Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

Let’s finish the job.

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

The GOP couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

“And when the Committee says to “report your income,” that could mean anything!

A consequence of cucumbers

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

This really is a full service blog.

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

Happy indictment week to all who celebrate!

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

Thanks for reminding me that Van Jones needs to be slapped.

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Thursday Morning Open Thread: Ramadan Kareem!

Thursday Morning Open Thread: Ramadan Kareem!

by | 141 Comments

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Best regards to those who observe, and please forgive me if any of these tweets are less positive than I hope!


Reader Interactions

141Comments

  11. 11.

    Mai Naem mobile

    Where’s Amir? Ramadan Mubarak to him and all the others observing.

    Where’s Ruckus? I was wondering about him when I saw the clip of the little tornado in LA.

    Hope you’re getting better Anne.

  15. 15.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Baud: Grand daughterS! And they are beautiful, red of hair and eyes of blue, with smiles that light up the whole world. Liriel is a very affectionate child (my son is in trouble) who always has hugs and kisses for PawPaw and MawMaw and is very loving towards her new baby sister (that will no doubt change as Izara demands more and more attention from Mommy and Daddy) while Izara is a smiling, gurgling blob of burp and poop who hardly ever cries.

    Liriel cracks me up. Give her a hug and a kiss and say, “I love you…” and she replies, “Bye.” (due to the morning off to work ritual)

  17. 17.

    Betty Cracker

    @Baud:

    COVID is trying to sideline its greatest nemesis.

    LOL! So true!

    Anne Laurie has worked tirelessly to provide reliable COVID information to readers here for three years now. I’ve used information she provided in my own efforts to dodge the virus, to the extent that I really feel like I personally owe her a debt of gratitude. I know many others feel the same way.

    Thank you, Anne Laurie! And feel better!

  20. 20.

    schrodingers_cat

    Another Sufi tune  composed by A. R. Rahman and filmed at Mumbai’s iconic Haji Ali Dargah. Constructed in the 15 th century if Wikipedia is to believed.

    On screen is Jaya Bachchan (nee Bhaduri) and Karisma Kapoor

    This culture that celebrates  unity in diversity  BJP and Sangh seeks to destroy. By replacing it with a monoculture that has never existed in the subcontinent.

  22. 22.

    Kay

    Interesting comparison of Denny Hastert’s crimes and Trump’s crimes:

    The same summer that Trump’s team was seeking to quash these stories, another high-ranking Republican official was starting a prison term because of a case involving hush money. The story of the terrible crimes and the prosecution of former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert is very different from Trump’s story, but it nevertheless provides some useful points of comparison.
    When he was a high-school wrestling coach in the 1960s through 1980s, Hastert molested at least four boys. In 2010, one of them—referenced as “Individual A” in court documents—confronted Hastert, and the retired congressman agreed to pay the man $3.5 million to stay quiet about the abuse. A few years later, the FBI and IRS began investigating Hastert for making unusual bank withdrawals. While Hastert originally claimed to investigators that he was taking out the money because he didn’t trust the banks, his lawyer later told investigators Hastert had made the withdrawals because he was being extorted by Individual A.
    Recall that Trump also accused Daniels of extortion. It didn’t work for Hastert. He went to prison, but not for the reasons you might think. Due to the statute of limitations, Hastert could not be prosecuted for his crimes against boys, although he admitted to the abuse during his sentencing hearing. Rather, he was put away for illegally structuring the hush money payments. He reported to prison in June 2016, and ultimately served 13 months of a 15-month sentence.

    We always get these people on campaign finance – it’s the Al Capone/tax evasion for politicians.

  23. 23.

    narya

    @OzarkHillbilly: My maternal uncle started a ritual with me when I was tiny–he’d put his cheek up for a kiss, and, when I kissed him, he’d say “Best one I had all day!” This continued until he died in 2012. I can still see his smile.

