Glorified shitstain best known for NOT DOING A GOD DAMNED THING ABOUT THE FLINT WATER CRISIS was recently offered a fellowship at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. Why? Because there is nowhere to go but up when you are a failed right wing scumbag. Fortunately, students and faculty intervened with a giant “WTFBBQ:”
Rick Snyder on Wednesday withdrew from a research fellowship at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, reversing course less than a week after his announced appointment sparked blowback over the former governor’s handling of the Flint water crisis.
“It would have been exciting to share my experiences, both positive and negative; our current political environment and its lack of civility makes this too disruptive,” Snyder said in a tweet announcing he had turned down the offer. “I wish them the best.”
Go fuck yourself with a polluted lead pipe, you prick. Or was that too uncivil?
Geoduck
The man is still actively being sued about the Flint debacle, and someone at bleeping Harvard thought this was a good idea.
Aleta
To arrest and threaten her with jail (after the shooting caused miscarriage no less) was light years away from civil.
waspuppet
So sorry to hear about the problem with incivility. Maybe Snyder should do nothing about it for a year and a half. That seems to be his solution to everything.
Fair Economist
One person not rewarded for poisoning children is a step towards civility, albeit a small one.
schrodingers_cat
Fuck civility. I have no time for Rs. Everyone openly supporting Rs should not be able to show their face out in decent society.
Aleta
Hello @Scotian, if you are around. I hope the air is cooler up where you are than the stale muggy steamroom here.
The Moar You Know
Snyder deserves nothing less than to have to drink Flint tap water for the rest of what would be a very short life. He deliberately tried to kill every person living in that town.
TenguPhule
It would have been exciting to ram a lead pipe up Synder’s ass.
Johnny Gentle (famous crooner)
He’s got a point. In past decades, republican governors’ states could poison lower-income residents without them getting all “uppity” or affecting your future career opportunities.
This whole concept of giving people a “voice” about “not wanting to be poisoned” is truly out of hand.
TenguPhule
@Geoduck:
A lot of our current world problems can be traced back to this.
Mike in NC
Apparently our last Republican governor Pat McCrory was vetted for a position in the Trump administration but was passed over, because being “vetted” in their world means they go back and look for even the mildest criticism of Fat Bastard.
McCrory rashly made mention of the fact that Trump was what we here call a sexual predator. Pity poor Pat.
Bill Arnold
@Fair Economist:
Lead causes life-long brain damage. Not forgivable. Same goes for chlorpyrifos[1][2] prenatal exposure. Not forgivable.
[1] Seven-Year Neurodevelopmental Scores and Prenatal Exposure to Chlorpyrifos, a Common Agricultural Pesticide (August 2011)
[2] Two Years and 10 Million Pounds Since Trump EPA Blocked Ban of Brain-Damaging Pesticide (March 29, 2019, Alex Formuzis(?))
blackcatsrule
THIS is civility.
Kay
This is about accountability to me. No more. No more presiding over giant fuck ups and then sailing smoothly on to the next prestigious job. That’s gone on too long and it shows. Quality at the top has really suffered because we insist on pretending these people do good work when they don’t and then we’re ordered to rehabilitate their reputations and pretend they didn’t fuck up. There are consequences. Some actions are so bad you don’t just get to go on with your career. You suffer a loss of stature. He’ll be able to work! But he doesn’t get to work as an expert in government. That door is closed and he closed it.
Alan Greenspan is giving paid speeches on economic policy again. I read that the other day. How badly does he have to fuck up to make that unimaginable? Is there any possible way to just allow these people to suffer the consequences of failure and STOP handing them lifeline after lifeline after lifeline? They have to be permitted to fail. It won’t be the end of the world. It won’t even be the end of the world for them! They’ll do fine. What they will be is people with damaged reputations and that damage was earned.
mrmoshpotato
You’re being too nice, John – seriously.
trollhattan
@Kay:
Hell yes. How many are still throwing giant bags of cash at Henry Kissinger?
