CAPTION SATURDAY.

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I need a caption for this pic.

*Image from abc7news.com

"A Climate for Killing."

These are scary times in trump's America. Consider the following:

A woman is given a five year sentence for voting illegally in Texas back in 2016. Five years!

The reason that she got jammed up was because she allegedly voted while being a felon. Still, you have to wonder, would something like this have happened if we weren't living in trump's America?

Then there is the state killing of an unarmed black man in California. When asked about it the White House said that it [along with other state killings of men of color] is "a local matter" and they pretty much washed their hands of all of these sad episodes. This is the same White House that took the tragic killing of a white woman in California, and  made a political issue out of it, while spinning a narrative about bad immigrants. They made her killing a national issue. It was, and still is, red meat for their rabid base.

Meanwhile, innocent black men are still being unjustifiably killed by members of law enforcement, and this president still chooses to say -and do- nothing. Heck he  won't even allow his attorney general to address the issue.

Today the Baton Rouge police department released the video of the Alton Sterling killing. Sadly, we can hear the "trained" police officer calling Mr. Sterling  a "stupid mother fucker",  right after taking his life. 

Make no mistake, that police officer knows where he is.

He is living in trump's America, and he is acting accordingly.   

Open thread Wednesday.

It's Wednesday, so it's time for you field hands to give me your opinions on a few stories that have been in the headlines of late.

 Is Ann Coulter hating on Donald trump a real thing?

trump just announced another cabinet shake-up, what is he trying to distract us from this time?

Why do conservatives hate the kids from Parkland so much?

Is the citizenship test on the census an attempt by trump and his people to rig the elections for years to come?

South Africa just sentenced a woman to three years in prison for a racist rant that went viral. Thoughts?

Here in America a bus full of white college lacrosse players were caught on video singing and rapping the n word over and over again. Thoughts? 

Is Stormy Daniels' lawyer the real deal, or is he just a bluffer and a poser? 

Justice denied.

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After yet another very public state killing of a  black man in America, we learn today that the police officers involved will not be charged. Apparently their actions were deemed "reasonable". I mean it's not like they shot a dog to death or anything. It was just another black man. So... eh.

"Louisiana's attorney general ruled out criminal charges Tuesday against two white Baton Rouge police officers in the fatal shooting of a black man during a struggle outside a convenience store nearly two years after his death caused widespread protests.

Attorney General Jeff Landry's decision came nearly 11 months after the Justice Department ruled out federal criminal charges in Alton Sterling's July 2016 death.

Officer Blane Salamoni shot and killed Sterling during a struggle outside a convenience store where the 37-year-old black man was selling homemade CDs. Officer Howie Lake II helped wrestle Sterling to the ground, but Lake didn't fire his gun. Two cellphone videos of the shooting quickly spread on social media, leading to large protests.

Landry made the announcement of no charges against the officers at a news conference after meeting with family members of Sterling.

Hi's aunt, was in tears after meeting with Landry.

"They said they didn't find anything," she said. "They said it was justifiable, what happened to Alton was justifiable."

Quinyetta McMillon, the mother of one of Sterling's children, Cameron, said the officers killed Sterling "in cold blood."

"They took a human away. They took a father away," she said.

Landry said his office reviewed all of the evidence compiled by the Justice Department, including opinions issued by independent experts, and also conducted its own interviews of eyewitnesses.
"I know the Sterling family is hurting," Landry told reporters. "I know that they may not agree with the decision."

Citing a toxicology report, Landry also said Sterling had illegal drugs in his system at the time of the confrontation. It was "reasonable" to conclude Sterling was under the influence of drugs during the struggle with the officers "and that contributed to his non-compliance," Landry said." [Source]

So "non-compliance" is enough to get you the death penalty these days?

Meanwhile, the black police officer in Minneapolis who killed a white woman will be criminally charged.

"A Minneapolis police officer who shot and killed an Australian woman in July turned himself in Tuesday after a warrant was issued for his arrest, his attorney said. A jail roster said he was held on third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter charges.