  27. 27.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    It becomes an issue of fairness on the campaign finance. If Michael Cohen and Denny Hastert can do time for it, so can Donald Trump. The article makes the point that Trump only won in ’16 by the slimmest of margins- the “catch and kill” scheme by his friends in media may have been determinative.

  31. 31.

    Kay

    GOP gets ready to hide DeSantis travel info from the public:

    TALLAHASSEE — Citing an increase in public records requests for the governor’s travel schedule, Florida legislators are advancing a bill that would shield from the public any information about how and where Gov. Ron DeSantis and other state officials go.
    The bill would impose the first-ever public records exemption for the transportation records held by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the agency that handles the governor’s security.
    The exemption would take effect retroactively, prohibiting anyone from scrutinizing how DeSantis has used his state travel in the past and as he prepares for a likely campaign for the Republican nomination for president.

    Florida had some of the strongest sunshine laws in the country- it’s a shame DeSantis is dismantling them on the way out.

  32. 32.

    Baud

    As I mentioned to Amir yesterday, a lot of religions engage in fasting but I don’t think I could do it, much less for a month. Maybe it does teach self-discipline though, because I know I don’t have any.

    At least it’s not oppressive against others like too many religious actions are these days.

  33. 33.

    James E Powell

    Good Morning!

    Last night saw John Mellencamp at the Dolby Theater. He’s older, but he’s still got it. And I still love a rock & roll show.

    I’m a little tired, but I’m getting amped up to go out for my third day of picketing. No rain expected today, so there is joy in that.

  36. 36.

    Lapassionara

    Does anyone know what happened to Trump’s Muslim ban? IIRC, when he first imposed it, it was only supposed to last some months. Then it got tangled up in the courts, then the SCOTUS ruled in his favor, then I don’t know what happened next. What a nightmare.

  38. 38.

    gene108

    @Baud:

    I could manage the fasting. The not drinking anything during the day part, I could not cope with at all.

  44. 44.

    Lapassionara

    @Baud: There is. After I asked the question, I thought to ask Google. The answer is complicated because there were a series of Trump executive orders, but the one in effect on Inauguration Day was rescinded by Biden.

    I’ve become interested in the history of the so-called Moors in Spain, and their contributions to learning and culture.

  45. 45.

    Betty Cracker

    Ibram X. Kendi, scourge of the cancel culture panic purveyors, published a thoughtful essay at The Atlantic: “The Crisis of the Intellectuals.” I almost didn’t read it because I’m thoroughly sick of America’s self-important public intellectuals and their inane obsessions.

    But Kendi himself demonstrates that we can still produce people who do interesting work, so I read it. In the essay, he discusses how notions of what it means to be a public intellectual are changing, calls out some of the worst panic purveyors, including Ms. McArdle, and points out the danger of actual government-empowered censors like Ron DeSantis.

    Kendi also shares that a diagnosis of stage 4 colon cancer helped him overcome a bad case of writer’s block when he was writing How to Be an Antiracist. I had no idea Kendi had a life-threatening illness but was glad to subsequently read he’s since been declared cancer free.

  46. 46.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Kay:

    We always get these people on campaign finance – it’s the Al Capone/tax evasion for politicians.

    Is that the law being broken here?  I’ve read several stories about Trump, Daniels, and the hush money, and seen numerous other references to it, and none of them that I’ve seen have bothered to say what statute’s allegedly being violated.

    There’s nothing illegal per se about paying someone to keep their mouth shut about something that you don’t want others to know.  In fact, it’s part of our legal system: many legal settlements are predicated on the plaintiff’s agreeing not to divulge the terms of the settlement.

    So it’s the use of campaign funds to pay for this, then?  Good to know.

  50. 50.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: DeSantis has been undermining the state’s “Sunshine Laws” for years by expanding exemptions and redefining what counts as a public record. Media outlets had to sue to get COVID casualty data and records about the Martha’s Vineyard stunt. There’s a current suit to get access to Christopher Rufo’s communications with state officials on the New College takeover.