Our “betters” get their own edition of “What Color is Your Parachute?” Theirs has but one page that reads: “Mine’s Fucking GOLD!“
TenguPhule
@Kay:
Yes. But it would be uncivil. Very uncivil.
John Revolta
I wish him the best too. I hope he has lots more exciting experiences. Real soon.
Kay
It doesn’t have to be personal and it doesn’t even have to be ideological. Why can’t Snyder be an expert on government at Harvard? Because he poisoned a Michigan city while governor. That door should close. His opportunities are narrowed.
It happens to lots and lots of regular people. They don’t, actually, have limitless choices. Sometimes they close a door. They fail in a job or an area or a profession and people tell them “nope, no further in this area. That’s about as far as you’re going”. It has to happen to powerful people too or accountability and merit doesn’t mean anything and it will start to show. It already shows. There are tens of thousands of things he can do for work with his resources and connections and the rest. This is not one of them.
FlyingToaster
A number of Harvard-affiliated folks — and at least two K-School alums I know — were telling Harvard that this was several bridges past too far. Whatever right-wing numbnuts hedge-fund-manager alum was contributing to Snyder’s tenure — and Harvard has its share of fascist grads — probably just offered Snyder an outright job. See where he lands, because they’ll have K-School connections.
The Kennedy School will fucking hire anyone, if someone will give them money to do so.
Sister Golden Bear
People are just being soooo uncivil…
Border Patrol Chief: AOC Is Trying To Dehumanize Us
[to the left, my tiny violin, magnified 1,000 times]
Steeplejack
@blackcatsrule:
Fixed your link: “Picnic for Asylum Seekers.”
Gotta remember to close the link after you insert the URL. Put the cursor at the end of the text you want highlighted and press “/link”.
Kay
@TenguPhule:
I don’t think it’s uncivil at all. It is the ordinary consequences that come with failure. Millions of people accept them and go on to live fine and rewarding lives. They just can’t do X because they failed in a way that makes further work there impossible.
They are discredited in that area. Still people! Everyone makes mistakes! But they have to move on.
Here’s the standard- let’s lay it out. You CANNOT poison a city water supply and lecture on good government. Reasonable, right? A REALLY low bar! But they have to clear it.
TenguPhule
Trump to claim US is environmental leader in spite of ripping up protections
Today seems to be Peak Irony.
TenguPhule
@Kay:
That’s because you’re a sane human being, not someone who thinks they are a MOTU. The only methods to ensure those assholes don’t come back are a bit more permanent.
Nicole
When do the institutions that keep protecting people like Snyder suffer consequences? Snyder is getting dragged, and rightfully so, on Twitter over this, but Harvard will still be Harvard. It won’t suffer a lick of damage to its reputation.
TenguPhule
this is my surprised face.
: |
Droppy
Damn, why am I not a Republican? After all, I’m a middle-aged white male with no particular skills or worthwhile ideas; I screw up all the time; I’m kind of lazy; I have a tendency to blame other people for my own failures. I just need to get a few more things in my wheelhouse: contempt for women, people of color, immigrants; start making fun of people who are poor; hone my homophobia; probably I should start worshiping all things military – hey, I never served, so I’ve already got the whole chickenhawk thing going. This is going to be easy. I’m going to give Harvard a call.
TenguPhule
This should be good.
rikyrah
No, Cole. That was perfection.
Kay
@TenguPhule:
Here’s another thing Snyder failed on. Roads. He allowed the roads in that state to collapse because his ideological beliefs made it impossible to admit they were collapsing. Okay, water and roads. Time for you to look for a new area of expertise. Maybe an old one! He was apparently better at the private sector than he was at the public sector. He could work there!
You can’t fail “water and roads” and opine on good government, unless it’s to explain where you were wrong, apologize and serve as a “good, bad example”.
rikyrah
@TenguPhule:
Yes, please explain it to the judge.
TenguPhule
Kids. These are thousands of kids who are having their lives ruined. The mental trauma at this point is unimaginable.
rikyrah
@Kay:
CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP
TenguPhule
@Kay:
I don’t think the private sector should be punished that way. //
wasabi gasp
salad fork psycho concerned about disturbing environmental issue.
