Prelude to the Apocalypse

[Ed Oscuro]

Anderson Cooper held court tonight on an amusing segment - a hapless Trump surrogate I've never seen before (good help is hard to find, I'm sure), a political analyst, and a Never Trumper went back and forth on Der Preznit's trial balloon tweet about an executive order banning those god-forsaken babies! ...of the anchor kind.

Random Trump flack: I think we are talking about this issue because immigration is important! We can have a debate!
Analyst guy: TOTALLY WRONG, you don't have a debate by pretending you can do things that you can't (because they are unconstitutional)
Random Trump flack: But this is what the people are talking about!
Cooper: This is ridiculous. I think we're talking about this because Trump doesn't want to talk about 11 murdered Jews, or the bombs mailed to people he has repeatedly vilified.

savage

unfortunately there is that 38% that thinks Scott Walker's $4.1Bn freebie for Fix-is-in-cons is a good deal.

[Rob]

executive order banning those god-forsaken babies

Do you not see this as any kind of problem?

[Zen]

Der Preznit's trial balloon tweet about an executive order banning those god-forsaken babies! ...of the anchor kind.

Twenty-seventh Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland - 11 June 2004;
"children born on the island of Ireland, to parents who were both foreign nationals, would no longer have a constitutional right to Irish citizenship"

Ireland was the last "European" Country to implement this obvious (hopefully!) and absolute requirement, to National survival.

As for Europe and then Ireland, putting an end to the "anchor baby" phenomenon; It was not that the EU wanted to stop it.
It was simply a matter of not being able to hide it any longer, that broke the camels back.
And to think, all they had to do, was rename them "refugees" and the EU was back n business!

Irrespective of ones stance on Nationalism, the fact is, that the outcome of allowing Citizenship through "anchor baby", is catastrophic.

Then again, perhaps it is also a "particular" view on Nationalism, that does not see all the above as a problem?

[Mischief Maker]

You know, when Hillary Clinton said, "Breaking up the big banks won't solve racism!" people on the left rolled their eyes and said, "Oh fuck you," at the obvious attempt at manipulation via hot button pandering.

But when Trump makes an obviously false promise to rewrite the 14th amendment with an executive order a week before the election, ostensibly to hurt immigrants, you "constitutionalists" drool like Pavlov's dogs.

[GaijinPunch]

But when Trump makes an obviously false promise to rewrite the 14th amendment with an executive order a week before the election, ostensibly to hurt immigrants, you "constitutionalists" drool like Pavlov's dogs.

And never once in his term will you ever hear a righty claim presidential overreach. Which I guess is a relief from the monotony of hearing it for 8 years.

[Obscura]

Analyst guy: TOTALLY WRONG, you don't have a debate by pretending you can do things that you can't (because they are unconstitutional)

That's literally not true. The way you have a debate and get the supreme court to rule on what you're trying to do is literally by doing it until someone brings a lawsuit against you.

Abraham Lincoln suspended the first, fourth, and fifth amendments by executive order, and people sure seem to think he did a good job.

[GaijinPunch]

Analyst guy: TOTALLY WRONG, you don't have a debate by pretending you can do things that you can't (because they are unconstitutional)

That's literally not true. The way you have a debate and get the supreme court to rule on what you're trying to do is literally by doing it until someone brings a lawsuit against you.

The only way he has a prayer of that working long term is a constitutional amendment. The 14th amendment is so fucking plain as day English I can't imagine the court even wasting their time if it got there, and you know for sure it's going to hit every fucking level. The brown people ban had some room for interpretation, even though pretty baseless (why are Saudi's still allowed in the cuntry again?). Then again, this is the era of really stupid bullshit. On the other hand, an executive order is not hard to undo by comparison when the scales tip.

[Specineff]

Irrespective of ones stance on Nationalism, the fact is, that the outcome of allowing Citizenship through "anchor baby", is catastrophic.

https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/09/02/anchor-baby-myth

I want someone to please show me where does US immigration law say that having US Citizen babies helps immigrants, legal or otherwise, become citizens right away, or even stay a deportation order, outside of extreme circumstances for the child. The petitioning child must be at least 21 years of age, and it usually takes another 3 years for such petition to be approved, if at all.

