The Evening Blues - 6-28-18



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The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Clarence Green

Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features Texas blues guitarist Clarence Green. Enjoy!

Clarence Green & The Rhythmaires - Let Me Be

“We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.”

-- Elie Wiesel


News and Opinion

Ripping Into Trump for Treating Children Worse Than Seized Property, Judge Orders Reunification of Separated Families

A federal judge in San Diego, California ruled late Tuesday that the more than 2,000 migrant children separated from their parents under the Trump administration's "zero tolerance" policy must be reunited with their families within 30 days—and children under age 5 must be returned to parents within two weeks. ...

"The facts set forth before the court portray reactive governance—responses to address a chaotic circumstance of the government's own making. They belie measured and ordered governance, which is central to the concept of due process enshrined in our constitution," wrote (pdf) U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw. "This is particularly so in the treatment of migrants, many of whom are asylum seekers and small children." The Trump administration's family separation policy was implemented without any standards for adequately tracking detained children taken from their parents, so as Sabraw noted, the "startling" and "unfortunate reality is that under the present system migrant children are not accounted for with the same efficiency and accuracy as property."


In addition to setting deadlines for reunification, Sabraw also issued a nationwide injunction to block officials from separating any more families—unless a parent "affirmatively, knowingly, and voluntarily declines to be reunited with the child...or there is a determination that the parent is unfit or presents a danger to the child"—and mandated that the government establish phone contact between separated children and their parents within 10 days.

While the ruling, which allows the case to proceed as a class action suit, was welcomed by the immigrant rights community, it is still unclear how officials will actually go about reuniting families, particularly if a parent already has been deported and their child remains in government custody.

Meet an Immigration Lawyer Trying to Unite Migrant Families While Battling the Trump Administration

Calls to Abolish ICE Are Becoming More Mainstream. Is Washington Ready for the Conversation?

The upset victory on Tuesday night by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has forced one of her signature campaign issues into the national conversation about President Donald Trump’s immigration policy: the abolition of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The push to dissolve ICE is unusual in progressive policy circles for its simplicity and clarity, not weighed down by a stack of white papers or clever incentivizing of behavior. Adem Bunkeddeko, who nearly upset New York Rep. Yvette Clarke, similarly ran on a platform to abolish ICE, as have a growing number of progressive elected officials, challengers, and grassroots activists.

The simplicity of the solution, though, leads to a number of follow-up questions that have lawmakers in both major parties on Capitol Hill skeptical of the push to end the agency. “‘To replace it with what?’ is the question. And I don’t have that answer right now,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who is facing a challenge from her left this November, told The Intercept while refusing to join the push to eliminate the agency.

In the last week of June, the movement to abolish ICE found its footing on Capitol Hill, as Wisconsin Democratic Rep. Mark Pocan and Washington Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal introduced legislation that serves as a vehicle for this demand. The bill would eliminate ICE while setting up a commission to examine alternatives.

The argument to shut ICE down revolves around its cultural ecology. The agency has become corrupted with a military mentality that doesn’t respect civilian oversight and has little effective oversight. Once an institution’s culture has metastasized, reforming it can become impossible, with the only solution to abolish it and disperse its various authorities elsewhere. “What’s happened is as we’ve created ICE and given more and more authority with no accountability to ICE, in my opinion, it’s become a rogue agency,” Jayapal told The Intercept.

Democratic leadership, however, is not so keen on Pocan and Jayapal’s legislation. The House’s third-highest ranking Democrat, South Carolina’s Jim Clyburn, was dismissive of the bill. “I don’t think it’ll go anywhere. Why would we want to eliminate the ICE agency?” he said. ... What’s notable among the various individuals calling for the elimination of ICE is that they have yet to settle on a comprehensive alternative as to what would replace it, something which opponents of the bill in both parties brought up repeatedly in interviews with The Intercept.


DHS agents interrupt news interview with ICE whistleblower

Agents from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) interrupted an interview with a former Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) spokesman on Wednesday. CBS News reported that it was speaking with James Schwab about his decision to resign a few months earlier when DHS agents arrived at his home.


