Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

Democracy cannot function without a free press.

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

Do we throw up our hands or do we roll up our sleeves? (hint, door #2)

Prediction: the gop will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

The line between political reporting and fan fiction continues to blur.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

GOP baffled that ‘we don’t care if you die’ is not a winning slogan.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

We’re watching the self-immolation of the leading world power on a level unprecedented in human history.

T R E 4 5 O N

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

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

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

Celebrate the fucking wins.

So many bastards, so little time.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

With all due respect and assumptions of good faith, please fuck off into the sun.

She burned that motherfucker down, and I am so here for it. Thank you, Caroline Kennedy.

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

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

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

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Sunday Morning Open Thread: Dems Are Patriots, Repubs Are Traitors

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Sunday Morning Open Thread 13

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97Comments

  2. 2.

    Jinchi

    @zhena gogolia: ​What’s going on with Putin’s eyes in that last cartoon?

    I wondered the same thing and then I realized those are his very puffy cheeks. His eyes are squinted almost shut in joy.​

  7. 7.

    gene10

    It’s a pity more isn’t made of how damn weird Mike Johnson is.

    He  “adopted black son”, whose date of “adoption” Mike cannot remember and keeps changing stories about.

    He does not have a bank account. He doesn’t own or rent a home in his name, his wife’s name, or even another family member’s name.

    His religious views are probably weird as hell. He took his daughter to a “Purity Ball”. He’s in a covenant marriage with his wife. I’d also like someone to ask him how old he thinks the Earth is just to see him stammer around admitting he thinks it’s 6,000 years old.

    He’s one of the most powerful politicians in the country and very very far outside the mainstream of modern America.

  8. 8.

    Baud

    @gene10:

    He  “adopted black son”, whose date of “adoption” Mike cannot remember and keeps changing stories about

     
    Must be old and senile. /Hur

  11. 11.

    RaflW

    Biden performs better in Iowa than a generic Dem, and Trump worse. But Ezra says Biden should bow out, because why now?
    (Ans: He’s become a NYT brainworm victim.)

  13. 13.

    dmsilev

    @RaflW: I was just noticing the same thing. Trump is running behind “generic Republican”? I mean, maybe it’s just margin-of-error of this particular poll, but weren’t we told that Trump uniquely pulls additional people to the Republican side?

  17. 17.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    First it was Moscow Mitch.

    Now it’s Moscow Mike.

    Can anybody say “regulatory capture?”

    Republicans like Ike aren’t just turning over in their grave, they’re spinning at 1000rpm in it.

  19. 19.

    RaflW

    @Baud: I know of 8 families that have or will shortly move from Iowa City to Madison. I’m sure others have & will as well. The great sorting is ongoing in the US, so places like Idaho & Iowa get redder and MN, WI, the coasts etc get bluer.

  21. 21.

    Princess

    @gene10: I also think there’s a really good chance Johnson will be Trump’s VP candidate and thus potentially president. He ticks a lot of boxes for Trump.

  23. 23.

    Another Scott

    @sdhays: I suspect, but don’t know, that it’s a combination of things – 1) he doesn’t want to follow the rules, so delays and does the minimum possible.  2) he purposely has an incompetent staff, because 1.  3) his religion means that he wants to hide every cent from oversight and to avoid taxes, so nothing in an FDIC bank that he can avoid.

    He’s got a mortgage on his house, but it’s “owned” by some LLC or holding company or something.  Being a federal employee, he has direct deposit unless he somehow qualified for an exception.  But he probably moves money around so that he claims that he doesn’t have to report it.

    I will be surprised if it’s more than that.

    We’ll see eventually.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  25. 25.

    Gin & Tonic

    I wonder how “good Christian” Johnson feels about this:

    Russian soldiers have tortured and killed a local priest, Stepan Podolchak, in the temporarily occupied territory of the Kherson region.

    This was reported by @suspilne_news, citing the Kalanchak Administration.

    “They dragged Stepan out of the house barefoot and put a bag on his… pic.twitter.com/HiTdxCuelz
    — UNITED24 Media (@United24media) February 16, 2024

  26. 26.

    smith

    @Another Scott: It’s weird, though, how when he first became Speaker, all the media told us in breathless wonderment how very odd and suspicious his financial situation was, and then…nothing. It seems to me that this would have been a great opportunity for some aspiring young investigative reporter to make a name for themselves, but instead it looks like the entire media world quietly agreed to drop it.

