Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

We will not go quietly into the night; we will not vanish without a fight.

Cancel the cowardly Times and Post and set up an equivalent monthly donation to ProPublica.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

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

Consistently wrong since 2002

Republicans in disarray!

No one could have predicted…

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

Jack be nimble, jack be quick, hurry up and indict this prick.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

Welcome to day five of every-bit-as-bad-as-you-thought-it-would-be.

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

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you do not.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

“woke” is the new caravan.

It is possible to do the right thing without the promise of a cookie.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”

No Kings: Americans standing in the way of bad history saying “Oh, Fuck No!”

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

You are here: Home / Justice / Racial Justice / Post-racial America / Update on Very Fine People on Both Sides- I Did NAZI This Coming

Update on Very Fine People on Both Sides- I Did NAZI This Coming

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This post is in: 

The least surprising news ever:

In the run-up to the 2016 election, White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller promoted white nationalist literature, pushed racist immigration stories and obsessed over the loss of Confederate symbols after Dylann Roof’s murderous rampage, according to leaked emails reviewed by Hatewatch.

The emails, which Miller sent to the conservative website Breitbart News in 2015 and 2016, showcase the extremist, anti-immigrant ideology that undergirds the policies he has helped create as an architect of Donald Trump’s presidency. These policies include reportedly setting arrest quotas for undocumented immigrants, an executive order effectively banning immigration from five Muslim-majority countries and a policy of family separation at refugee resettlement facilities that the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General said is causing “intense trauma” in children.

These garbage people just love each other. That Katie McHugh is a piece of work- she’s since left the alt-right movement, allegedly.

Reader Interactions

163Comments

  2. 2.

    Mary G

    I haven’t read it, fearing my head would explode, but WaPo had an article saying the terrible conditions at the border including for children were on purpose.

    This guy needs to be locked up for life for this.

  3. 3.

    Kay

    I’m glad you posted this. I think it deserves attention and perhaps won’t get it.

    They’re just such lousy people. The US made a deliberate effort to have more young people take the SAT. The idea was to make going to college more equitable by broadening the potential pool of students. Because there were more low income students taking the tests, test scores dipped slightly, which was anticipated and happens every time they expand the pool.

    Miller looks at that hopeful, inclusive idea and sees hordes of black and brown poor people taking over. They’re all so negative and stingy and narrow. Just hateful.

  4. 4.

    Damien

    @Mary G: Personally, I think he should be stripped of his citizenship, dropped in Honduras and made to ride La Bestia back to the border.

    Then forced to cross the border with no water, food or shelter.

    And if he makes it back, he can take a low-paying job as a farm worker.

  5. 5.

    Brachiator

    In the run-up to the 2016 election, White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller promoted white nationalist literature…

    It is beyond bizarre that Miller champions people who would like to destroy him and his family.

    This would almost be comical if the vile Trump regime were not hurting so many people, especially children.

    These people are disgusting.

  6. 6.

    Kay

    @Mary G:

    It’s a dialogue between white supremacists. They pass one another “information”. They view all news through that lens. So what a normal person would think was kind of a bland article about a dip in SAT scores becomes proof that the black and brown hordes are polluting the master race. Just appalling. They’re worse than I thought they were and I thought they were terrible people.

  7. 7.

    MattF

    I knew it was bad when Miller was outed by his immediate family. Just think about that… it ain’t normal.

  8. 8.

    laura

    Miller belongs in the Hague for human rights violations. I’d settle for Room 101 though as an acceptable alternative.

  11. 11.

    Baud

    Just about every blog on my feed decided to post on this topic right now. Our side isn’t usually this coordinated.

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    And a decent, functional government. But mostly it’s the tacos.

  12. 12.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    That’s where I’m at too. I was sort of ambivalent on immigration prior to these horrible people. Now I’m like “welcome friends! By the way, would you mind saving us?”

  13. 13.

    NotMax

    Why do I expect the phrase “precious bodily fluids” is included somewhere within those communications?

  15. 15.

    tokyokie

    I have difficulty imagining the level of self-hate and psychosis required for a Jewish man to dress up in a Schutzstaffel officer’s uniform.* And to think this severely damaged and emotionally stunted creep is formulating racist domestic policy.

    *I exclude actors. The likes of Otto Preminger and Werner Klemperer Jr., among others, who were Jewish and memorably played Nazis in movies and on TV.

  18. 18.

