Midnight Meme Of The Day!

by Noah

President Useless has turned his nightly "briefing" show into a new form of MAGA-Lie-Fest rally and, of course, just like during the 2016 campaign, the Korporate Media is giving him all the free airtime he wants for his extended horror-reality extravaganza of disrespect for humanity. We've all seen the lists of continuous lies and timelines of our psychopathic president's deliberate inaction and worse. The tragic results for so many families were completely predictable, especially to a president who had all the information at the tips of his little fingers. Now, he even admits that he always knew it was a pandemic. There you have it. The potential for human misery and death is tremendous, bigly even. He even says he's a "Wartime President" now, just like Dubya once cynically said with a smirk. The political assclown set thinks that invoking the magic "Wartime President" phrase entitles them to four more years. Sadly, idiots all across the land fall for it Fool me twice... you can't get fooled again? The media barely even questions Donnie Useless. Why would they? They're in his corner.

Lots of people are dying needlessly, including Trump supporters. Unlike them, the virus doesn't discriminate. But, as I write this on Wednesday afternoon, not even one person in the White House has died. That's OK. They're all waiting to be raptured anyway.

But it's not just the fact that President Useless gave the coronavirus a headstart and a more solid foothold than it would have been given by a non-psychopathic president of any party; there are other evils afoot. One, there's the suspension of all EPA environmental safety protocols and regulations. Yeah, just what we need on top of a virus, more lead, mercury and death-causing carcinogens in our water and air. Sounds like a Republican wet dream if there ever was one, and there always is.

Ah, but number two is even more special. It involves bigotry, another thing that drives Trump and his party. Republicans always need a target. Once it was Jews. Once it was Catholics, Once it was people with beards. They were proclaimed communists. Then there were people with long hair. They were communists too. Back in 1968, the Republican Party began whole heartedly seizing the hate of African-Americans, called Negroes back then, away from the southern wing of the Democratic Party. Eventually, George Wallace got shot and Harry Byrd more or less recanted and stayed but, mission accomplished. Next it was "the Gays." Now there's a particular hate being reserved for our transgender brothers and sisters. Republicans just can't stop themselves. It's in their essence. You'd think they would run out of targets, but no...

So, what is it now? Where do republicans direct their psychosis and sociopathy? What, besides giving Americans more cancer and handing out our tax dollars to billionaire donors, can the republicans come up with? What other chance to take advantage of the pandemic is there? No, I'm not talking about the looting of the U.S. treasury or physically poisoning people. No, there's a whole new segment of the population to hit! It's the Chinese-Americans! A godsend for endemic republican hate and once again their Dear Leader led the way by becoming a stochastic terrorist and trying to incite Republican hate against Chinese-Americans by labeling and therefore marketing the coronavirus as the "Chinese virus" and his FOX "News" brown shirts instantly picked it up and followed suit, spitting out the word China when discussing the virus on their polluted airwaves. It wasn't enough for them that they had already spent so much energy telling their viewers that there was nothing to worry about that the whole coronavirus thing was "a Democrat hoax."

The result has been their desired uptick in hate crimes against Asian-Americans, just as the also hated FBI warned about. Here in New York, we've had repeated incidents of abuse directed at Asia-American citizens for just riding the subways and for just wearing the masks that we all should be wearing. In a classic example of the divide and conquer goal of stochastic terrorism, an African-American man was filmed spraying an Asian-American man with what appeared to be a can of disinfectant. How much do you wanna bet that the clip has become the most popular gif in the White House, a real guaranteed laff-o-matic whenever Moscow Mitch or some other goon comes over for hamberders or Chick-fil-A? Kellyanne and Stephen Miller probably even have it on a T-shirt. Nationwide, hate crimes against Asian-Americans have now surpassed 1000 in number and that's with only counts in 32 or the 50 states. In Texas, a family of three was stabbed, including 2 small children. We're at a pace approaching 100 a day now. Make America Great Again.

Jeez, next thing you know, some Trump fan/FOX devotee will be riding around in a van completely covered with MAGA and FOX stickers and he'll be mailing out pipe bombs to every Chinese-American he can find.


ADDENDUM:

On March 21st, the pastor who leads the Trump cabinet's bible study group, a kook named Ralph Drollinger, claimed that the existence and spread of the coronavirus is due to "a proclivity towards lesbianism and homosexuality" and the "religion of environmentalism." Drollinger claims that these groups are "largely responsible" for God's wrath against America. Drollinger's ministry seeks to evangelize Washington officials and he has a large following among Senators, Congresspersons, and other officials, including, as previously mentioned, the Trump cabinet. This is your current government folks. This is your current White House, a den of jihadist hate in America if there ever was one. The Trump cultists corrupt and twist the Bible just like the Middle East terrorists corrupt and twist the Koran. The membership for Drollinger's weekly bible studies includes Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, Education Secretarry Betsy DeVos, and Health Secretary Alex Azar. All are members not just of Trump's cabinet but Trump's coronavirus task force.

How Young Donald Learned To Weaponize His Racism

Over the weekend, a tweet from Ro Khanna alerted me to a favorite Trump shenanigan-- a roll back to an Obama housing desegregation rule. The very first time the name "Donald J. Trump" appeared in the New York Times, a thrill for the young publicity hound, was in connection to a government law suit in which he and his crooked, racist father were charged with violating a civil rights act in regard to housing. In short, they were refusing to rent apartments to blacks and hispanics even though the properties were built with government loans that prohibited racial discrimination. When the Trumps were able to worm their way out of it with countersuits and by making themselves unbearably annoying it set Trump on a path of action about how to get away with criminal behavior that is apparent today-- and in every phase of his miserable life.

A few months before he managed to steal the 2016 election, the New York Times reprised that episode: 'No Vacancies' For Blacks: How Donald Trump Got His Start, And Was First Accused Of Bias. Jonathan Mahler and Steve Eder reported on the Trumps' "practice of turning away potential black tenants [which] was painstakingly documented by activists and organizations that viewed equal housing as the next frontier in the civil rights struggle."

