Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Let’s finish the job.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

Conservatism: there are some people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

You cannot shame the shameless.

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

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

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

The GOP is a fucking disgrace.

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

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

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

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

“woke” is the new caravan.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

You are here: Home / Past Elections / 2020 Elections / Wednesday Morning Open Thread: Vibrant Discussion(s)

Wednesday Morning Open Thread: Vibrant Discussion(s)

by | 230 Comments

This post is in: , , , ,


Somehow, I can’t see Steve being so kind to Thurston… not that Thurston wouldn’t try...

Elsewhere:


.

Department of ‘Be Careful What You Wish For’:

Reader Interactions

230Comments

  2. 2.

    Baud

    D officials have tried to hold off push for a climate-change debate in part cuz granting one would encourage other groups to ask for their own debate.

    No shit.

  3. 3.

    Baud

    Jay Inslee, who has centered his 2020 campaign around climate change policy, is unlikely to qualify for an invite to CNN’s climate change town hall in September

    I believe that is CNN’s rule since this is not an official debate. Not DNC.

  7. 7.

    Brachiator

    Some debate news here: The AARP on Tuesday sent a letter to DNC chair @TomPerez urging him to schedule a presidential debate that focuses on senior issues, i.e. Medicare, Social Security, age discrimination, etc …

    Letter comes amid a sustained push for a climate-centric debate

    Seniors are a big, reliable voting bloc. Makes sense to include their concerns. This dovetails with other topics in the news, such as prescription drug costs. And there is the lie coming from the right that universal health care will be offset by cuts to Medicare.

  11. 11.

    Baud

    In Denmark, Bewilderment and Anger Over Trump’s Canceled Visit

    NYT > Top Stories / by Martin Selsoe Sorensen / 1h

    I have a difficult time believing the anger is widespread, but who knows?

  13. 13.

    Baud

    I guess they are upset.

    Danes furious over postponement of Trump’s visit, call his behavior ‘insulting’

    Washington Post: Breaking News, World, U… / 1h

    Danish politicians have likened Trump’s behavior to a “spoiled child” while the government remains silent

    Don’t they realize Trump visiting is not a good thing?

  15. 15.

    Baud

    @Baud:

    Ah, I didn’t realize this.

    Danish officials, including the royal palace, had rushed to organize the presidential visit, which was announced on short notice.

    Now I’m kind of sorry the Greenland story got leaked. Maybe it would have been better if Trump surprised them with the offer.

  16. 16.

    Phylllis

    Danish politicians have likened Trump’s behavior to a “spoiled child” while the government remains silent

    Department of Redundancy Department.

  22. 22.

    Brachiator

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    Being that it was a state visit, they probably put in a lot of work and money into it.

    They had to throw out all the cheese Danish they were going to serve.

  24. 24.

    Baud

    As president, I will give Denmark a lien on Trump’s property until he pays them back. #SmartForeignPolicy

  25. 25.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Beatings, murders and prisoners set on fire: inside the prison called ‘gangland’ I’ll leave out the gory parts.

    Donald Trump hailed Mississippi last year for reforms it put in place in 2014 to reduce the prison population by providing job training and rehabilitation for inmates. But the reality is starkly different. The number of inmates is growing, as the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting and ProPublica reported in May. Violence and gangs are worse than they’ve ever been, according to interviews, documents and data reviewed by the news organizations. Nowhere is that more apparent than at the South Mississippi Correctional Institution. The prison struggles to carry out the fundamental duties of a correctional facility, with surging violence and, now, a lockdown barring visits entering its seventh month. Rather than counting inmates, as required, some guards are reportedly falsifying counts, an internal prison memo says.

    The state has sharply cut spending on prisons over the last few years. Along the way, the number of guards at the three state-run prisons has plummeted, from 905 in July 2017 to 627 two years later, even as the number of inmates has remained the same. Vacancies abound, largely because the pay is so low. South Mississippi Correctional Institution, known as SMCI, now has an inmate-to-correctional officer ratio of 23 to 1, far higher than that of other states or the federal prison system.

    ……………………

    Mississippi pays the lowest salary for jail and correctional officers in the nation, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. The starting salary for a correctional officer at SMCI is $12.33 an hour. In contrast, a kitchen manager at a nearby Hardee’s starts at $36,000 per year, more than $10,000 higher than the $25,650 a new guard would earn. The average salary for a correctional officer in the US is $49,300 a year.

    Hall asked lawmakers to increase the starting pay for officers to at least $28,000, a little less than the starting pay in Alabama. The Mississippi legislature instead approved a 3% raise. The current starting pay is still low enough for a prison guard raising a family of three to qualify for food stamps.

    ……………………………….

    On 8 April state Representative Jay Hughes toured SMCI. Russell Turner, editor of the Greene County Herald in Leakesville and a member of the citizen advisory committee to the prison, joined him. Hughes, a Democrat from Oxford traveling the state in his campaign for lieutenant governor, said one counselor told him she didn’t feel safe. He and Turner said a high-ranking prison official corrected her, saying: “It’s not that you didn’t feel safe. You aren’t safe.”

  36. 36.

    TS (the original)

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: I haven’t read the times article (I don’t go there) but the headline seems written to make the president* think they are so angered because he is not coming.

  37. 37.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    They loved Obama, which is probably why Trump is insulting them:

    When rufus gifford, the U.S. ambassador to Denmark, won a Danish television award for his reality show, he ran onto the stage, beaming. “Oh man,” he said, surprised. “Wow.” The show, Jeg Er Ambassadøren fra Amerika (or I Am the Ambassador From America), was renewed for a second season (and will come to U.S. viewers this fall via Netflix). A Danish biography of Gifford was a best seller. At a music festival in June, the chart-topping Danish pop band Lukas Graham dedicated its song “Nice Guy” to him.