    Kay

    Where did it go wrong, do you think? Privileged people, nice homes they grew up in, college, fancy jobs, yet they’re seething with hatred and resentment, terrified that someone will take something from them. What a failure.

  19. 19.

    Martin

    Whoa. This is a big fucking deal.

    The Supreme Court won’t stop a lawsuit brought by Sandy Hook victims’ families against Remington Arms Co., the manufacturer of the semi-automatic rifle that was used in the 2012 mass shooting at an elementary school.
    …
    A 2005 federal law protects many gun manufacturers from wrongful death lawsuits brought by family members. But families of victims of the elementary school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, are pushing a different approach.
    A survivor and families of nine other victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting are attempting to hold Remington Arms Company, the manufacturer of the semi-automatic rifle that was used in the crime, partly responsible by targeting the company’s marketing strategy.
    Lawyers for the victims sued Remington contending that the company marketed rifles by extolling the militaristic qualities of the rifle and reinforcing the image of a combat weapon — in violation of a Connecticut law that prevents deceptive marketing practices.

    Economics tends to be more effective than policy in the long run. If gun makers can be held liable, then they’re going to be run out of business.

  20. 20.

    tokyokie

    @Keith P.: I would have thought Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS, would have been dead or too old for him. Although I can kind of see the latter………

  22. 22.

    Elizabelle

    From Cole’s twitter feed. Laughing, because it is so perfect. (I don’t know how to embed a tweet, so have at it.)

    New York Times Pitchbot @DougJBalloon
    4 hours ago

    Committing more crimes may cause some problems for Trump but could also help shift focus

    DougJ has the NY Times’ number.

  24. 24.

    Mnemosyne

    @Mary G:

    WaPo had an article saying the terrible conditions at the border including for children were on purpose.

    Didn’t we already know that? John Kelly planned it that way to try and discourage desperate people from seeking help. Because he’s an asshole and a stone-cold racist.

  25. 25.

    Kay

    @Martin:

    I’m just glad they get a hearing. They deserve a trial. To be formally heard. I’ll never forget when Senate Republicans shut them down. It’s unforgivable.

  27. 27.

    trollhattan

    @Keith P.:
    My first guess was a fetching German shepherd but a Pence aide makes perfect sense (and ironic connection to a club Miller will NEVER be admitted to).

  28. 28.

    Ohio Mom

    If Miller weren’t from a middle-class American Jewish family with Eastern European roots, he would be a lot less inexplicable. It’s one thing to be an evil bastard but to actualize that evil by aligning with those who abhor your existence?

    What part of the long history of anti-Semitism — a history that includes oppression and violence against his family — does he not get? The Alt Right are not his friends, how could ever imagine they are?

    It’s too bad there is no way to leave a personality to science. His would make a good research subject.

  29. 29.

    Kay

    Let’s see if this gets 2 straight weeks of blanket coverage like Podesta’s boring campaign emails did.

    We finally see the other side’s emails and…they’re really, really bad.

  30. 30.

    different-church-lady

    I miss the days when you couldn’t be part of an administration if you hired a nanny the wrong way.

  31. 31.

    TomatoQueen

    I remember (vaguely) pre-election coverage of this twerp alleging that he’d been doing, saying, and writing similar since junior high school, followed on by a little more coverage of similar behavior while in college. Apart from being revolted, I wondered whether there was any evidence of his parents’ support (nothing) or repudiation (nothing). Much later comes the oft-reposted piece from his uncle which I think mentions or hints at a rift in the family. Meanwhile there’s plenty of evidence about other slimeballs such as Bannon, which does get media attention, so that on January 22, 2017, we still have a lot of questions but we can’t pretend to be unaware of very serious danger in the atmosphere surrounding the newly-sworn in President*. Miller has slid right off the radar but yet turns out to be playing the Himmler role, which is repulsive enough, and succeeding in it, in the face of all the other advisor failures. Why is this pernicious evil still on the gov’t payroll?

  39. 39.

    different-church-lady

    @Kay: Two words: social media.

    ETA: Oh, you’re taking about Miller specifically. Obviously he was slime long before Facebook fucked up everything.

  42. 42.

    Sab

    @Kay: A couple of weeks ago some jackals were recommending Martha Stouts book “The Sociopath Next Door.”

    I think these types just turn up in otherwise nice families, sort of like changelings. Then they seriously damage family dynamics for generations.

  44. 44.

    James E Powell

    @Kay:

    Where did it go wrong, do you think? Privileged people, nice homes they grew up in, college, fancy jobs, yet they’re seething with hatred and resentment, terrified that someone will take something from them. What a failure.

