Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The media handbook says “controversial” is the most negative description that can be used for a Republican.

Human rights are not a matter of opinion!

“Until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin on.”

Celebrate the fucking wins.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

“Just close your eyes and kiss the girl and go where the tilt-a-whirl takes you.” ~OzarkHillbilly

One lie, alone, tears the fabric of reality.

They don’t have outfits that big. nor codpieces that small.

… gradually, and then suddenly.

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

Anne Laurie is a fucking hero in so many ways. ~ Betty Cracker

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

The Giant Orange Man Baby is having a bad day.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

Today’s gop: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

The republican ‘Pastor’ of the House is an odious authoritarian little creep.

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

Also, are you sure you want people to rate your comments?

When you’re in more danger from the IDF than from Russian shelling, that’s really bad.

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

Fear or fury? The choice is ours.

Baby steps, because the Republican Party is full of angry babies.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

You are here: Home / Politics / Trumpery / Dolt 45 / Friday Morning Open Thread: The Way We Live Now

Friday Morning Open Thread: The Way We Live Now

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(Worth a try, Madame Speaker!)

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131Comments

  3. 3.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Six days ago Trump said he would close the border this week, unless Mexico “immediately stop ALL illegal immigration coming into the United States through our southern border”.

    And Mexico capitulated without a shot being fired?

    “We’re going to give them a one-year warning, and if the drugs don’t stop or largely stop, we’re going to put tariffs on Mexico and products, particularly cars,” Trump said. “And if that doesn’t stop the drugs, we close the border.”

    By threatening the paper tiger with a match. (wait a minute, what happened to illegal immigration being the emergency on the border?)

    Trump, who has long said his unpredictability is one of his greatest negotiating assets,

    Sure….

    Marcelo Ebrard, Mexico’s foreign relations secretary, said Tuesday his government had not changed its policies. And on Thursday, Martha Barcena, Mexico’s ambassador to the US, told the Associated Press the country was working to make its own border “more orderly” but “migration will never be stopped”.

    Jesus Seade, the Mexican undersecretary for North America, also brushed off the threat of new tariffs, saying officials were “not concerned” and noting the tariffs are not part of the United States-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement that the countries have agreed to but not yet ratified.

    They’re just shaking in their boots.

    Trump has wide-ranging power to impose tariffs on national security grounds, which he has repeatedly used as leverage against other countries. But the USMCA was worded to protect Mexico against auto tariffs based on national security concerns, and trade lawyer Daniel D Ujczo said those provisions are already in effect under a side letter.

    “In short, this is the exact scenario that the Mexican negotiating team predicted and secured protections from in the USMCA,” he said. “Mexico ‘Trump-and-tweet-proofed’ its auto sector,” and the White House “would need to get very creative to impose auto tariffs on Mexico”

    The great negotiator strikes again.

  5. 5.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Jerzy Russian: I am quite fluent in Blech.
    Spanish: Blech
    French: Blech.
    Portuguese: Blech
    Quechua: Blech
    Norwegian: Blech.
    Chinese: Blech.
    Arabic: Blech.
    Swahili: Blech.
    Inuktitut: Blech
    Hovitos: Blech
    Huttese: Blech.
    Tusken: Blech.
    Mando’a: Blech.
    Shyriiwook:: Blech.

  6. 6.

    Mary G

    It’s oddly reassuring that while Britain beclowns itself with Brexit and we circle the drain with Twitler, the new liberal government of Mexico is just taking care of business as best they can.

  7. 7.

    Jerzy Russian

    @OzarkHillbilly: Like I said, I bet you can’t say that in 7 languages, and you used 14. I rest my case (or at least I will try to rest myself while it is still relatively dark outside).

  14. 14.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @OzarkHillbilly: In moderation and as far as I can see I used none of the forbidden words. It must be forbidden for me to know all the forbidden words. I am forever cursed to unknowingly stumble across them one at a time.

  15. 15.

    Tony Jay

    @rikyrah:

    I see Operation Puddy-Tat has finally born fruit. It was a long shot, but Agent Whiskers has been doing this since he broke ties with Bloefeld and he doesn’t make mistakes.

