Repub Venality Open Thread: Terrible People “Guarding” Our Borders
Separation of children is being used as a deterrent for other immigrants. This is Trump’s policy. https://t.co/isvla5HRWe
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) June 5, 2018
The president has gone through a lot of trouble to ax DACA and impose a tough immigration crackdown that’s at the heart of his political identity… but when things get controversial he’s preferred to blame Democrats, who want to do the opposite, rather than own those actions.
— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) June 5, 2018
Two lies here. There’s no legislation that requires separation; this is a Trump policy he refuses to own. Trump hasn’t started a wall; there’ve been a couple of fence replacement projects. pic.twitter.com/NRK3qtYsKt
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) June 5, 2018
Here’s the AG who Trump professes disdain for describing the necessity of the policy Trump claims isn’t his own in an interview w @hughhewitt : pic.twitter.com/5VgZF6zmug
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) June 5, 2018
It sounds more reasonable with that honey dripping accent I'm sure pic.twitter.com/SPpSuwpU3m
— Schooley (@Rschooley) June 5, 2018
As this unfolds, please remember that the only way to seek asylum in the US—a protected right under international law—is to ‘spontaneously’ come to a US port of entry or govt official and apply. Sessions frames exercising this right as a crime for which you should lose your kids. https://t.co/Z5nwPaZlWq
— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) June 5, 2018
I bet when Trump is berating him on Twitter & pressuring him to resign, Jeff Sessions ponders quitting, but he remembers the real reason he's stayed in the office, & improves his mood by watching video of CBP agents ripping crying children from the arms of asylum seekers.
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) June 5, 2018
“Senator Merkley and his staff saw children in cages.” https://t.co/E0qXlmDQ0t
— Matt Katz (@mattkatz00) June 5, 2018
The Trump admin says the way to avoid family separation is to present for asylum at a port of entry.
Except that border agents are — physically — stopping some asylum-seekers from getting to ports of entry. https://t.co/BnDHXfPWh6
— Dara Lind (@DLind) June 5, 2018
The then DHS chief and now CoS Kelly has promoted and defended this policy.
John Heilemann on MSNBC just called Poppy Bush’s ’88 campaign about the Pledge, and “card-carrying member of the ACLU” and Willie Horton, the (I think I’ve got this right) the most despicable presidential campaign of the next twenty years.
Good for him. The old man has gotten off far too easy.
I’ve never been a religious person. But in these trying times, I cling to the belief that there is a God, that He is just, and that he created a place called Hell where these people will be tortured forever.
This is just monstrous. In spite of all the glaring evidence before me that this is indeed a fact about our electorate, I am having a real problem with the realization that 1/3 (or more!) of the electorate supports this ghoulish policy.
Maggie being a bit less sycophantic because of the kids? I applaud Jeff Merkley and Robert Menedez for showing up at these facilities and raising a stink. Now we just need a whistleblower on the inside to take some hidden video and sneak it to the WaPo or the Guardian or the LA Times. (FTFNYT still not eligible due to past sins.) You know the kids are being treated like animals and footage of that would be worth a million words.
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: He also stated that that is what the GOP does, and Trump is just a hyperbolic example of it. Find a culture war issue and run hard with it.
Left Nicolle with not much to say but move to Jen Rubin.
@Mary G: Don’t let MAGA Habs get under your guard. That’s when she’ll access shiv you.
Southpaw tweet is wrong. The U.S. is not subject to “International Law”. We are only subject to the laws of the United States of America and our Constitution. If we don’t want people flooding into our country, we do not have to let them in. America is for Americans, born and raised in America! MAGA!
(a more erudite version of what a right-winger is thinking)
Here’s a real kneeslapper:
The replies are actually funnier than the original tweet.
@condorcet runner-up: Yep. They think “its about time” and probably think its strategically clever to do this.
@Corner Stone: NYT is an enabler. Always couching T-bigotry and hate in more cultured and polite language. Fuck them.
A number of reporters have noted that Trump’s strategy going into the midterms is to lie outright. So, he has started the wall. He has repealed Obamacare. Any negative aspects of immigration enforcement came from the Democrats. And if course, the perennial, there was no collusion.
Natural born grifter.
@germy: That is an unfunny tweet, hard to believe that this man is/was a comedian. The average BJ commenter is funnier than Miller.
I’m wondering why Sen Merkley did not bring about 30 other lawmakers along with him. What are they going to do, start arresting lawmakers doing oversight?
@schrodingers_cat: He gets paid to do comedy. That’s what I find so baffling.
This policy is pure evil. Our country has gone mad. “Give me your tired, your poor . . ..” if I were French, I would ask that Lady Liberty be sent back to where she came from.
