Let’s go back back back in time to see why a Republican-led Senate committee in 2005 refused to approve John Bolton as Bush’s ambassador to the UN, because now he’s in a job that doesn’t need Senate approval.

One moment singularly derailed his nomination. Testifying before the usually staid Senate Foreign Relations Committee in April 2005, Carl W. Ford Jr. — the former assistant secretary of state for intelligence and research — called Mr. Bolton a “kiss-up, kick-down sort of guy” and a “serial abuser” of people beneath him in the chain of command. Mr. Ford — a self-described conservative Republican and Bush supporter — made vivid an emerging portrait of Mr. Bolton as a bully who repeatedly sought retribution

Benjamin Wittes shares a bit of hate-mail.

This guy is charming…

A reminder to everyone of my policy of tweeting abusive emails I receive with the email of the sender visible.

You have no expectation of privacy in sending abuse to strangers. pic.twitter.com/UpnFPUeIon

— Benjamin Wittes (@benjaminwittes) March 24, 2018

It’s the usual fever-dream nonsense, but what caught my attention was “Joe DiGenova is good old Irish-Italian stock.” Good old what? Since when is Irish-Italian considered a “stock”? (Jokes about minestrone with extra potato occur to me, but I push them aside.) Since when is Irish-Italian treated as a US ethnic grouping? Since never, that’s since when. Wittes’s correspondent is apparently just thinking “good old immigrant stock, the kind who … Read the rest

As reporters and commentators are always saying, there is so much terrible flooding out of the Trump Trainwreck that we overlook a lot of important stuff because there are only so many hours in the day. For instance there is the work they’re doing to prevent members of NAFTA from putting warning labels on unhealthy processed foods. That’s not the incineration of the planet, but it is very shitty and callous.

Urged on by big American food and soft-drink companies, the Trump administration is using the trade talks with Mexico and Canada to try to limit the ability of the pact’s three members — including the United States — to warn consumers about the dangers of junk food, according

Yesterday:

A Wisconsin judge Thursday ordered Gov. Scott Walker to call special elections to fill a pair of legislative seats vacated by fellow Republicans, handing a victory to Democrats who have pushed for the elections to be held.

A national Democratic group led by former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder filed the lawsuit on behalf of voters who argued they were disenfranchised by Walker’s decision not to call elections to fill the vacancies that occurred on Dec. 29.

Attorneys for Holder’s groups, the National Redistricting Foundation, argued that Walker has a legal obligation to call special elections as soon as possible. Democrats said the governor is afraid Democrats will win the seats, but Walker contends the lawsuit is a

Libraries. Cherish the libraries, save the libraries, stock the libraries, fund the libraries.

What libraries look like when you don't have a government systematically starving communities of the arts: this is the section of Stockholm's main library aimed at 10-13 year olds. I nearly cried. pic.twitter.com/PjdFPOmVbA

— Sarah Perry (@SarahGPerry) March 22, 2018

 … Read the rest

The Times editorial board offers detail on why Bolton will be dangerous.

The national security adviser is the person who makes sure the president hears the views of all the national security agencies, including the State Department and Defense Department, and drives policy toward a decision. It is hard to see Mr. Bolton playing the honest broker. Mr. Bolton is known to play a ruthless inside game as he maneuvered to win bureaucratic battles and freeze out people he thinks crossed him. He has been such a lightning rod that he couldn’t get confirmed as United Nations ambassador in 2005 so President George W. Bush gave him a recess appointment, and he stayed in the job about a year.

Fuming about woke students shutting down right-wing speakers can be a nice little earner, Mari Uyehara points out.

Bari Weiss for instance.

