I have a friend that I see every few weeks or so. About five years older than I am, so…Medicare-eligible, but not old-old. Whenever I mourn the current state of affairs, he tells me not to get so fretful, that things were worse in the ’60s. He’s right. We forget, but he’s right.
Unrest in American cities — race riots (Detroit, Newark, D.C., Los Angeles, et al.) and police riots (Chicago). Families torn apart by Vietnam, one way or another, either the ones who sent their sons who never came back, or the ones where the sons refused to go, and lit out for Canada or refused induction outright. Families torn apart by even worse things, like hair or hemlines or birth-control pills. It was far worse than today, he always says.
I’m usually reassured by that. But I usually want to know how much further we’re going to slide before we come to our senses, either on our own or because some horrible, 9/11-type event slaps us silly. Today, it’s plain we have a ways to go.
I think it was Neil Steinberg who, in the days between the election and inauguration, compared that period to the clack-clack-clack feeling of the roller coaster climbing the first big hill, and we know the plunge is coming, but we don’t know what it’s going to be like, so we just have to hold on and ride it out. Today the Sun-Times published his column, with this subtle headline: Donald Trump is a racist leading our country toward disaster, so you get the idea how he thinks the ride is going.
Meanwhile, Politico is writing about the trials of being a young, single member of the administration, the Washington Post leads us into a right-wing group’s safe space for young Trump-supporting women, and Sarah Sanders was asked to leave a restaurant. Dim glimmer of amusement in Jennifer Rubin’s blog about that last incident:
Anti-immigrant zealot Stephen Miller, who pushed as hard as anyone for snatching kids from their parents, was dining in a different Mexican restaurant last Sunday when, according to the New York Post, a protester called out, “Hey look guys, whoever thought we’d be in a restaurant with a real-life fascist begging [for] money for new cages?”
Remember a couple years ago, when I wrote about the Float Down, this sort of fun, renegade floatie trip on the St. Clair River up near Port Huron? The wind picked up out of the west and blew all these drunk Americans in their inner tubes across to the Canadian side, and the Canadians rounded everyone up, warmed them up, and drove them back across the bridge to the American side? A French jogger went for a run along a Canadian beach in British Columbia and wound up on the U.S. side. She was arrested. Her mother hustled down to the immigration office with her passport, hoping to clear everything up.
She was held for two weeks. TWO WEEKS.
I’m so, so tired of this. I’m tired of current events. I want to pick up a fat novel set in someplace like Victorian England and just tune all this crap out until, oh, November, without feeling like I’m not doing my part.
I want to live in a world where the French lady would be told to turn around and head the few steps back into Canada and have a nice day. I remember that world.
Well, another weekend gone. It was a good one. The Claressa Shields fight was great, and I wrote a column about it for Deadline Detroit. I’ll add a link when it goes up.
Otherwise, let’s get to the week ahead.
basset said on June 24, 2018 at 9:46 pm
And I will say again that fighting is not a sport and women fighting is even less of one. The appeal of boxing, MMA, whatever has been explained to me quite enough, I still don’t understand it.
Reading… never did get around to wading through the big Steve Jobs biography from a few years back but I got one for a dollar at an estate sale Saturday so here we go. Looked unread. I have been a Mac guy since the Plus days, the only Windows machine in the house is a palmtop (remember those?) that I take out in the woods and use to look at trail cam pictures.
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Bluffton Bob said on June 24, 2018 at 9:55 pm
From the Department of Small Consolation: I’d say 1919, or maybe 1917-1920, also was worse than today. Hundreds killed in race riots. Spanish flu. World War I. Anarchist bombings. Mennonites and Jehovah’s Witnesses tortured and killed because they were conscientious objectors. Dissidents jailed under the Sedition Act. Fifty-year cycles of self-destruction?
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on June 24, 2018 at 9:56 pm
I recommend “The Warden” by Anthony Trollope.
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Julie Robinson said on June 24, 2018 at 10:06 pm
Two hours on the phone with our daughter after her denomination’s annual meeting, where hurtful things were said about their LGBTQ kin and no progress was made on even DISCUSSING the matter? I may need to go straight to a Downton Abbey binge. Although she advised us that season 2, episode 1 of Queer Eye could be very healing.
She is in the middle of a community filled with LGBTQ folk, and is wondering at her future with the denomination. And all the messiness and ugliness that might come. She has decided she will not operate out of fear.
Mary and Matthew, here I come.
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Deborah said on June 24, 2018 at 10:10 pm
I’m reading Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner, I picked it up on the free cart outside of the Op Cit bookstore in Santa Fe. It’s not as good as The Angle of Repose by Stegner, but I’m enjoying it while I’m out in Abiquiu as an escape from politics.
I would have handled the SHS/Red Hen situation differently, but mainly because I would have been too intimidated to confront her as the restaurant owner did. I wish I had more guts. My husband shouted “war criminal”, at Rumsfeld once when we happened to walk by him as he was getting in a vehicle in front of a Chicago hotel. I was proud of him (my husband, certainly not Rumsfeld) but I was also a little shocked.