  38. 38.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    August 13th, 2019 5:56 pm| by Arushi Rajput
    Barack Obama clearly likes Denmark. He visited the country twice as president, attending the Olympic Congress to lobby for Chicago in the autumn of 2009 before returning in December for COP 15, and then he popped over in September 2018 to speak at the University of Southern Denmark.
    His wife Michelle made it a family affair earlier this year when she appeared at Royal Arena to publicise her book. Clearly the Obamas are partial to pastries and a spot of hygge!

  40. 40.

    debbie

    @Brachiator:

    I don’t think debates are as great as others do. Issues like this is why it would be better to have a one-on-one with each candidate where all issues can be covered and the candidate can give longer, less interrupted responses and voters can learn much more about their positions.

  43. 43.

    Kay

    President Donald Trump was moving closer to supporting meaningful background checks, a legislative proposal that has historically incensed the National Rifle Association but has gained bipartisan traction in the wake of two mass shootings earlier this month.
    The idea was also advocated by White House senior adviser and first daughter Ivanka Trump, who attempted to sell it by framing it as a “historic” and “unprecedented” ceremony at the White House’s Rose Garden, The Atlantic reported.
    Trump was said to have initially “loved it,” a former White House official reportedly said. “He was all spun up about it.”
    Then, the president called the NRA’s chief executive, Wayne LaPierre.

    Ivanka called members of Congress encouraging them to back the background checks her father said publicly he supported, but actually opposed. I don’t think it’s surprising the Trump’s don’t get anything thru Congress (other than their own giant tax cut, I mean). They’re liars and their word is no good.

  44. 44.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @debbie: But where is the well delivered, candidate topping zinger in that scenario?

    ETA not to mention winners and losers. This is America dammit, we demand our winners and losers!

  47. 47.

    Brachiator

    @debbie:
    I agree that the debates are not wonderful, especially with so many candidates crammed onstage. If a candidate did a separate one on one, and put it on YouTube or even Facebook, would anyone watch? I’m not sure that the cable or network news operations would give time to each candidate.

  48. 48.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    It’s such a small country – it probably is a big deal when a US President visits, or, you know, goes out of his way to completely misunderstand their government’s ownership of Greenland – the builder and real estate expert announced he was buying property and he 1. doesn’t know who owns it and 2. it isn’t for sale- and then insults them for no reason other than he made an ass of himself so someone must be punished.

  51. 51.

    Kay

    @Brachiator:

    Seniors are a big, reliable voting bloc. Makes sense to include their concerns. This dovetails with other topics in the news, such as prescription drug costs. And there is the lie coming from the right that universal health care will be offset by cuts to Medicare.

    Good point.

    Bernie Sanders admitted at a campaign event he doesn’t do well with seniors. I didn’t know that. I was surprised he said it.

  56. 56.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    Me too! Not till June. My youngest is horrified I’m planning it. He wants to be dropped in Copenhagen and we’ll pick him up on the way back. No. I think he should experience this. Live like a Viking:

    At the Land of Legends you are welcome to walk in the grass and get muddy. We do not have bumper cars, however, you can sail in hollowed-out tree trunks. Prepare the food you have brought along on the Viking grills free of charge, chop firewood with stone-age axes, light a fire using flint and steel and grind flour for your own biscuits.
    Please refer to the website for admission fees and special opening hours.

  57. 57.

    Spanky

    @Baud: You can’t blame them for being too naive to see through the old fraud. Losing 2016 just added to his cred, since he managed to convince them he wuz robbed.

  63. 63.

    Tony Jay

    According to Murdoch’s vile tabloid hate-pamphlet ‘The Sun’, authentic ‘Voice of Woit Suvven Ingerlish Payreeuts’ since the glory days of Saint Maggie the Thatch (no, of course I’m not linking to that unflushed truckstop toilet of a rag) Prime Minister Tubby McSquintface Johnson has come up with a spiffing new wheeze to deal with the problem of moving goods and people across the Northern Irish border post-Brexit. Rather than the UK making any accommodations to reality, the Republic of Ireland itself should just leave the Single Market for a bit and align itself with whatever system of customs and checks the knobheads in London come up with after a few bottles of bolly and six lines of charlie.

    Brilliant! What could go wrong?

    Jesus Wept? Jesus necked a gobfull of anti-psychotics and committed himself to a secure facility for the foreseeable future, more like.

  64. 64.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Baud: Bewilderment = unbridled joy in Danish. Imagine how buffoonish Trump is going to behave when he finally visits. “Why won’t you guys sell me Greenland? We’re your best friends!! You wouldn’t want anything to happen to our friendship, right?”

  70. 70.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @rikyrah:

    You are surprised that older people see through his shyt,

    If they can’t see thru chump’s, I really doubt they can see thru Wilmer’s.

  72. 72.

    Kay

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    I’ll probably end up renting a house in Odense – where my son and his wife are- there are a lot of little houses for tourist rental.
    It is, after all, the birthplace of Hans Christian Andersen :)
    I asked my daughter in law what are some other famous Danes and she said the name of a Danish nuclear scientist. Not that famous since she had to tell me who he is. Okay- FAMOUS. So we’re still at 1.

  74. 74.

