This is satire:
This actually happened:
This child was patted down by a TSA agent for 2 minutes. Don't think that's a long time? Watch until the end. pic.twitter.com/6MG7tRqVsd
— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) March 29, 2017
Well that’s not creepy at all…
I have said it before and I’m sure I will say it again: 9-11 caused the US to socio-culturally suffer a mental and emotional breakdown. While lots of Americans have recovered, a not insignificant number of Americans have not.
Alain the site fixer
Adam, I just rescheduled my post for 1:15.ttfn
Yutsano
I have patdowns all the time because I can’t go through scanners or metal detectors. I have NEVER had anything nearly that intrusive or creepy done to me.
Tom Levenson
Well.
That’s special.
Thru the Looking Glass...
Oh hell… an awful lot of them were never okay in the first place…
Something like 9/11 just gives them cover…
Spanky
So, Jerry Sandusky is on a work release program with the TSA? Good to know.
More seriously, and an oblique reference to the Sandusky affair, is that TSA is another one of those institutions custom made for authoritarians and touchy-feely types (often both!).
Adam L Silverman
@Yutsano: Not without a cover charge, a $50 minimum tab, and the need to bring lots of singles. Or so I’ve been told… ?
Cathie from Canada
I hadn’t realized before that TSA would be such an attractive occupational choice for pedophiles and creeps of all kinds. #YouLearnSomethingEveryday
Hunter Gathers
Shit like that is why I don’t even bother with planes anymore. Why should people have to be subjected to this bullshit? So stupid crackers who are scared of their own shadows can feel safe when in places that contain ‘Those People’? ‘Cause some crazy fucker tried to set his shoes on fire? Or is it because White people get off on folks who don’t go to their church getting harrased?
Thru the Looking Glass...
Whoa… that TSA dude doing the pat down is a perv… end of story…
gene108
@Spanky:
Yeah, I’m thinking the same thing…
Clearly the way to conceal dangerous stuff is by wearing shorts and a T-shirt, because there are so many layers of clothing there to hide in.
Trentrunner
The video cut off early: After, the TSA agent has a cigarette and, with a wink, stuffs his phone number into the little boy’s pocket.
We have lost our fucking minds since 9/11.
germy
Maybe this is me being paranoid, but the news reported the mother told them her son suffered from a disorder; he didn’t like being touched too much. I feel like they were trying to goad him into a meltdown. I hope I’m wrong.
schrodingers_cat
Meanwhile DHS is targeting bad hombres. These two have had their intent to immigrate approved but waiting for the adjustment of status (officially get GC, till the quota becomes current)
* Since there are strict quotas for job related GCs, citizens of certain countries like India, China and Mexico have long waits in the GC purgatory.
Gin & Tonic
@Alain the site fixer: Alain, you rescheduled it for 0115, not 1315. It’s there, way downstairs.
Chris
I was thirteen on the day in question, and it took me years and years to realize how completely the “grown ups” had lost their $#!t on that day.
Yutsano
@Adam L Silverman: What happens in Vegas and all…
Hell when watching the video I can tell you EXACTLY where he breaks protocol. Especially on the crotch feels. THAT SO MADE ME WINCE…
schrodingers_cat
@Hunter Gathers: How do you suggest one goes overseas? Swim across the ocean?
schrodingers_cat
@Chris: You are bebbeh!
Incitatus for Senate
So Timmy, do you like movies about gladiators?
Thru the Looking Glass...
@schrodingers_cat: Yellow submarine?
Certified Mutant Enemy
@schrodingers_cat:
Ships are known to occasionally cross oceans…
SP
Josh Marshall’s 8 yo kid got a special flag on reentry to the US supposedly for having a common name. JMM is too nice of a guy to suggest it, but did anyone else think retribution against a well known Trump media critic (with a particularly mocking style)?
Frank McCormick
And too many of us have gotten so numb that we think of being patted down as “routine” instead of exceptional.
andy
I first saw this video on facebook and was saddened by the number of commenters who felt this seemed perfectly reasonable. Apparently cowardice is the American way now, even overcoming our tendency to loudly scream accusations of pedophilia.
Though curiously, pedophilia has always been tolerated in this society if it’s an authority figure committing it, unless he gets too greedy and open about it.
Adam L Silverman
@schrodingers_cat: Just saw that article. And the one from Boston:
http://www.wbur.org/news/2017/03/30/green-card-ice-arrests-lawrence
I haven’t forgotten your request. I’m still trying to figure out how to frame the piece.
hovercraft
WT everloving F??
They were teetering on the edge of insanity, 9-11 nudged them over and the right wing fear machine stoked their fears to the point that now they live in a permanent state of fear. But it takes a certain mindset to buy into the fear and see something like this as normal. People who live in the laces least likely to be attacked are the ones who are most fearful. NYC, LA, people don’t dwell on terrorism, if it happens we’ll deal, but in the meantime we have lives to lead and shit to do. Funny how all the “real tough Americans” are a bunch of scardy cats, and he soft, city folk just get on with it.
Chris
@schrodingers_cat:
Gotta love it; Obama was the one who told DHS to focus on actually violent criminals who posed a threat to their neighbors, and Trump’s the one who’s removed that idea and told them to just go after anyone. Yet somehow, they’re the ones who’re Tough On Crime.
Chris
@schrodingers_cat:
Worse than that: millennial.
Hunter Gathers
@schrodingers_cat: I’d go by hovercraft. As long as it’s not full of eels.
Mike J
@Spanky:
Saw yesterday that a Penn State board member said he was losing sympathy for Sandusky’s so-called victims.
Time to just fill up the happy valley with garbage and pave it over.
hovercraft
@Adam L Silverman:
Not without a cover charge, a $50 minimum tab, and the need to bring lots of singles. Or so I’ve been told… ?
Is that where you dissapear when you go to the “gym”?
You sneaky dog ;- )
Thoroughly Pizzled
Dennis Miller. James Woods. Michael Flynn. Who else went loco?
Villago Delenda Est
@Chris: “Grown ups” in rabbit ears is precisely the way to frame this. Home of the Brave my ass.
Yarrow
That looks like every pat down I’ve had from TSA. Except I’m usually wearing long pants and so they have to go all the way down the legs.
I’m in no way defending it because it’s just gross and humiliating. I just didn’t see at as different. They check the crotch. They check front and back–so the “checking the waistband” part where they said “(again)”–well, yeah, because one is back and one is front. I’ve had horrible experiences with the TSA and do not defend any of our security theater. I just don’t see this as particularly different from what I’ve experienced or seen done to people I’ve traveled with.
hovercraft
@Thru the Looking Glass…:
Yes SHE is.
laura
I got the pat down/grope a few flights ago and passed on the opportunity to have it done in a private room. I figured if I was going to go through it, the rest of the flying public may as well witness it and have something to think about.
Villago Delenda Est
@Mike J: Concur. These people have lost their way pretty much in the same sense that a lot of guards at Vernichtungslagern lost their way.
hovercraft
@Hunter Gathers:
I’m not sure you could afford me ;- )
Mnemosyne
@germy:
IMO, I don’t think it’s uncommon for the TSA to become more suspicious of you when you try to tell them that someone has a disability. My brother has been a partial paraplegic for over 35 years, and they still sometimes demand that he walk through the metal detector without the cane he needs in order to walk.
Adam L Silverman
@SP: That was clearly a flag on the name in the system. Try flying if your name is David Nelson.
http://jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/061903/met_12829395.shtml
Ruckus
@Yutsano:
I’ve been patted down twice this month. Standard pat downs, nothing out of the ordinary. Out of the last 4 times I gone through security, twice through the big full body scan and pat downs and bag hand inspection, shoes off and all that. Twice through the pre-check and no shoes off, no electronics out of the bag, walk through the metal detector and on my way.
ETA My pat downs may have been normal because I’m not a 6 yr old boy.
Quinerly
@germy:
#12 That’s exactly what I thought when I first saw this a few days back. You aren’t paranoid. That’s what was going on.
germy
@Mnemosyne: Amazing.
hovercraft
@Thoroughly Pizzled:
Bill Maher, when it comes to Islam, he’s totally irrational.