    Makes me wonder how much info the admin has successfully held from organizations that don’t have the money to file lawsuits.

  51. 51.

    Leto

    @Kay: they indicted John Edwards over his hush money payments to his former mistress as illegal campaign contributions. Hope the DOJ learned the appropriate lessons so they can secure a conviction here.

  53. 53.

    James E Powell

    @Betty Cracker:

    Seems to me – because I live far away & don’t know shit about Florida – that the same media organizations that are suing DeSantis for access to public records are promoting him as a great governor who ought to be president.

  54. 54.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    I don’t know if you’ve seen this but Trump is attacking DeSantis on Florida– affordability, crime, insurance rates, how FL students tested below NY students during and post covid…..

    It’s the best thing! I had no idea Trump would be so useful.

  58. 58.

    Geminid

    @lowtechcyclist: I’m not sure these were campaign funds per se. I think the campaign law violation would be failing to report what was in effect a campaign contribution.

    A second, criminal law angle (I think) is that checks reimbursing Cohen for the hush money were were deceptively labeled as legal fees by the Trump Organization.

    I expect all this will be laid out soon in an indictment. A friend noted another angle to this expected indictment: it could cover additional financial crimes unrelated to the Stormy Daniel’s payments.

  59. 59.

    Kay

    @lowtechcyclist:

    Cohen:

    Under federal law, individual campaign contributions are limited to a total of $5,400 for each election cycle, including primary and general election votes, and corporate contributions are barred.Conspiring to cause an excessive campaign contribution of more than $25,000 is an indictable offense and a felony.

    I think there’s been a kind of herd effect with media and pundits where they have decided these crimes shouldn’t be punished but campaign finance has always been used to snare crooked pols. The whole Denny Hastert crime spree only came to light because the FBI investigated bank transactions, where Hastert was paying hush money to his victim. They did that under campaign finance. Campaign finance laws are central to and essential for fighting corruption in government.

  60. 60.

    Betty Cracker

    @James E Powell: The local dailies are filing most of the lawsuits, and they’ve done a pretty good job of covering DeSantis. It’s the national Beltway press that fluffs the sour authoritarian kumquat.

  63. 63.

    Kay

     

    Gutting campaign finance laws or insisting they shouldn’t be enforced is an ideological position– it’s the position of the Republican Party that there should be no campaign finance regulations or laws.see: Citizens United.  Media shouldn’t take that position.

    It’s a felony. Why are they weighing in on which felonies should be prosecuted? Why is it ok to prosecute Denny Hastert and Michael Cohen but not Donald Trump?

  68. 68.

    Kay

    @eclare:

    In a blistering statement released Wednesday evening, Trump, a Palm Beach resident, said that Florida “has been successful for many years, long before” DeSantis became governor, before attacking what he said was the Sunshine State’s low rankings nationally in education, affordability, violent crime and more.

    All true, too. The conventional wisdom was Florida students would outperform students from blue states on mid and post covid standardized tests because blue states kept schools closed longer. But then the scores came in and CA and NY did better than TX or FL. There’s a lot of factors that go into whether children thrive or not and “school open” is just one of  them. FL and TX students did poorly for other reasons.
    Florida crime stats are bad. They have some of the highest crime rates in cities in the country. They’re real standouts on RAPE for example. Trump pointing out that Florida has a huge crime problem – a fact that media ignored for the last 6 years- is hilarious.

  70. 70.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    Extolling the virtues of Florida is such a big part of Wingnut Lore now – is Trump going to take that away from them? 

    They made Florida the test case for far Right governance. Now the GOP front runner says Florida is an expensive, crime ridden hell hole with shitty schools. Lol.

  71. 71.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Kay:

    I guarantee DeSantis has committed serious financial crimes as part of his political career.  Crimes, period.  It’s part of the evil.  People like him have already declared that morality is for little people and are indulging their most selfish impulses, so they can’t help buttering their bread in the process.

