I tried to stay awake during Mr. trump's state of his teleprompter address, but I couldn't make it past the first 15 minutes. (My wife's eight year old niece reads better than the president.)
Fortunately there were other folks who watched it for me, so I will be able to give you their take on Mr. trump's night in the spotlight.
"President Donald Trump spent the bulk of his first State of the Union address touting his tax policy and laying out an immigration proposal that would advance many white nationalist organizations’ top priorities.
Buried within the speech, however, was a proposal that would fundamentally rework the balance of power between civil servants and political appointees — and strike a deep blow to the rule of law in the process.
“I call on the Congress to empower every Cabinet Secretary with the authority to reward good workers,” Trump said, “and to remove Federal employees who undermine the public trust or fail the American people.”
On the surface, this proposal may seem benign — who doesn’t want public employees who “fail the American people” to be removed? But laws protecting civil servants against politically motivated firings are one of the foundations of liberal democracy.
They are what enable a prosecutor ordered to bring frivolous charges against the president’s political rivals to say no.
They are what permit investigators to target people suspected of genuine legal violations, not companies that compete with the president’s businesses.
They enable environmental regulators to tell the presidents’ appointees that they must obey the Clean Air Act. They empower Labor Department officials to target employers who give generously to the president’s party. They ensure that Medicaid benefits are still paid out to populations the president disapproves of.
Under current law, most civil servants may not be fired without “good cause” once they have served for a three-year probationary period. Protections like these are what prevents Trump from firing every civil servant who refuses to obey an illegal order.
And now Trump wants to eliminate this shield against unchecked presidential power." [Source]
Thank you Ian Millhiser.
I didn't think I missed anything. Just more racist dog whistles and hollow promises.
*Pic from theroot.com
Wednesday, January 31, 2018
Tuesday, January 30, 2018
#SOTU2018
Please give me your thoughts on the SOTU address being delivered by Mr. trump tonight.
It might be hard to stay awake, but if you made it all the way through it, please tell me what you think.
Monday, January 29, 2018
Russian Bots and Devin Nunes are working overtime to protect the president. We the people just want the truth.
Don't you just love American democracy?
This all comes on a day when we learned of the ouster of Andrew McCabe from the FBI. The poor man was investigating Mr. trump, and that is a sure way to get removed from your job in Washington.
From what we know trump really hated this guy, and he wanted him gone at all cost.
"NBC News is reporting that the day after FBI Director James Comey was fired, President Donald Trump called then-acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe to complain that Comey was able to fly home on a government plane.
And during the call, he decided to take a shot at McCabe after the acting FBI chief said that while he hadn’t been asked to authorize the flight but would have if asked.
The president was silent for a moment and then turned on McCabe, suggesting he ask his wife how it feels to be a loser — an apparent reference to a failed campaign for state office in Virginia that McCabe’s wife made in 2015.This NBC News story comes out just hours after it was reported that McCabe would be stepping down from his post as deputy FBI director. While McCabe was apparently looking at leaving this spring, his departure comes weeks ahead of schedule and during a time when he’s clearly been in the crosshairs of the president."
McCabe replied: “OK, sir.” Trump then hung up the phone.
Nothing pisses off Mr. trump like folks looking into his Russia connections. Whether it's golden showers or money laundering, we are learning more and more that there has to be some fire to go along with all all this smoke coming from Moscow.
Of course, as is to be expected, the right-wingnuts are doing their best to protect Mr. trump. Devin Nunes is looking more and more like an individual who is doing his best to undermine democracy and the rule of law while he tries to protect Mr. trump.
Adam Schiff had this to say:
“We have votes today to politicize the intelligence process. To prohibit the FBI and the department of justice from expressing their concerns to our committee and to the house and to selectively release to the public only the majority’s memo without the full facts. A very sad day I think in the history of this committee. As I said to my committee colleagues during this hearing, sadly, we can fully expect that the President of the United States will not put the national interests over his personal interests, but it is a sad day indeed when that is also true of our own committee because today this committee voted to put the president’s personal interests, perhaps their own political interests above the national interests in denying themselves, even the ability to hear from the department and the FBI.”
