Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

Dear legacy media: you are not here to influence outcomes and policies you find desirable.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

Trump’s cabinet: like a magic 8 ball that only gives wrong answers.

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

The way to stop violence is to stop manufacturing the hatred that fuels it.

Today in our ongoing national embarrassment…

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

“Facilitate” is an active verb, not a weasel word.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

Tick tock motherfuckers!

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

The fight for our country is always worth it. ~Kamala Harris

Someone should tell Republicans that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, or possibly the first.

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

“Loving your country does not mean lying about its history.”

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

This isn’t Democrats spending madly. This is government catching up.

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

This chaos was totally avoidable.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

People identifying as christian while ignoring christ and his teachings is a strange thing indeed.

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Sunday Morning Open Thread

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Nobody sent me any garden photos, probably because everybody’s out keeping those gardens in picture-perfect shape. And I should most definitely spend this afternoon (several many afternoons, TBH) doing just that…

Stay positive, y’all!

Reader Interactions

205Comments

  2. 2.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Love love love seeing the genuine affection and respect between Kamala and SPW. I doubt it will happen, but I’d be ecstatic to have a ticket with both of them.

    And that dog with the ball and the trampoline is amazing. Very smart and inventive. If he had opposable thumbs, I’d start to worry.

  4. 4.

    satby

    Good morning to you both @SiubhanDuinne: and @Baud: and to all the morning crew.
    My garden just needs rain and a massive cleanup in the back beds, which I have neglected so thoroughly that small trees have taken root. And poison ivy, which isn’t an incentive to do any clearing out.

  5. 5.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Nobody sent me any garden photos

    We’ve had such a richness here of late I just didn’t think it was needed. I’ll put some together, and of course so will half a dozen others. Feast or famine.

  6. 6.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Bear is a clever boy. Now if only I could figure out a way for the Woofmeister to throw frisbee for himself…

  7. 7.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Morning, Satby and Ozark!

    How does one clear poison ivy? (I know, I know — “very carefully.”) Not a job I’d care to tackle. Seems to me you’d have to swath yourself in long trousers, long-sleeved top, gloves, high-top shoes, just to keep the poison from getting on your skin, and in 95° temperatures, that sounds not only miserable but dangerous.

  8. 8.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Okay, I’m going to see if I can make up for a night of insomnia by trying to grab a little sleep now that the sun is coming up. Later.

  9. 9.

    satby

    @SiubhanDuinne: that’s the method I’ve heard and yes that’s miserable, but mine is to use a ground clearing total vegetation killer that gets down and eliminates the roots too. I try to only spray or paint the offender, but there can be collateral casualties.
    I’m a bit phobic about poison ivy and ticks. I may just pay somebody to clear out the flower beds after I kill the poison ivy.
    The feral kitten brought in fleas and they’re still too little for the systemic medicine, so I’m at my limit dealing with difficult situations right now. A flea infestation taking hold in a house with 9 animals is a nightmare, so far I’ve been successful at preventing it.

  11. 11.

    p.a.

    My beautiful red Fresnos got infested by a fly (its larva actually). Seems to lay 1 egg/fruit, and the maggot just rots the pepper from the inside. Sprays don’t help: fly doesn’t feed on the pepper, just penetrates the flesh to lay the egg inside. ?

  15. 15.

    Anne Laurie

    @satby: The Spousal Unit, who is very sensitive to poison ivy, has had pretty good results with Tecnu. (He doesn’t trust me to identify the stuff, or to remove it completely if I did, so my job when it shows up is to stand well clear, applauding as necessary.) I’m also seeing comments from gardeners who’ve started carrying those little 1oz bottles of hand sanitizer in their garden belts, for immediate emergency use, since the alcohol should strip the urishol oil off to some degree.

    (Last time there was a serious eruption along the chain-link fence of our yard, he bought a cheap pair of elbow-high rose gauntlets at Lowes. When the destruction had been completed to his satisfaction, the gloves were carefully removed into a heavy-duty trash bag & discarded.)

  16. 16.

    different-church-lady

    No photos, but it’s been an astoundingly good year for my tomatoes. Since you live around five miles from me, A.L., are you seeing the same thing?

  18. 18.

    satby

    Supposed to rain later today and most of tomorrow, which is good. My rain barrel is practically empty from using it to water, that doesn’t happen often. And some of the hugelkultur bed is starting to bloom, so I will have to send in some update pictures.

  24. 24.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @satby: My oldest sister once made the mistake of taking care of #2 in a bed of poison ivy. She didn’t have any tp and just used whatever leaves came to hand.

    It was an interesting doctors visit.

  25. 25.

    satby

    @Anne Laurie: I make and sell jewelweed soap, which people swear by around here. It’s an old timey remedy, but I’m not inclined to put it to the test personally. I already have an almost perpetual Rx supply of prednisone and steroid cream from my other skin and respiratory stuff. I pick my battles and on poison ivy and ticks I preemptively surrender the field.

  27. 27.

    Anne Laurie

    @p.a.:

    My beautiful red Fresnos got infested by a fly (its larva actually). Seems to lay 1 egg/fruit, and the maggot just rots the pepper from the inside. Sprays don’t help: fly doesn’t feed on the pepper, just penetrates the flesh to lay the egg inside.

    Some kind of row cover, maybe? Probably too late for this year’s crop, but if you can keep your transplants under cover next spring…

  29. 29.