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alex said on June 24, 2018 at 10:26 pm
the only Windows machine in the house is a palmtop (remember those?) that I take out in the woods and use to look at trail cam pictures
Catch any joggers pooping? That seems to be a thing now.
Went to a fundraiser for our Dem congressional candidate on Saturday and she was quite impressive, so much so that I gave her a fat piece of my paycheck and put her sign in my yard. “People Not Politics” is her slogan and I hope it resonates.
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basset said on June 24, 2018 at 10:40 pm
No, no joggers out where I go, not even any place for em to jog. Last camera I checked had been in place from the end of April to last Monday and had 2654 pictures of deer on it. Probably the same few deer, put the camera over a salt lick and it would take a picture, wait fifteen seconds, take another one…
Set up a cam on my neighbor’s deck the other night, something had been getting into the drip tray on his grill and as I expected it was a coon. Live trap is out there right now, if a skunk gets into it we’re in trouble.
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Dexter Friend said on June 25, 2018 at 2:20 am
I assume the Windsor work-day lunches are no longer viable? My late bro-in-law was a porn addict. His weekends were spent in Windsor all-nude bars and maybe even the legal call girl business suited him, but he only talked about the strippers. He’d come back, Id see him a few days later, he’d still have glitter all over his jacket.
I wish Dave K the best as he takes off for Europe…I too should go someplace where I don’t have to follow the Trump disgraceful administration’s train wreck. I can’t stand it.
I live in lawn mowing territory. So wet, so rainy last couple weeks, the back yard was partially under water so it had been 14 days without mowing. Damn, was that wet grass tall and thick. It was a pain mowing, and I have a rear wheel drive “Personal Pace ” Toro mulching mower.
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alex said on June 25, 2018 at 6:32 am
My parents’ three-acre spread killed our 12-year-old Cub Cadet tractor last week. It started huffing and puffing and backfiring as my partner took it through their meadow of shasta daisies, which were all about four feet tall and spent of flowers for the season. Then the steering went out. Because my parents rely on us to take care of their property, and our equipment already gets heavily used on our own properties, my dad sprung for a brand new Cub Cadet for which we are very thankful. The dealer has our old one for sale on consignment and they’re asking $200 for it.
The new one does a fabulous job even on wet grass. And our yard has never looked better since I overseeded with clover. We have the lushest, plushest lawn in the neighborhood and no chemicals involved whatsoever. We’re on a lot that’s mostly shaded and has a lot of clay in the soil and grass never did well, but clover tolerates those conditions just fine. I wish more people around here would get a clue and quit hiring people to spray chemicals on their anemic lawns, necessitating in turn the hiring of people to spray chemicals in our lake to fend off the algae and other nasty stuff being fed by runoff full of lawn chemicals.
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ROGirl said on June 25, 2018 at 7:28 am
I’m sure some people in Trump’s base would get off on gladiators fighting to the death in arenas followed by imprisoned asylum seekers fending off hungry lions released from cages.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on June 25, 2018 at 8:01 am
Julie, I only know what I saw on Twitter (hashtag #ga223), but there did seem to be plenty of good things coming out of this year’s event. She should see this tweet:
https://twitter.com/jodicraiglow/status/1009192715408564224
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Suzanne said on June 25, 2018 at 8:14 am
Deborah, Angle of Repose was the first Stegner I read and I loved it. I got an audio version and liked it so much I bought a copy so I could share. I read Crossing to Safety a year or so ago and thought it was good but not wonderful. The one main character, the wife of the wealthy couple, was just so unlikable. But it is good writing.
Read Philip Roth’s Everyman recently. Wonderful!
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Julie Robinson said on June 25, 2018 at 8:49 am
Jeff, she’s Evangelical Covenant. After they shut down even discussing any LGBTQ issues, the new president declared them a distraction from the work of the church. The lines are hardening, and the reconciliation work she’s been a part of in her community could make trouble for her.
One of her friends who is gay said it felt like the moment in Harry Potter when Delores Umbrudge became Headmistress at Hogwart’s.
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Joe Kobiela said on June 25, 2018 at 10:07 am
35 years ago today was very hot, but the Garrett American Legion had 8-16 gal kegs of Bud on Ice plus Ham Sandwiches, chips, Potato salad, and cake, a D.J. and a whole bunch of relatives, Rugby team mates, and friends, and after 3 houses, 6dogs, and 2Kids, I would happily do it all again,
Pilot Joe
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JodiP said on June 25, 2018 at 10:41 am
I would also say the Civil War was a worse time.
It’s getting hard to remain calm and hopeful. There was another police shooting resulting in death in Mpls. on Saturday night. I see a lot about this through my activist friends on their media feeds. It’s so vital to get their persepctive and narrative.
