Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

Good lord, these people are nuts.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

The revolution will be supervised.

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

There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.

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

Text STOP to opt out of updates on war plans.

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

Bark louder, little dog.

Jesus watching the most hateful people claiming to be his followers

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

“A king is only a king if we bow down.” – Rev. William Barber

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls 2 years from now.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

SCOTUS: It’s not “bribery” unless it comes from the Bribery region of France. Otherwise, it’s merely “sparkling malfeasance”.

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

We can show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

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

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

Bad people in a position to do bad things will do bad things because they are bad people. End of story.

If you can’t control your emotions, someone else will.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / The Level of Lawlessness Criminality and Corruption Is Breathtaking

The Level of Lawlessness Criminality and Corruption Is Breathtaking

by | 227 Comments

This post is in: 

In spite of everything we’ve seen since 2015, there is still a voice in my head that’s saying “how can this be possible, how can our system not be able to do anything about this?”

When you believe in democracy, truly believe in it, and you have lived in one (even though imperfect) your entire adult life, what we’re experiencing seems impossible, and I think that’s part of what is holding us back in dealing with the breathtaking corruption and lawlessness  criminality.

Judges Consider Managing Their Own Security Force Due to Rising Threats  (Rolling Stone)

Federal judges, worried that the president could withdraw the U.S. marshals protecting them in retaliation for ruling against his administration, are considering managing their own security force as threats to the judiciary are rising.

The Wall Street Journal reports that judges discussed the idea of creating their own security detail behind closed doors at the semiannual meeting of the Judicial Conference, national policymaking body for the federal courts, in early March. Security committee members described increased threats in the wake of Trump’s attacks.

The judiciary’s fears of Trump’s reprisal are not unfounded. The president has withdrawn security protection in the past from those he perceives as his enemies, including his former secretary of state Mike Pompeo and former national security advisor John Bolton. Trump also recently ended Secret Service protection for former president Joe Biden’s adult children.

Democrats in Congress share the judges’ concern. Led by Sen. Cory Booker, they introduced a bill last week that would transfer control of the U.S. Marshals from the executive to the judicial branch, allowing the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and Judicial Conference to appoint a director.

“President Trump has made it abundantly clear through his words and actions that he does not respect the law, court orders, the safety of our judges, or our institutions,” Booker said in a statement. “Congress must act to move the bureau into the judicial branch. Our U.S. Marshals are critical to protecting the rule of law, and they must be able to do their jobs without political interference.”

It’s all so fucked up, and I’m not sure what to do to fight this more effectively.

 

Reader Interactions

227Comments

  1. 1.

    WaterGirl

    I know this is a tiny thing, but it distresses me that every time I try to select a Balloon Juice category for posts about what we’re living through, they all seem wholly inadequate.  If I can’t even fucking name it, how can I fight it?

    I would welcome suggestions in the comments for a category name that captures this moment.

  3. 3.

    Old School

    It’s exhausting.

    How about “breathtaking corruption and lawlessness” for the tag?

  4. 4.

    Old School

    The last living grandson of the 10th U.S. President John Tyler has died at 96 years old — the end of a link to a bygone era of American history.

    Harrison Ruffin Tyler died on Sunday evening, May 25, his family said in a statement to CBS News. His grandfather, who was born in 1790, left the Oval Office more than 179 years ago, after serving from 1841 to 1845, well before the Civil War. President Tyler’s immediate descendants lived into the modern age because of two generations of late second marriages to much younger wives.

  6. 6.

    band gap

    I think the term “criminality” better conveys the trump administration’s behavior than “lawlessness”.  It was used by one of the judges that ruled against orange anus.

  7. 7.

    Scout211

    And decide the outcome of a government study, use AI to “find”  the scientific studies to back your chosen outcome and you have The MAHA Report.

    Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says his “Make America Healthy Again” Commission report harnesses “gold-standard” science, citing more than 500 studies and other sources to back up its claims. Those citations, though, are rife with errors, from broken links to misstated conclusions.

    Seven of the cited sources don’t appear to exist at all.

    The corruption is breathtaking.  The timid Republicans in Congress are such cowards and are getting strong pushback from their constituents at town halls but so far, that has not moved them to act in any way other than to let the corruption and lawlessness continue.

  8. 8.

    Chief Oshkosh

    The conservative judges and justices, especially those who are members of the Federalist Society, are part of the problem. They played a big part in allowing Republicans to this point. I hope they go to bed every night fearing for their lives and the lives of their loved ones, because that’s what they’ve ensured for the weakest and most isolated in our society.

  9. 9.

    Suzanne

    When you believe in democracy, truly believe in it, and you have lived in one (even though imperfect) your entire adult life, what we’re experiencing seems impossible, and I think that’s part of what is holding us back in dealing with the breathtaking corruption and lawlessness.

    This is what I mean when I say that I don’t think we (royal we, liberals) were really imaginative enough, and we underestimated how hated we are by the right. We are taken off-guard, because we are mostly good-hearted people, and we didn’t realize what we are up against, how deeply felt the urge to dominate and destroy really is over there.

  12. 12.

    rikyrah

    You have an entire political party that doesn’t mind threatening a branch of government. They think that it’s ok.

    We can’t find “common ground” with these ghouls.

  15. 15.

    Timill

    @WaterGirl: What are the constraints (eg max length) for a category?

    Suggestions:

    Decline and Fall
    The Fall of the American State
    Into the Abyss
    After the Coup
    More Doom & Gloom
    Things Fall Apart

  16. 16.

    West of the Rockies

    Trump and Comp. have been “flooding the zone” with chaos and incompetence from Jan. 21sr.  But you flood the zone enough and you drown your own camp, too.

    It’s easy to lose faith, but Trump is decaying before our eyes (not fast enough, I know).  Physically, cognitively, politically, and in terms of his political capital. Keep fighting, folks!

  17. 17.

    rusty

    Maybe all those Federalist Society judges could take a look in the mirror.  The threat of withdrawal of the marshals is from a conservative president, and I am guessing that most of the threats are from the gun-toting right.  They have worked hard to create this mess, maybe they could actually be accountable and take responsibility for what they have created.  Of course that would require not acting like the reactionaries they are on the bench, so it’s not going to happen.

  19. 19.

    rusty

    Suggestions for tag:  Arsonists burning down their own house, Drunks at the wheel, Parachutes are for wimps. Hate and Chaos as governing principles, Playing Russian roulette with the US

    More sympathetically:  Grieving for our nation,

  20. 20.

    Jeffg166

    @Old School:

    My father’s grand parents were born in 1857. It’s weird to think my grandfather’s parent were kids during the civil war.

  21. 21.

    Ruckus

    @Suzanne:

    It’s not impossible but it is unusual. We’ve had this country without very many tries to a monarchy for a long time. Of course they are trying to make it a stupidarchy, what with shitforbrains the leader, a guy who inherited a fair amount of money, who has done absolutely nothing for anyone else, and actually very little even for himself other than to decide that if he can’t have everything then he’ll do what? Give up or destroy it, and he has zero idea how to give up. But does know how to screw up, and he’s very, very good at that. It’s possibly the only thing he’s got. When I was in the USN we had screwups – guys that refused to fit in or even try. Now that never actually worked for them but still they held that concept that they were too good to do what they volunteered for. They weren’t too good – they were too stupid, pompous and arrogant. And they always ended up paying a price for it. Now we have the same character with all the same views in charge of a country, with the same views of himself, all of which he continues to prove are stupid, asinine and actually about as smart as drinking bleach.