    Anne Laurie

    @different-church-lady: My plants have been flourishing, and we got some nice fat heirlooms earlier than usual, but the cherry tomatoes aren’t doing very well, for some reason. It’s always something…

    I’m just glad we don’t have to rely on my not-very-green thumb for sustenance!

  30. 30.

    John S.

    But Hollywood is really terrible,” Trump said. “What they’re doing, with the kind of movie they’re putting out, it’s actually very dangerous for our country.

    Because only in the delusional mind of this blowhard and his MAGAts is the world of make believe worse than what happens in reality.

    Movies and video games are the real enemy! Not the president spewing vile nonsense, or his enablers who refuse to condemn him, or his supporters who commit actual atrocities.

    For a guy who claims to have so much money, it’s amazing that the buck never actually stops with him.

  31. 31.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @satby:

    great… More nightmare fodder.

    I live to serve.

    The jewelweed works. A highly allergic golf club horticulturist buddy of mine swore by it. The nice thing is, around here anyway, where you find poison ivy, jewelweed is not far away.

    ETA: @satby: Sorry, I’m busy that week. ;-)

  34. 34.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Baud: As they said in the movie, “With great power comes great misery.” there was price for my immunity. It came at the cost of severe, sometimes debilitating, eczema. It peaked in puberty, and hardly ever bothers me at all now, but it wasn’t easy growing up with it.

    Same with my father, my little brother, and my youngest son.

  36. 36.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Headline at the Guardian: Trump says Kim wants to meet again and gave ‘small apology’ for missile tests

    They misspelled chump again.

  37. 37.

    WereBear

    This morning I found a baby buck, antlers still covered in velvet, eating the neighbor’s rose bushes. It’s been pointless this year.

  38. 38.

    satby

    @OzarkHillbilly: I said I’d pay!

    @OzarkHillbilly: ok, that’s just not fair, I got the eczema but not the superpower. Well, I didn’t think I did. When I was a young girl scout another girl and I blundered through a patch that my leader said was poison ivy, but I never reacted so I just assumed she was wrong. Not really willing to test it out.

  39. 39.

    Booger

    @SiubhanDuinne: My spousal unit gets a plastic trash bag and puts it over her gloved hand. Pulls up the vine then wraps the bag around it, like picking up a dog turd. Works like a champ.

  44. 44.

    Booger

    @satby: Depends on the size, but this method works well for the occasional intruder vine in a cultivated bed. On the monster furry pythons growing up into the tree canopy, a judicious application of ax/hatchet/loppers to the stem at ground level, followed by a thorough application of ignoring it for the five or so years it will take for it to decompose enough to drop away.

  45. 45.

    mrmoshpotato

    @WereBear: I read that ‘baby duck’ at first and was very confused and concerned about what Tamara had been hiding from us.

  46. 46.

    different-church-lady

    @Anne Laurie: I know what you mean. I’m pretty sure I’ll starve to death after industializaton collapses.

    For cherry tomatoes I’ve always had spectacular luck with a breed called sungold from Wilson Farms in Lexington. A single plant gives me more than I can eat, and I sometimes can get another year from harvesting seeds.

  48. 48.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @SiubhanDuinne: Goats?

    I’m serious. There are people here and there who will bring goats over to munch away your weeds, brush and poison ivy. If you have a lot of it and there’s one of those rent-a-goat businesses near you, it might be worth it. As well as entertaining.

    Otherwise, the spray poison as people suggest. It does do the job.

  49. 49.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @satby: My older brother was/is highly allergic to it. We’d be running around in the woods, one right after the other, and he always got it. I never did. Took me awhile to figure it out.

    Not really willing to test it out.

    Now, in my old age and having learned a thing or three about allergies, if I know I am about to wade into it I take a few precautions, like wearing leather gloves when pulling it out. A couple years ago tho, I was helping a friend stretch some fencing. As usual I wasn’t paying any attention to the foliage I was clearing out of one patch and after about 3 or 4 minutes I realized it was all poison ivy.

    “Too late now.” was all I could think.

    Nothing. My immunity still holds

  51. 51.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @OzarkHillbilly: I used to be able to claim that as a kid. So when the sensitivity started increasing and I started getting the reaction as an adult, at first I was totally mystified by what was happening to my skin.

    A thorough washing of hands and arms with soap and water after suspected exposure does seem to ward off most attacks though.

  52. 52.

    NotMax

    Occasionally mention the super duper bread machine here. Well, a friend happened to stop by yesterday not long after a loaf of corn rye (seeded) had been taken out and placed onto a rack to cool, and insisted on documenting it. For reference purposes that’s a two pound beauty, about six inches high and about 9 inches long.

  58. 58.

    Immanentize

    @Raven: @Dorothy A. Winsor: I agree. Sunrises and sunsets are so often photographed that they lose their appeal in a pic, but are so beautiful in person because of the movement. Because the experience can not be captured in a frame. For me, it’s the reveal in sunrises. But that second picture is so evocative — of history, wilderness, longing….

  61. 61.

    NotMax

    @satby

    Time there was okay enough, it was the traveling which was nightmarish. Especially coming back – time from leaving Mom’s apartment to walking in the front door at home was 32½ hours.

    Oy and vey.

    Aside from visits to some colonial era house museums which I had not before been to, took in a few shows:

    Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune, Drunk Shakespeare and a full-on evening of magic. Also this off the beaten path venue.