    OTOH, with Julian being persecuted by the Women from S.I.S.T.E.R. who will be out there protecting the right of information to be free? Will no one think about the information?

  19. 19.

    Immanentize

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    I caught that too — Trumpusy have been told he had lost the immigration fight because his big focus in “the new border closing policy in a year — Dammit!” Was drugs? Is he going to go all Duterte now?

  20. 20.

    germy

    Amy Adams has signed on to star in the Ron Howard helmed Netflix film Hillbilly Elegy. Based on the New York Times best-selling memoir of the same name by venture capitalist J.D. Vance, the film is described as a modern exploration of the American Dream that chronicles three generations of an Appalachian family through the eyes of its youngest member, a Yale Law School graduate forced to return to his hometown.

    The film has been in development since 2017 when Ron Howard and co-owner Brian Grazer’s Imagine Entertainment secured the rights to adapt Vance’s memoir for the big screen.

    https://screenrant.com/netflix-hillbilly-elegy-amy-adams-ron-howard/

  23. 23.

    Immanentize

    I didn’t have a comment put into secret moderation, but my ability to edit has left the theater.

  28. 28.

    germy


    Dozens Of Panicked Mar-A-Lago Guests Crowd Front Desk To Check Out
    After FBI Agents Spotted At Hotel

    (Onion headline)

  29. 29.

    germy


    Mar-A-Lago Staff Apologizes For Letting In Guest They Just Assumed Was High-Powered Lobbyist Trying To Buy Influence

    (Onion headline)

  33. 33.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Ken: I wonder how one says it in !Kung? “Blechclick” or “clickBlech”? Or maybe it’s “clickBlechclick”?

  34. 34.

    JPL

    @debbie: It amazes me that his base doesn’t understand what an empty suit their idol is. Maybe the answer is that they like his racist and misogynistic comments.

  35. 35.

    debbie

    @JPL:

    I think they’re fooled by his strong, emphatic tone of voice. Waffling sounds so butch when it’s forcible-sounding.

  38. 38.

    Lapassionara

    @germy: Ugh! Nothing so terrifying as a venture capitalist forced to return to his hometown. What will we tell the children?

  39. 39.

    Ken

    @OzarkHillbilly: Orthography is complex. For example in Gloucestershire, it’s spelled “Ballestonehatchthwistlewaite”, while just five miles away across the Welsh border it’s “byllwch”, but both are still pronounced “blech”.

  41. 41.

    Cashworth

    @Ken: In Klingon, it’s “Ble’Q,” but the meaning depends on whether you follow it with a closed-fist punch or a slap with the back of the hand

  43. 43.

    Kay

    Jesse Lee
    ‏Verified account
    @JesseCharlesLee
    16h16 hours ago
    More Jesse Lee Retweeted Manu Raju
    It’s already easy to take for granted, but I feel like had Democrats not taken the House, the Barr cover-up letter might have been the only thing we saw from the Mueller report for years.

  47. 47.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    The Atlantic has an interesting article from a former college admission adviser who worked at a pricey high school in LA. The writer argues this is the rich white person’s version of MAGA voters’ sense that the world they knew is being taken from them.

    Much of the discussion of this scandal has centered on the corruption in the college-admissions process. But think about the kinds of jobs that the indicted parents held. Four of them worked in private equity, a fifth in the field of “investments,” others in real-estate development and the most senior management of huge corporations. Together, they have handled billions of dollars’ worth of assets within heavily regulated fields—yet look how easily and how eagerly they allegedly embrace a crooked scheme, as quoted in the court documents.

  48. 48.

    MomSense

    I’m hoping Tamara and Mnemosyne will check in with us and let us know how our babies are doing.

  52. 52.

    NotMax

    @Ken

    In Albanian it’s “Blëch”

    Brought back to mind an anecdote stumbled across while looking up some info about an actor from Albania who appeared in something recently seen.

    Apparently while working in a Czech movie, the director suggested he alter his first name as it appears on the screen to Nik from Kreshnik because the original is “too hard to pronounce.” His last name remained unchanged, however – it is Xhelilaj.

  56. 56.

    MomSense

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    It’s really so upsetting. They would have been better off giving all that money to scholarship funds for kids who actually want to go to college for the learning part.

