you know how the twit accuses others of wrong doing when, in reality, it is he who is the culprit. well, guess who (or at least his bff vlad & bros) probably fueled and lit the fires behind the recent caravan.
awfully convenient that his campaign on very same day set up the new message “jobs not mobs” using the caravan – “This will be an election of Kavanaugh, the caravan, law and order and common sense,” he said at a campaign rally in Montana. don’t be surprised to find that those buses were paid for in rubles and/or riyals
more of his accusation (and silent self-confession) from the guardian: Donald Trump thrust a caravan of migrants heading toward the US border into the midterm election campaign, saying at a rally on Thursday night that the race will be “an election of the caravan”.
A group that now numbers about 3,000 people has left Honduras and has reached Guatemala’s border with Mexico, with the ultimate goal of reaching the US – infuriating Trump.
“It’s going to be an election of the caravan. You know what I’m talking about,” Trump told supporters at a rally in Missoula, Montana, declaring his intention to use the migrants’ journey as a bludgeon against Democratic candidates.
There is evidence that Trump’s use of the caravan as a campaign issue may be effective among the Republican base. A recent poll by the Pew Research Center found that 75% of voters who intend to vote for a Republican congressional candidate consider illegal immigration a “very big” problem for the country.
[…]
Trump claimed, without any supporting evidence, that Democrats were behind the caravan, and raised conspiracy theories that the Central Americans had been paid to come to the United States for political reasons.
“Now we’re starting to find out – and I won’t say it 100%, I’ll put a little tiny question mark at the end. But we’re probably not going to need it, but we have the fake news back there,” he told the crowd, adding a familiar jab at news reporters covering his campaign appearances.
“A lot of money’s been passing through people to come up and try to get to the border by election day, because they think that’s a negative for us. Number one, they’re being stopped. And number two, regardless, that’s our issue.”
[…]
Speaking of Democrats, Trump said: “They wanted that caravan. And there are those who say that caravan didn’t just happen. It didn’t just happen.”
[…continues…]
Do they not realize that they are helping Trump by fostering fear of immigrants?
Now is not the time for a caravan to be heading north and making news.
Too late now. I fear that all that these refugees are doing is ensuring a GOP sweep in November.
Poor timing, folks. Poor timing.
Aw, C’Bob. I believe Amy was his sister, right?
* Why did this caravan of folks start heading north now? Did the GOP actually have a hand in mobilizing them? I wouldn’t put it past them.
With the separation of minors from children at the border earlier this year, I especially wonder about this group.
OK, investigative journalists, go interview some of these folks and start pulling the thread to unravel who had them start their journey right before Election Day.
And you know Trumpsters will claim the pictures of them breaking thru fences at Mexican border were at ours.
What makes anyone think the Honduran refugees know about, consider or care about the US midterm elections more than their and their families’ lives and safety? Perhaps they should hire political consultants to help them decide when to try and save themselves from the hellhole that is their home.
“There are some bad people in that group,” Trump said. “This country doesn’t want them.”
pogo, I’m not saying the refugees don’t have good cause to flee for their lives. it’s just that it looks like trump’s puppet-meisters are cashing in on their plight and they’re being used.
NY Times:
The Issues That Russian Operatives Used to Divide Americans, in Their Own Words
A criminal complaint offered a rare view into how Russian operatives tried to disrupt the American political process, including the midterm elections. In a criminal complaint unsealed Friday, federal prosecutors described a Russian operation to sow political discord in the United States that began in 2014 and was now aimed at disrupting the midterm elections. The covert campaign was designed to inflame passions about hot-button issues and controversial figures, including the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, whose team has been investigating Moscow’s interference in the 2016 presidential race.
Russian operatives combed the American media to identify polarizing issues and then crafted social media messages to promote on Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms.
[….continues with examples of issues used, immigration being one of them…]
Patd, that goes without saying. My point is not directed at your comment. It is one thing to note what the SFB administration and its hangers on will do to use the caravan to motivate their base. It is quite another to direct ill will at the refugees because they have “poor timing.” That imho is as wrongheaded as blaming mothers for being separated from their children when they are apprehended by the SFB border thugs.
“Why did this caravan of folks start heading north now? Did the GOP actually have a hand in mobilizing them? I wouldn’t put it past them.”
FOX will claim those pictures of refugees massing on the Honduran bridge were crossing the Cumberland Gap into Tennessee.
And wouldn’t it be a good idea to point out that even if every person in the caravan came to and was apprehended at th SW border that would be less than one month’s average apprehensions at the border this year. And that would be after they walked 2100 miles across Mexico. Some fucking invasion. We should be welcoming these people with open arms rather than putting them in fucking prison camps. Do you want to motivate the Hispanic vote in the US, there’s your goddamn message.
last spring the twit was spewing the same vitriol. guess it served his purposes so much he wanted to produce a sequel.
here’s a story from snopes back in april:
The Facts Behind ‘Caravans’ of Immigrants
The President has used the occurrence of an annual human rights demonstration as a reason to deploy the military to the United States-Mexico border.
On 9 April 2017, four months into Donald Trump’s presidency, a group of men, women, and children, mainly from Honduras, began a march through Mexico to the United States border and requested asylum there. Many were turned back or detained, but the goal — primarily — was to bring attention to the dangers these individuals experience when escaping violence or persecution in their home country. At the time, Trump did not so much as tweet about it.
On 25 March 2018, organizers with the same group began a similar march. The group, Pueblo Sin Fronteras, has staged dozens of caravans (meaning, in this context, a caravan of vehicles to signify numbers and solidarity) since their founding in 2010, according to the Wall Street Journal. This time, however, morning news show “Fox & Friends” reported on the event, describing it as a “small migrant army marching toward the United States.”
57 minutes after that segment aired, the President first tweeted about the “caravans” coming to the United States; two days later, he threatened to send the United States military to the international border, and to pull out of the North American Free Trade Agreement. Suddenly, the phrase “caravans of immigrants” was on everybody’s lips.