Officer Mohamed Noor shot Justine Ruszczyk Damond, a 40-year-old life coach on July 15 minutes after she called 911 to report a possible sexual assault in the alley behind her home. Damond's death drew international attention, cost the police chief her job and forced major revisions to the department's policy on body cameras.

At a press conference on Tuesday afternoon, Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman told reporters that he filed charges because Noor abused his authority to use deadly force. " [Source]

See how that works, folks? He "abused" his authority.

*Pic from huffingtonpost.com

Sexual healing.

I am so over these phony self-righteous religious folks. 

I just watched a bunch of female trump supporters from Texas talk about how Stormy Daniels just wants money and that they didn't believe that trump actually had sex with her.

To them, this is all just an attempt to make their president look bad.

Of course he didn't have unprotected sex with a playboy bunny and a porn star right after his wife gave birth to his youngest child.  "Fake news!"

Did I mention that I am over these self-righteous phonies and religious nuts ?

 "The leader of a partner ministry of the Episcopal Diocese of Tennessee resigned after an employee claimed he masturbated in front of her and the organization covered-up the repeated sexual and racial harassment.

James Finchum, the former executive director of Matthew 25, an organization helping homeless men, resigned in February, the Tennessean reported.

Further information was revealed in a federal lawsuit filed by “Jane Doe” against Finchum and Matthew 25.

The lawsuit claimed that in December of 2016, Finchum summoned the employee into his office, started to massage her after which he “grabbed Plaintiff’s hand and placed it on his groin area, through his pants.”

“He then unzipped his pants, exposed his penis to Plaintiff and masturbated in front of her,” the lawsuit claims.

The lawsuit also alleges that in April of 2016, Finchum “approached Plaintiff from behind and held himself against her buttocks and hunched against her until his pants became wet. 

The employee, who is black, also alleged racial discrimination.” [Source]

Oh lord! Looks like our preacher friend also has some "jungle fever".

Don't you just love religious conservatives?

Finally, speaking of Texas, there was yet another state killing of an unarmed black man in Harris County. That's two similar sad stories that we have become aware of in the last few days. 

See the story here.  

And folks wonder why NFL players kneel.

*Pic from huffingtonpost.com



  

"And a child shall lead them."

"Woman hold her head and cry,
'Cause her son had been shot down in the street and died
From a stray bullet." ~Johnny Was- Bob Marley~ 

That was a powerful and impressive showing by some of our young people on Saturday in D.C. and other cities across the country.

It gives us all hope for our future, and that's a good thing. Is it a movement?  No one knows for sure. I know one thing, it all will mean nothing if all of these young people do not register to vote when they become eligible and vote out the NRA slaves as they promised. As is always the case, the folks at the NRA ---and their friends in Washington--- are just sitting back and hoping that the energy will subside, and that with each passing day the outrage will be less than it was the day before.

If nothing happened after a school house full of children was slaughtered, why would things change now? That, I am sure, is the thinking among those calling the shots in the NRA.

This time, though, things might be a little different. This is partly due to the political energy on the left, thanks in part to the trump's presidency.

We will see.

Finally, speaking of guns and gun violence. There has been another state killing of an unarmed black man in America. This time it was in California, where yet another young unarmed black man was shot to death Sadly, it was in the back yard of his grandparent's home. Not only was he shot and killed, but he was shot at over 20 times. To add insult to the ultimate injury, he was handcuffed and cursed at by the police officers who executed him.

We will see what happens with this case, but like the debate on guns that I wrote about above, I suspect that not much will change. Especially given the person who occupies the White House and the person running his justice department.

*Pic from twitter.com

CAPTION SATURDAY.

I need a caption for this pic.

*Pic from wtvr.com

"Modernizing racism".

The following article is from one of my favorite columnists here in Philly, Will Bunch, and he does a pretty good job of summing up the motivation behind this Cambridge Analytica mess. 

The field Negro education series continues. 

It’s a day that will be indelibly burnished on America’s political memory: June 16, 2015, when Donald Trump descended on an escalator from the marble splendor of his Trump Tower penthouse — with his supermodel wife ahead of him, Neil Young’s “Rockin’ the Free World” blasting at 11 from the speakers — to tell all the little people waiting on the ground that he was running to be America’s 45th president.