I mean, I hear a lot about how people are exploiting the anchor baby "loophole" (to the point those job thieves are coming into the country by the thousands every day, ZOMG), but no one can explain how and/or why.

[BryanM]

I feel like I should feel more offended that Biden called David Brooks "bright as hell" than Donnelly playing pattycakes with the idea of abolishing the 14th amendment... ashamed that I don't...

After the election, we'll officially be back in the Democratic Presidential Primary season nightmare... If you guys want I'll change the poll to "which pokémon do you prefer" from the clown car. The porn lawyer seems to have some energy, though it might be less organic and more from TV chasing ratings.

...David Brooks, yet another blast from the ancient past... he's walking intellectual valium...

why are Saudi's still allowed in the cuntry again?

Is it... because they pay their bribes?

[Ed Oscuro]

executive order banning those god-forsaken babies

Do you not see this as any kind of problem?

Sure, there are too many people - but it speaks volumes about Trump's personality that he has the word "babies" in what he thinks is a slur.

Also, pretty sure no Indians signed on for this to become a great white nation...sorry, but anybody who's got that ancestry is just the product of anchor babies themselves. It's not going to bring good things to the culture or the health of the nation to become this country that thinks culture comes from the gub'mint (at the same time as arguing that it doesn't).

Abraham Lincoln suspended the first, fourth, and fifth amendments by executive order, and people sure seem to think he did a good job.

That was also in the 1860s. Some things are just convention (like the ban on Court packing) but other things are set in Constitutional law.

And again, there's two layers of stupidity in the Trump camp argument. It's not just that this is a cynical attempt to move people away from respecting the rule of law, by promising them things they can't have, but also that this has been the go-to Republican dodge against having substantive platforms targeting jobs, infrastructure, social madness, and so on.

Possibly three layers of stupidity, with Specineff's argument. People ought to know that abortion literally wasn't a political issue until it was hyped into one by Republican groups looking for a wedge in the 1970s. It wasn't even a right-wing thing, it was born of political necessity by a group that had no political vision to sell. Before that it was the Reds. This is history repeating itself; I'd guess we're 20 years into the immigration scare.

I feel like I should feel more offended that Biden called David Brooks "bright as hell" than Donnelly playing pattycakes with the idea of abolishing the 14th amendment... ashamed that I don't...

That is definitely one of the catastrophic memes post-Trump - that neocons feigning (or actually expressing? not much difference) opposition to Trump should be viewed as lapsed Dems. I mean...nope, nope, nope. Brooks often says reasonable things, but he's also got that broken clock quality.

I guess it's the flip side to the culture myth...I mean, we've got Post Malone now, we don't need to pretend that the country is doing good

[BulletMagnet]

Brooks often says reasonable things

I'm pretty sure even Bret Fucking Stephens has said more "reasonable" things than a piece of horrific what-me-worry shit like David Brooks ever has.

[Ed Oscuro]

I only mean that literally, of course I haven't heard much of David Brooks this year (not much NPR listening time) but the last thing I heard him say was on the religious wars in the House. Brooks' tone was laughing in disbelief: "That's probably the mildest appeal for justice I've ever heard," he said of the "winners and losers" prayer. You'll note that describing it as justice apparently puts Brooks out of step with the House members who schemed to have the Chaplain removed from his post! (It is also worth noting that the Protestant-Catholic schism is apparently alive and well in the American fringe, which is to say in the House, and while I wouldn't call it especially difficult to defend Catholics, the fact that somebody would have to shows how far the moral fiber of some Americans has decomposed.)

I've been in some heated discussions about Brooks and yes, you can often describe him as what-me-worry. He's a decent guy, thoughtful yet not especially aware, not especially representative of anything but the polite wing of the "Never Trump" academics, perhaps a bit like a modern William F. Buckley without the accent or wit.

