Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

The revolution will be supervised.

The arc of the moral universe doesn’t bend itself. it’s up to us.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

‘Museums aren’t America’s attic for its racist shit.’

People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.

The frogs are rarely mistaken.

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

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

Dead end MAGA boomers crying about Talyor Swift being a Dem is my kind of music. Turn it up.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

When the time comes to make an endorsement, the pain of NYT editors will be palpable as they reluctantly whisper “Biden.”

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

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

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

Republican also-rans: four mules fighting over a turnip.

I desperately hope that, yet again, I am wrong.

This country desperately needs a functioning Fourth Estate.

Can we lighten up on the doomsday scenarios?

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Ah, the different things are different argument.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

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

You are here: Home / Politics / Domestic Politics / Unhinged (Open Thread)

Unhinged (Open Thread)

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Trump did a phone interview with a Fox News friendly this morning. It did not go well.

In the first clip below, Trump accuses Robert Mueller of a “crime,” claiming the special counsel “terminated” texts and/or emails between “stupid lovers” Strzok and Page.* Then he bellows about the content of the “illegally terminated” texts/emails, thus indicating that he somehow read them despite their being allegedly lost to posterity. It’s just incoherent.

The second clip is even worse since it pertains to a real issue rather than a demented fantasy: the Trump concentration camps at the border. Trump indicates he may not sign the funding bill from the House, underscoring yet again his intent to use abused children and their desperate families as pawns to get wall funding.

He also repeats the lie about the family separation policy (100% Trump’s) in short-hand fashion since, on Fox News, it’s an article of faith that President Obama created family separation and Trump is the hero who’s trying to end it. Trump then rants that his administration is doing a “great job” at the border and whines about people focusing on “one little site” (where children have been hideously abused!) instead of the big picture, which is also a heinous fail-parade of cruelty and misery by any objective measure.

The clips are almost worth watching just for Bartiromo’s facial expressions. She’s one of the many amoral sleaze-bags at Fox News who helped propel this raving lunatic to power, so watching her failed struggle to shape the interview so that her subject sounds more like a human being in control of his faculties than a semi-sentient YouTube comments thread is almost comical.

I’m past believing that any unhinged public performance by Trump will move the needle with the media or the public and affect coverage or approval ratings. At this point, such a hope is probably as vain as the pundit yearning for a “pivot” in which the lunatic in the Oval Office suddenly starts acting like a president — even a regular old bad, corrupt and incompetent president. But damn!

Open thread!

*BTW, do Strzok and Page have any avenue of redress for their constant vilification and defamation by a sitting president? Trump is so bizarrely obsessed with those two, never failing to use the word “lover” multiple times (and with maximum creepiness!) when discussing them. He apparently derives some sick, hypocritical satisfaction from emphasizing their alleged infidelity.

Trump routinely and baselessly accuses the two of participating in a conspiracy theory to take him down, and I don’t doubt that each renewal of that accusation prompts Trump’s unhinged fans to threaten the two. Trump’s fans have a history of threatening violence, sending mail bombs and amassing weapons and creating “kill lists,” so “irresponsible” doesn’t begin to cover Trump’s treatment of Page and Strzok. It’s criminal, or at least it should be.

Reader Interactions

189Comments

  4. 4.

    Gravenstone

    Given the displayed obsession with the remnants of the Mueller investigation, I truly hope that Mueller’s public testimony is what causes Trump to finally have his long overdue stroke. Preferably mid-rant and live on camera for all posterity to relish.

  6. 6.

    SFAW

    I’m so old, I can remember the days when pundits said that Traitor Turtle and ZEGS would rein in the Traitor-in-Chief if he went too far. I’m also so old that I can remember people talking about “25th Amendment solutions” with a straight face (so to speak).

  7. 7.

    hells littlest angel

    @Adam L Silverman: “European nations were set up to take advantage of the United States.”

    You gotta give credit to Charlemagne, et al, for foresight.

  8. 8.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    I come from Europe

    so much packed into four words

    also, I’m not in the PELOSI’S A COWARD crowd, but I agree with this

    an Pfeiffer @ danpfeiffer
    Trump’s complete meltdown this morning over the simple announcement that Mueller is testifying in a few weeks is a strong political argument for impeachment.

    I choose to believe that Riverboat Nancy is watching the game and waiting for the moment to go all in. One would also hope that trump accusing Mueller and McGann of being criminals might move them to be aggressive in return, but I think Mueller is deeply (maybe narcissistically) invested in his own rectitude, and McGann knows that whatever trump bellows or spews, the GOP will protect him and his fortune/s

  9. 9.

    chopper

    i love how a guy whose golf trips have cost the taxpayer 100 million dollars so far is bitching about how we don’t have the money for toothbrushes in a kid’s concentration camp. yeah that works.

  10. 10.

    JanieM

    …so that her subject sounds more like a human being in control of his faculties than a semi-sentient YouTube comments thread

    You’ve outdone yourself, BC. And that’s saying something!

    I can’t keep up with this stuff and keep my sanity as well, and I apparently missed a whole chapter. Reading the post, I kept thinking “Page” was Carter Page…..

  12. 12.

    Rob

    I haven’t listened to any of the clips but the looks on Maria Bartiromo’s face in Aaron Rupar’s timeline are priceless.

  13. 13.

    Kattails

    Didn’t we just run the Car Talk clip about vowels to Boznia?
    OK since it’s an open thread I just glanced out my kitchen window, saw what looked like maybe somebody’s hound dog that got loose and was strolling along. I’m in the woods, long private drive. Walk was all wrong though. It was a bobcat. Large, muscular–just wow. Gorgeous. Camera was nearby so I grabbed a couple of not-great pics before it went off into the underbrush just beyond the parking area. Now I really need to figure out this card-reader thingy, there are a lot of pics I should get onto the main computer.
    @Adam L Silverman: IF ONLY.

  15. 15.

    Adam L Silverman

    @JanieM: Related concept:

  17. 17.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @SFAW: somebody said it on MSNBC a while back, about trump thinking he could bluster past her, and it stuck with me. I like the image.

    ETA: also, I don’t think Pelosi is the obstacle to impeachment. I have seen two House Dems say explicitly they oppose it, as opposed to saying not yet: Frederica Wilson, which was a surprise, and Jeff Van Drew, which was not. I’m guessing they are going public with what a lot more skittish Dems are saying. Pelosi knows her caucus, and knows how to count.

  18. 18.

    Hoodie

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Nancy only bets on sure things. She wants to stretch this out, prolonging GOP agony and potentially put them into a position where they may be too far along in 2020 to avoid a catastrophe in the next election. If you look at it over the long term, Trump has always been a bad investment. Think about how many banks he burned. At base, he’s a nutjob and an epic fuckup, apart from being a disgusting excuse for a human being. The wheels will likely start flying off when Mueller starts testifying. You think he’s decompensating now, just wait until mid-July.

  20. 20.

    Wapiti

    @SFAW: Riverboat Nancy made me think of an old western gambler, not glancing at their cards because they’ve already looked at them once, but watching the table and how the game develops.

  21. 21.

    SFAW

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    OK, thanks for the explanation, I think, but I still don’t get it. Apparently my braim cells are disappearing at an ever-increasing rate.

    What does a riverboat have to do with the Traitor-in-Chief blustering (or not) past anyone? I don’t think of riverboats — at least not the paddlewheel types — as being sentinels of any kind. [I expect that, after you explain it so that I get it, I’ll have an epiphany re: what a moran I am.]