During a 3 April 2018 press conference, the President stated his intent to send the military to the border, characterizing the caravan (in the same statement) as a group attempting to march cavalierly through the border free of hindrance or consequence:
[…]
Requesting asylum requires a person to be physically present in the United States, but it also involves presenting yourself to law enforcement and government officials, meaning the goal in those cases would not be to deceive or defraud the U.S. government but to work within the existing system. The 2017 caravan last year was focused, specifically, on the right of asylum, although according to NPR’s Carrie Khan, who spoke with participants last year, many ended up settling in Mexico, choosing not to cross into the United States at all:
Last year when they came through Mexico, I spoke to a large amount of the migrants. And some of them at that time — and remember; this was last year right after President Trump had taken office — and they just decided that they didn’t want to try to get into the United States. So a lot of them stayed in Mexico and asked for asylum or refugee status here.
In the end, 108 people from the April 2017 caravan chose to head to the border to request asylum in the United States. By June of that year, half of them remained in immigration detention without charge; further, many families had been separated, with some children released to their home countries while their parents remained, and remain, in custody.
In a statement on 2 April 2018, Mexico’s government voiced strong objection to the way in which the caravan, which they consider to be “a public demonstration that seeks to call attention to migration and the importance of respecting the rights of Central American migrants,” had been portrayed in the United States:
[…continues…]
NOTE those have been annual caravans…. so why now?
BiD asked a perfectly logical question and I don’t think she meant it to denigrate the refugees. I know I didn’t mean it that way.
pogo – My comment about “poor timing” is questioning mostly if Republicans (or Russians) had anything to do with this group of folks headed north right before Election Day.
However, folks in Central America are quite aware of what has gone on when refugees finally made it to the US earlier this year, and, that the Trump administration is supported by Republican Critterz. They are not low information like SFB and attendees of his Nazi youth rallies.
So, aside from cooler weather, who was instrumental in getting this journey underway now?
It is a valid question.
in the meantime, other surreal-ities to ponder
from the guardian: ‘We’ll have space bots with lasers, killing plants’: the rise of the robot farmer
In a quiet corner of rural Hampshire, a robot called Rachel is pootling around an overgrown field. With bright orange casing and a smartphone clipped to her back end, she looks like a cross between an expensive toy and the kind of rover used on space missions. Up close, she has four USB ports, a disc-like GPS receiver, and the nuts and bolts of a system called Lidar, which enables her to orient herself using laser beams. She cost around £2,000 to make.
Every three seconds, Rachel takes a closeup photograph of the plants and soil around her, which will build into a forensic map of the field and the wider farm beyond. After 20 minutes or so of this, she is momentarily disturbed by two of the farm’s dogs, unsure what to make of her.
Watching her progress from a corner of the field are three people from the Small Robot Company, and the farmer who co-owns the land. Jamie Butler grows wheat – an uncertain business that can easily tip into the red. The weather is a constant source of anxiety; a hot summer like this year’s is exactly the kind of unforeseen event that can disrupt even the most careful forecasts. “If wheat was all we did,” he says, “there’s no way we’d be able to support our families.” He also keeps cows, and uses some of his land for fly fishing, “glamping” holidays, corporate awaydays and self-storage. He worries about Brexit causing a big drop in the subsidies he currently gets from Brussels.
What does he make of Rachel? “This is the revolution,” he says. And he could well be right: if the robot working in this field is the shape of farming to come, it could have dramatic implications for our food security and the natural world.
In future, Rachel’s creators explain, robots could take care of every stage of the growing process: mapping the land, planting seeds, caring for the crop, forensically weeding, then harvesting. She may currently do only the first job, but prototypes for the other tasks will arrive over the next couple of years.
Ben Scott-Robinson, co-founder of the Small Robot Company, is a genial 44-year-old who talks about what he does with a Tiggerish enthusiasm. He is new to the world of agriculture and still surprised at what he has found. “I expected farmers to be quite luddite about the adoption of new technology,” he says, as he packs Rachel away. “Some are, but there are a load of them who understand that new things need to happen.”
If food-growers embrace this new way of farming, it will end their dependence on a ploughing process that reduces the fertility of the land, and huge tractors that not only compact the soil but restrict growing seasons to times of the year when big machines won’t get bogged down in mud. By tending crops at the level of the individual plant, robot farming will also lead to a big drop in the money farmers have to spend on pesticides. The developers claim they can increase arable farming revenues by up to 40%, and reduce production costs by as much as 60%. The agility of agricultural robots means small farms with compact fields will no longer be at a disadvantage; independent shops and restaurants will be able to grow their produce on smallholdings efficiently tended by Rachel-like machines.
[…]
In the US, automated harvesting of lettuces and strawberries is starting to become commercially viable. In France, robots prune grapevines, and are used for weeding and cultivation. All over the world, food production is gradually filling up with innovations that bring a new level of care and sophistication to the rearing of livestock, and the growing of crops.
[…long article continues….]
politicususa: Mueller May Be Close to Indicting Roger Stone for WikiLeaks Contacts
Yesterday the Wall Street Journal published a long article summarizing Robert Mueller’s investigation into Roger Stone and other conservative activists who have been closely associated with Stone through the years. The focus seems to be their interactions with WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange.
According to the Journal: “Special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation is scrutinizing how a collection of activists and pundits intersected with WikiLeaks, the website that U.S. officials say was the primary conduit for publishing materials stolen by Russia, according to people familiar with the matter.”
Although the main thrust of the investigation seems to be how Stone interacted with WikiLeaks, it is possible that Mueller has also found wrongdoing by other conservatives within Stone’s orbit.
According to the article, Mueller has recently questioned many of his witnesses about Stone’s contacts with Wikileaks. It also said that Mueller has acquired his phone records which would shed more light on the communications that took place.
[….]