J R in WV
[email protected]Sister Golden Bear:
Sounds like the Border Patrol Chief has done a great job of dehumanizing himself AND all of his subordinates in the Border Patrol.
No way the media / congress liberals / anyone can make them more reprehensible than they are already, out in public.
Kay
@Nicole:
I think they will eventually suffer. The damage eventually shows. They’re protected by huge walls of reputation and institutional protection and a shit ton of people who want to believe, but eventually the damage starts to show. It has to. They’re riding on what they earned in the past. Credibility is like an account the current holders were handed. They got it when they walked in the door. They can’t draw on it forever without making a deposit and each one of these hits is a withdrawal.
TenguPhule
I can’t even.
The worst part is that I expected this kind of moral slippage because Donald Trump is the biggest walking, talking example of “its okay to commit crimes because haha, fuck you for believing in rule of law.” All the standards keep dropping.
prostratedragon
@TenguPhule: I hear this in the HAL voice.
SenyorDave
I’ve never commented on ads on the site but this one is scary. It says “get rid of rats and mice”, and there is a picture of about two dozen rats with their coal black eyes staring up at you. I’ve lived in my house for 22 years and have never seen a mouse much less a rat, but this ad almost made me want to call the company. For some reason the first thing that popped into my head was Orwell’s 1984, when they take Winston to room with the worst thing in the world for each person, and for him it is rats. And then they put the cage over his head and he can hear the rats, and they start describing what will happen, and he starts to scream “do it to her”. For Orwell’s sake thank God he didn’t live to see Trump. Trumpspeak=doublespeak?
Steeplejack
@Droppy:
[Rob Schneider Latino voice] You can do eet!
TenguPhule
That burn could probably be seen from orbit.
Steve in the ATL
@TenguPhule: can’t wait until a Republican president nominates him for the Supreme Court!
Frankensteinbeck
I know, right? Minorities are SUPPOSED to say “Thank you, Sir, may I have another?”
PPCLI
Border Patrol. Hmmm… Border Patrol. Where have I heard that name recently? Oh, Right! Now I remember.
That’s the organization in which something in the ballpark of half their membership – several thousand people — belonged to a facebook group which circulated crude fake pornography of AOC, including at least one in which she is presented as anonymously performing feIlatio at a hole in a wall. I can see why the Border Patrol chief believes AOC is being unfair to these admirable specimens of humankind.
So, um, did the Fox News Bot ask the admirable chief about this?
FlipYrWhig
@TenguPhule:
It’s horrible because of Democrats. Also, it’s not that horrible. Also, it’s deliberately horrible.
It’s amazing that Trump has every last habit of the stupid person AND every last habit of the guilty person.
tokyokie
@Kay: You should add the caveat that it only applies to conservative white people. (I’d say conservative white men, but Carly Fiorina.) Former South Vietnamese President Nguyen Cao Ky, after being run out of Indochina, wound up running a liquor store in Southern California most the rest of his working days. No Ivy League sinecure for that loser!
Kay
@rikyrah:
It’s how I feel about Comey. It doesn’t matter why he did what he did. Some mistakes you can’t recover from without a reputational hit that is permanent. He can run a foster kid nonprofit! I heard he’s interested in that. He can’t be Super Patriot Sanctimonious Lawyer anymore though. Because he profoundly fucked up when it mattered. That position is OPEN – applicants being considered from the non-Comey section of the population :)
Barbara
@TenguPhule: I think that publishing the kid’s name so that said colleges know who he is would be a just reaction to this.
Baud
@Droppy:
Better question. Why aren’t you a front pager?
Barbara
@Nicole: Harvard will only still be Harvard because its students and faculty rose up in protest. I can’t even imagine what they were thinking. There are some failures that you should not be allowed to outrun, like poisoning an entire community, and lack of civility doesn’t begin to describe what he actually deserves as punishment.
raven
Arte Johnson died, he was a buddy of my father when the were at Illinois.