    I’m also just so angry at how confident the wealthy are that the legal system will not hold them accountable even after the deregulation regime of the last forty years has made it so easy for them to do what they want legally. It’s like a secular form of indulgences. Enough money and no sins stick to you.

    Hey prosecutors how ‘bout we skip all the harassment of poor people with endless fucking fines and fees and go after the high value crimes.

  57. 57.

    plato

    @Kay: Just imagine what cudda been if the fricken voters had flipped the senate too in 2018. The fucking fixer barr won’t even be there. And fucking mueller might have dared to issue a few indictments.

  61. 61.

    Immanentize

    @MomSense:
    If they had given all that money directly to the school for scholarships? Their kids would have been accepted without the indirect bribery.

    I don’t think this is like MAGA loss of privilege at all. These are people who believe all things around them are reflections of their own personal worth — even their children. They are not doing it for their kids, although the kids will benefit, they are doing it so they can tell people at parties that their kid is going to USC or Brown or Harvard…

  63. 63.

    Immanentize

    I am giving a talk in a couple of weeks that will be a reflection on the history of war (it’s means and ends) and our continued existence after 50 years of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. I’m hoping it will be taped so I can youtube it and share. But if you are in Boston the 17th of April, come see the live (shit?) show!

  66. 66.

    leeleeFL

    @Mary G: You mean like real Civil Servants? Surely, you jest! Could it possibly be that there are adults in charge at our Southern Border? Is it really, truly, true!?

  69. 69.

    Kay

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    I grow California poppies here in a dry, hot area. The foliage sticks out because we don’t generally have that gray, fleshy foliage which I imagine is good in a drought. It looks like coral, like it could be underwater. I love California. A section of my (extended) family went out there decades ago- I should have followed them. Now it’s too late- I’d never adjust :)

  70. 70.

    Immanentize

    @Kay:
    Kay, Why is Tim Ryan running for President? I really cannot abide that man. He is the Heartland’s Seth Moulton.

  71. 71.

    David Evans

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: 20 shots? I admire your dedication, but couldn’t you get the same depth of field in a single exposure with a smaller aperture? I presume you had to be on a tripod anyway.

    Also, there’s a bit of color fringing on vertical edges in the building. Is that from the stacking?

  72. 72.

    noncarborundum

    @Cashworth: Sadly I don’t think Klingon phonotactics allow either initial “bl” or final “‘Q” (which is glottal stop + guttural stop). My best guess would be that they would say bIleH, where the capital I represents English short “i” and the capital H is like German “ch” in “Bach”.
    </fantasy languages pedant>

  74. 74.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @Kay: I had California Poppies in my little garden outside my window, until my landlord(now previous landlord)’s SO decided to weed that area. I planted some, one grew but hasn’t bloomed yet. I don’t think it’s getting enough sun, sigh.

  75. 75.

    Kay

    @Immanentize:

    I can’t stand him either. Democrats in the state asked him to run for governor or senate, which he might have won but he prefers to be a budding celebrity. I’m sick of people who don’t work well with others and are too fucking precious and unique to play on a team.

    It annoys me that national media is comparing him to Sherrod.

    Ryan is a specific type of urban, ethnic white male Democrat that is supposedly always on the cusp of a comeback. Brown has been successful because he broadened that to include a much more diverse and varied electorate and he dared to buck the Party on things that are difficult to sell in Ohio, like environmental issues. If the Democratic Party has a future in Ohio, it’s Brown, not Ryan. They’re different.

  76. 76.

    Kay

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    They’re weird. This isn’t their “native land” of course but they grow in this odd little area by the front door where nothing else will grow. They didn’t take everywhere else I tried them, and I love orange, so I tried a lot of places. I just mow them in the fall and then set new seed in the spring. I haven’t gotten them to reseed although they throw some kind of pod, like big poppies do.

  77. 77.

    Kay

    @Immanentize:

    And I don’t think Ryan said this so I won’t blame him but he’s supposedly appealing to white suburban “women” because of “yoga” – he meditates or something which I guess is under the broad “yoga” category.

    Jesus. These people. Could they possibly be more patronizing and awful? The burly men of the hardhats want cold hard facts on economic issues and women get some “yoga” brushoff.

