Saturday, September 05, 2020

Midnight Meme Of The Day!

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by Noah

And what if that guy also told you injecting Lysol or drinking bleach would get rid of COVID-19, or, told you this:
We had somebody get on a plane from a certain city this weekend, and in the plane it was almost completely loaded with thugs wearing these dark uniforms, black uniforms with gear and this and that. They're on a plane. It's under investigation right now. It took place sometime... That person was on a plane, said that there were about six people like that person, more or less, and what happened is the entire plane filled up with the looters, the anarchists, the rioters, that people that obviously were looking for trouble.
Or this version of the same from the very next day. It's more insane and more "developed." It actually starts out like an "A guy walked into a bar" joke. But, I can't wait 'til he says they all looked just like Obama or starts babbling about little orange men from Neptune:
A person was on a plane said that there were about six people like that person more or less and what happened is the entire plane filled up with the looters, the anarchists, the rioters, people that obviously were looking for trouble and the person felt very uncomfortable in the plane. This would be a person you know. So I will see whether or not I can get that person. I'll let them know and I will see if I can get that person to speak to you.
Sigh, It's so Republican to be "uncomfortable" in the presence of "others." Yeah, I know President Nutjob got this whole thing from the internet even if he says it's someone he knows but it's starting to sound like some sort of darkley bizarre Twilight Zone remake of Harvey (the one about the guy who talks to a 6-foot rabbit buddy) which is turned upside down and mixed in with elements of Taxi Driver, Death Wish, and Stephen King's plane ride horror The Langoliers. Trump's dreams would even scare King.

Don't worry, Little Donnie. One day, the bad, bad men will all go away, like a miracle.

But, wait! There's more. What if this guy sat down next to you on a park bench, told you he was president, told you "This Russia thing is a hoax," and then started comparing a cop holding onto some guy's shirt and shooting him 7 times in the back to missing a 3-foot putt at Mar-a-Lago, or the Masters, or someplace?

My God! Can you imagine if America elected a man like this as president?

Oh, right. We did. Well, 62,000,000 of us did, and they see the bad, bad men, too, wherever they go.

This is life in America in 2020. Life is just a box of live grenades!


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Saturday, June 13, 2020

Racist Pig: Oink, Oink

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There can be little doubt why the leakiest White House in living memory is so obsessed with stopping the constant flow of secret information to the press. Trump himself has been climbing the walls about the impending release (June 23) of The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir, former national security advisor John Bolton's reportedly scathing tel-all about life in the dysfunctional White House. (Worth noting that after Trump's legal shenanigans forced the release date from May 12 to June 23, the number of pages increased from 528 to 576-- and no one has seen those nearly 50 new pages.) Bloomberg News reported yesterday that Bolton has pained "an unflattering picture of Donald Trump in his forthcoming memoir, writing that the president’s foreign policy choices were driven primarily by political considerations," noting that Bolton wrote "I am hard-pressed to identify any significant Trump decision during my tenure that wasn’t driven by re-election calculations."

Perhaps there are still some hardcore Trump supporters with the brain-power left to understand the inappropriateness of a president to think that way or why it is dangerous to the country. But probably not. Nor are they likely to care about the leaks Ashley Parker and Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post used Thursday for their story about Trump's racism. Trump, charging into a series of fights over the nation’s racist legacy, they speculated, is gambling that taking divisive stances on Confederate symbols and policing will energize his mostly white supporters in November. But many Republicans and even some of Trump’s own advisers worry that the approach risks further alienating voters who have already started to abandon him, including college-educated whites, and to harden opposition to him among minorities. Though Trump has long sought to exploit class resentment and racial tensions for political gain, his decision to continue to do so in the wake of the death of George Floyd-- an unarmed black man killed in Minneapolis policy custody-- has left some in his orbit uneasy, and Democrats eager to capitalize on what some say is a racist president revealing his true beliefs. Trump in recent weeks has repeatedly signaled that his sympathies lie with the police over the protesters, whom he has broadly portrayed as members of a loosely affiliated anti-fascist movement known as antifa, though the vast majority of the demonstrators across the country have been peaceful. Since Floyd’s death, he has tweeted about 'LAW & ORDER!' more than a dozen times."