Adam L Silverman
@Chris: And it shows you what kind of folks want to be ICE agents and BP officers when they felt constrained, unable to enjoy their work, and unhappy with having to focus on immigrants that had committed or were suspected of committing serious, and usually, violent crimes. Now, apparently from the reporting, they’re having fun.
Elmo
@Yarrow: Yep. Me too. I fly a LOT – been on a plane every week since mid-February – and that looked like every pat down I’ve had. Back of the hand as appropriate.
I 100% agree that our security theater is gross, counterproductive, and evidence of rank cowardice – but I don’t like the pile-on characterizing this guy as a pedophile.
Seanly
Security theater must continue! If you don’t have something to hide, why would you object to an obtrusive overtly creepy pat-down?
Tenzil Kem
TSA is disgusting and has done nothing to make anyone safer than they were in 9/10/01.
Adam L Silverman
@hovercraft: I have actually never been in a strip joint. The concept has absolutely no appeal to me whatsoever.
schrodingers_cat
@Adam L Silverman: Kelly has walked back on separating mothers and children on the border. So public pressure against their most asinine initiatives works!
BTW did you see the Holocaust survivor confront a top ranking immigration official in a townhall? It was powerful.
NotMax
As have said since 2001:
Government of the panicked, by the panicked, for the panicked.
Adam L Silverman
@schrodingers_cat: I did, I flagged it for later use.
hovercraft
@Mnemosyne:
Wow, talk about dumbasses.
And I bet they lack the Uncle Joe charm to make you want to laugh about it and forgive them.
germy
@Quinerly:
The child and parent handled themselves admirably through this pointless exercise.
schrodingers_cat
@Chris: There was an older Canadian dude who was commenting under your nym for a while over here.
NotMax
@Adam L. Silverman
Have been told that many deals for procurement* are fleshed out in strip clubs.
*In both senses of the term.
J R in WV
I saw that “pat-down” abuse the other day. That’s exactly what it is. The mother should have learned not to talk to TSA at all, because it just triggers this kind of abusive behavior.
I was subject to a pat down by Border Patrol gangsters near El Paso one night after dark, after being chained to a bench, on the way to a holding cell where my lead carpenter and I spent the next 6 hours. It was not as intrusive as the “pat down” shown above, we were wearing winter clothes.
By the way, all of the Border Patrol goons were hispanic and spoke only Spanish among themselves – they could have been talking about that nice truck/trailer/backhoe outside and which arroyo to bury us in for all we could tell. It was my least happy experience with “law enforcement” in my 66 years.
We were released about 1:30 am, my lead carpenter was issued a $537 misdemeanor ticket by a local county deputy before we were allowed to continue homeward. By dark the next day we were in Arkansas. It was a very long drive.
That TSA guy should be fired and tried for child abuse. There was no way that kid could have had anything concealed under a tee shirt and shorts. A 20 second pat down would have sufficed. Judging a pat down by minutes elapsed is stupid and wrong.
Abuse is evil and that’s what the mother videoed. Good thing she thought to turn on her camera. Glad they didn’t attack her for doing it… perhaps the TSA goon would have had better manners if he knew he was on camera.
PPCLI
@schrodingers_cat: If I were the head of the Neurology department at Toronto General Hospital I’d be on the phone to this couple right now offering a job. Welcome/Bienvenue to a country that isn’t the US, highly trained professionals from a Commonwealth nation!
Yarrow
@Elmo: Yep. Back of the hand. All the way up to the crotch. It feels really invasive. I just didn’t see anything different with what this TSA person did. Seems pretty standard. I’m not surprised the TSA defended it. The only thing I’m not sure of is what the TSA person did at the end, coming back and rubbing something. Was it the explosives test strip? I think they do that at the end after the pat down.
Kay
She’s like an anti-salesperson. The longer she talks the less she persuades. The thing is no one thought of her as a public figure. She was a GOP operative who threatened lawmakers by throwing big piles at cash at their opponents. She’s not the mainstream person you bring out – she’s the billionaire behind the scenes!
That’s a skill-set but it’s very narrow skill-set :)
Ruviana
@Mnemosyne: What does he do in that case?
Chris
@Adam L Silverman:
Well, what do you expect. Going after violent criminals? I mean, they might get hurt. They might actually have to perform the role of Heroic Last Line Of Defense Against The Barbarian Hordes that they love to portray themselves as. Why do that when you can spend your career pushing gardeners, maids, and farm workers around, and still be acclaimed by much of the public as if you just got back from Omaha Beach?
bystander
Full knee replacement here, so unless I get lucky and get to go through a machine that photographs me as if I weren’t wearing clothes, I get the pat down. San Francisco is the worst, but Marrakesh and Rome the best. There security is more about looking at you and how you behave than if you’re the 93rd John Smith that day.
I thought maybe Jennifer Rubin were growing up because even she is not trying to make excuses for Trump. But today’s unreadable torture compares Trump’s actively aiding the Russians in assaulting the rebel forces to Obama’s perfidy and betrayal of the Syrians. Does none of them ever recall that Obama laid out an entire plan that he gave Congress and the repubs sabotaged him? I hate them.
Ruckus
@laura:
I make them do it in front of everyone else as well and for it sounds like the same reason.
@Mnemosyne:
It might depend on the airport. I’ve seen handicapped people all get special treatment the last few times I’ve flown, but I’m no longer flying in or out of the flatlands.
@hovercraft:
When I used the word normal I meant as in this is what it is now. Not what it should be.
Having flown a lot for work before 9/11, and on and after, I can say I don’t feel any safer but I do feel far less of a citizen. Same feeling I get with cops.
rikyrah
Lips pursed.
Uh huh
Uh huh
………………………………………………….
Disabled, or just desperate?
Rural Americans turn to disability as jobs dry up
BEAVERTON, ALA.
The lobby at the pain-management clinic had become crowded with patients, so relatives had gone outside to their trucks to wait, and here, too, sat Desmond Spencer, smoking a 9 a.m. cigarette and watching the door. He tried stretching out his right leg, knowing these waits can take hours, and winced. He couldn’t sit easily for long, not anymore, and so he took a sip of soda and again thought about what he should do.
He hadn’t had a full-time job in a year. He was skipping meals to save money. He wore jeans torn open in the front and back. His body didn’t work like it once had. He limped in the days, and in the nights, his hands would swell and go numb, a reminder of years spent hammering nails. His right shoulder felt like it was starting to go, too.
But did all of this pain mean he was disabled? Or was he just desperate?
He wouldn’t even turn 40 for a few more months.
An hour passed, and his cellphone rang. He picked it up, said hello and hung up — another debt collector. He rubbed his right knee. Maybe it would get better. Maybe he would still find a job.
His mother had written a number the night before and told him to call it, and he had told her he’d think about it. She wanted him to apply for disability, like she had, like his girlfriend had, and like his stepfather, whom he now saw shuffling out of the pain clinic, hunched over his walker, reaching for a hand-rolled cigarette. Spencer got out of the truck. He lit his own.
“Remember we were talking about it last night?” he asked Gene Ruby. “Remember we were talking about signing up?”
“Yeah,” said Ruby, 64.
“Remember Mama said there was a number you got to call?”
“She’s got the number,” Ruby said. “The Social Security number.”
Spencer kept asking questions. What would Social Security want to know? How often are people denied? But he didn’t mention the one that had been bothering him the most lately: Was he a failure?
……………………………..
The decision that burdened Desmond Spencer was one that millions of Americans have faced over the past two decades as the number of people on disability has surged. Between 1996 and 2015, the number of working-age adults receiving disability climbed from 7.7 million to 13 million. The federal government this year will spend an estimated $192 billion on disability payments, more than the combined total for food stamps, welfare, housing subsidies and unemployment assistance.
The rise in disability has emerged as yet another indicator of a widening political, cultural and economic chasm between urban and rural America.
Across large swaths of the country, disability has become a force that has reshaped scores of mostly white, almost exclusively rural communities, where as many as one-third of working-age adults live on monthly disability checks, according to a Washington Post analysis of Social Security Administration statistics.