I suspect that we are now on an inexorable march to a constitutional crisis.
Grab your popcorn.
*Pic from voanews.com
Sunday, January 28, 2018
"Why race relations got worse".
I just found this old article from a conservative publication about "why race relations got worse" in America.It's an interesting read.
The Field Negro education series continues.
"The United States has never been entirely sure what to do about race. Alone among the countries in the world, it has attempted to construct not just a state of different tribes, but a nation of them — white and black, Christian and Muslim, and many others, too. Its sense of nationalism has evolved unevenly, slowly incorporating an ever growing chunk of the people within its borders, and it has made steady progress.
Yet 2016 offers reasons for unique alarm. The progress of recent decades, both political and social, appears to have evaporated in the past few years. And the problems, as so often, are focused on the two oldest classes of our poor. These two underclasses pre-date the United States as a political union.
The black underclass, brought here in chains, toiled for centuries in the hopes of earning freedom — first physical, then political. They found themselves concentrated in the South — the home of King Cotton. The white underclass, many of whom descended from Scots-Irish peasants of the motherland, came here freely. They tended to concentrate in the rural parts of the eastern United States, especially along the Appalachian Mountains. The paths of these tribes have sometimes intersected. When recently freed slaves began to marry the white indentured servants of Virginia planters, their children took on a color that entitled them to all of the burdens of their darker-skinned parent. So they moved to eastern Kentucky and eastern Tennessee, called themselves Cherokee Indians, and attempted to live in peace. The locals, unsure what to do with their new neighbors, derisively called them“Melungeons.” “
A century later, as the industrial economies of the North created millions of new jobs, the white and black underclasses went hunting for opportunities. The black folks encountered a spate of indignities and a government housing policy that forced them into artificial urban ghettos. And the white establishment, confronted for the first time with people who looked like them but possessed none of their sensibilities, treated these seemingly foreign whites with scorn. As anthropologist John Hartigan Jr., commenting on the rapid industrialization of Detroit, has observed: It was not simply that the Appalachian migrants, as rural strangers “out of place” in the city, were upsetting to Midwestern, urban whites. Rather, these migrants disrupted a broad set of assumptions held by northern whites about how white people appeared, spoke, and behaved. . . . The disturbing aspect of hillbillies was their racialness. Ostensibly, they were of the same racial order (whites) as those who dominated economic, political, and social power in local and national arenas. But hillbillies shared many regional characteristics with the southern blacks arriving in Detroit.
In the face of these pressures, the two groups took different approaches to politics. The white poor, unencumbered by legal discrimination, focused on a politics of class. From Jackson to Truman, they voted their pocketbook, taught their children to mistrust the rich man, and hated the elites who looked down on them.
As Martin Luther King Jr. observed shortly before his death, they benefited psychologically from the caste system in the South. Black people, meanwhile, understandably voted the color of their skin, putting their trust in whoever promised to tear down the most legal barriers. Sometimes, as with Lyndon Baines Johnson, these interests aligned, delivering supermajorities in the process. But those moments were largely the product of chance.
The civil-rights successes of the 1960s were supposed to change that. In 1978, the eminent sociologist William Julius Wilson argued confidently that class would soon displace race as the most important social variable in American life. As explicit legal barriers to minority advancement receded farther into the past, the fates of the working classes of different races would converge. By the mid 2000s, Wilson’s thesis looked pretty good: The black middle class was vibrant and growing as the average black wealth nearly doubled from 1995 to 2005. Race appeared to lose its salience as a political predictor: More and more blacks were voting Republican, reversing a decades-long trend, and in 2004 George W. Bush collected the highest share of the Latino (44 percent) vote of any Republican ever and a higher share of the Asian vote (43 percent) than he did in 2000. Our politics grew increasingly ideological and less racial:
Progressives and the beneficiaries of a generous social-welfare state generally supported the Democratic party, while more prosperous voters were more likely to support Republicans. Stable majorities expressed satisfaction with the state of race relations. It wasn’t quite a post-racial politics, but it was certainly headed in that direction. But in the midst of the financial crisis of 2007, something happened. Both the white poor and the black poor began to struggle mightily, though for different reasons. And our politics changed dramatically in response.
