Lunch Thread

enjoy

The Concern Is Touching

The slightly but not really paranoid view of this has been it's been part of a grand project to kidnap children for white Christian adoption. I haven't seen anything yet to really discount that theory.

SAN DIEGO (AP) — The Trump administration says it would require extraordinary effort to reunite what may be thousands of migrant children who have been separated from their parents and, even if it could, the children would likely be emotionally harmed.

Jonathan White, who leads the Health and Human Services Department’s efforts to reunite migrant children with their parents, said removing children from “sponsor” homes to rejoin their parents “would present grave child welfare concerns.” He said the government should focus on reuniting children currently in its custody, not those who have already been released to sponsors.

"For Christian adoption" is the more benign view of this, of course.

Dead Man Walking

I don't know why Northam is prolonging this.

Super Bowl

It is a very super bowl.

Afternoon Thread

Busy with life stuff.

The World Passes You By

I didn't watch the Northam press conference but caught descriptions of the various highlights. Forget the past, or even him... there's no way that people around him for years haven't noticed that he's a bit... uh... problematic on certain issues. And not "didn't use the most woke word on Twitter" problematic, but... problematic.

50-50

Northam changes parties to GOP tomorrow, they embrace him, and all his sins are "forgotten" by Monday.

Stop. Recruiting. Republicans. To. Be. Democrats.

Evening Thread

Probably won’t see one minute of tomorrow’s game.

Could Be

It was plausible that I was the KKK guy or the blackface guy in that photo, but now I am not 100% sure that it was me.

Happy Groundhog Day

Again.

Saturday, Saturday

Northam hasn't resigned yet?

Morning Thread

I Think That Answers The Question

One thing to do it, another thing for there to be a picture, and yet another for it to be on your yearbook page photo... from med school.

RICHMOND — Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam on Friday acknowledged appearing in a “clearly racist and offensive” photograph in his 1984 medical school yearbook that shows a man in blackface and another in a Ku Klux Klan robe.

...

Northam did not say if he was the man dressed in blackface or Klan robes. The governor’s statement indicated that he had no immediate plans to resign, despite some calls for him to do so.

Just resign.

Happy Hour Thread

enjoy

Speaking Of Vaporware

Sure, Jan.

Two days after Foxconn said it no longer planned to build a sprawling new factory in Wisconsin, the Taiwanese technology giant appears to have reversed course, citing a “personal conversation” with President Trump.

The surprise announcement followed heavy backlash in Wisconsin, which in 2017 agreed to pay the prominent electronics maker and supplier to Apple at least $3 billion in state tax incentives. At the time, Foxconn pledged to deliver up to 13,000 blue-collar jobs and a $10 billion display-making plant in the state’s southeastern corner -- a move Trump has

Anyone in a MAGA hat want to have a little wager with me?

Vaporware

I didn't care too much about Elon Musk until he started floating fantasies about hyperloops and ridiculous subways. His self-driving car claims amuse me but mostly that's for Tesla owners to deal with. But since he did get into my lane with the SUPERTRAINS that aren't trains, I've been paying attention, and, well...

Another quarter, another delay for Tesla Inc.'s solar roof – the signature product of its sprawling Buffalo solar panel factory.

If the South Park Avenue factory is ever going to reach its goal of employing 1,460 people by April 2020, the electric vehicle maker is going to have to sell lots of solar roofs.

That's not happening now, and Tesla officials indicated this week that it likely won't happen until sometime later this year, after predicting just three months ago that it would ramp up production in Buffalo by June.

Musk made a lot of promises with his solar roof system and got a lot of good press and, while it's above my pay grade a bit, had some related business shenanigans between his various companies. Not happening any time soon...

There Is A Natural Order To Things

In DC, it's a Republican president who isn't obviously vulgar (W. was a challenge at first but then 9/11 removed all such concerns). Democrats can control the House or Senate, but only if there are enough conservative Democrats to mean that many wonderful moments of bipartisanship (Republicans getting what they want) can happen.

Democrats having power... even just Nancy Pelosi running the House without dozens of "blue dog" types undermining her every 5 seconds... confuses the Villagers.

They're All Bad

The only good reason (and it isn't a very good reason, but it's the only one) to have a primary campaign that starts a year before there's an actual primary is it gives candidates a long time to figure out how to respond to many perfectly valid criticisms of their records that cannot simply be wished away.

The Morning Joseph Movement

There's always a campaign seemingly designed to appeal directly to Morning Joseph and Tom Friedman, one which winks at being Democratic but which is just right wing Republicanism without the obvious racism and abortion obsession (this doesn't mean anti-racism or pro-choice, just...not concerned).

It was especially hilarious during the Obama administration with Tom Friedman, who would dream of a president who was basically Barack Obama and then pretend he didn't exist.

Why Would I Waste My Beautiful Mind On That?

Pundits never really go away, but their relevancy mostly fades with time (bloggers, too, I know). I remember when it mattered when a George Will column dropped, no matter what his history of duplicity and mendacity. Maureen Dowd had her time. For a long time it mattered, even or especially during the Obama administration, when David Brooks had something supposedly profound to say. One (I am "one" in this narrative) would have to read these things just to know what was being read.

Now, eh. Who cares what David Brooks writes?