Open Thread Nov. 29: Matt Lauer, Closing Schools and Police Behaving Badly

Filed in Delaware, National, Open Thread by on November 29, 2017

Whoever had the Today Show’s Matt Lauer as the next media heavyweight to fall in the sexual harassment pandemic, contact management to claim your prize. The ax fell just this morning, so no details have emerged yet — that’s all people really care about, isn’t it, the dirty details? — which should keep reporters on the creeper beat busy all day.

The New York Times took all kinds of shit for running that profile of the nice Nazi couple next door — people thought that “normalizing” the newlyweds would somehow spread their white separatist philosophy. Not quite. According to Matt Pearce of the Los Angeles Times, it did get them fired from their jobs. The same public the critics were sure would be snookered instead tracked down the couple’s employers and applied pressure to have them fired. They’re now raising money on — you can’t make this stuff up — Goy Fund Me, an alt-right site started after Nazis were kicked off Go Fund Me.

The state released a plan to close three Christina District schools in Wilmington, consolidating the current five schools into two K-8 schools at Bayard and Bancroft. The News Journal flushed out the story yesterday, but details are still sketchy. Kevin Ohlandt gives his perspective over at Exceptional Delaware.

City and state officials will announce today a that a major sports complex, backed by the Philadelphia 76ers, will be constructed on the Wilmington waterfront.

Our police, as I keep reminding everyone, are not under civilian control. In Baltimore, an officer set to testify against others in a police corruption case was shot to death with his own gun, but the BPD won’t let the FBI investigate the case, despite the police coming up with nothing for two weeks. Also, in what shouldn’t surprise us, Al Jazeera America reports that documents show the feds are “monitoring” Black Lives Matter. That’s why the movement should be called Put a Leash on Police. And a muzzle, while we’re at it.

A reminder that Trump has been a lying sleazeball for a long time: In 1998, after more than a decade of legal stalling, Trump finally
settled a lawsuit
about his use of illegal immigrant labor in razing a building to make way for Trump Tower. The New York Times finally dug up the details, and Trump, who claims he never settles lawsuits, coughed up $1 million in fines.

On the Russia front, Josh Marshall connects some dots to deduce that Mike Flynn seems to have dug himself a deeper hole than we realized.

The White House released some Christmas videos featuring Melania Trump that lots of people are viewing as another coded cry for help, as the zombified First Lady strolls through scenery so bleak is looks like is was designed by Tim Burton.

A day that begins with Matt Lauer’s firing is bound to have more news later. Add it below.

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  1. Alby says:

    Lauer’s firing was apparently triggered by a sexual assault on an NBC employee at the Rio Olympics.

  2. Dave says:

    Men behaving badly, police behaving badly. Although it seems like a mostly male characteristic, it really is just a human characteristic. At some point I imagine that the reckoning will end and the reconciliation will begin. Though it will be interesting to see how many people suffer consequences during this period. Shouldn’t there be something like a dead pool by now? Who’s next?

    In any event, SOTD by Queen, Another One Bites The Dust https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rY0WxgSXdEE

  3. Arthur says:

    Well i guess we know where in the world Matt Lauer was all that time – in some chicks pants

  4. While we’re all engulfed in sexual harassment cases, the Rethugs are poised to pass perhaps the single most disastrous bill in the nation’s history. The Russians couldn’t have destroyed our country any more ruthlessly than this.

  5. Alby says:

    With all due respect to Ben, here’s the real problem with Democrats, and Pelosi isn’t the cause: Democrats are not fighting the tax bill tooth-and-nail because they’re beholden to corporate funders, just like the GOP.

  6. Ben says:

    You’re right. Being 2 faced about accountability is the main problem.
    They are 2 faced about their support for working families and they are 2 faced about their desire to see sexual predators held accountable. They are weasels lacking principles.

  7. Alby says:

    “They are weasels lacking principles.”