Duane
@schrodingers_cat: Spit on the ground and curse when you see them. There’s your civility jackass.
Tim C.
@TenguPhule: Was it a…. *puts on sunglasses* De-orbiting burn?” Sorry… i’ll go back to playing some more Kerbal Space Program now.
Brachiator
@TenguPhule:
The entire statement is vile, but the suggestion that immigrants are accustomed to squalor is particularly disgusting. And Trump can’t help himself. He admits that cruelty is official government policy.
I also heard on the radio news that Trump is slamming Democrats for not dealing with the homeless problem, trying to deflect attention from what is happening in the camps.
Trump is truly contemptible. I don’t know, maybe others with a deeper knowledge of American history might know, but have we ever had a president who so consistently demonstrated a lack of moral sensibility? Even Trump’s vision of America’s greatness lacks any sense of ethics or morality.
Trump’s defenders are sadly eager to come to his defense. I saw the headline of a Fox News story about a group of pastors who are defending concentration camp employees. And these people are supposed to be Christians? But so willing to follow Trump and to defend him?
Brachiator
@raven:
“Very interesting…”
TenguPhule
@Kay:
I think any Republican interested in children should face a mandatory investigation for crimes against children.
Kay
@FlipYrWhig:
What’s amusing is how he flat out refuses to lead. My whole adult life I have listened to people keening and wailing about how one or another President wouldn’t LEAD. Lead-er-ship! So important! Trump does NONE of it. Not a peep out of any of them.
Forget, like, moral or ethical leadership. He won’t even act like a manager of a medium sized restaurant. He has these detention centers down there and no one is responsible for them or running them. He talks about them like he saw it on the news. His border agents are out of control and no one is in charge of them either.
He’s busy planning a fireworks show.
TenguPhule
@Barbara: Minors can’t be identified in court proceedings.
Martin
@Kay:
Depends on what Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government sees as a governing philosophy, doesn’t it? I wouldn’t have thought ‘poisoning black people’ as part of a governing philosophy, particularly at Harvard, but perhaps we’re misjudging them.
I’m looking at the strategic plan for my organization, which I helped write, and there’s a through line there of teaching our students to be able to tackle global challenges. That extends to our hiring. Not every hire can be clearly aligned with that, but no hires contradict it. I think Harvard needs to explain why he was hired in the first place. This response is inadequate by them.
Kay
@TenguPhule:
See, you always have to go too far :)
I think Comey and his wife are genuinely foster parents. That’s what I mean. We don’t have to hate him. We just don’t have to hire him. It doesn’t have to be personal. When this loss happens to normal people they aren’t shunned forever and denied a chance to make a living. They just can’t be “a teacher” or “a surgeon” or “a noted economist”. They have to do something else, because they blew it in a way that discredited them in one area.
Steve in the ATL
@Brachiator: helpful Venn diagram. Circle on left is “things Jesus said to do”, circle on the right is “things republicans do”. Note the amount of overlap:
O . . . O
TenguPhule
@Brachiator:
They’re returning to their historical roots.
And by historical I mean the same level of moral depravity that led to the original splitting of Protestants from the Catholic Church.
It has come full circle.
Barbara
@TenguPhule: I know THAT. But there are lots of people who know who he is. Neighbors, teachers, victims, other students at his school. No cone of silence imposed on them. However, I will amend my first reaction. The only issue is being tried as an adult, something I mostly oppose. But the verbiage around being from a good family — well, all I can say is that one’s pedigree is proved by one’s conduct and on that basis, his family is not good.
Mikeindublin
Great that you know wtfbbq!
TenguPhule
@Kay:
It stopped being paranoia when we actually caught so many of these upstanding Republicans actively abusing children.
TenguPhule
@Barbara: Any official media that reports the same is subject to civil liability.
Sure, unofficially it could slip out, but again, Steve in the ATL would be waiting to happen.
Kay
@Martin:
You would know way more about that end than I do. I read the statement as a kind of mushy mess that maybe it was about “lessons learned”, so that was the justification. That wasn’t at all Snyder’s governing style, though. He went as far Right as fast as he could, and damn the consequences. There wasn’t a lot of soul searching and “lessons learned”. He came in there with an ideological agenda and he rammed it through as quickly as he could before they could fire him. Not a humble person.