Rural America experienced the most rapid increase in disability rates over the past decade, the analysis found, amid broad growth in disability that was partly driven by demographic changes that are now slowing as disabled baby-boomers age into retirement.
Chris
@schrodingers_cat:
I know there was a guy commenting as chris without a capital C. (Still is, isn’t there?) I suppose I could’ve changed my name, but eh, you know how lazy we millennials are…
Elmo
@Yarrow:
I know I’m an outlier about this, but I’m fortunate that it really doesn’t bother me – except that it always seems to happen when I’m already late for my flight. I am completely indifferent to the contact, and mostly I wish they would just hurry the fuck up. I know I’m the strange one though.
Yutsano
@Yarrow: Look at what he does on the second crotch grab. Anything in the “sensitive area” is supposed to be done with the back of the hand. That’s not done correctly. The child is being groped at that point.
@Elmo: It’s the second patdown that really gets me. Not only is it unnecessary (he had already inspected that area) it’s totally done outside of the normal sensitive area protocol.
rikyrah
Lips pursed.
Uh huh
Uh huh
White Socialism.
………………………………………………….
Disabled, or just desperate?
Rural Americans turn to disability as jobs dry up
BEAVERTON, ALA.
The lobby at the pain-management clinic had become crowded with patients, so relatives had gone outside to their trucks to wait, and here, too, sat Desmond Spencer, smoking a 9 a.m. cigarette and watching the door. He tried stretching out his right leg, knowing these waits can take hours, and winced. He couldn’t sit easily for long, not anymore, and so he took a sip of soda and again thought about what he should do.
He hadn’t had a full-time job in a year. He was skipping meals to save money. He wore jeans torn open in the front and back. His body didn’t work like it once had. He limped in the days, and in the nights, his hands would swell and go numb, a reminder of years spent hammering nails. His right shoulder felt like it was starting to go, too.
But did all of this pain mean he was disabled? Or was he just desperate?
He wouldn’t even turn 40 for a few more months.
An hour passed, and his cellphone rang. He picked it up, said hello and hung up — another debt collector. He rubbed his right knee. Maybe it would get better. Maybe he would still find a job.
His mother had written a number the night before and told him to call it, and he had told her he’d think about it. She wanted him to apply for disability, like she had, like his girlfriend had, and like his stepfather, whom he now saw shuffling out of the pain clinic, hunched over his walker, reaching for a hand-rolled cigarette. Spencer got out of the truck. He lit his own.
……………………….
Spencer kept asking questions. What would Social Security want to know? How often are people denied? But he didn’t mention the one that had been bothering him the most lately: Was he a failure?
……………………………..
The decision that burdened Desmond Spencer was one that millions of Americans have faced over the past two decades as the number of people on disability has surged. Between 1996 and 2015, the number of working-age adults receiving disability climbed from 7.7 million to 13 million. The federal government this year will spend an estimated $192 billion on disability payments, more than the combined total for food stamps, welfare, housing subsidies and unemployment assistance.
The rise in disability has emerged as yet another indicator of a widening political, cultural and economic chasm between urban and rural America.
Across large swaths of the country, disability has become a force that has reshaped scores of mostly white, almost exclusively rural communities, where as many as one-third of working-age adults live on monthly disability checks, according to a Washington Post analysis of Social Security Administration statistics.
Rural America experienced the most rapid increase in disability rates over the past decade, the analysis found, amid broad growth in disability that was partly driven by demographic changes that are now slowing as disabled baby-boomers age into retirement.
hovercraft
Some good news?
Yarrow
@J R in WV:
The TSA employee would have been fired if he hadn’t followed the specific pat down protocol. Maybe the TSA needs to come up with protocols for kids but it seemed pretty much the same as every pat down I’ve had by them. I have no idea how long it takes but it seems endless when you’re in the middle of it.
schrodingers_cat
@Certified Mutant Enemy: Will you pay for my next QEII voyage?
rikyrah
If the White House spied on the FBI, there’s a problem
03/31/17 01:12 PM
By Steve Benen
The latest available information sheds quite a bit of light who leaked sensitive information to House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), as part of his effort to bolster one of Donald Trump’s conspiracy theories. Yesterday we learned the names of three of the Republican congressman’s sources, each of whom are senior White House officials, including the National Security Council’s top lawyer.
One of the questions hanging over this is why, exactly, these White House officials were reviewing these intelligence materials in the first place.
………………..
But why were the White House officials reviewing the surveillance in the first place? Rachel noted on the show last night that Barton Gellman, a longtime investigative reporter covering national security, wrote a piece for the Century Foundation raising the possibility that the Trump White House was effectively spying on the FBI during the bureau’s counter-intelligence investigation.
germy
@hovercraft:
Expect some ugly opposition ads from them.
Adam L Silverman
@hovercraft: I’ve seen some reporting that indicates some of the polling indicates that Ossoff may be able to get just above 50% and avoid the run off.
Yarrow
@Yutsano: Sorry, I don’t see what you’re talking about. Can you point out the exact time in the video?
Adam L Silverman
@rikyrah: Yep, that was my take. They are trying to figure out who is doing what, who is looking at what, and how much exposure their might be.
And now we know why you don’t put brown nosing, 30 year old, junior DIA analysts in charge of US Intelligence Policy at the NSC!
OGLiberal
This is why we don’t fly any longer – got sick of having my two young kids have to take off their shoes and all that. Well, that and narrower seat widths, no more in flight meals, paying to stow luggage, etc.
In my experience, and it’s been a while but it was post 9/11, TSA folks were pretty nice and many were female and/or minorities. Nothing like the white dude thugs in ICE and border patrol. And I don’t think it pays that well, either.
Mnemosyne
@Adam L Silverman:
Since they’re arresting people with no criminal record or tendency towards violence, it’s risk-free bullying — they can do whatever they want to the arrestees with no risk to themselves.
If they’re only allowed to arrest actual criminals, the agents themselves are at risk of being shot or injured. They don’t want that. Better to act tough with a mother of three than to actually have to be tough with a real criminal. That’s hard work!
Ian G.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who thinks bin Laden ultimately won his war against this country.
Mnemosyne
@Ruviana:
He threatens to crawl. Usually he has to start doing so before the agents back down.
Oh, and this is AFTER they’ve already sent his cane through the x-ray machine to verify that it’s just a cane.
Adam L Silverman
@Ian G.: I’ve written here, and other places, that if you look at what bin Laden stated as his strategic objectives in his declaration of war/manifesto he accomplished almost every one of them that involved the US, though the price of oil is back down under $70 a barrel.
Chet Murthy
I’ve avoided flying for this specific reason. Last time was >2.5yr ago. I suppose I’ll have to again, but the more I see about the evolution of these “protocols”, the more I’m inclined to plan to strip if asked to submit to a pat-down.
Being naked in public seems much less skeevy than having somebody grope my privates.
But then, it’s probably a crime, so I wouldn’t make it to my destination anyway. So …. same diff, just don’t fly.
hovercraft
Talk about life imitates satire….
How to Fix the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division
According to people who think voter intimidation against white people is one of the nation’s most pressing issues.
Three of the biggest names in voter suppression have a message for Attorney General Jeff Sessions: The Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department needs an extreme makeover. In an open letter published this week, former DOJ officials Hans von Spakovsky and J. Christian Adams joined Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach and 22 other signatories in calling on Sessions to clean up the “ideological rot” left behind by the Obama administration and get rid of the “entrenched federal bureaucrats” who have zealously “jettisoned precepts like equal enforcement in favor of political and racialized dogmas.”
In the letter, the authors ask Sessions to shift the Civil Rights Division’s priorities: Instead of concentrating on issues like racism in American policing, as it did under the leadership of attorneys general Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch, they suggest that the Sessions DOJ should put its energy toward putting an end to “politically-driven pursuits against state photo voter identification requirements” and tackling voter intimidation against white people. “Our nation is changing. The mosaic image of America is growing richer in color and detail as each decade passes,” the authors of the letter write. “For these reasons, the American people deserve a Division that seeks to represent and protect all citizens.”