The Justice Department undertook its own investigation and, in 1973, sued Trump Management for discriminating against blacks. Both Fred Trump, the company’s chairman, and Donald Trump, its president, were named as defendants. It was front-page news, and for Donald, amounted to his debut in the public eye.

“Absolutely ridiculous,” he was quoted as saying of the government’s allegations.

Looking back, Mr. Trump’s response to the lawsuit can be seen as presaging his handling of subsequent challenges, in business and in politics. Rather than quietly trying to settle-- as another New York developer had done a couple of years earlier-- he turned the lawsuit into a protracted battle, complete with angry denials, character assassination, charges that the government was trying to force him to rent to “welfare recipients” and a $100 million countersuit accusing the Justice Department of defamation.

When it was over, Mr. Trump declared victory, emphasizing that the consent decree he ultimately signed did not include an admission of guilt.

But an investigation by the New York Times-- drawing on decades-old files from the New York City Commission on Human Rights, internal Justice Department records, court documents and interviews with tenants, civil rights activists and prosecutors-- uncovered a long history of racial bias at his family’s properties, in New York and beyond.

...[Fred Trump's] establishment as one of the city’s biggest developers was hardly free of controversy: The Senate Banking Committee subpoenaed him in 1954 during an investigation into profiteering off federal housing loans. Under oath, he acknowledged that he had wildly overstated the costs of a development to obtain a larger mortgage from the government.

In 1966, as the investigative journalist Wayne Barrett detailed in “Trump: The Greatest Show on Earth,” a New York legislative committee accused Fred Trump of using state money earmarked for middle-income housing to build a shopping center instead. One lawmaker called Mr. Trump “greedy and grasping.”

By this point, the Trump organization’s business practices were beginning to come under scrutiny from civil rights groups that had received complaints from prospective African-American tenants.

People like Maxine Brown.

Mr. Leibowitz, the rental agent at the Wilshire, remembered Ms. Brown repeatedly inquiring about the apartment. “Finally, she realized what it was all about,” he said.

Ms. Brown’s first instinct was to let the matter go; she was happy enough at the Y.W.C.A. “I had a big room and two meals a day for five dollars a week,” she said in an interview.

But a friend, Mae Wiggins, who had also been denied an apartment at the Wilshire, told her that she ought to have her own place, with a private bathroom and a kitchen. She encouraged Ms. Brown to file a complaint with the New York City Commission on Human Rights, as she was doing.

“We knew there was prejudice in renting,” Ms. Wiggins recalled. “It was rampant in New York. It made me feel really bad, and I wanted to do something to right the wrong.”





Mr. Leibowitz was called to testify at the commission’s hearing on Ms. Brown’s case. Asked to estimate how many blacks lived in Mr. Trump’s various properties, he remembered replying: “To the best of my knowledge, none.”

After the hearing, Ms. Brown was offered an apartment in the Wilshire, and in the spring of 1964, she moved in. For 10 years, she said, she was the only African-American in the building.

Complaints about the Trump organization’s rental policies continued to mount: By 1967, state investigators found that out of some 3,700 apartments in Trump Village, seven were occupied by African-American families.

Like Ms. Brown, the few minorities who did live in Trump-owned buildings often had to force their way in.

...Unlike the public schools, the housing market could not be desegregated simply by court order. Even after passage of the Fair Housing Act of 1968, which prohibited racial discrimination in housing, developments in white neighborhoods continued to rebuff blacks.

For years, it fell largely to local civil rights groups to highlight the problem by sending white “testers” into apartment complexes after blacks had been turned away.

“Everything was sort of whispers and innuendo and you wanted to try to bring it out into the open,” recalled Phyllis Kirschenbaum, who volunteered for Operation Open City, a housing rights advocacy organization. “I’d walk in with my freckles and red hair and Jewish name and get an apartment immediately.”

...Donald Trump said he had first heard about the lawsuit, which was filed in the fall of 1973, on his car radio.

The government had charged him, his father and their company, Trump Management Inc., with violating the Fair Housing Act.

Another major New York developer, the LeFrak Organization, had been hit with a similar suit a few years earlier. Its founder, Samuel LeFrak, had appeared at a news conference alongside the United States attorney, trumpeting a consent agreement to prohibit discrimination in his buildings by saying it would “make open housing in our cities a reality.” The LeFrak company even offered the equivalent of one month’s rent to help 50 black families move into predominantly white buildings.

Donald Trump took a different approach. He retained Senator Joseph McCarthy’s red-baiting counsel, Roy Cohn, to defend him. Mr. Trump soon called his own news conference-- to announce his countersuit against the government.

The government’s lawyers took as their starting point the years of research conducted by civil rights groups at Trump properties.

“We did our own investigation and enlarged the case,” said Elyse Goldweber, who as a young assistant United States attorney worked on the lawsuit, U.S.A. v. Trump.

A former Trump superintendent named Thomas Miranda testified that multiple Trump Management employees had instructed him to attach a separate piece of paper with a big letter “C” on it-- for “colored”-- to any application filed by a black apartment-seeker.

The Trumps went on the offensive, filing a contempt-of-court charge against one of the prosecutors, accusing her of turning the investigation into a “Gestapo-like interrogation.” The Trumps derided the lawsuit as a pressure tactic to get them to sign a consent decree like the one agreed to by Mr. LeFrak.

The judge dismissed both the countersuit and the contempt-of-court charge. After nearly two years of legal wrangling, the Trumps gave up and signed a consent decree.

As is customary, it did not include an admission of guilt. But it did include pages of stipulations intended to ensure the desegregation of Trump properties.

Equal housing activists celebrated the agreement as more robust than the one signed by Mr. LeFrak. It required that Trump Management provide the New York Urban League with a weekly list of all its vacancies.

This did not stop Mr. Trump from declaring victory. “In the end the government couldn’t prove its case, and we ended up making a minor settlement without admitting any guilt,” he wrote in The Art of the Deal.

Only this was not quite the end.

A few years later, the government accused the Trumps of violating the consent decree. “We believe that an underlying pattern of discrimination continues to exist in the Trump Management organization,” a Justice Department lawyer wrote to Mr. Cohn in 1978.