  78. 78.

    Immanentize

    @Kay:
    He revealed himself with the “Dago red wine” crap. Just one of the not politically correct boys!

    As for yoga — really? I don’t think men who do yoga is a basis for women’s votes. It’s like that stupid Paul Ryan pumping iron spread. They really think woman are mindless idiots, don’t they.

  79. 79.

    Tenar Arha

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: It was very acid & quite good at describing the mileu of private schools. Though I noticed the author at the end just had to get a dig at Felicity Huffman even though it seemed she was wrapping up with making note that it was Loughlin & Mossimo guy who were the worst offenders. ? that was when I realized I’d broken a personal embargo & read a whole article by Caitlin Flanagan ?

  80. 80.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @David Evans: I have a mod on my camera that automates the focus stacking; I set the near, far focus points and number of shots and just need to keep the camera from moving. I’ll check the fringing, that may be due to lightening the shadows via a luminosity mask in Lightroom.

  81. 81.

    H.E.Wolf

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    @Ken: I wonder how one says it in !Kung? “Blechclick” or “clickBlech”? Or maybe it’s “clickBlechclick”?

    The click is in the middle.
    #MiriamMakebaFan

  82. 82.

    Tenar Arha

    @Immanentize: I don’t think they would have gotten in, not with all those kids. Donations gets you a full review including extra curriculars, it doesn’t get you a guaranteed spot, especially if your kid is giving off vibes in the interview of not wanting to go to school at all.

    Mostly these parents were looking for a guaranteed surety they couldn’t get. But there’s some truth to the fact that the rich are being squeezed out by the richest by donation inflation bc of billionaires. So, you’re not going to get guaranteed admission of a Jared Kushner intellect into Harvard without a lot more money & connections to their chosen school than most of these parents had.

  84. 84.

    H.E.Wolf

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    Re the Blanchfield tweet up top: Is mangling a word like that really a symptom of stroke?

    It can be.

    In the “F.A.S.T.” acronym, the current mnemonic for signs of stroke, S = Speech difficulty.

    The acronym was chosen because there are now treatments which can lessen the effects of a stroke, if administered FAST.

    https://www.strokeassociation.org/en/about-stroke/stroke-symptoms

    (For many years I had a job that required a current First Aid certificate as part of the credentialing process. They drilled us on this stuff.)

  85. 85.

    Citizen Alan

    @Kay:

    I can’t stand him either. Democrats in the state asked him to run for governor or senate, which he might have won but he prefers to be a budding celebrity. I’m sick of people who don’t work well with others and are too fucking precious and unique to play on a team.

    What’s funny about this comment is that until I clicked back to see who you were replying to, I wasn’t sure which of the 3 or 4 names that popped into my head this was referring to.

  86. 86.

    Nelle

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: I had an episode a few months ago that is being noted as a likely TIA. It was about words and spelling…for a bit, I just couldn’t hook up my synapses in the usual way. I was aware it wasn’t working but the more I tried to focus, the more unfamiliar the words were. It was a brief hall of mirrors event. I suppose it was doubly alarming as I was trying to spell a familiar word and even picked up a dictionary but was looking under “o” for a word that started with “a.” I taught English for decades so it was like the foundations tilted for me. Then I regained my normal sense of it all and carried on.

    I saw that bit of “oranges” and “origins” and I recognized it.

  88. 88.

    Kay

    @Citizen Alan:

    I know! I’m furious at these men, is the truth. They’re fucking up the plan. Rank and file Democrats are bad enough with their constant demands for THEIR issue to be at the top of everyone’s list, but half our candidates are incapable of working with others too.

    If I have to have a handsy nominee I want Al Franken. He’s the best in the handsy lane. I’m not that hard to work with. If they give me some half decent person I’ll be fine, but I’m not taking the second of TWO.

  90. 90.

    Kay

    @JR:

    The book, IMO, wasn’t as political as it portrayed, which is partly the fault of the author who I assume jumped on the “interview Trump voters in diners” marketing and thus misrepresented his own book.