It’s ironic that the election of the first black president marked the end of our brief flirtation with a post-racial politics. By 2011, William Julius Wilson had published a slight revision of his earlier thesis, noting the continued importance of race. The black wealth of the 1990s, it turned out, was built on the mirage of house values. Inner-city murder rates, which had fallen for decades, began to tick upward in 2015. In one of the deadliest mass shootings in recent memory, a white supremacist murdered nine black people in a South Carolina church. And the ever-present antagonism between the police and black Americans — especially poor blacks whose neighborhoods are the most heavily policed — erupted into nationwide protests.
Meanwhile, the white working class descended into an intense cultural malaise. Prescription-opioid abuse skyrocketed, and deaths from heroin overdoses clogged the obituaries of local papers. In the small, heavily white Ohio county where I grew up, overdoses overtook nature as the leading cause of death. A drug that for so long was associated with inner-city ghettos became the cultural inheritance of the southern and Appalachian white: White youths died from heroin significantly more often than their peers of other ethnicities. Incarceration and divorce rates increased steadily.
Perhaps most strikingly, while the white working class continued to earn more than the working poor of other races, only 24 percent of white voters believed that the next generation would be “better off.” No other ethnic group expressed such alarming pessimism about its economic future. And even as each group struggled in its own way, common forces also influenced them. Rising automation in blue-collar industries deprived both groups of high-paying, low-skill jobs. Neighborhoods grew increasingly segregated — both by income and by race — ensuring that poor whites lived among poor whites while poor blacks lived among poor blacks. As a friend recently told me about San Francisco, Bull Connor himself couldn’t have designed a city with fewer black residents.
Predictably, our politics began to match this new social reality. In 2012, Mitt Romney collected only 27 percent of the Latino vote. Asian Americans, a solid Republican constituency even in the days of Bob Dole, went for Obama by a three-to-one margin — a shocking demographic turn of events over two decades. Meanwhile, the black Republican became an endangered species.
Republican failures to attract black voters fly in the face of Republican history. This was the party of Lincoln and Douglass. Eisenhower integrated the school in Little Rock at a time when the Dixiecrats were the defenders of the racial caste system. Republicans, rightfully proud of this history, constructed a narrative to explain their modern failures: Black people had permanently changed, become addicted to the free stuff of the 1960s social-welfare state; the Democratic party was little more than a new plantation, offering goodies in exchange for permanent dependence. There was no allowance for the obvious: that the black vote drifted away from Republicans en masse only after Goldwater became the last major presidential candidate to oppose the 1960s civil-rights agenda.
Besides, Republicans told themselves, the party didn’t actually need the black vote anyway. It would win where others had lost, by re-engaging the “missing white voter,” a phantom whose absence allegedly cost Romney the 2012 election. By the time Republicans officially nominated Donald Trump as their presidential candidate, he polled even lower among Latinos than Romney had. Asian Americans, arguably the most financially successful minority group in the United States, have abandoned the party in droves. Current polls suggest that only a statistically shocking 1 percent of black Americans will vote to “make America great again” this November. In nominating Trump, Republicans have come full circle: The party of Lincoln has become the party of the white man. And that man has become extremely cynical." [More]
Interesting. Although honestly, I think the political angst that most working class whites ( trump voters) feel towards black folks is due more to good old fashion racism than economic anxiety, but that's just me.
My question to the author would be this: When was race relations ever good in America?
Saturday, January 27, 2018
Friday, January 26, 2018
When racism is a "political asset".
The Field Negro education series continues.The following is an essay from Jamelle Bouie.
"What would you call someone who blasted Haiti as a “shithole,” complained about immigrants from Africa, and wondered why the United States couldn’t accept more immigrants from a European country like Norway?
What about someone who mocked Nigerians as living in “huts?” Or defended white supremacists after they terrorized a city in a “protest” that ended with the killing of a counter-demonstrator? What if he or she described black neighborhoods as essentially fit for animals, portrayed Muslim Americans as fundamentally untrustworthy, and criticized Mexico for sending “rapists”? What if, for nearly five years, that person devoted time and attention to “proving” the first black president of the United States was an illegitimate usurper hiding his true African background from the public?
