Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP

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

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Bark louder, little dog.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

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

Not all heroes wear capes.

This fight is for everything.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

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

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

A last alliance of elves and men. also pet photos.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Scaling Up (Open Thread)

Scaling Up (Open Thread)

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Trump and Pence visited the MLK memorial for two minutes today:

I try to keep photos of Trump off the front page when possible because who needs to look at that hideous, sloshing bag of triglycerides? Since he’s approximately Pomeranian-sized in the above photo, I figured the image wouldn’t be too unbearable, even around lunchtime.

Speaking of sickening images, beware if you visit Twitter today. Justice Ginsburg is alive, but Fox News ran a graphic this morning that appeared to announce her death. They apologized for it — said it was a “control room error.” Fucking ghouls. Anyway, I saw it and nearly tossed my waffle, so I thought I’d warn y’all.

Open thread.

Reader Interactions

239Comments

  1. 1.

    tokyokie

    Two minutes out of a 1440-minute day sounds like the usual portion of time these Nazi bastards devote to civil rights issues.

  2. 2.

    piratedan

    it is a fucking wonder that no well armed liberal has walked onto the Fox News set and killed every fucking one in sight…..

    in reflection, I applaud us for not doing so, but I sure as hell could understand it….

  3. 3.

    BC in Illinois

    This was Trump’s tribute to the work of Martin Luther King, Jr.

    It was the least he could do.

    Literally. The least.

  5. 5.

    Catherine D.

    Well, there’s absolute proof of no gods at all. Otherwise the monument would have toppled over and crushed them.

  7. 7.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    @HinTN:

    The Stazi cleared everyone out of the area so they could stand in solemn reflection.

    Who’s the “Stazi” supposed to be? The SS?

  8. 8.

    Immanetize

    Trump to Pence in front of the MLK monument:
    “I thought you told me that guy was black?!”

  10. 10.

    Gin & Tonic

    Quick hit and run here from the charming little town of San Martin de los Andes, where it is 70 degrees with 25% humidity and not a cloud in the sky. I understand the weather in New England right now is not as nice. So sad.

  11. 11.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    @BC in Illinois:

    Literally. The least.

    Remember “Best Wishes” at the Western Wall in Israel? He doesn’t appreciate anything sacred or important.

  12. 12.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    @Omnes Omnibus:
    I’m honestly not. I assumed they meant the Secret Service, but wasn’t sure. I didn’t know if it was supposed to be Park Police or something, thought I guess they’d probably be furloughed. I know, I know, I’m stupid.

    By the way, how was the snowstorm in Wisconsin? We got over a foot dropped on us. It’s still really bad on the roads.

  14. 14.

    Brachiator

    I try to keep photos of Trump off the front page when possible because who needs to look at that hideous, sloshing bag of triglycerides?

    And speaking of that hideous, sloshing bag, Gizmodo has a story suggesting that Trump’s people fix his photos to make him look thinner.

    In recent months, Trump’s official Facebook and Instagram accounts have published photos of the president that have been manipulated to make him look thinner. If it only happened once you might be able to chalk it up as an accident. But Gizmodo has discovered at least three different retouched photos on President Trump’s social media pages that have been published since October of 2018.

    Egomania and vanity, all in an unpleasant package.

    ETA: Was Trump’s appearance just a photo op, or did he speak anywhere about Dr King?

  20. 20.

    Mai Naem mobile

    I just realized who that idiot kid mocking the Native American vet reminded me of. Martin Shkreli.

  23. 23.

    Baud

    Does Washington state have the death penalty?

    Electoral College debate heads to Washington’s Supreme Court
    By

    Paige Browning

    Jan 21, 2019 at 9:29 am

    More

    Three Washington Democrats will explain Tuesday to the state Supreme Court why they voted against their party’s presidential nominee in the 2016 election.

    The three, Levi Guerra, Esther V. John, and Peter B. Chiafalo, were among 12 Democrats the state sent to the Electoral College.

    Candidate Hillary Clinton won the nomination from Washington state Democrats in 2016, but the three electors refused to vote for her. Their refusal was part of a larger plan to foil Donald Trump’s nomination.

    The state fined them $1,000 each for violating their party’s rules.

    https://www.kuow.org/stories/electoral-college-issue-heads-to-washington-s-supreme-court

  25. 25.

    hueyplong

    @Brachiator: The last thing we’d want would be Trump actually saying something about MLK, or about anything, really. When I saw that picture, my two thoughts were: (1) it’s appropriate for these guys to be alone; and (2) I hope it was really, really cold.

  26. 26.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Baud:

    Candidate Hillary Clinton won the nomination from Washington state Democrats in 2016, but the three electors refused to vote for her. Their refusal was part of a larger plan to foil Donald Trump’s nomination.

    Well that plan sucked.

  30. 30.

    debbie

    I listened to this interview with “G. Richard Shell, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and author of several books on negotiation” about Trump and his negotiating style, especially during the shutdown. It was interesting to hear he’d filed for bankruptcy “about 15 times” and had filed or defended against 4,095 lawsuits in his 30 years of real estating. The numbers keep going up and up!

  31. 31.

    J R in WV

    And more from Faux News reporting:

    Have you ever noticed that when they are forced to mention a Republican lawmaker is being forced to resign because of deeply disturbing sexual habits, or blatant law breaking, the Chryon describing that Republican lawmaker will always, always say Congressman Jones (D-somestate) despite the facts of the matter of the congressman’s actual party membership.

    This is always described again as a control room error, but it is a consistent, continuing pattern, not a once in a lifetime error.

    Fox News is not a news organization at all, it is a corrupt propaganda organ of the fascist anti-democracy movement, nothing else at all!

  32. 32.

    debbie

    @Baud:

    Their refusal was part of a larger plan to foil Donald Trump’s nomination.

    Really? What are these guys, the Three Stooges?

  36. 36.

    Betty Cracker

    @Brachiator: I saw that Gizmodo story! Not only are some of the photos retouched to make Trump look thinner, he gets de-jowled and has his fingers lengthened too. Good lord.

  38. 38.

    ThresherK

    @hueyplong: I agree. If there was some chance he could say something honest and heartfelt and not against the real history of MLK, thatd be different. Pence’s words yesterday were enough. I had my fill of “racism is over/MLK was a conservative” 20+ years ago.

