This is my only article today, because I got almost no sleep last night. The low was over 50°, and the rain stopped, so the street people, who would normally be huddled under tarps and blankets to stay warm and dry came out to play. They partied all night in the street below me, yelling and making sleep impossible. Tomorrow may also be a one-article day, as Wendy needs to come an hour early.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 6:04 (average 6:36). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From YouTube (MSNBC Channel): How The World Covered President Trump’s ‘Shithole Countries’ Slur
Trump has made the US an international pariah. RESIST!!
From Washington Post: An adult-film star was paid $130,000 by a lawyer for Donald Trump in the weeks before the 2016 election to not talk publicly about a sexual relationship with the then-Republican candidate, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.
The lawyer, Michael Cohen, allegedly paid Stephanie Clifford [aka Stormy Daniels] to remain silent about an encounter at Lake Tahoe in 2006, a year after Trump married his third wife, Melania, according to the Journal. The Journal said the payment was made to a client-trust account at City National Bank in Los Angeles.
I understand the Stormy is offering the Republican Reich $260,000 to deny the story out of fear that it will make her the laughingstock of the porn industry. RESIST!!
From The New Yorker: Donald J. Trump demanded on Thursday that the poem at the base of the Statue of Liberty be revised immediately to exclude nations he considered “shithole countries.”
Speaking to reporters, Trump said that the poem as it currently stands “is basically an open invitation that says, like, if you come from a shithole country, welcome aboard.”
“I don’t know the entire poem, but it’s something like ‘Give us your tired, your poor, your yadda yadda yadda,’ ” he said. “We could keep all that but then put in, right at the end, in big letters, maybe, ‘except if you’re from a shithole country.’ ”
“I think if a boat from a shithole country came and saw that poem with those words at the end, they would turn around and go right back to wherever they came from,” he said.
Dang Andy! Would Republicans love that or what? RESIST!!
Cartoon:
17 Responses to “Open Thread – 1/13/2018”
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7:19 Well, that’s one way to prevent theft, I guess.
A little late, but I just found it, and the material is still valid.
SHole – Sojourners had an article written by an immigrant from a presumably included country which is a whole story in itself … but I’ll just quote my own comment:
There aren’t any “shithole” countries. There are always people in all countries with integrity, even when life is difficult for them. If there were “shithole” countries, the United States today would be at the top of the list (as I believe some Norwegians have already remarked).
WaPo – One of her colleagues more or less confirms the story – the colleague was invited to their room (she declined, but got the play-by-play the next morning from Stormy).
TNY – Andy’s not the only one who had this thought. There are also cartoons about it. Here’s one. There’s another I can’t right now find which was even better IMO.
Cartoon – Yup.
(I am assuming you will cover Hawaii soon, maybe tomorrow, so I’ll refrain.)
Good cartoon JD! Funny, it was done by a Canuck in Hamilton, Ontario. I grew up about 30 km south west of Hamilton. The Hamilton Spectator was and still is a respected newspaper.
Ah – more Canadians who know more about American government and politics than Americans do.
Love the vid!
You assumed correctly. I wanted to know more first.
Indeed. We do spend a lot of time in that ditch.
MSNBC: How terribly sad. What he said, well….I can’t say it here, but you get my jist. We are now officially the Pariah of the World. All by this asshats’ hurtful, bigoted, hidebounded attitudes, behavior, tweets, and comments.
WP: Ewww…..I feel the flu coming on. lol. How many other women were paid (off), probably hundreds….
NYer: While funny from Andy’s point of writing, it’s downright sickening that he said what he said, and make no bones about it….he doesn’t care.
Cartoon: Of course, he wouldn’t have it any other way.
Sorry to read of your evening. That’s happened here too, where no one, (the dog/cat included) gets any sleep from the fireworks, music and partying. I feel hungover the next day. Hope that you have a better more relaxing evening, take care, and Thanks, Tom.