In the aftermath of Floyd’s death, the president’s positions on issues ranging from racism in policing to Confederate symbols have appeared out of step with public opinion and moves by many corporations and institutions to implement changes.

On Wednesday, as White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany was defending Trump’s position not to rename military bases honoring Confederate generals, NASCAR announced that it was banning the Confederate flag from all of its events and properties, saying it ran “contrary to our commitment to providing a welcoming and inclusive environment.”

The changes, both political and cultural, kept coming on Thursday. Lady Antebellum, the country music group, announced it was changing its name to Lady A, because of the term’s association with the slavery era. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) endorsed a package of sweeping police restructuring measures for a state battered by protests over Floyd’s death. And House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), an ally of the president, said he supports a Democratic proposal to ban police chokeholds and signaled an openness to renaming some military bases named after Confederate leaders.

Recent polling shows that Trump’s harsh approach to the protests is not in sync with much of the country. A Washington Post-Schar School poll released Tuesday found that 74 percent of adults supported the protesters, including 53 percent of Republicans. A Monmouth University poll conducted from May 28 to June 1 found that while 17 percent said the actions of protesters such as burning a police precinct in Minneapolis were “fully justified,” a 57 percent majority said the anger that led to these protests was fully justified.


“It seems to me that Trump represents the death rattle of an older America,” said Eddie Glaude, chair of the department of African American studies at Princeton University. “Everything he’s doubling down on is precisely what we’re trying to leave behind, and so the battle that is now being engaged is precisely a battle surrounding what kind of country will we be moving forward, and he is holding onto with all of his might this idea of America as a white nation.”

Inside Trump’s orbit, several of the president’s aides are frustrated that some of his crafted statements on the recent unrest have been eclipsed by his incendiary tweets or remarks. Some also regret the decision on June 1 to use force to clear Lafayette Square of protesters before he staged a photo op in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church.

Trump’s pollsters and political advisers have also been encouraging him to soften his message in an effort to win back suburban women and other moderate voters in swing states where he is trailing in the polls.

One administration official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal dynamics, expressed frustration that Trump was gratuitously weighing in on Confederate memorials and a protester getting shoved to the ground in Buffalo, as well as unnecessarily attacking rivals like Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT), who marched in a Black Lives Matter protest over the weekend. The official added that Trump is mainly surrounding himself with a small knot of aides and even then is often not following their advice.

Two White House officials said the public largely agrees with the president that calls to defund the police go too far, and allies have said they wish Trump would focus on painting the Democrats as supporting lawlessness.

During a meeting with Republicans at the White House last week, Trump said what happened to Floyd was “horrible,” said one of the attendees, speaking anonymously to share details of a private conversation. But the president then veered into heralding “law and order” and getting tough on looters and protesters, the person added.

Trump has told allies that his stance against protesters will poll better than they think, a person who has spoken to him about it said.




“If he was trying to lose, he’d be doing basically what he is doing right now,” said a Republican strategist in frequent touch with the White House.

In some instances, both the president and his team have been surprised at the backlash he has prompted. After Trump suggested in a tweet that a 75-year-old Buffalo protester who was hospitalized after being shoved to the ground by police might have been an “ANTIFA provocateur,” a senior White House official said the president was taken aback by the negative reaction, which “threw the West Wing into a tailspin for many hours.”

Some Republicans and Trump allies were also upset after realizing the president’s team had scheduled his first campaign rally since coronavirus outbreak for Juneteenth in Tulsa, although several people familiar with the planning said the date was unintentional. Some allies warned against moving ahead with the rally, but other Trump aides said they were not overly bothered about the historical significance and that Trump himself is “not at all concerned” about safety implications, whether from the coronavirus or protesters.

White House spokesman Judd Deere defended Trump’s handling of the recent racial unrest, saying that “any coordinated attempt by the Left and the media to suggest otherwise is shameful and only meant to sow division and ignore the President’s work for underserved communities.”


“President Trump’s record as a private citizen and as president has been one of fighting for inclusion and advocating for the equal treatment of all,” Deere said in a statement.