    How ceremonial and meaningless does something have to be before Trump can’t worsen it by opening his mouth? After asking a 7 y o if they still believe in Santa, what’s he gonna say to ruin the WH Easter egg roll?

  42. 42.

    Miss Bianca

    @Adam L Silverman: “We had a PLAN, damn it! A PLAN! Voting for Colin Powell over our party’s candidate was totally part of A PLAN to foil Donald Trump!”

    Jesus wept.

    Only $1,000 for fucking over the party candidate?

  45. 45.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??

    @Betty Cracker:

    has his fingers lengthened too.

    Are you serious? He’ll never forget that silly Spy magazine joke. What’s worse is that he has others involved in this delusion, trying to prop him up.

  47. 47.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Baud: Same one, all part of a larger plan to keep the President from being reelected. It’s a long term plan. And it would be far more effective if they could have kept it compartmented and covert, just like Secretary Clinton’s plan with FBI Director Comey, most of his senior staff at the FBI, significant numbers of personnel at the CIA and NSA, the DNC, Fusion GPS, Christopher Steele, and Vladimir Putin aided and abetted by the mainstream media to prevent the President from getting elected in 2016.

  50. 50.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??

    @Miss Bianca:
    I’m sure Wilmer doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with faithless electors, so long as they elect him.

  51. 51.

    Tokyokie

    @hueyplong: Between his diabetic neuropathy and the 6-inch layer of adipose tissue that he carries as insulation, I doubt extreme cold much bothers him.

  52. 52.

    Adam L Silverman

    @debbie: He filed or threatened to file for bankruptcy a lot to force his creditors to negotiate with his attorneys on his terms, rather than take whatever a bankruptcy court would give him. This included a number of banks that kept doing business with him. He’d then withdraw the filing or the threat to file once he got what he want. Basically using the legal system to conduct a shakedown.

  53. 53.

    germy

    Speaking of sickening images, beware if you visit Twitter today. Justice Ginsburg is alive, but Fox News ran a graphic this morning that appeared to announce her death. They apologized for it — said it was a “control room error.”

    No. I really think they’re trolling us.

  58. 58.

    meander

    Thank you Betty Cracker for keeping his Orangeness’s image off of the front page. I’m regular reader of Daily Kos, and do not understand why they plaster Trump’s face all over the front page stories. It’s nauseating. Some kind of journalistic habit? A way to get visitors angry? A way to get you to jump to the text to avoid that horrible visage? SEO? It’s mysterious.

    On a story about the budget, why not a stack of papers or a bunch of dollar signs? On a story about Russia, how about a picture of the Kremlin or some historic image?

    On the other hand, here’s a place where we need more Trump pictures: hostage taking memes. Trump’s face replacing famous hostage takers in film and TV. IIRC, during Boehner’s several shutdowns, there were quite a few altered images.

  59. 59.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??

    @Brachiator:
    I was also sort of surprised to see Gizmodo phrase Trump’s election this way:

    Parscale has gotten credit for helping Trump seize power in the U.S. through his successful use of Facebook ads, but he’s never talked about digitally altering the way that the president looks.

    “Seize power” isn’t a phrase you associate with winning a democratic election. I’m not used to seeing the media describe Trump’s victory in that manner, though his election was very likely illegitimate in some way. I wasn’t expecting it. But then, Gizmodo isn’t apart of the Village either.

  60. 60.

    Immanetize

    @Gin & Tonic:
    Dude! You are all in my bases.

    I woke up, the Immp had to go to school for a day of special MLK programming, car wouldn’t start, battery dead, neighbor tried to jump it but it wouldn’t. Barrowed another neighbor’s car, drove the Immp to school. Called USAA. They sent a towtruck. Got it started drove to the garage, got a new battery (300 balloons). Came back to find a neighbor digging her car out of the ice bank created by plows. Dug her out for a half hour. Doing laundry.

    I do love USAA, though.

  61. 61.

    germy

    @Tokyokie:

    I doubt extreme cold much bothers him.

    It’s the wind that bothers him. It messes up his hairdo. Same with rain.

    I don’t think he wears hats. Has anyone here seen a photo of him in a hat?

  63. 63.

    Gravenstone

    I’m sure they whined all the way about having to leave the confines of the White House to be seen honoring one of those people. Even as they continue to try and co-opt Dr. King’s message.

  67. 67.

    Gravenstone

    @Omnes Omnibus: I believe he was literally a toddler when the Wall fell, so it’s not like he would be intimately familiar with that cultural touchstone.

  69. 69.

    Aleta

    More from Nathan Phillips, this time a CNN interview https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/21/us/nathan-phillips-maga-teens-interview/index.html

    You know what’s awfully fishy about news outlets presenting as “another side of the story” the statements from two Covington Catholic school kids: So far there are no statements to the news from the Covington adults who were in charge. Before the news runs with “the story is complicated” + “new information has surfaced” as they’re doing, they need to get the chaperones and the trip leader on record. And put Covington diocese’s and the school’s statement in their story too.

    I think the anti-ab movement has a lot at stake in trying to hide the aggression of their protest groups. And how they model and encourage aggressive confrontation to their children.

  70. 70.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??

    @Gravenstone:

    I believe he was literally a toddler when the Wall fell, so it’s not like he would be intimately familiar with that cultural touchstone.

    I actually wasn’t even born yet. I did know what the Stasi were however, as I pointed out in #18. I wanted to know who HinTN was calling the Stasi. It was my own fault though for not being clear I knew what the Stasi was.

  71. 71.

    The Midnight Lurker

    Is it wrong to wish for the head of MLK to break off and crush these assholes?

    I mean, is it wrong to wish that on the statue?

  72. 72.

    Gravenstone

    @MattF: Doesn’t still occasionally send pictures to Graydon Carter to dispute the “short fingered vulgarian” jibe? Hardly surprising he (or someone trying to toadie up to him) would want those images altered to make his hands look more normal.

  73. 73.

    debbie

    “History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.” Martin Luther King, Jr.— Sally Yates (@SallyQYates) January 21, 2019

  74. 74.

    Mnemosyne

    @Aleta:

    I think the anti-ab movement has a lot at stake in trying to hide the aggression of their protest groups. And how they model and encourage aggressive confrontation to their children.