    The ones I know, the ones I grew up with, they’re lives are empty of meaning or purpose other than a powerful need to be seen as successful and superior.

    They weren’t hateful bigots when we were all back in high school. Quite the contrary. But they are now and their identities are completely wrapped up in white supremacy.

  46. 46.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Mart: @LuciaMia: There’s a reason I customarily refer to Miller as “Reinhard Heydrich’s Mini-Me“. (Click here.)

    Maybe that website ought to replace the Miller shot with that Fotogeschäftiges Bild…

  47. 47.

    Emerald

    It’s really not surprising that Miller is virtually the only original member of tRump’s white house team still working for him. His views are entirely simpatico with orangymanidius.

  54. 54.

    NotMax

    “One of the great attractions of patriotism – it fulfills our worst wishes. In the person of our nation we are able, vicariously, to bully and cheat. Bully and cheat, what’s more, with a feeling that we are profoundly virtuous.”
      – Aldous Huxley

  56. 56.

    zhena gogolia

    @Baud:

    In my phantasmagorical kaleidoscopic daily review of 1,000,000 tweets, I saw somebody arguing that Kavanaugh wasn’t being a complete and utter hack. Did I just hallucinate it?

  57. 57.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:

    Where did it go wrong, do you think? Privileged people, nice homes they grew up in, college, fancy jobs, yet they’re seething with hatred and resentment, terrified that someone will take something from them. What a failure.

    I dunno, cause he’s been a racist piece of shyt since high school – that we know of. Haven’t heard about any racist grammar school incidents with them. Sure they probably exist.

  60. 60.

    Steeplejack

    @Mart:

    Yeah, ’shopped. If Miller appeared at an official event dressed like that (notice White House emblem/​logo/​seal in background), even Maggie Haberman would have to take note.

  63. 63.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Mary G: The conditions at the border were made as horrible as possible on purpose to discourage brown people from seeking to come here. That’s what we should expect from the White Supremacists in the White House.

  64. 64.

    Kay

    @rikyrah:

    He and Jared affect that blank stare. I think it’s meant to be intimidating. Stupid people do it so they don’t have to engage and reveal they’re stupid.

  65. 65.

    ThresherK

    @tokyokie: I saw the pic, and thought it was a Betty Cracker post (before reading the byline), cos she does dabble in graphic trickery.

    I’m old enough to remember when elements of historical fascist cosplay were recognized as exaggeration, because nobody did that in real (contemporary) life.

  66. 66.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Sab: I was one of those jackals. It’s a chilling book. Stout does look at some of the literature on the heritability of sociopathy. There seems to be a genetic component, but I didn’t get the feeling it’s a settled question as to where these people come from.

    Incidentally, the reason I was reading it was for a book group. It was a fascinating discussion and I wish we had had more time to talk about it. There were a lot of interesting people in the room with interesting things to add.

  67. 67.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:

    Discovery is gonna be crazy….. I bet there’s all kinds of stuff that we just merely suspect about the gun manufacturers…that will turn out to be true.

  69. 69.

    germy

    The Trump administration's Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Conflict and Stability Operations is a literal con-artist. No degree. No genuine professional experience. Just a failed music career, a fake TIME Magazine cover and a scam nonprofit. t.co/Sy8tXUKaio— Brandon Friedman (@BFriedmanDC) November 12, 2019

  71. 71.

    WhatsMyNym

    @Kay:

    He and Jared affect that blank stare. I think it’s meant to be intimidating. Stupid people do it so they don’t have to engage and reveal they’re stupid.

    It just makes them look stupid.

  73. 73.

    ET

    He looks more comfortable in that photoshopped Nazi uniform that he he looks real-time in a suit and tie.

  75. 75.

    Sab

    @germy: I had a close college friend who wanted to work for the State Department. FBI guys were contacting everyone she ever knew back to grade school as part of the background check.

    So the only vetting anymore is done by the press?

    They do more background checks to get a cashier job in my local grocery stores.

  76. 76.

    germy

    @Martin:

    Ms. Mina Chang serves as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations (CSO).

    Prior to joining the Bureau, DAS Chang served as the Chief Executive Officer of an INGO. Applying insights gleaned from a broad range of civilian and military data sets, data analytics, social science and geo-spatial intelligence capabilities to identify and assist vulnerable communities, the organization worked to isolate root drivers of instability, and direct development initiatives to address critical vulnerabilities that non-state actors exploit to further their agenda.