Schwab told CBS the agents asked if he’d been in contact with Libby Schaaf, the mayor of Oakland, Calif., who rankled conservatives earlier this year when she warned city residents of a pending immigration sweep. “Why, three months later, are we doing this?” Schwab asked. “This is intimidation. And this is why people won’t come out and speak against the government.” He added that he has not had any contact with Schaaf.

Schwab, who worked in the Obama and Trump administrations, told CBS he resigned earlier this year because the agency asked him to lie in the aftermath of the Oakland incident, which he claimed put the blame inaccurately on Schaaf for the failure to arrest undocumented immigrants.

Jennifer Harbury: Today’s Refugee Crisis Is Blowback from U.S. Dirty Wars in Central America

Trump continues to improperly conflate criticism with violence:

Trump stokes feud with Waters at North Dakota rally

President Trump on Wednesday slammed Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) during a rally in North Dakota, furthering his feud with the California Democrat after she called for protests against Trump officials. ...

Trump and Republicans have seized on the comments, arguing that they show Democrats are hypocritical and intolerant. The president continued to stoke that sentiment Wednesday, saying at the rally that any vote for a Democrat in the November midterms serves as a vote for Waters, Pelosi and Schumer.

“Maxine. She is a beauty,” Trump said. “I mean she practically was telling people the other day to assault -- can you imagine if I said the things she said?

“Horrible what she said. Now they want to censure her,” he said, referencing a measure introduced by a Republican lawmaker. “Let’s see where that goes, folks,” Trump added.

Bernie Pelosi stakes out a position:

Bernie Sanders: Sarah Sanders has the right to 'go into a restaurant and have dinner'

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Wednesday came to the defense of White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, saying individuals should "have the right to go into a restaurant and have dinner.”

The Vermont senator made the comments while speaking on MSNBC about the recent uptick in public confrontations Trump Cabinet officials have faced. On Friday, Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked to leave a small Virginia restaurant because of her role in the administration.

In addition, protesters confronted Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Tuesday over the Trump administration's border policies.

"I’m not a great fan of shouting down people or being rude to people," Bernie Sanders said. "People have a right to be angry when Congress gives tax breaks to billionaires and then wants to cut nutrition programs for low income pregnant women." But he said that anger needs to be taken out in a "constructive way" and that people should not be kicked out of restaurants over political differences. “Look, as I’ve said before, yeah, I think people have the right to go into a restaurant and have dinner," he said.

Trevor Noah: 'Calls for civility come from people in a position of privilege'

“Ever since a Virginia chicken restaurant asked her to leave this weekend, the big debate in America has been: ‘Do government officials have the right to be left alone when they’re off the clock?’” Noah proceeded to show cable news coverage of the debate, in which one pundit said “there are certain lines you shouldn’t cross” while another asked: “Whatever happened to tolerance?” Noah shot back: “Tolerance got grabbed by the pussy, didn’t you hear? Trump called her an animal, locked her up, and threw her kids in a cage, that’s what happened to tolerance.


“These people have more amnesia than the characters in a Lifetime movie,” he added. “Let’s not get it twisted: that restaurant owner didn’t ask Sarah Huckabee Sanders to leave because of her opinions. She’s a senior official of the Trump administration, not some rando with a blog.”

“People in power would like to be insulated from the effects of their actions,” Noah said. “But if you’re in a position where you can influence other people’s lives, you shouldn’t be shocked when you hear from the people whose lives you affect.”

The host then said that “calls for civility always tend to come from people in a position of privilege,” remarking on the suggestion by pundits that protesters today model themselves after Gandhi, Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King Jr. “Don’t ever forget, in their time, people were not exactly happy with how they protested,” Noah said.

What Civility (Really) Is

Civility. What is it, anyway? Is it just being nice and kind to people, through gritted teeth — when they might be the very ones putting kids in concentration camps? ...

In America, “civility” means something like the following: being obsequious to people above you in a hierarchy, and being cruel to those below. Do you doubt me? Why is it then that calls for “civility” always come from above, not below — the last place you might expect? It’s those at the top of a hierarchy saying to those below them — “Watch out! You are not being obsequious enough, and if you do not do it for me, then who will do it for you? The whole hierarchy might just collapse!” These are just games of corrosive power. But none of this is civility, in any way, whatsoever.