    I think you’re right on the money. I don’t know how Twitter or blogs are trending, but my little circle on Facebook is wondering where the hell the chaperones were and why they let their charges trade insults with a group of adult strangers FOR AN HOUR at someone else’s protest.

  75. 75.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??

    @Gravenstone:

    Doesn’t still occasionally send pictures to Graydon Carter to dispute the “short fingered vulgarian” jibe?

    He does, at least according to Carter. He did so as recently as 2015.

  77. 77.

    Gravenstone

    @Mnemosyne:

    and why they let their charges trade insults with a group of adult strangers FOR AN HOUR at someone else’s protest.

    Practice.

  78. 78.

    JPL

    @Mnemosyne: What can I say but fascists first and fascists forever. So if there’ s a rise in antisemitism so be it.

    Soros for spreading democracy around the world is rewarded with death threats.

  79. 79.

    Duane

    @Aleta: I think you called the anti-abortion tactics right. Heard it this morning. Republicans certainly aren’t above using the students for cover. They’re going on the offensive. I’ll believe my lying eyes.

  82. 82.

    Burnspbesq

    Fast-food veggie burgers are now a thing, courtesy of Carl’s Jr.

    It was tasty enough to eat again.

  83. 83.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Mnemosyne: So the article is originally from a Swiss weekly publication. It also has some inaccuracies. The Soros conspiracy theories actually predate the campaign these two schmucks designed for Orban. Both in Europe and the US. The three real takeaways from the article should be:
    1) This is how influence operations and information warfare are combined with political campaigning to the detriment of both liberal democracy and actual individuals who live within them.
    2) It is possible for Jews to do actually anti-Semitic things, such as weaponize the anti-Soros conspiracy theories, if they are both amoral and monetarily oriented.
    3) One of the reasons that conservative, whatever that word actually means anymore, politicians and their platforms in the US, Canada, the UK, throughout a number of European countries, Israel, Australia, and New Zealand all look alike and sound the same these days is because the same political campaign professionals – from strategists to the quants/polling specialists to the communications specialists – within the US conservative and Republican sphere have for the past 30 years been doing more and more and more work for conservative politicians in these other countries. This has allowed very wealthy conservative to conservative leaning libertarian interests, such as the Kochs, the Murdochs, the Mercers, the DeVoses, etc to export their preferred positions all around the world.

    I think 1 and 3 are, overall, the most important takeaways.

  85. 85.

    Baud

    @Duane:

    With all those people involved, you would expect Clinton to win. We can’t find better candidates, we need to find better crooks.

    Baud! 2020!

  86. 86.

    Adam L Silverman

    @debbie: Like all of the rest of our courts they have to much caseload and not enough judges, clerks, and other staff to deal with them. Odds are no one ever noticed.

  87. 87.

    Gravenstone

    Okay, this amuses me. Apparently one of the principals of the Trump Tower meeting (that was totally about adoptions!) has cancelled a planned US tour. Seems he’s afraid of having to talk to Mueller on less than favorable terms or something…

  88. 88.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Duane: You have to admit, as conspiracies go, they did a great job. Not a single person learned a thing about it until after the election, when, of course, it was too late.

  91. 91.

    Aleta

    @Gin & Tonic: Giant bulldozer just wandered down our narrow street and pushed 5 ft of snow in front of our house. 0 degrees now; -18 w/ wind chill. And darkness is settling.

    The dog hates cold feet (though he’s big and puffy-haired like a bear who uses hair product) so he walks on snow like it’s hot broken glass. He tolerates it by wearing foolish looking purple balloon-booties, but he lost two in the drifts today.

    But go ahead, have an amazing time ….

  97. 97.

    Mnemosyne

    @Adam L Silverman:

    I think I remember hearing Republicans start to demonize Soros near the end of W’s second term, so I agree that the article is a little factually challenged on exactly when that got rolling. And I think you’re right about American conservatives spreading the poison worldwide. I’m just starting to suspect that the apparently unlimited funds that the Kochs and Mercers and other Republican billionaires have been providing were not coming out of their own pockets as they kept claiming. YMMV.

  99. 99.

    Elizabelle

    @Aleta: I subscribed to cincinnati.com (USA Today local paper), 3 months for $3 so I could follow this story. I think a lot will play out in that time. I will excerpt stuff of interest for you all.

    Covington Catholic chaperone: ‘There was nothing the chaperones could have done differently’

    Many have asked: Where were the chaperones during the confrontation between Covington Catholic High School students, Native American marchers and Black Hebrew Israelites in Washington, D.C. on Friday?

    It turns out there were at least five on the scene, one of the chaperones told The Enquirer on Monday.

    That chaperone, Val Andreev, stands by how they handled the situation.

    “There was nothing the chaperones could have done differently,” said Andreev, a Hebron-resident. “I’m very proud the way the boys handled the situation.”

    Andreev and his 14-year-old son joined about 20 other chaperones and 240 students from Covington Catholic last week for the March for Life rally.

    They made it back home Saturday without realizing they were involved in a national controversy, Andreev said.

    …. Andreev said he didn’t see the start of the confrontation between Sandmann and the Omaha elder Nathan Phillips. He said he walked up to the scene in the middle of it.

    The students were waiting for the buses to take them home when a group of about 150 of them started arguing back and forth with a group of Black Israelites. Videos show the Black Israelites yelling derogatory statements at people.

    No one with the Covington Catholic group at the time saw it as a confrontation, Andreev said. They didn’t think anything of it until the next day when social media erupted with outrage.

    “If you look at any videos, there was no confrontation,” Andreev told The Enquirer. “There was nothing to control. There was not any aggression.”

    He said another chaperone made the Covington Catholic boys move further back from the Native American protestors. He didn’t hear any of the Covington Catholic students chant “Build that Wall.” He said chaperones gave permission for the students to chant “school spirit” slogans in response to some members of the Black Israelites yelling obscenities at them.

    He backed Sandmann’s statement that Phillips and the Native Americans approached them. He believes the students were targeted by the Native American protestors because some were wearing red “Make America Great Again” hats.

    “Our boys were set up for this event,” Andreev said. “It was staged.”