Once again, the government marshaled numerous examples of blacks being denied Trump apartments. But this time, it also identified a pattern of racial steering.

While more black families were now renting in Trump-owned buildings, the government said, many had been confined to a small number of complexes. And tenants in some of these buildings had complained about the conditions, from falling plaster to rusty light fixtures to bloodstained floors.

The Trumps effectively wore the government down. The original consent decree expired before the Justice Department had accumulated enough evidence to press its new case.

This past October, ACLU staffers Linda Morris and Alejandro Ortiz, warned that Trump was about to slam the door on fair housing: Trump Administration's new rule would dismantle critical housing protections for the most vulnerable and marginalized communities. It's as though Trump was looking for revenge against a government that called him and his family out on their racism. "Fifty years after the enactment of the Fair Housing Act (FHA), housing discrimination remains a national disgrace in the United States. Across the country, a growing tide of housing providers, perhaps emboldened by Trump’s anti-“other” rhetoric, discriminate against the very communities the FHA was designed to protect. In 2017 alone, there were nearly 29,000 reported complaints of housing discrimination across the country. Despite growing diversity in population, residential segregation persists at alarming rates hurting local schools, property values, and much more. Just this year, Black homeownership rates dropped to a record low of 40.6% which is the lowest level recorded by the Census Bureau since 1950. Despite this ongoing crisis, the Trump Administration proposed a new rule that will dismantle critical housing protections for the most vulnerable and marginalized communities.

In one of this administration’s most outrageous attacks on civil rights yet, the proposed rule will make a mockery of one of the FHA’s most critical enforcement tools: the Disparate Impact Rule. The Rule allows potential victims of housing discrimination to challenge unjustified policies or practices that disproportionately harm them. Courts have recognized disparate impact liability under the FHA for decades, culminating in the Supreme Court’s 2015 decision affirming disparate impact liability in Texas Department of Housing & Community Affairs v. Inclusive Communities Project.  There, the Court explained the significance of disparate impact liability: “[H]ousing restrictions that function unfairly to exclude minorities from certain neighborhoods without any sufficient justification . . . reside at the heartland of disparate-impact liability.” Under the Obama administration, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) acknowledged this principle by formally codifying the Disparate Impact Rule in 2013, and consistently affirming the existing Disparate Impact Rule through its fair housing enforcement and guidance as recently as 2016.

...Why does Trump want to undermine this rule? Because it works. Disparate impact liability is a tool like none other in the law with numerous examples of how it has helped dismantle the many systemic barriers to fair housing. The Disparate Impact Rule has been critical in challenging covert or disguised forms of housing discrimination that otherwise escape easy classification. Advocates have invoked the Disparate Impact Rule in challenging discriminatory zoning regulations, predatory mortgage lending practices that charge excessive rates to people of color or people with disabilities, overly restrictive occupancy requirements that shut out families with children, and policies that threaten housing for survivors of gender-based violence and women of color.

By early January, HUD was proposing a rule that would redefine the way jurisdictions are required to promote fair housing and scrap a key assessment tool used to map racial segregation under the 2015 Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule. The 2015 rule-- which the Obama administration introduced as a way to beef up enforcement of the landmark Fair Housing Act of 1968-- required local governments to track patterns of poverty and segregation with a checklist of 92 questions in order to gain access to federal housing funds.

Lisa Rice, executive vice president of the National Fair Housing Alliance, said the proposal is "a step in the wrong direction. It would weaken fair housing enforcement and basically abdicate jurisdictions and public housing authorities from their fair housing responsibilities. It’s even weaker than the scheme that HUD had before the 2015 rule was implemented …That’s the system that the [Government Accountability Office] found to be completely inept and ineffective."

“The Obama administration’s fair housing rule made the strongest effort in decades to reverse harmful patterns of segregation and discriminatory practices in communities across the country,” said Diane Yentel, president and CEO of the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

Carson, the only black member of President Donald Trump's cabinet, “is scrapping years of extensive input and intensive work that went into the fair housing rule and essentially reverting to the agency’s previous flawed and failed system,” Yentel said.

Boston progressive congressional candidate, Brianna Wu told me that affordable housing is the single biggest issue for many voters in her district. "Of course Trump would reverse any protections to end segregation and discrimination of affordable housing," she said. "Any initiative from the Obama Administration that actually works and helps people is on Trump’s hit list. This is yet another example of Trump’s blatant racism and trying to line his pockets. Affordable housing and gentrification is a significant issue in Boston and other areas of my district. My opponent, Stephen Lynch, has been silent on the issue to appeal to his donors from the real estate industry. I know this has been said many times before, but it bears repeating-- elections have consequences. If we keep electing real estate 'moguls' and representatives who are owned by the real estate industry, change will never happen. We have a lot of work to do, and truly affordable housing for all will be a top priority for me when I get to Congress, both for my district and the nation."

Scapegoating Immigrants Wasn't Invented By Trump Or Hitler-- Let's Look At India And Israel Today

Far right political leaders Modi and Netanyahu

You’ve probably read about serious riots in India in the last week-- and if you’ve been online much, you have probably come to see that many people are openly referring to Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a fascist and genocidist, something DWT readers have known for over 2 decades. India has over 200 million Muslims and the Modi government has always been eager to target them. A new law, the Citizenship Amendment Act passed in early December, offering amnesty to non-Muslim illegal immigrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.

There have been massive protests in Delhi, Chennai (Madras), Bangalore, Jaipur (where 300,000 people took to the streets) and Kolkata (Calcutta), not to mention throughout the states of Assam and Uttar Pradesh.





In India, scapegoating and ratcheting up the hatred and bigotry is backfiring on Modi and his government. This kind of thing is slightly less obvious in Israel, which has better p.r. than Modi’s government. A few days ago Haaretz reported that a government report classifies more than a third of immigrants to Israel as “not Jewish,” although most actually are Jewish. It’s a matter of definition... and government aid. Jews from Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and the U.S. have been having trouble being accepted as “legitimate” Jews and getting automatic citizenship and welfare. Even the right to marry is in jeopardy. Presumably, 2018 marked the first time in Israel’s history when Jewish immigrants were outnumbered by non-Jewish immigrants, although most of the non-Jewish immigrants self-identify as Jews. Since independence in 1948, Israel has welcomed over 3 million immigrants.