  73. 73.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: It’s weird that Trump of all people is telling the truth about what’s happening in Florida, but I’ll take it. It’s also funny that he never fails to take credit for putting DeSantis in office, which is also true, but a normal person might downplay that. It’s like when Trump was in office and he’d fire someone and then publicly say what a shit job they’d done. I mean, who hired them, dude? He never makes the connection between his own judgment as boss and the shitty employees. ;-)

  74. 74.

    Yutsano

    @Amir Khalid: ​Indubitably. It’s worth noting his minions gave up on copying his German style spelling technique until the very end.

    Side note: Ramadan Kareem!

  78. 78.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    Donald Trump:

    “For 2022, Jacksonville was ranked as one of the Top 25 Major Crime Cities in the Country, with Tampa and Orlando not doing much better.”

     

    We’ve had 6 years of breathless crime stories about NY and San Francisco and Chicago and “defund the police” with no mention that cities in red states with GOP “tough on crime” DA’s (like Jacksonville) have horrendous crime stats.
    Donald Trump had to say it. Our billion dollar media apparatus never reported it.
    How can you reduce crime rates if you refuse to look at the fact that “tough on crime” jurisdictions don’t do any better than “reasonable on crime” jurisdictions? If the ideological bent of the DA was determinative, Jacksonville shouldn’t be crime ridden.

  81. 81.

    schrodingers_cat

    Welcome to the electoral dictatorship that India is fast becoming under the BJP rule. Rahul Gandhi has been sentenced to 2 years in prison by a Gujarat court for defaming the name Modi.

    Mother of democracy*, indeed.

    * Seen on G20 banners, what that means I have no idea

    But people will still say oh but Rahul Gandhi is not oppositioning correctly. I mean the man walked the length of India recently to meet the grass-roots in the Bharat Jodo Yatra (Join India Journey). What else is he supposed to do?

    When I started following the BJP government’s shenanigans beyond what just the newspapers (even in India) reported I was a staunch anti-Congress person and would resort to lazy both-sidery arguments about the Congress and the BJP. But 4 years later I have come away with a grudging respect for both Rahul Gandhi and the Congress and its rank and file. They are far from perfect. But a lot better than the BJP or the upstart AAP (which is nothing but stealth BJP if you see their stances on Muslim bigotry)

  84. 84.

    JPL

    Manhattan Grand Jury is not discussing the trump case today.   They will meet Monday to discuss the trump case.

  85. 85.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Two prisoners in Virginia managed to escape their cell by digging a hole through a wall with the aid of a toothbrush but were apprehended within a few hours after being tempted to visit a pancake restaurant.

    In a statement, the Newport News sheriff’s office said two inmates were found to be missing during a routine head count around 7pm on Monday at the Newport News Jail Annex.

    It was discovered that John Garza, 37, and Arley Nemo, 43, had dug a hole through a jail wall using “primitive-made tools” fashioned from a toothbrush and metal objects.

    They then scaled a high prison wall and made good their escape.

    However, the two men were quickly found after being spotted by members of the public at an Ihop, a branch of the popular pancake chain whose name is short for International House of Pancakes.

    Well, that’s better than an Awful Waffle, I guess.

  86. 86.

    gene108

    @Kay:

    Extolling the virtues of Florida is such a big part of Wingnut Lore now

    So is Texas, which has a lot of bad social indicators.

  92. 92.

    Kay

    @gene108:

    Right. Exaggerating the greatness of Texas is a central part of wingnut (and centrist) lore.

    I feel like ignoring the crime stats is really egregious though, and an indication of bad faith. If you care about crime don’t you care about crime in Jacksonville or Houston or Memphis too?

    It’s…odd to only care about it if it advances an ideological narrative that it’s the fault of liberal DAs or “defund the police”. Are the police also very sad and having tantrums and refusing to do their jobs in Right wing jurisdictions? If so, why? No one said “defund” in those places.