Click over to read the rest.
Fucking assholes.
Gin & Tonic
@Adam L Silverman: What are the odds McMaster leaked Cohen-Watnick’s name to the NYT?
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
I keep wondering that if if an average middle aged man moans loudly and shudders during a patdown, does it dampen the enthusiasm for such activity?
I’d think that would cut way down on touchey-feely patdowns….
notoriousJRT
@Chris: Don’t forget: it also caused the government to be ok with torturing people in our custody. Home of the brave, baby!
Hunter Gathers
@hovercraft: Shorter : “Teh Blacks. They scare us. Please make them go away. Sieg Heil”
rikyrah
@andy:
some will justify anything.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Yarrow:
The patdown as you leave Beijing happens to everybody, and is public. Interestingly, every person that travelers interact with (and this applied to both occidental and Asians of all ethnicities) is smiling and friendly. In my observation, everybody was treated the same.
The only person who is completely expressionless is the patdown guy or woman. It is thorough, professional, polite and quick.
In Beijing, they were lots faster than the one in this video. I’ll add that I’ve had domestic patdowns here, and those weren’t long and lingering like the one that Officer Pedobear gave here.
Yutsano
@Yarrow: I’m at work so trying to point out specifically where it happened is difficult. But it’s when he goes back for the second check. He bare palms the legs all the way up through the crotch area.
ETA: I also don’t see him communicating what he’s going to do to the child at all. He just goes in and starts pawing without telling specifically what he’s doing.
LABiker
Is this the TSA or NAMBLA?
Chris
@notoriousJRT:
Was talking about this on another blog not long ago – there’s a lot about pre-9/11 action movies that make me feel nostalgic. One of them is the trope of “uncovering something really bad being done by the government” and the built-in assumption that if you get it to the public, the public might actually give a crap. After spending the 2000s watching things like torture chambers and preemptive wars being debated and endorsed openly by the system and most of the public (confirmed by the nationwide fit of hysteria that was thrown in 2009 at the attempt to close Gitmo), it just seems so quaint.
Mart
When my daughter was about fifteen she had a similar pat down. A lot of time spent on chest, butt and crotch. My dad alarm turned on red alert. I wanted to, but managed not to holler at the guy. Thought the creep was done and then he went back and told her to unbuckle her belt and unbutton the top button of her jeans before re-groping her. After it was over, I don’t know who had the redder face, me or her.
notoriousJRT
@Adam L Silverman: This is exactly what I have thought. Obama gave them a sad because they could not go full gestapo. Now their dreams are fulfilled. It is chilling and disgusting.
Mnemosyne
@Yarrow:
@Elmo:
People find this creepy because it’s being done to a six-year-old child. Not only that, but one with a stated disability that makes it extra uncomfortable for him to be touched.
Like I said above, telling TSA personnel that you or your child have a disability seems to bring out their asshole side more often than not, like they’re going to somehow prove that you’re lying about being disabled.
Miss Bianca
@hovercraft: I keep wondering when the “Jesus Chicken-Fried Christ, ENOUGH ALREADY” faction is going to kick in and take over the American psyche again. Or have we been so conditioned into cowardice that we’ll accept any invasion of privacy, no matter how intrusive or inappropriate, as OK? I keep asking, “when did the ‘land of the free, home of the brave’ become OK with being such pants-pissing cowards?” and never getting an answer. 9/11 is the answer, I guess, but the rot has to have gone deeper than that.
Man, at this point, rather than have to disrobe completely or get groped by TSA agents, I’d rather outsource our airport security to the Israelis. I’d seriously rather be looking at guys with AK-47s at the gate and on board the plane than go thru’ this crap. It’s why I never fly anywhere anymore.
Adam L Silverman
@Gin & Tonic: Slim to none. My guess is it was someone else. The CIA officer assigned to his section at the NSC, was escorted out of the building shortly after the story broke that LTG McMaster had tried to fire him and that Cohen-Watnick end ran him by going to Bannon and Kushner to intercede with the President. At this poin we have anonymous sources leaking on other anonymous sources.
MomSense
@Yarrow:
I made the mistake of wearing an underwire bra when traveling once. Boy that was a thorough pat down. .
Mnemosyne
@Mart:
Patdowns are supposed to be done by someone of the same gender. You probably could have complained that they broke protocol.
Mnemosyne
So I do have a TSA story from my trip to Orlando — my knee brace made the machine ping because it had metal in it that I didn’t realize. Of course, I was wearing it UNDER my pants, so I had to be wheeled to a cubicle to take them off so they could run the brace through the x-ray machine.
They offered me a paper sheet, but I was like, “Fuck it, we’re all girls here” and just stripped off my pants. I think the TSA ladies were a little startled.
On the way back, I made sure to wear leggings and put the brace OVER my pants instead of under them. Didn’t have a problem.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Mart:
I had daughters, but never endured that kind of behavior.
I think my personal response, as it started, would be “get me your supervisor, goddamned immediately. And if you want to whine about my language, go ahead and bring security over so I can start collecting badge numbers and wrecking jobs, you fucking loser.”
D58826
Wouldn’t it have been easier to just tell the kid to get nekked? snark
Yarrow
@Yutsano: Okay, I had a look. I think the video is a little unclear. To me it looks like he’s using the back of his hands in the sensitive area when he goes back. The video is picking up noises around the camera so it’s also hard to tell what he says to the child, if anything. I also wonder if, when he went back, if that was to rub the explosives paper. I’ve had that done recently. Can’t remember where they rubbed it on me, though.
I do want to be clear that I find these kinds of pat downs invasive and wrong. They should not be done like this, especially to kids. I just don’t see what the guy is doing all that out of the ordinary.
@Mart: If your fifteen year old daughter was patted down by a male TSA officer, that is not protocol. You would be within your rights to file a complaint. They are supposed to have a TSA agent with the same gender as the passenger do the pat down. In any case, that’s appalling. Your poor daughter.
trollhattan
@bystander:
JRub will always advance the Likud position foremost. Obama, not so much.
Jean
@SP: crossed my mind.
D58826
@Mnemosyne: I had an odd knee story also. On the outbound trip TSA decided that my left leg, and only my left leg was suspicious so it required extra attention.
On the return trip it was my right leg that was acting like a jihadist and had to be groped repeatedly. No leg braces, no artificial knees, no bone pins nothing. The only difference between my right leg and my left is the knee cartilage was removed from my right knee in 1965.
Mnemosyne
@Yarrow:
Again: not out of the ordinary for an adult. Definitely out of the ordinary for a child.
germy
Seth Owen
@Adam L Silverman: Very much this. I can understand why folks want to be police officers, firefighters, EMTs, soldiers, FBI agents, etc.
But ICE/CBP? No glory there. Just mind numbing routine and a chance to exert authority against people with little or no recourse. Reminds me a bit of correctional officers (and I have friends who are COs). For the good ones it’s just a job. But there is a lot of scope for not-so-good-ones.
GregB
To be fair, this is S.O.P. at the Honorable Mark Foley Terminal.
You really want to avoid the restroom in the Larry Craig Annex.
Stacy
There’s an article in the WaPo today about another disturbing incident with the TSA. The woman was wearing a pantyliner and got pulled for further screening. Here is what happened to her. “I started to ask if I had done something wrong or if this was ‘random,’ but before I could get a second word out, the TSA agent yelled at me,” Harris told me. “She grabbed my throat hard, causing me to choke and cough. She yelled at me for coughing. She then put her hands inside my bra and panties and groped my private parts with the front, not the back, of her gloved hand. Afterward, I worried that I may have been infected if she had groped someone else without changing gloves. Her attitude was so threatening and hostile, that I was afraid to look at her face and name plate.”
Yarrow
@Mnemosyne:
For the sake of accuracy, the child in this video is thirteen years old, not six.
Link. I don’t know if that changes the creepiness factor or not for people.
The disability is a separate issue. The TSA should have protocols in place to deal with those issues. Your brother’s story is awful. I don’t know if the mom had a letter from the child’s doctor, but that might be advisable for another flight. I think it’s wrong that people would need to do that but to protect the child it might be a good idea.