More than one out of three immigrants moving to Israel since 2012 is not considered Jewish by the state, according to figures published on Tuesday by the Interior Ministry’s Population Registry. Among immigrants originating from the former Soviet Union, who account for the majority of immigrants to Israel in recent years, the share was significantly higher.

The Interior Ministry, which does not typically publish such figures, was forced to release them in response to a Freedom of Information Act request submitted by Hiddush, an organization that advocates for religious freedom in Israel. But the initial figures, which Hiddush published on Monday, contained glaring errors that were quickly picked up on by organizations active in aliyah.

According to the updated figures, 61 percent of immigrants arriving from Russia since 2012 and 66 percent of those coming from Ukraine are not considered Jewish by the state. By contrast, fewer than 5 percent of those moving to Israel from the United States fit this definition. Among immigrants from France-- another major source of aliyah during the period in question-- under 4 percent were considered not Jewish.

During the period in question, a total of 199,876 immigrants became Israeli citizens under the Law of Return. Among them, 37.5 percent were registered as not Jewish.

To qualify as Jewish under the Law of Return, which governs eligibility for aliyah, an individual must have either been born to a Jewish mother or converted to Judaism in a recognized Jewish community. Although all such converts are registered as Jewish in the Population Registry, if they were not converted by rabbis approved by the Orthodox-run Chief Rabbinate, they are prohibited from marrying other Jews in Israel. Therefore, the percentage of immigrants deemed ineligible to marry other Jews in Israel among those who arrived in the country in the last eight years is likely higher than 37.5 percent (although no exact figures were provided by the Interior Ministry).

Under the Law of Return, the spouses, children and grandchildren of Jews are allowed to immigrate to Israel, even if they do not fit the Population Registry’s definition of Jewish. These individuals belong to a category designated as “other” or “no religion” by the Population Registry and Central Bureau of Statistics.

According to estimates published by Prof. Sergio DellaPergola of Hebrew University, Israel’s leading demographer, a total of 426,700 Israeli citizens, or just under 5 percent of the total population, currently fall into this rather bizarre category. Because only a small percentage of these “others” opt to convert to Judaism, and given their childbearing rate, their numbers have been growing by thousands every year.

Responding to the Population Registry figures, Rabbi Seth Farber, the founder and executive director of ITIM— an organization that advocates for immigrants— said: “The numbers reflect the new reality of Jewish peoplehood:  There are tens of thousands of people who identify as Jews and seek to tie their destiny to the Jewish future and the Jewish state, but do not meet the halakhic definition of Jewish [meaning under traditional Jewish religious law]. The State of Israel and the halakhic community have a great responsibility to find ways to enable these individuals and families to join the halakhic community-- should they seek to. The diversity represented in these numbers is real, and we must create conversion reform in Israel. The alternative is to blind ourselves to the future of the Jewish people and to our present reality.”

Israel is in a serious demographic war with Arabs-- who have a much higher birthrate than Israeli Jews-- and the only way to keep up has been to vigorously encourage non-Muslim immigrants. There were over 37,000 in 2018 and Israel is on track to increase that by 20% this year. In 2018, about 10,500 people came from Russia, 6,400 from Ukraine, 2,400 each from the U.S. and from France. Meanwhile, Israel has completely shut off asylum seekers from Africa. Not a single one was admitted in 2018.

Midnight Meme Of The Day!

by Noah

But his emails!!!

Thanks to a new report from The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), it has come out that Trump advisor Stephen Miller has been the man behind a veritable slime trail treasure trove of up to 900 pro-white supremacy and pro-white nationalism emails to Breitbart, a goose-stepping pseudo news organization that serves as a source for FOX "News" goons such as Laura Ingraham, Tucker Carlson, Lou Dobbs, and Sean Hannity, and, is extremely popular among Republican Party members and other Neo-Nazi-affiliated organizations. The emails have been pushing a white nationalist agenda for years and have recently been emanating right out of Stephen Miller's office in the White House. The Philadelphia Inquirer has this to say:

Among the more damning email exchanges highlighted in the SPLC report is one that shows Miller directing a Breitbart reporter to aggregate stories from the white supremacist journal American Renaissance, or "AmRen," for stories that emphasize crimes committed by immigrants and nonwhites. In another, Miller is apparently upset that amazon removed Confederate flag merchandise from its marketplace in the wake of the 2015 Charleston,SC church massacre. Others reportedly show him promoting "The Camp of Saints," a racist French novel popular among white nationalists.

"The Camp of The Saints" is popular among white nationalists such as Miller and his boss if only because it features a lead character who dines on human feces and, also features lots of "brown people" coming to a new country to rape its white women. Sound familiar? To us, the emails seem incriminating and typically downright evil. To Republicans, they are evidence of Miller's "innate righteousness." Current White House Communications Director Stephanie Grisham, aka the new Sarah Huckabee Sanders, apparently agrees, stating, officially, that the well-respected and revered SPLC is "an utterly discredited, long debunked far-left smear organization." In other words, "We don't need your effing facts!" Stephanie Grisham meet Gym Jordan, or Sean Spicer for that matter. Like Miller, Stephanie must have been swell in junior high school; so swell her tiny, childish mind never left.

Some of the emails also give voice to conspiracy material such as the republican favorite known as the "Great Replacement" conspiracy, a hugely paranoid conspiracy that claims there is a plan afoot to replace white people with "brown" people. It's a sister of the "Jews will not replace us" chanting heard so loudly in Charlottesville,VA when the Republican Tiki Torch crowd was protesting the removal of statues that commemorate their beloved southern heritage of slave ownership. The "Great Replacement" conspiracy is a great favorite of "very fine people" everywhere including the most prominent white nationalists on "GOP-TV" and on other alt-right (Nazi) media outlets, and, of course, in the oval office.