    Spanky

    @OzarkHillbilly: But they’re different scams. Drumpf sells blame of the powerless Other , which only he can afflict, and Bernie sells blame of the powerful Other, which only he can defeat.

  75. 75.

    Tony Jay

    @Baud:

    Don’t worry. The incoming Baud/None of the Above Administration will clear up this issue in no time.

    Oh… hang on…

  77. 77.

    Baud

    Does anyone sell “Don’t blame me. I voted for Hillary” t-shirts? I might need to wear it for my Denmark trip.

  79. 79.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Just as in 1914, the Brexit buildup is making calamity feel inevitable

    Brexit is not a military atrocity, and there is no moral equivalence implied by comparison with Vietnam. Still, I sense that our incumbent Johnson is also trapped in the midway point of a longer tragedy, the parameters of which we are unable to grasp. That perspective will always elude the prime minister because he adheres to the 19th-century view that history is made by great men (and is enough of a narcissist to count himself among them).

    Intuitively, the return of parliament next month feels like the beginning of a final act. In truth, we cannot plot the current moment on a narrative arc that bends out of sight into the future. Many pro-Europeans expected that by this point public opinion would have shifted definitively against Brexit. The strategic folly of surrendering a lead role in a continental power bloc was advertised in every scene during the article 50 negotiations, alongside lurid examples of prominent leavers’ mendacity. But the great Damascene moment has not come. It might never come. An orderly transition is still available. Gloomy forecasts can be wrong. In turbulent scenarios there will be foreign capitals, collaborationist civil servants and defeatist remainers to blame.

    …………………………………

    We are transfixed by frenzy on the stage before us: manoeuvres in anticipation of a no-confidence vote. We suppose that all possible routes are still open. Pro-Europeans must hope that there is a way back, that it is not a just a choice of gradient on the downward slide. Yet I sense fatalism creeping into formerly strident anti-Brexit voices. I glimpse shudders of dread that events are being driven not by the MPs who will vote in the coming weeks but by a critical mass of cowardice, ignorance and ideological prejudice that was reached months ago, maybe years. The past is harrying the present.

    It could be an illusion. I hope I am wrong. But already it feels as if decisions not yet taken this autumn are shrouded in a mist of inevitability – the accretion of a million mistakes already made. Looking back, maybe historians will judge that the point of no return, the laying of the rails, happened long before the summer of 2019.

  80. 80.

    Tony Jay

    I’ve got a lovely little comment just hanging there in the poignant vacuum between Rikyrah at 62 and Baud at 63. It looks so lonely and yet so brave. Don’t wibble, little comment, I’m sure someone of authoriteh will have you out and about soon enough.

    Someone? Anyone? Bueller?

  81. 81.

    Spanky

    @Spanky: Besides being one of the founding fathers of observational astronomy, he kept a drunk elk and a pet dwarf. You might inquire when you’re there if that is still common practice.

  87. 87.

    Kay

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    They’re cute as hell. Scandinavians like those simple lines. Like Monopoly houses. Or Lego. Metal roofs too, which are actually quite popular here, too. It looks lovely. My son sent me a picture of his dog frolicking in the ocean. He was a Chicago dog and they went walking on Lake Michigan daily so, salt water!

  89. 89.

    randy khan

    @Baud:

    The comments on that tweet are fascinating, if not surprising. Basically the Trump supporters all are mocking polls, as if they have any idea what the polling in those states looked like prior to Election Day 2016.

  93. 93.

    Tony Jay

    @Baud:

    And you told me you were an incrementalist!

    That’s it. I’m phantom voting for Hickenlooper like notvladfrommurmansk834 said I should. That’ll show you machine establishmentarians where the real power lies.

  96. 96.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Baud: Just before my first trip to Mallorca, somebody gave me a “F_ck B_sh” button. I wore it the whole time we were there, and received a plenitude of high 5s.

  97. 97.

    Kay

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    Hah! She’s sciency, but I’m still surprised she didn’t get that. She’s up for what sounds like an amazing job. She will analyze piracy events and episodes for a Danish shipping group. Look for patterns so they can predict outcomes, like that, because they negotiate with the pirates. She didn’t get it yet, or hadn’t as of Saturday.

  99. 99.

    Tony Jay

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Nah. Nothing’s inevitable until it happens, and for all his redolent turns of phrase Behr sounds like he’s been couched by a serotonin crash and could do with watching a few episodes of Father Ted to re-stimulate his giggle muscles.

    ETA – Oh look, my comment has appeared and usurped Baud’s entry at Number 63. Take that, Mr Presidential Destiny!

  100. 100.

    Ken

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: @Kay: Well, easy solution then. President Obama is, I understand, scheduled to visit Denmark about a week after the cancelled visit. The Danes can just use all the preparations for the state visit for that one.

    They recoup the cost, Obama is properly honored, Trump’s head explodes – a win-win-win situation.

  106. 106.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Tony Jay: feck! Girls! Feck! Girls!

    Would you have a cup of tea, Father?

    That’s my Father Ted spec scrip. Bet it sells fast.

  110. 110.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    OT but this made me happy. I recently sold The Wind Reader to an elderly neighbor. I mean like, in her early 90s. I figured she bought out of kindness, but she stopped me a couple of days ago and told me she was half way through and enjoying it but it was “different.” That made me laugh. It’s YA fantasy. Then yesterday, she stopped me again and told me she finished and it was “wonderful!” I think she really did enjoy it.

  114. 114.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @Spanky: Pretty much everyone in that play. Also Hans Christian Anderson.

    I had a professor who was a Shakespeare conspiracist. He saw hidden plots in every play. He’s probably reading QAnon now.