What would you call this person? At the very least, you would call him or her a “racist,” one with a documented history of bias and contempt toward nonwhites.
This person, obviously, is President Donald Trump. And President Trump is a racist. It was clear on Thursday, when he made his remarks about Haiti, and it was clear last month, when he made his comments about Nigeria. It was clear when he went on his “birther” crusade against Barack Obama. It’s been clear for as long as he’s been in the public eye, from when he was investigated by the Department of Justice for housing discrimination in the 1970s to when he demanded execution for five black and Latino teenagers who had been accused, falsely, of attacking and a raping a white woman in New York City in the 1980s.
The evidence for Trump’s racism is so abundant and explicit that the claim shouldn’t even be controversial. And yet, in the wake of the president’s recent comments, our most prominent news outlets are still hedging their bets. The New York Times called Trump’s remarks “the latest example of his penchant for racially tinged remarks denigrating immigrants.” The Washington Post, which broke the story, called the comments part of his “long-standing tendency to make racially charged remarks.” For the Wall Street Journal, the comments were merely “vulgar.”
This hesitation is not hard to understand. Our society is largely indifferent to racial inequality but is highly sensitive to accusations of racism. Labeling anything racist—or accusing anyone of racism—is fraught enough to spark a backlash, especially when it falls outside common archetypes for racism: the violent neo-Nazi, corrupt Southern sheriff, or torch-bearing member of the Ku Klux Klan. Not only does Trump fall outside of the popular image of a racist, but he’s a partisan figure, backed by millions of people. Even if it fits the facts, frankly labeling the president a racist is a risky move, one that might alienate the people you’re trying to reach, including other lawmakers and partisan political figures.
Beyond this, the attitudes and actions that constitute racism are highly contested, especially among white Americans most sensitive to the accusation. And when racism is acknowledged, it often comes sans actors and agency. Something racist may have happened, but no one is responsible. It’s racism without racists.
Donald Trump is a racist, and the evidence shows it. But it’s politically incorrect to say so. When ESPN analyst Jemele Hill criticized the president as a “white supremacist” on Twitter, she was met with a wave of opprobrium, including a statement from White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who called it “one of the more outrageous comments that anyone could make and certainly something that I think is a fireable offense by ESPN.” Trump demanded an apology, and the network allegedly tried to take her off the air.
Major news outlets may be slow to label Trump’s racism as such, but the president’s allies seem to both acknowledge the racism and see it as a political asset. “Staffers inside the White House aren’t that worried about Trump’s ‘shithole’ remark,” reported CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on Twitter, “with some predicting it will actually resonate with his base, not alienate it, much like his attacks on NFL players who kneel during the national anthem did.”
Donald Trump came onto the political scene with a racist conspiracy theory. He ran a racist campaign. As president, he continues to say racist things. As a simple point of fact, we should be able to say—without hesitation—that Donald Trump is a racist. [Source]
Well done, although the theme of the essay was kind of stating the obvious.
Saying Donald trump is a racist is like saying water is wet. But still, it's always nice to remind our fellow Americans who we elected as our president.
Thursday, January 25, 2018
BREAKING NEWS.
Remember that "secret society" conspiracy that FOX VIEWS and right-wingnuts in Washington have been trying to push for the past few days? Well...."Could someone please explain to Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) how conspiracies work?
Johnson was one of a number of Republican lawmakers who lit up right-wing media with accusations that a “secret society” of FBI agents was conspiring to investigate fake charges of collusion between Donald Trump and Russia. Their evidence? A text from FBI lawyer Lisa Page to Peter Strzok, an agent with whom she was having an affair, which allegedly talked about it.
Conservatives got very upset about this secretive cabal, using it as more evidence that the FBI is a hotbed of an anti-Trump “Deep State.” Johnson was out front in this effort, taking to Fox News to claim he had heard about this secret society from an FBI informant. And also that this is really true, he is not a crank.