PJ
After 9/11, the change in so many Americans from a blithe, not a care in the world, who cares what I break attitude, to “holy shit, the world is a scary place, I need a gun and a place to hide” was startling. The way people just rolled over in giving up civil liberties (and even now still will say that security theater “makes them feel safer”, even though they know it accomplishes little or nothing) was dismaying. The further you get away from cities like NY, DC, LA, where people come into contact with people from other cultures every day, the greater the real fear is.
My theory is that, at the time of 9/11, most white Americans were raised to believe that they will always be safe and that, outside of random accidents or illness, nothing bad will ever happen to them. Unless you are in the military, the notion of being killed, or seeing loved ones die, is alien. Since the end of the Indian Wars, we haven’t had any military conflicts on Continental US soil, and it’s been a long time since WWII and Korea, when all classes of people were drafted. Childhood illnesses are now mostly non-fatal, and industrial accidents, which used to kill and maim thousands every year, are now much rarer. Other parts of the world had to deal with war and terrorism throughout the 20th Century, but the US, comparatively speaking, was Disneyland (at least if you were white). This cocoon of safety created a belief that it is a right, not an accident of history and geography, a right which is more important than all others. This feeds the rise of authoritarianism, because so many Americans (mostly Republicans) just want a Daddy-figure to protect them and make everything alright.
The flip side of this is that so many Americans were gung-ho for a war against Arabs (despite the fact that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, and the states the hijackers came from were our “allies”) because it made them feel like they were powerful again (particularly if they didn’t have to fight themselves), and helped erase the feeling of weakness which 9/11 exposed nakedly. That feeling of weakness and helplessness persists, which is why so many people voted for Trump – they want to believe that he will make America great again (i.e., will protect them from all bad things), even when they acknowledge that so much of what he says is bullshit. At least he is going to stick it those brown people, which makes them feel a little safer and a little more powerful.
Chris
@Seth Owen:
I was just about to make the comparison to COs before I got to that sentence. It’s the only other job I can think of that offers as much latitude for abuse.
Yarrow
@Mnemosyne: Is this true, though? Does the TSA have separate protocols for patting down children? I’ve seen kids get pat downs and it has looked to me that the follow the same protocol as they do with adults. I’m not sure how old the kids were, though.
The child is thirteen years old. Perhaps the TSA also has some age cut off where they use one protocol over another? Like three year olds get one version. Fifteen year olds get another. Maybe height is an issue?
liberal
@Chris: not really. Have they raided any big meatpacking plants? No? I wonder why that would be.
Immanentize
@Yarrow: You are oddly invested in supporting the frisk in this matter…..
glory b
@Incitatus for Senate: Okay, that was horrible, but I laughed.
Nominee to win the internet today.
brendancalling
What’s super gross is the TSA officer’s barely concealed erection.
Ruviana
@Mnemosyne: I was wondering if he had to do that. Sometimes those kinds of threats do work.
Just One More Canuck
@Adam L Silverman: A former colleague of mine used to get pulled aside every time he flew to the US (from Canada) because he has the same name as an Irish terrorist
Spanky
In case you were wondering who to root for in Sunday’s Ecuadoran election:
Brachiator
@germy:
I don’t see Trump as being good at calling a bluff. If Trump is not worried, then Flynn probably does not have anything that would hurt him.
ETA: Others have covered my outrage over the TSA incident with the kid. It’s on the list of things to be improved after we get rid of Trump.
Yarrow
@Immanentize: Nope. I’m not a fan of the TSA. Been pretty clear about that.
clay
@Mnemosyne: Oh, hey, how was the trip to WDW? You and the nieces have a good time?
Yarrow
@Just One More Canuck: I knew a guy who had the same name as an Irish terrorist (apparently–it was his best guess). Middle aged white guy. Could not fly without jumping through a lot of hoops because he was on some version of the no fly list. He had no idea how he got on it nor how to get off. They would eventually allow him to fly but he’d have to allow several extra hours at the airport.
Mnemosyne
@Yarrow:
They do have protocols. They frequently ignore those protocols if they don’t feel like following them. And, unfortunately, there’s an administration in place that will back TSA up when they decide to be random assholes to disabled people.
Chris
@Just One More Canuck:
Oh jeepers.
Given the number of people with Irish heritage in the U.S. and Canada, I can only imagine how many other people had that problem.
clay
@Adam L Silverman:
Given the sheer volume of disturbing reports about the harassment of anyone even remotely foreign — even those here perfectly legally — that have occurred since Jan. 20, it seems clear that ICE was just chock full of people who could not wait to teach those brown folks a thing or two.
It seems in every other department, we’ve seen some push back against the worst ideas of TrumpCo. But not ICE; it’s just “Let’s go get ’em, boys!”
Mnemosyne
@clay:
I managed to sprain my knee the day before getting on the plane (hence the knee brace story) and the 11YO had a nasty cold that she promptly passed on to me, but we had an awesome time anyway. We met a ridiculous number of characters and went on all of the thrill rides.
Brachiator
@Spanky:
I have to root for a former banker? Unfair!
Just One More Canuck
@Yarrow: very similar story to my colleague. I flew with him to Chicago one time and when I got to the airport, he had already been there for 2 hours – he knew the routine by then
Kathleen
@Frank McCormick: m@NotMax: New symbol of Amerussia: Bald Eagle wearing Depends.
clay
@Spanky:
Huh. I don’t recall Assange defying the powerful government and intelligence agencies of, say, Russia. Surely an oversight on the reporter’s part, no?
Debbie1
I’m sorry, but that had nothing to do with 9-11 or a security search. If that’s the way he searches the boy (who did NOT set off the alarm) what did he do to the laptop, which reportedly did set off alarms lick it? Anyway, he’s got Sandusky written all over him, with that behavior.
Chris
@clay:
Heck, ICE/CPB was even refusing to enforce the court orders against Trump’s EOs. Which is something that should terrify anyone in an alleged democracy when coming from any security agency.
clay
@Mnemosyne: Good to hear. (Not about the injuries, about the fun.) Of course, y’all will have to come back when they finish Avatar Land, and Star Wars Land, and Pixar Land, and…
japa21
So Trump U settlement is done. $25 million and Trump claims he never settles.
clay
@Chris: Even though Trump was, of course, lying when he said “ICE endorsed me”, it seems like a rare case where the spirit of what he said wasn’t too far off.
Buncha jack-booted thugs, is what they are. Dems need to clean that house once they get back in power.
Roger Moore
I guess it’s time for this video again.
Millard Filmore
removed. i did not like what i wrote.
Mnemosyne
@clay:
We already have Pixar Land (aka Disney California Adventure) and they’re building us a Star Wars Land, so the only thing they’ll have in Florida that we don’t is Avatar Land.
I’m fine with that. ?
Patricia Kayden
@Thoroughly Pizzled: I would put Bill Maher in that category for all his Islamophobia.
NorthLeft12
@hovercraft: Yes, you are exactly right about the fear level in places that are highly unlikely to ever be attacked. I see it in Canada too. The area I live in has a number of chemical plants and my in-laws [who live in the area] were absolutely convinced that our area was near the top of the list for terrorists to attack. I tried to convince them that terrorists would probably not be able to find this place, and that they needed/wanted the high profile exposure that attacking iconic places brings.
They are still convinced that they are biding their time until they strike. While my family in Toronto and London, England accept the risk as part of big city life.
pat
@Yarrow:
Oh baloney- I have a hip replacement that requires a pat-down and it takes maybe 30 seconds or less.
On the other hand a 70 yr old white lady is just not as dangerous as an 8 yr old. Ha.
That TSA creep is a creep.
boatboy_srq
The more I experience of conservatists, the more perverted they seem. I’m sure there’s a bottom to be found, but it’s a loooong way down.
Mnemosyne
@pat:
13-year-old who is at least 2 feet shorter than the creep patting him down.
