The circus comes to Washington.

The American media has got themselves all up in bunches over the anticipated testimony of former FBI director, James Comey. Over at CNN they have a countdown clock for crying out loud. They are salivating all over themselves in anticipation of the big day.  

I for one believe that this might be one big nothing burger. I mean sure,  he will probably testify to statements trump made to him which could be construed as obstruction of justice, but I don't think that there will be any bombshell Of my God!, moments. There is nothing that anyone can say about this president at this point that could shock the conscience.  We are talking about a guy who bragged about sexually assaulting women and  yet he still got elected president. Let that sink in for a moment.

Thursday should be an interesting day. If Donald is nervous he is not really showing it. He is tweeting now more than ever, and we all are terrified. Even news outlets friendly to him have tried to tell him to cut it out.

Just over the past few days he has lied about what the Mayor of London said after a terrorist attack on his country, he has gone after a key ally in the fight against Isis by siding with the Saudis in a fight with Qatar. A country, by the way, where we have a key US air base which we rely on to fight the war on terror. (Who is going to keep this man off twitter?) It's gotten so bad that even republican lawmakers are now telling him to stay away from the 140 characters way of communicating to the American people.

I hear that trump might be live- tweeting the Comey testimony. He is probably not too nervous about it, because it's his word against Comey's at this point. And he knows that at least 38% of the country will side with him. In that 38% there are enough people to fill gymnasiums for a rally.

 Sadly, that is all our sick egomaniac of a president cares about.

*Pic from nbcnews.com 

  

As we head out to vote tomorrow, a burned out church stands in Mississippi.

   So his Oness just gave what might be his final speech to the country at a massive rally for Hillary at Independence Hall here in Philly. Michelle spoke as well, and as usual she was on point. I suspect that most of y'all are going to miss that family.

We will see if all that hype and those great speeches tonight worked for Hillary when folks go out to the polls in the 66 wards and all their divisions across Philly tomorrow. The mass transit strike is over and the weather should be nice, so that's a good sign for the candidate who wants to be the first to be called Madam President in our history.

Anyway, on the night before we all go to vote I want to do a cut and paste job of what I believe is a very important story.

"GREENVILLE, MIssissippi — The latest instance of the insanity this election has wrought took place on a dead-end street in a black neighborhood, where someone burned a 111-year-old baptist church and wrote “Vote Trump” on the side.

Hillary Clinton immediately took to Twitter to condemn the act, saying, “This kind of hate has no place in America.” It was signed “H” to show it was from Clinton herself. But when it came to the burning of a black church in his own name, Trump’s little fingers didn’t touch his favorite means of reaching millions of supporters, Twitter. Instead, his campaign issued a boilerplate statement.

So these are stakes of this election: a potential president who would not even condemn in his own words terrorism done in his own name.

The inside of the Hopewell Missionary Baptist Church looked like a deranged modern art exhibit when viewed on Friday afternoon. Pews, an organ, the podium for the Bible—all covered in what looked black paint. It was instead soot from the flames that licked up the walls and busted out the windows, burning so hot that firefighters at first had to watch it burn before finally being able to approach the building to try to save it.

They failed.

“We will rebuild,” said Marshall Wilson, a Greenville native and a deacon at the church for the last 38 years. The church will have the help of more than $200,000 raised online in the last few days.

“It’s overwhelming,” Wilson told The Daily Beast on Friday afternoon.

Whether the arsonist was a Trump supporter, someone hoping to throw off the authorities—although Wilson noted no one in the community that he knows of has every had a problem with church, especially not enough of one to spark flames—or someone else hoping to wreak some havoc of their own, is now up to authorities to find out.

“What the Devil do, whoever did this, his plan’s not gonna work,” Wilson said. “God’s got a plan for everything.”

So do a lot of other people.

