US Politics, June 2018: This is a total goat rodeo.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised, but it's amazing how the Trump administration keeps finding the absolute worst women to appoint to things.

― Making Plans For Sturgill (C. Grisso/McCain), Monday, June 18, 2018 6:09 PM (twelve minutes ago)

lots of awful republican women out there. i've arranged my social circles for maximum avoidance of them, both on purpose and by accident.

Sorry to just post a Twitter link but

Appealing to the humanity and empathy of people who have repeatedly demonstrated they have none does not feel like a winning strategy.

— dan sinker (@dansinker) June 18, 2018

Meanwhile this c*nt is making you all great again by proposing a Space Force. Classic ludicrous strongman dictator vanity. Rapidly losing faith that the US will rebound from this apotheosis of self-regard and the embrace of hard right propaganda.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2018/06/18/trump-says-hes-directing-pentagon-to-create-a-new-space-force/?utm_term=.5d250ac10729

Q: are the children being used as pawns for a wall?
DHS Secretary Nielsen: the children are not being used as a pawn. we are trying to protect the children, which is why i'm asking congress to act

wait...you're asking congress to act...to prevent your own agency from doing unethical things to children?

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/06/18/republicans-splitting-families-midterms-border-652369

Republicans want to talk about tax cuts. Instead they’re talking about kids in cages.

Rather than touting lower taxes and a steady job market, House and Senate Republicans are being forced to answer for President Donald Trump’s contentious immigration policies — whether it’s separating migrant kids from their parents, removing DACA protections or building a border wall. And that’s likely bad news heading into November.

This is was my one hope when Trump got elected, that he would show his ass stupidly enough for citizens to run to the voting booth and mitigate the damage for the next 2 years.

A terrifying story:

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/06/18/florida-senior-citizens-vote-election-2018-218758

I mean it is but...not that surprising?

Not to me because I live among them. For the rest of you, however.

Austin, Houston, and San Antonio are ringed with filth like that.

Aileen Milton, 67, isn’t worried about what Republicans will do to Medicare and Social Security, in part, because their reforms won’t affect her generation. “They are kicking the can down the road,” says Milton. “It’s a young-person problem.”

^^^Sounds about white.

Sounds like the death panels might have been a good idea.

Let's see, thousands of lily white, economically secure, medicare-supported retirees, living in a protected bubble of privilege, including dozens of golf courses groomed daily by brown-skinned people, who reliably vote republican? I am shocked by these revelations! (no) I'd further bet that the foundations of many of those economic privileges and retired prosperity were laid down in the New Deal, Fair Deal, and Great Society programs.

The white middle class loved Reagan because he assured them that their glowing false memories of traditional white virtue, as implanted by Hollywood movies and 50s television, were who they really were. Now they fervently believe in a make-believe past and want to kill anyone who wants the same opportunities they got.

Fuck 'em.

For folks looking for a useful initiative to help out / donate to, this seems good (s/o to the Chapo subreddit)

RAICES is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit agency that promotes justice by providing free and low-cost legal services to underserved immigrant children, families, and refugees in Texas. In 2017, RAICES staff closed 51,000 cases at no cost to the client. Our advocacy and commitment to change are driven by the clients and families we serve every day as our attorneys and legal assistants provide legal advocacy and representation in an immigration system that breaks apart families and leaves millions without pathways to legal status.

If you'd like to help, volunteering or donating to their fund would make a hell of a difference. A lot of immigrants do not receive legal counsel and end up unrepresented during mass immigrant trials.

More info + donate here:

https://www.raicestexas.org/

trump has already unilaterally abrogated an international nuclear agreement, paris agreement, now he going for an actual treaty (in fucking space).

but its always been like this, right?

Also i figure trumps angle is for the billionaires as usual, not military?

“The financiers and entrepreneurs behind these operations want assurances that regulations are in place that will not stifle the nascent (space) industry. “What the space industry wants is regulatory certainty without regulatory burdens that are going to strangle innovation,” says Bridenstine. “That’s a delicate balancing act.””

xp

http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/outer_space_treaty
Sorry meant to put link in

We need to weaponize grandkids refusing to visit. Vote Trump and you’ll never see your great-granddaughter.

I’ll never get how reluctant some people are to estrange themselves from family members

(joke, probably)

I no longer talk to my dad and brothers. It doesn't matter. They love Trump more.

i'm pleasant enough to my family on the phone when i talk to them every 2-3 months, but i don't plan on visiting in person again.

Watching Chris Hayes now...don’t think I’ve ever seen him so pissed

Sorry to just post a Twitter link but

Appealing to the humanity and empathy of people who have repeatedly demonstrated they have none does not feel like a winning strategy.