The idea of a Donald Trump presidency had been the stuff of speculation and satire for three decades — the assumption being he’d run on his alleged business savvy, even after those three decades had revealed his CEO acumen was more hype than reality. But although he’d displayed a new political instinct at the dawn of the 2010s — with a deep dive into Barack Obama “birtherism” that appealed to worst instincts of the burgeoning Tea Party movement — no one was really ready for what came out of his mouth that late spring day.

Trump said Mexico was sending its worst people, murderers and rapists, to America as immigrants, and then he added that as president he’d build a “great, great wall on our southern border, and I will make Mexico pay for that wall.” To many pundits, the alleged billionaire’s words that day pegged him as too extreme for the Oval Office. But to millions of voters in neglected Rust Belt towns and surrounding farmland, those ugly chords were sweeter music than any riff from Neil Young’s faded guitar.

Trump’s announcement launched a mystery that’s lasted 14 months into the most unlikely presidency in American history. Where did the ideas that animated the candidate’s packed rallies — and juiced voter turnout in Rust Belt states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Ohio — come from? “Build the wall!”? “Drain the swamp!”? “Crooked Hillary!”? “Deep state!”? Defining immigrants as violent gangs or murderous thugs? Painting American’s urban neighborhoods as crime-infested ratholes.

In a stunning week of revelations, we now know the answer. The core messages of the president’s underlying xenophobia and racism that animated his base didn’t emerge from the mind of “very stable genius” Trump (despite a long life of troubling racial attitudes). Instead, the nonstop undercurrent of hate toward The Other in American life was focus-grouped, computer-coded, deliberately amplified by a new ultra-right-wing media echo chamber and then targeted with cruise-missile precision at the handful of states that Trump won by roughly 100,000 votes to grab the Electoral College.

At its blackened heart, it turns out, are the two ugliest words to emerge in U.S. politics in the 21st century: “Race realism.”

There’s nothing real, or factual, about “race realism.” To the contrary, it’s the rank, old-school racial stereotypes about black- and brown-skinned people that once animated slaveholders, the KKK or the White Citizens Councils of yesterday, dressed up in Adidas sneakers and a hip-hop T-shirt instead of a white robe. What we’ve learned these past few days is a kind of a dystopian nightmare: That Team Trump, led by its multimillion-dollar data gurus Cambridge Analytica (CA) and the president’s former propaganda minister, Steve Bannon (with a still mysterious assist from Russian trolls), used the modern techniques of information warfare — and hijacked data from Facebook — to inject a virulent strain of thinly disguised white supremacy to elect an American president.

We know now how this worked, thanks to a courageous insider, Christopher Wylie, who has revealed the secrets of Bannon and Cambridge Analytica as a whistleblower. Much of the attention has focused, understandably, on what you might call the “garbage in” aspect of CA’s work for Trump, the fraud and trickery that was used to gain 50 million Facebook profiles and use “psychometric” profiling to play on voters’ fears and prejudices. There’s been way too little focus on the “garbage out” — what those messages were and how they were crafted.

Wylie told the Washington Post the backstory of how he, Bannon, a financier then running the right-wing Breitbart News, ultra-conservative hedge-fund billionaire Robert Mercer and a cyber-warfare expert named Alexander Nix came together in 2014 to launch Cambridge Analytica. The whistleblower said it was Bannon who was calling the shots and who was particularly interested in one particular issue: How to win over young conservative white males who were staying home on Election Day. The new start-up convened focus groups to find out.
The Post reported that “these voters responded to calls for building a new wall to block the entry of illegal immigrants, to reforms intended to ‘drain the swamp’ of Washington’s entrenched political community and to thinly veiled forms of racism toward African Americans called ‘race realism,’ he recounted.”

Bizarrely, Trump himself seemed to acknowledge in a tweet this Thursday morning that the messages crafted by CA were critical to his victory.

What’s more, Trump also admitted this week at a fund-raiser that “drain the swamp” was a phrase that was given to him — by whom exactly, he didn’t say, although the circumstantial evidence points to Bannon and CA — and that he didn’t like it until his predominantly white rally crowds went wild:

And I hated it, I thought it was so hokey. I said, ‘that is the hokiest, give me a break, I am embarrassed to say it.’ And I was in Florida where 25,000 people were going wild, and I said, ‘and we will drain the swamp’ — the place went crazy. I couldn’t believe it. 