  63. 63.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @NotMax: I don’t know Drunk Shakespeare, but I like Springsteen’s lines about Einstein and Shakespeare having a beer.

    Einstein and Shakespeare
    Sitting having a beer
    Einstein trying to figure out the number that adds up to this
    Shakespeare said, “Man it all starts with a kiss”

    Einstein is scratching
    Numbers on his napkin
    Shakespeare said, “Man, it’s just one and one make three
    Ah, that’s why it’s poetry”

  65. 65.

    satby

    @NotMax: getting to and from is grueling indeed. I feel ya!
    And I need to send my NYC exchange son that link for the Long Island Steamers. His two little boys are fascinated by trains. They’d love this.

  66. 66.

    SectionH

    @satby: Jewelweed – we grew that in Paris (KY, sorry, not sexy). It’s an impatiens variety (ok, so cheating, it’s impatiens capensis . One of those plants that’s a weed in the right place, but you really can’t succeed with otherwise. Never cared except when it flowers, it’s lovely. Yeah, maybe we had some success at first, because I remember those gorgeous flowers.

  71. 71.

    OzarkHillbilly

    One is Chinese. One is American. How a journalist discovered and reunited identical twins

    After four days in the village, Esther’s adoptive and birth families felt as bonded as they could for people who don’t share a language and culture. Esther held hands with her birth parents and sisters. Zanhua hugged Marsha, in contrast to the first day, when she pulled away when Marsha attempted a hug. Esther’s birth sisters embraced Victoria. The families posed for dozens of photographs.

    Marsha gave the speech that she had in effect practiced for nearly 10 years, ever since she found out Esther had been stolen from her family. “Esther’s name means star. She has been a bright star in my life,” she began. “But I would never have adopted her if I knew she was stolen from you. It gives me pain knowing that my gain was your loss.”

    The father, Youdong, in turn offered profuse thanks to Marsha.

    “I am grateful to you. I can see that you raised her very well.”

    A long read, but a good one. Fair warning, the room may get a little dusty towards the end.

  72. 72.

    Sab

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: We just finished our annual goat rental. I will try to figure out how to send pictures from my flip phone.

    Six goats cleared out the side yard filled with various weeds including poison ivy, wild grape, burdock, rose of sharon, jewel weed etc. They only trampled the pokeweed. They also cleared out most of the blackberry bramble patch between the back fence and the creek that was also filled with wild grape and poison ivy.

    I had to help with some of that, pulling out wild grape and chopping down some of the tallest blackberry branches. I chopped and dropped it on the ground and the goats ate it.

    At one point I was chopping while straddling a goat who was standing with both of her back feet on my toes while her sister stood behind me on her hind legs while leaning on my shoulder with her front leg.

    They cleared out most of what we wanted done in four and a half days. (They sulked in their tent like Achilles for the first day because it rained heavily and they hate that.)

  78. 78.

    NotMax

    @Dorothy A. Winsor

    Drunk Shakespeare. Note there’s also a company performing in Chicago. Not to everyone’s taste, certainly, still was enjoyable watching a troupe of actors working their hearts out, alternating between the Bard and ad libbing. Caveat is that it was very heavy on four letter words and sexual innuendo. Nearly all the contemporary pop culture references which happened to crop up during the performance whooshed over my head.

  79. 79.

    LivinginExile

    @OzarkHillbilly: Years of running around woods and fields,and I have only had poison ivy once. Working for my Dad cutting weeds out of soybeans, nature called, crawled into a hedge row, took care of business and grabbed a handful of leaves for cleanup. Poison Ivy from my tailbone almost around to my navel by the time it was done spreading. Mid August, hot and humid. I can sympathize with your sister.

  81. 81.

    Sab

    @Booger: Plastic bag is a great idea. The goats left one little twig of a poison ivy plant yesterday, and I was thinking that I don’t want to waste a whole pair of garden gloves to pull it up.

    They ate the big vine off the side of the neighbors garage.

  82. 82.

    NotMax

    @satby

    All that were running the day I was there were diesels, but nearby there were two of the hobbyists/enthusiasts working under a canopy on repairing a steam engine who were kind enough to let me duck under the ropes meant to keep the public out and had a wonderful time chatting with them and getting a close-up inspection of the engine.

    Bonus is that on the few days they’re open to the general public, admission is whatever you care to donate.

  83. 83.

    Immanentize

    @debbie:
    I love that song. The person blasting it from a tape deck in Western Mass at sunrise could have been me, depending on vintage.
    (But the production value sucks so bad, I wish it could be remastered.)

  84. 84.

    Gelfling 545

    @SiubhanDuinne: I had to resort to chemicals to rid my garden of it. There was no digging deep enough to get the roots. I’m told that if one carefully (!) cuts off every bit of foliage right to the ground that eventually it will die off. Eventually. My neighbor mixed lye & rock salt & put it on hers. She assures me that this is an old country practice. I was not brave enough to try it.

  85. 85.

    Another Scott

    @OzarkHillbilly: Did you eat a leaf of poison ivy as a kid? When I was a youngster I was told that if you get a leaf inside you before it has a chance to react on your skin, then you won’t be allergic. A girl I new in grade school would eat poison ivy leaves to show off.