Katrina Pierson, a senior adviser for the Trump campaign, also touted Trump’s work for black Americans. “President Trump has a track record of success for Black Americans, including record-breaking low unemployment numbers prior to the pandemic, all-time high funding for Historically Black Colleges and Universities, criminal justice reform, and Opportunity Zones have lifted millions of Black Americans out of poverty,” she said in a statement.

Trump’s move to shift Republican nomination events to Jacksonville, Fla., because he objected to coronavirus safety restrictions in the original national convention city of Charlotte is also fraught with racial controversy.

The date that Trump is expected to accept the nomination, Aug. 27, would coincide with the 60th anniversary of Ax Handle Saturday, considered one of the darkest days in Jacksonville’s history. A mob of about 200 white people armed with ax handles and baseball bats attacked a group of demonstrators after they left a sit-in at a local whites-only lunch counter.



Local civil rights leaders were planning an event in a downtown Jacksonville park to commemorate the violence on that day. Rodney Hurst-- who helped organize the Jacksonville sit-ins 60 years ago and wrote a book about Ax Handle Saturday-- said the presence of the Republican convention in the city could simply increase the number of people planning to attend Ax Handle Saturday events, which are set to held about a mile from where Trump would give his prime-time speech.

“Donald Trump is a racist,” Hurst said. “I don’t think it requires any real insight to know who and what Donald Trump is.”
"I Can't Breathe" by Nancy Ohanian


Earlier this week, a team of Washington Post reporters noted that "As racial justice demonstrations stretched into their third week, President Trump said Wednesday that he would “not even consider” growing calls to rename U.S. military bases that honor Confederate generals. 'Our history as the Greatest Nation in the World will not be tampered with,' Trump tweeted. Civil rights activists and former military officials, including retired U.S. Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, have stepped up pressure to rename installations such as Fort Bragg and Fort Benning, saying they wrongfully glorify leaders who committed treason to defend slavery in the United States." They listed some developments that show how increasingly alone with the KKK Trump has become:
NASCAR announced Wednesday that it was banning displays of the Confederate flag at all its “events and properties.”
Amazon has banned police from using its controversial facial-recognition technology for a year amid ongoing nationwide protests over police brutality and racial profiling. Studies have shown that facial-recognition systems misidentify people of color more often than white people.
Statues honoring Christopher Columbus were toppled, destroyed and disfigured in St. Paul, Boston and Richmond on Wednesday — the latest in a wave of attacks on historic monuments by George Floyd protesters.
More than 1,250 former Justice Department workers on Wednesday signed a letter calling on the agency’s internal watchdog to investigate Attorney General William P. Barr’s involvement in law enforcement’s move last week to push a crowd of largely peaceful demonstrators back from Lafayette Square using horses and gas before Trump’s photo op at St. John’s Episcopal Church.
Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo said he was withdrawing from contract negotiations with the local police union as he pursues reforms that would make it easier to terminate officers who act inappropriately.
Floyd’s family and the Rev. Al Sharpton are expecting 100,000 people to attend a new March on Washington in August to push for criminal justice reform on the 57th anniversary of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s original March on Washington.

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Saturday, June 06, 2020

Midnight Meme Of The Day!

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by Noah

Then: June 6, 1944.
Now: June 6, 2020.

What if FOX "News" had existed back then? Do you ever wonder whose side Trump's propagandists at FOX "News" would be on? I don't. I think the likes of Tucker Tiki-Torch, his fellow white supremacist Sean Hannity, the Hilter salute gal, Laura Ingraham, and the rest would probably be trying to broadcast their pro-Nazi propaganda from a hidden bunker or a ship at sea. Sure, there are degrees of fascism. Corporations and banks around the world push it as much as we let them, and sadly, we do let them by allowing our representatives in government to let them, for the cash put in their pockets, of course. But, FOX crossed different line long ago and you can tell they'd keep crossing lines until they were running concentration camps themselves and not just applauding them. Right, Lou Dobbs?

