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

Yeah, I've been saying the US is over for a while, but I really do think whatever is currently in motion, we won't come back from in our lifetime.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqY2apae6Nk

ok lol

An unpopular opinion, but there are many organizational inefficiencies (often caused years ago by carelessly crafted legislation) in the federal government that really could be improved by reorganizing part of it. Individual agencies do this all the time. It is, however, a massive pain in the ass for everyone involved, Congress will never approve this, and ideally it would be something undertaken by something other that the most incompetent administration in American history

It’s also rife with opportunities for pure bureaucratic evil that are too complex and boring for the American public to understand or care about

https://m.nationalskillscoalition.org/news/blog/administration-reorganization-would-eliminate-critical-workforce-and-education-programs-and-expand-ineffective-work-requirements

They can’t even implement a one page executive order without stepping on their own dicks. I think even congress realizes this and won’t let this happen.

Read that .org as "Nationals Kills Coalition" and was like "Yeah, totally an official part of this administration..."

I think this week has aged us all thirty years...

xp again, in all sincerity, let's hope so

also, thank u Alfred

Melania confounds everyone again by wearing one of those jackets with all the NBA logos on it pic.twitter.com/ueJZJ6B7Cc

— Dan Hopper (@DanHopp) June 22, 2018

pretty sure Bob Dylan wore that in 1985, which makes Melania cool.

is this what it looks like when someone slowly gets sucked into another dimension on live tv

Tom Arnold just gave one of the most amazing cable news interviews I’ve ever witnessed pic.twitter.com/3aRwmuxeWe

— Jon Passantino (@passantino) June 23, 2018

that was painful to watch, he was also kind of incoherent on Lawrence O'Donnell's show

there aren't nearly enough stories that try to explain what migrants are fleeing from, but this is a good one:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/22/us/immigration-border-children.html

Though it’s impossible to know yet whether the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” crackdown on illegal border crossers will have a significant deterrent effect, one thing was clear this week at the Arizona-Mexico border: Many families — especially those from countries in Central America plagued by gang violence and ruined economies — are making the calculation that even separation or detention in the United States is better than the situation at home.

“Why would you undertake such a dangerous journey?” said Magdalena Escobedo, 32, who works at the migrant shelter here in Tucson, called Casa Alitas. “When you’ve got a gun to your head, people threatening to rape your daughter, extort your business, force your son to work for the cartels. What would you do?”

Tom Arnold link seems to have disappeared between me seeing it on my phone and going to look at it on my desktop.

He does sound a bit weird on the Lawrence O'Donnel show anyway.

Sorry, just loaded now. My feed must be not loading fully or something.

https://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/immigrant-mom-loses-effort-regain-son-us-parents/story?id=16803067
Not a great precedent. & can see how this is likely to become one from what i'm hearing about a lack of planned out process. & maybe this is what the White house wants anyway.

oh come the fuck on, dude. they can declare martial law at any point.

Yeah they definitely can't declare martial law in any constitutional way. Plus with so much decentralized power in the U.S., I'm not even sure how it work. You'd have whole cities and states where the local law enforcement authorities would not respect the authority of the feds.

again, I hope you're both right.

Please don't say, "But y'all said that about Trump winning in 2016!"

thankfully that did not cross my mind

regarding the "why people seek asylum" question:

So we're gonna pretend these refugees aren't a result of our actions in Central America?

yeah it's Daily Kos link but it links through to more detailed reports

the woman who beat mark sanford was in a serious car crash last night

man i really hope Sarah Huckabee Sanders ends up in a serious car crash

using the official @PressSec twitter account to go after a business that refused her service last night.

how long until we've got PizzaGate 2?

The USA has been fucking around with Central America since forever. It's probably the single most disgraceful part of our long history of foreign interventions.

man i really hope Sarah Huckabee Sanders ends up in a serious car crash

Wouldn't you rather she realised she was wrong, and dedicated her life to the service of others? Car chrash may be more likely, but while we're wishing for things that seems better.

Which is more likely. That one is the one I want

I'm not sure that makes sense, but okay.

Seems easy enuf to parse

For every person involved in this administration who eventually has a half-hearted 'come to Jesus' moment years after the damage they participated in has been done (a la Glenn Beck), there will be 150 who go to their graves bitterly doubling down on their own shitbaggery.