  116. 116.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Kay: We were in Aalborg a few years ago and went to visit a Viking settlement and museum. There were lots of murals of Viking life on the walls of the museum.

    None of the depicted Vikings were smiling.

  117. 117.

    Spanky

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    I don’t want to upset anyone, but Trump is now claiming he’s Jesus Christ.

    OK, for years every time someone here claimed Peak Wingnut I would remind them that it’s an asymptote.

    Buuuuuuuut ….

  119. 119.

    Tony Jay

    @Steve in the ATL:

    “Are you not going to introduce us to the new Father, Father?”

    “What? Oh yes, right, of course. This is Father…. Father….. tell you what, here’s a laugh. Why don’t you have a good old guess?”

    Love Father Ted.

  121. 121.

    trnc

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Mississippi pays the lowest salary for jail and correctional officers in the nation, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. The starting salary for a correctional officer at SMCI is $12.33 an hour. In contrast, a kitchen manager at a nearby Hardee’s starts at $36,000 per year, more than $10,000 higher than the $25,650 a new guard would earn. The average salary for a correctional officer in the US is $49,300 a year.

    It almost makes me think some money could be spent on things other than tax cuts for billionaires who already pay no taxes.

  122. 122.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Cheryl Rofer: I missed that, but he already claimed to draw bigger crowds than Elton John so I figured “bigger than Jesus” was a logical next step.

    Link?

  125. 125.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Remember when they used to count the “I”s in Obama’s speeches?

    Donald J. Trump realDonaldTrump
    “Thank you to Wayne Allyn Root for the very nice words. “President Trump is the greatest President for Jews and for Israel in the history of the world, not just America, he is the best President for Israel in the history of the world…and the Jewish people in Israel love him….
    ….like he’s the King of Israel. They love him like he is the second coming of God…But American Jews don’t know him or like him. They don’t even know what they’re doing or saying anymore. It makes no sense! But that’s OK, if he keeps doing what he’s doing, he’s good for…..
    …..all Jews, Blacks, Gays, everyone. And importantly, he’s good for everyone in America who wants a job.” Wow!

    very nice words

  126. 126.

    satby

    @Kay: my first exchange student from way back in 1988 lives in Odense with her family. It’s on my list to visit. I was in Copenhagen, Denmark and Malmo, Sweden when I was 16 for two weeks and have always wanted to go back. I think you’ll really enjoy it.

  128. 128.

    Tony Jay

    @Betty:

    Thanks. These people will be the death of me, but at least it won’t be a lack of bile that does me in.

  131. 131.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Matthew Gertz @ MattGertz
    Imagine being stupid enough to say that Jews are treating someone “like he is the second coming of God.”

    enjy Sarlin @ BenjySarlin
    Anyway, nothing unsettling for Jews about being told the second coming is here and they’re stubbornly refusing and persecuting him.

  135. 135.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Baud:

    I have a difficult time believing the anger is widespread, but who knows?

    Good morning! My Danish friends are angry, not because they particularly want a Trump visit, but because of the disrespect shown their country and the ridiculousness (and impossibility) of Trump’s desire to buy Greenland. They’re also angry because Danish soldiers fought and died alongside American soldiers in Afghanistan and this is no way to treat an ally, especially one who sacrificed their own people for one of our misadventures.

  136. 136.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @debbie: I don’t think debates are as great as others do. Issues like this is why it would be better to have a one-on-one with each candidate where all issues can be covered and the candidate can give longer, less interrupted responses and voters can learn much more about their positions.

    exactly, fora and town halls are fine, but what passes for debates, especially with such long roster of no-hopers clinging to their dreams and trying to score points, is as best pointless and at worst counter-productive. This all grows out of the Bernista persecution fantasies about the DNC and DWS

  137. 137.

    Sab

    @Kay: Careful with that salt water for Great Lake dogs. Moved my Michigan dogs to California and took them a while to realize they shouldn’t drink salt water at the beach. It is good for flea control.

  138. 138.

    Betty

    @satby: Hi satby, thanks for asking. Things are mostly back to normal. Because our leader is Trumpish, recovery is still somewhat uneven with a good number of people still without repaired homes. We are hoping for a change in government, but much corruption will make that difficult. We are told to be prepared for another hurricane, but it is hard to be emotionally ready for that.

  139. 139.

    Baud

    @O. Felix Culpa:

    Thanks! Do the Danish people understand that the alternative was someone who didn’t follow best practices in email management? A little understanding would be appreciated.

  140. 140.

    Spanky

    Hey, Morningstar.com has a stock tip:

    Scotts Miracle Gro Poised to Profit From Cannabis Industry

    Scotts’ leadership in hydroponic equipment provides broad cannabis industry exposure.

    File that among headlines I never thought I’d see.

  141. 141.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    I’m assuming this works like it does in GB, the royal issues an invitation if the head of the gov’t asks for one?

    Mark Knoller @ markknoller
    Only comment so far from the Danish Royal House is a spokeswoman who said Pres Trump’s cancellation of his visit to Denmark in September “came as a surprise.” It was Queen Margrethe II who invited POTUS & FLOTUS to visit. Danish PM Mette Frederiksen to make statement at 9AM/ET.

  142. 142.

    Sab

    @Kay: Famous Danes: for the olds, Victor Borge. For the young, Nicolaj Koster-Waldau ( Jaime Lannister) who also is married to an Inuit actress from Greenland.

  143. 143.

    Immanentize

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: @Baud:
    Add that to the fact that Trump has declared American Jews “disloyal.”