    Apparently you have to do it before you have the first reaction, otherwise it doesn’t work.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  88. 88.

    debbie

    @Immanentize:

    You were probably still a twinkle in your father’s eye! Anyway, a couple of weeks ago, I listened to George Martin’s son’s (Giles?) remastering of the Beatles’ live concerts (Shea and one other, I believe), and the change was unbelievable! I wish he would set up some sort of organization that would do that for all of the old, live albums. I remember getting a Stones live album from about the same time for Christmas. All you could hear was screaming girls.

  89. 89.

    Gelfling 545

    @WereBear: My roses & a few other things got hit by Japanese beetles. I have essentially sticks with remnants of tattered leaves sticking out of my garden arch where there should be a lovely cascade of New Dawn roses.

  91. 91.

    NotMax

    @Gelfling 545

    Only had one occasion to try it but lye (no rock salt) worked like a champ. Was an accidental discovery as had used a lye solution to clean an industrial-sized deep fat fryer and was trying to figure where to dump it afterwards (it was still hot) when the proverbial light bulb illuminated. Doused the vines with the stuff.

  92. 92.

    Immanentize

    Actual garden news — we have had hot and mostly no rain for a while here near Boston. My two Rutgers plants had what I thought was Curly Too virus. I cut off all the yellowing branches and hit it with seranade (so?) And they are looking healthy again. It is weird only having two tomato plants when I usually have a dozen or more. Anyhoo — many ripening tomato’s on those two, although I have only picked two. Also have a volunteer sun gold by my rose bushes — yum!

    My Limelight hydrangea is huge! Mostly white with Tony’s of green; the bush is over 10 feet tall and just as wide. Everything else is heat fatigued except the herbs I keep watered.

  95. 95.

    Gelfling 545

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: There’s a “goatscaping” business in my area and they are getting a lot of press for reclaiming public lands that have been rendered inaccessible by poison ivy, Japanese knotweed & what have you. The advantage of goats is that the noxious plant seeds & roots are sterilized on the way through the goat digestive track so no regrowth from droppings. IIRC, their costs are not excessive so I would check for goats in your area if you have a sizeable patch. The goats seem to enjoy it as you surely wouldn’t.

  96. 96.

    2liberal

    a relative who is a social worker posted this on facebook – he doesn’t point to the trumpists for separating undocumented families:

    As someone who has had extensive interaction with Spanish speaking people in my job as a clinical social worker, let me just point out that all administrations in recent memory have abruptly separated undocumented parents from their US citizen children and traumatized the shit out of them. This is not new, and not much more prevalent. Trump is just more in your face about it because it rallies a lot of his base. It’s really just an aesthetic difference.

  97. 97.

    Betty Cracker

    I have to go to a baby shower today. I hate baby showers. Enjoyed a generational respite when my peers’ eggs finally aged out. Now the next generation is getting started. I hope this shower doesn’t have games. Those are the worst.

  100. 100.

    NotMax

    Dining highlight of the NY trip was this place. Has been ages since last enjoyed feijoada and wanted to taste it again, authentically made, so as to compare when I sometime get around to trying to replicate it in the Instant Pot. Surprisingly affordable price for such a huge and impressive spread, including the freshest tasting smoked salmon have encountered in years. Didn’t miss the higher cost option of including unlimited meats (chicken, lamb, pork, beef) served or carved at tableside at all.

    For you NYers, the place is right across the street from MOMA.

  102. 102.

    2liberal

    @Baud:

    Sounds like we’re making a big deal out of nothing then.

    I’m not saying it’s nothing. I’m just saying this policy isn’t just trump policy, it’s USA policy. It’s a shameful thing and it needs to be changed.

  103. 103.

    Baud

    @2liberal:

    I agree U.S. immigration policy has sucked for a long time. Dems have been trying to do immigration reform since the Bush years. But a lot of the outrage right now is based on the belief that Trump is doing things that are objectively worse than what has happened before. If that’s false, like your facebook friend is implying, I’d like to know that. I don’t like being manipulated, even if it’s by people who are pushing the right policy.

  105. 105.

    JPL

    @OzarkHillbilly: One of the games at my DIL’s shower was cutting a piece of string to match the size of the belly. I didn’t see the upside in my playing that game.

  107. 107.

    James E Powell

    @Betty Cracker:

    Heard this from a comedian a few years ago: “The other day I got an invitation to a baby shower, or as I prefer to call it, an invoice.”

  108. 108.

    JPL

    @Baud: Factory raids are not new. I remember under Bush and Obama mentions that children would return from school with no one there to greet them.
    The difference in this case was the size and the media attention paid to it.

  109. 109.

    Gelfling 545

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: There has been a lot of talk about it recently as the woman who popularized it regrets the whole thing. It seems that her child was not comfortable living as the assigned gender & is transitioning.

  110. 110.

    Baud

    @JPL: Sure, deportations are not new either. And unless we are going to be for open borders, there will always be some, even if we make everyone currently in the U.S. a permanent resident. I just want to judge what’s going on accurately.

  113. 113.

    debbie

    @JPL:

    I think it was that people were grabbed just for being in the area and for being brown, citizen or not. It was a blanket grab, confirmed by the fact that 300 were released shortly thereafter

  114. 114.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    I don’t think it is true.