But here is the thing: Since Trump I would say he was even more rapidly losing the veneer of relevance that he had pretended to during the pre-Trump era. There's a good argument he was irrelevant to mainstream Republicanism by the time the Tea Party rolled into town in the late aughts; perhaps it was fair to deride him as NPR's "token Republican" when he was so far out of touch with policy makers.

Since he's irrelevant, he's really not a big deal. I certainly would rather the GOP was more thoughtful. I'd much rather have him on NPR, being relatively harmless, than somebody from the far-right or the amoral Trump campaign orbit. I wish there was somebody who could make the Conservative case for things who wasn't completely awful.

[BulletMagnet]

He's a decent guy, thoughtful yet not especially aware

Brooks' entire "worldview", if you can call it that, is "No, no, none of our problems have anything to do with the fact that the plutocrats have been relentlessly siphoning wealth away from everyone else for a half-century or more; all you silly worrywarts out there could solve everything overnight if you would just dress up nice for church and join the local Elk lodge. Our nation's struggle is not with the people who make decisions which have drastic impacts on our lives, no, no, the struggle is within our souls."

For one thing, unless Brooks was dropped on his head repeatedly as a child there's no way in hell he believes a word of that crypto-vomit: he's just as shameless a bought-and-paid-for corporate apologist as Limbaugh or Hannity (and his lengthy tenure at the pitiful likes of the Times, even above the likes of Stephens, shines as bright a light as there is on what a sick joke the supposedly "liberal" media is). For another, what he says, without pause, every goddamn day, is simply a more weaselly version of "all you poor people could be rich right now, you just don't want it enough, and one-percenters like us are are too superior in every way to deserve to be distracted by your petty complaints" (but of course the liberals are the endlessly condescending ones ), and even more insidious, because these days raising any manner of objection whatsoever to even the openly racist mouth-foamers is "oversensitive" and "uncivil" and "anti-First Amendment", and he's supposed to be one of the "reasonable" ones.

Brooks and his "moderate" ilk can lay off the truly insane ramblings and occasionally tut-tut in Trump's general direction (not for his actual policies, of course, but for making the end goal of those policies so much more inconveniently obvious than cuddly old Saint Ronnie did) all they want, but that doesn't change the fact that they still want the exact same things he does, and when push comes to shove will always line up in lock step behind him and the rest of the yeaahhh fuck yoooou yeaaahhh clown parade, only pausing occasionally to make annoyed faces and dust off their shoulders for the cameras. If he so much as began to stand for what he wants us to think he stands for he wouldn't still be a fucking Republican.

[Ed Oscuro]

I'm not quite sure what the prescription is, here, since we do agree that Brooks' economics are a fantasy. What I'm pointing at is the context: We don't get to live in a world where there isn't an industry built around selling these lies, so we might as well take the lesser evil. Additionally I'd point out that, on NPR at least, Brooks is always set up opposite a foil in the person of E.J. Dionne, who isn't a firebrand either but usually does a fair job counter-punching against Brooks when Brooks is being silly about race or economics. The alternative is Trump or somebody who will pretend that Trump isn't doing his damndest to stoke people into killing more Jews.

Speaking of economics, it is pretty interesting - I dare say hopeful - that Trump and co. are not running on the economy, but running on a story about a guy who killed some police officers, interspersed with footage of darker-skinned people running riot (Trump's Twitter trick for Halloween was releasing a campaign ad to his 55+ million follower accounts). In a week we'll have a better idea if this is going to be a winning distraction for Trump. Even if it is, we're two years away from a referendum on the apparent growing economic malaise overseen by this Administration.

Back to the immigration debate, The Economist weighs in: Australia ain't so bad off https://www.economist.com/leaders/2018/ ... -australia
For those who didn't get the message about the next recession, here it is, in black and white: https://www.economist.com/leaders/2018/ ... -recession

I also saw an interesting-but-so-what paper recently stating that the poorest have actually seen more growth than many people popularly believe, though it argued that was due to non-wage benefits, which I think is not a good comparison. However even that came down on the side of "but things are still bad, to be sure." I'd link it but I have lost track of it for the moment.