  26. 26.

    Chacal Charles Calthrop

    When I think of the “Trump era,” I think of the British foreign secretary Edward Grey who said re WWI, “the lamps are going out all over Europe, we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime.”

    So I propose “the lamps are going out” for what Trump and his ilk are doing to this country & climate.

  30. 30.

    Jackie

    @West of the Rockies:

    Trump is decaying before our eyes (not fast enough, I know).  Physically, cognitively, politically, and in terms of his political capital.

    And yet, the MAGA congress will continue to enable and prop him up day after day after day. THEY are the roots of this dilemma. Nov 2026 is way too far away.

    In the meantime we have to hope our justice system stays strong (and alive!) and continues to fight FOR us.

  32. 32.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Timill:

    Suggestions:

    Decline and Fall
    The Fall of the American State
    Into the Abyss
    After the Coup
    More Doom & Gloom
    Things Fall Apart

    I particularly like “Into the Abyss” because that’s where they’re doing their level best to take us.

  33. 33.

    Professor Bigfoot

    When the crooks take over the police department and the prosecutor’s office, what the fuck can you do?

    For real— anyone who’s looked at the history of authoritarian regimes knows the first thing the dictator does is grab control of the power ministries.

    Here that’s DoD, DoJ, and the FBI. ALL headed by his henchmen. By his OBVIOUSLY corrupt henchmen.

  36. 36.

    Jackie

    transfer control of the U.S. Marshals from the executive to the judicial branch

    This is needed. But will it get to a vote?

  37. 37.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Jeffg166:

    I knew four of my eight great-grandparents. Grampa Kievlan, who died when I was about five, served in both the Civil War and the Spanish-American War. He was too young to enlist in the first instance and too old in the second, so he lied about his age both times.

  38. 38.

    WTFGhost

    @WaterGirl: Totally Trumpian? If you wanted a tag for senseless evil, “totally Trumpian” seems appropriate. “Trump-ick” also works. “Bad faith” is also appropriate, but it’s not sufficiently dramatic sounding.

  39. 39.

    RandomMonster

    @WaterGirl: I would welcome suggestions in the comments for a category name that captures this moment.

    Hellscape
    Our Current Hellscape
    Hell Sweet Hell

  40. 40.

    Steve LaBonne

    @Professor Bigfoot: Next step is the courts. Let’s hope ours are able to hold the line. The many many court decisions that have been going against Trump stall his momentum and sap some of his political capital, which gives us a fighting chance. The fact that he’s so obviously and visibly demented also eats into his aura of power.

  42. 42.

    Steve LaBonne

    If we can manage to hold on and then get Democrats over the top in 2028,Trump (if he’s still alive) may be immune but his creatures are not. Musk for example has committed numerous Federal crimes for which, in my understanding, the statute of limitations is 5 years.

  43. 43.

    Ruckus

    @WaterGirl:

    A category?

    If you wanted swearing I could give you a fair number of descriptions, having been at one time in the USN.

    But without going there the best I’ve got is worst category of human traits that are stupid, obnoxious, pompous, jackass, and designed to  show that the human holding them is far stupider than his education, and upbringing should have provided for. And his stupidity is not his intellectual side (he has one?) but his view of himself as if his money had bought him a personality. And it may have, it’s just that he’s paid way, way, way too much for what he got, because anything over 2 cents was too much. Way too much.

  47. 47.

    Professor Bigfoot

    @Steve LaBonne: Ah, but even if the courts continue to rule based on the Constitution, who will enforce their orders?

    Ultimately it ALWAYS comes down to men with guns, and at this point he owns all of ‘em.

    The “official” ones, anyway.

  48. 48.

    karen gail

    The US is like an old house that people keep patching, repairing, fixing the obvious in plain sight things while ignoring that the very foundation is rotting.

    One of the blogs/daily posts I read commented the Trump oligarchy is the third incarnation of oligarchy.

    The first being the “founding fathers;” these were wealthy, white, male slaveowners who broke away because British was outlawing slavery. It was dressed up, much like the red hats and rants about ‘draining the swamp,’ but it boiled down to fear of losing what power and riches they had gathered on the back of slaves and indentured servants.

    The second time was the time of the “robber barons” which ended in 1920’s. These were people who built their wealth and empires on the backs of workers in company towns, factories and prison farms.

    Now we have billionaires; not just buying the government but running it. We have an idiot in Oval Office who has no clue about what is happening other than he has the power to bully other countries and seek revenge one enemies real and perceived.

    Side note; one thing that Michelle Obama brought up and has been ignored or swept aside was that the White House was built with slave labor, it was built as the biggest, fanciest plantation house and highlights that US is still deep inside the same slave owning mentality as the founders of country.

    We as a people have enabled ICE and LOA to act like slave catchers, worse we give police immunity when they shoot and kill innocent black people.

  49. 49.

    Melancholy Jaques

    @Steve LaBonne:

    Next step is the courts. Let’s hope ours are able to hold the line.

    I hope for the best, but don’t believe they are reliable.

    Everything depends on the midterms. And by that I don’t mean do nothing in the meantime, I just mean we have to win the midterms and we have to be working toward that right now.

    It is frustrating that it is so hard to get the general public and persuadable voters to realize the degree to which that asshole and his cohort are corrupt and criminal.

  50. 50.

    Professor Bigfoot

    I’m in favor of Today’s Fresh Hell.

    It’s the kind of snark and dark humor that I come to Balloon Juice for.

  54. 54.

    Steve LaBonne

    @Melancholy Jaques: I don’t think the midterms will save us. Trump is trying to rule by decree and intends to ignore Congress once it passes the Big Beautiful Bullshit. Even in the unlikely event of a slim Senate majority along with the House, there is very little that can be done. Frightening though it is, we are very highly dependent on the courts preventing Trump from completely shredding the Constitution.

  56. 56.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Professor Bigfoot:

    Ah, but even if the courts continue to rule based on the Constitution, who will enforce their orders?

    Exactly.  Which is why (just to pick one item off the list) Kilmar Abrego-Garcia is still in El Salvador.

  57. 57.

    Another Scott

    @WaterGirl: “The only way out is through” is kinda where I am most days.

    Apparently, it’s from Robert Frost:

    […]

    But I don’t count on it as much as Len.
    He looks on the bright side of everything,
    Including me. He thinks I’ll be all right
    With doctoring. But it’s not medicine –
    Lowe is the only doctor’s dared to say so –
    It’s rest I want – there, I have said it out –
    From cooking meals for hungry hired men
    And washing dishes after them – from doing
    Things over and over that just won’t stay done.
    By good rights I ought not to have so much
    Put on me, but there seems no other way.
    Len says one steady pull more ought to do it.
    He says the best way out is always through.
    And I agree to that, or in so far
    As that I can see no way out but through –
    Leastways for me – and then they’ll be convinced.
    It’s not that Len don’t want the best for me.

    […]

    Hang in there, everyone. (You too, Baud.)

    Best wishes,
    Scott.

  59. 59.

    WTFGhost

    @Old School: I’d just make it “Breathtaking corruption” for punchiness’ sake.

    @band gap: “Criminality” does work well, and I think it’s better than “corruption” except for rhythm. (“Breathtaking corruption” is 2 three-syllable-words, “criminality” is a four-syllable.)