Stephen Miller, who was once an aid to Alabama racist Jeff Sessions (former AG, disgraced Senator and soon to be next Senator), is the man who our white nationalist president hired to turn his stable genius hate-filled Neo-Nazi thoughts of national racial purity and sadistic repression into action. Stephen Miller authored the infamous Muslim Ban and he's the architect of policies that took children from the arms of their parents and put them in cages for months and, in an untold number of cases, soon to be years. As if that isn't bad enough, Millers psychotic concepts have even brought about many instances of the Trump government saying they can't tell us, or should I say, don't want to tell us what has become of them. They are "the disappeared." After all, whether or not those stolen babies and children are even still breathing matters not to anyone in the Trump White House. Would it even shock you at this point if at some time in the future it was disclosed that one of Trump's staff or top donors had organized a child-trafficking ring and all those claims about Hillary Clinton running something akin to that out of a pizza shop were projection? A party that is capable of working with Putin and accepts the cash of his Russian mobster teams is capable of any transgression upon human decency. In any event, Stephen Miller, is the epitome of this kind of republican thought. Stephen Miller is the essence of the Republican Party and the Republican Party is Stephen Miller. The two are inseparable in more ways than one.

Of course the fact that Stephen Miller is a white supremacist and proud of it is no shocker. Those who knew him even in his teen years knew what he was. He was malformed early as was his boss.To Trump, what Stephen Miller has always been made him a perfect hire; the "best people" indeed. Fellow racists Steve Bannon, Sebastian Gorka, John Kelly, and others may be gone but you can bet that the Trump White House is still chock full of Nazi true believers brought in by the Trump and Miller himself, often with the nodding smiles and approvals of the republican-controlled $enate. Miller and his emails represent a Republican Party dream come true and it's a dream that 62,000,000 Americans embraced and voted for.

Turns Out Not All Bigots Are Republicans-- Virginia Democrats Have Laura Sellers

In two days, this Tuesday, Virginia has a super-important election day-- primaries for the state legislature, with both houses on the verge of flipping blue. Some good news: Virginia has same day registration so potentially everyone over 18 can vote. Two years ago Democrats flipped 15 Republican-held seats blue in the House of Delegates, far more than the somewhat backward state party imagined was possible. The Republican majority is down to 51-49. The Republican majority in the state Senate is also tenuous-- 21-19. The Democrats control the governors' mansion and if they flip a seat in each chamber they will have effective control over the redrawing of the state and congressional boundaries after the 2020 census. All 100 delegates seats and all 40 Senate seats are up for grabs on Tuesday. Blue America has endorsed two extraordinary candidates for the House of Delegates and two for the Senate: Lee Carter and Elizabeth Guzmán for the lower house and Herb Jones and Qasim Rashid for the upper chamber.

Yesterday I heard some troubling news from a friend and colleague, Lizet Ocampo, political director of People for the American Way. PFAW has also endorsed Qasim Rashid, and Liz warned that there's a racist pig in the Democrat in the primary. It didn't take much googling to realize she's talking about Laura Sellers, an Islamophobe running around the district smearing Qasim. This is a tough seat for a Democrat to win-- parts of Stafford, Prince William, King George, Spotsylvania and Westmoreland counties-- but having an overt bigot running as a Democrat makes it that much harder. The entrenched incumbent, Richard Stuart, must be reveling in the bigotry and hatred Sellers, desperate and losing badly, is spreading about Qasim.

Lizet wrote:

One of PFAW’s exceptional endorsed progressive candidates in Virginia-- Qasim Rashid, whom we’re supporting with our Next Up Victory Fund-- is the target of some extremely bigoted attacks... and they’re not coming from the Right Wing, they’re coming from his Democratic primary opponent.

Qasim’s Democratic opponent in the primary election for state Senate taking place THIS TUESDAY, Laura Sellers, is engaged in an Islamophobic smear campaign against Qasim. Sellers has allegedly asserted that Qasim’s being Muslim makes him unelectable, and has accused him of supporting “Sharia law” and female genital mutilation.

These hateful attacks are shocking and despicable, but thankfully a progressive backlash is building. We and a growing wave of progressives-- including many other local Democrats-- are speaking out against these attacks and rallying to support Qasim.

Vangie Williams, a Democratic candidate for Congress in Virginia’s 1st District wrote:

Hate. Lies. Rumors. Smear tactics. Racism. Islamophobia. None of these things should ever be a part of a political campaign. Sadly, in the 28th Senate District Democratic Primary, these are all things which are being used by Qasim Rashid’s opponent in a desperate attempt to win an election. This kind of campaign is unbecoming of anyone calling themselves a Democrat and it is patently un-American.

These shameful and abhorrent tactics must stop now.

Stafford County Democratic Executive Committee Member Bill Johnson-Miles said:

I usually try my very best to stay neutral when two local Democratic candidates are competing for the Democratic nomination in an upcoming primary election or caucus. However, sometimes you just have to take a stand.

Jess Foster is running for delegate and she announced on her own Facebook page that she has been sickened by Sellers' vicious, ugly attacks on Qasim: "I have learned over the past several weeks that Laura Sellers, Democratic Candidate for Senate 28, has launched an attack campaign against her primary opponent, Qasim Rashid. It is alleged that she has made derogatory statements about his islamic faith, his electability, and accused him of supporting 'Sharia law' and female genital mutilation in an attempt to smear his good name. This is not the way Democrats treat people regardless of race, background, or religion. Denigrating another for political gain is harmful to our party, to our community, and, in this instance, to Qasim and his family. This conduct is unacceptable and I feel compelled to take a stand against it. Qasim is a good man who cares deeply about the community and shares our most cherished values. We would do well to have him in the Virginia Senate. Bringing down another to elevate oneself is poor leadership. Even worse, this particular behavior is islamophobic-- or at very least-- intended to stimulate the unconscious bias and generate fear. Because of that, I call upon Laura to acknowledge her wrongdoing and publicly apologize to Qasim. I further call upon her to withdraw from the Senate race; we cannot tolerate people who engage in this sort of behavior representing us in Richmond."

Amen! Please consider contributing to Qasim Rashid's campaign by clicking on the Blue America legislative thermometer above.