The fact that the Wall Street Journal is now publishing a summary of everything known about Stone, his associates, and their contacts with WikiLeaks is leading to speculation that Mueller is about ready to break some big news. He has been investigating this for years so we know that he knows a lot more than he has made public.
It’s possible that Robert Mueller is about to move on Roger Stone and the Journal found out about it in advance. If so, this could be the final move by Mueller before he starts indicting and arresting members of Donald Trump’s own family.
Pogo… shouldn’t you know by now that you can never bring reason into a conspiratorial laden question…
Sturg…. are you still in contact with CBob… and if so, how’s he doing?
patd – saw something the other day that Assange is suing his new country for being forced cleanliness of himself and his cat, otherwise out the door they go. Out the door where all the charges against him have been dropped so he walks out a free man. Hmmm. He says he is concerned that U.S. agents will pick him up and deliver him to the U.S.A. I suppose SFB would greet him at Dulles and wish him a hearty welcome, right after giving him a pardon for something or other.
I forgot how much liquid is necessary for life on a liquid diet, the last occurred about fifty years ago when my wisdom teeth were chiseled out. I have no complaints on the weight loss, it is very nice to happen. I do have problems with constant dreams of eating fried chicken, grilled steaks, bacon and eggs – you get the idea. At last I can eat warm food now. Cold liquid soup, chicken broth, beef broth, is hard to get down. The red pepper and tomato is okay if I pretend it is like gazpacho, without lumps. But, the cold stuff is over, now it can be warm. The upside is eating ice cream, any time. But I do know that will end when I can chew solid food again.
#3 tooth broke in two pieces and had to be removed. It was not nice and forces the need for replacement, at four thousand dollars, U.S. What a racket tooth replacement is. Drill a hole, glue in a post and then glue on a machine made tooth replacement. Even dentists say the new process is so precise they do not have to make adjustments to the replacement, no skill involved now.
Understand that fat head Pompeo Was meeting with the Mexican government while this was going on. Well that could just be a coincidence, but I don’t really believe in coincidences.
BTW it’s an annual caravan, begun at about the same time as last year.
Trump was preaching to the congregation in Montana. The majority of those folks still believe that Mexico will build and pay for a boarder wall. They should be reminded of that fact as often as possible. Trumps immigration policies or lack there of may be red meat for his base but they are a distinct turn off for dems and independents. For every vote he gets in Montana with such talk, he is probably losing a vote somewhere else. Montana is not going to go blue anytime soon and is safe territory for Trump he had nothing to lose.
Every now and then CBob will put up a few posts on the FB and we comment a bit……
3 times yesterday morning I cursed out loud at the TV as first Joe then Meeker and then a third lady talking to C Schumer (sp) about that Democrats need a message, democrats need a messenger bullshit.
those people suck putty balls as CBob was wont to say. O
That Bob Dylan phone call from a booth in the Midwest to Joan Baez seems to have been a pretty important call in their lives….she got “Diamonds and Rust” out of it and I suspect Bob wound up with “You’re a Big Girl Now” over the same call……..timing is right.
Democratic answer to the media
you created Trump and you keep him power because you are shallow and stupid
Sturgeon,
Lets face it, Chuck Schumer is not the best face or best leader the dems could have in the senate or anywhere else for that matter.
Democrats need to learn to push back on stupid reporters. Howard Dean used to do it with great sucess perhaps they could all take a lesson from him.
I thought Chuck was pretty good in there with that lady, whoever it was, with the utter bullshit she was blowing at him…..I won’t be criticizing any democrat unless they pull something VERY stupid or illegal, etc……they’re free to work out their leadership however they choose to without my input……..and I hope for the best.
Katie Arrington vs Joe Cunningham in SC
But Jace, yes, I know what you’re saying ……..I just figger He’s there and he’s a square, but he has my support until he’s replaced.
Howard Dean is great at it…..
Sturgeon,
Trump wins by repeating a few keywords over and over. His latest seems to be extremism when referring to democrats. Dems need that lesson. The media fixates on a few key words. A single concept or policy position is beyond them.
Hope your guy wins. Like his add.
Were I a Democrat running for office my key words would be health care,corruption and incompetence. I would use them until I wore them out right up to the moment that I walked into the voting booth and voted for myself.
We played “cocktail” bocce yesterday. The court is located on the coast near the Timber Cove resort
apparently an earlier owner built without permission from the coastal commission and they have been ordered to remove it. That would be so sad
Sturg, I’ll join you in letting the DNC work out the leadership issues without my input. There are messages out there, and in the case of the House races different messages will play to different districts. The candidates have to figure that out.
Too many messages. Weak messages. Muddled messages.
Failure to own up to their messaging/branding short-comings may spell trouble for Dems in November.
Jace – excellent messaging. You always have three easy to remember points. Local candidates also need to tie their opponent to corruption, murder and incompetence. Three for me and three for thee. The rape and destruction of America.
sturge, good ads (the 2nd one better, love the ending with a little bit of humor)
there’s plenty of time AFTER the election to criticize dem failings. let’s not repeat 2016 by turning off iffy voters.
win first, then fight.
Blue Bronc,
Amen!! Fingers crossed that that Dems will hit the right notes in individual elections .
In music one of the basic building blocks is a three note chord known as a triad, candidates need to build their own triads with three simple messages and not deviate from them just drive them home in every key and every rhythm.
Loved Cunningham’s announcement add. Wish I could vote for him
Patd,
Not trying to be critical of Dems just hoping that each can find a way to break through the noise that is Trump and the media
this is the most important election in a generation. Dems need to have some success. In the two years since the last election they have been mostly ineffective at blunting the Trump message
Joe C has a real chance in SC
Arrington beat Mark Sanford, a fairly easy task, but she’s a jerk and all those Sanford voters won’t automatically transfer to her….
Sturgeon,
Hope you are right. He strikes me as a good one. His opponent; simply dangerous!