Mnemosyne
@Yarrow:
That’s a really short 13 year old. Still not sure how he’s such a dire threat that he needs to be thoroughly groped.
boatboy_srq
@Yarrow: The TSA definitely needs to come up with screening protocols for kids.
leeleeFL
@hovercraft: I have been saying for years that the country has been suffering from collective PTSD since 9/11. What happened to that kid was atrocious. WHAT THE EVER LOVING FU–?
gvg
I do think some of our society’s fear was embedded by the poor examples of Bush and Cheney. Both made choices and said things that showed our leaders were cowards and afraid. Torture was partly because they couldn’t bear their own responsibilities and were desperate for answers. Cheney in particular pissed me off with his cowardly talk disguised as super tough. They should have been laughed at by us. With braver leaders at that time, I think we wouldn’t have gotten as bad. Trump would be worse. he might not even be able to fake it enough to pass but our system really does need someone in charge and he isn’t.
Mart
@Mnemosyne: It was a long time ago, not too long after 911. Not sure I knew the opposite gender pat down rules at the time. Anyone in a uniform, from a nurse to a TSA agent, and I am intimidated.
boatboy_srq
@Certified Mutant Enemy: And something tells me that if this continues much longer the market for surface crossings will return. I’ve crossed on QM2 twice, and each time she’s been right about at capacity. Make it comfortable, reasonably affordable and still connected and a lot more folks who are tired of getting poked, prodded and peeked at will want the same. And yes, there is security screening at the terminal, but it’s a lot less intrusive – and a lot more polite.
Amir Khalid
It doesn’t matter (well, I don’t see how it matters) whether the boy is six years old or thirteen. Either way, he’s still a minor and no adult has any business groping him.
NorthLeft12
@Ian G.: I recall more than a few discussions with conservatives up here in Canada that the over reaction of the western world to the 9/11 attacks was the point where victory was handed to Bin Laden and his followers. 9/11 was the opening battle, the next fifteen years or so the war was lost…over and over again.
germy
@boatboy_srq: I’ve always wanted to do that. Our last trip to Europe we flew and I didn’t enjoy the experience. How long does it take to make the trip by boat?
Doug R
@Elmo: Yeah,but you’re used to Kevin Clash’s hand.
Yarrow
@Mnemosyne: I don’t think anyone should be groped. I’m against the whole way we do security. It’s not very effective and is far too invasive. It’s security theater.
As I said, I don’t see this agent doing anything I haven’t either experienced or seen done to others, so I’m not surprised the TSA said it conformed to their protocols. Everyone seems outraged because of this child’s age, but the same thing is being done to people of all ages every day and it gets very little publicity. Maybe they all need an angry mom to stand to the side and video it. I’m outraged by the whole pat down and nudie x-ray technology completely–whether it happens to this child, an adult, anyone. It’s offensive, invasive and not very effective. It’s wide open for abuse–the agents can pick someone out “randomly” or for some made up reason and abuse them. It’s just wrong on a moral basis and bad policy to boot. I’m not outraged because this person was a child–I’m outraged by it being done as policy and protocol in general.
I’m more supportive of the “everyone gets checked” version that Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes mentioned China uses. It’s a uniform policy, everyone knows what to expect and the agents are much faster at it because that’s their job. Much less open to abuse. But I don’t see us going that direction. Not enough abuse opportunities.
Mary G
@clay: Yeah, the Border Patrol, the ICE, the TSA seem to be riddled with wanna-be jackbooted thugs who are thrilled that Trump has set them free. I don’t want to be represented by people who get off on abusing other people. It worries me, too, that he has so much backing from cops who hated being held even a little tiny bit accountable under Obama.
Iowa Old Lady
@germy: I feel for Adam Schiff. He’s an upright guy and Nunes is blowing his committee up.
Also, it feels odd to cheer for the CIA. Curse Trump.
Chris
@NorthLeft12:
The truly spectacular thing about the next fifteen years has been watching the United States and the jihadists successively rescue each other from their own stupidity.
The United States probably had more international support and goodwill on its side on the evening of 09/11/2001 than at any point since 1945, while al-Qaeda (already not exactly on most people’s Christmas list) was at a corresponding low.
Of course, we chose to piss away all of that goodwill on a pointless, idiotic, counterproductive, blatantly immoral war that was a godsend to the al-Qaeda crowd in terms of recruitment.
But then, the AQI proceeded to behave so brutally and stupidly towards the Iraqi population that within a few years, even most of their Sunni allies were switching sides to the U.S, figuring that anything had to be better than this.
But then, the U.S. (and to be fair the government in Baghdad had a lot to do with this) pretty much ignored their newfound allies and didn’t follow through on their promises to them, giving the jihadist types new opportunities to recruit in the area…
germy
@Iowa Old Lady: Too much drama in this administration.
I miss slow news days.
boatboy_srq
@germy: Six WONDERFUL days. You’re wined, dined, entertained and generally kept just as busy as you want to be. Add in zero jet lag, and the far more comfortable screening at each end of the voyage, and it’s a marvel.
Adam L Silverman
@Miss Bianca: Those are Galils. The Israelis, as with almost all their tech (the nuclear weapons plans and material they stole from the US for instance), is taken from someone else and then adapted. In the case of the Galil, my understanding is they made some significant improvements over the original design
Elmo
@Doug R: Heh. I had to look up the name.
Ruckus
@Yarrow:
Given what they actually do the TSA would have to be at least twice as big to pull off completely checking everyone. That is why I wrote about my being assigned to the pre check line were it takes much less time and the theater is much less. Part of my “inspection” last times I got patted down was of course the explosives sniffer. But the inspector used an old piece of material to wipe down my hands so if there was anything from someone else on there…….
It’s all bullshit theater, intended by scared people to either keep people from getting far more scared and/or just plain authoritarian bullshit. It does have enough effect that maybe someone won’t bother to try anything critical. Because they don’t seem to have for a while. Of course it goes far, far overboard but then that’s authoritarians for you. For me I’ve run into far worse people working for CBP than TSA. And at least with the TSA you have an idea what you are going to have to put up with. Before the TSA some of the private companies that did airport security weren’t as qualified to do that job as drumpf is qualified to do his. (He isn’t in any way qualified, just better than them)
Adam L Silverman
@Seth Owen: there is significant overlap in the vein diagram of the circles for corrections officers and inmates. The good ones are good. Often it is either a stepping stone to other forms of policing – a foot in the door or its a I’m transferring to this till I retire from other forms of policing because I can’t do patrol work anymore.
germy
@boatboy_srq: that sounds great. Much better than our transatlantic flight.
Yarrow
This is kind of interesting:
Pence is complicit. They are trying to make him out to be their savior.
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman: I sit corrected, sir. ; )
Oh, and while we’re on the subject of firearms…you made some point the other day about Colt and some of the other big gun manufacturers with old and solid reputations not producing guns that lived up to those reptuations anymore. By any chance, do you know what the scuttlebutt is on Henry rifles? Asking for a friend…of course!
Mike J
@Yarrow: West Wing Reports seems to be one guy who one wrote a book.
Miss Bianca
@Doug R: If that refers to what I think it does…well-played!
Yarrow
@Mike J: I’m less interested in who he is than what seems to be growing discussion of the GOP moving toward Pence.
Eric U.
@Mike J:
the assholes that elect idiots like Lord to the board of trustees live in the ‘burbs around Philly. As of today, it appears that Lord is not running for reelection to the Penn State board of trustees. I just checked how to vote against him, and one of the names was listed as having withdrawn. Sandusky is reviled here in Happy Valley, but there are lots of people that are in denial about Paterno
Adam L Silverman
@Miss Bianca: Henry’s have an excellent reputation. Email me offline and we can confab.
SiubhanDuinne
@PJ:
Say what now???
Yutsano
@Adam L Silverman: We could learn a shit ton from the Israelis on how to do security protocols. Those guys standing around with machine guns? They’re not just looking menacing. They’re actually alertly watching the crowds for anyone who looks nervous or out of place. Then they go over and talk to them informally. If it’s nothing they move on, but if the suspect needs further clearance they take them around for questioning. The guards are usually multilingual but also trained VERY WELL in human psychology and crowd searching techniques. There are reasons why Israeli airports are very tough targets.