Then the full text from Page was released:
'Are you even going to give out your calendars? Seems kind of depressing. Maybe it should just be the first meeting of the secret society.'It seems obvious that if you are a member of a secret society, you are not going to call it “the secret society.” Furthermore, if you are two FBI agents in this secret society actively plotting against the president from within the government, it seems highly likely you know better than to text about it on your FBI-issued, government-owned phones.
Clearly, Page's text was a dark joke. And after two days of hollering about it, even Johnson was forced to admit to CNN on Thursday morning that “it's a real possibility” the text was written in jest.
For additional context, The New York Times reports that the mention of “calendars” referred to a gag gift of Russian-themed calendars that were to be given to agents working on the Russia investigation. Page sent the text the morning after Trump's election in what appears to be a stab at gallows humor.'' [Society]
Remember when trump's peeps said that the president had no intention of firing Robert Mueller?
Well.....
"A late night bombshell courtesy of reporters over at the New York Times with no respect for the 9-5 workday revealed that President Donald Trump ordered the firing of Special Counsel Robert Mueller back in June 2017.
According to the Times, the president tried to fire Mueller last year but let up on the demand after White House counsel Don McGahn protested the move and threatened to quit.
McGahn reportedly “told senior White House officials that firing Mr. Mueller would have a catastrophic effect on Mr. Trump’s presidency and would incite more questions about whether the White House was trying to obstruct the Russia investigation.” Wow, smart guy.
That was apparently enough to quell Trump’s frustration with the investigation into his campaign’s ties to Russia, as the White House maintains to this day that they do not intend to fire Mueller.
Safe to say, the report that Trump ordered the firing of Mueller — coupled with the stunning detail that Mueller actually found out that the president tried to fire him! — was enough to send Twitter into a meltdown." [Source]
Stay tuned.
Wednesday, January 24, 2018
OPEN THREAD WEDNESDAY.
It's open thread Wednesday field hands, and I need your thoughts on a few things.Do you believe republican senator Ron Johnson when he says that there is a "secret society" in the FBI that is trying to undermine the president and his administration?
Do you believe Mr. trump when he says that he is looking forward to talking to Robert Mueller while under oath?
Do you think that Mr. trump would have commented on the Kentucky school shooting by now if the shooter was a Muslim?
Is it a good thing that the president of the United States might be calling Alex Jones on a regular basis?
Do you agree with Erykah Baduh's comments about Bill Cosby and Adolf Hitler?
Why do you think that right-wingnuts excuse the disgusting behavior of Donald trump but not Bill Clinton?
Finally, do you think that the Eagles will win the Super Bowl?
Tuesday, January 23, 2018
"Mr. president, there is a Mr. Mueller here to see you."
trump claims that he wants to talk to Mr. Mueller as well, but don't believe it. That is the last person on earth that he wants to talk to.
Fear is clearly setting in with trump's inner circle, because now he and his peeps are demanding changes within the FBI. It's a brilliant shoot the messenger strategy. And trump and his rogue's gallery of sycophants are doing their best to discredit and undermine the special counsel.
Sarah Sanders has said that Americans don't believe in this Russian probe, but nevertheless they want to see it come to a full conclusion. If that's the case you would think that Mr. trump would be anxious to talk to Bob Mueller and clear the air as it relates to possible collusion and obstruction charges.
“For 11 months, they’ve had this phony cloud over this administration, over our government, and it has hurt our government,” Trump said during a news conference last week, referring to the probe. “It’s a Democrat hoax that was brought up as an excuse for losing an election.”
Hmmm, a "Democratic hoax"? We will see.
Finally, I will tell you you what I am convinced is not a hoax. The fact that your president had unprotected sex with a porn star.
I just heard Charles Barkley on the radio, and he said that he was at Lake Tahoe when Donald and Stormy were..ahem, ahem, hanging around a lot together. Although he said that he couldn't personally confirm that they actually slept together. Yeah right. Donald must have been asking Stormy for golf tips all weekend. Who better to help you work on your putting than a porn star?