    She has extensive on the ground experience in conflict areas such as in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Nigeria, and the Philippines. She has been an advocate for proactive stabilization as a strategic tool of foreign engagement and an investment in a stronger America abroad.

    Mina is an alumna of the Harvard Business School, a graduate of the United States Army War College National Security Seminar, a Harvard John F. Kennedy Senior Executive in National and International Security and a former International Security Fellow at New America. Ms. Chang has been published in CNN, Fortune, Foreign Policy Journal, Forbes, Defense One and The Hill, writing on issues of policy, humanitarian aid, development, the application of emerging technologies and data science capabilities by the sector and its role in the context of national security and global stability. She has addressed the Republican and Democratic National Conventions, as well as the United Nations, and served as a Fellow with the Center for the Study of Civil-Military Operations at United States Military Academy at West Point, assisting in the development of academic programs tied to humanitarian and disaster response.

    Served as Civil-Military UN-CMCoord Advisor contributing to the current Common Humanitarian Civil-Military Coordination Standards. Appointed by the United Nations to serve on the Expert Panel for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in Humanitarian Response.

    state.gov/biographies/mina-chang/

    Wait ’til Silverman hears about this.

  78. 78.

    zhena gogolia

    @Baud:

    I can’t possibly reconstruct it. It was some recent instances in which Kavanaugh didn’t align with Gorsuch, Alito, et al.

  80. 80.

    StringOnAStick

    @Sab: I don’t know if my family would qualify as a “nice” family given my dad’s Bircherism, but I have a half sister who bailed out of high school after one semester, pregnant, had 4 more, one of which has lost her own kids and is on her 3rd prison term for meth and prostitution, and her dad was the one who was banging the 14 year old foster kid who made a deal with him that he’d get some if he let her spend some nights at her 20 y.o. boyfriend’s place. My half sister said at the time that there was no way her husband was doing that, but the evidence was ironclad. I’ve always put all this dirtbag crap down to my half sister being of low intelligence but high manipulation skills, but now I think she’s a sociopath. If I hadn’t had to deal with all this tRump crap I never would have realized that. Of course she’s a huge evangelical tRump supporter.

  83. 83.

    Mnemosyne

    @Ohio Mom:

    He thinks he can escape anti-Semitism by attaching himself to his tormentors. It’s not that unusual, really.

    He does seem to have a weird masochistic need to be publicly hated that he’s had since at least high school, long before he met up with Trump. It would have been better for everyone if he could have worked on those needs with a trained dominatrix rather than imposing his weird needs on the rest of the world.

  84. 84.

    Kay

    @germy:

    That’s an amazing story. In a way she’s right though- she’s as qualified as Ivanka is for her job. Real, pretend, doesn’t matter. There are no standards. You could run a nonprofit or just make that up. No difference.

  86. 86.

    Kay

    @germy:

    A deputy assistant secretary usually has a top secret security clearance. It’s not clear if Chang has such a clearance.

    I wonder if that whole thing has collapsed now. It seems like it has. It’s been long enough that it could be stacked with low quality Trump hires by now.

  88. 88.

    Mary G

    I remember him being in the LA news repeatedly as a teenager, because he lived in one of the most liberal areas in a liberal state – Ted Lieu’s district. He would do stuff like take trash a white kid had just thrown away out of the can and throw it on the ground “because that’s what we pay all these lazy (insert racist slur) Mexican janitors to do.” I wondered if he was doing a poor imitation of Andy Kaufman’s performance art at the time out of a pathological need for attention, but he’s just a bad seed.

  89. 89.

    StringOnAStick

    @germy: That’s an interesting article about a person who can’t be called anything but a con artist. Looking at the photo of her in evening wear with Petraeus, I get a distinct Maria Butina vibe as the source of her success.

  90. 90.

    Mnemosyne

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym:

    I was saying in that thread that there’s something weird about the women on the paternal side of my husband’s family. Every one of them was described as “a piece of work” by the rest of the family. The one girl born in that generation (G’s aunt) died in her 30s after an overdose. Her much older ex-husband had vanished to Belize with their son because he feared for both of their lives.

    G’s sister also got the weird X chromosome from that side and has lived a life of somewhat lesser chosen chaos. So far, her daughter doesn’t seem to have inherited it — phew!

    ETA: Though in our family’s case I think the issue is borderline personality disorder and/or low-key bipolar disorder, not sociopathy. Though I do wonder about G’s grandmother.

  95. 95.