    While it’s true that Obama did, during a 2014 surge in migration, implement wide-scale detention of families, Trump’s administration chose a much harsher path. As part of a broader border crackdown, Trump instituted a “zero tolerance” policy in April 2018 that called for every illegal entry case to be prosecuted. That policy resulted in thousands of children being separated from their parents before Trump walked it back two months later, amid international outcry, with an executive order. (The ACLU estimates over 700 families have been separated since then due to loopholes in a federal ruling that ordered the Trump administration to reunify separated families.)

    It’s the same set of laws but they’re being used differently, not thru Congress (obviously) but thru discretionary decisions made by the Trump DOJ. That’s the “loophole” they all refer to- that’s the discretionary area. So the basic claim is correct – “the law” is the same immigration law Obama thru Trump – true- but there are big differences in how it’s used. Jeff Sessions actually announced the change and it wasn’t “optics”. It changed the way existing law is applied.

    The vast majority of Trump changes are like this- he hasn’t changed any law other than tax law, because they’re lazy and incompetent so they never actually get anything thru Congress (which also serves to protect GOP lawmakers, who never fucking VOTE on any of this crap. He puts it in by using the tools the executive has.

  115. 115.

    JPL

    @debbie: The acting Homeland Security Secretary is on Meet the Press and Todd is asking follow up questions. Is our policy no longer going after the dangerous criminals and gang members.. Why not the employers and the owners. He asked a few times and McAleenan said on going investigation, yadda, yadda yadda
    He also mentioned the wide sweep where half were released.

  116. 116.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    So this is false then?

    This is not new, and not much more prevalent. Trump is just more in your face about it because it rallies a lot of his base. It’s really just an aesthetic difference.

    Your impression is the same as mine BTW, but I’ve heard the argument before that my outrage at what Trump is doing is based on false pretenses, so I’d like to know for sure.

  117. 117.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    Castro, smart as he is, didn’t do a good job explaining why he was focusing on criminal v civil because he launched right into citing the code section when the audience has no fucking idea what he’s talking about so needed some context. That’s why he wants that section changed. He wants to narrow the options so we don’t get another president who uses existing law to prosecute every illegal entry case criminally. Close “the loophole”. It’s a loophole, so Democrats see it as as allowing more leniency and Trump sees it as allowing more severity, hence the difference in how the two presidents applied it.

  118. 118.

    Kattails

    @SectionH: Jewelweed grows rampantly in my yard if given half the chance. It pulls up easily and I just compost it, but the hummingbirds do like the flowers so I leave some. One late summer I saw an odd bird, haven’t identified it, but it kept jumping up as though it were trying to land on the plant, which is very soft-stemmed and wouldn’t hold. Finally figured out that it was jumping at the seed pods, which will snap open when tapped.
    @Raven: Gorgeous pics, thanks for sharing. Dawn can be pretty nice once you’re actually out of bed and somewhat caffeinated.

  119. 119.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    I don’t think it’s true and what’s more I think it’s settled that it’s not true- I think it’s been debunked repeatedly and the people who spread it are relying on a reading of the code section- same law, Obama and Trump. That part is true. It’s the same law.

    If the social worker wants to make the point that immigration law needs reform, that there is the capacity for prosecutorial discretion and executive action to make existing law LESS cruel or MORE cruel, that IS true, but that is also the Democrat’s argument and one some of them made in a debate.

  120. 120.

    Keith P.

    I wish I could get video of my kitties right now. The old adopted female is sitting in a box watching the kitty pair she doesn’t really care for wrestling over a stuffed toy I rubbed in catnip. The weird thing is, only the male actually responds to plain catnip (he LOVES it). But rub it on a toy, and his half-sister wants it more than anything and will fight him for it. Even the old female plays with the toy like that if no one’s around, which I find fascinating about catnip….weird, weird drug.

  121. 121.

    NotMax

    @Kay

    Big differences are that the laws are now being executed with deliberately malevolent intent, that basic humanitarian strictures and safeguards (such as the agreement on dealing with minors expeditiously) are being purposefully sidestepped or ignored and incarceration facilities and their protocols are being run by design under the harshest and most dehumanizing methods and conditions.

  122. 122.

    Barbara

    @SiubhanDuinne: I never knowingly go near poison ivy, so I have my husband do it. He has NEVER had poison ivy. At any rate, I would cover from head to toe as you say and clear it out. Then, immediately after you finish, put your clothes (including underclothes) in the washing machine and take shower and really scrub all over with soap and don’t assume that any part could not have been touched. I have not found type of soap to matter, but some people do think the poison ivy soaps are better. Carefully put the towels you used to dry off in the wash as well. Better yet, don’t use towels and just air dry. If you do develop a rash, I have found that Zanfels works really well, but, after you use it, put any sheets and towels you may have come into contact with subsequently after disposal into the wash as well. If the oil got into sheets or towels you will just keep exposing yourself. Been there done that. I am so sensitive I sometimes imagine that it get poison ivy just by thinking about it.

  124. 124.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    It’s so untrue Fox News eventually had to admit it :)

    Trump still says it, but he also still says he put in “choice” at the VA and that’s a 2014 law. They lie. All the time. Sometimes the lies are fairly sophisticated, like the family separation lie and sometimes just outright falsehoods like the VA lie, but what the things they say are almost always untrue.

  125. 125.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    Sure. If it were a Trump quote, I would have dismissed it out of hand. But the message was from someone who asserted some sort of non right wing authority.

  126. 126.

