It's wild that it's considered okay for law enforcement to use weapons banned in war by international law. (And not just at the border, which I would assume is governed by those same laws anyway.) Oakland, Ferguson...

Not to suggest those incidents mean nothing has changed.

Tear-gassing Fox News is probably one of my healthier idle fantasies.

I think it's deliberate and successful at keeping the caravan in the news. As long as people are thinking about immigration, Trump and the Republicans have secured their base, which means they can't do much worse in public opinion. They lose fewer votes by obvious cruelty than they do by letting people think about other issues.

This enrages me so much that I am getting enraged even by dispassionate political analysis of it (a la comment 3). It's too horrible to dissect in dispassionate political terms. (If anyone actually said something supportive of the administration's policy in my presence I might literally strangle them.)

I don't really think of saying "tear gassing children works to rally the vote for one of two major parties in this country" as dispassionate. I meant it as a vicious insult toward the character of everyone who voted for them.

4: I was watching Meet the Press for a few minutes over the weekend and found it bizarrely disjointed. Everyone agreed that Trump was doing something horrible (and I forget which horrible thing they were talking about!) but they were all chuckling about it, especially Chuck Todd.

I can't remember who he is.

He's the guy with two first names.

4 is why I find myself turning NPR off angrily over and over for the last two years. They hire people who read everything, no matter how horrible, in these awful perky voices. NO. PEOPLE ARE GOING TO SUFFER TERRIBLY BECAUSE OF WHATEVER DAILY HORRIBLENESS YOU ARE DESCRIBING/DEMOCRACY IS DYING/OTHER HORRIBLE THINGS. Perkiness is not the right tone here. How dissociated are you from the actual import of the news you're reading?

So, basically I'm Phred in this cartoon? And NPR is the pilots? No, if they're actually dropping bombs I guess the pilots must be editors for the NY Times... https://www.gocomics.com/doonesbury/1972/12/29

He's the guy who somehow looks like a pre-teen despite being in his 40s with a goatee. And is absolutely awful and focused entirely on the horserace, but those aren't distinguishing qualities.

I'm helping a family member price out an ER trip for a potentially serious (and recurring) issue. She had it checked out last week, but said when the symptoms went away before testing, everyone (except the attending doctor, who was nice) gave her a hard time about malingering. I almost said: look, our national culture is so toxic right now that you can assume no one in the fucking country has any moral standing to criticize you until they demonstrate otherwise. Our national epidemic of contempt for the weak and vulnerable is itself beneath contempt.

I have no tips about what to do in the current crisis -- protests this weekend but that does almost nothing. Got this from RAICES last week:

I'm proud to report that, through our Bond Fund, we have paid $2,121,000 in bonds to secure the release of 276 detainees from 49 detention centers across 20 states. All told, these efforts have led to the reunification of over 103 families.

That's what it takes to get leverage, and that is one crisis. Huh, I would have said I was steely calm, but I appear to be shaking with rage.

9 I don't listen to NPR, but now and again I hear it wafting from the kitchen, and pretty much without fail, end of yelling at the radio. Conservative guests over and over, making ridiculous talking point claims. Unchallenged.

Last time was Friday maybe, and they had -- again -- someone claiming that the Saudis were trying to avert the attempted Iranian takeover of Yemen. Oh yeah, that's what's causing this . . .

12: I think there was an academic study recently looking at utilization data and finding that of the ER visits that could later be deemed "avoidable" (implying, shouldn't be at the ER), the majority were presenting symptoms that at the time were indistinguishable from emergent conditions. I'll see if I can find it.

Our national epidemic of contempt for the weak and vulnerable is itself beneath contempt.

Absolutely.

Somewhat on-topic: the set of people interested in this book on Guatemala City violence is probably small, but it includes me, so:

https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520297098/mortal-doubt

Also, our acting attorney general has overtly expressed sympathy for a terrorist.

16: Have you read it?

Hey, for wtfuckery, how about Heidegger being paraded about by modern Nazis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LD46BP-nLtE?

Well, the man was a Nazi.

Ben Shapiro's work can't even hold a candle to Being and Time.

