Acknowledging our history.

I had an interesting discussion with an individual recently about racism in America. He was from the majority population, and I am sure that he meant well, but, not surprisingly, we could not agree on much.  In my humble opinion, he just didn't get it.

He was doing what most white Americans tend to do when discussing the issue of race. He acknowledged that while there may be still isolated incidents of racism in America, there was so much to be proud of in terms of how we deal with the issue of race and how far we have come as a country when it comes to such issues.  

To his credit, a lot of what he said about other countries and racism was true. Yes, there is racism in America, but there is racism in other countries as well. My travels have taught me that America probably has less racism than most other countries with a majority white population.The problem with America, though, is this: We have declared to the world that ours is the greatest democracy on earth, and that our social experiment and the Constitution that we hold so dear is second to no other.  And yet, we have failed to acknowledge our greatest sins when it comes to racism and our treatment of the Africans and their descendants who were brought to this country.

This is why most African Americans are still not satisfied when it comes to how they view the issue of racism and equality in this country. It's why there is such a disconnect between the races when it comes to the issue of race. We as black folks understand that just going about our daily routine of shopping, driving, and walking , can bring unwelcome scrutiny because of the color of our skin.

We believe that "white privilege" and its effects are real, and that whites who are born into it and who benefit from it take it for granted, We get angry when white people try to whitesplain racist behavior and normalize the ignorance and bigotry that flows from it, and we really become unhinged when white Americans refuse to acknowledge its history.

If you think about it, what this country needs is a version of the Truth & Reconciliation Commission, which seemed to work for South Africa post apartheid. An official form of racial cleansing and apology for all the wrongs and atrocities that was brought on the people of color throughout America's history. And with all due respect to Ta-nehisi Coates, not the reparations that he has so eloquently asked for.

Most folks in  the majority believe that America has given African Americans enough, and they believe that they can quantify it in terms of dollars and cents and political and social clout, things that were earned by African Americans  after years of struggle and protest by way of the  civil rights movement.

It's not practical to expect Americans to be open to the idea of reparations, when as a country we won't even  acknowledge why reparations is needed in the first place.



      



 

  



  



.

"America's greatest problem: The Negro."

The following is from the New York Times book review section from 1915.

It is interesting to read and see how, on one hand, we have come so far as a nation. And how, on another hand, we still have so far to go.

The Field Negro education series continues.

July 18, 1915

"America's Greatest Problem: The Negro" -- Three Students of the Subject View the Racial Question from Different Angles and Offer Suggestions for Its Solution

By THE NEW YORK TIMES

THE NEGRO By W. E.Burghardt Du Bois.

Of these three books on the negro, Dr. Shufeldt's "America's Greatest Problem: The Negro" is the least satisfactory, but it shall be discussed first because the others refute some of its sensational statements. It has the merit of sincerity, and it is not without substance; but its violence and prejudice destroy its value. The defect of its judgments is seen in statements such as this: "Men like Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois are traitors to their race in this country, and are the worst enemies negroes in the United States have today."

According to this author the full-blooded negro in this country has never "contributed a single line to literature worth the printing; a single cog in the machine of invention; an idea to any science; or, in short, advanced civilization a single millimeter since the first Congo pair were placed on this soil." A large portion of the book is devoted to trying to prove scientifically that all negroes come of cannibal stock, that they are hopelessly sensual, subject to "sex madness," and incapable of improvement. "It is impossible to improve the morals of a people when they have no morals to improve" is one of his comments. Burke once said that one cannot indict a whole nation, but Dr. Shufeldt would indict a whole race.

The deplorable situation in parts of the South, of course, with the daily terror that it imposes on white women, is discussed at length. The problem is there, an grave enough it is, but it requires a different treatment from that given it by the author who can see nothing but a "seething mass of black bestiality." Dr. Shufeldt asserts that miscegenation is going on in our cities through the lower-class whites, and he jumps at the conclusion that because there is some white blood in 4,000,000 of the 10,000,000 negroes in the United States the whole negro population is going to be absorbed into the white race to our lasting degradation. Our only salvation, he believes, is in "complete and thorough separation" of the two races, and he therefore urges:
"the enactment of a Federal law to the effect that all negroes and descendents of negroes within the boundaries of the United States of America shall leave this country for all time within ten years after the passage of said law."