    There’s a longish portion about violence- how these are violent homes- which is true in my experience and should probably be explored because it is hurting these people. They have to “use their words” as we say on the kindergarten playground. They can’t be flying off the fucking handle every 15 minutes. This “honor” thing they have settled on as an identity may have been workable in 1720 but it isn’t working for them now.

  92. 92.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @OzarkHillbilly: Interestingly, linguists have traced these similarities back across language families and deduced the Proto-Indo-European ancestral word, something like “Blbechhh” spoken with heavy spitting at beginning and end.

  97. 97.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: Oh, the honor culture thing. I haven’t read the book, but I am all too familiar with that fucked up way of thinking. Have you ever seen “Winter’s Bone”? It came out about 10 years ago — great movie. I think it was Jennifer Lawrence’s breakout performance. It was a searingly accurate portrayal of rural white honor culture.

  99. 99.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    I haven’t although I’ve scrolled by it a lot on Netflix. I don’t know what these movies are about and I’m impatient.

    My middle son has it. It frustrates and saddens me because I’ve come to think it’s self-destructive. The “loyalty” part is nice- I value loyalty myself, and he has a lot of friends and he’s a good friend, but he gets so offended. He’s the electrician and he’s commercial, so he works for huge contractors. They lay them off. He won’t go back to someone who lays him off, because he takes it personal. It’s insane. It’s literally how that business works. He got into it with his landlord because the guy sent him a “patronizing” text. We have these conversations- “do you owe him the 61 dollars? Then delete the offending text and pay him”. Who cares what this guy THINKS?

  101. 101.

    rikyrah

    Exception to grand jury secrecy has clear and familiar precedent
    Rachel Maddow explains how the principle of grand jury secrecy was overridden in a court ruling in favor of the public interest in materials related to the investigation of Richard Nixon.

    Public interest can top grand jury secrecy: fmr Watergate counsel
    Philip Lacovara, former counsel to the Watergate special prosecutor, talks with Rachel Maddow about his successful argument for the release of the Nixon tapes and grand jury material related to the Watergate investigation that ultimately led to Richard Nixon’s resignation.

  103. 103.

    James E Powell

    I was reading about Anthony Trollope’s The Way We Live Now and I came across this quote from the author explaining what he was thinking when he wrote it.

    Nevertheless a certain class of dishonesty, dishonesty magnificent in its proportions, and climbing into high places, has become at the same time so rampant and so splendid that there seems to be reason for fearing that men and women will be taught to feel that dishonesty, if it can become splendid, will cease to be abominable. If dishonesty can live in a gorgeous palace with pictures on all its walls, and gems in all its cupboards, with marble and ivory in all its corners, and can give Apician dinners, and get into Parliament, and deal in millions, then dishonesty is not disgraceful, and the man dishonest after such a fashion is not a low scoundrel.

    This is our America.

  104. 104.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:

    Jesse Lee
    ‏Verified account
    @JesseCharlesLee
    16h16 hours ago
    More Jesse Lee Retweeted Manu Raju
    It’s already easy to take for granted, but I feel like had Democrats not taken the House, the Barr cover-up letter might have been the only thing we saw from the Mueller report for years.

    Absolute truth.
    T-R-U-T-H

  105. 105.

    Mike in Pasadena

    “Watching Trump slur his way through cascading ministrokes.”
    THAT’S IT! That’s exactly what oranges for origins is about. The great big dope is having mini strokes every day. For months I have asked myself “what is wrong with this guy?” Now I finally know. Reagan all over again. Only worse.

  106. 106.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Tenar Arha: In this particular situation one might do well to eschew the quotidian “OMG” for the somewhat more elevated Zut alors!, which IMHO has a frisson, a certain je ne sais quoi, more à propos to the topic – doncha thank?

    (But Jeebus Cripes, this kid seemed to have every freakin’ thing going for him, & his family still felt they had to cheat? Wowie. Wonder how high the “legendary fencing coach” ends up hoist on his own épée.)

  107. 107.

    tobie

    I went to the Release the Report rally in Baltimore last night, and the surprise guest was Rep. Elijah Cummings! He’s using a walker these days and seems physically frail but he still has a powerful voice. I sent Adam a picture and description that he could post if other jackals also shared photos and stories.

