wow, look at this @verrit fact i found pic.twitter.com/afSNAqnW5N
— Jules N. Binoculars (@surfbordt) September 5, 2017
Verrit. A digital vomit bag of tone deafness and masturbatory quotes.
Do not want.
This post is in: Democratic Stupidity
wow, look at this @verrit fact i found pic.twitter.com/afSNAqnW5N
— Jules N. Binoculars (@surfbordt) September 5, 2017
Verrit. A digital vomit bag of tone deafness and masturbatory quotes.
Do not want.
This post is in: Sociopaths
My sister is an idiot politically. I’m not being mean when I say this- she will admit it. So she is always posting stuff on facebook about current events and people go in and explain things to her. Today, this was her offering:
“So if Trump ends the Dreamers program, why does that mean those already in it have to leave? Breaks my heart seeing all of these students afraid.”
At any rate, there was some random back and forth, and then this idiot shows up:
I’ve blocked out the name of the idiot posting that stuff, but I thought I would let you know that is my 1st grade teacher who used to be one of the nicest, sweetest, decent human beings. We all loved her. I have no idea what happened. Or maybe she was a closet racist the whole time and we were all too young to notice.
If you are wondering how we got to where we are now, there is your answer.
by Betty Cracker| 223 Comments
This post is in: Birdwatching, Domestic Politics, How about that weather?, Open Threads
Here’s my favorite heron who resides on the western coast of Central Florida. His name is Igor:
He’s a smart bird; he can spot a fishing bucket half a mile away and hastens to that spot, hoping for a bait fish handout.
I’m gonna run out soon and get some stuff to make noodle salad. I make it with gemelli pasta (if I can find it, penne if not), Kalamata olives, sun dried tomatoes, basil, olive oil and cubed mozzarella cheese. It shall be delicious!
I hope y’all are having a wonderful Labor Day. Open thread!
by Adam L Silverman| 54 Comments
This post is in: America, Bleg, Open Threads, Pet Rescue, Silverman on Security, Not Normal
While we’ve been focused on Harvey and its effects on Texas and Louisiana, as well as potential follow ons from Irma and other developing tropical storms, significant portions of the US are on fire. There’s a very large wildfire in Curry County, Oregon – details here. A chunk of Montana is on fire. Actually from looking at the incident list, Montana is on fire – not just a chunk. And, of course, there is a huge wildfire in the greater Los Angeles area. The Los Angeles Animal Shelter has put out a call for fosters and adoptions as they are over capacity from animals evacuated and/or rescued from the La Tuna Canyon fire.
Urgent need for adopters and fosters NOW. Our shelters are full as we prepare to provide care and shelter for animals being evacuated from the La Tuna Canyon fire.Fosters Urgently Needed: East Valley – 29, Harbor – 40, North Central -16, South Lost Angeles – 43, West Los Angeles – 14, West Valley – 5
A Word From Some of Our Other Disasters: LA Pet BlegPost + Comments (54)
by David Anderson| 76 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads, OLD MAN YELLS AT CLOUDS
Irma is still at sea. She is getting big and strong. Here is what Wunderground’s Bob Henson is saying:
Over the last day, there has been some convergence of two of our best long-range track models, the GFS and European models, toward a possible landfall in or near the Carolinas around Monday. Both models are consistent in bringing a strong upper-level trough across the United States and off the East Coast by this weekend. The models also suggest that a small weakness will be left behind, somewhere near the lower- to mid-Mississippi Valley. If so, this could help bring Irma toward the United States. However, the path of least resistance for Irma might instead be toward the large departing trough and out to sea into the Northwest Atlantic. These two scenarios have hugely different implications, but they depend on fairly subtle differences in the atmosphere that may not become clear for several more days to come.
We don’t know where Irma will end up. There is a reasonable chance that Irma brushes the coast and heads out to sea. There is a decent chance that Irma goes bowling at landfall. We don’t know.
We do have time.