They include the three men who are accused of planning to bomb a Somali mosque in Kansas, a crime that has federal authorities referring to the men as domestic terrorists. “The only way to turn around this country is a bloodbath,” one member of the group said in a phone call recorded by law enforcement.

The men were arrested in October after an eight-month long investigation.

Somali immigrants, a largely Muslim community, were targeted in North Dakota as well. Police eventually arrested a man for firebombing a Somali cafe there in December, writing “Go home” in spray paint on a window.

But the string of violence against minorities  this election season may have begun in August 2015, when two men in Boston beat and urinated on a homeless Hispanic man simply because of his race, allegedly invoking Trump in the attack.

“Donald Trump was right; all of these illegals need to be deported,” one of the men said after he was arrested, according to police.

The GOP presidential candidate, in characteristically spineless fashion, said then he “would never condone violence” from his supporters. Our possible next president did not say, unequivocally, that he did not condone this specific act, because that wouldn’t fit into the dog whistle nature of his candidacy. During a press conference following the attack, Trump took his non-condemnation a step further, saying his supporters are “very passionate,” and that they “just want this country to be great again.”

For some of those supporters, that greatness is best shown by beating the hell out of someone who is a different color than you.

But the Trump-related violence didn’t stop there. The Daily Beast in March compiled a list of violent confrontations between Trump supporters and protesters at the GOP candidate’s rallies. At that time, Trump’s mostly white gang of thugs had roughed up men and women in at least six incidents, including one that month in which a white man cold-cocked a black protester. Trump at the time pledged to pay the attacker’s defense fees.

Like virtually everything that Trump promises, that ended up not happening. Some protesters, however, have taken legal action and are seeking $1 million in damages for the violence inflicted on them at Trump rallies.

Finally, and most ironically for the “law and order candidate,” is the man who killed two Iowa police officers in early November. A Trump-Pence lawn sign was planted in the front yard of the home where Scott Greene lived and we know that he is angry enough at blacks to record himself waving a Confederate flag in the faces of African-Americans at a high school football game. Police escorted Greene out following the incident.

The Trump tweet came first, then one from Clinton, expressing condolences for the families of the two fallen officers.

Clinton’s tweet condemning the arson at the Greenville church compared to Trump’s silence on his chosen platform is an important distinction to make. Twitter is the place where Trump is at his most “unshackled” where he regularly berates and bullies opponents, reporters, citizens, foreign leaders and whomever else chooses to question his manhood, sanity, or bonafides as a presidential candidate or basic human being. It’s also where he pushes conspiracy theories and fake news, where he utilizes plagiarism as a campaign tactic, and where he occasionally blames interns of questionable existence for insulting the entire state of Iowa.

That Trump had nothing to say on his own about the church doesn’t bother Deacon Wilson.

“The church was still smoking when the firemen brought out the Bible,” he said as investigators continued to comb through the wreckage on Friday afternoon. “It hadn’t been touched. You can’t burn God’s word.”' [Source]

If you cant condemn the burning of a church in your name, are you really qualified to lead the "greatest country" on earth?

*Pic from nbcnews.com

 

"Dirty old men"?

   Just when you thought that this election season couldn't get any more creepy and salacious, it has.

You have, for instance, three guys who have nine wives between them, lecturing us about infidelity and threatening to bring up Bubba's past indiscretions.  One of them (Rudy Giulliani) even married his cousin for crying out loud. (A real trump supporter if there ever was one.)

Donald's little fingers turned to twitter fingers last night, he let go with a not so lucid rant about sex tapes, lies, and other various things.

But hey, at least Alicia Machado is over 18 years old.

"While he was talking about women he does and does not find attractive (as one does), he brought up Paris Hilton.

“Now, somebody who a lot of people don’t give credit to but in actuality is really beautiful is Paris Hilton,” he said. “I’ve known Paris Hilton from the time she’s 12, her parents are friends of mine, and the first time I saw her she walked into the room and I said, ‘Who the hell is that?”"[Link]

Yo Donald, WTF man?! SHE WAS TWELVE!