    The Covington Catholic students were not singled out and it wasn’t staged, said Chase Iron Eyes, spokesman for the Indigenous Peoples March and an attorney for the Lakota People’s Law Project.

    The scene between the Black Israelites and the high school students had become a “tinderbox,” Iron Eyes said. The Black Israelites had been harrassing people all day, he said. Why would a chaperone allow students to start chanting back?

    “When it presented itself as a tinderbox and an explosive environment, that is when our elder began to make his way to defuse the situation,” Iron Eyes said. “You don’t ask a chaperone to be rambunctious to defuse a situation. I call that a flat-out lie.”

    As more videos emerge and students begin to tell their sides of the story, officials with Covington Catholic High School and the Diocese of Covington have remained silent.

    Is that an adequate number of chaperones? One chaperone per 12 students?

    And why did they let the students “stand their ground?” Why didn’t they move them out of there? It’s a big space.

    Did the chaperones tell the students that the Israelites, aggravating as they were, had a First Amendment right to be there? And why if you were aware of that, would you have the kids there in the line of abuse?

    Agree with you and Mnemo about this group spoiling for a confrontation.

  100. 100.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Mnemosyne: They were chaperoned by the parish priest whose social media – twitter and facebook – are basically a Men’s Rights Activism fiesta.

  102. 102.

    Gravenstone

    @Adam L Silverman: Hell of a prize for winning, continuing to live after the experience. I swear, those people are broken at Fox. Do they hire them that way, or does it occur over the course of their employment? Maybe someone should investigate their work environment, if they’re twisting people that badly. //

  103. 103.

    The Pale Scot

    This comes to mind;

    There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning. . .
    And that, I think, was the handle—that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn’t need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting—on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. . . .
    So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark—that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.”

    The thing about the tide is that it turns

    But the gobshites ain’t going quietly

    Derry last stronghold of `New IRA’

    The reality, however, is very different. Young people being used as cannon fodder to elevate the egos and finances of those wise enough to realise but not care that a once a year bomb in a city centre achieves nothing other than headlines.

  104. 104.

    The Midnight Lurker

    Never mind. Mrs. Lurker (the ultimate moral authority in our house) has just informed me that yes, it is wrong. But funny.

    Now she’s humming the theme song from Raiders of the Lost Ark.

    And I’m the bad guy.

  106. 106.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Mnemosyne: It actually goes back into the 80s on what were then more extremist/far right circles because he was Jewish and a rich currency speculator. That tickled all the far right anti-Semitic pleasure centers. Then it started getting picked up on the extreme left because he was also crapping on (Soviet style) socialism in the wake of the fall of the Soviet Union. And he was Jewish, a rich currency speculator, so that meant he had to be suspect.

  108. 108.

    EthylEster

    @Burnspbesq wrote:

    Fast-food veggie burgers are now a thing, courtesy of Carl’s Jr. It was tasty enough to eat again.

    Here in Seattle for about 6 months I’ve been seeing A&W commercials (on Canadian TV) featuring folks like you saying they can’t believe their burger contains no meat.

  110. 110.

    trnc

    @tokyokie:

    Two minutes out of a 1440-minute day sounds like the usual portion of time these Nazi bastards devote to civil rights issues.

    Two minutes out of the 1051200, I think (give or take).

  111. 111.

    laura

    The Sacramento Unity March for the Dream was swell. Cold in the shade, clear skies and a revved up crowd. Lots of Kamala Harris talk. Lots of families and some really good signs. Until we hit the Capital. Right there, on the first corner on a ladder -a white male god-bothering pest demanding hist time to lecture all and sundry about abortion and damnation and the babbies.
    Swear to fsm, can we just have a day to NOT hear from the patriarchy about the rules and who does the ruling?
    Even kindly white male spouse was pissed- and he generally gives everybody the benefit of the doubt.

  114. 114.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    @Omnes Omnibus:
    I knew what the Stasi was. My original comment was poorly worded and caused a misunderstanding. You can choose to believe that or not. I’ve tried the last couple times with you to be nice and friendly. I know you’ve been going through a lot lately.

  115. 115.

    BR

    I’d recommend MLK’s speech “The Three Evils of Society” (the link is to an unofficial transcript, so it has some errors):

    https://www.scribd.com/doc/134362247/Martin-Luther-King-Jr-The-Three-Evils-of-Society-1967

    It’s remarkable, and has a number of lines that cut through even today, like:

    True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar, it understands that an edifice which produces beggars, needs restructuring. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth, with righteous indignation it will look at thousands of working people displaced from their jobs, with reduced incomes as a result of automation while the profits of the employers remain in tact and say, this is not just. It will look across the ocean and see individual Capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia and Africa only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries and say, this is not just. It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America and say, this is not just. A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war,this way of settling differences is not just. This business of burning human being with napalm, of filling our
    nation’s home with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples
    normal humane, of sending men home from dark and bloodied battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love. A nation that continues year after year, to spendmore money on military defense then on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death

    So let us stand in this convention knowing that on some positions; cowardice asks the questions, is it safe; expediency asks the question, is it politic; vanity asks the question, is it popular, but conscious asks the question, is it right.

    We must devote at least as much to our children’s education and the health of the poor as we do to the care of our automobiles and the building of beautiful, impressive hotels.

  118. 118.

    humboldtblue

    We had between 250-300 people gather on the courthouse steps for the People’s March and Rally for Justice (and to remember a young black man who was stabbed to death at a house party 21 months ago with no arrests yet made) and another 350-400 showed up at the community center for an MLK celebration.

    Even the weather cooperated with bright sun after a weekend of nasty winter storms.

    So yeah, we spent more than two minutes contemplating stuff.

  119. 119.

    Mnemosyne

    @Adam L Silverman:

    If the kids’ lawyers think they can threaten Mr. Phillips with a defamation lawsuit, I think they will be unpleasantly surprised by how many Native American lawyers there are in this country, and how large the percentage of them wishing a motherfucker would even try to threaten an elder really is.

  121. 121.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Aleta: @Elizabelle: I want to know who thought it was a good idea to have the white kid take off his shirt and try to do the Haka? I know of a small handful of white people who do the Haka. I know two of them personally as they were my former students. They’re now both general officers in the New Zealand army and both commanded, back to back, a New Zealand Army Regiment that includes significant members of Maori personnel. The other white people I know who do the Haka are on the New Zealand All Blacks national rugby team.