    NotMax

    @Kay

    Also will ad that the record keeping now is an afterthought, so lax and inept it makes the Collyer brothers look like organizational geniuses in comparison.

  128. 128.

    Kay

    @NotMax:

    Well, “intent” but it’s more solid than that. It’s a bigger lie than that. Because they’re putting people into a different section of the code in order to make the family separations POSSIBLE. Legal. They need the criminal lever to ALLOW them to take children. So it’s “intent” in that sense, if you mean Jeff Sessions made a deliberate decision to start separating familes. That’s WHY he did it.

    The “debate” over whether Obama did it too interests me only in that it’s a “tell”- whatever they say to their screaming fans the people in the Trump Administration believe that this is politically damaging to them, or Trump wouldn’t lie about it. They lie for a reason. The reason is they think this policy they put in is bad for them politically, not with their base, but with the +10 they need to win apart from their base. There are things that panic them, and this is one of them. They DO care. That’s why they lie.

  129. 129.

    NotMax

    @NotMax

    Further difference is that the process is being transmuted into a for-profit industry, with those being held treated as commodities.

  131. 131.

    NotMax

    @Kay

    They DO care.

    Only about themselves and their immediate prospects. Not one step beyond. Deluding themselves that cruelty equals strength is a manifestation of that.

  132. 132.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    As you know, there is a tendency on both the Right and the Left to make bad faith arguments based upon strict and excessively legalistic readings of..things. They treat everything like a cross examination, “isn’t it TRUE…” :)

    It’s so bad. Half of political media do it too. It’s Jake Tappers entire career.

  133. 133.

    debbie

    @Kay:

    He also distorts events that occurred during the Obama administration. Wasn’t that when a lot of young men appeared at the border, having come north by riding on the tops of freight trains? Not quite the same sort of family separation, but he “neglects” this distinction.

  134. 134.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    Everytime I hear it or read it (which is a lot) I think of Obama’s phrase “while it is true.. X, it is ALSO true…Y”

    He was just very good at taking apart this practice. He would have HATED the raise your hand questions, right, because that’s this practice taken to its logical end. “Yes or No!” They all think they’re tv prosecutors and it’s a cross examination.

  135. 135.

    Patricia Kayden

    @SiubhanDuinne: Yeah a Warren/Harris (or vice versa) ticket would be awesome. Unfortunately Biden doesn’t appear to have what it takes to go up against Trump. I don’t want another repeat of 2016 where our candidate can be easily demonized.

  136. 136.

    Kay

    @Patricia Kayden:

    My sense listening to local Democrats is they aren’t making an ideological choice. They don’t prefer Biden because he’s further to the center. That’s almost exclusively a pundit thing. They prefer Biden because he’s familiar and “safe” and they think they know pretty much what he will do as president. I’m sympathetic to that. I’m supporting Warren but I get being exhausted and just wanting a respite, a lull in the screaming.

  137. 137.

    Citizen_X

    @Kay:

    It’s Jake Tappers entire career.

    Hey, making bad faith arguments based upon strict and excessively legalistic readings comprises Glenn Greenwald’s entire existence.

  138. 138.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Steve Bannon, racist Nazi shithead, says Donald Trump is not a racist.

    Color me surprised.

  139. 139.

    different-church-lady

    WaPo online headline:

    Trump vexed by branding crisis: How to shed the label of ‘racist’

    Oh, I dunno, maybe… STOP DOING A RACISM EVERY FUCKIN’ MOMENT OF YOUR LIFE, PERHAPS?

    *****

    Addendum: Fencing is about to trend. You heard it here first.

  144. 144.

    Immanentze

    @Kay: Some Prosecutors I know (Johnny Holmes in Houston leaps to mind) are fond of saying “The best test of a bad law is its strict enforcement.” Meaning the legislature will fix it. They ignore (purposefully) all the built in prosecutorial discretion in the system. And the only result of strict enforcement of a bad law is that many people get hurt in that test (Johnny Holmes in Houston leaps to mind).

  146. 146.

    Immanentze

    @different-church-lady: Of course there are — they just don’t say that until they actually have full political and police control over the disfavored race(s). Rwanda is a great example of racists being racists. So were people in Yugoslavia. South Africa. Israel? (I am sure I will have to go to be punished by the thought police for that last one)

  148. 148.

    different-church-lady

    Let me also add there’s not an asshole anywhere on the planet who doesn’t think they’re justified in being an asshole.

  149. 149.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @different-church-lady: “The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.” — John Maynard Keynes.

  150. 150.

    different-church-lady

    I just finally got to a device which allows me to watch the videos on this post, and it occurs to me that without America’s Funniest Home Videos forging the way Twitter would not exist.

  153. 153.

    mrmoshpotato

    @different-church-lady:

    WaPo online headline:

    Trump vexed by branding crisis: How to shed the label of ‘racist’

    Oh, I dunno, maybe… STOP DOING A RACISM EVERY FUCKIN’ MOMENT OF YOUR LIFE, PERHAPS?

    Narrator: But it was way way way way way way too fucking late. The racist, misogynist, homophobic, xenophobic, Soviet shitpile mobster conman had destroyed his brand. Boo fucking hoo. Fuck him. When do the American Nuremberg trials start? I’m sick of this shit.

  159. 159.

    ola azul

    @Sab:

    ([The weed-gourmand goats] sulked in their tent like Achilles for the first day because it rained heavily and they hate that.)