[BulletMagnet]

We don't get to live in a world where there isn't an industry built around selling these lies, so we might as well take the lesser evil.

I frankly have a hard time seeing Brooks and his ilk as a "lesser evil" at all, or frankly believing that a "lesser evil" even truly exists, at least when it comes to high-profile figures on the right: can you name me a single "moderate" conservative who openly doesn't subscribe to the notion of "we need to cut taxes for rich people again because this time they'll definitely pay for themselves and business leaders will definitely give out hires and raises instead of stashing it all in the Cayman Islands, and thus I definitely won't have to call for tough but necessary cuts to Social Security and Medicaid if this fails to happen the way it has every single time before now"? Brooks was birthed in the same vat as Shep Smith: his job is to cover the ass of the "greater evil" as they loot us blind, and hope that we're too polite, or at least too self-conscious about being labeled "blindly partisan", to actually say anything.

[Mischief Maker]

People thinking Trump suddenly has a bold new plan to stop the imminent (Soros-funded) anchor baby threat a week before the election are as dumb as people who think Kanye had a sudden political awakening a week after his new Mauve Yeezys had shit sales.

[GaijinPunch]

why are Saudi's still allowed in the cuntry again?

Is it... because they pay their bribes?

Duh. It was rhetorical (mostly).

[BryanM]

Used to actually like Brooks when I was first paying attention to politics 20 years ago.

Brooks is a propagandist for the upper class republican voter. The guys with lowish six figure salaries that sit in an office all day.

This kind of faux-apologetic voice is there so they can pretend to feel bad about the Iraq War, our torture dungeons, and so on. Those things are bad, sure. But you know what's good? That $4,500 a year tax break you got. And doesn't the good outweigh the bad?

The guy is a complete monster. Worse than Trump I'd say, because his poison is obscured and easier to overlook.

For those who didn't get the message about the next recession, here it is, in black and white: https://www.economist.com/leaders/2018/ ... -recession

A vast majority of these stock market evaluations seem a lot like reading entrails. At the end of the day I wonder if it's just a cyclical function of cashing out - unless a stock pays booko dividends it isn't money in your hand until you sell it.

people who think Kanye had a sudden political awakening a week after his new Mauve Yeezys had shit sales

Kanye "George Bush doesn't care about black people" West is a brave soldier of justice.

Like with most things 2016ish, we can lay some blame at the feet of Obama. Calling the crazy narcissistic bipolar man a "jackass" after he fundraised for your ass for so long, well, what do you expect.

And if it was all an elaborate grift, I must applaud it.

[Ed Oscuro]

The guy is a complete monster. Worse than Trump I'd say, because his poison is obscured and easier to overlook.

Trump got voted in, whereas Brooks' views are out of whack with the polls.

That said the rich do still keep 'winning.'

On the stock market...I've seen a few analyses of the possibility of another recession coming, and they aren't overly focused on the stock market. It's the simple fundamentals, like not having a plan beyond pointless trade wars and protectionism, or the coming burst of the tax break bubble.

[BryanM]

I don't see much of a distinction. Is there any other candidate from the republican primary that wouldn't have Bolton giving proclamations right now about how we need to nuke South America, take their vespene gas, and commandeer their supply depots? (That could have won it. 10% ceiling Ron Paul is anathema to the majority of republican voters.) They're all soldiers in the same machine.

Long after Trump is dead and gone, after an exhausting post-presidential career of giving helpful speeches to Goldman Sachs that are worth every penny of the $400,000+ he'll get paid each for them, hugging Michelle and George at the funeral of the day.... Brooks will still be getting published in the failing NY Times about how we need to eliminate Medicare and Social Security and how great that'll be.

[Ed Oscuro]

a.) Brooks has almost no audience, as said before
b.) So the authoritarian, racist, murderous makeover of the country Trump is hellbent on executing is equivalent to Brooks having out-of-touch ideas about economics?

Goddamn, man, use your head! Brooks never goaded somebody into killing 11 people.

[BryanM]

David cheered for the Iraq War the entire time with the best of them. I'm pretty sure that killed more than 11 people.