    JPL

    It appears that the Supreme Court is going to toss DACA protections. I know that the House and Senate are working to pass a temporary budget, and my question is can the House attach DACA protections to that? Trump might not sign and Mitch might not like but then they own it.

  98. 98.

    opiejeanne

    @germy: It didn’t look right, somehow. The picture behind her looked static, no one and nothing moving, but here she is in front of a camera in full make-up. Hmmm. and the helicopter noise never varied, never modulated.

  99. 99.

    gvg

    @Sab: Trump ignores the vetting and hires who he wants/can get. Those low quality hires also ignore the vetting results. I also guess that they have to actually ask the FBI to do these background checks and they aren’t bothering.
    I can’t imagine Obama, or Bill Clinton or even the elder Bush ignoring background results or the need for them. I am not quite sure of the younger Bush because he hired some Liberty U people but I think those were less serious positions. Still if the press caught one of his lying on the resume, Bush jr would have fired them. Trump don’t care.
    One of the drawbacks of having a professed outsider “elected” is Trump doesn’t understand having to care about millions of non fanatical supporters willing to vote again for him. He only cares about his own feelings. Trump also doesn’t understand about the rest of his party wanting to get re elected. That may bring him conviction eventually.
    This has meant that he did not avoid doing extreme things right where everyone can see him. He doesn’t know how to make the calculations that every other politician of my lifetime does all the time.

  100. 100.

    rikyrah

    Is this the end for Days Of Our Lives? Historic soap releases its ENTIRE cast from their contracts – including Jennifer Ainston’s father John Aniston – and goes on ‘indefinite hiatus’ after more than 50 YEARS on the air
    Days Of Our Lives has ‘terminated’ the contracts of their entire cast
    On Tuesday TVLine reported that the stars were told not to come back
    The show, which began in 1965, is heading into its hiatus at the end of the month
    The NBC daytime TV show has been struggling in the ratings for many years
    There is a chance that the NBC show may return next year, it has been claimed
    If it does, producers can bring the cast back under new contracts with less pay
    By HEIDI PARKER FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

    PUBLISHED: 13:13 EST, 12 November 2019 | UPDATED: 14:42 EST, 12 November 2019

    Days Of Our Lives has terminated the contracts of their entire cast, it has been claimed.

    On Tuesday TVLine reported that the stars were told not to come back as the soap opera is heading into its hiatus at the end of this month. It is not yet known if the show will be canceled.

    The NBC daytime TV show has been struggling in the ratings as talk shows and cable TV has offered stiff competition.

    NBC has yet to comment on the move. The network and its parent company Sony are currently deciding what stays and what goes in 2020.

    The show is currently in its 55th season.

    dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-7677861/Days-Lives-releases-entire-cast-contracts.html?ico=pushly-…

  101. 101.

    Eric S.

    @Sab: A buddy of mine does military intelligence. Yes, I know, I tell him that too. I’ve been interviewed twice on his background over the years. So, vetting for the little people.

  102. 102.

    Martin

    @Mary G: I am on board with that. We would in pretty good shape if experts and agents for good like Adam and Cheryl and David were running the world.

  105. 105.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Ohio Mom: It’s that part of the weird nature of American anti-antisemitism they play all these No True Scotsmen games about this person is a good or bad Jew? Like Henry Ford who had a bunch of rabbis he considered friends while he was handing out Protocols of Zion.

  107. 107.

    jl

    @Baud: Would Baud 2020! hire Adam? And if so, as what? Haggis Czar? Floriduh-man Bureau? Or national strength training coach?

  109. 109.

    Patricia Kayden

    The very best people.

    This makes NO SENSE -State Department officials hire this woman and NO ONE checks to verify her claim that she graced the cover of @TIME & earned a degree from @HarvardHBS??I’m just gonna start telling people I was Playmate of the Year while earning a robotics degree from MIT t.co/CpiCM16CGy— Stephanie Ruhle (@SRuhle) November 12, 2019

  110. 110.

    Mike in NC

    Wasn’t Jeff Sessions the first dirtbag Trump hired due to his enthusiasm for the Fat Bastard and his own racist background? (The one that prevented him from getting a federal judgeship.) Miller was a staffer for Sessions, so Trump got a twofer!

  111. 111.

    MazeDancer

    Trump lied under oath in his written answers to Mueller’s questions.

    Trump said he never talked to Roger Stone about Wikileaks.

    Rick Gates testified today that he was in the car with Trump when Trump talked to Stone about Wikileaks.