@Brachiator: Maybe the reporters can just note in real time that these are all lies every time Trump says them. Like they SHOULD have been fucking doing for the last 4 years.
But then, they might have to do that to other republicans as well, and we can’t have that.
@Brachiator:
Makes one wonder what they plan to do in response.
@Corner Stone: Report the lies as truth and then say Ds are worse. Now they are piling on Bill Clinton.
@germy:
I keep hearing that Dennis Miller was a comedian, but I’ve never seen anything he said or wrote that was funny.
I told you, the simplicity of the evil in this scheme would show itself. THAT is why they’re trying to use all kinds of words to pretend that they’re doing something other than what they’re doing.
People understand RIPPING CHILDREN AWAY FROM THEIR PARENTS.
Unless, you’re a racist ass deplorable, THIS hits home and cuts through the bullshyt.
@germy: The very definition of tortured english.
@Corner Stone: Repeat the lies, of course. REPORTING!
I cannot stand these people. The leaders are bad enough. The followers are the real source of depression.
@Lapassionara:
And, it must be labeled as such.
No middle ground to be had.
PURE.PHUCKING.EVIL.
@Corner Stone:
SHOULD HAVE BEEN EVERY DEMOCRAT ON THE COMMITTEES THAT OVERSEE DHS WITH HIM.
PERIOD.
The next time I hear of a Mexican baby sexually assaulting and robbing a 65 year old I’ll agree to have them taken from the arms of their mothers and put in lockup.
@schrodingers_cat:
Yes, he did. It was him who originally proposed it, and that, was the moment that I knew..
JOHN.KELLY.AINT.SHYT.
@schrodingers_cat:
It’s not such a bad thing, surely, that they’re wasting energy on an opponent who hasn’t held office in nearly two decades and will never run again.
@Amir Khalid: He did “Weekend Update” on SNL, supported by a team of writers. He didn’t do anything else on SNL. Rarely appeared in sketches, couldn’t do characters.
Once he left SNL he coasted for a while on that reputation; the words the writers had put in his mouth.
@schrodingers_cat:
It’s weird how even the “reporters” who must have been youths at the time are having multi-orgasmic events writing peons to Bill Clinton being History’s Greatest Monster. I watched that Today show interview, as much as I could anyway, and I would not have blamed Bill if he had punched Craig Melvin in the fucking face. Now it’s like an Amway scam where each column is trying to out do the one before it.
As I have previously stated, I have issues with WJC but this is way the fuck out of hand.
@patrick II: Shit, they do that all the time. They use their cantaloupe legs to intimidate old white people.
@Amir Khalid:
That is not why they are doing it.
Twitter is lit up with video of Donny Dollhands not knowing the words to the “patriotic” songs at his “patriotic songs” event. The man is a fucking joke.
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I just got home and read this comment and snapped to attention, thinking Poppy must have died. No such luck.
Separating young children from their parents is a page directly out of the Third Reich playbook. It’s monstrous, permanently traumatizing to the kids and a crime against humanity.
@schrodingers_cat: Truth. I remember watching him towards the end of high school. He was funny. Was obviously gunning for the Carson crowd, but funny. Good looking. Had a bit of a coke issue, but everyone in entertainment in the late 1980s did.
Something happened. Not him going to conservatism, that was after. Something very big and behind the scenes happened and he was GONE. No explanation, no nothing. He pissed somebody very powerful off and that was the end of his career.
Never the same. He was still trying to be funny, but was so bitter it turned everything he tried to shit. It shone through him, still does.
Then 9/11, which I think genuinely freaked him out. And he finally found an audience of people who didn’t give a shit if he was funny or just mad. American conservatives.
@germy: That’s not comedy, that’s gibberish.
@Corner Stone: They’ve been raised on hating the Clintons. Not at home, but definitely in the workplace. You reward certain behaviours and don’t reward others. Conditioning works on humans too.
@Brachiator:
All he needs are actual Imperial Storm troopers and we hit banana Bingo.
@Corner Stone:
You just had to ask.
@rikyrah:
60 million of them right here in the USA.
@Amir Khalid:
The time and energy the media focuses on that is time and energy not focused on Trump’s ongoing dumpster fire.
@Corner Stone:
I don’t either.. why haven’t all the senate democrats show up. Let them all get arrested trying to find out what happened to the children. Make it grand and make it loud. After they lock up the Dems in senate, let’s get the house democrats in next. Then local politicians, people.. let’s fill those jails with as many democrats as possible. Fuck those people. If they want to lock up people, we’ll give them people ot lock up.