    ETA: I don’t know if Wapiti’s explanation is the right one, but it’s one I can appreciate/understand.

  22. 22.

    rikyrah

    A lot of those stolen children at the border have US family members, including parents. Tears formed for me, listening to Maddow last night describe the lawyer’s interactions with one child, who had a bracelet with a phone number in permanent marker. NOBODY HAD CALLED THE NUMBER.
    I will say it again….
    The clothes you take to the cleaners have a better tracking system than what they are using with these children.

    THE CRUELTY IS THE POINT.

  23. 23.

    luc

    What do you mean? It didn’t go well?
    For the believers, this interview explains the whole border mess perfectly adequately and reassuringly.

  24. 24.

    dmsilev

    I assume he’s going to be live-Tweeting the debate tonight and tomorrow. I think I’ll donate some money to whichever candidate baits him into the most-unhinged Tweet.

  26. 26.

    schrodingers_cat

    @rikyrah: They want to punish the children by disease and death through neglect as a punishment for their parents for daring to seek asylum. This is the plan, it always the plan. They want it to act as a deterrent to asylum seekers. They told us in 2017, this is what they planned to do.

    It wasn’t Kelly’s first time making the case that separating children from their families could deter immigrants from illegally seeking entry to the United States. When he held Nielsen’s job last year, he told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that he was considering the policy as a deterrent.

    “Let me start by saying I would do almost anything to deter the people from Central America to getting on this very, very dangerous network that brings them up through Mexico to the United States,” Kelly said.

    Blitzer pressed him on the point: Is the Department of Homeland Security going to separate children from their parents?

    “Yes, I am considering, in order to deter more movement along this terribly dangerous network, I am considering exactly that,” Kelly said. “They will be well cared for as we deal with their parents.”

    More here
    The last sentence is obviously a lie.
    Also, seeking asylum is not illegal.

  27. 27.

    Plato

    The traitorous thug’s usual tactics to distract you from the real atrocities that he and his corrupt ‘cabinet’ thugs commit every fucking day.

  28. 28.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @SFAW: what @Wapiti: said, the image of the old riverboat gamblers, in this case someone who plays the long game, and knows the odds, and reads the other players… etc

  31. 31.

    Fester Addams

    Yzour Welczome!

    Somehow I’m feeling the urge to type “man 3 strzok” into one of my Linux windows.

  33. 33.

    rikyrah

    @schrodingers_cat:

    @rikyrah: They want to punish the children by disease and death through neglect as a punishment for their parents for daring to seek asylum. This is the plan, it always the plan.

    I know. I know that this has been the intent of their evil.
    Can’t stop me from being enraged, though.

  34. 34.

    The Dangerman

    Couldn’t FOX find a better picture of Trump? He looks like he just filled his Depends and wants a Tootsy Roll (not Tootsy, Donald, Tootsy ROLL; asshole) surprise.

    ETA: No, not roll with a Tootsy, Donald; good grief

  35. 35.

    sherparick

    Certainly an impeachment charge. But he thinks he was elected “King” of America in 2016 and at least 35% of the country agrees with him (the other 12% just like the tax cuts and right-wing judges and try to pretend he otherwise does not exist.

  37. 37.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    The deaths of those children leaves me groping for a word bad enough. This isn’t the 14th century. They’re not dying of cholera or typhoid. They’re dying of the flu. They’re dying of neglect.

  38. 38.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??

    @Plato:
    There are no “tactics”. He’s just this unhinged and his minions variously cower and try to carry out their own evil agendas, which sometimes like up with what Trump wants

  40. 40.

    J R in WV

    @Adam L Silverman:

    TRUMP: “.… European nations were set up to take advantage of the United States.”

    Except that European nations were founded from 200-2000 years before America was first trespassed upon by European attackers… etc. Won’t go into more details, but we all know he’s ignorant AND unhinged.

  41. 41.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Dave Weigel @ daveweigel
    Jane Sanders arrives at Homestead, says that closing detention facilities would be BernieSanders first executive order
    Harris and Klobuchar also going to camp sites

  42. 42.

    Gin & Tonic

    @SRW1: We need Steve in the wherever to come in and tell us that the terminations were perfectly legal.

  44. 44.

    rikyrah

    Mueller hearing could shed light on Trump counterintel probe

    Rachel Maddow summarizes the breaking news that Special Counsel Robert Mueller, after receiving a subpoena from the House Intelligence and Judiciary Committees, has agreed to testify in an open session, potentially an opportunity for the public to learn what became of the counterintelligence investigation into Donald Trump that is not mentioned in Mueller’s report.

  45. 45.

    lgerard

    @SFAW:

    I’m so old, I can remember the days when pundits said that Traitor Turtle and ZEGS would rein in the Traitor-in-Chief if he went too far.

    I can remember when that “Anonymous” guy wrote in the NYT about how he was keeping an eye on trump and working to prevent him from doing stupid stuff. i wonder what ever happened to him/her.

  46. 46.

    zhena gogolia

    @SFAW:

    A “riverboat gambler” is a seasoned card player who travels up and down the Mississippi taking fortunes from rubes on various riverboats. Ever seen Show Boat? Yancy Derringer?

  47. 47.

    rikyrah

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    The deaths of those children leaves me groping for a word bad enough. This isn’t the 14th century. They’re not dying of cholera or typhoid. They’re dying of the flu. They’re dying of neglect.

    Yes.
    Deliberate malice and neglect.
    Every illness.
    Every death.
    Absolutely preventable.
    BUT, THEY WANT IT TO HAPPEN.

  48. 48.

    sherparick

    @schrodingers_cat: From LGM today http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2019/06/home-2:

    Home

    by Warsan Shire

    no one leaves home unless
    home is the mouth of a shark.

    you only run for the border
    when you see the whole city
    running as well.

    your neighbors running faster
    than you, the boy you went to school with
    who kissed you dizzy behind
    the old tin factory is
    holding a gun bigger than his body,
    you only leave home
    when home won’t let you stay.

    no one would leave home unless home
    chased you, fire under feet,
    hot blood in your belly.

    it’s not something you ever thought about
    doing, and so when you did –
    you carried the anthem under your breath,
    waiting until the airport toilet
    to tear up the passport and swallow,
    each mouthful of paper making it clear that
    you would not be going back.

    you have to understand,
    no one puts their children in a boat
    unless the water is safer than the land.

    who would choose to spend days
    and nights in the stomach of a truck
    unless the miles travelled
    meant something more than journey.

    no one would choose to crawl under fences,
    be beaten until your shadow leaves you,
    raped, then drowned, forced to the bottom of
    the boat because you are darker, be sold,
    starved, shot at the border like a sick animal,
    be pitied, lose your name, lose your family,
    make a refugee camp a home for a year or two or ten,
    stripped and searched, find prison everywhere
    and if you survive and you are greeted on the other side
    with go home blacks, refugees
    dirty immigrants, asylum seekers
    sucking our country dry of milk,
    dark, with their hands out
    smell strange, savage –
    look what they’ve done to their own countries,
    what will they do to ours?

    the dirty looks in the street
    softer than a limb torn off,
    the indignity of everyday life
    more tender than fourteen men who
    look like your father, between
    your legs, insults easier to swallow
    than rubble, than your child’s body
    in pieces – for now, forget about pride
    your survival is more important.

    i want to go home, but home is the mouth of a shark
    home is the barrel of the gun
    and no one would leave home
    unless home chased you to the shore
    unless home tells you to
    leave what you could not behind,
    even if it was human.

    no one leaves home until home
    is a damp voice in your ear saying
    leave, run now, i don’t know what
    i’ve become.