Florida’s vast, tourist-spooking algae plague is like conversion therapy for Republican candidates this year.
Suddenly they’re environmentalists. It’s as if Green Jesus appeared to them in a dream and told them to go forth and clean up thine mess.
The GOP’s latest political ads ring with heart-tugging, tree-hugging promises:
Don’t worry, folks, we’ll fast-track that reservoir and send those billions of gallons of tainted water south from Lake Okeechobee, instead of pumping it to the coasts!
We’ll also spend more money researching this nasty red tide, and we’ll even set up a task force! With actual scientists!
And, by God, we’re finally going to get serious about saving the Everglades, because future generations are depending on us to do the right thing!
This fresh enlightenment is head-spinning, since Republican leaders in both Tallahassee and Washington have made a proud priority of slashing clean-water funds and gutting regulations in order to go easy on corporate and agricultural polluters.
Among those marching along with that program was Rep. Ron DeSantis, who has left Congress to run for Florida governor. He won the GOP primary by presenting himself as a fawning acolyte of President Trump, but those commercials have mostly disappeared.
The repackaged DeSantis is pitching himself as an impassioned environmental crusader, a “Teddy Roosevelt conservationist” with a bold, multi-pronged plan for cleaning our befouled waters and shorelines.
It’s hard not to laugh at the Roosevelt line, coming from a Trump guy who voted to cripple the Environmental Protection Agency and co-sponsored a bill blocking federal oversight of public waterways.
Still it’s worth noting exactly what DeSantis promised last month when he rolled out his plan.
Sounding just like a Democrat, he said he wants to outlaw fracking, ban drilling off Florida’s coastline and curb the discharges from Lake O that fuel the toxic blue-green algae blooms on inland waters and exacerbate the red tide along the beaches.
DeSantis also vowed to uphold the intent of the Florida Forever constitutional amendment by making the state spend documentary tax revenue on conservation projects and land purchases, instead of siphoning the money for other purposes.
After unveiling his environmental agenda, DeSantis climbed on an airboat and took a spin through the Everglades, a mandatory ritual if you’re running for statewide office these days.
Democrats and several conservation groups slammed DeSantis as a sham, saying he is “greenwashing” himself to salvage votes in the midst of a grave water crisis made worse by the anti-regulatory policies of his own party.
Last week, some of his critics were stunned when DeSantis got endorsed by the Everglades Trust, a prominent, well-funded political action committee that lobbies for stronger environmental laws.
The trust, which operates independently of the Everglades Foundation, supports candidates who refuse to accept donations from Big Sugar, one of the major culprit polluters of the Everglades.
DeSantis has opposed the federal price-supports that enrich sugar companies, and he strongly criticized the industry during a TV debate last August — a stance almost unprecedented for a Florida Republican.
But is DeSantis’ transformation authentic, as the Everglades Trust obviously believes, or is it a con job?
As coughing voters wearing hospital masks contemplate rotting fish on their beaches and watch the tourists pile out of hotels and restaurants, DeSantis wants us to ignore his awful congressional voting record and believe he’s devoted to making our waters clean and safe.
Most environmental groups don’t buy it, and are supporting Democrat Andrew Gillum for governor. Gillum, it must be said, counts among his top advisers a pal named Sean Pittman, who is a registered lobbyist for Florida Crystals, a sugar titan.
So, no candidate in this race is squeaky clean and immune to suspicion.
Likewise, no candidate is spending much time railing against upstream municipalities, citrus growers, and cattle and dairy ranches — the other sources of Lake O’s harmful fertilizer inflows.
The problem of red tide and blue-green algae outbreaks is too big and complex for a governor to tackle alone. Yet even if DeSantis has been miraculously transformed, nothing in Florida waters will change for the better unless his colleagues in the GOP-led Legislature seek a similar epiphany.
If they wait too long, their epiphany might appear as an ominous vision of long lines of angry voters, many of them coughing into hospital masks.
Warning: Moo-jician joke:
This election is about turn out
KGC
it is about turnout republicans always remember that, Dems not so much. That is why I am so concerned
I think people should be talking a lot more about the people who will not be allowed to vote
there is nothing wrong with the turnout model of the Democrats there is a lot wrong with the Republican approach to voting.
Think about Wisconsin and the impact of 200k suppressed votes
Republicans know it is about turnout. That is why they have to suppress the vote at every turn. All the more reason to watch state level races as well as national.
The race in Washington’s 5th district is becoming very close. The seat was held for years by Tom Foley, but is now a republican seat. It may be a bit of a lift for Democrats but it would be a sweet pick up. Those folks used to know how to vote for a dem, maybe they still remember how. Fingers crossed.
The media are the greatest violators of the false equivalency
Dems need to spotlight Republicans targeting Social Security and Medicare. It’s a blip and only on some ads.
After seven weeks in the garage in North Carolina, s-i-l and I were able to pick-up Rosie today. She’s purrfect.
Some things are so easy. Just received our ballots in the mail. Washington makes voting so easy that there can be no excuse not to vote. Drop them in the mail or In ballot drop boxes that are readily available and easily located.
Speaking of easy also received a campaign mailer from a group urging a no vote on an environmental initiative that has been getting a lot of attention in this neck of the woods. Among those supporting the no side were four or five large oil companies and Koch industries. That makes making up ones mind very easy. I will definitely be a yes vote on that initiative. Not that there had ever been any doubt. I like knowing who is providing financial support to things like this. It should be a requirement everywhere.
Vote by mail! We live in a vote by mail precinct and there getting to be more and more of them in California
Cheaper and more effective
Mr Crawford,
At the request of my dear friend John Kryewinske, I have put his essay on the VA in your Quick Drafts box. The essay is long, but powerful. He served in the US Navy during the Viet Nam War on the Mekong River as an advisor to the RVN Navy. The gunboat John was on got riddled by rockets – like swiss cheese, only gray.