There are death threats being made against immigrants, or statements on social media stating “We should just shot them at the border. Problem solved.” type of stuff. The article’s in WaPo.
I gotta go. Short day today as I’m attending a funeral of a wonderful man who I served on the board with. He apparently had a massive heart attack at home. He was gay, previously married with four kids. I found out via his obit that the mother had previously died. He was currently married to a man, and know they were parenting the kids.
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Mark P said on June 25, 2018 at 10:49 am
“I remember that world.”
Actually, I think you don’t remember such a world, because that world never really existed. You only think you remember it because it’s a world we have told ourselves stories about since the founding of the nation.
In fact, the US was founded on genocide, racism and religious bigotry. First we stole the land from the natives and killed them if they resisted. We sent them away to lands we thought were absolutely useless, and we killed them if they wouldn’t go. In fact, we killed them even if they did go. We stole land from Mexico. But it was all OK because they had brown skin, and god was on our side.
We imported slaves. If the South Carolinians had not fired on Fort Sumter, would we still have slaves in the South? Would VW, BMW and Mercedes have located plants in the South because of the cheap slave labor instead of cheap non-union labor? Even when slaves were “freed” and given the vote, we kept them from voting, going to our white schools and even from drinking from the same water fountains, and it was all legal.
We founded a country that has never been democratic, or at least it was democratic only for rich, white males. Women couldn’t vote. Senators were selected by the state legislatures, which were, of course, made up of rich, white males. Now we vote directly for senators, but senators represent wildly different numbers of citizens. We elect presidents who don’t get the most votes.
We sent Americans of Japanese descent to concentration camps — oh, sure, we didn’t exterminate them; wasn’t that generous of us. We overthrew democratic governments and installed dictatorships. We killed unknown thousands of Vietnamese, and known thousands of Americans, for lies. We destroyed any semblance of order in the Middle East and were responsible for tens or even hundreds of thousands of deaths in the Bush War.
I’m really not sure what better world we think we remember, but I’m pretty sure it’s not this country.
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Sherri said on June 25, 2018 at 10:59 am
In light of Nancy’s link to the story about the jogger detained for two weeks, a reminder: the Border Patrol operates within 100 miles of any land or sea border of the country, an area that contains a majority of the citizens of this country. In light of that, while RAICES has received the lion’s share of the attention and donation for the work they are doing in Texas, there may be an organization in your local area which has been working tirelessly to protect the rights of immigrants and could use some help as well. I’ve made a donation to the Northwest Immigrants Rights Project, which was involved in challenging the Muslim Ban.
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Jeff Borden said on June 25, 2018 at 11:18 am
Mark P.,
Few countries have the ability to engage in historical amnesia better than the good ol’ U.S.A. And few countries have citizens so uninvolved or uninterested in learning about the past, warts and all. It’s a national failing.
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Suzanne said on June 25, 2018 at 11:53 am
A national failing, Jeff, that I think is about to bite us in the a$$.
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Marianne 19 said on June 25, 2018 at 12:46 pm
I agree with Jeff on Trollope being a wonderful escape. He was popular in his own time, then fell out of favor until WW2. The Warden is a great place to start the Barchester series.
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Deborah said on June 25, 2018 at 1:20 pm
My husband often says that things were much worse in the 60s. I was young and unaware then, sure I knew there was a war and race riots etc, but somehow I managed not to be depressed and despondent by them. I had my life ahead of me and I had hope that things would be better. Maybe it’s because of my age now, being retired I have more time to keep up with the news. The hatred seems so much worse now from my perspective.
Mark P, excellent comment.
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beb said on June 25, 2018 at 2:25 pm
To expand on what Sherri said above, here’s a map of where Border agents has liberity to do warrentless inspections.
https://www.aclu.org/other/constitution-100-mile-border-zone
As the article says, two thirds of Aemricans live in that zone.
As if Trump wasn’t cruel enough he’s now offering detained mothers the choice of reuniting with their children by voluntarily accepting deportation, or remain separated while she fights for asylum.
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Connie said on June 25, 2018 at 2:33 pm
As a tween watching the news I found 1968 very violent and scary, starting with my evening news. Death and destruction: MLK, RK,VietName. The democratic convention in Chicago was the most horrible and frightening thing I had ever seen.
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Sherri said on June 25, 2018 at 3:41 pm
I suspect that part of what horrifies Americans is not the novelty of Trump’s policy, but its familiarity. Americans are fighting a part of themselves that they naively thought they had vanquished. From chattel slavery to American Indian schools to convict leasing, child-snatching has been a tradition in America since before there was an America. If one is convinced that the parents are not truly human, then the children cannot truly be children, and what should be unthinkable becomes inevitable.
The sins of the past are not guardrails. There is nothing to prevent them from being committed again, except for the dedication of the living to creating a better world. The people in the past who convinced themselves to do unspeakable things were no less human than you or I. They made their decisions; the only thing that prevents history from repeating itself is making different ones.