I REALLY DON’T CARE. DO U? https://t.co/L2o6H2KXC2

— John Dingell (@JohnDingell) June 23, 2018

dingell is the red foreman of the democartic party that we need

perfect

of course sarah massaged the truth to make herself feel better.

Several Red Hen employees were gay, [the owner] said. They knew Sanders had defended Trump’s desire to bar transgender people from the military. This month, they had all watched her evade questions and defend a Trump policy that caused migrant children to be separated from their parents.

“Tell me what you want me to do. I can ask her to leave,” Wilkinson told her staff, she said. “They said yes.”

It was important to Wilkinson, she said, that Sanders had already been served — that her staff had not simply refused her on sight. And it was important to her that Sanders was a public official, not just a customer with whom she disagreed, many of whom were included in her regular clientele.

All the same, she was tense as she walked up to the press secretary’s chair.

“I said, ‘I’m the owner,’ ” she recalled, ” ‘I’d like you to come out to the patio with me for a word.’ ”

They stepped outside, into another small enclosure, but at least out of the crowded restaurant.

“I was babbling a little, but I got my point across in a polite and direct fashion,” Wilkinson said. “I explained that the restaurant has certain standards that I feel it has to uphold, such as honesty, and compassion, and cooperation.

“I said, ‘I’d like to ask you to leave.’ ”

Wilkinson didn’t know how Sanders would react. She said she didn’t know whether Trump’s chief spokeswoman had been called out in a restaurant before, as the president’s homeland security secretary had been days earlier.

Sanders’s response was immediate, Wilkinson said: ” ‘ That’s fine. I’ll go.’ ”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2018/06/23/why-a-small-town-restaurant-owner-asked-sarah-huckabee-sanders-to-leave-and-would-do-it-again/?utm_term=.451cbf1fa4b1

Sarah, I know you don’t care even a tiny little bit about the ethics rules, but using your official account for this is a clear violation of 5 CFR 2635.702(a). It’s the same as if an ATF agent pulled out his badge when a restaurant tried to throw him/her out. https://t.co/Fj6OfBAdew

— Walter Shaub (@waltshaub) June 23, 2018

and the punishment for violating 5 CFR 2635.702(a) is...

an invisible feather ploofing down on the wrist in the middle of a lovely dream, years later

her punishment is that she gave the restaurant that 86’d her a bunch of free publicity, excellent work by a true communications professional

free publicity and probably now a target of threats by insane dumbasses from around the country. a friend of mine works at a really nice restaurant in DC called The Red Hen. it's not the one that sanders visited, and it's unaffiliated. even this unaffiliated restaurant is getting bombarded with 1-star reviews on yelp, and is anticipating threats. i'm sure it's much much worse for the real thing

their facebook page is a toilet now.

probably not the worst idea to hire full-time security.

Went on the Red Hen's Yelp page to have a good lol at the Magaists' reviews and here is what the admins are doing:

Active Cleanup Alert
This business recently made waves in the news, which often means that people come to this page to post their views on the news.

While we don’t take a stand one way or the other when it comes to these news events, we do work to remove both positive and negative posts that appear to be motivated more by the news coverage itself than the reviewer’s personal consumer experience with the business.

As a result, your posts to this page may be removed as part of our cleanup process beginning Saturday, June 23, 2018, but you should feel free to post your thoughts about the recent media coverage for this business on Yelp Talk at any time.

The Yelp reviews are a sewer. One guy photoshopped a rat b/w hamburger bread.

guys

"Sarah, we the people of the USA are the owners of the White House, and we'd like to ask you to leave."

https://cdn.worldvectorlogo.com/logos/cracker-barrel-1.svg

free publicity and probably now a target of threats by insane dumbasses from around the country. a friend of mine works at a really nice restaurant in DC called The Red Hen. it's not the one that sanders visited, and it's unaffiliated. even this unaffiliated restaurant is getting bombarded with 1-star reviews on yelp, and is anticipating threats.

So emblematic of the red hatter's that when one of their queens spots them the exact location of the restaurant to bombard, they still get it wrong. I imagine there are Red Hen restaurants and businesses getting a similar treatment in Washington STATE now too.

they're as mad as a red hen!