    @Ruckus: Unfortunately, Trump can’t earn himself a Big Chicken Dinner, and let us off the hook, as some of the screwups in the ranks can. (Big Chicken Dinner = Bad Conduct Discharge)

    @rusty: “Grieving…” is good – something has died, or some innocence is lost.

  60. 60.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    @WaterGirl: For a category: maybe “The End of the American Dream”, or “The American Dream Is Now a Nightmare”, or even more bleak, “The Decline and Fall of America”.

  65. 65.

    Omnes Omnibus

    I will just note that a lot of the suggestions here seem to accept the inevitability of what is happening.  As such, I do not think they are good choices.  If you can’t see your way clear to a bit of hope for our future, how about a little stubbornly bull-headed refusal to let those fuckers win?  And with that, I will probably bounce from this thread.

  66. 66.

    WTFGhost

    For taglines, continued suggestions:
    “Is evil, in fact, winning? News at 11” — or “at 6:66”

    “Depths of depravity”

    “Extravagantly evil”

    “Final Circle of Hell” — if you want to go all classics, for betrayal.

    “Endless despair”

    “Conservativism Kakistocracy”

    “USA: Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Enter

    And my sudden pedantic favorite:
    “Precisely what the founders worried about”

  68. 68.

    lowtechcyclist

    @karen gail:

    One of the blogs/daily posts I read commented the Trump oligarchy is the third incarnation of oligarchy.

    The first being the “founding fathers;”

    The problem I have with seeing the Founding Fathers as an oligarchy is that that was pretty much the whole Western world in 1776.  Well-off landowners and businessmen were about as far as power had worked its way down from kings and princes and dukes.  That was democracy to the extent that it existed.  Widening the franchise to where it is now has been a long, slow, intermittent process.  (And given the obstacles that red states are throwing up to make it harder to vote, we ain’t nearly done yet.)

  70. 70.

    Belafon

     I’m not sure what to do to fight this more effectively

    Sometimes, some problems can only be solved by doing the hard work. You can spend too much time trying to think of more efficient ways. The only way through the mud is one step at at time.

  76. 76.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Omnes Omnibus: Some commenters may not be what they seem on the surface. Especially ones that have arrived more recently and seem to be trying a persona which keeps shifting.

    The US is far more resilient than what either the MAGAs or tankies think. Day to day things are not going to change much. Rest up for the 2026 midterms.

    The trolls and bots feed on our outrage. Deny them their joy. Fuck them.

  78. 78.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Omnes Omnibus: ​And speaking of hope for the future, my bright spot for the day.

    My daughter lives in the area between Baltimore and DC. Her daughter is in the 4th grade at a local public school. Today was “multicultural day” there (I don’t know if just 4th grade) and I was just sent a picture. Twenty 10- and 11-year-olds in various forms of traditional dress holding little flags representing their country of origin/heritage. Can’t see them all well in the photo, but it’s clear there are students representing east and south Asia, Africa, Central and South America and eastern and western Europe. This is the U.S. I know and was taught to respect, and I just pity the narrow, constipated worldview that now seems to be in vogue which cannot see this as a unique strength of this nation. I mean, you can move from Somalia or Estonia to Baltimore and become an American; you can’t move to Osaka and become Japanese.

    That photo lifted my heart this morning.

  81. 81.

    Kirk

    @Professor Bigfoot:

    That is actually the part that has me spending part of my day getting away from.

    They officially hold all the official guns. But I’m not sure they hold all of them, and despite what they believe they don’t have that large a margin in holders of unofficial guns.

    And I pray each day that we really don’t have to find out what the true distribution is – of official or unofficial holders of guns.

  85. 85.

    Soprano2

    @Suzanne: The irony is that if they did manage to stomp us all into the ground, they’d discover that they aren’t any happier or better off so they’d have to find a new “enemy” to blame all of their problems on.

  89. 89.

    Leto

    @Omnes Omnibus: ​
    Enough to help rebuild the White House.

    Q: Did enslaved people help rebuild the White House after the British burned it down in 1814?

    A: Enslaved laborers were involved in the reconstruction of the White House. Evidence suggests that there were fewer enslaved workers involved in the reconstruction than the initial construction of 1792-1800.

    Q: Which U.S. presidents relied on enslaved labor at the White House?

    A: According to surviving documentation, at least nine presidents either brought with them or hired out enslaved individuals to work at the White House: Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, Martin Van Buren, John Tyler, James K. Polk, and Zachary Taylor.

    The White House Historical Association.

  90. 90.

    Eyeroller

    @Omnes Omnibus: ​
    As we know, a big reason for the dysfunctional system we ended up implementing was the bitter fights between slave and free states. It’s a significant oversimplification to say it was all on the slavers, but they had too much influence because most of the largest (in population) states at the time were slave states.

    Britain didn’t outlaw slavery until 1833 (!) so that wasn’t an immediate motivation, but there concerns. Also the merchant and professional class in free states were tired of British mercantilism. So there was self-interest on both sides.

    The best example of a region leaving because the government was going to outlaw slavery was Texas seceding from Mexico. That’s what the Texas Revolution was all about.

  92. 92.

    Belafon

    @Kirk: At most, a person can fire two handguns at one time. For all other guns they can only fire one at a time.

  93. 93.

    WaterGirl

    @Leto:

    According to surviving documentation, at least nine presidents either brought with them or hired out enslaved individuals to work at the White House:

    Wow.  That provides a certain perspective, doesn’t it.  All men are created equal, except the ones that aren’t.

  96. 96.

    Kirk

    A small argument I got into many years ago – multiple times – was about the US being “melting pot”. I argued instead that we are a salad bowl.

    A melting pot implies we all become the same. Salad bowl? A wide mix of things that retain their individual uniqueness while forming part of a greater whole.

    To objectors I would ask what the only BBQ or Pizza should be, feed the arguments, then ask if they were sure we were a melting pot. Sometimes it worked.

  98. 98.

    Timill

    @Eyeroller:

    Britain didn’t outlaw slavery until 1833 (!) so that wasn’t an immediate motivation, but there concerns.

    As we have discussed here recently, slavery in England was made unlawful in 1772. In Scotland, it was 1778, and in Ireland apparently 1833.

  100. 100.

    WTFGhost

    It’s all so fucked up, and I’m not sure what to do to fight this more effectively.

    Well, what are your real-life superpowers? Do you have super speed? Invisibility? Can you fly without visible means of support? Have you been given a ring by some strange looking fellows, who swear it makes you an intergalactic policeperson?

    Friend, sometimes, there’s nothing you can do, and if you let that dig into you too deeply, it causes the worst kind of wounds, the ones that drag you down to despairing moods that sound all romantically powerful, but are, in fact, like long crowded bus trips to other bus company’s bus stations, so you can take another long bus trip, which might end… someday. Despair is best when viewed as a montage – someone else’s montage.

    If you don’t have any superpowers, then, think of this: every time Superman takes a nap, there’s a good chance someone dies that he could have saved. You don’t have that power; therefore, you don’t have that responsibility; therefore ,you can take a nap almost any time you want, and hope you feel just a tiny bit less despairing when you wake up.

    (Hm. Reminds me of a person who had a recipe for cranky partners, cookie, nap, and (ahem) personalized sexual activity, oral-in-type. Take care of the needs that are most obviously potentially deficient (“hungry? Tired? Lonely/deprived feeling?”), and it might put them to right in all ways. Imma stopping right here before this gets creepy.)