    That is some deft and choice historico-literary allusion-making right there. Well done!

  160. 160.

    Steeplejack

    Damn, I feel like the day can finally begin. I had a long phone call with a friend, venting about various things (cathartic), and after that I spent over an hour trying to get my Bluetooth ear horn connected to my new(-ish, early May) cell phone (Galaxy S10e, love it), for ease of cathartic venting in future. Many conflicting instructions on the Google, and I finally found the solution by pure dumb luck. I’ll take it!

    I had occasion to go back through my Amazon order history to find the exact model number for Google lookup purposes and was mildly surprised to see that I’ve had this thing (Plantronic Discovery 975) for almost eight years. Ancient in tech terms. But it works fine—even better when it’s actually connected to the phone.

    No big plans today. Maybe a shower—yee-haw!—and a trip to get groceries and cat food! The arm feels pretty good today, less itchy and not as tight. The shoulder has not been a problem since I took the bandages off Monday or Tuesday. I might just wrap the forearm in gauze when I go out instead of putting on a full bandage (which I would take off when I get home anyway).

    Pretty nice weather today here in NoVA. Sunny and only 82°, humidity 35%. Bee-yoo-ti-ful for summer in D.C.

    I’ma watch the rest of the Manchester United-Chelsea match and then think about putting on the tactical gear (pants!) for an expedition.

    Everybody have a good day!

  161. 161.

    Formerly disgruntled in Oregon

    @2liberal: This comment stinks of intentional anti-American disinformation. It is devoid of verifiable facts, and seems intended to spread lies about the USA and all Americans.

    I have no way to verify the quoted information, yet I’m supposed to treat the info as trustworthy (he’s a “relative”) and authoritative (he’s a “social worker”…probably with relevant experience in the system and everything!). HOW CONVENIENT

    The message of the comment is a false-equivaleny between “the trumpists” (sic) and Obama + all of us who oppose Trump’s human rights crimes at the border and elsewhere.

    Glaring subtext: We’re all evil Americans who detain immigrants and have always separated families this way. As Kay has ably documented in this thread, that is NOT TRUE.

    “2liberal”: Go away and JUST STOP.

  162. 162.

    Kelly

    I am not very allergic to poison ivy/poison oak. I’ve been on many trips where some of my companions got rashes and I did not. So I paid no attention to the shrubs until one fateful kayak trip where I must have spread my wetsuit inside out to dry on a patch of Rogue River poison oak. Fortunately I made it home before the rash really got going but I missed 3 days of work due to a rash that ran from my calf to my shoulder with a fortunate gap where my shorts protected me.

  163. 163.

    trollhattan

    @Kelly:
    As close to hell on earth as being trapped in an elevator with Kellyanne Conway for a week.

    My sympathies either way.

  164. 164.

    trollhattan

    @mrmoshpotato:
    “I’m ready for my closeup, Miss Riefenstahl.”

    One wonders what thought process…I’ll stop myself right there.

    Can I just add that Raw Story has rendered their website unusable? Nice bidnez model there, buckos.

  165. 165.

    trollhattan

    @Steeplejack:
    Additional program note: Big NWSL grudge match today–North Carolina and Portland, the top two teams on the table who met 11 months ago for the championship when NC ran the Thorns out of their own park. I know, we were there. Huge assortment of WWC players from various nations will take the field. Prepare to be entertained and quite possibly see the regular season attendance record broken.

  171. 171.

    JMG

    @Kay: That’s been Biden’s entire career, and I say that as someone whose first vote was in his first election in Delaware. He has people who like or dislike his policies, but he doesn’t upset people. I can totally dig people responding to that even if I am a Warren supporter.

  172. 172.

    Miss Bianca

    @Sab:

    (They sulked in their tent like Achilles for the first day because it rained heavily and they hate that.)

    Sing, O Muse, of the wrath of Pan, son of either Hermes or Dionysus,
    (depending on your sources), ravenous, all-devouring
    that would have cost the the House of Weeds –
    the poison ivy and the oak, the sumac,
    jewelweed and knot-so-jewelweed,
    lo, even the mighty kudzu –
    so, so dear, and cast them all out and down to Hades
    through the digestive tracts of his goatfoot host –
    but for that fucking rain.

  173. 173.

    James E Powell

    @Patricia Kayden:

    I don’t want another repeat of 2016 where our candidate can be easily demonized.

    Anyone can be demonized by repeated lies and a press/media that will refuse to call them lies. The Republicans are going to demonize whoever wins the nomination and the press/media are going to work overtime to help them do it. The difference this time, I hope, will be that they won’t have the same 20 year head start on the demonization that they had last time.

  175. 175.

    Steeplejack

    @NotMax:

    Ah, Brazilian steakhouse. Excellent. I’ve been to the Fogo de Chão in Las Vegas, and we have another one here, Chima, that is also very good.

  176. 176.

    Another Scott

    ICYMI, Charlie Pierce has a good piece on SPW at the Iowa State Fair.

    And the people who come expecting a Dukakis or a Kerry come away happily surprised. And the people who come away expecting an ivory-tower Harvard lecturer leave feeling smarter, and experiencing the conquest of learning in a way they haven’t felt it since elementary school. None of this is to say what may happen when the guns really open up on her, but it is to say, for now, that Elizabeth Warren is running a campaign of hope and optimism and enthusiasm as surely as did Ronald Reagan, that ol’ Iowa radio guy, in 1980, and as surely as Barack Obama did in 2008.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  181. 181.

    hotshoe

    Hey y’all I was counting on garden photos to inspire me this morning :(
    while I try to summon up the energy to go out and do the boring chores.
    Well, enjoy your Sunday in every case!