“Well, at 12, I wasn’t interested…I’ve never been into that … but she was beautiful,” said Trump."

 

 I think I will take a shower now.

 

*Pic from motherjones.com

 

 

 

"Fear and loathing" from the right-wing media.

As the folks over at Bitefart and other right winngut outlets continue to demonize the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, you have to wonder what it is that they are so afraid of.

The latest is a scurrilous lie and false characterization of an entire movement by taking the actions of a few folks on twitter as something that is representative of the entire group. Personally, I take everything that these clowns report about with a grain of salt, but even if true, it is not a true representation of how black activist feel about the tragedy  that took place in Paris, France.

I have seen thousands of tweets and essays from black activists and bloggers showing support for the people of Paris and offering condolences to those who lost loved ones. Unfortunately you would never know this from reading right -wing blogs or watching FOX VIEWS.

Anyway, I saw a wonderful essay from a member of my twitter family that I think might be instructive for some of you who are on the outside looking in.

"What comes to mind when you think of the word “freedom?

Personally, I think of two different things: There’s freedom as liberation, the basic human right to be your authentic self and live your life without fear of violence or persecution.

Then there’s the idea of “freedom” as a tenet of the faulty “American Dream.” You know, the kind of rhetoric spewed on media outlets like Fox News, telling us that we’re lucky to live in the US, the land of the free. Telling us who to fear – namely, Arab Muslims whose “barbaric” traditions threaten our liberties. Telling us that “political correctness” has gone awry, trying to take away our freedom of speech

Right now, this very rhetoric is being used to ridicule activists fighting for freedom as liberation.

Here’s what’s happening. We’ve been rocked by two major events in our world.

On a global scale, the devastating attacks in Paris have left 140 people dead and many more injured and traumatized by unfathomable terror.

And here at home, activists of color on college campuses across the country are protesting having to live in fear with incidents like racist threats of violence at the University of Missouri.

It’s hard to know how to react in moments like these. I wish I could shut off the world around me and just be human. After all, it’s only human to grieve, to learn of the horrific things the people in Paris went through and mourn for the lost and shattered lives of the victims, their families, and communities.

And it’s only human to feel enraged for the students of color too afraid to step outside of their dorm rooms on a campus where the administration dismisses their fears.

I can hold both these feelings within me and know that one doesn’t diminish the validity of the other. But when it comes to expressing these emotions, every response feels heavy with implications." [More]

Well said Maisha, it is always nice to read the words of a young writer who can state their position in such an honest and heartfelt way.

Contrast this with the folks at Britefart, whose only goal in life  seems to be to divide and profit from the division that they create. So far, I am sad to say, their plan is working.  

*Pic from AP and everydayfeminism.com

A strange sense of humor.

The folks on the right and their propaganda arm, FOX Views, sure have a strange sense of humor.


 "On Fox News Sunday this morning, Fox News contributors George Will and Brit Hume mocked the #BringBackOurGirls campaign, a piece of Twitter activism intended to increase pressure on the Nigerian government and international community to more actively seek the return of over 200 kidnapped Nigerian schoolgirls, arguing the campaign was intended solely to soothe the consciouses of those tweeting.


“I was not that familiar with this phenomenon,” host Chris Wallace said. “It’s even got a name: hash tag activism. Do you think that this is significant and helpful and can make progress, or do you think it’s really about helping the people who tweet the hash tag feel better about themselves?”


“It’s an exercise in self esteem,” Will said. “I do not know how adults stand there, facing a camera, and say ‘Bring back our girls.’ Are these barbarians in the wilds of Nigeria supposed to check their Twitter accounts and say, ‘Uh-oh, Michelle Obama is very cross with us, we better change our behavior?’”


It’s trending!” Hume yukked. “It’s trending on Twitter!” [Source]


Ha -ha -ha- ha.