  93. 93.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @NotMax: I’m not so sure. I rather suspect that if they were found to have escaped at 7PM they made it to the IHOP after sunset and the article doesn’t say if they ordered bacon or not.​

  94. 94.

    Kay

    @gene108:

    I don’t know if this is true but my husband and I recently visited Sedona and stayed at a fancy tennis resort for part of the trip and the people there were all from Michigan and Minnesota and Wisconsin. They told us there’s two distinct groups of retirees- east coast retirees go to Florida and retirees west or north of Ohio go to Arizona. The implication was they were better than the Florida retirees- more progressive, better educated, not Trumpy, ya know, RICHER  :)

    I love those “moving” trends- how groups of people end up where they end up. Anyway- we’re not moving there – we’re staying in the midwest- but it’s lovely to visit with great hiking.

  95. 95.

    Geminid

    @Betty Cracker: The San Antonio Express-News published a story March 9 titled:

       Bexar Sheriff Javier Salazar sends criminal case on DeSantis migrant flights to DA.

    ….Sheriff Javier Salazar won’t say what charges, if any, he is recommending that [DA] Gonzales’ office pursue or whether they include suggestions that it prosecute former San Antonio resident Petla Huerta, who became the public face of the controversy.

    ….Salazar said he is not investigating DeSantis but only those who had contact with the immigrants here.

    DeSantis could still get caught up in a lawsuit a Massachusetts civil rights law firm has filed on behalf of the migrants.

    The article gives a good review of the matter, and the presence of DeSantis henchman Larry Keefe at the airport. With a dog angle!

         After one of Salazar’s own officers used a police dog to sniff the migrants’ luggage the immigrants were loaded onto the jets under the watch of others including Larry Keefe, a member of the DeSantis administration (the Sheriff’s office said the deputy was misled, like the migrants).

    I bet that police dog could tell something fishy was going on.

  96. 96.

    Another Scott

    @Kay: “Our job is to report what politicians say.  Our job is not to check facts and provide information.” – Chuck Todd, probably.

    “Oh, but you didn’t report what the Democrat was saying about the Republican fraud Devolder-Santos!!” – Voter who is paying attention.

    “Santos wasn’t going to win.  He was irrelevant.  The fact that he did win just shows how feckless and worthless Democrats are.” – Chuck Todd, probably.

    It’s never the reporters’ or the paper’s fault.  The press is as pure as the driven snow, and if you argue otherwise you’re not a serious person.

    Grr…,
    Scott.

  99. 99.

    Kay

    @Another Scott:

    NY Democrats did do a lousy job on Santos. I know because I have a direct comparison- Marcy Kaptur almost single handedly painting her opponent as a liar because he lied about his military service. She and her campaign did that. The NY campaign could have done the same.

    National Democrats are putting 45 million into defending NY seats. I think it’s a waste of money without changing their Party leadership.

    I wish both the House and Senate Dem leaders weren’t from NY. I think they come out of dysfunctional, ineffective politics and hope that won’t infect national decisions of the Party.

  100. 100.

    Baud

    @Another Scott:

    Technically, it’s not their fault.  They are allowed to be as biased or partisan as they want to be.  More liberals just need to realize that that’s what they often are.

  103. 103.

    Kay

    @NotMax:

    Don;t get me started on Amish. I feel like I’m the only person who tells the truth about Amish. They’re very prominent in property transactions- land sales- and they are known as slippery – I would say dishonest. Just don’t take their word on anything if you’re “English” is all I can say- they think you’re a lesser human so therefore they can rip you off.

    I have yet to encounter a fundamentalist religious sect that was actually ethical or honest. I dont care what flavor they are, if they’re fundies they’re crooks.

  106. 106.

    Quinerly

    His ghost writer was still asleep this AM.

    In a morning post on his social media, Trump called  Alvin Bragg  a ‘Soros backed animal’.

  107. 107.