UPDATE: Laura Sellers Expelled From Democratic Party

She should go join the GOP. That kind of bigotry is admired over there. Today the Stafford County Democratic Committee Membership Subcommittee "invited representatives from both Democratic Senate campaigns, as well as the complainants and witnesses, to attend a confidential hearing on June 3rd for the purpose of resolving these issues in a professional manner. Representatives from the Sellers Campaign did not attend. The complainants and witnesses submitted sworn statements and provided first-hand testimony before the Membership Subcommittee outlining a sustained misinformation campaign by members of the Sellers Campaign to discredit Qasim Rashid in the hopes of advantaging Laura Sellers. This misinformation campaign allegedly included lying to voters about whether Mr. Rashid had qualified for the ballot, making false or misleading statements about his immigration status, and using racist dog whistles to fuel Islamophobia. Based on the sworn statements and testimony provided at that hearing, the Membership Subcommittee recommended that the Stafford County Democratic Committee expel two members of the Sellers Campaign and reject the membership application of third member. Earlier today, the Stafford County Democratic Committee overwhelmingly voted to accept the Membership Subcommittee’s recommendation. We do not condone any candidate for office using racist dog whistles to fuel Islamophobia or spreading false information to voters about an opponent. These tactics are straight from the Trump playbook. They have absolutely no place in a Democratic Primary."

House Passes Equality Act-- Republicans Whine It Impinges On Their Right To Discriminate Against Gays

Aside from being Republicans serving in Congress, what do these 8 men and women have in common: Susan Brooks (R-IN), Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL), Brain Fitzpatrick (R-PA), Will Hurd (R-TX), John Katko (R-NY), Tom Reed (R-NY), Elise Stefanik (R-NY), Greg Walden (R-OR)? They were the Republicans to stand up for their own LGBTQ constituents by voting with every single Democrat to pass David Cicilline's Equality Act (H.R.5). It's a simple, straight forward bill that prohibits discrimination based on sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity in areas including public accommodations and facilities, education, federal funding, employment, housing, credit, and the jury system. Specifically, the bill defines and includes sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity among the prohibited categories of discrimination or segregation. It allows the Department of Justice to intervene in equal protection actions in federal court on account of sexual orientation or gender identity. And it prohibits an individual from being denied access to a shared facility, including a restroom, a locker room, and a dressing room, that is in accordance with the individual's gender identity.

The bill passed with a big bipartisan majority-- 236-173. McConnell has already signaled that he will not permit a vote on the legislation in the Senate, ironic since he's a lifelong closet case himself who was kicked out of the military many decades ago for fondling a private's privates. Republicans don't admit that they're bigots when they try to block this kind of legislation. They claim it-- equality itself-- imposes on their freedom. Banning anti-LGBTQ discrimination is against their bizarre religion and will lead, the insist, to persecution of Christians. (No, no they really tell each other that.)

A morally "upright" Republican hate-monger like Florida crackpot Ross Spano-- who stole his election and should never have been seated-- warned that HR-5 will "allow the government to force its rigid and unyielding fist inside the church... It would deliver a crushing blow to the base of the tree of religious liberty." Could you even image having a lunatic who talks like that as a Reprsentative? Another GOP gay-hater and bigot from the Sunshine State, Greg Steube, also voted no, he says, to protect women athletes.

The Florida Republican argued that the bill will inhibit competitiveness in women's sports and women's eligibility for athletic scholarships.

"A sports team couldn't treat a transgender woman differently from a woman who is not transgender on the ground that the former is male-bodied," Steube said on the House floor. "Yet, the reality is [when] putting male and female bodied athletes together in open sport ... females lose."

"This is fear mongering about trans women playing in sports," California Rep. Katie Hil largued in opposition to the amendment. "No person is trying to game the system to participate in women's sports. That is a sad scare tactic." The Republican motion to recommit failed with only one Democrat, Rep. Dan Lipinski, voting in favor of the amendment; seven did not vote. Lipinski was also the only Democrat not to cosponsor the legislation.

Republican opponents also argued the measure would restrict individual religious freedoms and mandate "specific accommodations" in shared facilities that would put burdens on small businesses, schools, and other community places.

"Its vague and circular definition of gender identity will lead only to uncertainty, litigation, and harm to individuals and organizations that will be forced to comply with a law the authors don’t even seem to understand," Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) said on the House floor Friday. "This is a classic example of passing something now and figuring out what it actually means later ... If the devil is in the details, we’re in for a lot of devilish surprises."

In response, Cicilline, the measure's sponsor, argued that the bill "does not, nor could any legislation," supersede the First Amendment's religious freedom protections.

"H.R. 5 allows the standards set by prior civil rights law to not interfere with worship and religious practices by religious organizations," Cicilline added.

It's worth reminding people who Virginia Foxx-- one of Congress' most hateful and homophobic psychics-- actually is. Do you remember the name Matthew Shepard? He was the young gay man who was crucified-- literally-- and left to die next to a lonely Wyoming highway. While his grieving mother sat in the congressional visitors' gallery, this is what North Carolina 's premiere contribution to national evil and hatred had to say.



Foxx never apologized and has voted against every equality bill that has ever come before Congress-- proudly and loudly, always making sure everyone knows she stands for hatred and intolerance. Her district is safely gerrymandered so that she is re-elected year after year without ever doing anything for anyone but herself and other selfish multimillionaires. Meanwhile, yesterday, what's left of poor old Pat Robertson was ranting and raving on evangelical TV. Clearly, God has cursed him:





Austin and Houston are what you could call WOKE cities. Both Travis and Harris counties-- the westernmost and easternmost components of a gerrymandered shitshow (TX-10) by Tom Delay-- are open and welcoming parts of Texas where people expect everyone to be treated fairly and equally. By cutting Austin up like a pie, Texas Republicans succeeded in disenfranchising voters there-- putting them into 4 bizarrely-drawn congressional districts, 3 of which are predominately Republican. One of the conservative anti-LGBTQ congressmen that gerrymander had forced on Austin is multimillionaire-- he married well-- crackpot and Trump bootlick Michael McCaul. Progressive Democrat Mike Siegel held him down to a 51.1% win last year and Siegel has every intention of finishing the job next year, In fact, please consider contribution to his campaign by clicking on the Lone Star State ActBlue thermometer on the right. After the vote on the bipartisan H.R.5 yesterday, Mike told us he would have gladly joined the vast majority of congressmembers who voted for it. "The Equality Act is about making sure everyone can access work and housing and education and other public services, without fear of discrimination. Unfortunately, here in the Texas 10th, in a district that includes strong LGBT communities in the Austin and Houston areas, our 'representative' voted to legalize hatred. To legitimize oppression and bigotry. To endanger his very constituents, who he is sworn to protect. This is only the latest example of Michael McCaul failing to stand up for Texans. We are working hard to ensure this is the beginning of his end."