    One reason the Right loves Israel so much is that they really expect Jews will self-deport (or else!) once things really get swinging with Trump. Those who are all knicker-twisted because of Rep. Omar’s mildest criticisms better get their heads out of their asses regarding a real threat.

  144. 144.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    The only folk that the patron saint of Burlington does well with are the 35 and under crowd.

    Sadly, not entirely true. Around here there are plenty of aging hippies, presumably longing for the days when they too marched with MLK, who are devoted Bernistas.

  146. 146.

    Chyron HR

    I love that the people pushing for a Climate-Change Debate are literally conflating standing around talking about the problem with fixing it.

  148. 148.

    Immanentize

    @Baud: The two go together like horse and carriage (all Jews to Israel and Evangelical Eschaton). Meanwhile, the far right religious Jews pray for and await the destruction of Israel before the Messiah can come.

    Yay religion!

  149. 149.

    satby

    @Betty: I hope things get better soon and the hurricanes all turn east away from you. Our country should have stood ready to help the Caribbean nations after the hurricane, but we didn’t even take care of our own people. To our shame.
    We’re all hoping for a change in government, aren’t we?

  150. 150.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Chyron HR: seems to me the Sunrise or whatever they call themselves movement could do a lot more good by registering voters in places like Arizona– even Texas!– but its apparently way cooler to hold sit-ins in Nancy Pelosi’s office.

    on that note: I’ll believe it when the votes come in, but Lawrence O’Donnell had a poll last night showing Mark Kelly leading McSally by five points

    Retired astronaut Mark Kelly leads McSally, the retired fighter pilot-turned-politician, by a 46 percent to 41 percent margin, according to the poll conducted by OH Predictive Insights, a Phoenix-based pollster, and released first to The Hill.

  151. 151.

    satby

    The most heartbreaking thing I saw on Facebook yesterday was a father talking about his five year old son’s first day of kindergarten. They had an active shooter drill. For the rest of that child’s life, that will be his memory of his very first day in school.
    What a shithole of a nation we’ve become.

  152. 152.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Baud:

    Do the Danish people understand that the alternative was someone who didn’t follow best practices in email management?

    I’m not sure they do, but I’ll be sure to inform them. Then they’ll feel much, much better.

  153. 153.

    Kay

    @Sab:

    Nicolaj Koster-Waldau

    That one she got, although I didn’t recognize the name until you added the character. Okay, she has never said this directly but I get the DISTINCT impression she thinks Norwegians are arrogant. There’s some kind of rivalry going on there.

  154. 154.

    germy

    Carla Sands is our Ambassador to Denmark. She is a graduate of Life Chiropractic College. She was also an actress, best known for her role in Deathstalker and the Warriors from Hell.

  156. 156.

    Tony Jay

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    Ahead of the game, I like it. Forget the Burlington Bloviator, I suspect the Baud 2020 or Bite Me campaign could use a literate influencer to get them over the hump with the under 75 and paying attention slice of the electorate.

    It’s all about the networking.

  158. 158.

    germy

    @satby:

    …his five year old son’s first day of kindergarten. They had an active shooter drill. For the rest of that child’s life, that will be his memory of his very first day in school.

    I was in kindergarten in 1964. I remember we had big, thick doors to the bathrooms (they were in our classroom) and both doors had the symbols for Fallout Shelter on them. At the time, I didn’t know what those symbols meant, and it was never explained to us. There were no drills, no duck and cover. Kindergarten kids from a few years before me probably went through the entire experience, but by the time my class arrived the authorities had abandoned the whole act.

    I’m hoping in a few years, after a Democrat enacts sensible gun legislation, these drills will become a curiosity, a bit of history trivia that future generations can joke about. But right now we’re through the looking glass.

  159. 159.

    Kay

    @satby:

    What a shithole of a nation we’ve become.

    It worries me, because I really am fairly conventionally “patriotic” – I just don’t bully other people about it. The falling-apart infrastructure makes me sad – not only can’t we build anything we can’t even maintain what we inherited. We haven’t been good stewards. We’re leaving it worse than we found it. My son has worked on water systems in Ohio – the electrical systems- and he says all we do is patch, patch, patch. That someone is going to have to invest something because you can’t patch forever. You can’t just keep pulling out value without putting any in. They need revamps- modernization.

  161. 161.

    SFAW

    @Spanky:

    He also wore a metal nose to replace the one removed in a duel, but that’s another story.

    “Duel,” r-i-i-i-ight. His twin brother (played by Lee Marvin in the biopic) bit it off in a fight.

  162. 162.

    Tony Jay

    @SRW1:

    The BBC… what is there to say that hasn’t been said? A great institution sabotaged from within by Murdoch-friendly appointees who have turned it into a slavish mouthpiece for the ‘natural Party of Government’. It’s going to take years to clean it up once the Tories are turfed out, and I can already hear the high pitched shrieks about “Marxist Purges!!!” coming over the horizon.

    Fuckem. Horizontally. With an engraved brass copy of their Charter.

  163. 163.

    Kay

    @satby:

    And you know all these CEO’s who feed us this bullshit about how they’re “investing” will just go to greener pastures if it all starts to fail. They could give a shit. “Use it up and move on!” They aren’t going to be able to replace tax revenue with “foundations”. It has to be regular and consistent! It’s fucking operating costs, not a grant. Take, take, take.

  165. 165.