To give you a scope of how much uncertainty there is with #Irma, here is a every spaghetti model available. No one is out of the woods yet. pic.twitter.com/ttgXDEI6gc
— Tropical Updater (@tropicalupdater) September 3, 2017
Use this time wisely. I’m starting hurricane prep today. I am doing things that if nothing happens, the only cost is time. I have filled six two-liter bottles two thirds full of water and put them in the freezer. That increases the family water reserve and builds thermal mass in case the electricity goes out so that the food can stay cold. I cleaned up the patio already and moved some furniture to the storage unit. I’ve pulled the camp stove and cook gear out of the storage unit. I am filling my son’s asthma prescription tomorrow instead of over the weekend. I am buying some extra bottled water and refried beans. I’ll pick up batteries and a gallon of bleach this afternoon. I’ll fill the gas tank.
If nothing happens, I just shifted purchases and actions I would have taken some time in the next two weeks forward. If Irma does come to North Carolina, we’ll be in good shape and not storming the stores on Thursday.
We have time, so use it and don’t panic.
And always bring your towel.
This post is in: C.R.E.A.M., Dolt 45, Open Threads, Republican Venality, Trump Crime Cartel, Ever Get The Feeling You've Been Cheated?
"For a supposed tough guy, Trump is having a lot of trouble keeping his people in line." https://t.co/r7crQDfuVn
— Daniel W. Drezner (@dandrezner) August 31, 2017
Lawfare‘s Benjamin Wittes and Susan Hennessey:
… As a technical matter, the president of the United States speaks not for himself alone, but for the entire executive branch. In fact, our constitutional structure holds that the president is the executive branch. Tillerson is, according to the traditional understanding of the executive, just a finger of Trump — who can direct him, fire him, and (with the advice and consent of the Senate) replace him. If Trump says demonstrators in Charlottesville are fine people and that many sides are at fault for the violence, who is Tillerson to claim otherwise? The open insubordination of Trump’s cabinet members is offensive to the very concept of the unitary executive.
Yet we all continue to welcome and praise his dissent. The reason is simple: Trump’s cabinet is generally more aligned with fundamental American values — including pluralism and tolerance — than is the president himself. Trump is unstable and mercurial. The cabinet is not. As the president continually expresses unreasoned, hateful, and downright bizarre beliefs, the most visible members of his administration have stepped up to reassure the public regarding Trump’s worst impulses: U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley has repeatedly contradicted the president on national television on matters of foreign policy. And video recently surfaced of Secretary of Defense James Mattis telling troops to “hold the line until our country gets back to understanding and respecting each other and showing it” in an address widely interpreted as a rebuke of President Trump…
Typically, the mechanism that ensures cohesion within the executive branch is the president’s ability to fire people. The most striking feature of the recent statements from within the administration — the reason that people feel so free to do what Tillerson did — is that they don’t seem to care if Trump fires them. They either don’t think he’ll do it, or they actually don’t mind if he does…
Much lower down the intellectual food chain, Rich ‘Starbursts’ Lowry wrings his sweaty palms:
… The president is experiencing a bout of insubordination from his top officials the likes of which we haven’t witnessed in the modern era. It’s not unusual to have powerful officials at war among themselves, or in the presidential doghouse. It’s downright bizarre to have them publicly undercut the president, without fear of consequence.
The new measure of power in Washington is how far you can go criticizing the president at whose pleasure you serve. The hangers-on and junior players must do it furtively and anonymously. Only a principal like Gary Cohn, Rex Tillerson or James Mattis can do it out in the open and get away with it…
In a more normal time, in a more normal administration, any of these would be a firing offense (although, in Mattis’ defense, he more accurately stated official U.S. policy than the president did). Tillerson, in particular, should have been told before he was off the set of Fox News on Sunday that he was only going to be allowed to return to the seventh floor of the State Department to clean out his desk.
The fact that this hasn’t happened is an advertisement of Trump’s precarious standing, broadcast by officials he himself selected for positions of significant power and prestige. A more typical scenario is that a president loses credibility in a foreign crisis when an adversary defies him, or in a domestic political confrontation when the opposition deals him a stinging defeat. Not at the hands of his own team.