    Thing is, you don’t have to worry about how to stop Galactus; the Fantastic Four usually handles him without us even noticing; you only have to worry about being Watergirl, and that, only after you dash into a phone booth and switch from your civilian identity. You don’t have to stop out of control Presidents, or protect vast numbers of judges. That said, if you come up with good ideas (and you often do), you’ll have lots of people who perk up. That’s not nothing.

  105. 105.

    Marc

    @Gin & Tonic: This is the U.S. I know and was taught to respect, and I just pity the narrow, constipated worldview that now seems to be in vogue which cannot see this as a unique strength of this nation.

    The same with me.  In fact, until I was 6 my world was a diverse multi-cultural place filled with black and white family and friends from the US along with immigrants from various islands, and we all played and looked out for each other.  Then we moved to the suburbs and I suddenly discovered there’s a wider world where that just wasn’t the way things were going to work.

  106. 106.

    Eyeroller

    @Leto: Doesn’t mean that all those Presidents owned the slaves.  The ones from Virginia definitely owned slaves but I would question whether they’d want to risk their personal “property” on anything dangerous like some types of construction work.  But Virginia and Maryland were slave states and slaveholders frequently “rented” their slaves for construction projects and the like.  They would have been an abundant, cheap labor force in the area at the time.

    I know the most about Jefferson and he had a number of skilled-labor slaves and his own nail factory (staffed by slave boys and teenagers) so he would likely have utilized some of those people’s efforts, but for the main work a lot was probably “day labor” from nearby plantations.

  107. 107.

    Leto

    @Timill: ​
    and yet it continued unabated until “the Slave Trade Act 1807 prohibited the slave trade in the British Empire. However, it was not until 1837 that the trade of slaves was made illegal throughout the empire, with Nigeria and Bahrain being the last British territories to abolish slavery.”

    From the same article:

    In 1772, Somerset v Stewart held that slavery had no basis in English law and was thus a violation of habeas corpus. This built on the earlier Cartwright case from the reign of Elizabeth I, which had similarly held the concept of slavery was not recognised in English law. This case was generally taken at the time to have decided that the condition of slavery did not exist under English law. Legally (“de jure”) slave owners could not win in court, and abolitionists provided legal help for enslaved black people. However actual (“de facto”) slavery continued in Britain with ten to fourteen thousand slaves in England and Wales, who were mostly domestic servants. When slaves were brought in from the colonies they had to sign waivers that made them indentured servants while in Britain. Most modern historians generally agree that slavery continued in Britain into the late 18th century, finally disappearing around 1800.[14]

    Slavery elsewhere in the British Empire was not affected — indeed it grew rapidly especially in the Caribbean colonies. Slavery was abolished in the directly governed colonies, like Canada or Mauritius, through buying out the owners from 1834, under the terms of the Slavery Abolition Act 1833.[15] Most slaves were freed, with exceptions and delays provided for territories administered by East India Company, in India, Ceylon, and Saint Helena. These East India Company exceptions were eliminated in 1843, though slave holdings, within the indirectly ruled Indian Princely states, were still being captured by the 1891 Census of India.[16][17] While in indirectly ruled British Protectorates, incorporated after this date, like the Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria (1914–1954), Sudan (1899–1956), Maldives, Trucial States (UAE), Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait, slavery remained legally permissible, under local Sharia legal codes, for the majority of the twentieth century.[18][19][20]

    Scots who worked in the mines had been slaves since, approx, 1606, and didn’t gain their freedom until 1799.

  108. 108.

    marklar

    @WaterGirl: “I know this is a tiny thing, but it distresses me that every time I try to select a Balloon Juice category for posts about what we’re living through, they all seem wholly inadequate.  If I can’t even fucking name it, how can I fight it?”

    How about “BOHICA!”

  109. 109.

    WTFGhost

    @lowtechcyclist: The problem I have with seeing the Founding Fathers as an oligarchy is that that was pretty much the whole Western world in 1776.  Well-off landowners and businessmen were about as far as power had worked its way down from kings and princes and dukes.  That was democracy to the extent that it existed.

    Well, I just had a new-to-me thought that, the acceptance of chattel slavery created a special kind of oligarchy, where “oligarchy” might not be the right name, but, where it might be the right way to think about early America, to see the correct patterns.

    Still, I do agree with the main thrust of your point: the founders weren’t oligarchs, the way we think of Russian Oligarchs today. Hypothetically, at least, they were willing to let anyone into the club who could become a property owner, the new franchisee worrying about being pushed out of a window.

  110. 110.

    Marc

    @Timill: slavery in England was made unlawful in 1772. In Scotland, it was 1778, and in Ireland apparently 1833.

    Slavery was finally made unlawful in all of the colonies in 1833, which also freed my ancestors on several Caribbean islands.

  111. 111.

    Geminid

    @lowtechcyclist: I see Rep. Steny Hoyer has a Democratic challenger. Harry Jarin, a 35 year-old volunteer firefighter and emergency services consultant, has announced for the primary and is raising Hoyers age and long tenure as issues.

    The Politico article about this says Hoyer has not announced his plans, but I suspect he intends to retire. Same with Nancy Pelosi.

  112. 112.

    Eyeroller

    @Timill: Meaning throughout the Empire in 1833.  But they could have seen the writing on the wall.  I’d have to look it up, but I have a recollection that a possibly even bigger or more immediate concern was whether they would be able to expand slavery to new territories.  That certainly became a fracture point later on.

  113. 113.

    BethanyAnne

    I do keep returning to a few thoughts. This fresh hell is the culmination of 75 years or so of hard political work by the Right. They organized, they found allies, they created stories and made up grievances to bind everyone together. They did politics. For 75 years. That’s at least the scope of the effort. Searching for a shortcut is likely not the way forward. Schluck, schluck, schlucking out of this fucking swamp is. One stuck fucking foot at a time.

    And the world keeps ending. Like, in the 20th century, we had WW1, which was “The War to End All Wars”, if I remember my history correctly. Then WW2. Then the nuclear terror that had us on the brink of missiles flying. Now the climate crisis. Just one fucking thing after another. Fighting for gains, to make and keep them is constant. It looks like the institutions are burning, and we mourn their loss. But mourning isn’t the end. It’s just the beginning. The world has been through hell so many times. This is ours to fix.  If we wage the war to break the ownership of America by the oligarchs, the game is in play again. Years of work is the only way I’ve seen.

  114. 114.

    Harrison Wesley

    @Timill: Now I’m thinking of the Grateful Dead. “I may be going to hell in a bucket, but at least I’m enjoying the ride.”

  115. 115.

    Leto

    @Eyeroller: from the available documentation, all the slaves the presidents brought with them were their domestic help. They weren’t used for the construction; Hobson brought 4 slaves with him, but like you said the rest were sourced from the surrounding area.

    From the National Museum of African American History and Culture:

    Located between Maryland and Virginia, the nation’s capital was positioned deep within slaveholding territory. Despite the strong presence of abolitionists and organized Underground Railroad stations in the nation’s capital, forced labor was an everyday part of the government.

    Enslaved African Americans, leased out by their owners, mined sandstone from local quarries and built the United States Capitol, the White House, and the Smithsonian Castle. Congress, the institution that guarded the peoples’ freedom, held sessions in a building constructed by forced labor. Slave holding pens and markets were prominent throughout the National Mall, and early Americans witnessed the march of enslaved men and women on a daily basis.