Adam L Silverman
@Mike J: @Yarrow: It has also been tweeted by a former Obama staffer with good connections as well as The Jester. There may be no there there, but some people are saying it, believe me.
germy
Mike J
@Yutsano: Also racist AF
rikyrah
@clay:
Uh huh
Uh huh
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman: oh, excellent! Will do.
SWMBO
@Yarrow: Didn’t Ted Kennedy get on the no fly list and jump through hoops to get on a plane?
Mnemosyne
@germy:
Well, duh. Now they can make money off their customers in addition to taking it. It’s win/win for them.
Yutsano
@Mike J: The TSA ain’t better on that point.
Yarrow
@SWMBO: I vaguely remember something about that. It’s yet another stupid thing about our so-called security. People don’t know they’re on it and don’t know how to get off it.
Mike J
@Yutsano: And we complain about it.
rikyrah
Michael Flynn’s Problems are Donald Trump’s Problems
by Martin Longman March 31, 2017 1:04 PM
Nancy is correct to emphasize that it’s quite possible, likely even, that many folks are drawing the wrong conclusions from the fact that Michael Flynn is seeking immunity before he’s willing to talk again to the FBI or testify before Congress. All it definitely means is that there’s a high probability that Flynn will invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. Whether he has something worthy of a trade for immunity is a separate matter. In other words, some folks are willing to say that they’re eager to talk to Congress, and others are warning that they’ll clam up real tight if called or subpoenaed to testify. Flynn is in the latter camp, and for obvious reasons.
If he was ever in any doubt about it, he now knows with a certainty that he’s been the subject of a multiagency counterintelligence investigation since at least July of last year. He’s seen the allegations made against him in the Steele dossier. If those things weren’t terrifying enough, he apparently was “less then forthcoming” with the FBI when they questioned him about the content of his communications with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. It’s also increasingly clear that even if the Intelligence Community and, in particular, the CIA didn’t see him as potential turncoat and Putin-controlled mole, he attempted to make war on them and lost.
His legal vulnerabilities are therefore huge and his enemies determined, which makes it less than helpful that he’s been caught dead to rights failing to report payments from the Russian government for his travel to Moscow to meet with and fête Vladimir Putin, nor to divulge that he was taking money from Turkey and was therefore serving as an agent of a foreign power. One might imagine that he’s committed perjury by paperwork on these issues as he got himself cleared to work as Trump’s National Security Adviser.
And then there’s the possibility that he could actually be prosecuted for conspiracy to commit kidnapping, which he had the lack of foresight to engage in in the presence of a former director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Gravenstone
@Ian G.:
Ultimately? Fuck, it was immediate. Not only did Bush the Lesser and company stoke everyone’s fears to their own ends, but they institutionalized as well as weaponized it. The US lost their collective fucking minds because 19 swarthy looking guys formed a suicide pact.
Gelfling 545
@Cathie from Canada: A few years back, when I was joining VISTA, I flew tp Philadelphia for traoning and induction. Flying back home I was traveling with a group of people much younger than myself, retirement age not bring the usual age for VISTA volunteers. A couple of the more well endowed young women got called aside for “pat down”. I stood by and watched, wearing my teacher face. Finally one of the agents noticed me watching them and that was the end of that. No question that this is being abused and people have to put up with it to get on their flight. More people might want to complain afterwards but most feel it would be pointless.
hovercraft
Anatomy of a Cover-Up
by Nancy LeTourneau
March 31, 2017 3:48 PM
Yesterday I mentioned that, as we get additional pieces of the puzzle related to the Trump campaign and administration, it is important to place them into the bigger picture. Yesterday brought a couple of important items that would be helpful to put in context. So here is a timeline of what might be called “an attempted cover-up.”
Click through to the link for the timeline.
In addition to the timeline, it is important to note the connections between the players involved.
As I mentioned previously, Sessions and Flynn both served on Trump’s National Security Advisory Council during the campaign,
Back in November, the NYT noted that Rep. Devin Nunes was a “close confidant” to Michael Flynn.
Cohen-Watnick was brought to the White House by Michael Flynn.
Michael Ellis worked for Rep. Nunes on the House Intelligence Committee as its general counsel prior to taking a job at the White House.
All of that leads me to a very important question raised by Barton Gellman.
…why would a White House lawyer and the top White House intelligence adviser be requesting copies of these surveillance reports in the first place?…There is no chance that the FBI would brief them about the substance or progress of its investigation into the Trump campaign’s connections to the Russian government. Were the president’s men using the surveillance assets of the U.S. government to track the FBI investigation from the outside?
Stay tuned. If the answer to that turns out to be “yes,” we’ve reached that point in the investigation where the old Watergate adage applies, “It’s not the crime, it’s the cover-up.”
A Ghost to Most
@Adam L Silverman:
I have similar questions regarding new Henry vs new Marlin vs old Marlin 30-30?
Yutsano
@hovercraft: Am I wrong in thinking this is moving faster than Watergate?
germy
@Yutsano: drumpf: Mastermind or Useful Idiot?
rikyrah
Anatomy of a Cover-Up
by Nancy LeTourneau March 31, 2017 3:48 PM
Yesterday I mentioned that, as we get additional pieces of the puzzle related to the Trump campaign and administration, it is important to place them into the bigger picture. Yesterday brought a couple of important items that would be helpful to put in context. So here is a timeline of what might be called “an attempted cover-up.”
……………………
In addition to the timeline, it is important to note the connections between the players involved.
As I mentioned previously, Sessions and Flynn both served on Trump’s National Security Advisory Council during the campaign,
Back in November, the NYT noted that Rep. Devin Nunes was a “close confidant” to Michael Flynn.
Cohen-Watnick was brought to the White House by Michael Flynn.
Michael Ellis worked for Rep. Nunes on the House Intelligence Committee as its general counsel prior to taking a job at the White House.
All of that leads me to a very important question raised by Barton Gellman.
Stay tuned. If the answer to that turns out to be “yes,” we’ve reached that point in the investigation where the old Watergate adage applies, “It’s not the crime, it’s the cover-up.”
hovercraft
@Yutsano: @germy:
It’s moving faster because the Shitgibbon still doesn’t understand that he’s not in Trump Tower anymore. Loyalty to him is all well and good, but competence and understanding of the law and the limitation of his “power’s” would have been a lot more useful to him. America is not a dictatorship, it takes thousands of people to run it and running roughshod over them is stupid, you can’t ND* the entire Federal Government they will leak about your every mistake/crime.
ETA * non disclosure
Brachiator
@Yutsano:
How many airports are there in Israel?
Also, you really want highly trained, military personnel at US airports? Stepped up security?
And I would not really expect more highly trained people to perform well under a Trump administration.
Wot a mess!
PJ
@SiubhanDuinne: Did I miss an invasion somewhere?
grandpa john
@boatboy_srq: Cruise lines who depend on repeat business seem toknow how to do things in an effective manner without offending the paying passengers. In the several cruises I have taken in the last few years, I have always admired their effective manner of boarding and thought well the goverment could sure take lessons if they weren’t so fucking arrogant and dismissive of criticism
Mnemosyne
@PJ:
You didn’t say “invasion.” You kind of glossed over that Late Unpleasantness in the mid 19th century.
ETA: And the French & Indian Wars weren’t an invasion since most of the people involved — yes, including the French — were already here. If anything, it was the English colonists who were invading French and Indian territory.
Gelfling 545
@Mnemosyne: if the protocol cannot be distinguished from sexual abuse, we need a new protocol. The way we get that is by loudly demanding it, not accepting it as same not out of the ordinary. It should be considered extraordinary to deal with a minor in such a manner. Sadly but understandably, most people just want to forget about it. More people like this parent speaking out might embolden others.
Chris
@Mnemosyne:
How do you figure? The last acts of the Indian Wars were after the Civil War, not before it.
PJ
@Mnemosyne: The Indian Wars didn’t end until the 1890s, or at the outside, 1924, according to Wikipedia. I said “invasion”, because the notion that there has been war on continental US soil since the end of the Indian Wars is pretty far-fetched, unless you want to count things like Pancho Villa making a raid across the border.