He's an "authoritarian, racist, murderous" vessel as well.

As for Brooks' audience, like I just said, white collar republicans and liberals, and kids who listen to NPR and watch PBS. The kind of people who'd never give Rush Limbaugh or Alex Jones more than ten seconds to speak. He's a critical cog in the machine and reaching those people with his brand of propaganda is essential. The presidential election was decided by the margin of error, remember.

Brooks is not paid a six figure salary for decades and unable to grow or change as a person because he's "out of touch". He's Rush Limbaugh for "sane, reasonable" people.

[Rob]

a.) Brooks has almost no audience, as said before
b.) So the authoritarian, racist, murderous makeover of the country Trump is hellbent on executing is equivalent to Brooks having out-of-touch ideas about economics?

Goddamn, man, use your head! Brooks never goaded somebody into killing 11 people.

Ed, you've been watching far too much fake news. "Authoritarian, racist, murderous", "goaded somebody into killing 11 people"? Come on, dude.

[Ed Oscuro]

@ Rob: You're right, I reflexively avoid calling him a "fascist" even though the term applies more clearly with every passing day. I should stop second-guessing myself

David cheered for the Iraq War the entire time with the best of them. I'm pretty sure that killed more than 11 people.

What, was Wise Dove Trump the sole voice of reason against that venture? He's not winning any points in this comparison either.

There were leftists (at least on some issues) who thought the Iraq War was great, too. Funny thing - people come in all kinds.

The difference between all these clowns and Trump is that none of the others are in government. It's a matter of priorities. I won't stop you from railing against Brooks though, and I do agree that if he is right in the same way a stopped clock is, that's not enough to make me a fan. Usually I find myself groaning at the stuff he says. But it really doesn't matter much, in the same way it doesn't matter if Clinton gave some paid speeches. He only thinks he's a thought leader, and I don't know why you think he is when it's clear he hasn't been relevant to anything for years. In other news, we live in a country that had a trend towards socialism once, even had a ~90% marginal tax rate under a Republican at one time - it's not set in stone that neocon thought wins the day. It's only barely hanging in there because of Useful Idiot Trump distracting all the white nationalists and other assorted happy culture warriors. By trying to criticize Trump, Brooks is working at cross purposes to that effort, whose real leaders are Mitch McConnell and similar operators. At the same time Trump is being unintentionally helpful, with his obvious lies about a middle-class tax cut reminding many people how the actual tax cut went, and that there isn't actually a tax cut coming for the middle class because the neocons in Washington won't consider one.

I'm kind of surprised you didn't go after Brooks on the economy again, though I'm learning not to be surprised by your tangents

[BryanM]

There were leftists (at least on some issues) who thought the Iraq War was great, too. Funny thing - people come in all kinds.

Disagree. Very few leftists are blood gurgling sociopaths.

The people you are talking about here are social liberals - who believe in free trade, capitalism, and free bombs. They differ from the conservative liberals mostly so far in that they advocate for racial and religious diversity in the upper levels of the pyramid scheme of society.

They have historically always opposed the left and when forced to choose between the two, support fascists over leftists.

Just because someone would be okay, in theory, with not putting Mexicans into concentration camps doesn't make them a "leftist".

It's only barely hanging in there because of Useful Idiot Trump distracting all the white nationalists and other assorted happy culture warriors.

As everyone has been screaming, Trump, Reagan, Putin, Russia, Comey, Stein, Johnson, and so on didn't make our country barbaric or racist. Those elements have always been a part of us.

To quote Jim Carrey: "Everyone says Canadians are nice. They can be nice because they've got healthcare."

Our "opposition" party is happy to give weeks of airtime to Trump on how some white lady wants to claim they're black/latino/asian/whatever because a distant relative might have belonged to that ethnic group. A wonderful exercise in wasting time on the battleground.

If you go back far enough everyone has a jellyfish in their lineage. In fact, since the number of jellyfish in our family tree vastly outnumbers that of humans, you could say we're all more jelly than ape, right? This is a useful line of attack that really rallies the troops and gets them fighting for themselves.