  29. 29.

    Chris

    @dmsilev:

    @RaflW: I was just noticing the same thing. Trump is running behind “generic Republican”? I mean, maybe it’s just margin-of-error of this particular poll, but weren’t we told that Trump uniquely pulls additional people to the Republican side?

    The main thing that worries me is that IIRC, Trump overperformed rather than underperforming his poll numbers in both 2016 and 2020 – the kind of voters who crawl out of the woodwork for him but not for any other Republican, for whatever reason, seem to be the ones that polling has the most trouble picking up.

  33. 33.

    Jinchi

    @RaflW:But Ezra says Biden should bow out, because why now? ​

    I worried about Biden’s age in the 2020 election, but I roll my eyes every time a pundit insists that he should step aside now, with the primary season well underway.
    An incumbent president is always the best option if his party wants to win in a re-election year. Polls for Democrats would collapse if he was pushed out, especially if his VP was also rejected. It would be a declaration that the party thought his presidency was a failure, demoralize Dem voters and revitalize Reps.
    Even worse are suggestions like this:

    Well, then Democrats do something that used to be common in politics but hasn’t been in decades. They pick their nominee at the convention. This is how parties chose their nominees for most of American history.

    Ezra has always been obsessed with the political process and seems oblivious to the fact that most voters don’t want their leaders chosen in back rooms by politically connected insiders.​​​​

  34. 34.

    Chris

    @gene10:

    By public consensus, white-Christian-heartland “weird” is the only kind of “weird” you’re not allowed to identify as such.  Nothing they do is “weird,” it’s “folksy,” “authentic,” and “traditional.”  (Well, unless the white Christian heartlander is a Democrat.  Just ask Bill Clinton how quickly the hick stereotypes came out for him).

    Any black dude from the city that’s remotely as weird as him, of course, has had an FBI agent camped out in front of his house long enough to be used by birds as a migratory landmark.

  35. 35.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Jinchi: He has an advanced case of Westwingitis. He was a BS bro in 2020, and age was not an issue for him then even after his preferred candidate had  a heart attack. These journobros are not our friends, example # elebenty.

  36. 36.

    Another Scott

    @smith:

    I suspect they just moved on until there’s more actual information.

    WaPo from November:

    Or maybe he had bank balances so low that they’re below the required reporting threshold — which is $1,000 for any given account, so long as the combined value of all bank accounts (including those of spouses and dependent children) is over $5,000.

    This would suggest that the speaker was living hand to mouth. That is, whatever money comes in might be going right out the door.

    Those reporting thresholds matter only for a brief snapshot in time: the account’s balance at the end of the calendar year. So, if a savings account exists and was flush on Dec. 1 but got cleaned out by Dec. 31, he doesn’t have to disclose it in these annual filings, explains Jordan Libowitz, communications director for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a watchdog group.

    (Emphasis added.)

    He’s (most likely) either playing games with the rules, or blowing them off completely.

    Sounds like yet another bit of congressional ethics rules (like stock trading) that needs to be tightened up.

    Grr…,
    Scott.

  37. 37.

    Chris

    @Jinchi:

    It was already perfectly obvious in 2020 that if Biden’s age was really an issue, he needed to just not run and let somebody else take over.  The fantasy of Biden serving one term and then retiring patriotically was always some Aaron Sorkin brained shit that was never going to work in the real world.

    I remember actually being pissed at Biden for suggesting that he’d do that and in so doing throw away any incumbency advantage and leave his successor with the mess of having to defend “if you’re so proud of the last four years, WHY IS THEIR PRESIDENT RUNNING AWAY!  Even Joe Biden knows his policies are failed!”  Until other people corrected me to point out that Joe Biden had never actually said that, the media was just writing Washington fan fiction like they always do.

  38. 38.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @rikyrah: Oh boy, I foresee going down a rabbit hole later with my wife. Some of them went by too fast for me to think anything but.. “wait, I know that face” but I’ll bet if I pause it I’ll get upwards of 80%.

    Do I get credit for naming characters (Jason Walton) if I never knew the actor’s name?

  39. 39.

    sab

    @Baud: Hopefuly AG Yost trying to destroy the opposition in his party with his First Energy prosecutions will blow up his whole party instead.