Civility means to be civilized, so that one can fulfill one’s duty to civilize. Not in some grand colonial way. But in a simpler and truer one. The civitas is the community of human belonging. It is what we are trying to bring to life with “civility” and “civilization” and all the rest of it. What binds the civitas together? A fundamental set of values — things which we wish all people to hold jointly, which define the common good. What are such values? I’d summarize them this way. Freedom, truth, justice, and equality. ...

Being civilized, a member of the civitas, the community of human belonging, doesn’t merely mean “believing” in those values — and meekly staring at your feet when an abuser or bully gives someone a shove. It means expressing them. Enacting them. Living them. Why? Not so that we ourselves are merely seen to be civilized, so that we are haughty and respected and admired and so on. But so that we civilize. And that brings us full circle back to “civility”. Is civility the moral obligation to be obsequious and ingratiating to a racist, fascist, monster, or war criminal? Of course not. It is the very opposite. Truth demands we call them what they are. Justice demands we do so for the sake of those they have hurt. Freedom demands that we do so for our own. And equality demands that we call them what they are for everyone’s sake. That is how we begin to civilize them — or at least protect the community of human belonging from them until they are civilized, too.

That is what civility really is, my friends. Not being kind to fascists and thugs and bullies. But civilizing them, with courage, with firmness, with clarity. That act sets the boundaries of the community of human belonging, the civitas, and if those boundaries are not set, then the whole project of civilization soon falls apart. So it is your primary moral duty to set those boundaries, and protect and safeguard the community of human belonging from those who want to undo it, hurt it, and harm it. ... When you tolerate a fool, a monster, or a tyrant — you are civilizing no one, but dehumanizing everyone.

(Bleep) Civility! 'Trump-Shaming' Is What Happens When Elites Won't Listen to the People

I’m kind of a history buff about revolutions (big surprise, huh?) so recently I’ve enjoyed catching up with the great podcast series by Mike Duncan called, simply, “Revolutions.” And every time — whether the setting is Paris or Berlin or Budapest, and whether it’s the French Revolution or the spasms that shook Europe in 1848 or whatever — there is inevitably one similar moment. Some minister or bureaucrat — maybe sinister, maybe just hapless — is inside a government building surrounded by a large, angry, yelling mob furious over a lack of bread or an unjust tax or just a basic lack of representation. If the state functionary is lucky, he steals a janitor’s outfit and sneaks out the back door and flees the country. The less fortunate often are hacked from limb to limb, or strung up from a lamppost, or both.

To me, that’s incivility.

The recent outbreak of nonviolent and sometimes quite creative protests against various Trump administration officials directly involved in the human-rights abuses taking place at the southern U.S. border — blasting a tape of a crying Central American child at the home of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, all of Broadway cheering the F-bomb that Robert De Niro launched toward President Trump, and, most famously, the turning away of Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders from that Virginia restaurant? Almost all of it falls within the bounds of offbeat civil disobedience.

Need a better term? How about “Trump-shaming”? ...

The fallback argument from the civility crowd is that the one (and apparently only) way to protest an injustice in America is at the ballot box. That’s absurd for a lot of reasons. For one thing, if you heard a 6-year-old girl crying in the room next door, would you wait until Nov. 6, 2018? Probably not. But the bigger problem with trying to address the American crisis every two years or so at the ballot box is that — with all credit to the New York Times’ Michelle Goldberg, who got here first and probably said it better — our democracy is hopelessly broken, and in crisis. ...

These pleas for “civility” from comfortable people who can relate to the horror of a shunning in a posh burrito bar but who can’t put themselves in the place of tired and poor people who trekked more than 1,000 miles, only to be tossed into cages — in other words, white moderates who are more devoted to “order” than to justice — are gross and, frankly, offensive. Our basic humanity requires that we speak up and that we confront the complicit, by any nonviolent means necessary. The “more convenient season” is now. In this crisis — and this is the best way I can state this in a family publication — (bleep) civility!