High-tech political “psy-ops” work, apparently. Trump has in the past voiced similar surprise at how well the “build the wall” meme succeeded on the campaign trail, although Wylie has said the idea of a physical quarantine played right into the psychological fears of those voters most disturbed that America is becoming increasingly non-white. Likewise, CA’s now-suspended CEO Nix was caught on tape bragging how his firm used high-tech to “weaponize” the phrase “Crooked Hillary.”

But arguably the most disturbing aspect of all this is the push for “race realism.” I’d never heard that exact phrase before this week, and there’s a good chance that you haven’t either — unless you spend a lot of time on websites or message boards appealing to the white nationalists who’ve tried to re-brand themselves as “the alt-right.”

“Race realism,” it seems, is a modern update on centuries of pseudo-science (the eugenics movement of the earliest 20th century, for example). It’s also been called “scientific racism,” and you probably won’t be shocked to learn this debunked mumbo-jumbo was also a key philosophical underpinning of Nazi Germany and its propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels.

Indeed, “race realism” today is a core value of the yahoos you witnessed marching with their Home Deport tiki torches in Charlottesville, spread by the likes of “Hail Trump” white nationalist ally Richard Spencer as well as the random neo-Nazis who salute the new president and pseudo-academic journals with names like American Renaissance. There’s always been what the historian Richard Hofstadter called “the paranoid style in American politics“, but Bannon and Trump have made that mainstream, with dangerous omens for U.S. democracy.

Remember, Bannon in the run-up to teaming with Trump was a double-edge sword, using the data he gained from his role at Cambridge Analytica not only to bamboozle voters through Facebook messages and “fake news” but also as the editor of his own rising website, Breitbart News.  Under Bannon’s leadership, Breitbart launched a special section called “Black Crime” that pandered to its readers’ foulest stereotypes about African-Americans and lawbreaking. (You can see some examples of what the Southern Poverty Law Center has called “a white ethno-nationalist propaganda mill” here.)

Interestingly, many of the posts now linked to the Russian troll farm which was indicted, along with some of its key players, by special counsel Robert Mueller, also worked hard to drive up racial divides in America, using Facebook and even staged events to stir up both left-leaning black activists and the conservatives who most despise them.

In the summer of 2016, when few experts gave Trump any chance of winning the general election and after Robert Mercer and his billions signed on with the GOP nominee, Bannon was abruptly named the CEO of the Trump campaign. It was a short time later that Trump began talking about race on the campaign trail, in what was ostensibly a pitch for black votes. But what a bizarre pitch it was.
“You’re living in poverty, your schools are no good, you have no jobs, 58 percent of your youth is unemployed.” Trump told a rally in September 2016. The ostensible message was, “What the hell do you” — African-Americans — “have to lose” by voting for the Republican, but the words seemed instead to reinforce the stereotypes of “race realism.” There were virtually no blacks in the audience that day. The rally was held in Dimondale, Michigan, a small town (92.7 percent white) near Lansing — the kind of place where jacked-up turnout helped Trump gain stunning narrow victories that November not just in the Wolverine State but the other Rust Belt states where he (and Cambridge Analytica) had targeted those young white male conservative voters.

Even now, as president, Trump falls back on “race realism” when he gets into a political jam — calling any black athlete who protested social injustice during the National Anthem a “son of a bitch” (in Alabama, the state that gave us George Wallace and Selma’s “Bloody Sunday”) or labeling a leading African-American critic, Rep. Maxine Waters. “a low-IQ individual.” He’s determined to hold his base together. And he’s got the data to prove that racism works.

It’s time to see this noxious phenomenon — the spirit of yesterday’s cross burnings, sparked by today’s internet electrons of Facebook’s friendly facade — as what it is, as not just some background noise but as the cornerstone of what elected Trump, and what powers his wayward presidency. That’s why it’s so important for Mueller (and perhaps a Democratic House in 2019) to get to the bottom of Bannon’s work with CA, Breitbart and Trump and what crimes, if any, were committed in spreading this poison. We can’t outlaw the notions of white supremacy, but we can punish the people who used fraud to inject these odious ideas into our body politic.