    Kay

    @satby:

    It’s part of why the wall enrages me. Of all the things we need douchebag invests in a big, dumb, blank WALL. A giant, expensive monument to nastiness and narrowness and a lack of imagination or generosity. All this nonsense about “this isn’t what we ARE” Really? Because it sure looks like that’s what we are! It’s as of the words are the important part. The Wall speaks volumes.

  166. 166.

    Sab

    @Kay: I read U.S Grant’s memoirs a few years ago, and it was really striking how much 19th century Ohioans were into infrastructure investment. Roads, canals, public buildings, schools. They were buidling everything from scratch. They didn’t take it for granted.

  167. 167.

    Elizabelle

    @germy: I remember drills in kindergarten. Taking cover under our tiny desks, or under the slim little trees outside. Was in Hawaii, during the Cuban Missile crisis. (And a bit of a laugh, once I learned, many years later, where Cuba actually was. Hawaii would seem to have been pretty safe. Albeit, it was less than 25 years since Pearl Harbor….)

    I just imagined being a burned little pile of bones, out on the school grounds, like chicken dinner leavings, because the trees were so useless and sparse.

    An active shooter drill would be much worse.

  170. 170.

    SFAW

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Now I know why some people say “Jesus Fucking Christ.”

    Although I vaguely recalled the name Wayne Allyn Root, I had to look him up. Holy shit. Crazy/stupid/evil, all wrapped up in one package. How efficient of him.

  171. 171.

    catclub

    @Baud: my guess? angry because they have already spent substantial money on preparations and security infrastructure.

  172. 172.

    rikyrah

    @trnc:

    I will remind folks that the Trumper who gave us the

    ” But, he’s not hurting the right people” quote…
    worked for the Mississippi Prisons….

  173. 173.

    Elizabelle

    @JPL: Saw that yesterday. The NY Times had priced the 1619 issue at $6.00, which I thought was fairly priced.

    And then wanted $8.00 for shipping it. I passed. WTF.

  174. 174.

    rikyrah

    @O. Felix Culpa:

    They’re also angry because Danish soldiers fought and died alongside American soldiers in Afghanistan and this is no way to treat an ally, especially one who sacrificed their own people for one of our misadventures.

    I know this doesn’t comfort them, but they need to understand that Dolt45 doesn’t even respect OUR soldiers.

  175. 175.

    SRW1

    @JPL:

    Not sure the 1619 project needed that boost, but the GOP ‘Streisanding’ it probably helped at the margins.

  176. 176.

    germy

    @Elizabelle: I remember Robert Klein saying his class was issued dog tags. (He was in elementary school in the 1950s.) The children were told the dog tags were necessary for identification, in case their bodies were “burned beyond recognition.”

  177. 177.

    Kay

    The President reneged on all his loud, bragging promises on gun regs. That he made last week. His daughter and senior adviser assured donors this week he would get it done. Now we’ll get his low quality incompetent hires hires analyzing “mental health”- they’ll probably appoint a Fox host to run it. Let the crackdown on people with mental illness begin! Nasty, dumb, vindictive people will be targeting some of the most vulnerable people in the country, purely to advance their own political and financial ends. It’s already a disaster. Can we convince them to just stay on the golf course? They don’t harm anyone there.

  178. 178.

    Spanky

    @Elizabelle: I remember in the early 60s, they tested the air raid sirens every Tuesday at noon, as we started lunch recess. Such a sad moan, coming from every direction. A reminder of doom to us little kids. Yes, I imagine active shooter drills are much worse.

    ETA: Yeah, we had dog tags too. I think I still have mine someplace.

  180. 180.

    germy

    @Spanky:

    I remember in the early 60s, they tested the air raid sirens every Tuesday at noon,

    That was another of Robert Klein’s recollections. He became terrified that the Russians would attack at noon, so as to confuse everyone: “We’ll attack at noon… they’ll think it’s lunch!”

  181. 181.

    Elizabelle

    @satby: Watched a little bit of that. Victor Borge was wonderful. His timing, and deadpan face.

    My dad really liked him a lot.

  182. 182.

    Kay

    @rikyrah:

    Trump and his low quality hires were poorly raised. They don’t know how to treat others decently. They lack ordinary social skills. They all have million dollar educations but you can’t buy “decent”, so no one purchased it for them.

  184. 184.

    Immanentize

    @JPL:
    I got my copy the old fashioned way — delivered to my doorstep on Sunday morning. It is not garbage and I recommend it!

  185. 185.

    germy

    Upstate NY is full of MAGATs

    https://wnyt.com/news/colonie-police-investigating-possible-hate-crime-at-crossings-park/5463843/?cat=10114

    Colonie police are investigating a possible hate crime at the Crossings on Albany Shaker Road.

    Rashad Mohamed Benantar said in a Facebook post that he was at the playground with his nephews Monday night when a man began yelling slurs and insulting them.

    Captured on a cell phone video, a man was can be heard stating “this is our country.”

    It’s not shown what took place before or after the video, but according to Benantar’s Facebook page, the man was making disparaging remarks about Benantar’s Muslim faith. He allegedly said, “you came here today to die, you’re going to die.”

    It must be “economic insecurity”

    The Capital District Crime Analysis Center along with State Police were also provided images of the man’s large white Mercedes Benz SUV. By Tuesday evening, he was identified and interviewed by Colonie Police.

  186. 186.

    rikyrah

    Trump administration announces plan that would let it detain undocumented children indefinitely
    Bart Jansen, USA TODAY
    Published 9:35 a.m. ET Aug. 21, 2019 | Updated 9:39 a.m. ET Aug. 21, 2019

    WASHINGTON –The Trump administration said Wednesday it was taking steps that would allow it to indefinitely detain undocumented children with their families while their immigration cases are pending.