    As posted Bruce Cockburn’s song from 36 years earlier today in another thread, the countries of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador are pretty much hell holes because of 100 years of terrible American policy, being made worse by climate change which is making it impossible for these countries to sustain their populations and grow crops. As the poem says, if the choice is between dying or moving to Hell, people will move to Hell.

  49. 49.

    Gin & Tonic

    In other news, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, five years after suspending the Russian Federation for invading Ukraine, has voted to restore them to full membership, notwithstanding the fact that their illegal occupation of Ukraine’s sovereign territory continues.

    The Ukrainian delegation has left in protest.

  51. 51.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Aaron Rupar @ atrupar
    Trump absolutely trashes Fed Chair Jerome Powell.

    “Here’s a guy — nobody ever heard of him before. And now, I made him, and he wants to show how tough he is, okay. Let him show how tough he is. He’s a– he’s a– he’s not doing a good job.”

  53. 53.

    Another Scott

    LOLGOP @LOLGOP 3 minutes ago

    Here’s what it comes down to:

    People who tell you Trump is suffering from dementia are comforting you, suggesting he’s bound to be taken out by a giant rake he steps on.

    People who tell you he’s cunning are challenging you.

    I did enough comforting in 2016.

    ¿Por qué no los dos?

    We can’t take anything for granted. Anything.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  54. 54.

    SFAW

    @zhena gogolia:

    Understood. Prior to Wapiti’s explanation, it wasn’t clear that it was being used in that way, as opposed to the literal interpretation of a riverboat. Well, at least not clear to me.

  56. 56.

    germy

    @lgerard:

    i wonder what ever happened to him/her.

    Probably ground up by now into one of trump’s fastfood hamburgers.

    Sorry! Hamberders.

  57. 57.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    One of my friends was telling me she was talking to her wingnut brother and he went into this frothing rant about the Concentration Camps not being Concentration Camps (I don’t know, how about Catholic Orphanages?)

    My comment was look it from her brother’s point of view; this time is the Promised Land of the Teatard, and it sucks, badly. Worse kicking the Others in the face is making the REAL Americans (small town Christian conservative white males) feel awful, like they small minded, petty, vindictive twats who beat up children. All these loony rants are the REAL 100% Authentic American brain trying to deal with their stupid ideas meet reality and failing.

  59. 59.

    rikyrah

    How a Top Chicken Company Cut Off Black Farmers, One by One
    The Trump administration has weakened legal protections for farmers and eased off enforcing rules on powerful meat companies.
    by Isaac Arnsdorf June 26, 5 a.m. EDT

    After years of working as a sheriff’s deputy and a car dealership manager, John Ingrum used his savings to buy a farm some 50 miles east of Jackson, Mississippi. He planned to raise horses on the land and leave the property to his son.

    The farm, named Lovin’ Acres, came with a few chicken houses, which didn’t really interest Ingrum. But then a man showed up from Koch Foods, the country’s fifth-largest poultry processor and one of the main chicken companies in Mississippi. Koch Foods would deliver flocks and feed — all Ingrum would have to do is house the chicks for a few weeks while they grew big enough to slaughter. The company representative wowed Ingrum with projections for the stream of income he could earn, Ingrum recalled in an interview.

    What Ingrum didn’t know was that those financial projections overlooked many realities of modern farming in the U.S., where much of the country’s agricultural output is controlled by a handful of giant companies. The numbers didn’t reflect the debt he might have to incur to configure his chicken houses to the company’s specifications. Nor did they reflect the risk that the chicks could show up sick or dead, or that the company could simply stop delivering flocks.

    And that growing concentration of corporate power in agriculture would only add to the long odds Ingrum, as a black farmer, faced in the United States, where just 1.3% of the country’s farmers are black.

    ……………………….

    Along with these historical disadvantages, black farmers say they have also encountered bias in dealing with some of the corporate giants that control their livelihood. In complaints filed with the USDA between 2010 and 2015, Ingrum and another black farmer in Mississippi said Koch Foods discriminated against them and used its market control to drive them out of business.

    After the complaints by the farmers, an investigator for the USDA, which is responsible for regulating the industry, looked into Koch Foods’ dealings with those farmers and found “evidence of unjust discrimination,” according to a 700-page case file obtained by ProPublica. The investigator concluded that Koch Foods violated a law governing meat companies’ business practices.

    The Trump administration has cut back on enforcing this law, with the USDA now conducting fewer investigations and imposing fewer fines, as ProPublica has reported. Koch Foods hasn’t faced any penalty.

    Koch Foods declined to provide an interview with any of its executives or to answer detailed questions about its dealings with black farmers in Mississippi. A lawyer for the company said it denies wrongdoing.

    The five largest chicken companies now make up 61% of the market, compared with 34% in the hands of the top four firms in 1986. As the biggest companies expanded their control, they raised farmers’ average pay by a mere 2.5 cents a pound from 1988 to 2016, while the wholesale price of chicken rose by 17.4 cents a pound, according to data from the USDA and the National Chicken Council.

    …………………….

    Around the same time, two other black farmers in the area also stopped growing chickens for Koch Foods. Out of 173 chicken farmers under contract with Koch Foods in Mississippi, there was only one African American left. His name was Carlton Sanders.

    Ingrum said he warned Sanders: “They’re coming after you, Carlton. You next.”

    Sanders’ farm was in a nearby town called Lena. He had been in the business since 1992. Back then, he worked with a local family business called BC Rogers, which he said always treated him professionally. He used the chicken manure to fertilize his vegetable garden, and he took pride in his trees growing figs, pears and apricots. “I just had everything set,” Sanders said.

    When Koch Foods bought BC Rogers in 2001, everything changed, Sanders said. Sanders’ performance was above average, according to the ranking system that the company used to pay farmers. But he felt singled out for disadvantages.

    “I’ve never been treated like that by anybody,” Sanders, 63, said. “It was just like I was in hell with them.”

    In 2014, Koch Foods wanted Sanders to make $105,000 worth of improvements, according to the USDA case file. Then Sanders borrowed an additional $93,000 to buy new curtains, insulation, cables and heaters. Suddenly, he owed a total of $295,000, but he made his payments on time, according to financial records reviewed by ProPublica.

    The next year, Koch Foods informed its farmers of a new requirement for the ventilation in their chicken houses. Sanders went to his bank to see about another loan. The loan officer called the manager at Koch Foods and sent a follow-up email asking for “a listing of needed improvements that Koch Foods is requiring.”

    The manager never responded directly to the banker. Instead, the company gave Sanders an “update list” with 23 items. Sanders gave the list to his banker, who understood it to be the company’s response to his inquiry. Sanders obtained work estimates for the 23 updates, amounting to $318,000, according to the case file.

    The banker advised Sanders not to apply for another loan and to consider selling his farm instead. Meanwhile, Koch Foods stopped giving Sanders chickens to raise.

    Sanders asked around and realized other farmers hadn’t gotten the same 23-item “update list.” So in December 2015, he filed a complaint with the USDA.

  60. 60.

    Mike in NC

    Did Fat Bastard tweet anything more today about wanting to “obliterate” (that’s a big word for him) a country with 80 million people because one of them mocked him?

  61. 61.

    Mandalay

    Leave KellyAnne allllllllllllllllllllone!!!!….