  185. 185.

    FlipYrWhig

    @2liberal:

    all administrations in recent memory have abruptly separated undocumented parents from their US citizen children

    English is slippery like that. This could mean “all administrations have done this at least once” OR “all administrations have done this regularly and consistently.”

  188. 188.

    2liberal

    @Formerly disgruntled in Oregon:
    i suggest applying a pie filter if you can’t handle the truth. I don’t think there was any need for your attitude. Kay had a much more valuable response.

    I re-posted a comment made by a relative who I trust to make accurate statements.

  190. 190.

    Bill Arnold

    @John S.:

    Because only in the delusional mind of this blowhard and his MAGAts is the world of make believe worse than what happens in reality.
    Movies and video games are the real enemy! Not the president spewing vile nonsense, or his enablers who refuse to condemn him, or his supporters who commit actual atrocities.

    Long piece, by a researcher, reviewing the history of the typically crappy research purporting to show links between video games and real-life mass killings and other violence. Shorter; no well-done research shows a link. (Note that this person is a major figure in the scholarly debate. I agree with them based on a few papers read, but haven’t personally delved into it enough to be fully confident.)
    Stop blaming video games for mass killings – In the wake of shootings, violent games often come under criticism. But research doesn’t support a connection. (Christopher J. Ferguson, 08.10.19)

    Particularly in the early 2000s, dubious evidence regarding violent video games was uncritically promoted. But over the years, confidence among scholars that violent video games influence aggression or violence has crumbled.

    (Placing blame for mass murder on mental illness blaming is even less fact/research-based.)

  191. 191.

    Amir Khalid

    Liverpool’s 4-1 win over Norwich City and Man City’s 5-0 over West Ham were pretty much expected, but the big surprise this opening weekend in the EPL was Man United beating Chelsea 4-0 with a magnificent second-half display.

  192. 192.

    cain

    @debbie:

    I believe this was on MTP. How could Chuck Todd not have called him out on that? Even Chris Wallace would challenged him!

    Chris Wallace is a way better newsman than Chuck Todd on any day of the week. The man is a black stain on journalism and he isn’t even a journalist.

  193. 193.

    Bill Arnold

    @John S.:

    Movies and video games are the real enemy! Not the president spewing vile nonsense, or his enablers who refuse to condemn him, or his supporters who commit actual atrocities.

    The very idea of D.J. Trump attempting to nurture moral panic for political purposes is LOL funny.

  196. 196.

    cain

    @Formerly disgruntled in Oregon:
    Every president down through history has made decisions that fall into grey areas in morality. I don’t see why it wouldn’t be true that child separations happened in Obama’s or any other watch, and I certainly recall that Obama more than any President before him was doing deportations. Deportations is the natural result of following the law. The missing piece is punishing those that create a market for illegal labor, exploiting them, and then treating them like trash because they can always find more. I assume there was some semblance of humanity when dealing with children was something I assumed they did but don’t do under Trump.

  198. 198.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @cain:

    The missing piece is punishing those that create a market for illegal labor, exploiting them, and then treating them like trash because they can always find more.

    The Rethuglicans will NEVER take this step. If it’s proposed, they will block it by any means available to them.

  199. 199.

    Bill Arnold

    @2liberal:

    I re-posted a comment made by a relative who I trust to make accurate statements.

    Except, for a large country like the US, the statement is essentially devoid of meaning, because there can be orders of magnitude differences built into it. 1-2 cases is not equivalent to 1000-2000 (or 10000-2000), i.e. they are qualitatively different. Since without numbers it is essentially devoid of meaning, we must suspect an attempt to mislead. Doesn’t matter who is making the argument or the context; e.g. if I see this sort of thing at work I feel obligated to call it out.
    If there are numbers that e.g. show the two administrations within a factor of two, that would be interesting.

  201. 201.

    Kay

    @2liberal:

    The statement is fine as far as it goes. But he has to do the work! If he wants to delve into claims that include this = that in immigration law he has to go further than “this law is the same from administration to administration” (true!) because the issue here is much different than that really facile analysis. There’s three parts. There’s the law, the federal code, then there’s the agency, which is a whole other administrative code, then there’s a series of actions by the executive branch.

    Betsy DeVos hasn’t changed any federal laws – she hasn’t gone to Congress and launched a campaign to overturn civil rights protections in federal education law. In fact, like the rest of the Trump Administration she waves off unfavorable comparisons by saying “look! same law!” But how she uses existing law is very different and that has real consequences.

  202. 202.

    Kay

    @2liberal:

    In a way they’re making the opposite of the argument they think they’re making. If the basis of this is “it really doesn’t matter who is President because immigration law is broken” then citing executive actions (president and AG) to support that MEANS it matters who is President! That’s the President! That’s why it matters!

    Nearly all of Trump’s actions are executive. He doesn’t take anything through congress. Donald Trump is the absolute best argument for why the president matters.

  205. 205.

    2liberal

    @Kay: about my relative, he wasn’t making an argument that was intended for this audience. Rather it was on facebook, to those who know him, and was stated to be based on his experience.

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