    Please add to Impeachment, Mr. Schiff

  112. 112.

    Elizabelle

    @germy: NBC re Mina Chang. How did she get the job? Access to Mike Pompeo. Two degrees of separation.

    NBC News: Senior Trump official embellished résumé, had face on fake Time cover
    State Dept. official Mina Chang claimed to be a Harvard Business School “alumna” who ran a nonprofit that worked in 40 countries.

    Whatever her qualifications, Chang had a key connection in the Trump administration. Brian Bulatao, a top figure in the State Department and longtime friend of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, attended a fundraiser for her nonprofit in Dallas and once donated $5,500 to her charity, according to a former colleague of Chang’s.

    Chang, who assumed her post in April, also invented a role on a U.N. panel, claimed she had addressed both the Democratic and Republican national conventions, and implied she had testified before Congress.

    She was being considered for an even bigger government job, one with a budget of more than $1 billion, until Congress started asking questions about her résumé.

    I remember the shitty hires in the George W Bush administration: remember how Pat Robertson’s shitty law school at Regent U staffed the Department of Justice? But the Trumpsters are a whole different kettle of fish.

    Now I am wondering about Brian Bulatao’s qualifications, other than being a friend of Mike. Off to check that out.

  113. 113.

    Mousebumples

    Met a friend for lunch in Oshkosh today (hometown of R-Russia Sen. Ron Johnson) and was surprised to see a dozen or so protestors lining the street downtown. They were holding signs that said Honk If You Support Impeachment and the like.

    My understanding is that the community trends to the conservative suburbia side, politically, but maybe that’s shifting in Wisconsin too?

  114. 114.

    jl

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: I don’t think picking and choosing who is a good or bad Jew is weird quirk of American antisemitism or anti-antisemitism of American antisemites. As Paul Krugman and Josh Marshall have pointed out, anti-semites have long claimed the right to decide who is a Jew subject to antisemitic sanctions and who is not. Part of antisemitism is the age old divide and conquer strategy of the powerful. Divide the out group to dilute their power, dupe some of the outgroup, and some in the majority into believing and hoping that the intentions of the powerful for the outgroup are not has bad or disgusting as they really are.

    So, you have the powerful deciding who is a good Jew versus bad Jew, good Pole versus bad Pole, good Black versus bad, good Italian versus bad, good poor person versus bad, etc. etc. etc.

  115. 115.

    Sab

    @Mnemosyne: I had a wonderful boss about 25 years ago whose son (who worked for us) was a toxic narcissist. I had never run into one of the creatures before. I don’t think his dad had either. He was amazing. He had no morals or compunctions about anything. He went into court one time as an expert witness in accounting, professing to be a CPA, when he clearly wasn’t. He was a lawyer. Who would risk his law license by pretending to be an accoutant, in court? He just assumed he could get away with it, and he did for quite a while because his dad was so impressive that nobody could believe that his son could be so bad.

    My step-daughter has ADHD and borderline personality disorder. Th e ADHD is probably partly genetics, but the borderline personality is probably more from having been dumped into an abusive foster care setting at age 4 when her mother went into a nursing home due to a degenerative neurological disease. Somebody called child welfare.

    She’s really a handful, and prone to manufactured or genuine crises, but she does have empathy, and she is a hell of a good mother to her autistic child.

    The narcissist I worked with had no concern for anyone’s feelings but his own, and he was always acting bombastic and feeling betrayed. He surrounded himself with a horrifying cast of characters. The really awful ones are still with him 25 years later. Everyone else got chewed up and spit out.

  118. 118.

    MomSense

    Too many motherfucking NAZIs in this motherfucking administration.

    Imagine with Samuel L. Jackson’s delivery.

  120. 120.

    Mousebumples

    @NotMax: I think they might still have a store in the Outlet Mall in town but I don’t think they are based there anymore. /random aside

  130. 130.

    Mnemosyne

    @Sab:

    She may already be doing this, but there’s a cognitive/behavioral therapy called DBT (Dialectical Behavior Therapy) that is very helpful for people with BPD. It’s also the only Cluster B personality disorder that can be helped with therapy — the other Cluster B disorders don’t have enough empathy to be helped by therapy.

    psychcentral.com/lib/an-overview-of-dialectical-behavior-therapy/

    My SIL is pretty bad, but I think she falls into BPD rather than NPD because she does have some empathy. She just has a hard time using it when she gets upset.

    (She also once said that one of her therapists said that she might have bipolar disorder, but I don’t know if she pursued treatment for that.)