Syria's role in chemical weapons attacks to be investigated

The Syrian government’s alleged role in a wave of chemical weapons attacks during the country’s civil war will be investigated, it has been confirmed. Members of the world chemical weapons watchdog agreed to expand its powers to identify those behind the attacks in the past three years. Meeting in the Hague, more than 140 countries affiliated to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) voted by 82 to 24 to expand the body’s powers from simply investigating whether a chemical attack had occurred, to attributing responsibility. ...

The resolution, largely promoted by Britain and other western powers, specifically called for the OPCW to “put in place arrangements to identify the perpetrators of the use of chemical weapons in the Syrian Arab Republic by identifying and reporting on all information potentially relevant to the origin of those chemical weapons”.

Expressing concern , it said: “the use of such chemical weapons by the Syrian Arab Republic, by direct implication, establishes that the Syrian Arab Republic failed to declare and destroy all of its chemical weapons and chemical weapons production facilities. The resolution demanded “that the Syrian Arab Republic immediately cease all use of chemical weapons and declare all of the chemical weapons it possesses, including sarin and its precursors”. ...

The votes represent a diplomatic success for Britain, but leave Russia, Iran and Syria claiming that the OPCW is being politicised by the west.

EU must 'prepare for worst-case scenarios' under Trump, top official warns

Donald Trump has been accused by the European Union of pioneering a new American doctrine in which there are “no friends, only enemies”. Ahead of what is set to be a stormy Nato summit next week – and with EU leaders gathering in Brussels to discuss a developing transatlantic trade war among other issues – the bloc’s most senior officials expressed deep anxiety about the future.

The European Council’s president, Donald Tusk, said the EU had to now prepare for the worst due to the policies of Trump’s White House. Tusk is planning to engage in a discussion with the leaders of the 28 member states on Thursday.

Given the impending trade war, a US decision to renege on the Iran deal and the Paris climate change pact, and the repeated attack on European allies for underspending on defence, there are concerns in Brussels over the long-term stability of the relationship. Indeed it is feared that the US change in attitude could outlast Trump’s presidency.

Keiser Report: Central Bank Engineered Growth in Billionaire Class

Support for GOP Tax Scam Drops as Corporate America Gorges on Record Stock Buybacks

Roughly six months after President Donald Trump put his signature on the GOP "tax scam," a new poll reveals dwindling support for the corporate-friendly law whose benefits went mostly to the nation's wealthiest. The finding from the POLITICO/Morning Consult polling out Wednesday comes as financial reporting this week showed that corporations have broken their own record of stock buybacks—a tactic deemed illegal and akin to stock market manipulation until 1982—used to reward executives and wealthy investors but that do nothing for consumers, workers, or regular taxpayers.

According to Politico, just 37 percent of registered voters now say they support the tax package, a drop from the 44 percent that said they backed it back in April. The poll also found that a majority of workers, 52 percent, reported seeing no increase in their paychecks, as promised by Trump and Republican lawmakers, while only 25 percent said they did.

The drop comes as evidence continues to roll in that the unpopular tax law is bearing the fruit it was intended to—benefits for the wealthy few, and crumbs for the many.

Pittsburgh police officer charged in shooting death of unarmed black teen

A police officer has been charged with homicide over the shooting of an unarmed black teenager last week, the latest in a string of US police killings of black men that have sparked nationwide protests.

The officer, 30-year-old Michael Rosfeld, surrendered to face a single criminal count for the 19 June death of 17-year-old Antwon Rose, which occurred as the officer was searching for suspects after a drive-by shooting that wounded one.

Video of the incident showed two men running away from a car that had been stopped by police, and falling to the ground amid the sound of gunfire. The video sparked outrage and several nights of protests in the western Pennsylvania city.

The fatal shooting occurred after Rosfeld and other officers stopped a car while searching for suspects in the drive-by shooting. Prosecutors said in court papers that Rosfeld initially told them he saw a person emerge from the car, holding something he believed could have been a gun, but later told investigators he was not sure what the object was.

A second person who had been in the car with Rose, 17-year-old Zaijuan Hester, was charged by Allegheny county police on Wednesday with several crimes, including criminal attempted homicide, in connection with the drive-by shooting, according to court documents.