Weiss’s column titled “We’re All Fascists Now” highlighted the protest of a Christina Hoff Sommers talk at Lewis & Clark Law School, the latest example in an overexposed series of well-meaning college students acting like morons. It was riddled with misrepresentations. To frame the debate as another instance of the liberals attacking fellow liberals, Weiss described Ms. Sommers as a “self-identified” feminist and a “registered” Democrat. To that end, she withheld from readers Sommers’s more relevant professional affiliation: resident scholar at American Enterprise Institute, the neoconservative think tank, which counts feminist Democrat heroes Dick Cheney

Another free speech – teach the controversy – open inquiry – shut it down – listen and learn Item. Lindsay Shepherd invited a right-wing commentator to debate / speak at Laurier University, there were protests, Laurier declined to stop the event. Once the event got started someone pulled a fire alarm and that shut it down.

The talk was set to start at 7:15 p.m. ET. At approximately 7:20 p.m, a fire alarm was pulled and police evacuated the building, preventing anyone from entering the Paul Martin Centre.

Event attendees then moved to Veterans’ Green park, on the other side of campus, where Lindsay Shepherd, the organizer of the event, announced the talk was cancelled.

Shepherd, the co-founder of

Oh honestly. Men.

First, Joe Biden.

Mr. Biden, speaking at a University of Miami rally to combat sexual assault, said, “A guy who ended up becoming our national leader said, ‘I can grab a woman anywhere and she likes it,’ ” according to an Associated Press report.

That’s not what Trump said though. He said he can grab them by the pussy and he did not say she likes it. He said “they let you do it.” Big, huge difference there. It’s not at all about what she likes, it’s about what he can force on her. It’s weird and depressing that even Biden doesn’t know that. Trump is bragging about being so famous that women are afraid … Read the rest

Uh oh. Crops rotting in the fields.

Vegetable prices may be going up soon, as a shortage of migrant workers is resulting in lost crops in California.

Farmers say they’re having trouble hiring enough people to work during harvest season, causing some crops to rot before they can be picked. Already, the situation has triggered losses of more than $13 million in two California counties alone, according to NBC News.

Mind you, when I see those claims I always think they’re leaving something out: Farmers say they’re having trouble hiring enough people at low enough wages. But still, this is also a wholly foreseeable consequence of Trump’s racist war on immigrants.

The ongoing battle about U.S. immigration policies

Kris Kobach really doesn’t want to stop suppressing votes.

A Kansas federal judge had sharp words for Republican Secretary of State [of Kansas] Kris Kobach during a contempt hearing Tuesday, accusing him of misleading the court and failing to inform voters whose registrations were previously suspended that they are eligible to vote.

In May 2016, Judge Julie Robinson issued a preliminary injunction ordering Kobach “to register for federal elections all otherwise eligible motor voter registration applicants,” whether or not they have shown a documentary proof of citizenship. The American Civil Liberties Union, which filed the lawsuit challenging Kobach’s proof of citizenship law, argued that Kobach was failing to add voters to the rolls, making eligible voters cast provisional ballots,

Melania Trump campaigns against cyberbullying.

The jokes write themselves, and so do the exclamations of outrage. If she can’t persuade that monstrosity she’s married to, what sense does it make for her to try to persuade anyone else?

With a particular focus on social media, Melania Trump, the first lady, has long said she wants to curb online bullying and harassment as part of a nascent effort to improve the lives of American children. There’s one problem: Mrs. Trump’s efforts often clash with the president’s longtime habit of using social media to insult people.

A habit which continues even now that he is president of the US, and thus automatically has more power and clout and influence than … Read the rest

The old “human right” switcheroo:

When Roger Severino tells his story, discrimination is at its heart.

“I did experience discrimination as a child. And that leaves a lasting impression,” he tells me.

Severino directs the Office for Civil Rights in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. When I meet with him at his office in the shadow of the Capitol, he talks about his childhood as the son of Colombian immigrants growing up in Los Angeles.

“I remember a white kid coming up, as I was in the pool, [who] said a racial epithet,” Severino recalls. “My response as a kid was — I was confused, in a way. Why would they say such a thing?”

In … Read the rest