Nowadays, Republicans like the fascist sympathizers at FOX and the fascists in the White House, don't hesitate to label loose groups who call themselves Antifa (for Anti-Fascist) terrorists, but, it's more than revealing that they never label white supremacists, the KKK, and the white nationalist militia groups like those who stromed the Michigan legislature with guns terrorists. Nope. Those are all "very fine people," if you're a fellow Nazi.

So, can you see people like Tucker Tiki-Torch aiming bullets at American, Canadian, British troops and democracy itself as the troops stormed the shores on D-Day? I can. He already does it with words. He would have done at least that then. He's just a half step from the next line now.

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Thursday, September 07, 2017

Violence and the State: A Prelude

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by Gaius Publius

Every national instance of Rule by the Rich is accompanied by a great deal of violence, inflicted on the many by the few.
—Yours truly (paraphrased)

As you ponder the criticism of the Antifa ("anti-fascist") movement for engaging in violent tactics in Berkeley, consider the following.

This is violence.

"The scene in Berkeley on Sunday" (source). Photo: Marcus Yam/LA Times via Getty Images

This is violence.

To justify Bush's numerous rights violations, at home and abroad, James Comey turned Jose Padilla's brain "to jello" (image source).

According to Rick Perlstein:
James Comey, currently sailing smoothly through Senate Judiciary Committee hearings for confirmation as chief of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, was ... in charge, and proudly so, of a “terrorism” case that began with a detention without charges, continued with made-up and spurious charges, and ended with a conviction won against an American [Jose Padilla] whose treatment during confinement (on the American mainland) turned his brain to jello...
This is violence.

"The 350-acre Horse Prairie Fire is burning outside of Olalla [Oregon] on Saturday night and is zero percent contained" (source). Photo courtesy of Kyle Reed

A look at the headlines:
Los Angeles wildfires: City battles 'largest fire in history'

British Columbia is having its worst wildfire season in recorded history.

After burning for months, Montana looks like a fiery apocalypse.

Rain in Seattle is normal. Raining ash, however, is not.
We are in, to quote Randall Amster, a "new normal of destabilization," created by a political world in which both parties, Democrats and Republicans alike, out of service to fossil fuel billionaires and the companies they control, refuse in varying degrees to treat global warming as already a national emergency, one that requires, first and foremost, a transition to zero use of fossil fuels at the fastest possible rate if we hope in any way to alter the deadly and destructive path of what's already started happening to us.

▪ And this is violence.

"An alternate transportation network of private buses—fully equipped with wifi—thus threads daily through San Francisco, picking up workers at unmarked bus stops (though many coexist in digital space), carrying them southward via the commuter lanes of the 101 and 280 freeways, and eventually delivers them to their campuses" (source).

According to the SF Examiner, "Right now the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency charges companies serving multi-billion dollar technology companies $3.67 per stop event, what some critics have called a 'pittance.'"

The city gets a pittance for each "stop event" by these private busses, while the city's non-high-tech-connected citizens get no right at all to ride them. A two-tiered world of transportation, in other words, sanctioned and welcomed by government and financed in large part by tax dollars.

One more wealth transfer among a great many. A gift given to the few (our "future-seeing" high tech billionaires) to sweeten their bottom lines by making their jobs as attractive to their workers as possible. A gift paid from the pockets of the many to whom the service is unavailable.

The Violence of the State

Every national instance of Rule by the Rich is accompanied by a great deal of violence, inflicted on the many by the few.

Consider just the examples above.

The violence of torture and death, inflicted at home and abroad, by the state on the innocent, all so the state can appear to be something it's not, all so its ruling elites can stay in power.

The violence of climate chaos, inflicted by a national government which for decades has refused to act in any real way to lessen the coming costly horrible climate blows. (Of all major candidates, only Sanders was serious about climate mitigation.)

The violence of near-slavish service to increasing income inequality, again by both parties, a service that brought us the failed revolt we now call the 2016 election and its disastrous aftermath — a revolt, by the way, which is not going away no matter which party takes power.

Consider all this as you ponder the critics of the Antifa ("anti-fascist") movement and the call by those same elites (example: Nancy Pelosi in the quote above) for a return to the state-only violence they call "order."

Whose hands are clean? Whose violence does greater harm?

GP
 

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