Because “race realism” isn’t an actual thing. It’s just real racism." [Source]

Open thread Wednesday.

It's open thread Wednesday, and I have a few simple questions for you.

What do you think Vladimir Putin  has over Donald trump? Why doesn't he ever criticizes the man?

Even folks in his own White House are baffled as to why, against the advice of his own national security team, he found it necessary to call Putin to congratulate him on his rigged election.

What is the reason for trump's Russia love?

*Pic from motherjones.com

Pets, trump, and Putin.

I am now convinced that the only way Americans would be appalled by the man they elected president, is if he were to physically abuse a dog on national television. This of course would most Americans. The die hard trumpbots would probably stick with him. "Eh, I was  cat person anyway."

Let's face it, we Americans love out pets. Hurting a pet might be the only thing that could diminish trump's stature in the eyes of many.

Consider the following: A dog is tragically killed on an airline, and it's a major news story for days.
Two African American men are blown to smithereens in Austin, Texas, and it doesn't become a major news story until two white men are INJURED while riding their bicycles in a "peaceful" Austin neighborhood.

And speaking of the aforementioned Donald trump, he is now calling for drug dealers to get the death penalty. Go figure. And did you notice that he wants the death penalty for those who deal in opioids? Why only opioids? Why not heroin and crack? I will tell you why. Take a look at the population that is most affected by this particular drug epidemic.

 Let me say for the record that I have known a few accused drug dealers in my life, and I can honestly say that while what they did for a living was obviously wrong, they did not deserve the death penalty. The truth is, some of them were better human beings than this president.

But he has done this before. Remember when he called for the death penalty for the Central Park Five? Fortunately for those young men ---who have now been proven innocent--- he did not get his wish. 

Can you imagine what kind of country we would live in if this wannabe despot had his way? "What?! He criticized me on his blog and on twitter? Off with his head. I don't like what that Joy Reid character is saying on MSNBC, can we have her arrested?"

Today, in keeping with his love for totalitarians, Mr. trump called the leader of Russia, his boss, Vladimir Putin, to congratulate him on his rigged election victory in Russia.  We are all scratching our heads over that one, especially given Russia's behavior towards our allies of late. 

"I had a call with President Putin and congratulated him on the victory, his electoral victory," Trump said during his meeting with Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman of Saudi Arabia. "The call had to do also with the fact that we will probably get together in the not too distant future so that we can discuss arms, we can discuss the arms race."

Stop lying Mr. President , we all know you will be discussing how you can get those pictures back. 

   




 

"Will America ever have a #MeToo-style reckoning for racism?"

     The following is an interesting article and exchange on  Vox.com about racism and the #MeToo movement.

"We’re in the middle of a reckoning on the subject of sexual assault and sexual misconduct — especially in the workplace. Abuses long swept under the rug or covered up are being exposed, the perpetrators punished.

But just as women have long endured inappropriate conduct, with no sense that they’d get any justice if they spoke up, so have many people of color. Which led us to wonder: What would a racial “reckoning” in the style of #MeToo look like in our country?

#MeToo is a tough social movement to define, but several overarching themes emerge: Perpetrators of sexual harassment are being called out for specific bad behavior, ranging from very explicit to more subtle forms. People are losing their jobs because of it. There is a cultural conversation happening that involves identifying this behavior, once acceptable (or ignored), as unacceptable. And there is a broader conversation happening about the underlying systems that enable this kind of behavior.

What would a similar movement centered on race look like? What consequences would they suffer? What would it take to make this broader conversation about what is acceptable and unacceptable behavior happen? Vox politics and policy writer Jane Coaston, identities editor Michelle Garcia, and identities writers P.R. Lockhart and German Lopez got together to discuss the challenges of a similar reckoning for acts of racism in America. Here’s their conversation, edited and condensed for clarity.