    Cummings told us that he listens to religious music and says his favorite prayer before going into hearings–the prayer, Lord, Guard my tongue.

    He reminded us that yesterday was also the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s assassination and that if anyone was a model of speaking truth to power it was Dr. King.

    At the end of his speech the crowd started chanting, “We’ve got you’re back.” He waited a bit, leaned into the microphone and answered with a smile, “And I’ve got yours.” Sweet!!!

  108. 108.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Immanentize:

    But if you are in Boston the 17th of April, come see the live (shit?) show!

    Not sure you’re still around, but time and place?

  109. 109.

    lamh36

    White people, I have a suggestion.

    When black people tell you we’re hearing a dog-whistle, and that someone’s rhetoric surrounding race and identity is problematic, you don’t have to agree.

    But assuming that we’re misinformed or simply not understanding, makes you an asshole.

    https://twitter.com/notcapnamerica/status/1114179061172056065?s=21

    This happens a lot and yes it happens here and yes it makes you an asshole, IJS.

  110. 110.

    rikyrah

    Visiting the Lorraine Motel in Memphis Was the Most Emotional Museum Experience I’ve Ever Had
    Panama Jackson
    Yesterday 3:42pm

    I went to the Lorraine Motel and the National Civil Rights Museum for the first time in January, and I can say, without question, it was the most emotional experience I’ve ever had at a museum. I’ve been to African-American history museums near and far, and if I’m in a city and there is a black museum, I make it a point to go. Some are more difficult than others, almost intentionally—I will never forget walking through the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit with my daughter and how they make you walk through black history, including the hull of a slave ship with slave mannequins stacked up alongside one another—literally, it was #DisTewMuch. Others are easier to digest.

    But the Lorraine.

    It felt different almost from the beginning. As I walked up on the museum and saw its physical presence and location, it felt almost surreal. For starters, it’s so much smaller than it lives in my mind because of its significance. You almost forget that it was an actual motel. I got caught up in the history and the sadness and more or less paced back and forth the length of the museum for about 10 minutes, working myself up to go inside. I couldn’t stop staring at the balcony; there’s a wreath that hangs on the railing where King was felled.

  111. 111.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Mike in Pasadena: I can’t judge whether there’s any ground truth to this diagnosis, but if there is – When my mother sank slowly into dementia in her (not the calendar’s) mid-nineties we understood that the root cause might be ministrokes, & as my brother noted then, it was just a matter of chance as to whether & when one of them would knock out some brain function necessary for life & we’d lose her**.

    Same thought applies if Orangemandyas has the same stuff going on under the Tang-colored cottoncandy that passes for head fuzz: Any morning the world might wake to the news that Needy Amin closed on an agricultural property in the wee hours & the former SMOTHOR*** Mikey Dense has had the “V” lopped off his acronym & is in the Oval Office (but never alone there with a woman other than “Mother”). File that one well back in your head but easily accessible.

    ** FTR we were laying odds on her making it to 110 [never bet against diminutive italoamericana great-grandmothers] & wondering how to cover continued assisted living when she checked out without forewarning on the way to 103.

    *** Stupidest Member Of The House Of Representatives. When you share the chamber with the likes of Louie Gohmert, that’s something of a distinction – amphasis on “stink”.

  112. 112.

    J R in WV

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    That was my first thought, too. But your list is more creative than mine would have been. Do you even know how to pronounce Shyriiwook ? The name, not the language… And no, not Blech in Shyriiwook…

    Good morning all… ;-)

  114. 114.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @tobie: Damn, wish I’d known that was going on, I’d have tried to make it. Sorry to here about the walker – he’s my Rep (MD-07) & we need him now in that chairmanship more than ever.

  115. 115.

    Mike in Pasadena

    @MomSense: Prosecuting the rich is difficult and tedius because they hire lawyers. Poor people have public defenders who get to meet their clients for the first time in the hallway outside the courtroom on the first day of trial. If they are lucky and even get a PD.
    I remember the PD carrying five or six case files in her arms in the downtown Los Angeles Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center (courthouse) asking the milling crowds, “Is there a Mr. Garcia here?” (One sees many sad things on jury duty.)