Throw all that in with the Wall Street Journal story of a payoff to keep her quiet, and Stormy herself giving an interview with a magazine in 2011 about her time with trump, and it all seems pretty credible to me.
"According to the transcript, Daniels said the sex was “textbook generic,” and that they did not use condoms. She also added that he asked her to sign one of her DVDs for him after sex."
No wonder Melania changed her mind about going to Davos.
*Pick from cnn.com
Monday, January 22, 2018
Sunday, January 21, 2018
Trying to negotiate with Jell-O.
Both sides are pointing the fingers and playing the blame game, but I think that Stevie Wonder can see who is at fault here. Of course it's the man who says that he is the greatest deal- maker of all time.
His deal making skills clearly leaves a lot to be desired, because those in his own party have no clue what he wants, and those on the other side of the table declared that dealing with him is like trying to negotiate with Jell-O. Let's face it, all trump knows how to do is play us versus them, and demonize his opponents.
The latest example of this is the trump campaign ad being played around the shutdown. Instead of coming to the table with dems and trying to find real solutions, the president is running a misleading ad that implies that democrats are complicit in murders committed by illegal immigrants.
Go figure, it's the latest in a long line of political scare tactics that is used by republicans and those on the right to scare their mostly white base into voting for them. As if somehow their tougher laws will shield white Americans from the black and brown bogeymen out there.
The sad part about all of this is that the facts and statistics speak to a totally different reality:
Trump has repeatedly sought to paint immigrants as dangerous, talking about transnational gangs, such as MS-13, and implementing a travel ban on travelers from some countries in the Middle East and Africa over what he said were concerns about terrorism.
But some studies have shown that immigrants, including those here illegally, commit crimes at lower rates than do native-born Americans.
For example, a March 2017 study by the pro-immigration Cato Institute found that “all immigrants are less likely to be incarcerated than natives relative to their shares of the population” and that “even illegal immigrants are less likely to be incarcerated than native-born Americans.”
As The Washington Post’s Fact Checker reported in 2015, one study showed that between 1990 and 2013, “the foreign-born share of the U.S. population grew from 7.9 percent to 13.1 percent and the number of unauthorized immigrants more than tripled from 3.5 million to 11.2 million.
“During the same period, FBI data indicate that the violent crime rate declined 48 percent – which included falling rates of aggravated assault, robbery, rape, and murder. Likewise, the property crime rate fell 41 percent, including declining rates of motor vehicle theft, larceny/robbery, and burglary,” according to the American Immigration Council.
The violent crime rate was cut nearly by half during a period in which unauthorized immigrants tripled, according to the council."
Facts are wonderful things. It's a shame that they are antithetical to our president and his minions.
(Dear white people living in America, you are more likely to be hit by a meteorite than you are to be attacked by a MS-13 gang member.)
I am almost finished with my post and the government is still shutdown. I feel bad for the folks who will be affected by this, and I hope that the politricksters in Washington can work something out in a reasonable manner.
Wait, did I just say that? Sorry folks, for just a minute there I forgot that Donald trump is the president of these divided states of America. Reasonable and that guy just does not go together.
Saturday, January 20, 2018
Thursday, January 18, 2018
When racism goes viral.
I am not sure why people are acting surprised and shocked by the racist and offensive rant posted by a University of Alabama sorority girl. Being ignorant and racist has become normalized in 2018, so when a supposedly educated young woman decides to post her racist diatribe on social media, you have to understand why she thought that she would not suffer the consequences for her actions. "We do not waste water...because of the poor people in Syria. We don't waste water. I love how I act like I love black people because I (expletive) hate (n-word) so that's really interesting but I just saved the (expletive) (n-word) by shutting that water off."
In a second video, Barber addressed the growing backlash and apparent threats to turn her into her sorority officials. "(N-word) (n-word) (n-word). I don't care if it's Martin Luther King Day. I'm in the south now (expletive) so everybody can (expletive) off. I'm from New Jersey so I can say (n-word) as much as I want." [Source]
Little Ms. Racist New Jersey has been expelled from school, and now she is back home in New Jersey feeling just terrible about her actions. (She only "feels terrible" because her rant went viral.)