    A House committee voted Wednesday to authorize a subpoena for White House counselor Kellyanne Conway after she failed to show for a hearing on a government watchdog’s findings that she broke the law dozens of times.

    The House Oversight Committee voted, 25 to 16, for the subpoena after special counsel Henry Kerner said she blatantly violated the Hatch Act, a law that bars federal employees from engaging in politics during work.

    “Ms. Conway’s egregious and repeated Hatch Act violations, combined with her unrepentant attitude, are unacceptable from any federal employee, let along one in such a prominent position,” Kerner told the panel. “Her conduct hurts both federal employees, who may believe that senior officials can act with complete disregard for the Hatch Act, and the American people, who may question the nonpartisan operation of their government.”

    I assume Conway will ignore the subpoena. What then?

  62. 62.

    Aleta

    ‘Pay more money or more children will die.’ In effect, the repeated message from Trump, Kelly, Kirstjen Nielson, Thomas Campbell*, and Congressional Republicans. And in quotes from CBP and other gov’t officials.

    Messages that seem to me to be on behalf of DC Capital Partners, Caliburn INT, Comprehensive Health Services, and Homestead.

    * (Forbes in April) “Thomas Campbell owns at least 75% of DC Capital”

    CBS:

    Before joining the White House, Kelly served on the board of advisors of an investment firmed called DC Capital Partners. He stepped down in January 2017 when he was confirmed as secretary of Homeland Security. Six months later Kelly became President Donald Trump’s chief of staff, serving through the end of 2018. In 2018, DC Capital folded four of its holdings into a company called Caliburn International

    While Kelly was with the White House, the administration took a number of steps to crack down on immigration. One change (Kelly made while in the WH) is repeatedly cited by personnel with the U.S. Health and Human Services department as having led to a dramatic increase in the average length of stay for an unaccompanied migrant child in U.S. custody. 

    In June 2018, the government began requiring fingerprint background checks of all household members of a relative seeking to sponsor a child in U.S. custody. Prior to that time, only the sponsor was required to be fingerprinted. The policy was abandoned in December. …

    In the months after that policy was enacted, Comprehensive Health Services, a Caliburn company that is the only private company operating a shelter in the country, became one of the most dominant players in the industry. In August, it secured three licenses for facilities in Texas, totaling 500 beds, and in December its Homestead facility in Florida began expanding from a capacity of 1,250 beds, to 3,200. 

    A phone call with CBS News on Thursday, CREW’s chief ethics counsel Virginia Canter said the organization wants to know what role, if any, Kelly played in decisions that led to Caliburn’s expansion.
    [CREW = Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW)]

    “We’re looking to identify documents that may reveal whether or not he was personally involved in any aspect of these contracts, whether he was briefed on them, or gave guidance with respect to how the government should administer them,” Canter said.

    CREW is also interested in learning about the approval process by which Kelly gained admission to Homestead for a tour on April 4. All members of the public must be approved by HHS to enter any unaccompanied migrant children’s facility. Just four days after Kelly was allowed into Homestead, three Democratic members of Congress — U.S. Representatives Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Donna Shalala and Debbie Mucarsel-Powell — were all denied access.

    WaPo: “Kelly was President Trump’s chief of staff from mid-2017 through 2018, when the administration’s zero-tolerance policy was implemented at the U.S.-Mexico border. That led to thousands of Central American migrant children being separated from their parents and housed in facilities run by government contractors.”

    WaPo: “In 2018, DC Capital folded four of its holdings into a company called Caliburn International3.”

    WaPo, May 4: “Former White House chief of staff John F. Kelly has joined the board of Caliburn International, the parent organization of the company that runs the largest facility housing migrant children in the United States.”

  63. 63.

    Kay

    Bartiromo’s facial expressions. She’s one of the many amoral sleaze-bags at Fox News who helped propel this raving lunatic to power, so watching her failed struggle to shape the interview so that her subject sounds more like a human being in control of his faculties than a semi-sentient YouTube comments thread is almost comical.

    She’s one of the worst. I think we have to remember they are making millions and millions of dollars doing this and they can’t do anything else to make anything approaching that kind of money, which to me explains the whole thing. She loses the Trump promotion job and that’s it for her. One thing Trump is really good at is exploiting the dependent nature of the relationship between him and conservative media – she needs him as much as he needs her. They’re trapped together. He needs the exposure and free media and she needs the job.

  65. 65.

    Mandalay

    Also too, Leave Eric allllllllllllllllllllone!!!!….

    Eric Trump, son of President Donald Trump, said Tuesday he was spat on by an employee at a Chicago-area restaurant.

    “It was purely a disgusting act by somebody who clearly has emotional problems,” the President’s third child told conservative site Breitbart News by phone Tuesday evening.
    The Chicago Police Department was on the scene and assisted Secret Service, per CPD spokesman Anthony Guglielmi.
    “CPD was on scene and assisting the United States Secret Service with a law enforcement matter. Any and all inquiries regarding a federal protectee must be directed to the Secret Service,” Guglielmi tweeted.
    A United States Secret Service spokesperson declined to comment to CNN, and did not respond to inquiries on whether charges had been filed.
    Eric Trump cast blame for the incident, which took place at upscale cocktail bar and restaurant Aviary, more broadly on the Democratic Party.

    “For a party that preaches tolerance, this once again demonstrates they have very little civility. When somebody is sick enough to resort to spitting on someone, it just emphasizes a sickness and desperation and the fact that we’re winning,” he told Breitbart.

    So to be clear, the person who spat on Trump “clearly has emotional problems”, yet it’s the fault of the Democratic Party?

  66. 66.

    Martin

    @zhena gogolia: Got it. What’s the mentally addled equivalent of Cockney rhyming slang, because I think that’s where ‘Riverboat Nancy’ belongs. At least when he calls people fat we understand why it’s insulting.

  68. 68.

    MomSense

    I watched the first episode of years and years last night and it freaked me out. The more he feels cornered the more unhinged his behavior. I worry that he will do something catastrophic militarily st some point.

    What is the process for getting the UNHCR or some international agency in to inspect the children’s concentration camps. I’m worried that we are going to find mass graves before this nightmare is resolved.

    I know my comment will piss people off but I don’t think my fears are unwarranted.

  69. 69.

    Kay

    You all know this but he’s lying about the funding. His low quality hires seized funding for his vanity wall. They could do the same for these children. Honestly they’d also have to hire some competent, humane and decent people to lead any effort, the problem isn’t that they’re short money -but they have the funding. If they had it for the vanity wall they have it for this. They’d rather fund a monument to Donald Trump than buy Pedialyte for the kids they took into custody and are now incapable of caring for properly.

  70. 70.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:

    She’s one of the worst. I think we have to remember they are making millions and millions of dollars doing this and they can’t do anything else to make anything approaching that kind of money, which to me explains the whole thing. She loses the Trump promotion job and that’s it for her.

    Keep on bringing the truth, Kay.

  72. 72.

    LongHairedWeirdo

    You know, I saw the famous “insurance policy” tweet, about how investigating, in case Trump wins, is like buying a life insurance policy in case you die before you’re 40. Anyone even *remotely* interested in gleaning the context can suss it out in a second. It’s as blatant as “an anonymous source said Joseph Wilson said something; Joseph Wilson insists he didn’t, and therefore, Joseph Wilson is a liar,” but just a hair less honest, because in the latter case, a sloppy reading of an entire news story could leave you with the wrong impression; here, you need to be a deliberate tweet-twit.

  73. 73.

    david

    @SFAW:

    Well, you can’t exactly call her Nancy Smash anymore… she’s more like Nancy Next Election.