YT: More and more, it looks as though the Orange Ogre is the worst thing ever to happen to the USA. Ever.
WP: What a perfect demonstration of tRump’s character – or, rather, lack of it.
TNY: That does it. tRump is certifiably insane. He isn’t, as the time-honored adage goes, fit to serve as dogcatcher. Hell, he isn’t fit to clean poo out of the kennels at the pound.
Cartoon: Gotta love the positioning of the speech balloon.
The positioning was intentional. That’s the place from which to discuss Trump.
Dinky Donnie! I like it!
MSNBC: Well, now I know how to call him a s**thole in German- “Drecksloch.”
WaPo: The pseudo-Christians would have found a way to ignore, or excuse, this tiny p*ickadillo, and vote for him, anyway.
New Yorker: tDump IS the s**thole country, is an island unto himself.
‘Toon: I expect that if this lovely young lady were to speak normally, she would be able to tell us that tDump is the one who speaks as(s)ininely.
The amount of shame I feel EVERY time that shithole opens his mouth is unfathomable! He makes a real good case for post-pregnancy abortion! Like 70 YEARS post pregnancy!
How did we end up with such a valueless and clueless unusefull idiot in the highest office in our country? Ibet there’s some very fine countries in Africa and Haiti that could do without his effin words of “encouragement”!!!
He is an embarrassment to our country!
Puzzle — 5:34 I had a few hang ups with this puzzle!
MSNBC — Drumpf is a racist, third rate ignoramus who has no business being POTUS. The rest of the world knows this, but the Republicans who enable him seem not to care. They are only there for their own benefit, not the country’s. Drumpf has a shithole for a mouth! Anybody have some duct tape we can use to shut the bastard up?
“Trump has made the US an international pariah.” — Oh yeah! With Dinkie Donnie at the helm, it’s a SNAFU!!!
WaPo — I wonder if Melania has her bags packed yet? $130,000? That is a cheap buy off! Now that it is out, I wonder if Dinkie Donnie will sue her?
The New Yorker — I have said it before . . . the French need to repossess the Statue of Liberty now that racist Drumpf is POTUS! Lazurus will be rolling in her grave knowing Drumpf has made a mockery of her poem.
Cartoon — No doubt!!!
MSNBC: “Trump has made the US an international pariah.” Spot on, TomCat, but MSNBC is very wrong to think that the “Shithole Countries” incident was the one to make the rest of the world sit up and listen. I think MSNBC could make this compilation every week on the Drumpf comment flavor of the week. Drumpf has taken America down in the rest of the world from the very first days he was in office and started calling with officials of foreign powers after his inauguration. His mishandling, or rather abuse, of foreign policies has turned most nations away from him personally and leery of American foreign policy in general. It has now, however, gotten to a point that almost everything Drumpf says and does, even if only internally, is world news, with an often excellent explanation of the background and circumstances to what he is doing. By now, Drumpf has done irreparable damage to America’s status in the world.
WP: It’ll please Drumpf no end if this article has people think that he has payed off hundreds of women like Stephanie Clifford; it’s such a boost to his warped ego. As for the consequences…shrug.
TNY: I’m afraid the Aussies have already tried that and it didn’t work out that well. Boat people, i.e. people from shithole countries, arriving – or rather crashing – on Australian shores didn’t get to see a poem that told them they weren’t welcome, but were put in camps in New Guinea. And are still wasting away there. Turning around was not an options, but then it never was. The only other option was drowning. Drumpf isn’t so crass yet that he’d say he’d rather have boat people drown than land safely, but that may be because there’s a glimmer of understanding there that nowadays boat people making it all the way to New York will have starved long before arriving.
Aren’t the homeless in Portland been given shelter and taken off the streets in winter, TomCat, or are temperatures just to high at the moment? Whatever the case, I hope you get som sleep tonight.
Because of our mild winters, homeless migrate in every winter. There are shelters, but they are swamped.
Thanks all. Very pooped hugs!