  116. 116.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Uncle Cosmo:

    Mikey Dense has had the “V” lopped off his acronym

    On the one hand, Trump has utterly infuriated everyone who even leans liberal, which is why the 2018 election happened. Republicans weren’t discouraged, they voted heavy. We just swamped them. Replacing him with Pence weakens that effect. On the other hand, Pence is a man who is not going to do well under the spotlight. Pence has survived this long because he stays in the background, and he stays in the background because he’s too stupid to take initiative. As long as he’s in a post where saying what he was told to say works, he’s okay. That doesn’t cut it as President.

  118. 118.

    tobie

    @Uncle Cosmo: I didn’t know Cummings was going to be there either…otherwise I would have tried to find a way to get in touch with you. We absolutely need Cummings right now. He is fearless, but also gracious. He actually thanked the crowd of about 100 for taking the time after work and/or before a night shift to come out to demand transparency.

    ETA: Wouldn’t it be a hoot if native girl Nancy Pelosi also showed up one day to share the mic with Cummings at the War Memorial in Baltimore?

  119. 119.

    jc

    Trump wanted something from the Russians: Trump Tower Moscow. So he willfully ignored that he was getting in too deep. If Putin’s guy’s were helping him get what he wanted, hey what’s not to like? We’ll just keep this little arrangement to ourselves, wink wink.

    It’s not unlike the people who voted for Trump: they wanted to give the government the middle-finger, so they overlooked what their own bad judgement would bring.

  121. 121.

    J R in WV

    @Kay:

    “There’s a longish portion about violence- how these are violent homes- which is true in my experience and should probably be explored because it is hurting these people.”

    Yes there is violence. We live back up in a hollow, and while I commuted to work every day in the state capitol for many years, now I leave for town once or twice a week.

    One day like 3 weeks ago I saw that a tiny old (late 50s or early 60s 8x 40) trailer, mostly used as a summer camp had burnt. No power hooked up, looked totally involved, as in mostly gone. Then heard someone had broken in, as in opened the door without authorization, to cook some meth.

    Then talked to next door neighbor, who still works second shift, and Tuesday around 1 am on his way home form work, the State Police had 3 SUVs full of troopers at a different, newer, rental trailer, trying to winkle someone out without bloodshed. All armored up with their ARs in hand, at 1 am. Don’t yet know why or how it unfolded. But black plastic over some windows was visible driving out yesterday.

    And that’s within a mile and a half or so from our successful residential area!

    But Vance’s opinions about this countryside are worthless, as he’s kept his head out of the reality pretty successfully. Dickhead!

  122. 122.

    MCA1

    @Immanentize: Porque no los dos? The two things go hand in hand.

    I can’t second this particular point from Flanagan enough:

    “The changed admissions landscape at the elite colleges is the aspect of American life that doesn’t feel right to them; it’s the lost thing, the arcadia that disappeared so slowly they didn’t even realize it was happening until it was gone…And – as poor whites did in the years leading up to 2016 – they complain about it endlessly. At every parent coffee, silent auction, dinner party, Clippers game, book club, and wine tasting, someone is bitching about admissions.”

    I can attest to this one million percent. It is a constant drumbeat in my community, 90% comprised of the upper middle and lower upper class (collectively, read: professional class consisting of everyone from consultants, lawyers, doctors, up through private equity people, but not reaching into the hedge fund billionaire and old money truly upper class stratosphere). Combine two background factors to get there: (a) the status insecurity and tendency to measure your own value as reflected in the achievements of your children endemic to that slice of society, and (b) the demographic changes of the last quarter century, primarily the fact that there are 50% more high school seniors now than there were in 1990, without a matching increase in the size of the average class at elite colleges, and the slow removal of economic barriers to qualified students from outside their demographic. The pool of competitors is significantly bigger, for the same number of spots. That’s all there really is to this.

    The result: a simmering resentment of those infiltrating the system that they’d always been told was a meritocracy but is now closer to actually being one. Partly because some of them know, deep down, that in today’s world they probably would not have gotten in to Dartmouth or Notre Dame or wherever, even though they did just fine there. There’s definitely some projection going on here, because no one wants to think that they perhaps benefited from privilege, or that they weren’t subject to as much competition as they had been told they bested. And they can’t break free from the faith-like conviction that college placement is much more determinative of lifelong success and happiness than it really is, partly because it seems like every fucking person they interact with went to no “worse” a school than Boston College, and every Land Rover they see has a Johns Hopkins lax or Stanford crew sticker on it.