Read the whole thing, by Adam Serwer: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/06/child-separation/563252/
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Suzanne said on June 25, 2018 at 3:50 pm
I think beyond the horror that Trump was elected, the real horror for me is the number of people who I held in reasonably high regard who don’t see a problem, who are clueless that it’s not business as usual, that we are creeping, no sprinting, toward authoritarianism and knowing that many of them never will get it.
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Sherri said on June 25, 2018 at 3:55 pm
So, SCOTUS apparently decided they didn’t want to make any decisions about refusing service to gay couples this term, because they just sent the florist case back to be reheard in light of Masterpiece Cakeshop. This makes no sense to me. Masterpiece was decided on the slimmest of reeds: a commissioner said something that was interpreted as hostile to religion. There is no equivalent in Washington; there’s just a law, which every court in Washington determined that the florist clearly violated. The state Supreme Court was unanimous in its decision.
I attended the state Supreme Court hearings, and the main argument wasn’t even about free expression of religion, it was about free speech. The florist’s argument was that a floral arrangement was art and therefore speech, and thus the law was requiring compelled speech. Many religious liberty cases are morphing into free speech cases these days.
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Bitter Scribe said on June 25, 2018 at 4:07 pm
If you want historical perspective, things were worse in some ways in the 1950s. Racial and gender prejudice was the norm, homosexuality was a criminal offense, and the dominant politician was Joe McCarthy. IMO McCarthy is the major political figure whom Trump most resembles: loud, crude, ignorant, insulting and destructive. Plus they both depended on Roy Cohn.
Well, we know how all that turned out, so there’s hope. Maybe. I guess.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on June 25, 2018 at 4:48 pm
Julie; very sorry, somehow I’d misremembered her as Presbyterian. Is Evangelical Covenant the Swedish heritage denomination I’m vaguely recalling?
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David C. said on June 25, 2018 at 5:59 pm
The shoreline of Lake Michigan is the border? Who would have guessed? Of course, it only happens along the Southern border. None of the Irish and Italians who are overstaying their visas in Boston and New York have anything to worry about. None of the “actors” who overstayed theirs and are waiting tables in LA do either. Schumer and Pelosi are at their Quisling best because Maxine Waters said to harass Trumpies wherever we find them. I’d say “you can’t eat here” is pretty mild compared to tRump’s beat them up. I’ve always thought Schumer is useless as Minority Leader. But I was willing to see Pelosi as Speaker again if we take the house, but no more. If she can’t stand up, she should stand down.
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Heather said on June 25, 2018 at 6:11 pm
David C., the Border Patrol has had checkpoints in Maine: https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/23/us/maine-new-hampshire-border-patrol-checkpoints/index.html
My friend who is of Pakistani background and often goes to Maine to visit her in-laws is wondering if she should start bringing her passport with her.
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David C. said on June 25, 2018 at 6:30 pm
I didn’t know that, Heather. That’s one more useless wall we’re going to get, I guess. I still can’t fathom why I’m in their 100 mile zone when at its closest the Canadian border is 330 miles away in Sault Ste. Marie.
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Julie Robinson said on June 25, 2018 at 8:11 pm
Jeff, it is. The ones that left the Swedish Lutheran church because they wanted religious freedom.
Maxine Waters forgot to listen to Michelle Obama’s “when they go low, we go high”.
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Sherri said on June 25, 2018 at 9:39 pm
The ACLU of Washington used the Border Patrol over their habit making traffic stops on the Olympic Peninsula: https://www.aclu.org/news/settlement-reins-border-patrol-stops-olympic-peninsula
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Sherri said on June 25, 2018 at 9:45 pm
I have nothing to add to this tweet about SHS: https://twitter.com/theanthonyking/status/1010581016463933444
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alex said on June 25, 2018 at 10:04 pm
It’s encouraging that Sarah Huckabee Sanders was judged not by the color of her skin but by the content of her character.
Best thing anyone’s ever said about her. Bravo! I wanna steal that line.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on June 25, 2018 at 10:24 pm
Julie, I see what you’re talking about. A vote to not talk about something is almost more upsetting than a vote to forbid or permit. My tradition is much more congregational, so there aren’t many (read: any) binding doctrines coming out of our general/US & Canada meetings. We’re barely twice the size of the ECC, and they have always seemed very similar to the Disciples of Christ as a denomination.
http://covenantcompanion.com/2018/06/22/delegates-vote-down-discussion-on-sexuality/
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Julie Robinson said on June 26, 2018 at 9:07 am
That’s the thing, Jeff; they are organized to be congregational and non-doctrinal. For years they have operated under a policy that allows churches and members either infant or believer’s baptism, for example. A pastor has to agree to support their members’ choices for either.