Steve in the ATL
@TenguPhule: huh? My only connection with criminal law is my frequent abuse of traffic laws.
Steeplejack
Okay, let me get this straight: If I am used to these shithole conditions—or worse—in my shithole country of origin, how is it a deterrent if the conditions at the U.S. border are only that bad—maybe slightly better, according to Trump—but I have a chance to get into the United States?! Given the choice, who wouldn’t go for “shithole conditions plus a chance” vs. “shithole conditions with no chance”?
SiubhanDuinne
@raven:
From “Laugh-In”? The “verrrrry EENterrresting” guy? Oh, that’s sad.
TenguPhule
@Steve in the ATL: I thought you did civil lawsuits too?
Raven
@SiubhanDuinne: He was 90, good life.
“(In a recent “Laugh-In” tribute that played on Netflix, Johnson was shown in outtakes making guest Don Rickles laugh so hard that he pleaded with Johnson to “give me a break.”)
Steeplejack
@TenguPhule:
Gee, that’s some stern tut-tutting from the guy who just said, “It would have been exciting to ram a lead pipe up Synder’s ass.” Do you also realize that that is illegal?
Steve in the ATL
@TenguPhule: ah. Purely labor and employment, no other types of civil litigation. Though in my misspent youth I did some maritime and admiralty, a couple PI cases, and one divorce for a member of Lynrd Skynrd.
zhena gogolia
@raven:
I loved him.
Roger Moore
@Kay:
Yes, but it involves expropriating all the plutocrats who keep rewarding them.
Denali
Tell it, Kay.
trollhattan
Sportsball note: The US is going to face a very, very tired opponent Sunday.
Steve in the ATL
@Denali: indeed—Kay is en fuego today!
Steve in the ATL
@trollhattan: have to say I’m disappointed that Clemson is going to beat Michigan. It’s been quite a physical game. Looked like American football with the midfielders.
Aleta
@Brachiator:
At least two more articles about border facility conditions at the Atlantic today:
TenguPhule
@Steeplejack: It was an observation, not an accusation.
And ramming a lead pipe up Snyder’s ass is much less likely to get caught.
TenguPhule
@Steve in the ATL:
Have you no shame?! //
Kent
Folks, this is going to happen on a ABSOLUTELY MASSIVE scale if we are lucky enough to see the inaguaration of President Harris in 2021.
Trumpers far and wide will be scrambling for these cushy landing spots when they are pushed out of office in January 2021. We will need to be absolutely vigilant that they actually face justice for their crimes and we don’t all “let bygones be bygones”
Fuck civility. They made this world, they can live in it.
debbie
@TenguPhule:
It would be more accurate to blame Wharton Business School for the world’s current problems.
rikyrah
@TenguPhule:
????
rikyrah
The new Ariel for the live action The Little Mermaid ??
https://twitter.com/BlackGirlNerds/status/1146533581596090368
Roger Moore
@Kay:
It’s worse than that; they’re riding on what other parts of the same institution are doing. Harvard is still one of the world’s great research universities in both the sciences and humanities, and they deserve a fantastic reputation in that area. Their medical school is top notch. They even do a pretty decent job at teaching undergraduates, though it’s hard to tell how much of that is actually teaching well and how much is admitting great students. But there’s an unfortunate tendency for people to treat a whole educational institution based on the success of its most famous part, so that a gang of third rate hacks can be treated much better than they deserve if they manage to associate themselves with a prestigious institution like Harvard.
Kay
The local radio news just casually reported that Trump intervened in the prosecution of the Navy Seal.
That’s normal now. The President can direct to aquit or convict. Good Lord.
Cue the 15 pundits to patronizingly lecture us that this is FINE. Totally normal!
TenguPhule
‘Happy hunting!’ Immigration agents swapped cheery messages about raids, records reveal
ICE needs to be disarmed and every current employee placed under investigation.
