forcibly separated children from their parents, you ‘owned’ thousands of little kids who will live with that trauma for the rest of their lives.

    Who are you going to ‘own’ today?

  48. 48.

    Jeffro

    I could swear WaPo columnist is reading BJ on a regular basis (and good for her!).

    Here she is, channeling what Kay and others have been noting for, oh, the past couple of years or so: The US is Massively Under-Prosecuting White Collar Crime

    Hey Dem pols – you wanna unite the country? Let’s go with this as a campaign plank!

    One possible lesson of the many brazen, conspicuous scandals related to President Trump and others in his orbit: The U.S. government has been massively underinvesting in enforcement and prosecution of white-collar crime.

    Trumpkins argue that the pileup of charges against onetime Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort is a sign that special counsel Robert S. Mueller III has gone rogue. After all, many of the allegations against Manafort — laundering $30 million in income, submitting false tax returns, lying to banks, failing to register as a foreign agent, obstructing justice — stem from his work in and for Ukraine before 2016. They’re not directly related to his time on the Trump campaign.

    Some of Manafort’s alleged crimes, as Trump loves to point out, are more than a decade old!

    But the right question isn’t why Mueller is going after Manafort now. It is: Why didn’t someone go after Manafort before? After all, there were just So. Many. Red. Flags.

    Not just the wire transfers to buy jackets made from exotic animals but also the decades of work for international thugs and kleptocrats, such as former Filipino president Ferdinand Marcos or former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych.

    Manafort is also hardly the only person associated with Trump who has engaged in conspicuously suspicious financial and political activities.

    There was the apparent treatment of the Trump Foundation as a personal checkbook, from which Trump used other people’s charitable donations to settle his for-profit businesses’ legal disputes and to purchase gigantic portraits of himself. The operation of Eric Trump’s personal foundation also has raised similar questions of self-dealing, according to Forbes.

    Or there’s the fishy stock trades by Trump cronies, including Carl Icahn and even the current commerce secretary, Wilbur Ross. Ross shorted the stock of a Kremlin-linked company days after he learned journalists were reporting a potentially negative story about the firm. (Both Icahn and Ross have denied engaging in insider trading.)

    This is what happens when absolutely everything shifts to fighting terrorism, justified or not, while cutting the IRS drastically.

    In the meantime, there it is Dems – just pick it up and run with it!

  54. 54.

    gvg

    The republicans cutting government and taxes policy of decades has looked to me for a long time like a way to allow the rich to get away with tax fraud. they deliberately have been underfunding and attacking the IRS for years, so that there are fewer and fewer actual investigators, physical bodies to do the work. So the rich get richer and the crooked rich do best. See the results?
    I also think they have been slowing immigration the same way. Too few actual employees to handle the work, years of backlog. Old computer systems, because no money, etc.

  56. 56.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Baud: Some years back I made a small discovery. I walked out of my parents ACed house on a hot July day and took a breath and thought, “So that’s what air tastes like.” and came to the realization that along with heat and humidity AC takes the world out of the air. Our house is of course ACed, but I find myself going outside on even the hottest of days just to taste the air.

  61. 61.

    Jeffro

    @Baud: I thought that was uranium in my cereal…the asbestos, she sold off to the Russians in exchange for the dossier (during the meeting at the “pizza” place, remember?)

  62. 62.

    sherparick

    @msb: Also, if they don’t push back, “bad” history becomes accepted history. Historians are still trying to correct the “Dunning” school that dominated U.S. History texts for 70 years that told the story of the “War between the States” and that it was fought for “State’s Rights and Tariffs” and that Reconstruction was “cruel and oppressive” because it gave Black men the right to vote and protected their civil rights.

    That his history still affects us is revealed in an article in the Guardian of all places yesterday about the Battle Flag of Treason and Slavery (a/k/a the Battle Flag of the Northern of Northern Virginia), which stated: “The flag’s history is fraught and complicated, as was the bloody civil war that erupted in 1861 between the US south – where America’s slave trade had relocated and expanded by the mid-1800s – and the north. After the north won, it imposed a harsh Reconstruction on the south that still fuels white resentment today…” As Erick Loomis states, “No, just no!!” http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2018/08/long-arm-dunningism

    D’Souza is trying to propagandize a myth, one he know is a myth (he graduated from Dartmouth in 1983 and participated in the Conservative Movement’s Dartmouth Review publication that attacked black students at Dartmouth as “affirmative action” beneficiaries who should be driven from the campus – the Southern Strategy of Nixon and Reagan was something he lived through and participated in). Historians and truth tellers have to respond and troll him to at least plant a little doubt in the hive mind of the brethren about this particular pied piper.