Time To Revisit Hillary's Statement About The Deplorable Trumpist Base?

Putin's nasty, vile excuse for an American president-- the clown in the White House-- was jumping around last week, nearly frothing at the mouth about how Republicans in Congress should back him up in opposing the disaster relief bill that finally passed the House Friday (with a huge bipartisan majority). Trump's ugly, life-long and barely disguised bigotry against and racism towards Puerto Ricans has had him lying again and again about his regime's refusal to give hurricane-devastated Puerto Rico ample recovery resources. Trump claims this bill gives Puerto Rico too much money. The bill also disaster relief and rebuilding aid to areas that were impacted by the California wildfires, by flooding in the Midwest and Texas to states-- particularly Florida and red states-- that were hit, like Puerto Rico, by hurricanes.

34 Republicans fretted over Trump's threats to not support their reelection efforts and voted with the Democrats for the bill anyway. Most of the Republicans who voted for it have serious reelection challenges in 2020, particularly Michael McCaul (R-TX), Don Bacon (R-NE), Steve King (R-IA), Will Hurd (R-TX), John Katko (R-NY), Fred Upton (R-MI), Ross Spano (R-FL), Doug LaMalfa (R-CA), Peter King (R-NY), Dan Crenshaw (R-TX), Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), Richard Hudson (R-NC), Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL) and Michael Bost (R-IL).

That said, and this being Sunday, I want to point to a relevant essay by evangelical pastor and best-selling author John Pavlovitz, Hillary Was Right Calling Then "Deplorables." It wasn't a good move strategically, but it was certainly accurate. Pavlovitz has a more positive attitude towards Hillary than I do, writing for example, that "Hillary Clinton was right about everything."

• She was right when she warned us that Donald Trump was in bed with Russia.
• She was right when she said our election process was being irreparably compromised.
• She was right when she noted his cruelty, his impulsiveness, and his recklessness.

• She was right when she suggested he was beholden to a murderous foreign dictator.
• She was right when she told us that he was dangerously incapable of self-control on social media.
• She was right when she pointed out the toxic hatred he was cultivating and releasing in people.
• She was right when she noticed the way he was dragging national discourse into the toilet.
• And she was right was when she called his supporters "deplorables."

He's right about all those things. She was right about all those things. But, at the time she made the "deplorables" statement in 2016 she was, wrote Pavlovitz, "unfairly excoriated in the media and by Republicans-- but looking back she was using sober judgement, measured speech, and incredible restraint.

"To just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of  deplorables. They’re racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic-- Islamophobic-- you name it."

They are.

In the wake of the police shootings of black men, the street corner assaults on gay couples, the #MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements, the defacing of synagogues, the burning of black churches, the mistreatment of migrant families-- Trump’s supporters daily reveal their phobic hearts and their willingness to ignore vulnerable people’s suffering.

“And unfortunately, there are people like that. And he has lifted them up. He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people-- now have 11 million.”

He has.

He continually cries “fake news” about the legitimate Press, while disseminating the wildest of conspiracy theories from extremists media outlets, previously and rightly marginalized because they appealed to only the tiniest lunatic fringe.

“He tweets and retweets their offensive hateful mean-spirited rhetoric.”

He does.

Just look at his Twitter feed at any moment during the past three years, and you’ll find the unhinged, incendiary ramblings of a supremacist, terrorist sympathizer-- whose account under any other circumstance-- would be deactivated for its hate speech, its purposeful targeting of individuals, and its steady invocation to violence.

In 2016, Hillary was being prophetic.

She used the word “deplorable,” to describe people who would soon:

• applaud Muslim travel bans,
• celebrate families separated at the border,
• abide children being placed in cages,

• demonize teenage shooting victims,
• defiantly deny the value of black lives,
• vilify sexual assault survivors,
• bless a predator to the Supreme Court,

• cheer Presidential rally cries of shooting immigrants,
• approve of the suppressing of Special Counsel reports,

• sanction the complete perversion of our Rule of Law.

Deplorable, was being kind. I have many other words for such people, and they’re much stronger and far less diplomatic than that.

Hillary closed her now infamous comments by saying, “Now, some of those folks-- they are irredeemable, but thankfully, they are not America.”

Well, she was about half right.

These people may not be America, but they represent a good 38 percent of it. That’s far too much of any nation aspiring to greatness. As long as more than a third of our country blesses such malfeasance and tolerates this kind of toxicity in the name of holding power, we’re going to continue to regress into chaos and implosion.

When Hillary Clinton said that half of Trump’s supporters were deplorables, she was in essence claiming them to be filled with contempt for others, motivated by fear, and driven to exclusion. She may have been right in that moment-- but the percentage today is actually much higher.

Anyone still supporting him has deluded themselves into an alternate reality that makes them incapable of compassion or reasonable dialogue. All that they have seen from this President and his cadre of grifters and criminals, hasn’t proven alarming enough to wake them into decency or rouse their humanity alive.

Hillary wasn’t name-calling, she was accurately describing the kind of inhumanity we are now seeing as people’s default setting. Given their support of a man who regularly uses phrases like “Crazy Maxine,” “Pocahontas,” “Pencil Neck”-- or “Crooked Hillary,” their feigned offense at her supposedly offensive language was and is laughably hypocritical anyway.

No, Hillary was telling the truth, as difficult as it is to admit. She was diagnosing a collective sickness that afflicts a terrifying number of Americans. The woman who should currently be helming this nation was right about far too many things, and not enough of us listened.