James E Powell
@TenguPhule:
If they are tried as adults they will be identified in the press/media.
TenguPhule
@Kay:
Claimed he did. Although how exactly he did so seems to be an open question.
Kent
@Steve in the ATL: I’m slow as hell this afternoon. Took me a while to figure out what you were talking about and I’m sitting here with the game on!
My first thought was ….wait what? We are already into the preseason?
Don K
@mrmoshpotato:
My thoughts ran towards a red-hot barbed-wire wrapped bayonet up the ass. May new AG Nessel’s investigation very uncivilly round up more of these assholes.
Steeplejack
@TenguPhule:
You were both using literary exaggeration to suggest that someone should suffer consequences for their actions. It was fatuous in the extreme to point out to Barbara, whom I suspect is an attorney, a well-known point of law while your own statement is, I dunno, supposed to pass as “Hey, man, just talking some shit here.”
James E Powell
@Kay:
I will never forgive Comey. My suggestion as to what he should do earned sharp rebukes, so I will say no more about that. But if he has any desire to be afforded any consideration the first thing he ought to do is shut the eff up, shave his head, and join a monastery.
prostratedragon
And in today’s, er, this hour’s edition of Searching for the Proper Reamer, DOJ: We Were ‘Instructed’ To Try To Get Citizenship Question Back On Census
TenguPhule
Finally, some good news.And I hate that this is what qualifies as good news these days.
Don K
@debbie:
Well, to be honest, Harvard B School has a lot to answer for as well.
Kay
@Roger Moore:
That’s interesting. I don’t divide it into parts so I’m sure you’re right. It’s funny how some people seem to “get it” and others don’t.
I think Justice Roberts knows that court is damaged. He may not know WHY it’s damaged but he sees the threat of a loss of credibility. It’s really all they have. One would think they would protect it more, see the value, not piss it away.
Did you see one of the R House members said Trump should ignore the census decision? Wow. So much for that.
debbie
@Don K:
Yeah, they all do, but Wharton must be singled out.
bjacques
I’ll just leave this right here…
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/03/brazil-glenn-greenwald-investigation-outcry-bar-association-journalists
Kay
@James E Powell:
What about just leading a normal, quiet life and giving up his claim to authority on those matters? That’s unimaginable to them apparently, that anything should come with consequences. Step DOWN, or we’ll push you there.
J R in WV
@Brachiator:
Yes, Woodrow Wilson reinstituted Jim Crow at a Federal level. Andrew Jackson started the genocide against Native Americans. Both were proud of their despicable policies. And Reagan, who started the whole Government is the Problem BS.
Trump may be worse than either of them, although his death toll is lower than either of them, so far, or G W Bush, who probably comes in tops in worldwide death toll, unprovoked. WW I and WW II were higher, but were not unprovoked.
Roger Moore
@Steeplejack:
Your mistake is in trying to apply logic to Trump’s blathering.
debbie
@Aleta:
I appreciate your providing links in your quotes.
debbie
@TenguPhule:
They’re persisting, based on this article published less than an hour ago.
Steeplejack
@Roger Moore:
I can’t resist a dive down the rabbit hole now and then.
Dan B
@Sister Golden Bear: He is the victim of AOC’s bad names and he’s projecting that he’s being dehumanized = Schrodinger’s Snowflake.
msilaneous
@Raven: I’ve been meaning to watch that. How did you like it? Arte Johnson was always a favorite.
Kay
@James E Powell:
The NYTimes reporter who did the horrible job covering Hillary Clinton has decided to cover the Democratic women who are running for President.
I mean, come ON. It’s like “let’s promote the person who most failed at this, and make them the authority”. There was no one else to do that? Not one person who hasn’t already failed spectacularly at it? We have some duty to rehabilitate this person? Why?
Bill Arnold
Kay:
According to Reuters, it was a jury trial. Trump bragged, but he takes credit for anything he thinks is good (for him).
U.S. Navy SEAL spared jail but demoted after war crimes trial (Marty Graham July 3, 2019)
On the other hand, you’re right, he’s trying to normalize this sort of interference. Scary.