  63. 63.

    FlipYrWhig

    @gvg: Another piece is that everyday people are terrified of the IRS, which contributes to the existence of a massive and unnecessary tax-preparation industry. So over time the IRS becomes both a watchword for oppressive and arbitrary government for you and me AND a toothless watchdog for the nefarious rich. Nice racket.

  65. 65.

    rikyrah

    I hope a FrontPager picks this up:

    Now the Trump administration wants to limit citizenship for legal immigrants
    The most significant change to legal immigration in decades could affect millions of would-be citizens, say lawyers and advocates.
    by Julia Ainsley / Aug.07.2018 / 5:01 AM ET

    WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is expected to issue a proposal in coming weeks that would make it harder for legal immigrants to become citizens or get green cards if they have ever used a range of popular public welfare programs, including Obamacare, four sources with knowledge of the plan told NBC News.

    The move, which would not need Congressional approval, is part of White House senior adviser Stephen Miller’s plan to limit the number of migrants who obtain legal status in the U.S. each year.

    Details of the rulemaking proposal are still being finalized, but based on a recent draft seen last week and described to NBC News, immigrants living legally in the U.S. who have ever used or whose household members have ever used Obamacare, children’s health insurance, food stamps and other benefits could be hindered from obtaining legal status in the U.S.

    Immigration lawyers and advocates and public health researchers say it would be the biggest change to the legal immigration system in decades and estimate that more than 20 million immigrants could be affected. They say it would fall particularly hard on immigrants working jobs that don’t pay enough to support their families.

  68. 68.

    kindness

    I prefer mockery as a form of rebuttal to Dinesh. It doesn’t really effect him so much but it makes me laugh. Dinesh et al are locked in their own bubble. They only see what they want to and nothing else means anything to them. So yes, his ideas need to be refuted by any means so the rest of the folks out there don’t get complacent and give his stuff any credence.

  70. 70.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Baud: Same here (open windows and all that) I never minded winter all that much either tho I find of late my body complains about the cold more than it used to.

  73. 73.

    schrodingers_cat

    @rikyrah: Agreed. Have it looked over by an immigration attorney before mailing it. Also send it using certified mail, so you have proof that you sent it in.
    They have been floating some version of this memo from the day T took office. I think the function is deterrence, people who are eligible for citizenship read it and it keeps them from applying.

  74. 74.

    tobie

    @rikyrah: These people need some biblical punishment. The misery they’re causing is so staggering. I just filled out the American Community Survey (a monthly survey run by the Census Bureau of randomly selected households) and they asked for citizenship information on every member of the household. I did not feel good about answering it.

  75. 75.

    rikyrah

    The entire piece is enraging. Utterly enraging.

    ……………………………

    How Trump Radicalized ICE
    A long-running inferiority complex, vast statutory power, a chilling new directive from the top—inside America’s unfolding immigration tragedy

    Settling into a sense of safety is hard when your life’s catalog of memories teaches you the opposite lesson. Imagine: You fled from a government militia intent on murdering you; swam across a river with the uncertain hope of sanctuary on the far bank; had the dawning realization that you could never return to your village, because it had been torched; and heard pervasive rumors of former neighbors being raped and enslaved. Imagine that, following all this, you then found yourself in New York City, with travel documents that were unreliable at best.

    This is the shared narrative of thousands of emigrants from the West African nation of Mauritania. The country is ruled by Arabs, but these refugees were members of a black subpopulation that speaks its own languages. In 1989, in a fit of nationalism, the Mauritanian government came to consider these differences capital offenses. It arrested, tortured, and violently expelled many black citizens. The country forcibly displaced more than 70,000 of them and rescinded their citizenship. Those who remained behind fared no better. Approximately 43,000 black Mauritanians are now enslaved—by percentage, one of the largest enslaved populations in the world.