    Geminid

    @Geminid: The San Antonio Express-News story also noted a statement Sheriff Salazar made last October as to the crime that may have been committed:

        “Based on claims of migrants being transported from Bexar County under false pretenses, we are investigating this as a possible case of unlawful restraint.”

  108. 108.

    gvg

    @Steeplejack: I don’t think HE wrote that. Someone around him did. He allowed it to be published under his name. I hadn’t known he had anyone left who could think and write that well.

  109. 109.

    Quinerly

    @Kay:

    In Jan, 2020 I was on  the old SW Chief Amtrak route from Las Vegas, NEW MEXICO  to Winslow, AZ for a couple of nights at La Posada.  Everyone was coughing on the train and how I avoided Covid, I will never know. Went to the observation car to hang out for view, space, the bar. Observation car was all Amish, the attendant/bartender, and me. Amish men with young sons and grandsons playing checkers. Amish women with daughters and granddaughters….all sitting separate from each other in these little groups. I finally broke down and asked the attendant. She said it was always that way that time of year. Amish from the East Coast going to Tijuana. For dental work. Huge Amish community/outpost in Tijuana.

    Who knew?

  110. 110.

    Kay

    @Quinerly:

    Huge Amish community/outpost in Tijuana.

    I did. I deal with Amish a lot- the men. The women aren’t allowed to speak to strangers, generally.
    They’re a fundie Christian sect like any other but they’re romanticized in areas of the country where they don’t live. It isn’t all apple butter and egg noodles! They regularly show up on child abuse dockets and the young women often leave the sects – escape. When they leave they are vulnerable because they have no education or skills which IMO is deliberate- they keep their young people by making it impossible for them to leave. I think people think of them as sort of “back to the land” but it’s not that at all- it’s a harsh, rule bound religion that glorifies ignorance and denies young people an education and one this is just brutal to women and girls. And animals. They also run puppy mills and they’re notorious for abusing their horses. They basically starve them to death when the horse can no longer work. Anytiime you see a goup of horses offered for sale here as “rescued” they’re Amish horses that are 10 year old or older.

  112. 112.

    cain

    @Baud: You only fast till sun down then you can eat what you like.

    The hard part for a lot of people is abstaining for things like drinking and smoking. :-)

  113. 113.

    cain

    @Kay: I can’t help but think if congress had a republic president and congress that they’d just pass a law to not make that a felony. Someone should pass a law making it a crime to make a law that allows an individual to escape justice for a crime that they have already been charged with.

  114. 114.

    Quinerly

    @Kay:

    Knew about the background re abuse and animals. And, of course, I knew about folks going to Mexico for dental work. An acquaintance here in Eldorado just went to Juarez the other day to her dentist for extensive dental work due to a fall.

    I’m originally from Eastern NC. Huge Mennonite communities that have grown up over the last 40 plus years. I call them “Amish with electricity.” I think it literally started with a couple families, then a huge influx of families buying up farms, digging huge lakes/ponds to raise catfish. Big catfish industry now. I want to believe they are better as a community of folks than the Amish. My dad was a general contractor/custom home builder. He was revered for a period of time with this community near where my parents lived and where I grew up. In his last chapter of his life, he was the go to guy for new roofs, barns, buildings, porches, remodels. He would cut them the best deal. They always wanted to pay in cash. He ate for free in Yoders Restaurant. I would visit and ride around with him in his truck. His “fans” would stop him to meet his daughter. It was a symbiotic relationship….he made good $ of them. They got quality work done at a fair price. For some reason, these Mennonites didn’t build. It was all catfish, chicken businesses,  and country style restaurants.

  115. 115.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Kay: Next time you want a tennis resort vacation try coming out to TheCourts in the Free State of California.  It’s in Anza Borrego (where the wildflowers are currently blooming) and has a very cool, Palm Springs kinda vibe/style, lots of mountains and hiking nearby.  If you don’t mind sleeping in a cozy, vintage trailer, it’s really wonderful.  Kind of a tennis-lover’s dream.  We went there for my birthday in 2019 and loved it.