As new churches are coming into the denomination, however, many of the pastors are outright rejecting anything but believer’s baptism. This is in clear violation of church polity, but these pastors aren’t being brought forward for discipline. Only pastors who have married gay couples are being disciplined.
Sarah sees this inconsistency as wrong and hurtful. Mom and Dad wish she had gone to a Lutheran seminary.
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Deborah said on June 26, 2018 at 9:49 am
Julie, certainly not a LCMS seminary.
We go to see LBs Dr this morning about the results of her MRI. I have a million questions. Then I go back to Abiquiu. We finally got LB hooked up with Lyft on her phone so she can get rides when she needs them instead of relying on friends when I’m not around. We had a dickens of a time getting it set up, it took the guy upstairs who does a lot of IT work to finally figure it out.
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susan said on June 26, 2018 at 10:23 am
deborah @38- I recommend recording the doctor-visit on your smart-phone. Ask first, obviously. Only one doctor has said no to me, but he had patient manner “issues.” One doctor thought for a second and said they should be doing that, too. I think all smart-phones have a voice-memo app. I started doing that on my iPod three years ago, and am so glad I did. I sometimes later play back the recording two or three or more times. It’s hard to listen, take notes, think of questions, respond to queries all at the same time. And sometimes stuff gets pretty complicated.
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Sherri said on June 26, 2018 at 10:51 am
SCOTUS upheld the Muslim ban. Thanks, Senator Fucking Piece of Shit.
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Deborah said on June 26, 2018 at 11:20 am
Susan, excellent advice. I wish I had known about this when I was having my spine issues, there are things I vaguely remember the Dr saying and it makes me mad at myself. We found the voice memo app and are all set. Thanks.
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Sherri said on June 26, 2018 at 11:24 am
Ijeoma Oluo wrote this concerning civility two years ago: https://theestablishment.co/the-privilege-of-civilized-political-discourse-36e43026037b
It’s still apt. Civility is about preserving the status quo.
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beb said on June 26, 2018 at 12:12 pm
I’m getting tired of “Religious Freedom.” As I see it the Constitution bans the government from imposing a religion on us. It doesn’t require the government to create safe zones where religious people can make their own laws. If you sell cakes, you’re obligated to sell them to anybody. If you’re a pharmacist you dispense legal drugs to anyone with a legal prescription. And if you are a hospital you treat all people for any condition, even if it means terminating a pregnancy. And if you’re a District Attorney you prosecute anyone who interferes with the operation of a legal business, even if it an abortion provider.
There have been a number of interesting blog posts on the issue of public civility. The two points I found most interesting points out that the right has never bothered with civility. The Tea Party constantly disrupted town hall meetings back in 2010. Trumps tweets are filled with coarse, disparaging comments. Leading chants of ‘lock her up’ is a lot worse than anything Maxine Waters has said. The other comment I founding compelling explains that calls for civility only come when a person criticizes the powerful. For the powerless rudeness is the only protest they have left. Calls for civility isn’t about uniting the country, it’s a loud STFU to people who have no voice.
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Jeff Borden said on June 26, 2018 at 2:11 pm
The SCOTUS decision isn’t as bad as Dred Scott, but fuck, it is awful. And now we have to listen to that Queens bray about winning this case. SCOTUS is totally politicized. Mitch McConnell got his wish. A hard right, business friendly court that will remain in place long after I’m pushing up daisies. A pox on that bastard from Kentucky.
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Sherri said on June 26, 2018 at 2:25 pm
If Kennedy has thrown in the towel, we are truly fucked.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/06/did-justice-anthony-kennedy-just-signal-his-retirement.html
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Sherri said on June 26, 2018 at 2:51 pm
More on the asymmetry of civility: https://twitter.com/LilyMasonPhD/status/1011433470764167168
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FDChief said on June 26, 2018 at 3:05 pm
The difference is that the “enemy” in the 60’s was the hippies and the blacks. It wasn’t possible for the GOP to go all Final Solution on some nice white people’s kids…but ask the residents of Watts and Detroit how that went.
Now we have a GOP setting up an even more likely candidate for “racial purification”.
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Sherri said on June 26, 2018 at 3:50 pm
Chief Justice Roberts really doesn’t want anybody to compare the Muslim Ban decision to Korematsu. That would be so uncivil.
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Sherri said on June 26, 2018 at 4:03 pm
So, religious animus matters in Masterpiece Cakeshop, but not in the Muslim Ban. Compelled speech is okey-dokey when doctors are required to tell patients (sometimes incorrect) information before an abortion, but unacceptable when a “crisis pregnancy center” is required to provide information.
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beb said on June 26, 2018 at 4:17 pm
I would have thought the California law regarding “Crisis Pregnancy” clinics would have fallen under “truth in advertising.”