    After years of rootless wandering—through makeshift camps, through the villages and cities of Senegal—some of the Mauritanian emigrants slowly began arriving in the United States in the late 1990s. They were not yet adept in English, and were unworldly in almost every respect. But serendipity—and the prospect of jobs—soon transplanted their community of roughly 3,000 to Columbus, Ohio, where they clustered mostly in neighborhoods near a long boulevard that bore a fateful name: Refugee Road. It commemorated a moment at the start of the 19th century, when Ohio had extended its arms to accept another influx of strangers, providing tracts of land to Canadians who had expressed sympathy for the American Revolution.

    …………………………………..

    But those deportation orders never amounted to more than paper pronouncements. Where would Immigration and Customs Enforcement even send them? The Mauritanian government had erased the refugees from its databases and refused to issue them travel documents. It had no interest in taking back the villagers it had so violently removed. So ice let their cases slide. They were required to regularly report to the agency’s local office and to maintain a record of letter-perfect compliance with the law. But as the years passed, the threat of deportation seemed ever less ominous.

    Then came the election of Donald Trump. Suddenly, in the warehouses where many of the Mauritanians worked, white colleagues took them aside and warned them that their lives were likely to get worse. The early days of the administration gave substance to these cautions. The first thing to change was the frequency of their summonses to ice. During the Obama administration, many of the Mauritanians had been required to “check in” about once a year. Abruptly, ice instructed them to appear more often, some of them every month. ice officers began visiting their homes on occasion. Like the cable company, they would provide a six-hour window during which to expect a visit—a requirement that meant days off from work and disrupted life routines. The Mauritanians say that when they met with ice, they were told the U.S. had finally persuaded their government to readmit them—a small part of a global push by the State Department to remove any diplomatic obstacles to deportation.

    Fear is a contagion that spreads quickly. One ice officer warned some Mauritanians sympathetically, “It’s not a matter of if you’ll be deported, but when.” Another flatly said, “My job is to get you to leave this country.” At meetings, officers would insist that the immigrants go to the Mauritanian consulate and apply for passports to return to the very country whose government had attempted to murder them.

    One afternoon this spring, I sat in the bare conference room of the Columbus mosque after Friday prayer, an occasion for which men dress in traditional garb: brightly colored robes and scarves wrapped around their heads. The imam asked those who were comfortable to share their stories with me. Congregants lined up outside the door.

    One by one, the Mauritanians described to me the preparations they had made for a quick exit. Some said that they had already sold their homes; others had liquidated their 401(k)s. Everyone I spoke with could name at least one friend who had taken a bus to the Canadian border and applied for asylum there, rather than risk further appointments with ice.

    A lithe, haggard man named Thierno told me that his brother had been detained by ice, awaiting deportation, for several months now. The Mauritanians considered it a terrible portent that the agency had chosen to focus its attention on Thierno’s brother—a businessman and philanthropically minded benefactor of the mosque. If he was vulnerable, then nobody was safe. Eyes watering, Thierno showed me a video on his iPhone of the fate he feared for his brother: a tight shot of a black Mauritanian left behind in the old country. His face was swollen from a beating, and he was begging for mercy. “I’m going to sleep with your wife!” a voice shouts at him, before a hand appears on-screen and slaps him over and over.

    In 21st-century America, it is difficult to conjure the possibility of the federal government taking an eraser to the map and scrubbing away an entire ethnic group. I had arrived in Columbus at the suggestion of a Cleveland-based lawyer named David Leopold, a former president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. Leopold has kept in touch with an old client who attends the Mauritanian mosque. When he mentioned the community’s plight to me, he called it “ethnic cleansing”—which initially sounded like wild hyperbole. But on each of my trips back to Columbus, I heard new stories of departures to Canada—and about others who had left for New York, where hiding from ice is easier in the shadows of the big city. The refugees were fleeing Refugee Road.

  76. 76.

    schrodingers_cat

    I agree with Kevin K’s reasoning wrt DD but I still think that if cable TV had ignored the racist troll when he was pushing his birther nonsense he wouldn’t be in the WH right now.

  77. 77.

    Leto

    @OzarkHillbilly: I replaced my coffee filters with a perma-asbestos filter. Adds a unique flavor I can’t find anywhere else. I think I’m ahead of the curve on this trend.

  79. 79.

    rikyrah

    @tobie:

    @rikyrah: These people need some biblical punishment. The misery they’re causing is so staggering.

    That’s why I’ve taken to calling them Demons.