  120. 120.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Kay: You’re welcome.  One of the owners of that resort is a professional illustrator so every little detail is very design-oriented in  an Indie/hipster way that we loved (unlike the tacky, Mar-A-Lago ostentatiousness that is so common with resorts).  The owners are also quite progressive, which was one thing we worried about since it’s an area that is mildly-Trumpy (at least compared to Los Angeles).

  122. 122.

    StringOnAStick

    @Quinerly: There’s a whole industry along the border for dental care that US citizens can’t afford here, and it’s not just Tijuana.  Google “Molar City”.

  123. 123.

    Paul in KY

    @Kay: I lived in Homestead FL back in early 80s. I-95 passes over some very poor ghetto areas of Miami. Sometimes the traffic would back up on the interstate and gangs of youths would come up and onto the freeway and attempt to rob people, or they would throw burning tires and debris into the interstate to cause people to stop their cars. When I drove that stretch, it was never at the rush hour times that would have the stopped traffic and I wasn’t stopping for shit.

    So crime has long been a staple of Florida life.  Pretty sure the governor was a Dem back then.

  124. 124.

    Paul in KY

    @Betty Cracker: TFG only cares about what the action he does/says will mean to TFG in the immediate future. He has no fixed positions (except ‘Go TFG and fuck all the rest’) or stands, so he can contradict himself 5 times in a day and he sees no problem with that.

  126. 126.

    Paul in KY

    @Kay: A shitton of Michiganders head down I-75 to FL. I know as I have to avoid being run over by them when I’m on that freeway :-)

  127. 127.

    Origuy

    @UncleEbeneezer: I was in Anza-Borrego in January for orienteering. I stayed in a vintage trailer in someone’s back yard; I found it on AirBnb. It was pretty nice, although there was a windstorm one night and the trailer made a fair amount of noise.

    There’s a area called “The Slot” that is full of slot canyons to hike in. It’s south of Borrego Springs.

  128. 128.

    Paul in KY

    @Kay: I party with a Mennonite at the Derby.  He’s pretty cool to drink & bet the ponies with. Of course, Mennonites just dress like Amish. Otherwise, they are pretty modern.

  130. 130.

    Paul in KY

    @schrodingers_cat: I am so sorry that India (especially for the non-Hindu and lower caste Hindus) has come to what you report. So sad. Thank you for your posts and observations.

  131. 131.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Paul in KY: BJP has a very influential and determined minority behind it. About 30 to 35% of the population. Out of which about 2 to 5% are really committed. I know the type really well and how they think. Their leaders have written books about their love for Europe’s fascists and around me they were quite uninhibited in their hate speech because they thought that I was one of them and I was a little more than a child.

    They can be beaten but it will be difficult. They make me mad because they lie all the time and they also purport to speak for me.

    Reducing the number of seats they win on their own is going to be key in next year’s general elections.

    Thanks. Comments such as these keep me going. BTW our State Dept is completely aware of what BJP is doing. They issued a very critical report yesterday. I will find it and link it.

  132. 132.

    Geminid

    @Paul in KY: A friend got to know a Mennonite guy he met at a Shenandoah Valley community college back in the 1970s.. One day the Mennonite invited my friend to see his new muscle car.

    ” You mean they let you have these things?” my friend asked.

    “As long as it doesn’t have chrome,” the Mennonite responded.

  133. 133.

    Quinerly

    @StringOnAStick:

    Yes. I said I knew that in another comment. My point was back East Amish back and forth on the train specifically to Tijuana for dental care in apparently large Amish community in Tijuana. Related, I would say a good 25% of the people I know here in NM go to or have gone to Mexico for dental care.

  134. 134.

    Mel

    @Kay: Yes. Hubby worked in a social services organization when we lived near an Amish community. The hypocrisy and violence hidden inside the Amish community was astounding.