    The move, which Department of Homeland Security officials expect to be challenged in federal court, is an effort to end a 20-day limit on detaining children and families. The deadline grew out of a 1997 settlement of a federal class-action lawsuit, which administration officials said led to a boom in adults bringing along children when entering the United States illegally.

    President Donald Trump tweeted a quote Wednesday from Brandon Judd, president of the National Border Patrol Council, who said the proposal “will effectively end Catch and Release and curb illegal entries.”

    The effort to remove the cap on family detentions would keep families together, albeit in custody, rather than separating families by placing parents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and children at facilities licensed by the Department of Health and Human Services. The administration’s proposed rule would allow it to license and monitor detention facilities where children could be held with their parents until their immigration cases are resolved, a process that can take months.

  187. 187.

    Kay

    @Elizabelle:

    I’m not sure the drills make any sense, but I’m on a school committee and I get it- it’s remote possibility but the remote possibility is so horrendous they feel they have to “do something”. It’s where statistics really fall down. Easy to say “well, they’re more likely to drown” – unless you’re the principal of elementary school and once a month or so you watch that mass shooting footage and think “that could be my school”. It just sort of transcends statistics. They don’t matter. No one is doing anything so they have to do something, and this is what they can do. It was horrible and irresponsible to dump it on them. It’s a national problem and all these fucking worthless cowards are like “here- you fix it”.

  189. 189.

    rikyrah

    Anti-China group hired GOP strategist in pro-Trump shift

    Brandy Zadrozny, reporter for NBC News, talks with Rachel Maddow about how the anti-China Falun Gong religious group has hired a Republican strategist in addition to using its various media platforms as well as extensive online ad buys to promote Donald Trump and myriad pro-Trump conspiracy theories, earning it a prominent position among conservative U.S. media.

  192. 192.

    Kay

    @Elizabelle:

    The statistics in a way are not responsive to the problem. Drowning is risky for children, but there are no mass drownings, and certainly not in schools. If there were we would beef up our drowning regulations- and those actually exist. Fences. Required.

  193. 193.

    Brachiator

    @Tony Jay:

    Prime Minister Tubby McSquintface Johnson has come up with a spiffing new wheeze to deal with the problem of moving goods and people across the Northern Irish border post-Brexit. Rather than the UK making any accommodations to reality, the Republic of Ireland itself should just leave the Single Market for a bit

    You have got to be kidding! Really? Johnson is asking the EU to abandon one of its own member nations in order to placate the British. What’s next, Boris offers to buy Greenland?

    Also, I see that even the Guardian is lining up behind the lie that the EU is being uncooperative.

    The European Union has rebuffed Boris Johnson’s attempts to tear up the Irish backstop, in a coordinated response that appeared to close the door on further meaningful Brexit negotiations.

    Johnson previously refused to meet with EU representatives and none of his sputtering could be called meaningful negotiation.

  194. 194.

    Elizabelle

    @Kay: I think the shooting drills are worthwhile. A mass casualty shooting could happen, absolutely anywhere, except where our elected officials and MOTUs are behind layers of security.

    Whenever I hear of a mass shooting, I don’t think: why did it happen there? I just think, there but for the grace of God/the flying spaghetti monster/cruel fate …

  195. 195.

    Brachiator

    @rikyrah:

    Trump administration announces plan that would let it detain undocumented children indefinitely

    Trump administration announces bold plan to replace detention centers with concentration camps.

  198. 198.

    SFAW

    @Elizabelle:

    A mass casualty shooting could happen, absolutely anywhere, except where our elected officials and MOTUs are behind layers of security.

    Such as NRA HQ

  202. 202.

    Orange is the New Red

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Dorothy, I am also an older reader who loved it. I have passed it on to my neices, and suggested it to several middle-schoolers. It’s a delight.

  205. 205.

    Kay

    @Elizabelle:

    I don’t know. Ours have an evacuation plan and as a practical matter with how quickly the guns and ammunition kill I just can’t make sense of lining up and crossing the street. That seems like post-carnage management to me. It DOES upset the littles, too. My youngest has now been doing this for 11 years and part of the kid process is the older children comfort the younger children. I think fear is so corrosive and we’re scaring them.

  206. 206.

    Yarrow

    @Kay: It’s awful. I also wonder how many people decide not to go into teaching because they think, “I don’t want to work in a war zone. I don’t want to be responsible for a room full of kids in a mass shooting.” Schools are such targets.

  208. 208.

    Elizabelle

    WaPost: Parkland students unveil sweeping gun-control proposal and hope for a youth voting surge in 2020

    The Parkland student activists have unveiled their plan, and it is a far-reaching and good one. This, coupled with their existing voter registration activities, should bring some more voters to the polls in 2020. Enough with the gun violence.

    The Peace Plan would create a national licensing and gun registry, long a nonstarter with gun rights advocates; ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines; implement a mandatory gun buyback program; and install a “national director of gun violence prevention” who would report directly to the president and coordinate the federal response to what advocates call a national public health emergency.

    It would dramatically increase restrictions around owning guns in ways sure to spark fierce blowback, including raising the age to 21 from 18 for those who want to buy guns. It calls for a “multi-step” gun licensing system, overseen by a federal agency, that would include in-person interviews and a 10-day wait before gun purchases are approved. The license would be renewed annually.

    … The first test of its resonance will come Oct. 2 in Las Vegas, when March for Our Lives will host a forum dedicated to addressing gun violence in partnership with Giffords, the group run by former congresswoman and shooting survivor Gabrielle Giffords.