    For those outside Ohio, a NE Ohio energy company bribed the state legislature and the utilities commission. Not sure why, something about the nuke plants. Ten years later utility consumers are still paying to finance the bribe, the briber was appointed to head the utilities commission, the governor is playing Col Klink (“I know nothing!”) , our Republican appointed federal US attorneys  did nothing, and finally our state attorney decided to attack to deflect from his disastrous abortion actions.

    Not a pretty sight, but I am okay with it if we can stop paying for the bribe with our rates. The bribe should come from shareholders pockets not ratepayers pockets

    ETA Hopefully all the bribery will be noticed in the next couple of election cycles.

  41. 41.

    lowtechcyclist

    @gene10: ​
     

    He “adopted black son”, whose date of “adoption” Mike cannot remember and keeps changing stories about.

    This one really calls for a thorough investigation, IMHO. We adopted our son, and I can tell you the day we got the call telling us about him, the day we first saw him at the baby house in Samara fifteen years ago, the day our adoption became final, the day we brought him back to the U.S., and dozens and dozens of details in between.

    You remember these things when you’re a parent. Something very fishy is going on here with this alleged adoption.

  44. 44.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Chris: When I drive through “Heartland” areas of the country and see so many White People in military fatigues, with terrible facial hair, driving ridiculously over-sized pickup trucks with gun racks covered in American flags and Bible verses, I always roll my eyes…like, yeah and we (Coastal Liberals) are the weird ones?

  45. 45.

    JML

    @Jinchi: DC political media has been praying for and dreaming of an open convention for years. If Biden dropped out now, it might actually happen, so of course they’re for it.

    But a lot of the political media really hates the Biden administration, because they’re “hard” to cover. the news is almost always policy-related, which doesn’t drive ratings. They don’t have scads of sources speaking off the record and stabbing each other in the back (and sometimes in the face). There’s not much gossip and almost no scandal, and after 4 years of TFG who provided endless material that required very little effort to turn into a story, they hate having to work for a living again. There’s no book deals waiting for people to package up next year, and someone must pay for it. Plus the fact that all of the media companies are pretty much owned/run by republicans so there’s no advancement in reporting things honestly for the Democrats, only pimping for the GOP.

  48. 48.

    hueyplong

    In October no one is going to care about what Ezra Klein had to say about what Dems should do in February.  Ezra himself will have moved on to some other equally idiotic shiny object.

    That might also be true of the civil fraud judgment just entered against Trump, which is why it’s important that many more cases are coming and why most need to be won.

  49. 49.

    SFAW

    @lowtechcyclist:

    I guess I’m one of those “fishy” parents. I remember my adopted son’s “plane day,” i.e., the day he arrived from Asia, but I don’t remember the date when he became a citizen, nor when the adoption was finalized. My wife might remember them — she’s much better at dates (etc.) than I ever have been — but I’m not even sure that she would.

    On the other hand, I do have a bank account, and our mortgage is in our names.

  50. 50.

    Salty Sam .

    @UncleEbeneezer: When I drive through “Heartland” areas of the country and see so many White People in military fatigues, with terrible facial hair, driving ridiculously over-sized pickup trucks with gun racks covered in American flags and Bible verses, I always roll my eyes…like, yeah and we (Coastal Liberals) are the weird ones?

    Great explainer here:

    https://popula.com/2019/02/24/about-face/

    …yeah, weird, and scary…

  51. 51.

    gene10

    @SFAW:

    How many years are you off regarding the dates you don’t remember? Johnson’s dates fluctuate from around 1996 to 1999.

  53. 53.

    smith

     

    @Another Scott: He’s (most likely) either playing games with the rules, or blowing them off completely.

    The game that immediately came to mind for me is him shovelling all his assets into a “church” that he himself controls, so he pays no taxes. That would be a scandal for a Democrat, but to Republicans he’d be a hero.

  54. 54.

    rekoob

    @rikyrah: @Ceci n est pas mon nym: For what it’s worth, I found a version on YouTube and it appears to be panning the CBS stars in reverse alphabetical order, starting with Demond Wilson and ending with Steve Allen, with all sorts of mid-70s luminaries in between, including CBS News folks.

  56. 56.

    SFAW

    @gene10:

    Year-wise, probably not off. [Although I have to confess, I’d need to check the docs to make sure I’m right.] I remember us all going to Boston for the official signing, I remember the guy holding our son for a picture, but a lot of the details are beyond my (current) recollection.