  82. 82.

    rikyrah

    In tonight’s Last Word: Boston’s new Police Commissioner breaks a barrier. #msnbc #lastword @Lawrence pic.twitter.com/EgN0Nl9kbz

    — The Last Word (@TheLastWord) August 7, 2018

  83. 83.

    Leto

    @OzarkHillbilly: They’re a special order out of England. All of the military bases still in use there have tons and tons of asbestos in the buildings(i.e. majority of the bases). BUT I have a Civil Engineering friend who makes them, small batch artisinal style, so I can hook ya up!

  84. 84.

    rikyrah

    UH HUH

    Trump campaign deputy Rick Gates just confessed in court that he committed crimes with Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort. In case you haven’t figured it out yet: @realDonaldTrump hires so many criminals because he is a criminal too. #TrumpCrimeSyndicate

    — Ryan Knight ? (@ProudResister) August 7, 2018

    A great legal mind once told me you can say whatever you want on TV but inside a court of law, when you put your hand on a bible you have to tell the truth. That’s why this pathologically lying POTUS will never sit with Mueller. Tweets will not save him from treason. VOTE!!!

    — Rob Reiner (@robreiner) August 6, 2018

  86. 86.

    rikyrah

    Ohio special election ‘should be a slam dunk and it’s not’
    08/07/18 08:41 AM
    By Steve Benen

    Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) was asked over the weekend about today’s congressional special election in his state’s 12th district, which is a traditional Republican stronghold. The governor conceded that the race is “very close.”

    “It’s really kind of shocking because this should be just a slam dunk and it’s not. […]

    “It really doesn’t bode well for the Republican Party because this shouldn’t even be contested.”

    Quite right. This a district the GOP presidential ticket won by 11 points. Since World War II, the district has been represented by a Democrat for exactly one term, which paints a striking portrait of the area: a Republican has held this seat 77 of the last 79 years. Two years ago, then-incumbent Rep. Pat Tiberi (R) won re-election in this district by 37 points.

  87. 87.

    rikyrah

    I’m going to say it again:

    THEY NEVER INTENDED TO REUNITE THIS CHILDREN WITH THEIR PARENTS.

    Trump admin still unable to formulate reunification plan for kids

    Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Projects, discusses the Donald Trump administration’s failure to have a plan for reuniting families separated under Trump’s border policy, and continued failure to come up with a plan despite a court’s order to do so.

  93. 93.

    Aleta

    @rikyrah:

    Canada said it is “gravely concerned” about the recent arrests of Saudi civil society and women’s rights activists. Yesterday Saudi Arabia responded by expelling the Canada’s ambassador and “halting all new trade and investment deals between the two countries.”

    Since May, Saudi authorities have detained more than a dozen of the activists, accusing some of illegal contact with foreign entities while branding them as traitors in the local press. Some of the activists had campaigned for decades to allow Saudi women the right to drive — and were rounded up in the weeks before the Saudi government lifted the driving ban.

    Two more activists were arrested last week, according to human rights advocates, including Samar Badawi, the sister of dissident blogger Raif Badawi who was sentenced to 1,000 lashes and 10 years in jail in Saudi Arabia for “insulting Islam through electronic channels.” His wife, Ensaf Haidar, and their three children became Canadian citizens on Canada Day last month and live in Quebec.

    The United Nations called on Saudi Arabia July 31 to release activists as a crackdown on dissent in the country mars its wide-ranging social reforms. (Reuters) The Saudi ministry described Canada’s criticism of the arrests as “blatant interference…” and a “major, unacceptable affront to the kingdom’s laws and judicial process, as well as a violation of the kingdom’s sovereignty.”
    …
    (Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia) Freeland said in tweet Aug. 2 that she was “very alarmed” to learn of Samar’s arrest and that the government would “continue to strongly call for the release of both Raif and Samar Badawi.”

    The next day, the main Twitter account for Canada’s Foreign Ministry said that “Canada is gravely concerned about additional arrests of civil society and women’s rights activists in #SaudiArabia, including Samar Badawi” and called on Saudi authorities to “immediately release them.”

    It’s said that this also represents the weakness of “Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (who) has led a drive to reform his country…, lifting some social restrictions while curbing the influence of the once-powerful “religious police” who enforced austere moral codes. The changes, though, have been accompanied by a steady drumbeat of repression, including the arrest of popular clerics, prominent business executives and the women’s rights advocates — sending a message, analysts said, that the reforms do not include a sliver of tolerance for political expression.”
    –From WaPo

  94. 94.

    rikyrah

    Rand Paul is a fraud. A phucking fraud. All that libertarian bullshyt, and shilling for an authoritarian regime.
    ……………………….