But just think about all her friends who were in the room with her. Or. for that matter. others who hold similar views but are just good as hiding them from the rest of them.There are many more where this sorority girl came from. In Utah, for instance, another racist college student posted a "Happy Nigger Day" lynching photo.
This is the age of trump, and racism has become the norm. Racists now feel emboldened to let their racism flag flow. It's just a matter of time when we will see or hear one of these types of rants and shrug our collective shoulders. Kind of like we do with our racist in chief now.
This is his kind of America. This is what he meant when he said that he wanted to "Make America Great Again." He, and others like him, are sick of political correctness. They want to hate with impunity.
*Pic from theroot.com
Wednesday, January 17, 2018
Open thread Wednesday.
It's open thread Wednesday y'all, and I need your thoughts on trump's alleged porn star jones.Do you believe all the salacious details about Mr. trump and the porn star?
And if it's all true, does it even matter?
Does the fact that the White House possibly lied about Mr. trump's relationship with Ms. Daniels upset you more than the fact that he allegedly paid her to go away before the 2016 elections?
Tuesday, January 16, 2018
When silence and amnesia is complicity.
“Ignorance and prejudice are the handmaidens of propaganda. Our mission, therefore, is to confront ignorance with knowledge, bigotry with tolerance, and isolation with the outstretched hand of generosity. Racism can, will, and must be defeated.” ― Kofi Annan
Today the Homeland Security Secretary declared that she didn't know that Norway was a white country, and that she heard others (and the president saying) "tough" things when trump made his "shithole" remarks, but not trump himself say "shithole".
She actually said this to a group of senators in Washington before the Senate Judiciary Committee, obviously with no f***s to give because she is with team trump. These people lie so much that they trotted a doctor out there today to add an inch to trump's height and lie about his actual weight. All so that he could not be classified as obese. He is one pound under being obese based on what they told us. (His stomach alone weighs 239 pounds. Give me a break!)
Anyway, I still don't understand why people who have careers and lives to live go out and constantly lie for this man. Or why they put themselves out there to be ridiculed and embarrassed while he runs off and hides.
Thank goodness for folks like Corey Booker, who called out the latest trump flunky, Kirstjen Nielsen, for the cowardly liar that she is.
“Why am I, frankly, seething with anger? … You’re under oath. You and others in that room suddenly cannot remember?” Booker said. “The idea that the commander in chief of this country can, with broad brushes, talk about certain nations and thus cast a shadow over the millions of Americans who are from those communities, and that you could even say in your testimony that Norwegians were preferences because they are so hard-working.”
“I didn’t say―,” Nielsen began.
“Excuse me,” the senator interrupted, his voice rising. “Let me finish.”
Booker, who may be eyeing a 2020 presidential run, said tens of millions of Americans are worried about the racism coming out of the White House and asked Nielsen why she wasn’t doing more to stem an uptick in white supremacist violence in the country. He cited quotes by Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi and Elie Wiesel about the dangers of staying quiet in the face of bigotry and hatred before turning back to Nielsen.
“Your silence and your amnesia is complicity,” Booker told her." {Source}
There has been a lot of "silence" in this country when it comes to racism coming out of the White House lately. So far we have a couple of senators and a high ranking cabinet member willing to lie rather than call out the president for his racist rhetoric.
They all deserve each other.
There has been a lot of "silence" in this country when it comes to racism coming out of the White House lately. So far we have a couple of senators and a high ranking cabinet member willing to lie rather than call out the president for his racist rhetoric.
They all deserve each other.
Monday, January 15, 2018
"We the people, in order to form a more perfect union", elected Donald Trump?
It's Martin Luther King Day in America, a day when Americans pretend that they are really working to make this a more perfect union, and that all is at least becoming right with issues of race. It's a time when we hope that the nasty scab left by deep cut of racism--- a cut that was made from the very start by our original sin of slavery--- will continue to heal, and when we hope that in time we won't even notice that it's there.But then we look around and realize that we elected Donald trump, and much to the dismay of good people of conscience, he tore away at that scab, to the delight of many of his supporters and others in this country. Others who never believed that the cut was that bad, or that it was ever there in the first place. And so, it has become startlingly clear, that our union is a much longer way from becoming perfect than we first thought.