    None of the presidents actual slaves were used to build/rebuild the WH, but enslaved people were used for both.

    Edit: Time to walk the pup. You guys have fun.

  116. 116.

    scav

    There’s never really going to be a time, nation or culture that’s going to perfectly embody all moral aspirations of all people at all times.  But by all means, let us enumerate the failings of everything before addressing the practical gaping wrongs of the current failing vessel.

  117. 117.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @WTFGhost:  One of the reasons I mentioned John Adams above is that he was a well-off lawyer but he had nowhere near the wealth that Washington, Jefferson, and the major plantation owners had.

  118. 118.

    Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony

    @Omnes Omnibus: I agree. In the spirit of Public Enemy and fighting the power (song reference for my elders), I’d go with Republic Enemies or What We Fight.

    Slightly off topic, but watching Andor has been really interesting during this time. I recommend it.

  120. 120.

    BethanyAnne

    I think it was MLK, Jr. that someone quoted or attributed recently here. That America didn’t build prosperity via the Protestant Work Ethic™, it built it by stealing the labor of Black and poor people. That really reframed the world for me. Sometimes talking about the past wrongs makes it easier to see those pitfalls in the future.

  121. 121.

    Eyeroller

    @Marc: No surprise that they’d outlaw it for their own peeps fairly early, but wait till they couldn’t resist the pressure anymore to outlaw it in the rest of the Empire.

    They also didn’t have any qualms about trying to continue importing Confederate cotton or selling arms to them.

  123. 123.

    Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony

    @Geminid: Yes! These things aren’t a cross to bear or reason to despair but a condemnation and an inspiration to FIGHT.

  124. 124.

    Professor Bigfoot

    @Omnes Omnibus: I’m with you; if for no other reason than the condemned man who made the deal with the King to teach his horse to sing.

    “…and who knows, maybe the horse will sing!”

    We need to keep our minds clear and our eyes open for “the main chance,” and there will be more than one.

    We ain’t fuckin’ dead yet!

  125. 125.

    Harrison Wesley

    @JML: So am I. He was one of the lawyers representing the Amistad rebels in front of the Supreme Court.

  126. 126.

    Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony

    @Professor Bigfoot: Speaking of opportunities, have you heard about the big fight brewing between MAHA and farmers over banning a pesticide? They aren’t all unified. We can exploit these rifts.

  127. 127.

    Eyeroller

    @JML: He didn’t personally own slaves.  When he was in Congress and President, he lived in an area (basically Maryland on the Virginia border) that was saturated in the “peculiar institution.”  It would have been impossible to avoid.  There is a bit of a blurb about it on the hopefully-unadulterated (yet) White House website here https://www.whitehousehistory.org/the-enslaved-household-of-john-quincy-adams.  Also his wife had roots in Maryland and apparently some of his in-laws owned slaves. Then through a series of deaths and remarriages he ended up with some enslaved people in his household.

  130. 130.

    Jackie

    Today, another federal judge – Judge Contreras – has jumped in to block FFOTUS’s illegal tariffs.

    Another federal judge has blocked President Trump’s tariff policy as unlawful.

    This is a separate injunction by a federal judge in Washington, D.C. which is unrelated to the block issued yesterday by judges on the federal trade court.

  131. 131.

    Eyeroller

    @Omnes Omnibus: Neither John nor John Q owned slaves but apparently (as I have already mentioned) John Q had in-laws who did, and he ended up with some enslaved people in his household.  Plus the whole Virginia-Maryland area (as well as further south) ran on slave labor so it would have been impossible to avoid when one was there.

  132. 132.

    Tenar Arha

    @Jeffg166: I like that example. I usually use the two or three little old ladies back to back. For example, if my mother was still alive she’d be 89. A woman of that same age who died 10 years after my mom was born would have been born in 1857. In this example, that woman would have been 8 in 1865, at the end of the Civil War, just as my mother was 9 at the end of WWII. ie old enough to remember it.

    ETA added first sentence

  133. 133.

    Professor Bigfoot

    @Kirk: TBH, I don’t worry so much about the official gunmen.

    I worry about the brownshirts, the “Proud Boys” and others of their ilk, the people who sacked Tulsa and burned Rosewood.

  135. 135.

    cmorenc

    @Steve LaBonne:

    The fact that he’s so obviously and visibly demented also eats into his aura of power.

    Too many of his MAGA cult are visibly demented and what should eat into Trump’s aura of power instead feeds it to their warped perceptions.

  137. 137.

    JML

    @Eyeroller: yeah, that makes sense for how John Q ended up on the list. But in relation to the rest of the bandits on there, he sticks out.

  139. 139.

    gene108

    In spite of everything we’ve seen since 2015, there is still a voice in my head that’s saying “how can this be possible, how can our system not be able to do anything about this?”

    When you believe in democracy, truly believe in it, and you have lived in one (even though imperfect) your entire adult life, what we’re experiencing seems impossible, and I think that’s part of what is holding us back in dealing with the breathtaking corruption and lawlessness criminality.

    A large part of the country wants this to happen. The unhinged reaction to President Obama’s election and the apocalyptic rage* that followed his 2012 re-election made me realize a great many people in this country want to burn it all down, rather than give up their perceived control over society.

    Part of this is a feeling, I think most people have, that working hard doesn’t get you as far as it used to, and racists firmly believe there are lazy black people stealing tax dollars by going on Section 8 housing, SSI or SSDI, etc., which is why things are harder for them.

    There’s a general frustration that things are stacked against ordinary people**. Trump feeds into this by using his racism and stupid understanding of how the world works to appeal to voters.

    *Sometimes The Onion is prescient. After Obama Victory, Shrieking White-Hot Sphere Of Pure Rage Early GOP Front-Runner For 2016

    **People have felt things are harder for them than people had it in the past for as long as I can remember. Watch media from the 1950’s onwards, when things were prosperous and this sentiment gets echoed. I think it’s been the USA’s default setting for the better part of the last 50 years.

    Edited for clarity.

  140. 140.

    Citizen Dave

      I appreciate this John Tyler grandson news. Was wondering about him the other day. Several years ago the CBS sunday morning show did a story on this. I think back then two grandsons were living.

  141. 141.

    Belafon

    @gene108: And they will do anything to avoid the fact that they keep voting for the people who keep making it harder.

  142. 142.

    Jackie

    Heh, President 🌮:

    Jonathan Last (The Bulwark) believes “TACO” has the potential to hurt Donald Trump:

    • It’s simple. Trump Always Chickens Out. You can put that phrase anywhere, apply it to anything, and everyone knows what it means.
    • It’s meme-able. You have the slogan. You have the word mark. And you have a universally recognizable image. Hell, there’s even a pre-built emoji for it. 🌮
    • It’s universal. You can apply it to any situation. Trump pulls back on tariffs? TACO. Trump gives in to Putin? TACO. Trump increases the national debt? TACO.
    • It’s organic. No Democratic strategist came up with TACO. It’s an observation that emerged from the finance world—from the very same bros who voted for Trump in the first place. You can feel the disdain of his own supporters dripping off of it.
    • It hits at something deep inside Trump. It’s about his soul. It’s about his weakness.

    “By hitting him with TACO over and over, you (a) reveal his pull-backs as weakness and (b) dare him to go through with the stuff that will screw up the real world—and, in theory, create pain for his movement.”

  144. 144.

    lowtechcyclist

    @zhena gogolia: ​
     

    That’s why I didn’t mind “Today’s fresh hell.” It implies that tomorrow might be better. 😀

    “After all, tomorrow is another day.” – S. O’Hara

  145. 145.