[Rob]

If you go back far enough everyone has a jellyfish in their lineage. In fact, since the number of jellyfish in our family tree vastly outnumbers that of humans, you could say we're all more jelly than ape, right? This is a useful line of attack that really rallies the troops and gets them fighting for themselves.

You've just solved every tribal conflict and civil war that's ever been fought - we're all 50% banana. Now instead of identifying with genetic relatives who can indirectly transmit our genes even if we as individuals don't survive, we should identify with ephemeral economic relatives... This race-dumb understanding of human nature and politics is always a marvel.

...individuals share on average half (50 percent) of their genes with their siblings, they share one-fourth (25 percent) with their half-siblings, an eighth (12.5 percent) with their full cousins, etc. Thus if they engage in certain kinds of “favors” that enhance a full cousin’s reproductive success, then, to the extent that those favors enabled that kinsman to find a mate and produce offspring, their favoring of that kinsman helped them to get some of their own genes into the next generation. As one theoretical geneticist, J. B. S. Haldane, is rumored to have said: ‘I’d lay down my life for eight cousins. . . .’ That’s because eight cousins would carry, on average, 100 percent of the genes that the person who laid down his life carried.

But people who ignore the most basic aim of every lifeform are the smart ones in 21st century developed world, and with that Europeans can hope for a future that's as European as Elizabeth Warren is Cherokee.

[Ed Oscuro]

There were leftists (at least on some issues) who thought the Iraq War was great, too. Funny thing - people come in all kinds.

Disagree. Very few leftists are blood gurgling sociopaths.

You seem to have an ongoing problem conflating "exists" with "is probable to meet." Regardless, I have met such an animal!

But people who ignore the most basic aim of every lifeform are the smart ones in 21st century developed world, and with that Europeans can hope for a future that's as European as Elizabeth Warren is Cherokee.

Ugh, genetic racism. So you mean to say that Europeans should make-up pan-European, or vaguely nationalist identity myths, rather than discovering identity?

Getting into indigenous "heritage" issues obviously would veer into concepts you're evidently not ready to fathom, Rob. But I posted some clues earlier - the Cherokee Nation (which, last I heard, was really a whole bunch of independent tribes to begin with) does not speak for everybody. That kind of arrogance was never the traditional way and that people are mouthing it now is a sign of desperation for control.

There are very strange people who imagine that "German" was anything but the loosest identity before 1871. There are people who realize that there was a world before the modern states (and their precursors) which was much more fluid with immigrants and emigrants than people like to admit.

But on the culture plank, I keep getting back to the same thing - if your culture is superior, then it 'obviously' will take care of itself. You don't need the government to protect it.

[Ed Oscuro]

Also gotta say, I'm getting weirded out by all the casual racism that insists it's OK to be proud to have European heritage, when you might not have had an ancestor in Europe for three centuries, but it's not OK to be proud you had an Indian in your family in the late 1800s (for example; nobody really knows when Warren's ancestor likely lived. But the genetic test makes it quite evident she had one).

[BryanM]

I'm a little weirded out that Rob seems to have taken my making fun of Liz and blatant sarcarsm literally, too. (Does he not know how gross and shitty jellyfish are?!)

The genetic test of course does not prove she had a North American ancestor. No genetic test can prove that, without tracing lineage.

My great grandmother was born on a reservation. I would vomit blood before allowing a college to use that as a pretense to advertise diversity, or to contribute my potato-chicken-and-rice soup recipe to a "Pow-wow Chow Cookbook".

The natives are not some kind of long dead or mythical extinct species with mystic powers. This kind of stuff only contributes to making them and their concerns invisible.

Lots of airtime where everyone can see how much Trump and Warren care about themselves, however. It's like being in highschool again, but in an exaggerated Hollywood movie! Exciting.

[Mischief Maker]

Whenever I hear Rob wax lyrical about living a life based entirely around the phenomenon of evolution and the wonders of lactose tolerance and neanderthal DNA, I think of him as Christopher Walken in this scene.