What little of a silver lining exists in the continually-escalating race war shit is that it provides constant and continued fuel for the Resistance and particularly groups like Indivisible, which have shown the ability to translate that motivation into concrete political gains that change the balance of power. The prospect of four years of Trump with tame and servile House and Senate was too much to contemplate.

Atrocities are being committed and will continue to be committed as that shift plays out. It can at least be hoped that fascism will not complete its yearned-for total takeover of American society... this time out. There aren't any other upsides, of course. I believed before Trump was elected that a Trump Presidency would have to be followed by some kind of Truth and Reconciliation Commission. That belief has proved depressingly and predictably correct. The viciousness, the stupidity, the incompetence, the corruption, the gleeful cruelty: this is what happens when extremist white supremacist demagogues gain positions of power.

But he will absolutely keep the Resistance motivated and mobilized until his last day in office, whenever it comes. That's the "good" news.

I know he's done some good journalism in the past, but I did not have money on Geraldo being the guy to plead for human decency on Fox News.

I'm leaning towards the occasional displays of respect for human dignity on Fox News being a strategic decision. Not that the reporters are insincere, more that there's probably an editorial process that keeps most of these kinds of stories off air. It's kind of like once having a regular liberal on a talk show. Propaganda needs a little restraint to avoid being obviously what it is.

Certainly there's a related strategy at CNN where they have a charlatan on, Jake Tapper solemnly declares, "How dare you, sir," the video goes viral, and instead of actually punishing the fraud the same liar is back on the next day, repeat.

It's got to be pretty hard to find a fraud to argue that tear gassing children is fine because the gas is "natural."

I look forward to the defense of acid attacks because hydrochloric acid is in your stomach anyway what's the big deal.

Charlatan. Acid attacks use battery acid, which is sulphuric.

While I am quite educated in chemistry I'm sad to admit that my knowledge of terrorist methods is not at the same level.

Fox is fully capable of simply not running a story. But they are on a path towards having spirited discussions of just how much to blame migrants for their own tear gassing.

It's wild that it's considered okay for law enforcement to use weapons banned in war by international law.

That's not the only example, either. Police are allowed to use types of ammunition that are against the law of armed conflict, like expanding bullets (aka dum-dum bullets). They were made illegal in war in 1898 after a successful lobbying campaign by Germany, which argued that they were unnecessarily injurious.

I totes used tear gas in international war. No-one said anything.

IIRC the US used tear gas to clear tunnels in Vietnam.

33 Indeed we did.

Exactly. What happened to us, guys?

It's got to be pretty hard to find a fraud to argue that tear gassing children is fine because the gas is "natural."

I presume I've just been standpiped, but "It's natural. You can actually put it on your nachos and eat it."

You're usage is wrong. You've standpiped, not been standpiping.

22: until his last day in office, whenever it comes

The body language interpretation guy thinks Trump is thinking of resigning.

That is, not been standpiped.

Wow, that body language guy is still going? Has he ever successfully predicted anything otherwise unknowable?

38: I read that article first and then watched the video, and I have to say that even looking for it specifically, I *really* did not see whatever he's talking about in the article. That guy is either very very good, or a joke, I'm not sure which.

NMM to SpongeBob creator, Stephen Hillenburg.

Trump appears to be miserable and probably thinks about resigning every day. But I don't think he will do it.

42 SpongeBob was great, the true successor to the Bugs Bunny cartoons of old. RIPp.

Rest in pee pee?

Rest In PineaPple.

36: After that came out, I remembered that someone tested this theory years ago in a bar by pepper spraying their food. We had to rapidly vacate the room. Then I remembered that I married that someone.

How did the food taste?

47: Love and memory are both great mysteries.

48: Great, actually. I recommend you pepper-spray your food tonight.

Make sure you use food grade pepper spray.

50: Pepper spray is the new sriracha.

especially Chuck Todd

when the face of passive misogynistic white supremacy is that of a confused-looking doofus.

Demon hellspawn of the fatuous legacy of Tim Russert.

I had specifics but am made weak with antipathy.