Fubar
I was spared the nightmare BS theatre of watching my children groped on our recent international trip, but that was just chance. We’ve given up much of our freedom when we give these agencies so much warrantless power. And they do attract authoritarian types who like this power & will use it for personal gain.
Policing (and border agents have become police) model is backwards and deeply flawed. Time to change the model.
Steve in the ATL
@PJ:
How about the War of 1812, in which the British landed on our shores and burned down our capital?
PJ
@Steve in the ATL: Which was more than 75 years before the end of the Indian Wars.
Chris
@Mnemosyne:
@Steve in the ATL:
Ah, people? When do you think the Indian Wars ended?
Steve in the ATL
@Chris: @PJ: French and Indian Wars were over by 1763. Was the reference to US troops slaughtering Native Americans? Because then it would go past the Civil War, obviously. And ties into my post on a different thread in which I mentioned the band Guadalcanal Diary, whose song “Trail of Tears” was covered by my college band.
ETA: in which case, never mind!
clay
@Yarrow: It seemed pretty obvious when Flynn was fired for “lying to the Vice President” that Pence’s folks were trying to form a bubble around him in anticipation of Trump’s eventual departure.
First of all, lying to the Veep is like lying to the assistant principal at someone else’s school. You probably shouldn’t do it, but he has no real power to punish you.
Second, Flynn’s contacts with Russia were widely reported in the media. For Pence to claim he didn’t know anything was up either defies belief.
Third, Pence was the one supposedly getting all of the security briefings during the transition. He likely had MORE information about all of this than most other people.
I think it’s likely that Flynn’s firing had nothing to do with Pence, but Pence’s people rushed to make it look like that so that Pence could retain an aura of cleanliness.
I don’t know if Pence was explicitly involved in the campaign shenanigans, but I think he must have known about them, and is therefore involved in the cover up. But I think the media, and maybe even the nation, will be so desperate for a “normal” President that they’ll embrace Pence without asking too many questions.
Chris
Deleted.
Mnemosyne
@PJ:
I don’t think I’ve ever heard the genocide of Native Americans referred to as “the Indian Wars,” but I guess you need to be you.
PJ
@Steve in the ATL: The Indian Wars is a name used to collectively delineate the wars between the US government (and colonies before the US) and Native American tribes.
Mnemosyne
@Chris:
Still no “invasion,” unless PJ’s saying that the US Army was invading Indian territory, which isn’t the same thing as an outside force invading the continental US.
Steve in the ATL
@PJ: Ok, but I’m with Mnemosyne in that I’ve never heard the term used that way.
PJ
@Mnemosyne: I am far from the only one:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Indian_Wars
Also: https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=the+indian+wars
Mnemosyne
@PJ:
Okay, but are you talking about ongoing warfare within the continental US — for which the Indian wars would qualify — or an invasion? Warfare =/= invasion.
ETA: I have been reading popular history for 30+ years and this is literally the first time I’ve heard that genocide referred to as “the Indian Wars.”
TenguPhule
The Onion has been on life support since 1/20/17.
Reality just keeps making satire impossible these days.
PJ
@Mnemosyne: I was not equating invasion with war, I only used “Did I miss an invasion?” in a sarcastic response to Siobhan, who suggested that there have been wars fought here since the Indian Wars (if there have been, they sure weren’t covered in the history books.)
My original point, lost long ago in the misty spaces between comments, was that there has been no war on the soil of the continental US in the living memory of most US citizens, which is not true elsewhere in the world, and which makes some of us uniquely susceptible to believing that, in the natural course of things, nothing bad will ever happen to us, with the corollary that it is the proper role of some authoritarian Daddy-figure (or Gestapo-stand-ins in police departments, TSA, CBP, etc.) to keep us safe.
Chris
@Mnemosyne:
@Steve in the ATL:
I also have both heard and read them called “the Indian Wars” or “American Indian wars” before, as a generic term for basically all conflicts between the U.S. government and multiple native tribes.
No, doesn’t qualify as an invasion of the U.S. (which his original text didn’t refer to), but still qualifies as wars. Though the U.S. government was absolutely the aggressor.
Steve in the ATL
@PJ:
Ok, I think we are all in agreement on this point!
@Chris:
And on this point as well, at least until they started invading our pure, God-fearing lands with their heathen cas!nos. That they manage to run profitably, unlike someone else we all know….
Jim
@Elmo:
So you see NO difference in patting down a full grown man/woman probably in full clothing and the patting down of a child in tshirt and shorts?
JHC only an idiot or a pervert would think they are on the same scale.
Mnemosyne
@PJ:
Like me, SD was assuming that you had erased the Civil War from the record, not that you were referring to the skirmishes between the US Army and various American Indian tribes.
I think it’s ridiculous to group a series of conflicts between different groups ranging across a continent for 300 years and often occurring simultaneously into “the Indian wars,” especially since it glosses over the whole genocide aspect, but that’s a different issue.
Mnemosyne
@PJ:
Also, though I don’t disagree with your main point, I would go a slightly different direction: the majority of the conflicts within the US have been internal conflicts between various groups, from Native groups vs the colonists and US government to slave rebellions to race riots like those that wiped out Rosewood to modern-day urban riots. The US is wired to identify and suppress internal conflict, not to repel invasion, and I think we are even more prone than other countries to look for the invaders from within and identify the “others” who threaten white civil society.
No One You Know
@andy: it never occurred to me to connect pedophilia with patriarchy until your comment. Now it looks embarrassingly obvious…
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Mnemosyne: Eh, sounds like hair splitting. Genocidile as it was, it’s not like the Indians weren’t willing or capable of fighting back. Some of the worst defeats the US Army has had were at the hands of Native Americans.
JoeSo
Um…the Native Americans might have won some victories, but they weren’t so good that they could withstand continued assaults from the U.S. Army. In fact, that’s how they eventually lost. Plus the U.S. was adopting new technologies like the Gatling gun, which didn’t help. And of course, most of these conflicts were centered on dispossessing native peoples of their lands so American settlers could take it.
Mnemosyne
@JoeSo:
Yeah, to call, say, the genocidal raids during the California Gold Rush part of a “war” seems like giving it too much dignity. There were periods of actual warfare, but many more instances of genocidal riots and slaughter.
J R in WV
@Yarrow:
I’ve been done by TSA agents and never was bothered by it. I’m an old veteran who has been around. I’m bigger, and it takes longer to pat down a big person. Spending the time it takes to pat me down on a small person, 4 feet tall, is abusive. Feeling the crotch of a small child repeatedly is illegal. Once is enough.
J R in WV
@Yutsano:
No you aren’t. Nixon committed crimes to further his own interests, and conspired to cover those crimes up. Stupid but not really dangerous to the national security in the short term.
Trump’s conspiracy was not only to gain his personal power, but to aid both Putin’s Russia and China gain power over the US. Trump anticipated making money with China, and keeping money he already had from Russia AND gaining more money from Russia.
Far more dangerous to our nation’s security than Nixon’s relatively childish plots. More important to root out our traitors than to convict petty burglars and bug planters by far.
Chris
@Mnemosyne:
I mean… I don’t consider war a particularly dignified activity. Or an either/or situation with genocide – some of Nazi Germany’s worst crimes were done in the context of their war to the east.
And a vast power imbalance also doesn’t mean it can’t be a war. Desert Storm was a cake walk, but it was still a war.
J R in WV
@Mnemosyne:
I think everywhere you go in the West you will see references to “battles” of the “Indian Wars” from the Mexican border to the Canadian border. In little towns where famous “Indian fighters” lived, on plaques near the scenes of death, nearly always the deaths of “Indians”.
Of course today many of us regard people like Kit Carson as genocidal murderers, rather than heroic fighters. Carson chopped down hallowed and aged peach orchards as part of his campaign to remove the Navajo from their ancestral land, part of the Indian Wars, and he was proud of what he did during his life. Like Himmler was proud.
ETA: I guess I’m being really contrary today, don’t know why, exactly. No offense, all. Maybe Trump is getting to me more today – we went to town and shopped and such, so I’m tired too. Apologies.
Not that I’m going to be all sweetness and light from now on…