John hopes that you can use his essay as a topic. So do I.
you know how the twit accuses others of wrong doing when, in reality, it is he who is the culprit. well, guess who (or at least his bff vlad & bros) probably fueled and lit the fires behind the recent caravan.
awfully convenient that his campaign on very same day set up the new message “jobs not mobs” using the caravan – “This will be an election of Kavanaugh, the caravan, law and order and common sense,” he said at a campaign rally in Montana. don’t be surprised to find that those buses were paid for in rubles and/or riyals
more of his accusation (and silent self-confession) from the guardian:
Donald Trump thrust a caravan of migrants heading toward the US border into the midterm election campaign, saying at a rally on Thursday night that the race will be “an election of the caravan”.
A group that now numbers about 3,000 people has left Honduras and has reached Guatemala’s border with Mexico, with the ultimate goal of reaching the US – infuriating Trump.
“It’s going to be an election of the caravan. You know what I’m talking about,” Trump told supporters at a rally in Missoula, Montana, declaring his intention to use the migrants’ journey as a bludgeon against Democratic candidates.
There is evidence that Trump’s use of the caravan as a campaign issue may be effective among the Republican base. A recent poll by the Pew Research Center found that 75% of voters who intend to vote for a Republican congressional candidate consider illegal immigration a “very big” problem for the country.
[…]
Trump claimed, without any supporting evidence, that Democrats were behind the caravan, and raised conspiracy theories that the Central Americans had been paid to come to the United States for political reasons.
“Now we’re starting to find out – and I won’t say it 100%, I’ll put a little tiny question mark at the end. But we’re probably not going to need it, but we have the fake news back there,” he told the crowd, adding a familiar jab at news reporters covering his campaign appearances.
“A lot of money’s been passing through people to come up and try to get to the border by election day, because they think that’s a negative for us. Number one, they’re being stopped. And number two, regardless, that’s our issue.”
[…]
Speaking of Democrats, Trump said: “They wanted that caravan. And there are those who say that caravan didn’t just happen. It didn’t just happen.”
[…continues…]
Do they not realize that they are helping Trump by fostering fear of immigrants?
Now is not the time for a caravan to be heading north and making news.
Too late now. I fear that all that these refugees are doing is ensuring a GOP sweep in November.
Poor timing, folks. Poor timing.
Aw, C’Bob. I believe Amy was his sister, right?
* Why did this caravan of folks start heading north now? Did the GOP actually have a hand in mobilizing them? I wouldn’t put it past them.
With the separation of minors from children at the border earlier this year, I especially wonder about this group.
OK, investigative journalists, go interview some of these folks and start pulling the thread to unravel who had them start their journey right before Election Day.
And you know Trumpsters will claim the pictures of them breaking thru fences at Mexican border were at ours.
What makes anyone think the Honduran refugees know about, consider or care about the US midterm elections more than their and their families’ lives and safety? Perhaps they should hire political consultants to help them decide when to try and save themselves from the hellhole that is their home.
“There are some bad people in that group,” Trump said. “This country doesn’t want them.”
pogo, I’m not saying the refugees don’t have good cause to flee for their lives. it’s just that it looks like trump’s puppet-meisters are cashing in on their plight and they’re being used.
NY Times:
The Issues That Russian Operatives Used to Divide Americans, in Their Own Words
A criminal complaint offered a rare view into how Russian operatives tried to disrupt the American political process, including the midterm elections.
In a criminal complaint unsealed Friday, federal prosecutors described a Russian operation to sow political discord in the United States that began in 2014 and was now aimed at disrupting the midterm elections. The covert campaign was designed to inflame passions about hot-button issues and controversial figures, including the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, whose team has been investigating Moscow’s interference in the 2016 presidential race.
Russian operatives combed the American media to identify polarizing issues and then crafted social media messages to promote on Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms.
[….continues with examples of issues used, immigration being one of them…]
Patd, that goes without saying. My point is not directed at your comment. It is one thing to note what the SFB administration and its hangers on will do to use the caravan to motivate their base. It is quite another to direct ill will at the refugees because they have “poor timing.” That imho is as wrongheaded as blaming mothers for being separated from their children when they are apprehended by the SFB border thugs.
“Why did this caravan of folks start heading north now? Did the GOP actually have a hand in mobilizing them? I wouldn’t put it past them.”
BiD, valid questions.
such activity (fighting & throwing rocks at police instead of the usual orderly lines https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/19/world/americas/caravan-mexico-guatemala.html ) at this particular time clearly is not a coincidence
FOX will claim those pictures of refugees massing on the Honduran bridge were crossing the Cumberland Gap into Tennessee.
And wouldn’t it be a good idea to point out that even if every person in the caravan came to and was apprehended at th SW border that would be less than one month’s average apprehensions at the border this year. And that would be after they walked 2100 miles across Mexico. Some fucking invasion. We should be welcoming these people with open arms rather than putting them in fucking prison camps. Do you want to motivate the Hispanic vote in the US, there’s your goddamn message.
last spring the twit was spewing the same vitriol. guess it served his purposes so much he wanted to produce a sequel.
here’s a story from snopes back in april:
The Facts Behind ‘Caravans’ of Immigrants
The President has used the occurrence of an annual human rights demonstration as a reason to deploy the military to the United States-Mexico border.
On 9 April 2017, four months into Donald Trump’s presidency, a group of men, women, and children, mainly from Honduras, began a march through Mexico to the United States border and requested asylum there. Many were turned back or detained, but the goal — primarily — was to bring attention to the dangers these individuals experience when escaping violence or persecution in their home country. At the time, Trump did not so much as tweet about it.
On 25 March 2018, organizers with the same group began a similar march. The group, Pueblo Sin Fronteras, has staged dozens of caravans (meaning, in this context, a caravan of vehicles to signify numbers and solidarity) since their founding in 2010, according to the Wall Street Journal. This time, however, morning news show “Fox & Friends” reported on the event, describing it as a “small migrant army marching toward the United States.”