    Marc

    @scav: One of the things these failings relate to for me is exemplified by a picture I received from a college friend of herself and her family at her home.  She, her husband, her six kids, their spouses, and something like 15 grandchildren, along with various dogs and cats.
    I can remember a time when we had that sort of family grouping (except sometimes in the hundreds) was a twice yearly thing.  I imagine that a lot of the dissatisfaction these days comes out of a loss of family connection.  All those failing towns where the kids can’t stay as there is no work.  Figure out a way to make those towns viable again for those who want to live in them, maybe they’ll leave the rest of us alone.  Or, so I’d like to hope ;)​

  149. 149.

    Soprano2

    @Gin & Tonic: I often think about my three grand nieces whose mother is of Mexican and Pilipino ancestry; her husband, who is my nephew, is of mostly Polish/Irish extraction. Those girls are more like the future of our country than I am.

  150. 150.

    piratedan

    while we’re all experiencing different levels of outrage, despair, dismay and whatnot, perhaps a change in tone in documenting what we’re all witnessing and living thru.. so perhaps we should classify posts like these as “keeping receipts”.  Just note that even if our 4th estate is struggling with that task, WE CAN and as such, if (or more hopefully when) accountability arrives, WE WILL REMEMBER who did what and when.

  156. 156.

    Tenar Arha

    @Marc: We did find a good fix. It’s worked all over smaller rural adjacent towns and communities. Even some cities like the Springfield Ohio Haitian community. Which was partially an organic refugee community normal multiplier, but initially organized by local business & volunteers. And it was revitalizing the place, until stinking Mr. Junior D. Varsity (VP Vance) did his “eating dogs and cats” calumny, & Haitians’ TPS was revoked.

  158. 158.

    Matt McIrvin

    @WTFGhost:

    If you don’t have any superpowers, then, think of this: every time Superman takes a nap, there’s a good chance someone dies that he could have saved. You don’t have that power; therefore, you don’t have that responsibility; therefore ,you can take a nap almost any time you want, and hope you feel just a tiny bit less despairing when you wake up.

    The more hardcore Christians have the concept of original sin, according to which we actually can be held responsible and even justly punished for things we had no control over. Which is why it’s OK for God to send non-believers to eternal torture just for not believing; we all actually deserve that; he just gives undeserved grace to a lucky few.

    I think a lot about just living in this country as a kind of original sin. There’s a moral stain on me just from living my regular life that nothing can eradicate. I feel as if Donald Trump diminishes my individual moral value as a person, makes my actual life less worthwhile and my potential death less of a tragedy, just by being President, because his crimes inhere in me. Even though I didn’t vote for him. Even though I register my personal objections all the time. I still get that stain.

    I guess it’s probably not a helpful direction to think in.

  159. 159.

    Harrison Wesley

    @piratedan: In addition, we’re seeing a lot of things that need fixing that we didn’t realize were deficient. I guess that’s good, provided we get a chance to fix them.

  160. 160.

    sab

    @Soprano2: That’s how I feel. My husband and I are from the same handful of ethnicities. My granddaughter is from dozens. She wouldn’t know what costume to go for, so probably just the pink unicorn one.

  162. 162.

    Trollhattan

    This is too fun-icky not to share. Digby has some intel on Stephen Miller’s wife (a person who exists regardless of whether we wish to imagine such a thing is even possible) has an Elon Musk entanglement.

    Let us savor.

    Now who’s got some brain bleach to share?

  163. 163.

    Melancholy Jaques

    @Belafon:

    Sometimes, some problems can only be solved by doing the hard work. You can spend too much time trying to think of more efficient ways. The only way through the mud is one step at at time.

    Fuckin’ A.

  164. 164.

    Baud

    @Matt McIrvin:

    I guess it’s probably not a helpful direction to think in.

     

    Even the Christians invented an escape hatch.

    If it helps, you can believe in me and be saved.

  165. 165.

    gene108

    @BethanyAnne:

    do keep returning to a few thoughts. This fresh hell is the culmination of 75 years or so of hard political work by the Right. They organized, they found allies, they created stories and made up grievances to bind everyone together. They did politics. For 75 years. That’s at least the scope of the effort

    So has our side. We’ve had a much deeper and more lasting impact on American culture and thought than anything the Right has been able to manage.

    The racist and sexist Trump 2.0 administration has women and non-white people in important positions. They, like everyone else in the administration, are bad at their jobs or openly hostile to the agencies they run. Even Trump 2.0 does not revert to 100% white men running everything.

    They can’t flush those social gains we’ve fought for about equality and inclusion from their administration, and staff it with all white straight Christian men.

    The Treasury Secretary is a gay man, with a husband and two kids. That’s how deeply embedded our side’s views have become in the most revanchist administration in ages.

  167. 167.

    Marc

    @Tenar Arha: Yes, and if we manage to get out of this mess, the Democrats should make this part of the message.  Not “open” immigration, but bringing in people with the intent to revitalize dying communities.

  169. 169.

    schrodingers_cat

    I am noticing that people are selling doom to Democrats/liberals online. These fuckers want to grow rich feeding off your misery. Tell them to fuck off.

  170. 170.

    Marc

    @gene108: They can’t flush those social gains we’ve fought for about equality and inclusion from their administration, and staff it with all white straight Christian men.

    That is what they are very visibly doing to the military, from the top down.  They may well be doing it elsewhere in the government. It’s hard to tell, as it’s still sketchy how many people have been actually fired and there’s no easy way to know who they are.  And, they’ve been pressuring outside contractors to get rid of DEI programs and pushing them to fire their “DEI” hires.  You don’t think they know how to flush?

  171. 171.

    Trollhattan

    Can’t possibly imagine how this conversation went. And by can’t I mean was the percentage of time Trump yelled at Powell to “Lower the fucking rates” 80, or more than 80?

    Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell met with President Donald Trump at the White House this morning on the president’s request, according to a Fed statement.

    From the statement: “Chair Powell said that he and his colleagues on the FOMC will set monetary policy, as required by law, to support maximum employment and stable prices and will make those decisions based solely on careful, objective, and non-political analysis.”

  172. 172.

    mali muso

    @BethanyAnne: ​
    The only way forward is a slow slog, one painful step at a time. The other day my kiddo was listening to the soundtrack from Frozen II, and there is a song that really guts me as the lyrics point to this idea of keeping on even when there seems to be no hope.

    I’ve seen dark before, but not like this
    This is cold, this is empty, this is numb
    The life I knew is over; the lights are out
    Hello darkness: I’m ready to succumb

    I follow you around (I always have)
    But you’ve gone to a place I cannot find
    This grief has a gravity, it pulls me down
    But a tiny voice whispers in my mind

    You are lost, hope is gone
    But you must go on
    And do the next right thing

    Can there be a day beyond this night
    I don’t know anymore what is true
    I can’t find my direction; I’m all alone
    The only star that guided me was you

    How to rise from the floor
    When it’s not you I’m rising for

    Just do the next right thing
    Take a step, step again
    It is all that I can to do
    The next right thing

    I won’t look too far ahead
    It’s too much for me to take
    But break it down to this next breath, this next step
    This next choice is one that I can make

    So I’ll walk through this night
    Stumbling blindly toward the light
    And do the next right thing
    And with the dawn what comes then?
    When it’s clear that everything will never be the same again
    Then I’ll make the choice to hear that voice
    And do the next right thing

    As one little person in a sea of [waves hands] all of this, I am trying to keep my head above water and do the next right thing that is in front of me.