Hatred, bigotry, supremacy, misogyny, and violent phobia are indeed sickening and  repugnant and reprehensible and yes, deplorable-- or at least they should be.

Midnight Meme Of The Day!

by Noah

Any president who wanted to be a real leader of all Americans would give a nationally televised address about the seemingly endless string of murderous attacks this country has been suffering at the hands of its assorted racist republicans and other militant Nazis. It's an address that should have been given two years ago but the importance and meaning of such a talk is completely counter to the essences of what Trump is. Even after what happened in San Diego this past weekend while Trump was hanging out with his NRA friends, Trump had already abdicated his responsibility and forgone that approach. His reluctant compromise this time, at long last, was to call California's Governor Newsom and the Rabbi of the Synagogue that was attacked. Oh yeah, and a tweet. Big deal. It was the least he could do so he finally did it. Next time, he'll send some Burger King hamberders and "freedom fries" to the victims. Maybe he'll send some autographed bibles and paper towels, too.

The only thing Donald Trump wants to lead is continued Republican mayhem. Neo-Nazis existed long before Trump moved into the White House but, since his election, he has done nothing but embolden them. Hate crimes have risen 226% in counties where Trump has given his rallies. Trump is a hate crime wave all by himself. He plants the seeds wherever he goes. Call him the Donnie Appleseed of hate. His deliberate silence is a lack of reaction designed to be tacit approval. His inaction is deliberate encouragement. He'd certainly never want to offend his republican base by calling out his "very fine people" now would he? After all, Donald Trump is the "Jews will not replace us" president, and so much more. Got bigotry of any kind? Donnie is your man.

Trump's Life-Long Bigotry Towards Puerto Ricans In New York Is Destroying Peoples' Lives On Puerto Rico

Tuesday Hogan Gidley, White House deputy press secretary, was on MSNBC to defend Trump for his twitter rage against Puerto Rican leaders when he referred to Puerto Rico as "that country"-- twice. Reporting for Politico yesterday, Rebecca Morin, wrote that the Trumpist regime "has been criticized for holding a double standard when it comes to distributing hurricane relief aid and favoring states such as Florida and Texas over Puerto Rico. All areas were hit by destructive hurricanes around the same time."

Trump was also criticized for his visit to the island, after he appeared to downplay the destruction and death caused by two hurricanes that struck within several weeks of each other. Images of the president playfully throwing paper towels became the main image from the trip.

Gidley on Tuesday sidestepped when asked whether Trump believed Puerto Ricans were equal to U.S. citizens living on the mainland, saying those accusations were "absolutely ridiculous."

MSNBC host Hallie Jackson pressed Gidley on Trump's statement that Puerto Ricans are "taking from the USA."

"Puerto Rico is part of the United States. People who live in Puerto Rico are U.S. citizens," Jackson said. "You're rolling your eyes and I don't know why you're rolling your eyes. There's a lot of confusion over why the president would say this and what he understands and how he views the people of Puerto Rico."

"That's ridiculous. He has actually already traveled to Puerto Rico after this horrific hurricane. He was there," Gidley replied.

"He gave them a lot of money. They have mismanaged and misused that money. It hurts their people, and that's what he is upset about," he added.

It's odd that no one has mentioned that Trump's notorious racism has always applied equally to Puerto Ricans and African-Americans. From an early age, when he was still basically an errand boy for his Nazi/KKK father, Trump was illegally preventing Puerto Rican families from renting apartments in Trump properties for which the federal government sued the firm.

Trump has had a bad attitude towards Puerto Rican people and towards the island itself. Last January, Vanity Fair Bess Levin reported that was doing all he could to screw Puerto Rico. She wrote that once "got it into his head that Puerto Rico was using emergency money to pay off its debt, he told then-Chief of Staff John Kelly and then-Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney that he 'did not want a single dollar going to Puerto Rico,' and wanted to divert the island’s relief funds to Texas and Florida. 'POTUS was not consolable about this,' a person familiar with the matter told the paper. This led to what was likely a deeply surreal moment for Patenaude, who reportedly had to explain to White House budget officials during a December meeting that the money for Puerto Rico had already been appropriated by Congress, and had to be used as intended. 'Pam Patenaude showed the most commitment to Puerto Rico of any of the public officials inside the Trump administration,' Carlos Mercader, the executive director of the Puerto Rico Federal Affairs Administration in Washington, told the Post... [The repulsive racist in the White House] "became obsessed with stripping the island of aid-- despite its infrastructure remaining precarious post-Hurricane Maria-- driving one of the few competent people in the administration to give up and quit:

A top Department of Housing and Urban Development official is leaving the agency Thursday following disagreements with other members of the Trump administration over housing policy and the White House’s attempt to block disaster-recovery money for Puerto Rico, according to five people with direct knowledge of the situation. Deputy Secretary Pam Patenaude, second-in-command at the agency helmed by Ben Carson and widely regarded as HUD’s most capable political leader, is said to have grown frustrated by what a former HUD employee described as a “Sisyphean undertaking.”

No one knows how Trump came up with the $91 billion figure-- $80 billion more than what Puerto Rico has gotten in hurricane aid. Trump's fury was unleashed when Democrats blocked the totally inadequate Republican disaster relief bill on Monday. The $13.45 billion bill would have provided assistance to victims of hurricanes in Florida, George and North Carolina, floods in the South and Midwest, and wildfires in California but allocated just $600 million allocated for Puerto Rico, far too little.

After the vote, the psychopath ranted that "The Democrats today killed a Bill that would have provided great relief to Farmers and yet more money to Puerto Rico despite the fact that Puerto Rico has already been scheduled to receive more hurricane relief funding than any 'place' in history and the next morning, decided to play the victim, insisting that "the best thing that ever happened to Puerto Rico is President Donald J. Trump. So many wonderful people, but with such bad Island leadership and with so much money wasted. Cannot continue to hurt our Farmers and States with these massive payments, and so little appreciation!" You've probably noticed this before but it can't be said too much: the man is insane (and should be removed).