    ETA: I have to confess, I’m somewhat embarrassed that I don’t remember the various dates lowtechcyclist mentioned. I need to get my shit together and commit them to memory.

  57. 57.

    sab

    I replaced all the feliways yesterday. I cannot believe that mortal enemies Shadow, Dobby and Sadie are all snoozing in the same room today, but they are.

  58. 58.

    Another Scott

    @lowtechcyclist:

    TheRoot.com:

    But it’s Michael’s absence on Johnson’s official House website that’s most glaring to Talking Points Memo’s Josh Marshall. There’s no sign of a Black son in family photos or his bio, which reads, in part: “Mike and his wife Kelly, a former school teacher from Webster Parish and now a Licensed Pastoral Counselor, have been married since 1999 and have four children, Hannah, Abigail, Jack and Will.”

    This erasure has led some to question Michael’s existence, drawing clarification from his office. “When Speaker Johnson first ran for Congress in 2016, he and his wife, Kelly, spoke to their son Michael—who they took in as newlyweds when Michael was 14 years old,” Corinne Day, his communications director, told Newsweek. “At the time of the Speaker’s election to Congress, Michael was an adult with a family of his own. He asked not to be involved in their new public life. The Speaker has respected that sentiment throughout his career and maintains a close relationship with Michael to this day.”

    Day also told Newsweek the Johnsons did not formally adopt Michael because of the “lengthy … process.” Instead, according to the Daily Mail, the couple met Michael Tirrell James while they were doing charitable work and took the teen into their home after he became homeless.

    Without any formal paperwork or legal guardianship proceedings. Talk about head scratching. And we’re not the only ones who think so.

    “Isn’t that kidnapping?” asked lovegalore33 in a TikTok that has garnered more than 20k views.

    [ snort! ]

    As usual, he thinks the “process” doesn’t apply to him. Who cares about rules and the law about adoption??

    I suspect, but do not know, that he’s playing games with the word “adopted”. Claims him when it’s convenient to use him show what a “good Christian” he is; runs very far away when it looks like he’s a secret liberal to his racist voters.

    FWIW.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  59. 59.

    Jinchi

    @JML: But a lot of the political media really hates the Biden administration, because they’re “hard” to cover.

    Yes, “He didn’t do a Superbowl interview” is listed as one of the reasons Klein thinks Biden should drop out.

  60. 60.

    Philbert

    Here’s some good news: Tester leads in MT-Sen by 10%. Dems are solid, GOP 10% for Tester. I cant link but see KULR8.com poll by NonStop Local.

  61. 61.

    rekoob

    @rekoob: Further to my comment above, it appears that the children from “The Waltons” are gathered around Michael Learned, whereas Ralph Waite, Will Geer, and Ellen Corby are more or less in their alphabetical order.

  63. 63.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    Tangentially related to the “heartland” discussion. Just walked into a cafe and there was a man with a year-old pup there which suddenly decided I was scary or something and started barking. I knelt down, made friends, and all was right, dog got very friendly and kissy.

    He apologized for his dog’s unpredictable behavior and explained that the dog came from down south (Alabama) and he didn’t know about her early history, but she had some occasional weird agressions like that. I explained that our beloved Sam the Sort-Of-Beagle has a similar history, came from West Virginia at 18 months, didn’t appear to have ever lived in a house or know how to play, was mostly fine but occasionally weirdly aggressive.

    What are they doing to dogs down there?

    It’s fairly common for shelter dogs to be shipped up north here to PA because they stand a better chance of being adopted.

  64. 64.

    RaflW

    @Jinchi: These pundits are always salivating for ‘brokered conventions’ and other palace intrigue that is of no interest to rank and file voters.

    If they’re bored by the current process, then maybe go dig some dirt on weirdo Johnson??

  65. 65.

    RaflW

    @lowtechcyclist: There’s a Matt Gaetz – “son” Nestor vibe here that really, really needs some journalists to get curious. Can we pester Rolling Stone? They seem like the sort of outfit to get that this is odd.

  66. 66.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @rekoob: ​

    Two cameos I’m fond of that I spotted long after the Waltons had retired from the air: Will Geer is a crazy old-timer who likes to risk his life with grizzly bears in “Jeremiah Johnson”, and Ellen Corby is a customer of the Building & Loan who withdraws some tiny odd amount during the “run on the bank” scene in “It’s a Wonderful Life”.