— dan sinker (@dansinker) June 18, 2018
― ... (Eazy)

"humanity and empathy" isn't an act we're putting on to win votes, motherfucker

The project/June 30th march announced on Hayes's show by Rep. Jayapal

https://www.familiesbelongtogether.org/

xp

I don't read that tweet as calling out performative empathy. He's saying appealing to the non-existent empathy of Trump and the greater GOP won't work.

Still proud to have Jayapal as my rep, recommend everyone move to her district so you can also be proud of someone

the brick wall that empathy hits is the core belief of the greater GOP: "if you are breaking the law, then anything that happens to you is unavoidable and justified."

there seems to be one condition missing there though

Right, just to synthesize these last two posts, "if you are not white, then anything that happens to you is unavoidable and justified."

The importance of The law is highly conditional

I don't read that tweet as calling out performative empathy. He's saying appealing to the non-existent empathy of Trump and the greater GOP won't work.

― Mario Meatwagon (Moodles)

it's not about performative empathy, it's about, if anything, performative realpolitik.

The importance of The law is highly conditional

― Mario Meatwagon (Moodles), Tuesday, 19 June 2018 01:17 (twenty minutes ago) Permalink

i don't know who came up with it but i've seen this formulation on twitter a few times:

the core of conservatism is that there must be in-groups that the law protects but doesn't bind and out-groups that the law binds but doesn't protect

it's a Frank Wilhoit quote.

Help me out peeps

Why does there even need to be funding for a border wall

Isn't Mexico paying for it

Soooo this is a thing.

Politico has a stunning sentence about the White House chief of staff talking about impeachment:https://t.co/WkNxeMDMYd pic.twitter.com/LOSYJOoqrH

— Steven Dennis (@StevenTDennis) June 19, 2018

I really want to know how much - or if - Kelly was joking when he made this comment. Like, I'd want to hear it on tape.

— Steven Dennis (@StevenTDennis) June 19, 2018

FWIW, it wasn’t a joke, according to my source, who said his attitude is let the shit hit the fan, make Corey chief of staff, instruct Cabinet secretaries to do things that are illegal — so be it.

— Eliana Johnson (@elianayjohnson) June 19, 2018

We need to weaponize grandkids refusing to visit. Vote Trump and you’ll never see your great-granddaughter.

― louise ck (milo z), Monday, June 18, 2018 4:56 PM (three hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I’ll never get how reluctant some people are to estrange themselves from family members

― valorous wokelord (silby), Monday, June 18, 2018 4:57 PM (three hours ago) Bookmark

my sister and I disowned my dad this year for a number of reasons, but chief among them was his belief that post-election he now had a license to speak as hatefully he wanted

*as* he wanted

Thread: How did we get here?
In 2015, I shook President Obama’s hand, thanked him for DACA, and asked him to reverse course & close the for-profit baby jails (also known as “family detention centers”) he opened in Dilley & Karnes City, Texas. What he said shook me to my core 1/ pic.twitter.com/K5vi6S2RPj

— R. Andrew Free (@ImmCivilRights) June 19, 2018

That's a great piece.

It is a highly educational thread and I have no idea how immigration lawyers are supposed to find the time to teach us laypeople about how any of this shit works, or where the bad ideas come from, but they do. One of the ways smartphones and microblogging are living up to the promise, perhaps.

Long Twitter threads are such a weird way to publish an essay of 2000 words or more. There should be a better vehicle for this that would reach just as many people and be quickly and easily distributed, but this trend seems to be here for the foreseeable future.

Sure but that's for another thread. Point he's making is: This is a policy that has deep roots. Understanding those deep roots is important to any lasting immigration reform. If we can use Dump Trump sentiments to mobilize against this particular policy, that's great, but the rules and the way they're being executed come from previous administrations, quite specifically Obama's second term.

These are the names of the contractors who are coordinating the children’s concentration camps in TX-

https://docs.google.com/document/d/16Z04gxhORlgmS5sDhnX_ryDfSF8T2a6AwZWV1PMY-H8/mobilebasic

On the lighter side

NEW: Rudy tells @dsamuelsohn that his call for Mueller to be suspended last week was just for show:

“That’s what I’m supposed to do,” Giuliani said. “What am I supposed to say? That they should investigate him forever? Sorry, I’m not a sucker.”https://t.co/Br2mJO8hxZ

— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) June 18, 2018

I cant help but continue to wonder if the US hasnt, for years, looked admiringly at how we've been doing things in AU when it comes to deterrent punishment.

Christ some of them have been on Naru for YEARS. Quite a few have died in the process.

XP NARRATOR: "He was a sucker."

Rudy's legal talent has never been very keen compared to his ability as the emcee of his own media circus.

Definitely has nothing to do with his political opponent leading a march and is absolutely because Ted cares about immigrant families, right? https://t.co/VJHk40Bs9S

— Alex Da Toke Villain (@threetwentykbps) June 18, 2018

since when has what pols BELIEVE been relevant? idgaf