How Democrats Can Save The Supreme Court

GOP plans to steamroll Dems on Supreme Court pick

Senate Republicans plan to confirm a new Supreme Court justice to replace retiring Anthony Kennedy before the midterm elections, according to interviews with nearly a dozen Republican senators.

The Senate GOP is expected to execute a lightning strike confirmation despite their razor thin majority of 51 senators, which is effectively down to 50 as Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) recovers from brain cancer. But because of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s rules change last year to push through Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, the GOP can unilaterally confirm a new justice without any Democratic support.

McConnell told reporters that the nominee will be confirmed before this fall; Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) has said that historically it takes about two months on average from the time a president nominates a new justice to the time a Judiciary Committee hearing is held. What that means practically is the Senate is likely to have installed a firm conservative majority on the high court by the time voters go to the polls in November.




the horse race



Sure We Can Elect The Occasional Democrat Progressive. Then What?

Yesterday Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez won a NYC Democratic congressional primary in a majority Latino district against the arrogant right wing,out of touch white head of the Queens Democratic party, who hadn’t even seen a primary challenger since 2004. The white guy was so deep in the pocket of corporate contributors that he was one of the few favored to succeed or oust Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi. That’s how the two parties choose their leaders in every state legislature and both houses of Congress – they’re the ones who bring in the most donations from wealthy corporations and individuals. ...

For a lot of people on the left, it’s an occasion for celebration. I can understand that, I worked my behind off in campaigns against the Daley Machine in my native Chicago for a quarter century. We elected progressives to the city council, county offices, the state legislature, to Congress and 1983 and 87 the mayor’s chair. I helped register hundreds of thousands of people to vote. I and the folks I worked with imagined that we could build a movement that might transform the Democratic party from below. It didn’t work out so well.

It turns out that both elected officialdom and the Democratic party are institutions, and institutions change individuals way more often than the other way around. Some of our folks backed away from their commitments little by little, others frankly flipped, some were isolated and outlasted till they could be outspent. Despite the phrase being on everybody’s lips, we never figured out exactly how to hold anybody’s “feet to the fire,” to enforce any sort of accountability. ...

We figured out years ago how to win elections under the right circumstances. Ocasio-Cortez was a Puerto Rican woman running against a lazy white incumbent in a majority Latino NYC district, and she built a competent organization. It should have been surprising if she’d lost. Her expressed views on most issues are laudable. What we rarely bother to think through is what we actually GET when we win.

When we’re victorious in executive branch offices like mayoral elections, our candidates actually become responsible for administering the austerity and cuts. That’s what’s happening in Jackson MS and Newark NJ, to name just a couple places. We’ve been electing progressives here and there for a long time now. It’s time ask whether our ability to elect progressives has far outstripped our ability to exert real pressure upon them. Are we transforming the Democratic party, or are we merely legitimizing it, and launching yet another glittering career? I don’t pretend to have the answers. But these are questions which ought to be asked.

Ocasio-Cortez & Progressives Win - Is it Enough?



the evening greens


Cannabis growth is killing one of the cutest (and fiercest) creatures in the US

The state of California has announced that it is seeking to declare the Humboldt marten an endangered species, owing to the risks it faces from deforestation and, surprisingly, the cannabis industry. It is not the only species for which pot poses a lethal problem.

Martens live in dense forests where low branches, decaying logs and evergreen bushes provide them with cover from predators like coyotes and bobcats. Along with honey they eat lizards, insects, birds, voles, squirrels and flying squirrels. “They are secretive deep forest dwellers,” said Curry, a senior scientist with the Center for Biological Diversity, a not-for-profit advocacy group that has petitioned state and federal authorities to list the animal as endangered. “They symbolize the wild heart of the forest.”

But as redwood forests have shrunk in northern California, so has the marten population. There are two populations, with 100 in Oregon and an estimated 200 in three northern California counties – which, unfortunately for them, overlap with California’s Emerald Triangle, an epicenter of cannabis cultivation. In one county alone, Humboldt, there are thought to be 4,000 to 15,000 cannabis cultivation sites on private property, in addition to illegal or “trespass grows” on public or tribal lands. Not only is forest habitat lost to cannabis crops, but many growers in Humboldt use anticoagulant rodenticides to keep rodents from chewing through irrigation lines or eating their food supplies.