If you are surprised that the FOX panel would make light of over 200 school girls being viciously kidnapped by Muslim extremist, you don't understand the mindset of the right.


To them, African girls are way down on the pecking order in terms of importance. They have two strikes against them: They are not Americans, and they are not white.


This is why they can make light of an attempt by social network activists to bring attention to a very serious tragedy playing itself out across the world and not concern themselves with the consequences.


The lives of these girls don't matter, only the lives of the Americans who perished at Benghazi do. (Although we all know that they really don't care about them, either. Just politics.) They were Americans. Their lives matter. Those girls, on the other hand, not so much.


Finally, a few words about Mother's Day.


Kevin Durant gave a moving speech while accepting his MVP trophy the other day. There was not a dry eye in the room, and when you listen to it you can understand why.


"Everybody told us we weren't supposed to be here. We moved from apartment to apartment by ourselves. One of the best memories I have is when we moved into our first apartment. No bed, no furniture, and we just all sat in the living room and hugged each other because we thought we made it.


"When something good happens to you, I don't know about you guys, but I tend to look back to what brought me here. You woke me up in the middle of the night in the summertimes. Making me run up a hill. Making me do push-ups. Screaming at me from the sidelines at my games at 8 or 9 years old.


"We weren't supposed to be here. You made us believe. You kept us off the street, put clothes on our backs, food on the table. When you didn't eat, you made sure we ate. You went to sleep hungry. You sacrificed for us. You're the real MVP."


I can't relate to Durant's speech on personal level, but I certainly can on a professional one.


I see lots of women just like his mother every day, and I honestly don't know how they do it.


Today is a good day to recognize those mothers. Let's not forget all the sacrifices that they make on a daily basis for their families.


Happy Mother's Day.








   

Even the older smiling Negro gets pulled.

I wasn't going to blog about this, because, quite frankly, I am never surprised at the behavior of those in corporate A-merry-ca (and A-merry-ca in general) when it comes to matters of race. But this latest gaffe by Microsoft is just too rich to pass up.

Most of you know the story by now: Microsoft is running this ad in Poland because they probably don't think the Poles think too highly of us black folks when it comes to intelligence. (I was going to say something else, but I will leave it alone.) So, as a result, they decided to pull a switcharoo and replace the brotha with a white guy. Poland being Poland, I guess they didn't think it be too cool to put a black guy in an ad with something they are trying to sell over there. But why not just use a white guy? Why photoshop the brotha? And such an innocent looking non threatening Negro at that. Look at how that Negro is smiling? I bet that white woman sitting next to him doesn't even feel threatened...let me stop.

Nice try Microsoft, but you made one little mistake in your photoshop fiasco: you forgot to match the white guys hands with the face. Yeah, I know this is the age of Obama, but we still aren't ready for people who are literally half and half just yet.

This is too funny. Of course, as is usually the case with these little racial faux pas, Microsoft is trying to figure out what went wrong, because they are soooooo not racist. The following is from The Times Online:

"Microsoft used its own Twitter feed to apologise. “We are looking into the details of this situation,” a company spokesman said. “We apologise and are in the process of pulling down the image.” ...Later, a spokeswoman for Microsoft in Poland said that the doctoring was a “simple mistake” and was not racially motivated. The picture was taken in September last year, she said, and all four people responsible for editing it had left the company some time ago. “We would really like to apologise,” she said. “We are a multiracial company and there isn’t a chance any of us are racist.”

Soooo, because you are a "multiracial company" there "isn't a chance any" of you are racist? Are you kidding me Ms. spokeswoman? Now I see why your company embarrassed itself with this ad. You people really have no clue, do you?

Anyway, back to your normal lives everybody. This was just a little corporate speed bump on our way to racial harmony here in A-merry-ca. Besides, speaking of speed; I have to go and work out now. I think my man racism is calling me out from down in Texas again. [Thanks Anastassia]And you all know that he doesn't play. I might have some serious chasing to do.