With each passing day Mr. trump reveals more of his true colors, much to the delight of his followers. For the rest of us, though, at least those who didn't see it coming, it's frightening. Some Republican elected leaders, to their everlasting shame, have made a mockery of everything that this country is supposed to stand for by hitching their wagons to this man. History, as we have seen in the past, will not be kind to them.
The latest episode in this profile of cowardice comes from two republican senators who were present in the room when Mr. trump made his "shithole" comment about African countries and Haiti. Just hours after saying that they don't recall him saying it, they are now saying that he did not say it at all, and shame on Dick Durbin for saying that he did. They are forgetting, of course, that Mr. trump himself bragged to his friends about saying it, and that the fallout from him saying those words would actually help him with his base. They are also forgetting that various people in the room, including republican senators, confirmed that he did in fact make those reprehensible comments.
Last night the president said that he was the "least racist person" that journalists ever interviewed, and in essence this was not a big deal. (So he is a racist, just a lessor of a racist than others. Wouldn't a normal person just say that I am not a racist at all? Why say you are the east of all racists? ) Memo to Mr. trump: If you have to tell us that you are not a racist, it's a pretty good bet that you are one.
The scary part for Americans on this day that they celebrate the birth of Dr. King is this: Donald trump won because he is a racist; not despite of it. Give Tom Cotton and David Perdue credit, they know their base. History might not be kind to them, but for now they will be just fine.
America, on the other hand, will not.
Happy MLK Day.
Saturday, January 13, 2018
Thursday, January 11, 2018
He is who we thought he was.
"The comments came as senators huddled in the Oval Office with the president to discuss a path forward on an immigration deal. Trump questioned why the United States would want people from nations such as Haiti while he was being briefed on changes to the visa lottery system.
According to the aide, when the group came to discussing immigration from Africa, Trump asked why America would want immigrants from "all these shithole countries" and that the U.S. should have more people coming in from places like Norway. Thursday's meeting came one day after Trump met with Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg at the White House. " [Source]
Give the man credit, he knows what his base wants to hear. I have said it a million times, and it is worth repeating: Donald trump became president because he was willing to play to white fears of the browning of America. His victory had nothing to do with "economic anxiety".
The funny part of all this is watching folks in the majority population do their best Captain Renault impression. They are of course shocked to hear racist things come from the mouth of their president, and they are all embarrassed that they elected such a man. Give me a break! Clearly enough of them thought he would make a god president. Even with knowledge of his racist past.
The "shithole" country that I grew up in made me who I am, and I met and was influenced by some of the greatest people on earth. I did not grow up in a "hut" as the president believes, and I suspect that I had more of the creature comforts that life has to offer than most Americans.
I wish someone would educate the president about the black immigrants that come to this country from African countries and other countries that he considers shitholes. Black immigrants in this country, for instance, earn an average of 30% more than native blacks. These people tend to be educated, hard working, and they value their family and their freedom more than the typical American. And yet, our racist in chief chooses to denigrate and disparage them.
The irony of course is that he married an immigrant, and she herself might have come to this country illegally. But she looks more Norwegian than African so I guess she gets a pass.
The saddest part of all of this is that all those elected leaders who were present when he made his disgusting remarks chose to do and say nothing. To top it off the White House is doubling down on the president's statements because they think it will play well for them politically.
Mia Love is a republican congresswoman from Utah, and she happens to be of Haitian decent. She issued a statement about trump's racist comments.
Ms. Love, like the rest of us, knows that he will not apologize, and that weeks (or maybe even days) from now, we will be talking about the next equally outrageous or racist thing that he said. But I get it. She has hitched her wagon to the political party that supports this cretin, and as a result she has to show that that she has at least a shred of decency and can stand up to a man who insulted her family and her ancestors.
There will be more written statements of outrage, but nothing will change. America is stuck with this racist for at least the next three years, and we will try to stick our heads in the sand and pretend that this didn't happen.
Sadly, we can't to that. This is all too real.