This inserts the poison into the forest food webs, which can cause birds and mammals that prey upon rodents – such as the marten – to die from uncontrollable internal bleeding. The rat poison and pesticides also run off into rivers, where wild salmon are at less than 5% of their historical population. In Humboldt county, 70% of northern spotted owls and 40% of barred owls found dead or killed tested positive for poison in a recent study. The deaths of a number of fishers, rare, weasel-like forest-dwelling mammals related to martens, have been directly attributed to rat poison used by cannabis farmers.


Also of Interest

Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.

WaPo’s Civility Fetish Delegitimizes Opposition to Trump

Thomson Reuters Defends Its Work for ICE, Providing “Identification and Location of Aliens”

'Colossal Failure of Leadership,' Warn Progressives, If Schumer Can't Unify Democrats to Block Trump Supreme Court Nominee

Lobbyists and Business-Friendly Pundits Mourn Democratic Socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Victory

Why Free Trade Isn’t Efficient

The Economist’s Premature Obituary for the Sanders Movement

Space is full of dirty, toxic grease, scientists reveal


A Little Night Music

Clarence Green & The High Type Five - Mary, My Darling

Clarence Green & The High Type Five - Old Grandpa

Clarence Green - Hard Headed Woman

Clarence Green And The Rhythmaires - I'm Wondering

Clarence Green And The Rhythmaires - What Y'all Waiting On Me??

Clarence Green - Doin´ It

Clarence Green - Tonk a Lonk

Clarence Green - The Giant Speaks

Clarence Green - Guitar Crying The Blues

Clarence Green & the Rhythmaires - Keep a Workin'

Clarence Green - Walking The Baby

Clarence Green & the Rhythmaires - Crazy Strings

Clarence Green & the Rythhmaires - What Happened To Us

Clarence Green - Ground Hog

Clarence Green - Red Light


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Comments

You got me again with your Bernie Pelosi line. Funny!

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joe shikspack's picture

@QMS

heh, well, thanks. i do try to approach the news with a sense of humor, despite what i usually find in it. Smile

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detroitmechworks's picture

Going to Leave for Judo in about an hour or so, feeling good about things in general.

To my NSA handler, Linda: Let em know that I don't plan to do anything other than see a bunch of friends, keep doing my Judo, and be an upstanding, moral citizen who fully supports everything you and your department does.

Mentioned to my friend who was complaining about the whole "Gay guy supports Nazis" news that Ernst Rohm thought he would be protected too.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiE5-II0v7w]

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I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

joe shikspack's picture

@detroitmechworks

wow, you're on a first name basis with your nsa handler?

have fun at judo.

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enhydra lutris's picture

necessary to "steamroll" the Democrats? How often has it happened since LBJ left office? I,m pretty certain that the only way you'll see a united Democratic party front for or against anything is if it is already in the bag, so the Dino's can make a symbolic vote.

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

@enhydra lutris the demos are only the broken wing of the red bird potty.

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joe shikspack's picture

@enhydra lutris

heh, it's probably not necessary, but it makes the republicans feel powerful and it helps the dems maintain the fictions needed to perpetuate the game.

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I mean that's what a lot of civil rights was about. It's kinda discriminatory not to serve someone. I'd be ok with the patrons just staring at her the whole time in silence, or asking if Trump grabbed her pussy and is she upset that he didn't, and does he have vd. Then calling her out for not paying the bill or leaving a tip. That'd be ok.

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joe shikspack's picture

@Snode

i don't know what i would do in the situation. i generally prefer civil engagement. however, i think that in this america where it's ok for a commercial baking establishment to refuse to bake a cake for a gay couple, it should be ok for a restaurant to refuse to serve french fries to a fascist. especially one who is the public face and apologist for the awful things that the trump administration does.

it's not like sarah huckabee sanders couldn't find any restaurant in a city with thousands of restaurants that would serve her food. heck, i bet she could even find a pharmacy that would be willing to sell her birth control pills, too.