    Russian lawmaker Leonid Slutsky said he asked Rand Paul to speak out in defense of Mariia Butina.

    “If you, Senator Paul, are able to raise your voice in defense of Mariia … you would show yourself to be a real man,” Interfax reported Slutsky saying.https://t.co/y3RzYTeZvS

    — Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) August 6, 2018

  96. 96.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    @rikyrah:
    I’m hoping the district flips today. Gov. Golly Gee is my gov unfortunately but it’s a positive sign that he’s nervous about it.

  97. 97.

    Aleta

    @Aleta: Also

    Saudi media reported that educational exchange programs would be suspended — affecting 12,000 Saudi students studying on state-sponsored scholarships in Canada. And Saudi Arabia’s national airline said it was suspending flights to Canada, beginning on Aug. 13.

    Prosecutors have accused some of the women (prominent female activists who it arrested) of suspicious contact with unnamed foreign parties but kept silent on the reasons for other arrests. Human rights groups have speculated that the sweep is intended to send a message that the Saudi leadership will not tolerate any hint of political activism. A State Department official said Monday that the United States had “asked the Government of Saudi Arabia for additional information on the detention of several activists” and encouraged the Saudis to “respect due process and to publicize information on the status of legal cases,” according to Reuters.

    (A statement from the Saudi gov’t) expressed particular anger at Canada’s call for the release of the activists, calling it “reprehensible.”

    Beyond the feud, the lightning escalation highlighted Saudi Arabia’s increasingly assertive foreign policy under Crown Prince Mohammed. While he has won praise for shaking up the hidebound kingdom, trying to diversify its economy and easing some social restrictions, he has also helped entangle Saudi Arabia in foreign conflicts — including a civil war in Yemen and a feud with neighboring Qatar — that the kingdom has struggled to exit.

  99. 99.

    rikyrah

    And, don’t forget about the unaccounted for funds from the Inauguration. …in the ballpark of 50 million.

    ………………………………………

    Trump raised $135M at 29 fundraisers. But nearly half the events were for himself
    August 07, 2018 05:00 AM

    President Donald Trump has headlined 29 fundraisers since he was sworn into office, raising at least $135 million — but unlike the five previous presidents, nearly half of the events benefited himself, instead of just his party or candidates, according to an analysis by McClatchy.

    Trump is the first U.S. president since at least the 1970s to raise money for his own re-election campaign during the first two years of his term when the political world’s attention is usually focused on midterm elections for Congress. And Trump has held the fewest total fundraisers at this point in his term since Jimmy Carter, according to records of presidential fundraising compiled by Brendan J. Doherty, a political science professor at the U.S. Naval Academy.

    That’s a sign he’s more focused on himself and less tied to his party 18 months into presidency.

  101. 101.

    Amir Khalid

    @rikyrah:
    The short version is that the Crown Prince is having a hissy fit because Canada had the nerve — the nerve! — to criticise his Crown Princeitude’s oppressive ways.

  102. 102.

    Brachiator

    @rikyrah:

    Trump is the first U.S. president since at least the 1970s to raise money for his own re-election campaign during the first two years of his term when the political world’s attention is usually focused on midterm elections for Congress. …

    That’s a sign he’s more focused on himself and less tied to his party 18 months into presidency.

    The GOP must feel that they are getting a strong return on their investment even though Trump is a selfish self-absorbed grifter who demands loyalty but who gives nothing back in return.

  103. 103.

    satby

    @Leto: this infuriates me. My dad died at age 54 from mesothelioma, his exposure to asbestos was primarily from the heat he spent as a pipefitter’s assistant before he went into the police academy. Asbestos plus smoking creates an almost 100% cancer risk.

  104. 104.

    MCA1

    @raven: WTF? It’s still the first week of August! Most of America hasn’t even gone on its summer vacation, and kids in your neck of the woods are back in school already? ‘sup with that?

    IMnsHO, public schools should be pushing their start dates back, and finishing later to match, rather than the opposite. Let the kids be out in the warm air into mid-September, and stay in school the early part of June when the weather usually sucks, anyways.

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