  131. 131.

    Steeplejack

    @germy:

    Love the canned chopper sound in the background. “This studio is just like Somalia, except we’re going for sushi after we finish this.”

  132. 132.

    Elizabelle

    Brian Bulatao does appear to have credible qualifications. At least, per this puff piece from a magazine. From the Fil Am (A Magazine for Filipino Americans in New York).

    West Point. Friend of Mike Pompeo. Army veteran, Harvard Business School grad, McKinsey and Co alum, co-founded an aviation business with Pompeo. Second generation American; father immigrated from the Philippines.

    Bulatao grew up in a small rural town in north central Pennsylvania and studied in the 1980s at West Point, which sparked his “enthusiasm for public service.”

    After West Point, he served as an active-duty Infantry officer for seven years, deployed during Operation Just Cause in Panama, and Operations Desert Storm and Desert Shield in Iraq. After serving as an airborne Ranger, he went to Harvard Business School and joined the consulting firm McKinsey and Company on graduating.

    At West Point, he became friends with a classmate named Mike Pompeo. It was that enduring friendship that brought them and other “trusted West Point” friends to co-found Thayer Aerospace in Wichita, Kansas, a company that manufactured structural components of aircraft for manufacturers such as Boeing, Cessna, Gulfstream, and Lockheed-Martin.

    Pompeo, a former congressman from Kansas, would later join the Trump Administration as director of the Central Intelligence Agency. When he stepped down to assume the position of State Department Secretary, he plucked Bulatao from the private sector and asked him to join him at the CIA as the Chief Operating Officer.

    As recounted by Philippine Ambassador to the U.S. Jose Manuel ‘Babe’ Romualdez in his column, “It’s obvious that they have remained close because one of the first things that Mike Pompeo did when he became Central Intelligence Agency Director in January last year is to bring along Brian Bulatao, first as a senior adviser and then as chief operating officer.”

    SO: How did Bulatao fall for the Mina Chang scam? What else don’t we know? Who else is pulling down 6-figure salaries, as did Ms. Chang (and as did Trump’s fired personal assistant a few months ago who was fired after the “Tiffany is fat; Trump won’t appear in a photo with her” brewhaha)??

  133. 133.

    jl

    Was going to make a comment on the topic of the post, but I am reeling from the sad stupidity and senselessness of it all. I made the mistake of looking at some of the links. Still trying to figure out Sailor’s senseless incoherent drivel about ‘citizenism’. Besides being ugly and hateful, these people are dimwits.

  135. 135.

    Elizabelle

    Yup. Bulatao sure is from HBS and McKinsey and Co. From first paragraph of his State Department bio.

    He has responsibility for driving excellence across all enterprise functions.

    I hate that kind of verbiage.

  136. 136.

    jl

    @Elizabelle: My guess is that credentials and qualifications are different than good judgement. Or maybe Chang had powerful connections that informed people that they should be nice to her, especially in terms of money given.

  139. 139.

    Elizabelle

    @jl: That’s not the half of it! Looking further at his DOState bio:

    he worked with the Director and Deputy Director of the CIA to provide overall leadership to the Agency, foster alignment, agility, and mission success.

    Alignment, agility and mission success. He sounds like Conan the Hero dog.

    Weirdly, Bulatao’s bio never touches on his association with Pompeo at Thayer Aviation in Kansas. It’s too busy with this kind of non-specific language (really, the whole bio is name-dropping West Point, Harvard, and McKinsey — but nothing else — and verbiage):

    He was Chair of the Board of “one of the largest technical colleges in the Midwest” but that never gets named either. Koch School of Business? Off to find out.

    ETA: Brian Bulatao is a very handsome man. And Mina Chang is a beautiful — if truth challenged — woman.

    I can see Trump or his underlings salivating over the diversity they are bringing to our fine nation.

  140. 140.

    Librarian

    I don’t think Trump has ever been held accountable for Miller. As far as I know, nobody has ever asked Trump why Miller has a job in the White House.

  141. 141.

    Sab

    @Mnemosyne: Thank you. I will discreetly poke around. What with the ADHD and Borderline, she needs lots of help ( which she will often listen to.) Then add the autistic kid on top.

    They live next door. Eruptions often leak over. We stand off but want to know what’s up.

    Mnem: Thanks so much. Over the years you have always given good, informed advice. When you didn’t need to, but you still bothered. Even on nearly dead threads.

  143. 143.