  67. 67.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @Another Scott:

    Being a federal employee, he has direct deposit unless he somehow qualified for an exception.  But he probably moves money around so that he claims that he doesn’t have to report it.

    IIRC, there’s an exception if a bank account has less than $X. So likely he gets the direct deposit and immediately launders moves it elsewhere.

  70. 70.

    Kathleen

    @RaflW: The New Script Of The Week. Along with Biden really did willfully keep documents he shouldn’t have in spite of what is in Hur’s report. Or something. Two New Scripts to be copied and pasted.

  74. 74.

    Paul in KY

    @smith: Knowing our current state of journalism here in Murca, it’s probably just really hard to figure out the shenanigans involved. Much easier to obsess about Pres. Biden’s age.

  75. 75.

    Kay

    @schrodingers_cat:

    What should we call her.

    I don’t know what you’d call her but I call her smart. She’s telling them to do a protest vote in the primary and not the general.
    Our Arab American voters in Michigan are understandably very upset at what they see as lack of concern for the huge number of civilian deaths in Gaza. 25k is a huge number out of 2 million total people. It’s an issue for them and it isn’t going away and it gets worse the longer this goes on. A vote against Biden in the primary is a protest they can register without electing Trump. We better hope they accept this – they really can change the result in Michigan. I know that makes Balloon Juice patrons angry – that they have an actual issue they feel strongly about (and an issue on which most Americans agree with them) but such is the nature of our coalition – every single group is important.

  76. 76.

    Paul in KY

    @gene10: It’s probably that the black ‘son’ was mustered into his weirdo church and Johnson stood up there with him as ‘mentor’ or ‘bible buddy’ or whatever and he uses that as his ‘adoption’ of that person.

  79. 79.

    Kay

    @Formerly disgruntled in Oregon:

    I don’t think she’s the only Michigan pol doing this. The Balloon Juice belief that we can (or should) order these people to do X, Y and  seems misguided to me. They’re pissed. They have a right to be, in my view. Deal with it. They’re not sitting down and shutting up and I don’t think any other part of our coalition would either if they were looking at losses like this with no end in sight. I know it’s inconvenient politically- they know it too- that’s why they’re using it as leverage – just like every other group in the D party uses their leverage. They matter more than the dissenters in Brooklyn or San Francisco because of where they live.

  80. 80.

    sab

    @Kay: I agree with Kay on this. We have been iganoring Palestinians for my whole adult lifetime because we did nothing in the Holocaust. And now we are ignoring a Palestinian holocaust.

  81. 81.

    Kay

    @sab:

    Netanyahu told Americans in a recent interview that it was 1/10 civilians/Hamas dead. I mean, the lies are just laughable. 65% women and children but 1/10 civilian/Hamas. He thinks we’re morons.

  82. 82.

    Kay

    @sab:

    We talked about it on this blog re: Ukranian Americans in Ohio. We said if they wanted to they could have turned that race in Ohio and/or influenced Vance. We were all for it! Perfectly legit exercise of state political power where they are more powerful as a voting bloc because of geography. Why wouldn’t that apply with Arab Americans in Michigan?

  83. 83.

    Hungry Joe

    @Salty Sam .: DAMN, but that’s insightful. What would you call that form — graphic essay?

    I’m fascinated by guys who play dress-up military. Can’t help picturing them eagerly opening a freshly delivered package of duds and hardware, donning all, then racing to the bathroom to pose in front of the mirror.

    To be fair, I, too, used to strut around in military duds and hardware. When I was eight.

  84. 84.

    Bill Arnold

    @Kay:
    Yeah, Israel’s numbers are absolute insulting nonsense/lies.
    Israelis have claimed that Hamas had about 30K fighters. The adult male Gaza population (discounting people 65 and older) is/was roughly 500k. (cia factbook has 580K for males 15-64)
    Random killing by indiscriminate Israeli bombardments (in excess of 70 kilotons/4 Hiroshima bombs by now) would be expected to kill indiscriminately. IDF has killed more adult males than adult females, but only the excess could even plausibly be called dead fighters, and perhaps, just perhaps, the IDF is differentially targeting adult males. (The incident where IDF troops killed (Israeli) hostages waving white flags is suggestive of unofficial policy to kill surrendering people, let alone others.)