  74. 74.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:

    You all know this but he’s lying about the funding. His low quality hires seized funding for his vanity wall. They could do the same for these children. Honestly they’d also have to hire some competent, humane and decent people to lead any effort, the problem isn’t that they’re short money -but they have the funding. If they had it for the vanity wall they have it for this. They’d rather fund a monument to Donald Trump than buy Pedialyte for the kids they took into custody and are now incapable of caring for properly.

    But, people know that’s bullshyt. Which is why I think all Democrats need to repeat over and over SEVEN HUNDRED SEVENTY-FIVE DOLLARS A DAY.
    You keep on repeating that, and people will be like – how come kids can’t get soap and toothpaste when they’re being paid $775/day?
    How come the baby can’t get pampers – when you’re being paid $775/day?
    How come you can’t find a mattress for children – when you’re being paid $775/day?

    People understand the price of soap, toothpaste and pampers.
    And, they know that, if the vendor is being paid $775/day, then the children should be getting it.

    Yes, be outraged at the deliberate malice and neglect, but, keep the money part in front of folks.

  75. 75.

    Betty Cracker

    @Mandalay: I hope Eric Trump is prepared for even more “winning” in the form of people horking loogies in his face. The thing about civilization is that the norms and laws that govern it rest on a social compact. People who gleefully smash those norms and openly flout the law can’t expect everyone else to abide indefinitely by the rules they’ve abandoned.

  77. 77.

    Kay

    @rikyrah:

    Where do the Fox and Friends people go after that horrible show? They don’t have a lot of career options. They’re specialists. A niche market: “clowns on a couch”. Who else is going to pay 10 million dollars for that? No, they all have to stay until the bitter end.

  78. 78.

    BC in Illinois

    @sherparick:
    Thank you. I had seen the quote:

    you have to understand,
    no one puts their children in a boat
    unless the water is safer than the land.

    … but I had never seen the whole poem.

  80. 80.

    A Ghost To Most

    @Mandalay:
    Penny sets Sheldon’s meal in front of him at Cheesecake Factory.
    “Go ahead, eat it. I dare you”.

  81. 81.

    jonas

    IIRC, wasn’t Strzok the agent who oversaw the Clinton email investigation, recommended charges or sanctions of some kind, and was overruled by Comey and other higher-ups at the FBI? Trump is vilifying the one person at the FBI who literally wanted to “lock her up.”

  82. 82.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Gravenstone:

    Given the displayed obsession with the remnants of the Mueller investigation

    Remember, as bad as what we’ve seen is, the released report is heavily redacted. What’s under those blacked out lines is much, much worse for Trump.

  83. 83.

    trollhattan

    @Gin & Tonic:
    We’ve evidently uncovered another type of rape that’s acceptable after a reasonable time interval. Spines, do they have any?

  84. 84.

    EmbraceYourInnerCrone

    @sherparick – Thank you , I had not ever heard this. The people fleeing Central America remind me of something I recently saw about people moving into the exclusion zone around Chernobyl. The reporters asked one woman why she had moved herself and her 2 teenagers there a couple years ago. She was from Donbass, Ukraine. She said there was shooting and shelling almost every day in Donbass and she Googled where the least expensive place to live was in Ukraine, Chernobyl came up and she decided that the possible long term risks of radiation were less likely to kill her family than the war in her front yard…
    I am so lucky not to have to make those calculations…

  85. 85.

    Kay

    Frank Thorp V
    ‏Verified account
    @frankthorp
    51m51 minutes ago
    More
    In emotional opening stmt at hearing on immigration, @RonJohnsonWI says of the pic of migrants who drowned at the border:”I don’t want to see another picture like that on the US border. I hope that picture alone will catalyze this Congress, this Senate, this cmte to do something”

    Look who’s back! The Republicans! Long time no see! That picture is the image of the Trump Administration. These cowards checked out for two years and when they looked at the news they all said “holy shit- this is bad”. This week they were on television denying that this was a problem and protecting Dear Leader. Why the sudden change of heart?

  86. 86.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:

    Where do the Fox and Friends people go after that horrible show? They don’t have a lot of career options.

    They already have an example of what happens to them outside of the Fox bubble- Megan Kelly…and they know that they won’t get the 8 figure parachute for failure that she got.

  89. 89.

    jl

    @Adam L Silverman: China set up the European nations as a hoax to fleece the United States! Except the ones that are going authoritarian. Hungary is a genuine nation that will be very nice to us.

  90. 90.

    Kay

    Who in the Trump Administration is in charge of this crisis? It isn’t the President. He’s out there denying he’s responsible.

    With any other US President this would be considered a massive failure of leadership and an abdication of his basic duties. George W Bush was held responsible for Katrina. Is the President in charge or not? If he’s not, who is?

  91. 91.

    rikyrah

    @MomSense:

    I watched the first episode of years and years last night and it freaked me out. The more he feels cornered the more unhinged his behavior. I worry that he will do something catastrophic militarily st some point.

    I don’t believe your fears are unwarranted. As horrible as it is. As horrible as it’s been. And, that we will suffer from the result of a right-wing judiciary for decades. But, like you, I fear something catastrophic militarily too. Let’s not get it twisted. The only reason we aren’t at war with Iran is because it doesn’t serve Putin’s interests.

  92. 92.

    bemused

    @rikyrah:

    Yes, about a year ago, iirc and he joined the board of Caliburn International which operates largest facility for immigrant children in May. I’ll never get my wish that all these despicable people be concentrated in jails for a very long time and experience every deprivation the immigrant children have.

  93. 93.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:

    With any other US President this would be considered a massive failure of leadership and an abdication of his basic duties. George W Bush was held responsible for Katrina.

    Remember when everything was gonna be ‘ Obama’s Katrina’?

    I remember it.

  94. 94.

    stinger

    @schrodingers_cat: Kelly: “in order to deter more movement along this terribly dangerous network”

    So he’d be fine with more Central American immigrants if they came through a safer route?

    (I already know the answer.)

  95. 95.

    Kay

    @rikyrah:

    They can’t go to a mainstream chat show with a huge audience. They would never get hired, mostly because it’s really competitive and they can’t rely on fealty to the GOP to give them an edge. I suppose they could start some online show or something- Bill O’Reilly or Sarah Palin – but we all know that’s chump change compared to what they’re accustomed to. She has to kiss his ass. She has no other marketable skill and she’s typecast herself into “Right wing shill”. Oh, well. We all make choices!

  96. 96.

    The Moar You Know

    Ukraine. She said there was shooting and shelling almost every day in Donbass and she Googled where the least expensive place to live was in Ukraine, Chernobyl came up and she decided that the possible long term risks of radiation were less likely to kill her family than the war in her front yard…

    @EmbraceYourInnerCrone: She’s not wrong – about most spots in the Exclusion Zone. Some are really bad, most of it’s reasonably safe, and certainly safer than living in Donbass. Hell, it’s probably the safest place in Ukraine.

  97. 97.

    trollhattan

    Picking fights in his spare time, Trump pivots to women’s soccer.

    US president Donald Trump has criticised US women’s team co-captain Megan Rapinoe on Twitter, telling her not to “disrespect our country” after she said she would not visit the White House if they won the World Cup.

    Trump said Rapinoe, who scored two penalties as the US beat Spain in the last 16, should “win before she talks”. He later added he would invite the team whether they “win or lose” in France. [He’s seen pictures.]