    Yeah, and? The problem arises from looking for principled players in a field (politics) that not only doesn’t reward that, it actively punishes it. Just as “there’s no crying in baseball,” there should be no whining in politics. There’s lots of it, of course, but the only thing it’s good for is fund-raising. Which is why people who aren’t actually outraged pretend to be — it’s good for business.

  8. Ben says:

    So is it a problem for you that the Dems are corporate shills or isnt it?
    I know you think it’s fine for pols to be lacking morals… and depending on the definition of morals i would agree. Some people think not trying to fuck 13 year olds is amoral… those people live in Alabama…. And just so you know, I KNOW Moore is going to win. I dont want people to forget what he is (a child rapist) or forgive the ‘people” of Alabama for putting him in office. He is gonna make a great campaign ad for the next 6 years.
    We have to have some sort of standard. Demanding sexual predators be kicked off the island doesnt seem like a vain glorious purity search to me. Really, where is the line?

  9. Alby says:

    “He is gonna make a great campaign ad for the next 6 years.”

    Really? Just like Trump made such great ad material for Hillary?

    People vote on based on self-interest, not morality. That’s why the media messaging about the tax bill gets ignored — most people care more about their own circumstances than about what happens to immigrants, women, poor people or anything else you can think of. After that’s taken care of, they vote for their team.

    The rest is posturing, and it doesn’t win you nearly so many votes as many SJW Democrats think it should.

    Yes, of course being corporate shills is a problem — THE problem — for Democrats. But you don’t solve it by firing Pelosi unless you have a suitable replacement, which you don’t.

  10. Alby says:

    So tell me, Jason or El Som, why did you put up with a fuckwad like Delaware Democrat for so long?

  11. RE Vanella says:

    Excellent question. Gentlemen?

  12. Arthur says:

    As far as the CSD, has the board put out their game plan as what to do to improve the district? its seems everything stems from the WEIC or governors office over the last several years

  13. Alby says:

    DD’s next move: He’ll call for us all to resign.

  14. Alby says:

    @Arthur: The biggest benefit to consolidating school districts would be the elimination of many incompetent school boards and administrations. It wouldn’t necessarily give us competent ones, but fewer incompetent ones might be a worthy improvement.

  15. Arthur says:

    Alby – i’ll agree with mark twain when it comes to school boards and the less the better. However, with CSD they have kept doing the same things over and over again with no real attempt at change. the issue is, they cant afford to make any real changes.

  16. Anono says:

    @Alby If your going to report something, at least get it right….”Lauer’s firing was apparently triggered by a sexual assault on an NBC employee at the Rio Olympics.”

    Was it Sochi or Rio, Summer or Winter Olympics?

  17. Dana Garrett says:

    “People vote on based on self-interest, not morality. That’s why the media messaging about the tax bill gets ignored — most people care more about their own circumstances than about what happens to immigrants, women, poor people or anything else you can think of. After that’s taken care of, they vote for their team.”

    Actually, if people primarily voted for their self interest, they would be up in arms about the tax bill. In the USA, people tend to vote their hatreds. Not every American but a huge and often decisive margin do. I wish the populace did vote its interest. The USA would be a social democratic state.

  18. jason330 says:

    Great point. Republicans only vote for members of the tribe. Democrats are above such crude behavior.

  19. Alby says:

    @DG: If it was based only on economic interest I should be a Republican.

  20. Anono says:

    @ Jason You have got to be kidding me…….”Republicans only vote for members of the tribe. Democrats are above such crude behavior.”

    You guys voted Markell in twice; the Bloom Deal, Fisker. He was a mess. One recent Senator, jumped up and down that there were nooses hanging at the UofD. Before knowing all of the details, and they were paper lanterns.

    The Demos for years kept taking from the Transportation Fund………….the Dems have ruined this state!

  21. Alby says:

    “The Demos for years kept taking from the Transportation Fund”

    And the Republicans voted for it every time. You really need to learn a new song. This one is so very, very tired.

  22. The raiding of the Transportation Trust Fund started almost immediately after it was created. Raided by Mike Castle and soon-to-be-disgraced Transportation Secretary Kermit Justice.