    The NRA spokeswoman sniffs that the ideas are out of the mainstream, but, of course, they are not.

    Here’s a PDF of the March for Our Lives Peace Plan, subtitled: Created by survivors, so you don’t have to be one”, provided by the WaPost.

  209. 209.

    Kay

    @Elizabelle:

    I don’t know how to fix it. I do know we should stop dumping all our societal problems on public schools and telling them to fix it. The Parkland massacre went from a discussion about guns to a discussion about how people failed in massacre management. That’s convenient. Once again leaders escape responsibility and dump everything on public schools. Public schools MIRROR our problems. Everything that is out here comes in there. Always. They don’t create these problems and they can’t fix them, singlehandedly. If the country is ungovernable that is not the fault of some over-worked, underpaid assistant principal. They try.

  212. 212.

    Betty Cracker

    @Elizabelle: I pulled it down. Will post it later. I usually don’t care about big-footing, but this is an important issue, and I’m hoping more folks will see it and sign the petition, donate, etc.

  214. 214.

    Miss Bianca

    @Elizabelle: God bless these youngs. They have a plan for this! It gives me hope, here in my “2nd Amendment Sanctuary” community.

    That reminds me, I must pass along the excellent insights Dr. Silverman shared with me on that subject to my fellow Dems in Blood-Red Land – including a sharp lawyer or two. If the Parkland survivors can map out a strategy, I can do my mite for them here.

  216. 216.

    randy khan

    @Baud:

    I can’t imagine the royal family spontaneously decided that they’d like to have the Trumps over for dinner.

    My guess is that it’s one of those protocol things – heads of state invite heads of state, so the PM can’t actually extend the invitation.

  217. 217.

    Betty Cracker

    @Elizabelle: It’s a fact that when a post gets squashed immediately by another, fewer people see it. I don’t usually care. This time I do. Will post it soon.

  218. 218.

    Tony Jay

    @Brachiator:

    They’re denying it now, claiming that the unnamed Minister who gave The Sun the story didn’t know what they were talking about, but that’s not the kind of thing that gets blurted out without a reason. Chances are it’s part of the Dolchstoßlegende being hastily hammered together out of gaslight and unicorn tears to explain why the UK has to suffer decades of recession, division and humiliation; as in it’s all because those beastly Eurocrats hate and fear Britannia Magna so much that they wouldn’t even make a few measly little concessions in order to secure a deal. It’s all bullshit, obviously, but it’s not designed to fool anyone who hasn’t already sealed the airlock of the Brexitremist Bubble behind them.

    And I’m not going to lift one single pinky defending the fucking Guardian. How hard can it be to point out that negotiations on May’s Withdrawal Deal are over and have been for months? It’s actually a condition of the extension the Tories are busy wasting that the time could not be used to renegotiate anything. I guess all of the effort their political analysts have put in trying to ‘both sides’ the blame for Brexit has led to a certain numbness and lack of dexterity where factual reportage is needed.

  220. 220.

    Kay

    @Elizabelle:

    It’s complicated by the fact that there’s a move away from “zero tolerance” in schools because they recognize that was harmful and too broad brush, but at the same time they must provide “safety”. It’s really hard. If they have a kid acting out in a way that appears dangerous they can’t just expel, because they’ll catch too many in the net and the point of this is, after all, educating them, but all they have do is miss one and 25 people are dead. Their job is impossible. And no one will help them.

  221. 221.

    rikyrah

    4 students shot during party near Clark Atlanta University; shooter on the loose
    Updated: Aug 21, 2019 – 7:18 AM

    ATLANTA – Channel 2 Action News learned that several students were injured in a shooting near the campus of Clark Atlanta University late Tuesday night.

    The shooting happened during a block party around 10:30 p.m. at the intersection of James P. Brawley Drive southwest and Beckwith Street southwest.

    Police said when officers arrived, they found four female students, ages 17 through 19, with injuries. They were taken to Grady Memorial Hospital and are listed as stable.

    Police said confrontation triggered the gunfire.

    “It appears there were two separate groups that were targeting each other and the students in the crossfire,” said Atlanta Police Capt. William Rucker.

  223. 223.

    Sab

    @Kay: The horrifying thing is that these drills sort of do work. Like rushing the shooter. Haven’t at least two kids sacrificed themselves and saved a lot of their fellow students by following the drill. And so far that’s the best advice we have offered them.

  224. 224.

    Elizabelle

    @Betty Cracker: That’s cool.

    @Kay: Yup. We dump all the problems on the schools. And then we don’t want to pay the teachers well, or treat them with respect, or give them a path to advancement that does not lead out of the classroom.

  226. 226.

    Kay

    @Sab:

    Like rushing the shooter.

    I don’t want them rushing the shooter. That’s just another abdication of responsibility by the feckless and ridiculous adults they had the misfortune to get stuck with by an accident of birth. I am sick to death of libertarian cleverness and thought experiments. I am sick of talking about everything under the sun except guns. It’s blood and bone. There are no smart comebacks to that. Who were the brilliant adults who told them to rush the shooter? Meghan McCardle. Easy for her to say.

  227. 227.

    zhena gogolia

    @rikyrah:

    It is a magnificent thing. I’m reading it slowly just before bed.

    I’ve given up on every American reading the Mueller Report, but every American damn well should read this.

  230. 230.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @germy: I bet you could go to any decent size city’s Craig’s List and find several cheap used Mercedes SUVs

Comments are closed.