    My former students are required to wear appropriate ceremonial garments when conducting this as part of their official duties. They take the responsibility very seriously and are some of the best cross-culturally aware personnel I’ve ever worked with. As are their colleagues in the New Zealand military. They are the counterinsurgency professionals that David Kilcullen claims to be. And they have the successes in East Timor and Afghanistan and other theaters of operation to prove it.

  122. 122.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Omnes Omnibus: That or the one that said: “Experts Agree: Osama bin Laden May Be Dead or Alive”.

    Or the murder suspect chyron accompanying a composite sketch of the suspect at large behind the local African American news anchor who looks just like the guy in the sketch.

  123. 123.

    PaulWartenberg

    Seriously asking if there are any podcasters in Central Florida who might want to do a presentation at my library this March or April for public enlightenment. I guess I may have to negotiate expenses depending on what you’ll need to bring/show for it.

  126. 126.

    Mnemosyne

    @trnc:

    ? I has a confuzzled. There are 1,440 minutes in a day and, as Rent‘s most famous song reminds us, 525,600 minutes in a year.

  129. 129.

    Sister Golden Bear

    A shout out to the jackals who a few days ago recommended “Spider-Man: Into the Spider Verse.”

    Saw it last night, even though I’m not into the whole superhero things, and the animation was astonishing awesome and innovative. (Apparently part of the look was achieved by doing 2D animation on top of the finished 3D animation.).

    Not to mention a fun story, done with a (respectful) wink and a smile toward the Spider-Man canon and the superhero genre.

    Plannig to see it again while it’s still in theaters.

  132. 132.

    zhena gogolia

    I made the mistake of watching the SNL cold open on the shutdown. Nancy Pelosi is “drunk with power.” fuck you guys

  133. 133.

    The Midnight Lurker

    I read “meatless sausage roll” and guess who immediately comes to mind? Heh.

  134. 134.

    Elizabelle

    James Fallows has a very good column (and update) up on the Covington Catholic HS debacle. Via The Atlantic. No paywall.

    I call bullshit on the rightwing for trying to make the kids into victims. Uh, no.

    And Nick Sandmann’s smirk is one for the ages. It is so recognizable. He was hardly trying to “diffuse” the situation (per his PR statement). He was instigating, intimidating, and chose to remain in Nathan Phillips’ face. He could have stood back. He should have moved back.

    In the video, after a few minutes of the drumming and the in your face with a smirk, one of the other kids takes the bait from a young Indian who said the group should go back to Europe. The kid started talking about everyone going back to Africa. Sandmann looked over and shut him down with a glance.

    He was the bully, in charge. He’s a junior. CCHS is grades 9-12, all male.

  136. 136.

    Mnemosyne

    @The Pale Scot:

    I saved a Facebook meme that said, “Do you ever say to yourself, ‘WTF is wrong with white people’ even though you yourself are a white people?”

  137. 137.

    trollhattan

    @laura:
    Oh, that guy. He even shows up at the bike race. Someday something regrettable will happen to that ladder.

  138. 138.

    Elizabelle

    @Adam L Silverman: I am going to be watching for whether some parents pull their sons from CCHS.

    And they can try the religious shield, but good luck stopping the controversy here.

  139. 139.

    Aleta

    @Elizabelle: Thanks!

    Since they saw nothing wrong in letting adolescents in a large group bounce and scream at others from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, while ‘waiting for a bus,’ my assumption is they believe aggressive confrontation was part of the kids’ learning experience in D.C.

    Which makes sense if they believe it’s necessary to teach kids to use threatening anti-ab protest and intimidation as political methods. And believe it’s proper behavior for high school guests visiting a city, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

    So fcked up. As Mr. Phillips said, it makes one fear for the country’s future and the kids.

  141. 141.

    The Midnight Lurker

    @Mnemosyne: I am white. Pure white. Butt white. All the way back to the Big Bang. And I ask myself, “What the fuck is wrong with white people?!!”

    EVERY GODDAMN DAY!

  143. 143.

    Mai Naem mobile

    @Burnspbesq: Burger King has had them for several years and they are not good. I think Five Guys has one too but technically not fast food.

  144. 144.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Elizabelle: Doesn’t it seem like the teenage douchebros and the chaper-douches leapt to the conclusion that the indigenous people and the black Israelites were on the same side against them — which is sort of a big part of the white privilege/white supremacy problem in the first place?

  145. 145.

    trollhattan

    @Elizabelle:
    Does anybody know how much the tuition is there? Our all-boys Catholic high school is $14,700/year. And they have to do a crapton of fundraisers too.

  147. 147.

    Jay

    @Aleta:

    They have outed themselves on Social Media as Nazi’s and their School as a Nazi Indoctrination Center.

    The Internet’s remember.

    In less than a year, they will all be competing for the Crying Nazi title.

  151. 151.

    Immanentize

    @Elizabelle: @Quinerly:
    The best thing I heard/read so far was the statement by Nathan Phillips (and I am reciting from memory because gotta go!).

    In Marine training we learned that a frightened man will kill you…. And what I saw in those boys eyes was fear.”

    (HA, somehow when I first typed “boys” it came out “bots.” Imagine that!)

  152. 152.

    Mnemosyne

    @Adam L Silverman:

    In theory, the Black Israelites and an Omaha elder have the exact same religious freedom rights as a bunch of suburban white Catholics, but we and they know that white people get extra religious privileges, too.

  153. 153.

    Yarrow

    @Adam L Silverman: The haka is not just done in New Zealand. Other Pacific island nations have their own versions of it. It has also traveled, as this article from a few years ago illustrates.

    EULESS, Texas (Reuters) – Defensive lineman Moahengi Latu strikes an imposing figure, long hair swinging wildly as he belts out a battle cry.

    Moments after beating rival Lee High School 30-7, the Trinity Trojans football team drop their helmets and perform their “haka” war dance one more time for the crowd, August 26, 2011. In front are players Bryan Munoz Paul Tuipulotu. REUTERS/Charlie L. Harper III

    “Get ready for war, let’s go!” Latu screams in his native Tongan language, as his teammates on the Trinity High School Trojans football team stamp their feet, raise their fists, stick out their tongues in a gesture of intimidation.