    Rapinoe, 33, has been outspoken on social justice issues. Asked by football magazine Eight by Eight whether she was excited to visit the White House if the US won the tournament, she dismissed the idea, saying the team would not be invited. Using an expletive, she also made clear that she would not attend in any event.

    “Megan should never disrespect our Country, the White House, or our Flag, especially since so much has been done for her and the team,” tweeted Trump. “Be proud of the Flag that you wear. The USA is doing GREAT.”

    Trump initially tagged the wrong account – a Megan Rapino with only two followers – before deleting the thread and retagging the US star’s actual account.

    “Besides, she’s a total loser with just two followers. Checkmate, Libs!”

  98. 98.

    SenyorDave

    @Kay: RonJohnsonWI says of the pic of migrants who drowned at the border:”I don’t want to see another picture like that on the US border. I hope that picture alone will catalyze this Congress, this Senate, this cmte to do something”

    He should have stopped at the ”I don’t want to see another picture like that on the US border” part. Because that is probably accurate – he really doesn’t want to see another picture like that. He doesn’t care that it happens, he just doesn’t want to see it.

    It’s like the classic line from lunchlady Doris of the Simpsons (the episode is where the Skinner believes that the school is rich because they struck oil, not realizing that’s Burns has figured out how to steal the oil):
    The Cafeteria staff is complaining about the mice in the kitchen…I want to hire a new staff.

  99. 99.

    Kay

    Aaron Rupar
    Bartiromo: “Wow … it’s obvious what they were planning, sir”

    This pays millions and millions of dollars. No wonder young people find socialism appealing. Can you blame them? There is no connection between pay and work. None.

  100. 100.

    jl

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: The ignorance and incompetence of Trump and his advisers is breathtaking.
    Actually, it was Yellen who may have started raising rates a little too soon in a macroeconomic policy environment in which monetary policy had to do all the work and responsible fiscal policy exactly zero, or less than zero work.
    One undermentioned reason Trump won may have been fact that the US was in a growth recession during the general election campaign, and by some international definitions, we did have a short recession.

    Yellen’s and Powell’s policies on rate increases have been nearly identical, both have overseen the most measured steady and gradual policy of rate increases since the 1960s.
    Good reasons not to cut rates now. Fed has much less room to cut rates to stimulate economy and cushion next recession from monetary policy alone than in any previous post-war period. There won’t be any effective fiscal stimulus, only thing I can see out of Congress is another rate cut for the super rich.

    And Trump keeps nominating hard money gold bugs to the Fed policy positions. Except the two who were big enough tools to do whatever Trump wanted, Moore and Cain, where too toxic unqualified and goofy to get GOP Senate to approve.
    As Alexander Hamilton put it, ‘a spectacle both hilarious and disgusting’.

  101. 101.

    Betty Cracker

    @trollhattan: That gross old degenerate — who has been photographed literally humping the flag like a bloated, horny old chihuahua on a fresh shin! — better STFU about our Megan!

  102. 102.

    Villago Delenda Est

    The collaborationist scum of the MSM need to be dealt with harshly by the Truth and Retribution Commission. Particularly such sleazebags as Chuckles the Toddler, Maggie Haberhack, and Dean Baquet.

  103. 103.

    jl

    @Betty Cracker: I did not know chihuahuas could get that fat. Wow, the things I learn on the miserable lefty almost top 10,000 blog.

    From experience with a great uncle’s pet dog, I did know chihuahuas could be almost as dumb, though.

  104. 104.

    Gravenstone

    @Kay:

    Who else is going to pay 10 million dollars for that?

    The Today Show, on line one for you Kay. You’d like to think they learned their lesson with Megyn Kelly …

  106. 106.

    Immanentize

    @schrodingers_cat: @rikyrah:
    I just heard Julliette Kayyem — former DHS official — on one of the NPR stations in Boston. She is no squishy lib at all (hates when people call for ICE to be abolished) but she agrees with you guys and said several times:
    “Cruelty is the policy.”

  109. 109.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Kay:

    Is the President in charge or not? If he’s not, who is?

    The little kid mowing the lawn at the White House.

  110. 110.

    Immanentize

    @MomSense: I put it a little more delicately than you — Just yesterday I told someone that this will end up just like “St. Mary’s Mother and Baby Home.” Same thing, but requires some knowledge and processing.

  112. 112.

    Immanentize

    @Kay: Why the change of heart? A picture is worth a thousand words. Which is why no cameras are allowed into the detention facilities.

  113. 113.

    sukabi

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: the judge ordered that the dems could start the discovery phase of their emoluments case immediately, so financial documents will be produced. Drumpfs gonna be on edge a bit more than usual, also give reason 1,367,789 to Pelosi to move on impeachment.

  114. 114.

    trollhattan

    Please proceed, gentlemen.

    Needles has declared itself a Second Amendment sanctuary city, a first-in-California designation that leaders in this remote desert town see as a first step toward changing the state’s toughest-in-the-nation gun control laws.

    Needles in easternmost San Bernardino County hugs the Arizona state line and is just miles from the Nevada border. The city of nearly 5,000 is closer to Las Vegas (111 miles) than the 200-mile trek west to the county seat in San Bernardino and closer in worldview to their next-door neighbors in the Silver and Copper states.

    Gun rights in a state with the most stringent gun control laws in the nation are very important to the people of the Mojave Desert – a message that Needles Mayor Williams wants to send to lawmakers in Sacramento.

    “The City Council wanted our community to know that we support their Second Amendment rights to keep and bear arms,” Williams said in a statement June 15 after city council members unanimously approved the declaration. “While we recognize that all lawful gun owners are responsible for ensuring they are compliant with state and federal gun laws, we also recognize that the State of California cannot adopt laws that impair the rights guaranteed by the Second Amendment.”

    Am 100% in favor of any group of gun-humpers who wish to cohabitate in some shithole* many miles away from civilization.

    *Trump-approved!

  116. 116.

    Gravenstone

    @SenyorDave:

    I don’t want to see another picture like that on the US border.

    Saw the quote, but not who it was attributed to. My immediate thought was their next line would be -“So we’re going to arrest any photographers we find taking pictures like this.” It would not surprise me in the slightest that that discussion has occurred in some quarters.

  117. 117.

    rikyrah

    @Immanentize:

    @Kay: Why the change of heart? A picture is worth a thousand words. Which is why no cameras are allowed into the detention facilities.

    And, with just the descriptions from the lawyers… people get the picture.

  118. 118.

    LuciaMia

    Eric Trump, son of President Donald Trump, said Tuesday he was spat on by an employee at a Chicago-area restaurant.

    “It was purely a disgusting act by somebody who clearly has emotional problems,

    As many on Twitter then pointed out-You have no idea how long people have been spitting in your food.

  119. 119.

    Jeffro

    @MomSense: it doesn’t piss me off at all – it’s true

    He’ll call for armed insurrection if he thinks that will save him. Proud Boys ringing the White House gates – won’t that be something?

  120. 120.

    Immanentize

    @rikyrah: The reason that the Concentration Camps give for not allowing lawyers, congress members, doctors, the Red Cross (?) in to the hell holes is the “privacy of the children.”

  121. 121.

    trollhattan

    Oh goodie!

    A House committee voted Wednesday to authorize a subpoena for White House counselor Kellyanne Conway after she failed to show for a hearing on a government watchdog’s findings that she broke the law dozens of times.