57 minutes after that segment aired, the President first tweeted about the “caravans” coming to the United States; two days later, he threatened to send the United States military to the international border, and to pull out of the North American Free Trade Agreement. Suddenly, the phrase “caravans of immigrants” was on everybody’s lips.
During a 3 April 2018 press conference, the President stated his intent to send the military to the border, characterizing the caravan (in the same statement) as a group attempting to march cavalierly through the border free of hindrance or consequence:
[…]
Requesting asylum requires a person to be physically present in the United States, but it also involves presenting yourself to law enforcement and government officials, meaning the goal in those cases would not be to deceive or defraud the U.S. government but to work within the existing system. The 2017 caravan last year was focused, specifically, on the right of asylum, although according to NPR’s Carrie Khan, who spoke with participants last year, many ended up settling in Mexico, choosing not to cross into the United States at all:
In the end, 108 people from the April 2017 caravan chose to head to the border to request asylum in the United States. By June of that year, half of them remained in immigration detention without charge; further, many families had been separated, with some children released to their home countries while their parents remained, and remain, in custody.
In a statement on 2 April 2018, Mexico’s government voiced strong objection to the way in which the caravan, which they consider to be “a public demonstration that seeks to call attention to migration and the importance of respecting the rights of Central American migrants,” had been portrayed in the United States:
[…continues…]
NOTE those have been annual caravans…. so why now?
BiD asked a perfectly logical question and I don’t think she meant it to denigrate the refugees. I know I didn’t mean it that way.
pogo – My comment about “poor timing” is questioning mostly if Republicans (or Russians) had anything to do with this group of folks headed north right before Election Day.
However, folks in Central America are quite aware of what has gone on when refugees finally made it to the US earlier this year, and, that the Trump administration is supported by Republican Critterz. They are not low information like SFB and attendees of his Nazi youth rallies.
So, aside from cooler weather, who was instrumental in getting this journey underway now?
It is a valid question.
in the meantime, other surreal-ities to ponder
from the guardian: ‘We’ll have space bots with lasers, killing plants’: the rise of the robot farmer
In a quiet corner of rural Hampshire, a robot called Rachel is pootling around an overgrown field. With bright orange casing and a smartphone clipped to her back end, she looks like a cross between an expensive toy and the kind of rover used on space missions. Up close, she has four USB ports, a disc-like GPS receiver, and the nuts and bolts of a system called Lidar, which enables her to orient herself using laser beams. She cost around £2,000 to make.
Every three seconds, Rachel takes a closeup photograph of the plants and soil around her, which will build into a forensic map of the field and the wider farm beyond. After 20 minutes or so of this, she is momentarily disturbed by two of the farm’s dogs, unsure what to make of her.
Watching her progress from a corner of the field are three people from the Small Robot Company, and the farmer who co-owns the land. Jamie Butler grows wheat – an uncertain business that can easily tip into the red. The weather is a constant source of anxiety; a hot summer like this year’s is exactly the kind of unforeseen event that can disrupt even the most careful forecasts. “If wheat was all we did,” he says, “there’s no way we’d be able to support our families.” He also keeps cows, and uses some of his land for fly fishing, “glamping” holidays, corporate awaydays and self-storage. He worries about Brexit causing a big drop in the subsidies he currently gets from Brussels.
What does he make of Rachel? “This is the revolution,” he says. And he could well be right: if the robot working in this field is the shape of farming to come, it could have dramatic implications for our food security and the natural world.
In future, Rachel’s creators explain, robots could take care of every stage of the growing process: mapping the land, planting seeds, caring for the crop, forensically weeding, then harvesting. She may currently do only the first job, but prototypes for the other tasks will arrive over the next couple of years.
Ben Scott-Robinson, co-founder of the Small Robot Company, is a genial 44-year-old who talks about what he does with a Tiggerish enthusiasm. He is new to the world of agriculture and still surprised at what he has found. “I expected farmers to be quite luddite about the adoption of new technology,” he says, as he packs Rachel away. “Some are, but there are a load of them who understand that new things need to happen.”
If food-growers embrace this new way of farming, it will end their dependence on a ploughing process that reduces the fertility of the land, and huge tractors that not only compact the soil but restrict growing seasons to times of the year when big machines won’t get bogged down in mud. By tending crops at the level of the individual plant, robot farming will also lead to a big drop in the money farmers have to spend on pesticides. The developers claim they can increase arable farming revenues by up to 40%, and reduce production costs by as much as 60%. The agility of agricultural robots means small farms with compact fields will no longer be at a disadvantage; independent shops and restaurants will be able to grow their produce on smallholdings efficiently tended by Rachel-like machines.
[…]
In the US, automated harvesting of lettuces and strawberries is starting to become commercially viable. In France, robots prune grapevines, and are used for weeding and cultivation. All over the world, food production is gradually filling up with innovations that bring a new level of care and sophistication to the rearing of livestock, and the growing of crops.
[…long article continues….]
politicususa: Mueller May Be Close to Indicting Roger Stone for WikiLeaks Contacts
Yesterday the Wall Street Journal published a long article summarizing Robert Mueller’s investigation into Roger Stone and other conservative activists who have been closely associated with Stone through the years. The focus seems to be their interactions with WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange.
According to the Journal:
“Special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation is scrutinizing how a collection of activists and pundits intersected with WikiLeaks, the website that U.S. officials say was the primary conduit for publishing materials stolen by Russia, according to people familiar with the matter.”
Although the main thrust of the investigation seems to be how Stone interacted with WikiLeaks, it is possible that Mueller has also found wrongdoing by other conservatives within Stone’s orbit.
According to the article, Mueller has recently questioned many of his witnesses about Stone’s contacts with Wikileaks. It also said that Mueller has acquired his phone records which would shed more light on the communications that took place.
[….]