    “Battle with all your might! Believe in each other! Fight on, warriors!” they cry out in Tongan. “Tau aki ho loto!”

    They finish the ancient, rhythmic “haka” with a roar, just moments before their first game of the celebrated Texas high school football season.

    It would be graceful, a thing of beauty, a little playful even, if it were not so savage.

    In the packed stands at the district’s stadium near the Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, the crowd is riveted as they watch the unveiling of this season’s haka — a centuries-old tribal war dance these young Texas suburbanites have made their own.

    There’s a large Pacific Islands community in that town, so that’s why it got started.

  154. 154.

    The Pale Scot

    @Mnemosyne:

    “Do you ever say to yourself, ‘WTF is wrong with white people’ even though you yourself are a white people?”

    Couple of times a week, probably a lot more if my eejit detector was on. But I try to just stay in the boat avoid the obvious headlines. At my age I don’t need anymore confirmation.

  156. 156.

    Ladyraxterinok

    @Mnemosyne: And US Evangelicas spread their antiLGBT message to Africa, giving advice, sending people to craft horrendous laws demonizing gays and lesbians–legalizing incarceration and execution

  157. 157.

    Immanentize

    @trollhattan: Here near Boston, Catholic schools are the “cheap” version of private school. About half the tuition of secular private prep schools (my son attends just such a place!). But Boston is odd that way. When I was growing up in upstate NY, there was public or Catholic. Here there is primarily public or prep or Catholic. In the south (where I spent most of my professional life before now) it was overwhelmingly public, ‘academy”, or Catholic. And Academies were restricted. Many of the Catholic schools in the south, since the 80’s have tilted toward the Academy model. What an interesting world.

  158. 158.

    The Pale Scot

    @Jay:

    they will all be competing for the Crying Nazi title

    I’ll go for I ended up at state uni and the girls laugh at me when I try to chat them up

  159. 159.

    cmorenc

    @Catherine D.:

    Well, there’s absolute proof of no gods at all. Otherwise the monument would have toppled over and crushed them.

    Other possibility: they bide their time to extract cosmic justice in a manner and moment fitting to their sensibilities and not, alas, ours. Or, as MLK put it much more eloquently: “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice”.

  160. 160.

    jimmiraybob

    @J R in WV:

    Fox News is not a news organization at all, it is a corrupt propaganda organ of the fascist anti-democracy movement, nothing else at all!

    Not so much anti-democratic as anti open society as defined by Karl Popper in the early 1940s in his “The Open Society and its Enemies.” After all, Nazi Germany and Sadam’s Iraq held “democratic” elections. I’m sure that Fox would have no problem with Trump winning the next dozen elections by 90-95% or more.

  161. 161.

    Elizabelle

    @FlipYrWhig: That’s an excellent point.

    @Quinerly: Thank you. Hadn’t seen that, and Josh Marshall is quite measured.

    Something that is not measured: this ridiculous essay that is “most popular” at The Atlantic (edited by J Goldberg):

    I Failed the Covington Catholic Test by Julie Irwin Zimmerman (Writer based in Cincinnati)
    Next time there’s a viral story, I’ll wait for more facts to emerge.

    Speak for yourself, lady. Maybe you are a failure. Some of us did not jump to conclusions and did look at the extended video.

    Zimmerman: “The story felt personal to me; I live a few miles from the high school, and my son attends a nearby all-boys Catholic high school.”

  162. 162.

    The Midnight Lurker

    @Mnemosyne: Awww! It thought there’d be a really funny photo to go along.

    But thank you!

    P.S. – I’m sure I can find one.

  163. 163.

    Mnemosyne

    @FlipYrWhig:

    Doesn’t it seem like the teenage douchebros and the chaper-douches leapt to the conclusion that the indigenous people and the black Israelites were on the same side against them — which is sort of a big part of the white privilege/white supremacy problem in the first place?

    They absolutely did that exact thing and they refuse to accept any facts that show otherwise. They are the victims of non-white people conspiring against them and anyone who points out the truth is just another enemy to be ignored and shut out.

  165. 165.

    Miss Bianca

    @Mnemosyne:

    “Do you ever say to yourself, ‘WTF is wrong with white people’ even though you yourself are a white people?”

    All the damn time. All.the.damn.time.

  167. 167.

    jimmiraybob

    @Mnemosyne:

    “Do you ever say to yourself, ‘WTF is wrong with white people’ even though you yourself are a white people?”

    Since grade school in the 60s.

  168. 168.

    Mnemosyne

    @Immanentize:

    Both of my nieces in Florida go to/went to “academies.” Sigh. At least the younger one’s has a STEM focus (the older one is now attending Florida State).

  169. 169.

    Elizabelle

    @ Betty Cracker: Props for this.

    Since [Trump’s] approximately Pomeranian-sized in the above photo, I figured the image wouldn’t be too unbearable,

    Keep him Pomeranian-sized. Although Poms are more lovable little creatures than Trump. Still: yappy, exciteable, some out of control hair days.

  170. 170.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    @Elizabelle:

    Zimmerman: “The story felt personal to me; I live a few miles from the high school, and my son attends a nearby all-boys Catholic high school.”

    Well, she sure sounds like an impartial observer!

  172. 172.

    Elizabelle

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

    Made me wonder how many all-boy Catholic high schools that area needs!

    And yeah, she writes for a Jesuit magazine and other outlets. She built her stupid essay around “uh, maybe there wasn’t build the wall chant going on” as though that negates everything else. What a tool.

  174. 174.

    Jay

    @The Pale Scot:

    Why would any decent College or University accept their applications?

    So Liberty U or what ever passes for Dolt 45 U.

    Why would any employer other than a Nazi tshirt or Stormfront hire them?

    Why would any Employer hire any Graduate of that School now that they have shown the “values” they instill in all their students,

    And while Saturday and Sunday, the concensus was “don’t doxx them”, let the “adults” discipline them,

    But now that the White Male Privledge Waaambulance has come out to defend them,

    They are being doxxed as we speak.

  177. 177.

    debbie

    @Yarrow:

    I saw it, and I think you’ve misread it. I took it to be what the media was saying (which they are), not what the SNL writers are saying.