    The House Oversight Committee voted, 25 to 16, for the subpoena after special counsel Henry Kerner said she blatantly violated the Hatch Act, a law that bars federal employees from engaging in politics during work. Rep. Justin Amash (Mich.), who has backed impeachment of President Trump, was the only Republican to cross party lines and join Democrats.

    “Ms. Conway’s egregious and repeated Hatch Act violations, combined with her unrepentant attitude, are unacceptable from any federal employee, let along one in such a prominent position,” Kerner told the panel. “Her conduct hurts both federal employees, who may believe that senior officials can act with complete disregard for the Hatch Act, and the American people, who may question the nonpartisan operation of their government.”

    White House lawyers on Monday rejected Oversight’s request for Conway to appear at the hearing, citing a bipartisan practice that West Wing officials do not testify to Congress while they still work in the administration.

  122. 122.

    SenyorDave

    @trollhattan: I passed through Needles, and I think it deserves the Trumpian description as a “shithole”. They can give an AR-15 to every new arrival – let them all blow each other’s brains out.

  126. 126.

    rikyrah

    @Immanentize:

    @rikyrah: The reason that the Concentration Camps give for not allowing lawyers, congress members, doctors, the Red Cross (?) in to the hell holes is the “privacy of the children.”

    That they won’t give soap, toothpaste, diapers, a bed to sleep and decent food…because, they want to protect the privacy.
    Get.the.ENTIRE. Phuck.Outta.Here.

  128. 128.

    rikyrah

    @Immanentize:

    @rikyrah: Lawyers talking about Clint:
    1) Warren Binford is an excellent name.
    2) She is a friend of mine.

    And, all the people talking about the conditions inside of the camps sound so sensible, and desperate…They are calm, and cool, but, the desperation they feel for what they’ve encountered is obvious. THAT, too, is piercing through.

  130. 130.

    boatboy_srq

    @chopper: CPB probably (deliberately) tried sourcing toothbrushes from a grift company that charges $30k per brush, just so they could deny them on a cost basis.

  133. 133.

    NickM

    Maria Bartoromo is a sentient shitstain. To think that Joey Ramone wrote a song about her ….

  134. 134.

    The Moar You Know

    Damn, anyone look closely at the picture of Trump in those screencaps (I know, why would you….I get it).

    Photoshopped to the point where he’s not recognizable. The person in that pic would be a hundred pounds lighter than Trump.

    I wonder how long Fox has been doing that?

  140. 140.

    Aleta

    At the moment this can be read through this link (on the WSJ reporter‘s twitter).

    (WSJ) A federal judge on Tuesday ruled that a lawsuit brought by congressional Democrats against President Trump can proceed, clearing the way for lawmakers to begin obtaining records from businesses owned by the president.

    U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan denied a request from Justice Department lawyers to pause the case to allow an immediate appeal to a higher court in a setback for the president.

    The Justice Department said it would make an emergency plea directly to an appeals court in Washington, a long-shot legal tactic that is rarely granted in ordinary litigation.

    In denying the request for an appeal now, Judge Sullivan said that the case would be ripe for him to make a final ruling in six months, and the losing side could appeal after that.

    The closely watched case, brought by nearly 200 House and Senate Democrats, is one of several novel challenges that allege Mr. Trump’s ownership of private companies that accept foreign-government business may violate the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution.

    The Trump Organization has said his D.C. hotel, the Trump International, is donating the profits from business from foreign governments to the U.S. Treasury. In February, it sent a check for $191,538 to the Treasury, a sum that it said covered those profits in 2018.

    Critics have said that the organization has provided no transparency on how it calculates the profits …

    Previously, Judge Sullivan, who was appointed to the federal bench by Bill Clinton, had ruled that congressional Democrats had standing to sue Mr. Trump in a major victory that allowed the lawsuit, which raises novel questions of law that few courts have ever had to consider, to go forward.

    Another lawsuit brought by the state of Maryland and the District of Columbia raises similar issues. A federal judge in Maryland said that case could proceed. Mr. Trump’s attorneys are appealing that decision to a higher court.

  142. 142.

    schrodingers_cat

    @MomSense: Their behavior only makes sense if they meant to harm those children, kill them even as a deterrent. That’s the only logical conclusion I can draw.

  143. 143.

    mad citizen

    @Rob in CT: I have this overriding thought at least once a day, and normally many times per day.

    F Trump Voters.

    Yesterday. Today. Forever.

  144. 144.

    rikyrah

    @schrodingers_cat:

    @MomSense: Their behavior only makes sense if they meant to harm those children, kill them even as a deterrent. That’s the only logical conclusion I can draw.

    Cruelty is the point.
    They are White Supremacists who have the ability to shape policy.
    THIS is the policy that White Supremacists would put into place.

  145. 145.

    burnspbesq

    @rikyrah:

    SEVEN HUNDRED SEVENTY-FIVE DOLLARS A DAY.

    By comparison, Coach K’s basketball camp, where the campers stay in air-conditioned Duke dormitories and eat meals designed by the same sports-nutrition staff that fed Zion Williamson and Daniel Jones, costs $675 for four days.

  147. 147.

    Mnemosyne

    @Mandalay:

    The only difference is that they spat in his face rather than in his food. He realizes that every restaurant meal he’s eaten has been 50 percent kitchen worker loogies since at least 2016, right?

  150. 150.

    trollhattan

    Turtle speaks.

    Republican Mitch McConnell called the Democratic-led House of Representatives bill “a go-nowhere proposal”.

    The Senate will vote on its own version of a humanitarian aid measure next. Reports of migrant deaths and neglected child detainees have shaped the debate.

    Mr McConnell had called House Democrats “consistently uncooperative and uninterested in anything except political posturing”, after the lower chamber approved its own $4.5bn (£3.5bn) border aid bill on Tuesday. “The Senate has a better and more bipartisan way forward,” he said ahead of the vote. “No poison pills; just a clean bill to provide the emergency appropriations the White House requested two months ago.”

  151. 151.

    danielx

    “Unhinged” is the very word. Even by Trumpian standards, that interview was a train wreck. Give him credit, Trump knows his made-for-tv moments and the prospect of this one is clearly driving him into a frenzy. More of a frenzy than usual, that is. Cant wait for his live tweets during Mueller’s tesimony.

    I anticipate that we will soon see some sort of ridiculous motion being filed by Trump’s lawyers to the effect that Trump has the legal right to order Mueller not to testify, because reasons.

  152. 152.

    Splitting Image

    @Kay:

    Look who’s back! The Republicans! Long time no see! That picture is the image of the Trump Administration. These cowards checked out for two years and when they looked at the news they all said “holy shit- this is bad”. This week they were on television denying that this was a problem and protecting Dear Leader. Why the sudden change of heart?

    A similar photo of a dead 3-year-old Syrian refugee washed up on a beach (who would have been safely in Canada if the Stephen Harper government hadn’t drastically reduced the number of refugees the country was taking in at the time) lead to the electoral defeat of the Stephen Harper government.

    In other words: they’re still cowards. They just changed what they’re most afraid of.

  153. 153.

    Plato

    Apparently, 3 dem senate critters sided with the traitorous party in defeating house dems aids bill for the refugees. Wonder who were the three assholes.

  154. 154.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Yup, he’ll do it again

    Natasha Bertrand @ NatashaBertrand
    Bernie Sanders wouldn’t commit to dropping out of the race before the convention if he were not the nominee and said some people say he would’ve beat Trump “if the system weren’t rigged against me.” with kasie

    “some people say”…. I wonder if Bernie has a friend named Jim

  156. 156.