@schrodingers_cat:
Dennis Miller was a performer skilled at delivering smarter comics’ lines. His downhill slide started when he convinced himself that he didn’t need those mere back-room scripters, leaching away his Big TV Star money for just shooting the sh*t. After all, *he* had a vast knowledge of erudite quotations to fall back on!
IMO, his “post-9/11 conversion to conservatism” was less about actual conviction, and more about a guy desperate for another 15 minutes grabbing what looked like a life raft.
For the love of God, DeVos, don’t you make me unholster the “c” word!
Rusty agricultural implements are far too good for her.
@Dorothy Winsor: Nope, it was as Corner Stone pointed out, making the observation that trump is just louder and cruder about the kind of low-rent and usually race-baiting (in Poppy’s case, red-baiting) tactics republicans have been using for a couple of generations.
@The Moar You Know: as I recall, his HBO show, which IMDB tells me ran from 94-2002 was pretty popular. I think he really did just freak out after 9/11 and became more hateful and partisan till he was pretty much unemployable in mainstream entertainment. A few years ago, he was literally Bill O’Reilly’s opening act when Himself did some kind of live tour
@Corner Stone:
Report the lie and then find a lie that the Democrats have done. Both sides!
@cain: At this point, I’m sure that particular detention center has been cleaned up since yesterday. No children in fucking cages, for one thing – too much of a risk that Merkley would come back and get entry.
@rikyrah:
We need to call them and ask them why they haven’t gone with Jeff Merkley. (who btw is my senator..so proud. Even though I’m in Denver ;)
And, of course:
I just can’t with this administration.
@ruemara: Compare it to how when Barbara Bush died we were all supposed to act respectfully sorrowful. Nobody liked Barbara Bush in the 1980s, and nobody started to like her since then either, and yet we were all supposed to go through the motions of remembering how much she meant to… somebody. What the fucking fuck was that?
@Mary G:
I think Ms. Haberman is trying to navigate the line between losing her valuable-to-Dean-Baquet access to DJT, and losing all credibility with everyone who isn’t signing her paychecks.
She’s turned into my personal version of “Even the Liberal TNR” — Even the Dependably Trump-Fluffing Maggie Haberman Can See, for instance, that taking kids hostages to punish their parents is not only unbelievable cruel but crappy politics.
@cain:
Sure, let’s give Republicans an absolute 100% majority on the House and Senate while the Democrats are locked up. WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?!
@cain:
I’m pretty sure Trump and Sessions are way ahead of you.
@trollhattan:
Death is not too good a fate for our enemies.
@Mary G: I ask again, How does the Onion stay in business?
@The Moar You Know:
Well, I’m a bit older than you older than you. IIRC, Miller did a bunch of interviews talking about how he was “cutting himself free” from the writers-room “leeches” and Flying Free to Hightlight His True Colors. Even in Hollywood, reporters were dubious, because everybody knew it was okay for stars to dump on the “little people” who supported them, but courting professional suicide not to fake gratitude for those minions when the mic was live!
@FlipYrWhig: kowtowing to republicans as the public civility test; demeaning democrats as the standard. This shit was going on before Obama, but him being in office showed me clearly that what I thought was a tendency was a real problem. Because the black man made people act up worse.
AND FUCK THESE AUTOPLAY ADS. No, I can’t install adblock. Yes, I understand the purposed of the ads. But they shouldn’t autoplay.
@TenguPhule: What, you mean performances don’t guarantee success? Seriously, why the fck would you think getting arrested by a crew itching to be the sole party in charge of this country would be a good idea? That’s some Occupy Wall Street thinking.
@Lapassionara: The Chinese Exclusion Act was already in effect when they attached the plaque with “Give me your poor…” to the Statue of Liberty, and things only got worse for the next 60 years. Lou Reed was right in calling it the statue of bigotry.
@Anne Laurie: Yes, she’s a reliable weather vane and the fact that she’s gotten a bit more critical in her tweets is a good sign. I wish she’d get off the twitters and do some more reporting – they keep saying she’s good at it, but it seems like there’s never any shoe leather involved.
@FlipYrWhig:
Bill and Hillary are still alive and well and not yet eligible for De mortuis nihil nisi bonum.
@Dorothy Winsor:
They’ve seriously upped their game.
(This from today is a bit gentle for them lately: Rain-Soaked Robert Mueller Lets Manafort Surf One Final Monster Wave Before Bringing Him In)
I really wish Jen Palmieri would break her hand by standing up and punching Matthew Continetti right in the jaw.