    The Moar You Know

    I had a close college friend who wanted to work for the State Department. FBI guys were contacting everyone she ever knew back to grade school as part of the background check.

    So the only vetting anymore is done by the press?

    @Sab: This has been the case since right after 9/11. An absolute lack of any real background checks. And it will stay that way until Americans demand better.

  147. 147.

    Elizabelle

    There’s a third Musketeer from Thayer Aviation, now at the State Department with Pompeo and Brian Bulutao. He is Ulrich Brechbuhl, and he’s been in the news recently too.

    He listened in on the Trump-Zelensky telephone call. He was subpoenaed to testify, but skipped the whole ordeal because he instead traveled with Mike Pompeo. West Point. Harvard Business School. Bain Capital. Thayer Aviation. Kochs.

    From his wiki page:

    His college yearbook describes him as a “hardworking and disciplined” student, … a “staunch Republican” who could one day be President of the United States if it were not for his “anathema toward politicians and the fact that he was born in Switzerland.” He was a classmate of Pompeo’s at West Point and later helped Pompeo found Thayer Aerospace.

    After leaving military service he completed his Master of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School in 1994.

    …. After graduating from [HBS] , he worked for Bain and Company, Inc., from 1993 until 1998. Brechbuhl joined Pompeo and two other college friends in founding Thayer Aerospace, which was partly funded by Wichita’s Koch Venture Capital, Cardinal Investment Co. and Bain & Co. He served as CFO.

  148. 148.

    Elizabelle

    @The Moar You Know:

    This has been the case since right after 9/11. An absolute lack of any real background checks.

    Wait. Are you saying that the Obama administration also dispensed with background checks? Because he served eight years, in between W and Trump. If you recall.

  152. 152.

    Captain C

    @tokyokie:

    I would have thought Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS, would have been dead or too old for him. Although I can kind of see the latter………

    With Miller, I can see the former, too.

  153. 153.

    Captain C

    @Steeplejack:

    If Miller appeared at an official event dressed like that (notice White House emblem/​logo/​seal in background), even Maggie Haberman would have to take note.

    “Steven Miller today arrived at the White House Ball today looking dashing in an outfit that some say is controversial…”

  154. 154.

    Mnemosyne

    @Omnes Omnibus:
    @Elizabelle:

    The one federal background check I’m familiar with does seem to show a familiar pattern: it was farmed out to an overwhelmed contractor who took almost 2 years to complete it while the subject worked on building nuclear weapons with a temporary clearance. (Fortunately, she was not a security risk in any way, shape, or form.)

    So it’s not so much that clearances are being dispensed with as that they’re taking WAY longer than they ought to and a whole lot of new hires end up working for two or three years on a temporary clearance.

  155. 155.

    debbie

    I can’t find it now, but the tweet i saw about Miller says he was also pimping eugenics theories approved by Hitler. Lovely.

    While looking for that tweet, I came across this demonstration of Bob Ross’s treatment of Stephen Miller:

    I have to post this whenever Stephen Miller is trending – it is known. pic.twitter.com/wc8yhQZP3o— Paul Lidicul (@PaulLidicul) November 12, 2019

  159. 159.

    Sally

    @Elizabelle: Yes, I can see exactly what her qualifications were. For these stupid men. Just see the look on Petraeus’ face in that photo with her. For crying out loud, man!

  160. 160.

    debbie

    Has this been shared? Trump should be very, very scared.

    According to NBC News, Bolton used his appearance last Wednesday at Morgan Stanley’s global investment event in Miami to mock Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner and suggest Trump’s approach to Turkey is “motivated by personal or financial interests,” according to a number of people who were present for the remarks. While the details were scant, one assumes that Bolton has a low opinion of Trump’s son-in-law inserting himself in matters of foreign policy despite having literally no relevant experience whatsoever. When it comes to Ivanka, perhaps he shared his take on the first daughter’s endorsement of former national security council adviser turned felon Mike Flynn, or the manner in which she and her husband obtained their top security security clearances. As for Trump, who has property in Turkey, putting his own interests above those of national security, well, it’s not that hard to believe a guy whose only principle in life is “how does this benefit me?” would bring such an outlook to the Oval Office.

  161. 161.

    B.B.A.

    Piece of shit kapo never figured out that the kapos ended up in the gas chamber with the rest of us.

    My ancestors made it out of Europe before the first war, because the Czar was bad enough.

  162. 162.

    brendancalling

    I’m sorry for saying this, but I would gladly see Miller exterminated. I’d watch, TBH.

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