The fact that the Wall Street Journal is now publishing a summary of everything known about Stone, his associates, and their contacts with WikiLeaks is leading to speculation that Mueller is about ready to break some big news. He has been investigating this for years so we know that he knows a lot more than he has made public.
It’s possible that Robert Mueller is about to move on Roger Stone and the Journal found out about it in advance. If so, this could be the final move by Mueller before he starts indicting and arresting members of Donald Trump’s own family.
Pogo… shouldn’t you know by now that you can never bring reason into a conspiratorial laden question…
Sturg…. are you still in contact with CBob… and if so, how’s he doing?
patd – saw something the other day that Assange is suing his new country for being forced cleanliness of himself and his cat, otherwise out the door they go. Out the door where all the charges against him have been dropped so he walks out a free man. Hmmm. He says he is concerned that U.S. agents will pick him up and deliver him to the U.S.A. I suppose SFB would greet him at Dulles and wish him a hearty welcome, right after giving him a pardon for something or other.
I forgot how much liquid is necessary for life on a liquid diet, the last occurred about fifty years ago when my wisdom teeth were chiseled out. I have no complaints on the weight loss, it is very nice to happen. I do have problems with constant dreams of eating fried chicken, grilled steaks, bacon and eggs – you get the idea. At last I can eat warm food now. Cold liquid soup, chicken broth, beef broth, is hard to get down. The red pepper and tomato is okay if I pretend it is like gazpacho, without lumps. But, the cold stuff is over, now it can be warm. The upside is eating ice cream, any time. But I do know that will end when I can chew solid food again.
#3 tooth broke in two pieces and had to be removed. It was not nice and forces the need for replacement, at four thousand dollars, U.S. What a racket tooth replacement is. Drill a hole, glue in a post and then glue on a machine made tooth replacement. Even dentists say the new process is so precise they do not have to make adjustments to the replacement, no skill involved now.
Understand that fat head Pompeo Was meeting with the Mexican government while this was going on. Well that could just be a coincidence, but I don’t really believe in coincidences.
BTW it’s an annual caravan, begun at about the same time as last year.
Trump was preaching to the congregation in Montana. The majority of those folks still believe that Mexico will build and pay for a boarder wall. They should be reminded of that fact as often as possible. Trumps immigration policies or lack there of may be red meat for his base but they are a distinct turn off for dems and independents. For every vote he gets in Montana with such talk, he is probably losing a vote somewhere else. Montana is not going to go blue anytime soon and is safe territory for Trump he had nothing to lose.
Every now and then CBob will put up a few posts on the FB and we comment a bit……
3 times yesterday morning I cursed out loud at the TV as first Joe then Meeker and then a third lady talking to C Schumer (sp) about that Democrats need a message, democrats need a messenger bullshit.
those people suck putty balls as CBob was wont to say. O
That Bob Dylan phone call from a booth in the Midwest to Joan Baez seems to have been a pretty important call in their lives….she got “Diamonds and Rust” out of it and I suspect Bob wound up with “You’re a Big Girl Now” over the same call……..timing is right.
Democratic answer to the media
you created Trump and you keep him power because you are shallow and stupid
Sturgeon,
Lets face it, Chuck Schumer is not the best face or best leader the dems could have in the senate or anywhere else for that matter.
Democrats need to learn to push back on stupid reporters. Howard Dean used to do it with great sucess perhaps they could all take a lesson from him.
I thought Chuck was pretty good in there with that lady, whoever it was, with the utter bullshit she was blowing at him…..I won’t be criticizing any democrat unless they pull something VERY stupid or illegal, etc……they’re free to work out their leadership however they choose to without my input……..and I hope for the best.
Katie Arrington vs Joe Cunningham in SC
But Jace, yes, I know what you’re saying ……..I just figger He’s there and he’s a square, but he has my support until he’s replaced.
Howard Dean is great at it…..
Sturgeon,
Trump wins by repeating a few keywords over and over. His latest seems to be extremism when referring to democrats. Dems need that lesson. The media fixates on a few key words. A single concept or policy position is beyond them.
Hope your guy wins. Like his add.
Were I a Democrat running for office my key words would be health care,corruption and incompetence. I would use them until I wore them out right up to the moment that I walked into the voting booth and voted for myself.
We played “cocktail” bocce yesterday. The court is located on the coast near the Timber Cove resort
apparently an earlier owner built without permission from the coastal commission and they have been ordered to remove it. That would be so sad
Sturg, I’ll join you in letting the DNC work out the leadership issues without my input. There are messages out there, and in the case of the House races different messages will play to different districts. The candidates have to figure that out.
Too many messages. Weak messages. Muddled messages.
Failure to own up to their messaging/branding short-comings may spell trouble for Dems in November.
Jace – excellent messaging. You always have three easy to remember points. Local candidates also need to tie their opponent to corruption, murder and incompetence. Three for me and three for thee. The rape and destruction of America.
sturge, good ads (the 2nd one better, love the ending with a little bit of humor)
there’s plenty of time AFTER the election to criticize dem failings. let’s not repeat 2016 by turning off iffy voters.
win first, then fight.
Blue Bronc,
Amen!! Fingers crossed that that Dems will hit the right notes in individual elections .
In music one of the basic building blocks is a three note chord known as a triad, candidates need to build their own triads with three simple messages and not deviate from them just drive them home in every key and every rhythm.
Loved Cunningham’s announcement add. Wish I could vote for him
Patd,
Not trying to be critical of Dems just hoping that each can find a way to break through the noise that is Trump and the media
this is the most important election in a generation. Dems need to have some success. In the two years since the last election they have been mostly ineffective at blunting the Trump message
Joe C has a real chance in SC
Arrington beat Mark Sanford, a fairly easy task, but she’s a jerk and all those Sanford voters won’t automatically transfer to her….
Sturgeon,
Hope you are right. He strikes me as a good one. His opponent; simply dangerous!
Miami herald carl Hiaasen:
Florida’s vast, tourist-spooking algae plague is like conversion therapy for Republican candidates this year.