@ruemara:
Our passive idealistic protests will surely bend their hearts when they are converted by the inherent nobility of our PURITY. //
@Corner Stone:
That would mean she’s doing it wrong. The objective is to break his jaw.
My email allows me to receive but not send, and now our TV gets pictures but no sound. The universe is telling us it’s time to move.
@Dorothy Winsor:
Are you sure its not just Comcast being a dick?
Go white person!
The video cuts off so who knows what happened to him after. Kelly may have him in the bunker showing him how waterboarding is so not torture.//
@TenguPhule: The bones in the hand are much more delicate than the jaw bone. If she could get rotation to use her elbow or forearm that would be much better. But I figure a complete fucking weasel like Continetti can smell physical attacks coming and get away from the table.
@TenguPhule: It would be Mediacom for the email and Dish for the TV, but dickiness is possible.
@Dorothy Winsor: @Bill Arnold: I was curious, so I looked: Cooking Together is So Fun, Says Man Correcting Girlfriend’s Every Knife Cut.
@Anne Laurie: Didn’t Dennis Miller also have a disastrous, short-lived stint on Monday Night Football?
@Corner Stone: Ha! Right there with you. Smarmy little fellow.
@TenguPhule:
I think they can’t conduct business without the other party. But true, who knows what the fuck McConnell is going to do – the fucker has already broken so many norms.
@schrodingers_cat:
90 percent of the commenters here are funnier than Miller. Hell, 90 percent of the RWAs are funnier, and they generally have no sense of humor.
Miller is the poster-moron for uber-stupid snarking.
@SFAW: I feel personally attacked as all I’m good for is uber-stupid snarking.
@condorcet runner-up:
My operating assumption is 2/3 to 3/4 of the people I meet are sexist, racist, authoritarian assholes. No sense giving any break to the lazy ass non-voters who were perfectly comfortable letting Trump happen. The fudge factor is folks who would have voted but were prevented.
@ruemara: In addition to that, I don’t understand the desire that people have for Dems to operate like a school of fish. Division of labor is a thing and it works very well in other contexts. Let Merkeley represent the Dems here. He’s doing a good job.
The looks on these kids’ faces…
Even the most math-challenged kid can see these are useless, heavy security theater. We just have to do better, America.
@Mary G:
Interesting thread.
@cain:
That is not how quorums work in the Legislative branch.
@Baud:
Easily corralled into a helpless swarm to be preyed on by bigger predators?
@cain: They don’t have quorum with just the Republicans, so yes nothing would happen.
@Yutsano:
@TenguPhule: By people, I mean Dems who want Dems to succeed.
@Baud:
Oh, you meant rational people.
@TenguPhule: And moral.
A lot of right wingers on the Twittertron are trying to claim that Obama did the same thing as Trump is doing; that is, separating children from their parents at the border.
I visited Eastern Europe this spring to see what is happening there in terms of refugees and asylum seekers. What is happening in Trump’s America is nearly identical to what is happening in Hungary, Croatia, and to some extent Serbia. Except in most cases over there, the families at least can stay together. So we’re worse in some respects.
One of the NGOs we visited was working to further uncover a case of a ‘pushback’ (where asylum seekers are forced back over the border without being able to apply, which is illegal (at least per European Court of Human Rights in Strassbourg). A six year old girl was killed by a train when her family was told, at gun point, to cross back into Serbia the way they came – over the border tracks.
Its a terrible mess made all the worse by the right wing governments such as Hungary and Viktor Orban. And of course the Balkan nations all look at Trump’s hard line and say, we’re just doing what he’s doing!
Via the FTFNYT
Mexico went from threats to action. Interesting times ahead.
@Corner Stone:
No hard feelings from last night, right? I was pretty tired and feeling irritable.
Florida school shooting survivor targeted in ‘swatting’ prank
These fuckers. Its not a fucking prank. They’re trying to kill him.
@TenguPhule:
Second American-Mexican War coming soon? You can’t put anything past Trumpenfuher
Fox News accused of ‘propaganda’ after implying praying players knelt for anthem
@🇺🇸🌎 Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) 🗳🌷: With what army? All of Mexico’s military is at home.
@schrodingers_cat:
Deflecting from the real news by attacking a Clinton – why am I not surprised.
Trump has to lie about every fucking thing. EVERY. FUCKING. THING.
@TenguPhule:
I never said it would be in our favor.
@ruemara:
Snowflake.
On your worst day, you’re funnier (on purpose) than Miller is on double his best day. The only persons who laugh at him are laughing AT him, not WITH him.
@Amir Khalid: I recall him being funny on Saturday Night Live, but that was 30-plus years ago. He took a severe turn to the right around 9/11 (or at least that’s when I noticed it), and hasn’t been a bit funny since.