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FDChief said on June 26, 2018 at 4:20 pm
I don’t know what’s more galling; that Korematsu is still settled law, or that the SCOTUS5 think it can be “improved on”…
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Deborah said on June 26, 2018 at 4:21 pm
Good news and bad news at LB’s dr today. Good news, she got her cortisone shot today doesn’t have to wait over a month. Bad news, the tear is in the labrum which is the lining within the joint, between the ball and the socket of the hip. Caused from over use and it’s degenerative. PT will be for 6 weeks and she see’s an ortho dr near the end of July. Susan, I recorded the whole thing only I was a little too far away from the dr to get a good sound, but it’s better than nothing. I took notes too. I’m going back to Abiquiu shortly, I feel better about things, having info is less stressful.
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Suzanne said on June 26, 2018 at 5:27 pm
I give up. Completely. NPR was interviewing Harley workers about their plant moving overseas and them losing their jobs. They support Trump all the way. “He’s a good businessman so I am sure he knows what he’s doing. He’s just trying to help US manufacturing.” “It’s the company’s fault. It’s the other countries’ fault.” But Trump, who set the tariff war in motion, is just doing what’s best for us.
My God. It is a cult. There is no way out of this.
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Dexter Friend said on June 26, 2018 at 6:16 pm
Like most everyone, I knew and know many Harley-Davidson mc advocates, and most, but not all, wouldn’t be caught dead riding alongside a “rice burner” cycle. My late bro-in-law, when I rode my new Honda mc to his house to show him in 1979, bellowed at me to get that fuckin’ rice-burnin’ POS the FUCK off his property or he’d do it for me. We never liked each other at all after that. Others didn’t mind, and were civil. So now Harley-Davidson motorcycles are going to also be burning rice. Yep, made in Thailand they are going to be. Who saw that coming? Donald Trump strikes again.
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Jolene said on June 26, 2018 at 6:26 pm
Sherri, despite that long, depressing article (which I only skimmed), other court watchers are saying it seems unlikely Kennedy is retiring. He has hired clerks for next year. We’ll know tomorrow.
FDChief, Korematsu was “formally repudiated” in today’s decision.
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/06/26/supreme-court-overturns-korematsu-673846
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Deborah said on June 26, 2018 at 6:45 pm
Suzanne, wow that’s depressing. LB’s kindergarten teacher had a daughter who died in Guyana under Jim Jones, the young woman had been a member of Jones’s church in San Francisco, moved with him and many others to Guyana and literally drank the kook-aid. Everyone was baffled and devastated by the obedience their loved ones had for that monster. It is bizarre what human beings will do when their minds are manipulated by tyrants.
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Deborah said on June 26, 2018 at 7:08 pm
It’s really hot in Abiquiu during these days, upper 90s but the temp swings are amazing, the other morning it was 49, this morning was 55. I was in Santa Fe this morning where it was 60. The humidity is 5% right now. I love this climate, hate the humid Midwest in the summer. This place is for me right now.
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Sherri said on June 26, 2018 at 7:32 pm
Julie, I know Kennedy has hired clerks for next year, which is usually a signal that a Justice has no plans to retire. The writer of the article makes a good point, though, that there were several cases right in Kennedy’s wheelhouse this term that were punted rather than decided. Kennedy has seemed to relish his position as the deciding vote on the Court in the past, but not this term. The gerrymander cases, in particular, were crafted just for Kennedy, in an attempt to meet the standards he set forth in an earlier decision, and he walked away.
Roberts may have consigned Korematsu to the dustbin of history, but only because his feelings were hurt over the dissent comparing his decision to Korematsu. No, no, this is nothing like Korematsu. I suppose that’s true in some sense; the Court had a lot more information in Trump v Hawaii than they did in Korematsu, and they still got it wrong.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/06/trump-v-hawaii-the-travel-ban-ruling-will-be-the-roberts-courts-shameful-legacy.html
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Sherri said on June 26, 2018 at 7:46 pm
Were things worse in the 60’s? Maybe, but let’s not forget the important victories of the decade. The Civil Rights Act. The Voting Rights Act. Medicare. Medicaid. Gideon v. Wainwright. NYTimes v. Sullivan. Loving v. Virginia. Miranda v. Arizona. Griswold v. Connecticut.
SCOTUS today is substantially less friendly to civil liberties and has refused to do anything about the undemocratic restriction of voting rights that Republicans are using to maintain power despite being less popular.
Yes, I’m in a grumpy mood today.
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susan said on June 27, 2018 at 1:39 am
Wow. Watch this Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez just beat a 14-year incumbent (Joe Crowley) in a New York Democratic Congressional primary. We sure need gobs more like her!