True story:
Late in life, my father told me, in writing in a memoir about some combat in a German town in WW2, about a war crimes incident involving someone in his unit, who’s name he gave unredacted (HW were the initials[0]) He was still extremely annoyed 50 years later, since his 94th division acquired the German nickname “Roosevelt’s Butchers” (I don’t know the German for this) for killing prisoners (there might have been a few such incidents), and thereafter Germans were less likely to surrender/more likely to continue fighting, endangering the soldiers in his division for the remainder of the war.
[0] The guy once pointed a loaded pistol at my father to force him to fold in a poker game. That kind of guy.
bjacques
…and burnsbpesq beat me to it downstairs
Ruckus
@Kay:
I’m one of those regular people whose life hasn’t worked out as only an up staircase. I’ve had 3 different careers and am back working for someone else now. Two of those careers were me owning my own businesses, both of which went under/ failed, due to nature and the economy. And I didn’t see anyone come along with a handout or a well paying sinecure. Of course I’m not a conservative asshole.
Ruckus
@Sister Golden Bear:
They are doing all the dehumanizing to themselves. All that’s happening is that AOC is telling everyone.
Dan B
@Droppy: Honing my homophobia at Haa-vaahd, tra la!
Sounds like a song for The Producers 2.0. Snyder with backup singers Marcus Bachman, Stephen Miller, Matt Schlap, a chorus of Dominionists, and scantily clad boy toys of their choice.
Roger Moore
@Kay:
With the NY Times, though, the problem runs much deeper than just one bad reporter. The Times as an institution has acquitted itself of any failure during the 2016 election. If the institution did no wrong, it can’t hold individual reporters accountable because that would undermine the claims of institutional innocence.
terraformer
@schrodingers_cat:
Well, yeah. I’m past the point, like back in 2003-4, when I tried to convince people to no avail using data and facts. Now (and for quite awhile now, really), there is a subset of our populace that is unreachable and whose members are actively holding the rest of us back. In terms of “civilized society” – defined here as growing and using our knowledge to (at least) not kill ourselves, but more to the point, actually enrich our lives and the lives of others while not shitting where we eat we-surviving-on-this-planet stuff.
We’ve got things to do, things that are based on reason, logic, and defensible extrapolation from the available data. And we’re wasting time reanimating settled arguments and going back-and-forth, both-sides crap with those who just won’t be reached, for whatever reason. I mean FFS, look at all the intense weather and strange patterns, scores of tornadoes in the night and heat stroke warnings all over the world – with the last month (June) as the hottest month in the history of that kind of data collection. Yet they shrug and distract and obfuscate or whatever, no interest at all other than “owning the lib.” Whatever.
They’re holding us back, and one way or another, they need to join us, or stand the fuck aside and get out of the goddamn way.
trollhattan
Uhhhhhhhhhh, wut?
cmorenc
@Mike in NC:
What’s especially notable about McCrory is that prior to his second run for governor in 2012, he had long established a reputation (e.g. as mayor of Charlotte) as a classic moderate Republican of the sort Democrats could often work with and amicably compromise with. In 2013, I was seat-mate on a plane trip with a longtime staff attorney for Duke Energy (McCrory’s longtime employer before he got into politics) who had known and worked with McCrory for years – who said his hard-right transformation in the 2012 governor’s race, and the hard-right way he ran his administration frankly shocked those who knew him from his Duke Energy and Charlotte mayoral days.
What happened to McCrory was that sometime after his loss to Bev Perdue in the 2008 governor’s race, he sold his political soul to Art Pope, who is the local N.C. harder-right version of the Koch Brothers, who (like the Kochs) uses his immense fortune to fund RW GOP candidates. In return for Pope’s generous support, McCrory made Pope his chief of staff for the first year or so of his Administration – helping select libertarian-flavored RW types for government offices.
boatboy_srq
Civility.
It’s why the SS St. Louis was turned away in 1939.