Jane Coaston

Racists are all too often able to defend themselves by simply claiming that their racism doesn’t count as racism. I think that our history puts the “what counts as racism” bar so high that many believe to fit underneath it renders them “not racist.” “I’ve never burned a cross! I’ve never called anyone a ni**er! I just think that interracial relationships are bad!”

German Lopez

You see that kind of thing with the opposition to taking microaggressions seriously. People really, really don’t like the idea that just making a certain group of people uncomfortable might get them in trouble. They want to be able to get away with it.

Michelle Garcia

Yeah, that’s what worries me about this “politically correct/incorrect” business. For so long people were able to say things, unchecked, that were incredibly racist, or at the very least unkind to other human beings — but being held accountable for those actions is suddenly oh so stifling? Give me a break! Be a human being.

German Lopez

I do think, though, that there is an open question about how exactly you define racism. We see it with #MeToo right now, where it seems pretty clear that unsolicited physical acts and comments are out of bounds, but things get a bit murkier when dealing with, for example, someone who asks a colleague out on a date or misreads a conversation at an after-work party. I’m not sure how these kinds of situations would apply to racial harassment, but there is some gray in here to work through." [Source]

Racism is usually "pretty clear" as well, but we often pretend that it doesn't exist because it makes us uncomfortable. 

Thoughts? 

*Image from cbsnews.com

A quote for the ages.

To quote the one and only Katt Williams: "This shit right here N****r"!

 "When the full extent of your venality, moral turpitude, and political corruption becomes known, you will take your rightful place as a disgraced demagogue in the dustbin of history...You may scapegoat Andy McCabe, but you will not destroy America...America will triumph over you.”  

That was a quote from a former director of the CIA, referring to a sitting American president.

History will not be kind to this president and his supporters.

This sad Andrew McCabe saga is just another example of the pettiness and vindictiveness of this president and those who support him. McCabe might or might not have committed a fireable offense, but the president of the United States had no business celebrating the man's demise and doing a victory lap on twitter.

Besides the obvious legal jeopardy he puts himself in, it just shows a lack of class and basic human decency to act in such a manner. He called the firing of a career public servant a "great day for democracy". Think about that for a minute.

This is why the left and the rest of the folks in the so called "resistance" are so energized. And I can guarantee you that come November it will manifest itself in ways that those on the right will not like.

Fortunately for us, this is not the end of this story. Mr. McCabe said that he took notes during all his meetings with this president, and he has given memos to Robert Mueller to prove it.

trump, of course, has declared that it is fake news.

"Spent very little time with Andrew McCabe, but he never took notes when he was with me. I don’t believe he made memos except to help his own agenda, probably at a later date. Same with lying James Comey. Can we call them Fake Memos?"

We will see Mr. trump, we will see.








 

CAPTION SATURDAY.

I need a caption for this pic.

*Pic from twitter.com

Presidential behavior?

What kind of president brags about lying to the Prime Minister of one of our greatest allies?

What kind of president lies about how a major trading partner and ally tests foreign made cars to push his own agenda? (There is no such thing as a "bowling ball" test)

What kind of president claims that the candidate from an opposing party who just defeated the person he just stomped for, won because he ran his race in his image? (Hello republicans, Conor Lamb supports Obamacare, is pro union, hates the tax cuts, and supports Roe v Wade. All the spinning in the world will not change that.) 

What kind of president has unprotected sex with a porn star just months after marrying his third wife, and tries to cover up the relationship with hidden payoffs? 

What kind of president fails to condemn a major foreign power for trying to actively undermine the democracy of his country by waging cyber warfare? 

Those were all rhetorical questions. We know who does all of these things: The current president of the United States.

Finally, for all of you trumpbots who think that his massive deregulation campaign and attack on government bureaucracies  that try to enforce things such as building codes.

Think about what happened today in Miami.

"A newly installed bridge touted as a feat of engineering collapsed on Florida International University's campus Thursday, killing at least four people.

 Aerial footage showed first responders tending to victims at the scene, searching for people in the rubble and loading others on stretchers into ambulances. They were able to pull at least two people were trapped, officials said.

Firefighters have pulled out at least four deceased people from the rubble, according to Miami-Dade fire chief Dave Downey said at a Thursday evening press conference." 

Be careful what you wish for.