    The Moar You Know

    Holy cow, this Twitter thread on the PACE vote is brutal.

    @Gin & Tonic: Think they’ve earned it and then some, don’t you?

  158. 158.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: and so will they

    Sarah Westwood @ sarahcwestwood
    I asked President Trump whether he will ask Putin not to meddle in the 2020 election during their meeting. He said what he speaks to Putin about this week is “none of your business.”

    at least we don’t have to worry about Comey this time

  159. 159.

    Kay

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    We have to worry about Barr, who we know will do absolutely anything. I am not a voting conspiracy theorist but the attorney general of the United States actually works for Donald Trump, which is concerning. I know a lot of people want to federalize voting but be aware that consolidating power in that specific area could be very, very bad. In some ways we’re saved by the fragmented state system. It’s a moving target.

  160. 160.

    chris

    One of Canada’s liberal twitter “stars,” @neilbeforezod, has been doxxed by the opposition. His statement is worth reading.

  162. 162.

    Immanentize

    @Gin & Tonic:
    Did you see that HUGE anti-corruption protest in Prague? Looks like the Immp and I might get a good show in Euro land.

  165. 165.

    Kay

    Smart:

    Brian Schatz
    ‏Verified account
    @brianschatz
    2h2 hours ago
    More
    We believe the for-profit companies on the border are likely in violation of the terms of their contracts. They should not be paid, and they should be prohibited from receiving future work.

    Donald Trump is bad at hiring contractors.

  166. 166.

    Kay

    Yuck. Chuck Todd is one of the moderators. I will bet that he will ask a question prefaced with “when I interviewed President Trump last week…”

    5 dollars he does.

  167. 167.

    plato

    Rep. Justin Amash, the lone congressional Republican who has backed impeachment, said that he wants to hear from Mueller and that he wants Mueller to go beyond what was in written in his report: "I want to hear him tell the story to the American people." https://t.co/sa40kda9Jl— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) June 26, 2019

    It’s pathetic how only one rethug cong critter is standing up to the totus thug.

  168. 168.

    Nelle

    @Mandalay: Jumping to the end to say what might have been said in the intervening comments – His third “child”???? What is this perpetuation of child image when it comes to his adult children, parents themselves? Yes, they have the maturity of children, but really, what is wrong with saying his second son? Petty and small potatoes but that sort of stuff creeps in all the time as a way of not holding them responsible and it frosts me.

  170. 170.

    Ruckus

    @Kay:
    Polling numbers.
    It really is that simple.
    The numbers are quite likely to get a lot worse for them as we get closer November next year. And I’d bet they are seeing that in their internals.

  171. 171.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @SFAW: Just FTR, one of the nicknames for famed Baltimore Colts quarterback Johnny Unitas was “Riverboat Gambler,” in appreciation of his penchant for taking what looked like crazy high-stakes chances – which in his hands more often than not turned out to be, as Boris Badenov might have put it, “crazy like fox.” :^D

  172. 172.

    Uncle Cosmo

    FTR I will crawl over broken glass to campaign for whichever Democratic Presidential candidate tonight jumps down from the podium & either tears off Choke Toad’s Van Dick [sic] facial foliage & stuffs it down his throat, or leaves it in place but soaks it with lighter fluid & tosses in a match. Fucker.

  175. 175.

    cmorenc

    @SFAW:

    What does a riverboat have to do with the Traitor-in-Chief blustering (or not) past anyone?

    The analogy was a poker game with Trump and Pelosi at the table – and Pelosi being like a professional gambler knowing what her cards are and instead focusing on reading the other players and the face-up cards, keenly calculating when and how to bet. A “Riverboat gambler” is a metaphor for a keen card shark (because Mississippi riverboats were known for sharp pro poker players aboard who made their living winning money in games with less able passengers).

    Nancy only bets on sure things. She wants to stretch this out, prolonging GOP agony and potentially put them into a position where they may be too far along in 2020 to avoid a catastrophe in the next election.

    …and IMHO this is currently her evaluation of the best way for the Ds to play their hand, though the calculation may shift as more cards become visible.

  177. 177.

    Miss Bianca

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I am so tired of this piss-ant’s whining about “rigging”. For one thing, to riff off an insight of Adam’s, it’s so Donald Trump-like: “I AM NOT BEING TREATED FAIRLY! AND YOU AND THE SYSTEM ARE ALL POO-POO HEADS!”

    For another, to riff off an insight of Kay’s: Wait till he finds out that the “rigging” was a clear and unearned advantage to him. That he won’t get nearly the amount of traction he got in 2016, because with the “unrigging”, there are so many other, better candidates that he’s going to go nowhere faster and harder than he did when he was the “anti-Hillary”.

  178. 178.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @cmorenc: a keen card shark (because Mississippi riverboats were known for sharp pro poker players aboard who made their living winning money in games with less able passengers).

    also keeping aces up their sleeves and getting put out on sandbars to die, but I didn’t want to associate that with the Speaker.

  179. 179.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Miss Bianca: For one thing, to riff off an insight of Adam’s, it’s so Donald Trump-like: “I AM NOT BEING TREATED FAIRLY! AND YOU AND THE SYSTEM ARE ALL POO-POO HEADS!”

    They have a lot in common, dumbing down politics and telling their supporters anyone who disagrees with him/them is corrupt

    I think Bernie sincerely wants to make the country a better place, but I can’t think of any major political figure who lives in a more impenetrable bubble of his own making

  180. 180.

    Miss Bianca

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: They also both have a core of true-believer followers who act like cultists. For these followers, Dear Leader cannot do wrong, he can only BE wronged. Unfortunately for BS, Trump has the larger and nuttier core of followers.

  183. 183.

    Kathleen

    @Kay: I refuse to watch the debates because I cannot bear to watch or listen tor Chuck Todd spin his smarm.

  186. 186.

    Waynski

    @Kathleen: The candidates will spend from 1 – 20 seconds answering Cluck’s question and pivot to their talking points. If attacked directly, they’ll respond directly and they’ll all be attacking Biden, but mostly attacking Trump. I think the most valuable thing about the early ones is to see who can handle the heat well, who punches well, and who counter punches well. It also starts the process of trimming the field. There will not be a ton of debate on substance – they generally agree on much of it anyway.

  187. 187.

    EthylEster

    @Kay wrote:

    but the attorney general of the United States actually works for Donald Trump, which is concerning

    I love your calm understatement.

  188. 188.

    Brachiator

    The clips are almost worth watching just for Bartiromo’s facial expressions. She’s one of the many amoral sleaze-bags at Fox News who helped propel this raving lunatic to power, so watching her failed struggle to shape the interview so that her subject sounds more like a human being in control of his faculties than a semi-sentient YouTube comments thread is almost comical.

    Coming late to the thread and only recently saw stories about this mess.

    Fox News and other Murdoch properties have standing orders to support Trump. But it is still strange to watch people like Bartiromo as she sells her soul to the devil.

  189. 189.

    J R in WV

    @Immanentize:

    The reason that the Concentration Camps give for not allowing lawyers, congress members, doctors, the Red Cross (?) in to the hell holes is the “privacy of the children.”

    Yet we learn that 15 y o girls are repeatedly strip searched. I assume, then, that this occurs in private places, where the stripper and the stripped girl can be alone together… for the privacy of the girl, right?!?

    All of them are criminals from top to bottom, if they keep the job of being cruel to those kids. From top management to hand-on cruelty, all are guilty of child abuse in every sense of that crime. What would child services do to foster parents treating wards of the state like that?

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