Fucking Keith Ellison abdicated his fucking congressional seat to run for the fucking Attorney General of MN in a primary against the fucking endorsed fucking DFL candidate for the office today (after never fucking expressing a fucking interest in the fucking job to fucking begin with). Immediately 9 different fucking Dems filed for his fucking seat so that should cause another ugly fucking primary fight. He was on the fucking NPR station with the worse fucking explanation I have ever fucking heard about why he decided. Every goddamned state office is contested on the DFL primary.
We are going to fuck this up!
The goddamned guy is co-chair of the goddamned DNC and he fucking ignores the fucking nomination process.
You may sense I am a bit upset about this fuck up we re committing.
@Corner Stone:
Kind of wonder if this is deliberate on Cliton’s part. Since the election is about turn out, remind the Left why the press is full of it and why we need to be pissed.
@schrodingers_cat:
Sippy Cupp had some stupidity about how Clinton’s interview the other night shows that he’s the “monster we thought he was.” I guess that’s because he didn’t apologize to Monica Lewinsky. Or maybe it was because of his involvement in Pizzagate. Or because 9/11 happened on his watch.
If those motherfuckers ever have the epiphany that the Dems actually are NOT just as bad as the Party of Traitors, there’ll be a lot of RWA heads a-sploding.
@Schlemazel:
How bad a fuck up are we talking here?
@Schlemazel:
You seem fucking upset.
@Scamp Dog:
That’s the drugs/beer/dain bramage talking.
@Schlemazel: It seems like you may have some feels about this.
@germy:
It was his brand of snideness that got Miller to where he was. It grew old very quickly. He clearly lacks good writers.
Javanka have faded from attention for the moment but the Dems are still on it. Good to see. Short thread from Rep. Beyer:
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
I doubt it. He has a history of taking umbrage. Plus, after 20+ years the media can’t tell the truth about him or the Clintons. It may justifiably make him a little stabby.
He is on record making the apology Craig Melvin demanded that WJC never made.
I just can’t understand why those good for nothing Democratic legislators don’t take Trump at his word and just put legislation fixing the problem on his desk. What could be the holdup?
@MJS:
Good memory! Yes, he was disastrous. Roseanne-level disastrous.
@condorcet runner-up: I think the really bizarre thing is the Right’s position is so morally offensive they can’t stomach it and instead pretend the Left is doing it. I can’t think of any time in US history like this.
@Dorothy Winsor: :-(
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
The Mccarthy era?
@TenguPhule:
That’s pretty much what I expected — they rounded up a bunch of WH staffers and threw jerseys onto a few of them.
Can’t let Mango Mussolini face actual Philadelphia fans. It wouldn’t end well for Donnie.
@SFAW: 6897474″>@<a href="#comment-Corner Stone: goddamned muther fucking right I am upset
I thought he was a very good rep & a valuable asset. This makes no sense & damages the party at a time we need to be united and strong against the shit storm
@Corner Stone:
The whole Democratic membership of the oversight committee needs to show up with cops (perhaps a SWAT Team) and a search warrant, and just walk in.
I don’t think rent-a-cop prison guards would have the stones to resist that kind of fire-power. If they did, arrest them and bus them away. Then go and arrest the owners of the company for failing to properly care for the kids. Good press!!
@Schlemazel: Sounds like he’s taken the Wilmer Rodent Procreator role in Minnesota. Anything to eff up the Dems.
@Kathleen:
He was a bernie bro but I cut him some slack because he could be counted on to do the right thing most of the time & became a very vocal Hillary supporter once it was all said & done
@ruemara: search on “firefox stopping autoplay” or whatever browser you use. Several browsers include the option to stop them.
Haberman’s tweet reads like “Leaves turn orange in fall. This is what happens when seasons change…” rather than “Mother of God, this is some goddamn fascist shit!”
Right up there with “Some Ukrainians are missing a meal or two” dispatches from Walter Duranty.
@TenguPhule: I’m surprised he didn’t lie about where he even was: “It’s a great day here in downtown Philadelphia…”.
@TenguPhule: The irony here is that the Eagles as an organization and team are probably the most openly devout NFL franchise, with a number of the most prominent players and coaches participating in Bible studies, pre-game prayers, etc. But they’ve dissed Trump, so screw ’em. Meanwhile, a guy who won’t bake a cake for two gay guys is an evangelical hero.
One of these days, evangelicals in America will wake up and suddenly discover that all the stuff about Armageddon and the Antichrist wasn’t about some atheist or Muslim villain — the calls were coming from inside the house all along, so to speak.