  174. 174.

    WTFGhost

    A tagline suggestion that is appropriate for the times:
    (Insanity^2)/3

     

    People who hang with me (of which there are none – I don’t count my wife as merely “hanging”) for just the right amount of time, so they’ve learned how I play with language, often have a horrible time asking for an explanation.

    “So, ‘Ghost, I get insanity squared – a crazy person would be all ‘that’s *cray-cray!!!*’. But why ‘divided by three’? Because (horrified groan as realization dawns)…”, and we finish it together:

    “Because that makes no sense whatsoever.”

    It’s probably too “inside ‘Ghost” to be a real rotating tag, but it’s how I describe my physical/neurological issues, which also seem hopelessly bad, and completely nonsensical, at times. Hopelessly bad, and sensible, you know, that’s Nazis, and Nazis make sense. Not a good sense, but, we understand Nazis, more or less.

    Hopelessly bad, and “it just doesn’t make any sense!” is when you start reaching for the most insane of metaphors to try to describe it.

    It’s like, if the Greedy Old_people’s Party were folding like lawn chairs for a George W again, it would at least make sense… right? But they’re doing this for someone so galactically stupid, that the history books will have a lot of “no, really, this is what happened!” notations in them. ObSimpsons: Like, when Homer fires guns in the air to bring people to the bowling alley, the kids demand of Marge to know what really happened, and she says “no, really, that’s what happened!”

    (Get that exact Marge quote – that would be a good rotating tag, including the M. Simpson attribution.)

  177. 177.

    Ruckus

    @Scout211:

    They think they have a free hand to do whatever the hell they want. Which is of course to own this country and all those that live in it. Well other than themselves. They want to pay no taxes because, they want there to be no liberal side to anything, they want the lord, his majesty shitforbrains to be Lord High Ruler and Executioner of all those they believe are keeping them from the top of the heap. Of course their concept of “government” will fail rather rapidly because they have ZERO concept of governing. Their only concepts are racism and stupidity. So this will go well. For about 2 minutes. Maybe we’ll get lucky and they can’t decide who is right so they kill one of their own – whom they hate for whatever the dumbass hell of a reason they come up with. Which will lead to more killing each other until there is one of them left and we all get a month to kick that one in a sensitive area as often and hard as possible. The line will be long, the boots will be made for hiking. And then the humans in this country can get back to actual living. I’d like to think there is another, better, more humane way, but I really can’t see one.

  178. 178.

    WTFGhost

    @mali muso: (Slogging through, one step at a time)

    That’s how you survive incipient, and actual, depression. However, you can do more than survive, if you are able to force yourself to recognize that it’s not normal.

    There’s still a lot of good in life, and it needs celebration now, more than ever, to gird generic-and-specific you for the trials to come. Thankfully, doing those good things, and giving yourself over to the good, also helps pull you out of depression, if you can receive helpful pulls at the time.

    (I might have had more to say, but my THC enhanced brain is snickering too loudly about “helpful pulls.”)

  179. 179.

    Gin & Tonic

    Fascinating, still-developing story. Zaur Gurtsiev, the russian military officer responsible for the bombing of the Mariupol Drama Theater, was killed yesterday by a grenade (or, more likely, a remote-controlled bomb.) It appears he was lured to the location by means of a gay honey trap. Karma works in strange ways sometimes.

  181. 181.

    Citizen Alan

    @Matt McIrvin: The more hardcore Christians have the concept of original sin, according to which we actually can be held responsible and even justly punished for things we had no control over. Which is why it’s OK for God to send non-believers to eternal torture just for not believing; we all actually deserve that; he just gives undeserved grace to a lucky few.

    Every problem arising from the dominance of Christianity over this country stems from the widespread interpretation of the Bible that paints God as a vindictive, mindlessly cruel, abusive father, traits for which conservative Christians admire Him and demand that the rest of us do as well.

  184. 184.

    rusty

    @WaterGirl: I have struggled emotionally at times since January (more for those I love and care about, I am so far relatively safe given my gender, race, sexuality and financial position).  At some point however, I realized what I was feeling was grief for the country I have wanted us to become, and for what we are losing and falling back into.  Understanding it as grieving has made the feelings easier to understand and manage.

  185. 185.

    Eyeroller

    @Matt McIrvin: The country does have a genuine original sin: chattel slavery. It has echoed down the generations and has never stopped distorting our society and politics.

  189. 189.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @West of the Rockies: Trump and Comp. have been “flooding the zone” with chaos and incompetence from Jan. 21sr.  But you flood the zone enough and you drown your own camp, too.

    Speaking that, the current RFK Jr nonsense is because the Anti-Vacxers have denounced him as a sell out to big pharma.

  191. 191.

    Ruckus

    @karen gail:

    There have been, throughout human history, many supposed beings in that top of the heap spot of good, not necessarily good or bad, and pure shit. It may be possible to create more selections, but in the overall concept I don’t think it’s necessary. Seemingly a fair bit of humanity lives in the pure shit category although it’s possible that the groups, being made up of humans do have overlapping bits in this 3 piece pie construction of humanity and slip ups could move one around to another group in the pie at times, because this is a rather basic concept of who and what we are as humans. And it is, even in this day and age, survival of the fittest, even if that fittest is a pompous, arrogant jackass. It takes all kinds to create and operate as humanity. Sometimes very unfortunately all kinds.

  192. 192.

    WTFGhost

    @schrodingers_cat: Well, bots don’t always want to put it all on display, and therefore need to be… koi?

     

    @Marc:  you mention “not ‘open’ immigration,” and here, I think Democrats miss an opportunity on messaging in long-form delivery (blogging or podcasting). They should confront Republican lies about Democratic positions. “Republicans call everything open borders, unless it’s everything Republicans want. Democrats are in favor of legal immigration, which includes asylum claims. Democrats won’t seek out immigrant hobos, who just want to go where there’s paid work, unless they commit a crime, but, if we catch them opportunistically, we’ll send them home. Oh, yeah: and Democrats aren’t bigots toward Hispanics.”

    @Steve LaBonne: RE:GUACAMOLE acronym
    (golf clap)

    @Matt McIrvin: If you think of “original sin” as “a tendency toward evil” then the concept isn’t as bad as it sounds.

    I once was a theologian, in the spirit of CS Lewis (or so I hoped!), and I came across an idea, where “God didn’t want A&E to eat from the tree until the fruit was ripe; the green fruit taught them to fear evil, without granting the wisdom and courage to handle the fear.”

    That fits in well with Jesus saying you can’t worship God and mammon – mammon being the demonic representation of material wealth. Trump thinks cheating makes him smart; he worships mammon. A real businessman thinks cheating is stupid; and will tend to do much better than Trump, with the same starting resources, because after every deal, most of the participants want that same “real businessman” to be involved in another deal, since the prior one worked out so well.

    Moving from Christianity to allegory, the same sort of thing can work for us here. All of us, each of us in America, bear the stain of the many failures; we’re all sinners; we’ve all been stupid, once in a while. If we can all be humbled by that, and recognize we’re all going to make mistakes, but, overall, if we all work for justice, things will be better.

    The problem, of course, is that some of basic justice should be something like government backed health and disability insurance, which would force cleanup of a lot of nastiness around this country. Lead abatement would prevent later disability claims; sewage issues in poor houses means higher medical bills, and, again, disability claims, etc..