    So, they whine about “all the Chinese students” taking spots that Jack and Lauren could have had. They tell anyone who’ll listen their theory about admissions officers putting numbers limits on acceptance letters to kids from __________ [insert highly regarded mostly white suburban public high school which only gets 7 kids into the Ivy League every year now when it used to be 10 or 12], because the universities are engaged in some sort of reverse discrimination affirmative action. They bitch about said high school’s college counselors dropping the ball or collectively losing their edge because their kid had a weighted blah blah gpa over 4 point blah blah (which they don’t bother learning only puts them in the top quarter of their class) had to settle for Tulane instead of the infinitely more cred-worthy Wake Forest, which is apparently well-nigh “impossible” to get into now (despite the fact 8 kids from the same school got in there a year ago). Oh, and did you hear about the Turner boy? Honors classes all the way through high school, student government and hockey team, and he had to settle for [lowers voice] Bucknell. The horror.

    They privately NIMBY about the lower middle class first generation families who move into those townhouses near the train station to gain access to the amazingly resourced public high school, and seethe about how hard those kids work to take advantage of it while their own kids are more interested in Fortnite and Instagramming and hanging at Starbucks. Nevermind that those kids are more likely to take a spot at State U on a full ride academic scholarship to stay close to family, because mom and dad are working at Rite Aid and the local pizza shop, than they are to want to traipse off to Columbia. Or that the upper middle class kids are the ones who’ll have job opportunities on Wall Street even coming out of SMU, because their parents know 500 people in the financial services industry.

    Rant over, but at the end of the day, there is a parallel to undereducated guy in southern Ohio reacting to the 21st century American economy and more inclusive society with “Dad worked in the coal-fired power plant for 35 years and now those coastal libruls shut it down and gave all the jobs to Mexicans, MAGA!!!” and Greenwich guy railing about how impossible it is for his kids to follow his illustrious footsteps at Yale, and the unfairness of it all. They both had an expectation about the world going forward, based on their own past experience, that wasn’t problematic as entitlement until the expectation was frustrated by changing reality.

  125. 125.

    sukabi

    @Kay: we’ve got a bunch that sprung up off our driveway in a graveled area. They come back year after year, probably self seeding.

  128. 128.

    Dan B

    @NotMax: It’s “Pink” Celery, not pinko. Some sorta queer commies.

    There were several gay leftist / radical socialist / communist groups in the 70’s. Forget the name(s).

    They were humorless and endlessly aggravating with endless arguments about Trotsky vs. Lenin vs. Mao… etc. Most of the infighting was prolly cointelpro agitators, although there were some wacko dudes who tried to incite violence. Pretty obvious they were recruited from the semi-criminal insane.

  130. 130.

    Dan B

    @tobie: Wow, simply Wow! Elijah Cummings. He has gravitas, morality, and holiness sewn into a plain yet sacred cloth.

    Electrifying description, thanks!

  131. 131.

    Dan B

    @lamh36: There are dogwhistles for every group in this coalition that we each hope will overcome the “othering” and the harm.

    I dated several black guys in my 30’s and 40’s. One was one of the most potent memiries, and loves, of my life. One guy’s bedroom had a picture of a handsome black guy on the wall. I asked why his picture was there. The response was, “That’s who I’d like to be with.” I suddenly felt like I was second choice. We were in Portland, one of the whitest metros in the country. My mind raced through all the ways I could mess up – the accidental dogwhistles that could reveal my subconscious racism. He, of course would live with those every day so the question was, why did my feelings matter? I felt I would not be able to share my stories of going to a barber who handed out Klan literature to me and my brother. It would require enormous trust for us to share our journeys. Me from clueless white kid to someone looking for knowledge and redemption, or something similar.

    Now my white partner of 25 years and I live in a 10% white neighborhood and feel uncomfortable in the white suburbs and rural communities. Is this progress, or growth, or helping? Maybe but it feels like growth.

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