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@joe shikspack I was going to say something about channeling my inner juvenile delinquent in my response, but I kind of mean it, I guess. Businesses should have to serve everybody, whether you're gay or different nationality or color. It's America. But us, we don't have to like Sanders Huckabee, and it's up to us to call her out, insult her, shame her (as if) and let her know there is nothing we respect about her and her supposed authority. Schumer and Pelosi won't do it, and it's not political. She just sucks as a human being. As to the birth control, it's done wonders for her acne.

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Azazello's picture

@joe shikspack
he was talking about that other, previous incident where patrons in a restaurant were shouting at a gov't official who was dining there. Again, it's easy to see where this kind of thing could escalate. What if Trump's goons found out where Maxine Waters was eating dinner and pulled the same stunt ? What happens when you get two opposing groups of angry people shouting at each other ? What if shouting matches result in somebody throwing a punch ?
Well, at least we know the cops will be there to see that no one gets hurt, right ?

It's a slippery slope and our choice may be civility or Weimar Germany.

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We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.

joe shikspack's picture

@Azazello

i would not be surprised if trump's goons did follow maxine waters around and, given the language that trump has used, it wouldn't be surprising if violence ensues.

just today, not too far from where i live, some whacko with a gun killed a bunch of journalists.

i would not be surprised if the culture of violence created by trump and his neo nazi fellow travellers has played a hand in this:

The shooting prompted new condemnation of Donald Trump’s demonisation of the media. The president has repeatedly called the press “the enemy of the people” and encourages crowds at his rallies to join him in deriding journalists.

perhaps i am entirely wrong, but it seems to me that this is not the time for the vast majority of us to sit down and shut up.

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snoopydawg's picture

because this is a blatant lie. Assad did get rid of his chemical weapons and gave them to our navy to destroy. Then weapons inspectors went in and verified more than 3 times that he had. I wonder what they got in return for selling out?

Expressing concern , it said: “the use of such chemical weapons by the Syrian Arab Republic, by direct implication, establishes that the Syrian Arab Republic failed to declare and destroy all of its chemical weapons and chemical weapons production facilities. The resolution demanded “that the Syrian Arab Republic immediately cease all use of chemical weapons and declare all of the chemical weapons it possesses, including sarin and its precursors”. ..

.

Well, duh. This is so obvious.

The votes represent a diplomatic success for Britain, but leave Russia, Iran and Syria claiming that the OPCW is being politicised by the west.

What will people remember when they think of Kennedy's legacy? His many rulings or that he retired so that the most unqualified president ever could pick his replacement?

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

joe shikspack's picture

@snoopydawg

yep, it looks like the opcw is about to become an extension of the us-british funded white helmet propaganda group.

What will people remember when they think of Kennedy's legacy? His many rulings or that he retired so that the most unqualified president ever could pick his replacement?

i think that kennedy will get reverent write-ups from the corporate media. what's worse is that so many of the remaining "liberal" justices are looking old and/or frail. trump could get to replace more of the court before he's done - and impeachment wouldn't improve much since pence would appoint religious whackos to the bench.

ultimately, it may lead to the scotus becoming a deprecated institution. i can well imagine "not my supreme court" becoming popular saying to go along with "not my president," or perhaps even, "not my government."

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Lily O Lady's picture

service to be sinister? Amazon will allow “entrepreneurs” to invest “as little as $10,000” in startup costs. Amazon will provide discounted delivery vehicles, fuel, uniforms, insurance, etc.

What a crock. They are allowing people to buy all the equipment usually provided by ones employer? Smells like bullshit to me.

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"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984"

snoopydawg's picture

@Lily O Lady

this is just more of the gig economy where people take a lot of the risks and expenses and hope they can succeed. Besides, what happened to not letting companies get so large that they become monopolies?

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

Lily O Lady's picture

@snoopydawg

of us and better and better for the very few. Sucks to be us!

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"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984"

TheOtherMaven's picture

They were probably counting on too much outrage over the Repubbies' imminent attempt to stack the Supreme Court to notice this:

as Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) recovers from brain cancer

What he's got, you don't "recover from". At best you stave off death a little longer.

So they lie to us in big things and small, and we're supposed to trust them? Yarite.

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There is no justice. There can be no peace.