  193. 193.

    Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony

    @Soprano2: Atrazine is the one they are mad about. Evidence for cancer risk is inconclusive. So they don’t think it should be banned. They feel MAHA is ignoring the science, which we know they are prone to do.

  196. 196.

    karen gail

    @Ruckus:

    Seems like the pompous arrogant jackasses always rise to the top, but then Grandpa always used to say that shit rises to top of septic tank.

    One of posters on a pagan site I follow; posted that quitting is for winners. You have to know when something is so far broken that you have to give it up and move on to something not toxic; change directions and try something new.

    Which reminded me of my Great grandmother who would burn her garden in late winter so that it could produce new growth. Every spring she would remind me that we have to clear out the old so the new can grow.

    I think of that when I read Robert Reich or Heather Richardson Cox talk about what has happened in our past and what is happening now.

  198. 198.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @karen gail: What is the thing that is so broken that we need to move on?  Our institutions? The Constitutional form of governance?  The people of the US?

    Burning last year’s garden is one thing.  Burning down a country is another.

  201. 201.

    karen gail

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    At this point? whatever it takes to make sure that rich white men are no longer in control.

    I don’t have to worry about the color of my skin, but I am not male so there are so many other things that anyone not a white male has to worry about.

    I almost got shot because I have a large protective dog; because a man with a badge feared my dog.

    I want anyone and everyone to not have to walk in fear; to be free to speak their minds. I have watched as women gained rights and freedoms, I am watching as my granddaughters are experiencing the very fears that I once faced all because some male has power to undo all the changes for the betterment of everyone not a white male.

  202. 202.

    Death Panel Truck

    Rolling Stone needs to be informed that we do not have a Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

    We do, however, have a Chief Justice of the United States. It’s one of the first fucking things you learn in j-school.

  205. 205.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @karen gail: We as a people have enabled ICE and LOA to act like slave catchers, worse we give police immunity when they shoot and kill innocent black people.

    So aptly stated.

    I knew the wh was built by enslaved people. But I didn’t realize we separated from England because the founders wanted to keep owning slaves.
    it’s good to make the reframing so clear.

    along with freedom of religion being not about welcoming diverse faiths, but rather about having the right to practice More religious restrictions than were allowed in europe, I fear this country is based on some pretty heinous intentions.

    i bought the slogans, growing up. Land of the free, home of the brave. With liberty and Justice for all. I thought that was the point. And now we have to make it so. 
    and we’re countering the sane washed white washed versions of:

    “make slavery great again” ( prisoners can be slave labor, to this day, it’s legal. We tried to vote out that language in Colorado, but it failed).
    “make bigotry and predjudice great again”. Best in the world, world role model for racism.

    ”make religious persecution great again”, (and control the masses into submission.)

    all dressed up w pretty slogans and coverups.

    we’re simply no better than so many countries we’ve been taught to fear.

    I’m definitely grieving for my country. The continued nightmare…

  207. 207.

    NaijaGal

    @BethanyAnne: ​
     
    And it remains a reason why the US view of labor is so fucked up. When the mindset is to work people to the bone and discard them when they can no longer toil, why treat them as human beings and pay them a living wage, allow 12 months of paid parental leave, support their right to join unions, etc.? It continues into the modern era, sometimes with the eager support of the American workers themselves (see auto workers in the South who are sometimes the only non-unionized workforce for parent companies in Europe who otherwise have no problem with a unionized workforce).

    It’s why very few Americans can conceive of a situation in which parents take almost a year off to tend to a newborn and return to the job they had before the child was born and the company still does well and makes a profit! Happens in other countries but not here. Or imagine McDonald’s workers who earn a living wage and can afford to buy a home and go on vacation without McDonald’s going bankrupt. Few Americans ask why McDonald’s hasn’t abandoned Europe, given this situation we’re told is impossible for the US. Smaller profits are still profits, but you didn’t hear that from me.

  208. 208.

    David Collier-Brown

    @Professor Bigfoot:

    men with guns, and at this point he owns all of ‘em.

    That may not include the military: they don’t depend on votes, “donations” or freedom from MAGA threats.

    They also swore an oath to the constitution, and know perfectly well what an illegal order is.

    (I’m from a different military, so YYMV)

  210. 210.

    Timill

    @schrodingers_cat:
    Somerset_v_Stewart, 1772 held narrowly that a man could not compel a slave to leave England to be resold. More broadly, it held

    “The state of slavery is of such a nature that it is incapable of being introduced on any reasons, moral or political, but only by positive law, which preserves its force long after the reasons, occasions, and time itself from whence it was created, is erased from memory. It is so odious, that nothing can be suffered to support it, but positive law. Whatever inconveniences, therefore, may follow from the decision, I cannot say this case is allowed or approved by the law of England; and therefore the black must be discharged.”

    in consequence of which slavery became effectively illegal in England. It took until 1778 for a similar ruling in Scotland, while Ireland had to wait until 1833 along with the Colonies.

  211. 211.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Timill: It would not have applied to the 13 colonies. Besides the American Revolution started in New England not the slave owning south

    And even without slavery the British Empire was hardly the paragon of ideal racial relationships. There was a strict racial segregation between the colonized people and the British. Brutal violence was used to maintain power.

    I am deep into the history of Partition of British India and am being reminded how little they cared for the lives of Indians.

  212. 212.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @schrodingers_cat:  I don’t dismiss the fact that preserving slavery was a motivating factor for the major  plantation owners in the southern colonies.  I do take issue with any claim that that was the primary issue for the colonies as a whole.

  214. 214.

    YY_Sima Qian

    This is fucked up, but I am actually somewhat encouraged that the judges want control over their own men w/ guns. That is a sign that they are serious about standing up to Trump, or at least maintaining some independence. Even the Federalists.

  215. 215.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @YY_Sima Qian: When I was clerking at a federal court many years ago, a constant refrain at social events was “co-equal branch”.  Court are extremely cognizant of their status and generally work far harder to preserve it than the legislative branch has been.

  218. 218.

    TONYG

    @Scout211: Yes.  But, of course, Trump will defy the court ruling either way.  The United States has been in a post-legal, post-constitutional era for more than four months now.

     

    @Scout211:

  219. 219.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @schrodingers_cat: I was referring back to karen Gail’s post, but I did not do follow up research to fact check it. I see several commenters chimed in. I’m hearing that the right to hold slaves wasn’t the only reason for the American revolution, as we call it in USA, but that it was one reason.

    Some our founding fathers did indeed own slaves.
    lovely//

  220. 220.

    Gloria DryGarden

    Speaking of Karens, I have not seen karen Marie from Arizona around here in many months.
    And yarrow never came back, does anyone know how things turned out for her? A few of us were alarmed by some of her final posts here, and I heard a front pager tried to contact her.

  223. 223.

    RevRick

    @Old School: John Tyler is the one US President to have committed actual treason. When the Confederacy seceded, he became a member of its Congress.

  225. 225.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @Timill: thank you. That was interesting. It was much as I remembered her.
    I do remember baud writing that she was a worthy opponent; he stood up to her tone and comments, very satisfying.

  226. 226.

    Ramona

    @WaterGirl: “At the end of the Third American Republic”. The Civil War brought about the second and the New Deal the Third. These are the waning days of that Third Republic. Whether there will be a Fourth is tbd.

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