  179. 179.

    Jay

    @Elizabelle:

    They shut down all their social media on Saturday, people took to hunting down the emails and social media of the Schools Board and Administration, but those have gone dark as well.

  180. 180.

    Quinerly

    5 more trademarks in China for Ivanka. Applications filed in 2016 and 2017. From Newsweek…. “Ivanka Trump has been granted five trademarks from China for her currently defunct company as her father’s administration continues negotiating with Beijing over trade.

    Trademarks for wedding dresses, sunglasses and child care centers were approved on Sunday, the Associated Press reported. An additional trademark regarding brokerage, charitable fundraising and art valuation services was approved earlier this month.”

  181. 181.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Yarrow: I understand that it has travelled and that variants are done by different groups of Pacific Islanders. No offense to BettyC, but I’m pretty sure pasty, Kentucky cracker isn’t one of the groups of Pacific Islanders that does the Haka or a variant.

  183. 183.

    MomSense

    @Aleta:

    Our “snow” is really like that stuff that formed in freezers before defrosters. My dog was slip sliding, her paws going in four different directions. She came back in and heaved a huge sigh before slumping onto her dog bed. She loves to play in the snow. Ice, not so much.

  184. 184.

    Kathleen

    @Elizabelle: I can’t bring myself to even pay them $3 for 3 months, which is how much I hate my local “paper”. Thank you for taking one for the team.

  185. 185.

    debbie

    @Adam L Silverman:

    I’m no expert, but I don’t think they were performing a Pacific Island dance. I took them to be doing that bullshit thing Washington Redskins fans do to insult Native Americans. Maybe a variant with some kind of pogoing.

  191. 191.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    @Elizabelle:

    She built her stupid essay around “uh, maybe there wasn’t build the wall chant going on” as though that negates everything else. What a tool.

    I hate it when people do that.

  193. 193.

    Quinerly

    @Mnemosyne: you’re welcome. TPM gets bashed around here but I was following Josh pre Cole’s conversion (when I came here). TPM is still a good source.

  197. 197.

    Adam L Silverman

    @debbie: It has been reported that the kid who took his shirt off specifically was (trying to do) doing the haka. Apparently he’s one of the cheer leaders at the school – not the same thing as a cheerleader – and this is part of his normal schtick.

  198. 198.

    Kathleen

    @Elizabelle: That was very good. Thank you for sharing. I’ve been too close to this situation for too long and have become jaded about any possibilities of change in Northern Kentucky, which I’ve been calling “Fort Fascist” for years (Fort Wright, Fort Thomas, Fort Mitchell are 3 prominent communities who embody the worst of Boone/Kenton/Campbell county hell hole). There are some really great people over there as well, and patronize a few businesses. But overall it’s got an evil mojo.

  200. 200.

    Mike in NC

    @Kathleen: Donald Trump was permitted to appear on SNL several times over the years. More of the free publicity he so desperately craves. They are as complicit as the rest of the media in giving a microphone to a megalomaniac.

  201. 201.

    The Midnight Lurker

    And another thing… I’m a Catholic too! Recovering, sure. But my wife is devout. We’re ashamed of what those vile punks did! And we’ve spoken and texted and emailed with PLENTY of other Catholics that are high pissed at this clown cap-wearing, smarmy, dead-eyed delinquent, but especially angry with his parents, his priest, his diocese, and especially his all white, all male, all privileged, Brett Kavanaugh starter kits (love that BTW) factory, fucking inbred school!

    I won’t let my wife watch the goddamn video. It’ll crush her. Her health is poor anyway. But I know she’ll go around my back and see it anyway, if she hasn’t already. The whole godless, unamerican, goddamn mess just makes me angry and sick.

    Funny. It just stuck me that I’ve been listening to his speeches all day long and by writing this, it’s clear that I haven’t heard a thing he’s said.

    Forgive me, Dr. King.

  203. 203.

    Quinerly

    @Adam L Silverman: well, you have missed the back and forth then. I’m a big fan of Josh Marshall. Been following him since the blog started. He has some vocal critics here… Sometimes it amuses me but I do listen to NPR, tune in to MSNBC, read the NYTimes and WaPO, am on Facebook, am anti those home DNA tests, and own an Echo and several Echo Dots. “Alexa, pull my finger!” ?

  205. 205.

    Aleta

    @Adam L Silverman: It was to laugh and groan-wince at such a pathetic insult on the day of the Indigenous People’s March— his deluded mimicry of indigenous celebration movements in the belief that it was a fierce message of their battle readiness against five Black Hebrew Israelites. It seems to be a thing in Western sports team culture now. But at ultra-Christian schools too?

  206. 206.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Mike in NC: To be fair, there was a time when Trump was entertainingly stupid, like George Steinbrenner, who they’ve also had as host, and mocked to his face.

  208. 208.

    debbie

    @Adam L Silverman:

    I didn’t see that picture until after I posted. (By the way, he’s somewhat thickset for a cheerleader.) What I did see yesterday was kids behind the kid staring Phillips down, jumping up and down and making chopping movements.

  209. 209.

    Kathleen

    @Elizabelle: The only other all male Catholic HS I’m aware of in No KY is Newport Catholic in Newport, KY, which is a few miles from Park HIlls. Cincinnati has quite a few so her son may go to Cincinnati school.

  210. 210.

    Elizabelle

    @The Midnight Lurker: Sounds like Covington Catholic is from the Scalia/Opus Dei/Brett Kavanaugh side of the religion.

    Pope Francis may be privately viewed with a LOT of suspicion there. Sounds like they have a real culture problem. Aleta is on to something with the training the kids to be confrontational idea.

    The chaperones did not have the brains to pull the kids back.

  213. 213.

    The Pale Scot

    @Adam L Silverman: Apparently it made of this stuff, which includes egg whites, so I I don’t know how the get away with calling it vegan. My earth muffin ex-girlfriend would be appalled. I’m surprised the EU doesn’t have an opinion. Puddings are grains mixed with suet, blood or other meat products. They taste better when you don’t have central heating

  214. 214.

    Burnspbesq

    @laura:

    Someone could have done the world a favor by acting out an old Toad the Wet Sprocket somg.