It’s why U.S. women had to wait 57 years after male former slaves were given the franchise before they could vote.
It’s why the CDC, NCI and the restofthe federal health machine let the HIV pandemic swell for three years, costing tens of thousands of lives, before engaging.
It’s why Shrub the War Criminal and his band of disaster capitalists waltzed out of Washington after eight years of destroying the US economy, six years of destroying Iraq, and two years of destroying real property values.
FVCK CIVILITY.
hilts
Fareed Zakaria:
h/t https://www.mediaite.com/tv/cnns-fareed-zakaria-embraces-argument-against-asylum-system-it-pains-me-to-say-this-but-trump-is-right/
It does not pain me at all to say that Fareed Zakaria is totally full of crap and he’s devolved into a completely useless tool.
Spanky
@Steeplejack:
Howzabout ramming a lead pipe down their throats? Republicans always seem to get around to mentioning that with some wistfulness.
Brachiator
@J R in WV:
Wilson and Jackson were racists. I don’t think that Trump cares about anyone other than his children, not even the white people who have been the vehicle for his ascendancy.
There is a fundamental emptiness in Trump that I have not seen historians note in any previous president.
scav
“It would have been exciting to share my experiences, both positive and negative; our current political environment and its lack of civility makes this too disruptive,” Snyder said in a tweet announcing he had turned down the offer. “I wish them the best.”
If it’s so fucking exciting to share your experiences, Rick ol, boy, there ain’t nothing preventing your sharing them to anyone that can’t run away fast enough — it just may be a little brazen of you to expect to be paid for your excitement, at Harvard’s expense on Harvard’s stage, while gaining Harvard’s polish on your tatterdemalion resume.
Jay
@trollhattan:
It’s a variation on the “can you do my homework for me?” bleg.
James E Powell
@Kay:
The people who run the New York Times do not regard anything they or their reporters did as failure. It wasn’t so much that they wanted Trump to be president, but more that they hate Hillary Clinton, for reasons that have never been explained, and they felt duty-bound to save the world from her modest attempts to make America a somewhat better place to live for millions of people who do not travel in the same circles as the people who work at the New York Times and therefore do not deserve better lives.
Since then, they are very aware that a Trump administration is much better for their bottom line than any conceivable Democratic administration. They will be working hard not so much to promote Trump as to protect him. And not so much as to be for Trump as they will be against any Democrat who looks like she might win.
Jay
J R in WV
@Brachiator:
True, that. Perhaps related to his dementia? Perhaps related to his lack of a soul…
James E Powell
@trollhattan:
I expect that their new plan will be to include the question anyway and dare the supreme court to do something about it. [Usual rant about gutless Democrats who refuse to impeach the a hole omitted because I really do like you guys and besides it’s getting tiresome even for me.]
Brachiator
@J R in WV:
Couldn’t be dementia. Trump has always been this way. Being president lets him act out on a huge stage.
He certainly lacks a soul.
I wonder if, in the future, Harvard will offer Trump a fellowship? Can you imagine?
Jay
Gvg
@TenguPhule: Anyone to do with legitimate foster care has to have a background check anyway. At least in Florida, where I was a foster mom, but I think in most or all states.
I have been wondering about the immigration “crises” because all these private companies hired seem to be violating laws I was told I could get in trouble for. I don’t understand why some state AG’s don’t just start arresting staff for violating laws and work up to the CEO’s. No background checks, no training, puts the companies at risk. Also, without trials, and no evidence of specific child abuse, removing the children from parents seems to me to be illegal. The law doesn’t say citizens only, it says anybody in our jurisdiction. The Feds are kidnappers. They are violating the law. You have to have cause to remove kids from parents, and normally they try too hard to leave them with parents. One factor is foster care has to have somewhere safe to remove an endangered kid too. They delay removal when their foster homes are full.
Sorry, I had to vent.
TenguPhule
@Gvg:
No worries. I am the last person who’d complain about that.
Another Scott
Twitter:
(via LOLGOP)
Cheers,
Scott.
debbie
@Jay:
Ooh, that first tweet’s a barn burner!