  85. 85.

    Bill Arnold

    @Kay:

    Netanyahu told Americans in a recent interview that it was 1/10 civilians/Hamas dead.

    Source for this? Israeli numbers are nonsensical, yes but mostly I’ve seen 10K dead fighters (aka adult males, perhaps) and “you-can’t-trust-the-Gaza-health-ministry”. Which is nonsense; the list they released in fall 2023 had names, gender, identity numbers, etc. And in previous conflicts their numbers have been found to be have a low error rate.
    The IDF has killed roughly 1.5 percent of the Gaza population so far, counting the known kill toll plus all the estimates of bodies and disassembled bodies still buried under rubble, and they have inflicted life-altering physical injuries on another few percent. Only lucky families have not been harmed.

  87. 87.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: I don’t know, he may really believe that. I heard an interview on NPR with an Israeli woman who said all she saw when they showed a crying child in Gaza was a terrorist who could someday kill her or other Jews. I think this view is probably more common in Israel than we’re comfortable admitting. To me it’s abhorrent. I heard Bill Maher say on one of his shows that all the college kids protesting what’s happening in Gaza are “pro Hamas”. Adam Schiff was one of the guests, and he said nothing to correct that!

  89. 89.

    Chris

    @Kay:

    The background to all this is that for longer than I’ve been alive, the underlying fact of Israel/Palestine politics is that Israel groupies are too numerous, too well distributed between the two parties, and too fanatical about their cause for any national politician to fall outside a spectrum that goes from “Israel is always right” to “both sides do it, but the Arabs are worse.” Lots of people have been raising alarms about this, from human rights groups outraged at the behavior we’re protecting to foreign policy professionals concerned at the damage it does to our influence in the region. But all of them were ignored, because The Voters Who Matter didn’t want things to change.

    Well, guess what? Now there are Voters Who Matter who do want things to change. And they don’t appear to care if that bothers anyone else, either. After the last fifty years, we can’t very well say it’s not fair that the shoe’s on the other foot.

  91. 91.

    dr. luba

    Detroit suburbs here–NW.  I was pumping gas at Costco, and a random guy decided to talk to me….told me he liked some of my bumper stickers.  Did not like the Obama or Biden/Harris ones–said he’d voted for Trump.  But that he never would again after January 6th. That it was unforgivable to him.

    I think there may be a lot more of them out there; hoping so.

  93. 93.

    Tazj

    @Gin & Tonic: I love for the media to ask him about. Of course he’d probably say something about how our borders are the most important thing right now. So important that he ran off for 2 weeks to do nothing.

    Conservatives are always complaining about people in the government getting paid to do nothing but they don’t have a problem with him.

  94. 94.

    StringOnAStick

    @dr. luba: My right wing reactionary father says the same thing, and so do the hard core R parents of a good friend, and they’re in TX.

  95. 95.

    frosty

    @SFAW: I’m with you. I remember their birthdays. I remember the month and year when we traveled to meet them, I remember the amount of time in each country, but not the exact dates. We never celebrated “gotcha” days; we just treated them like we would treat any child. They both know everything about their adoptions, they know the stories we tell, but it’s just part of their background.

    Every family is different, every child is different, every adoption is different. I am not staking out a position of how it should be done, just describing how it went with us.

  96. 96.

    frosty

    @SFAW: ​ I’m somewhat embarrassed that I don’t remember the various dates lowtechcyclist mentioned.

    I’m a little embarrassed too. But I have all the documentation and the dates are in all my old Daytimers, so I can look it up.

    And I remember the foster mother in the apartment in Santiago showing us how to feed our first, then leaving, crying. I remember meeting our second in the orphanage, then a few weeks later running across La Paz with him on my shoulders, to get to the office for his travel documents before it closed (at 12,000 ft elevation!).

    So dates, maybe not.

  97. 97.

    frosty

    @Another Scott: ​
     the Johnsons did not formally adopt Michael because of the “lengthy … process.”

    Well, sure, it’s a lengthy process. First you need the home study, then the sanitary survey (I had to stabilize some flaking probably lead paint). Then the 1040s, the references, the FBI Gold Seal letter, the verification of employment … it goes on. My guess is that they would have flunked one or more of these.

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