This isn’t the work of the deep state, career bureaucrats maneuvering or leaking from somewhere deep within the agencies. This is the shallow state, the very top layer of the government, operating in broad daylight, in fact wanting to be seen and heard differentiating themselves from the president of the United States…
Meanwhile, per Vanity Fair, his rod and his staff are absolutely miserable in DC…
Kushner and Ivanka will leave the White House at some point. When they do, it will be a welcome development for those who view the pair not merely as Trump’s protectors, as they see themselves to be, but rather as one of his greatest weaknesses. As a former West Wing staffer from a previous administration told me, speaking about Jared and Ivanka, “There’s nothing more obstructive and distracting and unhelpful than to have a bunch of stupid apolitical family members calling all the shots.” The arrival of Kelly as White House chief of staff has introduced an official layer between the couple and the president. People close to Kushner and Ivanka say they welcome his promise of discipline. He has also been useful: Kelly assisted in the ouster of chief strategist Stephen Bannon, leader of the nativist faction in the White House and a longtime Kushner foe. But Kelly’s discipline also challenges the family-business nature of the Trump administration, which favors Kushner and Ivanka above all others…
… Ivanka organized the social schedule. Kushner himself had few friends. Since his father-in-law’s election, he has talked in an interview about “exfoliating” those who are not supportive of his work with the president, perhaps not the most congenial way to talk about people you no longer need or want. He reportedly told one former associate, who had brought up the ugly rhetoric of the campaign Kushner had helped run, that he did not “give a shit” if the associate didn’t want to do business with Kushner anymore.
“I haven’t had anything to do with them since they moved,” said one New York friend, “and it is because the day that man gave an inaugural speech, what am I going to say? ‘What the fuck is wrong with you?’ ” When they lived in New York, Kushner used to remind Ivanka that “we’re in the zoo, but let’s try hard not to be part of the animals.” He often would add, “You want to be watching.” The friend noted that Kushner has traded up into a higher-powered circle: “He is rolling with the prince of Saudi Arabia and not the real-estate guys anymore.” In Washington, the couple regularly dines with Trump Cabinet members. They attended Steven Mnuchin’s wedding and spend many weekends at the Trump National Golf Club, in Bedminster, New Jersey, outside the Washington party circuit…
Thomas Barrack, a real-estate investor and close associate of Donald Trump’s, told me recently, “The best day that everybody has is the day they decide to go to Washington, and the worst day is about four weeks later.” Ivanka and Jared have lasted longer than that. People who have spoken with them say the couple habitually points out that the average tenure of a West Wing aide is 18 months—a tenure they intend to outlast. At the same time, neither has committed to staying the duration of the Trump presidency, which both must realize may well be cut short…
One can but hope, she said piously.
by John Cole| 53 Comments
This post is in: Post-racial America, Assholes, Sociopaths
This is appalling:
Guillen’s father, Jesus Guillen, said he’d asked his son not to try and rescue people in the storm, but he insisted, saying he wanted to help people. He cried and prayed on Sunday afternoon as they pulled his son’s body from the water.
“Thank you, God,” he said, “for the time I had with him.”
The recovery of his body brings the number of people who have died or are feared dead from Harvey to nearly 60, and officials warn that more could be found.
Guillen, who was born in Piedras Negras, Mexico, and moved to Lufkin as a teenager, headed south with his friends toward Houston after Hurricane Harvey, towing a borrowed boat. They were near Interstate 45 and Beltway 8 and trying to reach an apartment complex when they hit the bridge, relatives said.
Alonso Guillen was a recipient of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which temporarily lifted the threat of deportation for immigrants brought to the U.S. before they were 16, family members said.
His father is a lawful permanent, but his mother is still in the application process for legal status.
Reached at her home in Piedras Negras, Mexico, across the border from Eagle Pass, Rita Ruiz de Guillen, 62, said she is heartbroken.“I’ve lost a great son, you have no idea,” she said, weeping softly. “I’m asking God to give me strength.”
She said she hoped U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials would take pity and grant her a humanitarian visa so that she could come to Houston and bury her son, but she was turned back at the border.
ICE and our Border Patrol are now effectively the brown shirts for this regime. Treat them as such.
Republicans are Monsters, a Continuing StoryPost + Comments (53)