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Dexter Friend said on June 27, 2018 at 2:25 am
Fifty years ago I was working at a start-up company that built cardboard boxes, making $2.01 per hour, and I didn’t have time to take off for Chicago to protest the war at Chicago Amphitheater or in Grant Park or along Balbo Drive where much head-busting occurred. But later on I did see Haskell Wexler’s wonderful camera work in a film from 1970 called “Medium Cool”. The theme is about a reporter who falls for an Appalachian lady during the police riot days of 1968. Wexler intersperses much actual footage into the mix and the editors did a great job weaving it in to the film. That will give you an idea what that was like. Personally, from the time I played with toy soldiers “army guys” we called ’em, to all the hours watching Americans getting slaughtered in Vietnam, I always felt this war was gonna fuck me up or at least alter my life and outlook forever, and I covered it all up by telling people I wasn’t worried because I would be sent to Germany or someplace far from war. That was denial…I went to war. Ken Burns’ saga of Vietnam is now on Netflix if you want to know what that war looked like. The 60s were long ago, so long that young people today would not believe people would beat male kids with long hair. Listen to Bob Seger’s “Turn the Page”. My brother, the first long-haired student at Ball State, was taunted, called “Alice” and threatened with beatings daily until a BMOC named Chuck, a world-class track star,stood beside my brother and that bullshit ceased that day. Yeah, it was different alright. To be drunk, you had to have a blood-test BAC of 0.20. That’s drunk as FUCK. But, no cop would blood-test you by taking you to a hospital, usually, they’d take your beer and booze and send you home. Here’s a real difference: If a couple’s combined income reached $100 per week, you could afford a nice home, 2 cars, a color TV, a dishwasher, and send three kids to school, well-fed with new clothes on their backs. Today, everybody gets by the bet way we can. Being old ain’t so bad…my war days are way-long-over, my wife doesn’t give me an unreasonable ration of shit, I don’t have to bounce over rough floors driving a crappy forklift, or hefting heavy parts one-by-one into a punch press, and I can still see and hear and drive a vehicle. 2018 is much better than the 1960s. For me, anyway.
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David C. said on June 27, 2018 at 5:57 am
Civility worked so well in 1934. Let’s try it again.
https://twitter.com/studentactivism/status/1007301941540655106
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JodiP said on June 27, 2018 at 9:49 am
I wonder what the Harley supporters would say about this headline from WaPo: “Trump feels personally betrayed by Harley’s decision to avoid tariffs” Yes, that sounds like someone who really has a handle on business. This was completely foreseeable. I heard on Marketplace last night that a nail factory is also closing because their raw materials are now too expensive.
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Jeff Borden said on June 27, 2018 at 10:25 am
The Orange King is a terrible businessperson. Aside from the five or six bankruptcies –including two casino firms– he’s also been the target of some 4,000 lawsuits by vendors who were cheated by his company. Several firms in New Jersey went bankrupt because he stiffed them during the construction of his now defunct Atlantic City facility. Most of his ventures crash and burn, see Trump Airlines, etc. At base, he is an impulsive asshole who acts in the moment without much foresight or planning because he has convinced himself of his own genius. An economic downturn is coming. This bull run already was showing signs of slowing. With this clueless dipshit playing Monopoly with our economy, it’s likely to get very ugly.
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Suzanne said on June 27, 2018 at 11:42 am
I am surprised that the market is up a bit today after the announcement that the national debt is the highest it has been since WWII era. But, if you are a market person, you see it as an opportunity to buy. Maybe it’s all just a oligarch shell game. Tank the market, buy low, sell off and tank the market allowing you to buy low again.
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Dorothy said on June 27, 2018 at 11:55 am
My husband and I disagree on the restaurant refusing to serve Ms. Sanders. He thinks they were wrong. I think they were right based on how she lies on a daily basis to American citizens, and is so miserable to the members of the press. Where I think this went wrong is publicizing it – tweeting about it instead of just letting it quietly happen and not let it become polarizing. And I just realized this morning that we ate dinner on Easter Sunday 2017 in that same little town at a Greek restaurant. We went to my nephew’s wedding in Chesapeake VA which was the day before Easter, and we needed to drive back home on Easter Sunday. We ate our ‘big meal of the day’ in Lexington and it was delicious. There weren’t too many places open and I refuse to eat at a Waffle House, so we had Greek Easter supper.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on June 27, 2018 at 12:20 pm
I don’t object to the polarization of line-drawing, because sometimes lines have to be drawn and definitions made clear. I just worry about how small a circle that’s getting included inside the line. I’ve got my own list of people who would be on the other side of my own Les Nessman office door between me and chaos, and SHS would go outside of it, let alone the King of Queens. But politically I’d like to figure out how to maintain as much consensus as we can, not to keep the definition of decency so tight that it’s just me and thee (and as the pseudo-Amish joke goes, “and I’m not so sure about thee”).
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FDChief said on June 27, 2018 at 2:07 pm
Here’s the thing, Jolene; Roberts said that the Court was wrong to find against Korematsu because the internment was obviously based on racial prejudice…in a decision legitimizing a policy obviously based on religious prejudice.
Not sure whether that has the effect of “overturning” Korematsu.
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Scout said on June 27, 2018 at 2:10 pm
omg omg omg
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/06/27/justice-kennedy-retiring-opening-supreme-court-seat/952716001/?csp=chromepush
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FDChief said on June 27, 2018 at 2:11 pm
Jeff; sorta like this?