    There were illiterate 16 year old girls running away to try to escape arranged marriages to men in their 70s, wives who had endured years of physical and sexual abuse who only left when their daughters started experiencing the same abuse, kids who got brutally beaten for merely looking at a non- Amish teenager’s cellphone (all the while their parents got around the “no tech” rule by mounting phones on the outside of a house or in a barn near the road, standing for hours in the hardware store to watch a football game, paying locals to pick them up and drive them around. The Amish guys who used drivers regularly told hubby it “doesn’t count in the Lord’s eyes” as using a car if they sit in the back and a non-Amish person is driving). And the animal abuse was horrifying.

    Just a memory that comes to mind re: the hypocrisy. Part of my job was helping non-trad students acclimate to their first year of college, and working with students who didn’t have a solid educational background and had skills deficiencies that required extra tutoring, mentoring, remedial courses in reading, math, study skills, etc. before they could tackle their core courses successfully. This included several escaped and / or shunned Amish young women who were trying to build their lives. One theme that repeatedly surfaced was the stunning level of sexism and misogyny they each had endured, along with constant threats of vengeance from family, community, and god if they were in any way “impure” in action or thought.

    So… on my way to work, I’d stop at the local mom and pop convenience store every morning for coffee. We were in a rural dry county. Near the cash register was a large display rack of magazines. It was the usual suspects: People, US Weekly, etc.

    I had noticed a new rack visible near the back of the store the previous week, but hadn’t paid any attention to it until one of my exchange students from Germany said that she was really surprised to see the magazines that were on the back shelf. She wouldn’t say what they were, but grinned and asked me to walk to the back of the store and  take a look at the titles on that rack the next time I was there. I did, and there were some doozies, involving all sorts of fetish, heavy bdsm, etc., right there in the mom and pop mart in teetotaler Bible Belt upper South. They were sealed in plastic, but some of the covers were pretty explicit.

    I asked the owner how she was handling the new addition. She said that since she couldn’t sell alcohol, she figured that a wide array of porn mags would draw in new business and help her to stay afloat. As she said, “Can’t get them at the Walmart!”

    While we were talking she suddenly pointed at the back of the store and said, “I thought that local kids would be a big problem, trying to get into the magazines. But it’s not teenagers, it’s them that’s the problem. I can’t keep ‘them from tearing off the plastic and trying to sneak them in to the bathroom.”

    Lo and behold, an Amish man about 50 years old was at the rack, furtively checking out the selections, and trying to work open the plastic wrappers without tearing them. The owner ran out from behind the counter and yelled, “Don’t you tear that open!”, and the Amish guy fled.

    It became a regular thing – about three times a week, I’d pull up for my morning coffee run, and see a buggy parked outside the mom-and-pop (often with children or a small group of women and girls, silently waiting in the buggy) and inside would be an Amish man, perusing the porn magazines.

    (Apparently the store owner was related to the sheriff and to three people on town council, hence the Christian horde not going after her for stocking the magazines.)

  136. 136.

    Quinerly

    @Quinerly:

    Well, just educated myself a bit on the differences in Mennonites and Amish. In short, big split in 1693.

    “In the late 1600s, Anabaptist leader Jacob Ammann and his followers promoted “shunning” and other religious innovations, which ultimately led to a split among the Swiss Anabaptists into Mennonite and Amish branches in 1693.”

  137. 137.

    Mai Naem mobile

    @Kay: you can’t really compare Sedona to other retirees who come to Arizona. Sedona would be more like a less affordable version of Santa Barbara/Aspen. Go to Sun City or Sun Lakes in the Metro Phoenix area and they’re similar to Florida retirees.

  140. 140.

    Quinerly

    @Paul in KY:

    Now I am curious about the no chrome rule. It’s a slow news day.

    There’s lots of info about the Amish community in Tijuana. I’m getting a real education. “They don’t have to pay Medicare taxes or social security. They aren’t included in the Obamacare mandate. They can share health care costs the way they want, ignoring any regulations to the contrary.”

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