    Someone kicked a ladder
    Bradley took a spill
    Said his leg was broken
    So we dragged him down the hill

  216. 216.

    Adam L Silverman

    @debbie: Cheer Leader, not cheerleader. I’m sure they have actual cheerleaders provided by the local all girls, diocesan Catholic school.

  219. 219.

    Jay

    And apparently the School also allowed students wearing “blackface” to surround and harass visiting Basketball teams.

  220. 220.

    The Pale Scot

    @Elizabelle:

    Covington Catholic is from the Scalia/Opus Dei/Brett Kavanaugh

    People who sea lawyer the Gospels to no end but are strict adherents on the rest of the book

  222. 222.

    SiubhanDuinne

    (Will repost this the next time a fresh Open Thread goes up.)

    *****

    Talked at length with efgoldman this afternoon, and let him know — both at your behest and on my own account — that he is loved and deeply missed amongst the Jackal Juicetariat.

    At the moment he is home, but bedridden. They are trying to get all the necessary signoffs (I gather quite a few are required, so it’s complicated) for him to be admitted to a rehab facility and hopefully regain at least some mobility. I’ll phone again at the end of January to get an update.

    Because he’s confined to bed most of the time, he can’t get to a computer and thus can’t comment on BJ these days. Not even a good hearty “fuckem.” He said he really misses the political discussions and insights here — these days he’s pretty well limited to CNN and “Face the Nation” and suchlike. Not enough snark.

    He did say that when he came back online in December with his “I’m home!” message, he was utterly floored by the many Juicer responses. It may go against his curmudgeonly persona, but he seems very much touched, even overwhelmed, by the affection and concern we have for him.

    Mrs. efg wants him up and mobile again so he can Do Things Around the House.

    He shared the news that his daughter and son in law and their young family are moving from a tiny cramped apartment to a townhouse (with a yard) in about a week. They are very excited!

    His great joy (I could hear it in his voice, and it was wonderful) was being able to spend time over the holidays with granddaughter (5-1/2) and new grandson (six months) when they came to visit. He is clearly besotted with both of them, which is as it should be. A besotted efg is a good thing.

  223. 223.

    Aleta

    @schrodingers_cat: I do! I’ve been wanting to show some of them. Do you happen to know of a good photo site — one that protects privacy and against your photos being used elsewhere?

  226. 226.

    Miss Bianca

    @The Pale Scot: points for using the term “sea lawyer”. As opposed to a “sea lion”, of course. Tho’ the two creatures share some of the same traits!

    @SiubhanDuinne: aw, efg! A hearty “fuckem” to our friend! Thanks for checking up on him, SD!

  228. 228.

    trnc

    @Mnemosyne: Yes, so there are 1501200 minutes in 2 years. Start counting from Jan 20, 2016. 2 minutes of that amount is about how much I think the Krist Krew has devoted to civil rights (sadly, in the form of lip service).

  229. 229.

    Adam L Silverman

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    His great joy (I could hear it in his voice, and it was wonderful) was being able to spend time over the holidays with granddaughter (5-1/2) and new grandson (six months) when they came to visit. He is clearly besotted with both of them, which is as it should be. A besotted efg is a good thing.

    People who don’t read Balloon Juice will wonder why efgoldman the third’s first words are “fuck em!”.

  230. 230.

    Mnemosyne

    @trnc:

    Ah, thank you. I am Not A Math Person, so having a large number put in front of my face frightened and confused me like an unfrozen caveman lawyer.

  232. 232.

    Aleta

    @Jay: I saw a picture like that. I thought it could have been doctored, but a date and comments under the photo were from around 6 years ago. Mid-game, CC kids were screaming into the ears of a black basketball player on the opposite team, who was in position waiting for play to resume. And some were off the bleachers and on the floor.

    One of those CC kids had covered his entire torso, neck and face with (looked like) thick black paint, and white minstrel-like markings on his face.

    If the photo is accurate it reminded me *not* of Catholics I know, but more of the Rs like Kavanaugh who went to Florida to intimidate election officials in 2000, and of rabid libertarians. Win at any cost, no social transgression or injury to others is too great in their pursuit of winning.

    And it reminded me of those chaperones claiming it didn’t cross their minds to control the kids and move them toward the side street where the bus was going to pick them up. As though they wanted a visible crowd in red hats on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. It’s shocking, the lack of consideration for public space. Maybe they planned to kill time there as a display of political support for Trump ? They owe him for Kav and the other judges he’s given them.

  233. 233.

    Mr Stagger Lee

    @Elizabelle: Sandman was trying to state, that AA among them was being harassed and they were merely trying to stand up for him. I read the smirker’s account on CNN, no attempt to sincerely apologize, a backhanded acknowledgment to Mr. Phillips service to his country. Little Shit is learning the art of the non apology-apology.

  236. 236.

    Aleta

    @debbie: Someone in those comments points out the hand of the kid immediately to the left of the player who’s being abused. The white kid seems to be making the W P hand sign for whit power.

    This photo is said to be from 2014.

  238. 238.

    Aleta

    Kaivan Shroff‏ @KaivanShroff
    Even worse footage of the MAGA teens harassing Nathan Phillips, despite media trying to rewrite the story.
    https://twitter.com/KaivanShroff/status/1087401351246761984

    Father Edward Beck @FrEdwardBeck
    My feelings about the #CovingtonBoys are unchanged since the first reporting and viewing many different videos. The boys acted inappropriately and chaperones should have intervened. And boys should not have been permitted to wear MAGA hats if they were representing the school.

    (Yesterday he wrote to his critics that if his first impression and his criticism of the boys turned out to be wrong, he would apologize. That he would look at the videos they claimed showed their behavior was innocent.)

  239. 239.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @schrodingers_cat: IIUC in Bulgaria, women’s surnames are those of their fathers/husbands with an added -a. I think that’s also true in Russia. Similarly in the Czech Republic except the ending is -ova. (Which is even added to foreign women’s surnames – I believe Czech translations of Harry Potter books are listed by “J. K. Rowlingova”.) Can cause a bit of origin confusion if Bulgarian/Russian dad/hubby name ends in -ov. (I discovered this a few years back while having my copy of The Historian signed by the author – I asked Elizabeth Kostova if her family name was Czech & she said no, Bulgarian.) /trivia

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