Suddenly they’re environmentalists. It’s as if Green Jesus appeared to them in a dream and told them to go forth and clean up thine mess.
The GOP’s latest political ads ring with heart-tugging, tree-hugging promises:
Don’t worry, folks, we’ll fast-track that reservoir and send those billions of gallons of tainted water south from Lake Okeechobee, instead of pumping it to the coasts!
We’ll also spend more money researching this nasty red tide, and we’ll even set up a task force! With actual scientists!
And, by God, we’re finally going to get serious about saving the Everglades, because future generations are depending on us to do the right thing!
This fresh enlightenment is head-spinning, since Republican leaders in both Tallahassee and Washington have made a proud priority of slashing clean-water funds and gutting regulations in order to go easy on corporate and agricultural polluters.
Among those marching along with that program was Rep. Ron DeSantis, who has left Congress to run for Florida governor. He won the GOP primary by presenting himself as a fawning acolyte of President Trump, but those commercials have mostly disappeared.
The repackaged DeSantis is pitching himself as an impassioned environmental crusader, a “Teddy Roosevelt conservationist” with a bold, multi-pronged plan for cleaning our befouled waters and shorelines.
It’s hard not to laugh at the Roosevelt line, coming from a Trump guy who voted to cripple the Environmental Protection Agency and co-sponsored a bill blocking federal oversight of public waterways.
Still it’s worth noting exactly what DeSantis promised last month when he rolled out his plan.
Sounding just like a Democrat, he said he wants to outlaw fracking, ban drilling off Florida’s coastline and curb the discharges from Lake O that fuel the toxic blue-green algae blooms on inland waters and exacerbate the red tide along the beaches.
DeSantis also vowed to uphold the intent of the Florida Forever constitutional amendment by making the state spend documentary tax revenue on conservation projects and land purchases, instead of siphoning the money for other purposes.
After unveiling his environmental agenda, DeSantis climbed on an airboat and took a spin through the Everglades, a mandatory ritual if you’re running for statewide office these days.
Democrats and several conservation groups slammed DeSantis as a sham, saying he is “greenwashing” himself to salvage votes in the midst of a grave water crisis made worse by the anti-regulatory policies of his own party.
Last week, some of his critics were stunned when DeSantis got endorsed by the Everglades Trust, a prominent, well-funded political action committee that lobbies for stronger environmental laws.
The trust, which operates independently of the Everglades Foundation, supports candidates who refuse to accept donations from Big Sugar, one of the major culprit polluters of the Everglades.
DeSantis has opposed the federal price-supports that enrich sugar companies, and he strongly criticized the industry during a TV debate last August — a stance almost unprecedented for a Florida Republican.
But is DeSantis’ transformation authentic, as the Everglades Trust obviously believes, or is it a con job?
As coughing voters wearing hospital masks contemplate rotting fish on their beaches and watch the tourists pile out of hotels and restaurants, DeSantis wants us to ignore his awful congressional voting record and believe he’s devoted to making our waters clean and safe.
Most environmental groups don’t buy it, and are supporting Democrat Andrew Gillum for governor. Gillum, it must be said, counts among his top advisers a pal named Sean Pittman, who is a registered lobbyist for Florida Crystals, a sugar titan.
So, no candidate in this race is squeaky clean and immune to suspicion.
Likewise, no candidate is spending much time railing against upstream municipalities, citrus growers, and cattle and dairy ranches — the other sources of Lake O’s harmful fertilizer inflows.
The problem of red tide and blue-green algae outbreaks is too big and complex for a governor to tackle alone. Yet even if DeSantis has been miraculously transformed, nothing in Florida waters will change for the better unless his colleagues in the GOP-led Legislature seek a similar epiphany.
If they wait too long, their epiphany might appear as an ominous vision of long lines of angry voters, many of them coughing into hospital masks.
Warning: Moo-jician joke:
This election is about turn out
KGC
it is about turnout republicans always remember that, Dems not so much. That is why I am so concerned
I think people should be talking a lot more about the people who will not be allowed to vote
there is nothing wrong with the turnout model of the Democrats there is a lot wrong with the Republican approach to voting.
Think about Wisconsin and the impact of 200k suppressed votes
Republicans know it is about turnout. That is why they have to suppress the vote at every turn. All the more reason to watch state level races as well as national.
The race in Washington’s 5th district is becoming very close. The seat was held for years by Tom Foley, but is now a republican seat. It may be a bit of a lift for Democrats but it would be a sweet pick up. Those folks used to know how to vote for a dem, maybe they still remember how. Fingers crossed.
The media are the greatest violators of the false equivalency
Dems need to spotlight Republicans targeting Social Security and Medicare. It’s a blip and only on some ads.
After seven weeks in the garage in North Carolina, s-i-l and I were able to pick-up Rosie today. She’s purrfect.
Some things are so easy. Just received our ballots in the mail. Washington makes voting so easy that there can be no excuse not to vote. Drop them in the mail or In ballot drop boxes that are readily available and easily located.
Speaking of easy also received a campaign mailer from a group urging a no vote on an environmental initiative that has been getting a lot of attention in this neck of the woods. Among those supporting the no side were four or five large oil companies and Koch industries. That makes making up ones mind very easy. I will definitely be a yes vote on that initiative. Not that there had ever been any doubt. I like knowing who is providing financial support to things like this. It should be a requirement everywhere.
Vote by mail! We live in a vote by mail precinct and there getting to be more and more of them in California
Cheaper and more effective
Mr Crawford,
At the request of my dear friend John Kryewinske, I have put his essay on the VA in your Quick Drafts box. The essay is long, but powerful. He served in the US Navy during the Viet Nam War on the Mekong River as an advisor to the RVN Navy. The gunboat John was on got riddled by rockets – like swiss cheese, only gray.
John hopes that you can use his essay as a topic. So do I.
Thanks in advance for your consideration.
Xrepublican