Right: Let’s do genocide!
Left: No!
Center: Let’s compromise; we’ll do SOME genocide.
Right: Works for me.
Left: NO!
Center: See, Left? That’s why you guys are the real extremists…
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Jolene said on June 27, 2018 at 2:12 pm
OMG, indeed. You were right, Sherri. This is absolutely terrible.
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Suzanne said on June 27, 2018 at 2:14 pm
Was it on here just a day or two ago that there was a big discussion on whether or not Kennedy was about to pack it in? Wow.
What do you bet they will nominate someone before his desk chair is cold?
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beb said on June 27, 2018 at 2:30 pm
I saw on Yahoo News that the cops were called on a man eating a burrito on a BART train. Turns out that eating or drinking on a BART train is not allowed, which in itself seems pretty absurd. But calling the cops on a man eating when he shouldn’t?. Maybe we show look at the Huckabee Sanders incident in light of all the white people calling the cops on black people entering their own house, doing their job in uniform, or just doing the things that everybody does. That’s a massive amount of incivility right there. Asking SHS to leave a restaurant is no different than asking a black person if they showered before using a public pool.
I see the Supreme
KlanCourt has authorized theft of services by ruling that employee’s do not have to pay union dues while benefiting from the negotiations unions make with employers. How this can be a Free Speech issue and not a matter of contract law is beyond me.926 chars
Deborah said on June 27, 2018 at 2:48 pm
The beginning of the end…
Life will be pretty unbearable now.
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Heather said on June 27, 2018 at 2:48 pm
Well, that was fun, America. Thanks for playing.
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Sherri said on June 27, 2018 at 2:56 pm
In the eyes of some, I’m an extremist radical leftist bent on turning this country into a multicultural heathen dystopia. In the eyes of others, I’m a neoliberal shill. Polarization is as much about the viewer as the viewed.
If Kennedy’s retirement doesn’t force the Democrats in the Senate to find a spine, nothing will. Here’s a polarizing statement for you: any Democrat who so much as meets with a trump nominee should be primaried, much less agrees to hearings.
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Deborah said on June 27, 2018 at 3:13 pm
Do hearings require a quorum?
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beb said on June 27, 2018 at 3:14 pm
We should invoke the McConnell Rule that no Supreme Court nominee be considered until after the fall elections.
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Sherri said on June 27, 2018 at 3:39 pm
I was thinking 2020, beb. Isn’t that the McConnell Rule, wait for the next President?
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Sherri said on June 27, 2018 at 5:50 pm
Roberts said Korematsu was wrong because you can’t put US citizens in concentration camps, solely and exclusively based on race. Got some additional reason? Good to go! Strip their citizenship first? No problem here! Not technically a concentration camp? Okay, fine!
Anybody want to bet their life on 5 conservative justices holding the line on “overturning” Korematsu?
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Deborah said on June 27, 2018 at 7:12 pm
Some Dems are calling for McConnell to be consistent and let the people decide in an election year who they want to control Congress so that they have some say in the next SCOTUS. I say good luck with that, can’t hurt to try. But what makes anyone think McConnell has any sense of decency. He doesn’t give one hoot about how hypocritical he looks. He’s got the power and he’ll use it to bludgeon progressives to a pulp. It will be depressing to see how far backwards we’ll go. Thanks a lot Bernie bros.
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Sherri said on June 27, 2018 at 7:46 pm
McConnell has no decency, and even if he did, he dare not hold up a spot on the bench. That is the only thing holding together what’s left of the Republican Party.
There’s little the Dems can actually do, other than gum up the entire working of the Senate, which they should. This is a generational change of the Court; the oldest of the 5 conservatives, should trump add a Federalist Society approved justice, will likely be a 70 year old Clarence Thomas.
All the major civil liberties cases of our lifetime are up for grabs. Roberts, ever mindful of his legacy, hates to outright overturn precedent; he prefers to gut precedent instead, so that the initial reporting is that he didn’t overturn, but careful reading shows that he effectively did. With 4 justices to his right, though, he might not even be able to hold that line. There are already 3 justices who desperately want to not gut Roe v. Wade, but overturn it. I have no doubt a 4th will join them, and it will be increasingly difficult for Roberts to find a clever path to appear anything but just like the other 4.
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Jolene said on June 27, 2018 at 8:01 pm
But what makes anyone think McConnell has any sense of decency. He doesn’t give one hoot about how hypocritical he looks.
He is arguing that the principle that applied re Merrick Garland only applies in presidential elections, not midterms. The president will be making the appointment regardless of when the vote is held.
The people really in trouble here are the Democratic senators running in red states–Manchin, Heitkamp, Donnelly, and others. Their Dem constituents will punish them if they vote for Trump’s nominee, and their R constituents will punish them if they don’t.
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