Raid Delay (Open Thread)

by 9:26 am. It has 173 Comments.

As you’ve no doubt heard, Trump postponed the planned raids on undocumented immigrants, claiming that Democrats requested a delay. Here are the relevant tweets:

At the request of Democrats, I have delayed the Illegal Immigration Removal Process (Deportation) for two weeks to see if the Democrats and Republicans can get together and work out a solution to the Asylum and Loophole problems at the Southern Border. If not, Deportations start! (1:56 PM ET 6/22)

I want to give the Democrats every last chance to quickly negotiate simple changes to Asylum and Loopholes. This will fix the Southern Border, together with the help that Mexico is now giving us. Probably won’t happen, but worth a try. Two weeks and big Deportation begins! (7:13 AM ET 6/23)

It’s true that Speaker Pelosi and other Dems spoke out against the raids. CNN says Pelosi called Trump Friday night to ask him to call off the raids. But why did Trump delay them?

We can make two evergreen assumptions: 1) the reason Trump cited is a lie, and 2) it wasn’t Ivanka’s moderating influence.

So what was it? Polling data? Concern that raids would tank a recently negotiated spending bill? Lack of resources and readiness on the part of ICE? A bid to heighten the sick drama? A random reversal barfed up by a disintegrating brain?

It’s a mystery to me. Open thread.





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Foreign Policy Open Thread: Jared Kushner Will Bring Peace to the Middle East…

by 9:15 pm. It has 68 Comments.

… shortly after I win the Miss America contest. For which, let it be specified, I do not meet the basic requirements. And also, I wouldn’t enter if I *did*. So, context!

The Oval Office squatter and his Repub enablers don’t care about what happens in the Middle East, and even if they did, they haven’t the ability to do anything about it. But if they can skim some cash from the petrostate oligarchs for putting on a heavily PowerPointed dog & pony show — about the money, that, they care.

Long information thread here:





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Saturday Morning Open Thread: Nice Weekend for A Southern Fish Fry

by 4:39 am. It has 122 Comments.

Dan Merica, at CNN:

… It was the first time most of the sprawling Democratic field has appeared together on one stage. Clyburn’s grand gathering was short on private moments — or quiet spaces — as the candidates bounced up against each other as the program stretched late into the Columbia night.

By the time host kicked off the speeches, the fish was out of sight and the beating sun was a memory. As the humidity lingered, thousands of onlookers shuffled toward the stage for the candidates they liked — and away when some of the lesser known hopefuls took their turn…

… The evening began in earnest with representatives from 21 campaigns standing in a backroom, Clyburn presiding, trying to hash out the Democratic Party’s most pressing issue: The speaking order.

Beto O’Rourke, lagging in the polls, emerged at the top of this contest. It was the second random draw a week that began with a lottery that decided how the 20 qualifying candidates would line up, and when, during next week’s hotly anticipated debates…

If there was a clear winner on this night, it was Clyburn. The third-ranking House Democrat’s Fish Fry is a long-running rite of election season, but the turnout — of candidates and voters — seemed to exceed even his most optimistic prediction.

Asked if he’d ever planned for the scenes all around him, Clyburn’s couldn’t hide his delight.

“No!,” he said. “I never thought so. But I always hoped!”…


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Test the Damn Coatdress!!!!!!

by 9:24 pm. It has 68 Comments.

Earlier today, New York Magazine reported that longtime Elle advice columnist, E. Jean Carroll, was raped by the President 25 years ago in the ladies changing room at Bergdorf Goodman’s in New York.

The article is gripping, angering, and frustrating to read. And I’m a guy whose never been sexually assaulted – and yes, that happens to guys sometimes. I cannot imagine how hard it was to read for those, women or men, who have been sexually assaulted and/or raped.

I want to focus on something, however, that I’ve not yet seen addressed: that the coatdress that Ms. Carroll wore when she alleges the President raped her has been hanging on her closet door ever since. (emphasis mine)

The Donna Karan coatdress still hangs on the back of my closet door, unworn and unlaundered since that evening.

TEST THE DAMN COATDRESS!!!!!!!!!!

If someone had accused President Obama or President Clinton or a prominent Democratic elected or appointed official, hell if someone had accused Secretary Clinton, of sexually assaulting and/or raping them, and had also reported they had the clothing they wore that day and it has been unworn and unwashed ever since, Roger Stone, Steve Bannon, David Bossie, Karl Rove – okay, Rove would hire someone as he can’t waddle that fast, Matt Schlapp – possibly same problem as Rove, Rudy Giuliani, Jacob Wohl, Ben Shapiro, Candace Owens, Chuck “Rage Furby” Johnson, whichever Breitbrat is on duty this weekend, and 1/2 a dozen other people affiliated with the  Republican Party, the conservative movement, the alt-right, the Trump campaign or other supporting organization like his SuperPAC, Leonard Leo, Don McGahn on behalf of his real boss Mitch McConnell, and Matt Gaetz in an attempt to get Gym Jordan and Mark Meadows to stop wedgying him in the cloak room and giving him swirlies in the House locker room, would all be converging on the accusers home to GET THE DAMN COATDRESS AND TEST IT FOR THE DNA OF THE PERSON ACCUSED OF COMMITTING THE SEXUAL ASSAULT AND/OR RAPE!!!!!!

This isn’t chutes and ladders. It isn’t tic tac toe. There are no Marquess of Queensbury Rules. No one cares about good ring generalship, there’s no four knock down rule, you’re not going to be saved by the bell. What is needed here is effective aggression!

Get the coatdress. Have it tested for DNA. That is the only way you’re ever going to see any accountability here. Because as riveting as Carroll’s article is, it will not bring accountability. It will simply disappear into the 24/7/365 information panopticon that the President and his supporters have created. By tomorrow or Sunday it will be gone, surpassed by something to do with Iran. Or tariffs with China. Or that his golf game got rained out.

Test the damn coatdress!!!

Open thread!





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Sean Hannity Conspired With Paul Manafort To Launder Information Through His Show On Fox and Then Back Into Manafort’s Legal Filings in Court

by 7:13 pm. It has 92 Comments.

Earlier today new documents were unsealed from the Manafort case. They are chat logs from 2017 and include text messages between Hannity and Manafort during the investigation into and prosecution of Manafort. They can be found at this link or below.

Manafort_Texts

Among other interesting, not so interesting, and explosive information in them, it appears that Manafort was using Hannity and his Fox News show to launder information into his legal filings with the court. This was done through Sara Carter, who claims to be a national security specialist (she isn’t), but who is a protege of the execrable John Solomon who has been laundering right wing conspiracy theories since the late 1980s/early 1990s.

Here’s the specific section that was tweeted by Brad Heath and that Mariotti is referring to:

Here’s another one tweeted by Heath where Manafort is complaining about former Attorney General Jeff Sessions with an empathetic Hannity.

I haven’t had a chance to read through all 56 pages yet, but it is very interesting that Hannity is Client 3, in touch with Julian Assange in an attempt to get information to broadcast, and is in touch with Manafort in an attempt to get information to broadcast that is then laundered back into Manafort’s court filings.

Just one more bit of evidence about how Fox News coordinates the information that it broadcasts with Republican and conservative movement elites and notables. Makes you wonder who else Hannity regularly texts with and what about?

Open thread!





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