Dr. Shufeldt would send them to the Philippines, South America, Mexico, the West Indies, and Haiti, and he says we could well afford to spend $150,000,000 on the work. He thinks such a law would "entail no hardship whatever," but he would hardly take the same view if the people to be expatriated were white. The book is so intemperate and unjust that it defeats its own ends.

Dr. Woodson's "The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861" is a dispassionate monograph, done in the modern scientific spirit, to show the persistent strivings of slaves to learn to read and write. It covers a chapter of American history hitherto almost untouched. Dr. Woodson has gathered his facts from innumerable sources and assembled them in an orderly mosaic. His method involves a good deal of repetition, but it leaves no room to question the soundness of his conclusions.

This book recalls the half-forgotten fact that in the beginning the negro slaves were taught to read and write as freely as they were taught Christianity. That epoch continued until about 1835, and it produced some brainy persons of color, such as Phyllis Wheatley, the poet, and Benjamin Banneker, who, in 1770, made the first manufactured in the United States. Another instance is that of James Durham, who spoke French and Spanish fluently, as well as English, and was a distinguished New Orleans physician. The noted Dr. Benjamin Rush of Philadelphia once deigned to converse with him professionally and afterward confessed: "I learned more from him than he could expect of me." Dr. Woodson also tells of a native African who had amazing powers as a mathematician. Many such instances controvert Dr. Shufeldt's sweeping negatives.

About 1835, however, the dark age set in, when it became a crime even for a negro to teach his own children to read and write. The coming of the cotton gin and other modern machinery, coupled with an increasing fear of negro insurrections, caused the slave barons to enact stringent laws forbidding the education of negroes. Dr. Woodson's chapter on "The Reaction" sounds almost incredible, but it is well-authenticated American history.

The policy of keeping slaves in complete ignorance soon had a deteriorating effect on their minds and characters, and the more thoughtful whites tried to overcome this by teaching them "religion without letters," but even such enlightenment often brought persecution to the teachers. A chapter entitled "Learning in Spite of Oppositions" tells of secret struggles to overcome those obstacles -- with pathetically meagre results.

The thirteen chapters of this book cover all the main phases of ante-bellum attempts at negro education in the North as well as in the South. It is a thorough and intelligent study, with just enough sympathetic spirit to humanize its array of well-ordered facts.

Critics on both sides of the Atlantic have long agreed in praising the high average of the compact little volumes in the Home University Library of Modern Knowledge. The volume on "The Negro," by Dr. Du Bois, editor of The Crisis, measures up to the standard of the series. It is a brief history of the black race in Africa, of its beginnings of culture, and of the slave trade and its disastrous effects. The author holds -- with modern science to support him -- that there are no definite lines separating the various human races, and that the comparative backwardness of the black race is due mainly to the fact that the interior of Africa contains no natural barriers such as protected early civilization in the Nile Valley and in Europe. Thus the beginnings of culture on the Niger and Congo were repeatedly wiped out by savage invasions and especially by the slave raids of Mohammedan and Christian nations.

That there was such a thing as negro culture in Africa is abundantly attested. At the time when Columbus was discovering America a full-blooded black, Mohammed Askia, was ruling over an empire as large as all of Europe. On his pilgrimage to Mecca he was accompanied by "a brilliant group of scholars and holy men with a small escort of 1,500 soldiers and $9,000,000 in gold. He stopped and consulted with scholars and politicians and studied matters of taxation, weights and measures, trade, religious tolerance, and manners. The University of Sankore became a centre of learning in correspondence with Egypt and North Africa, and had a swarm of black Sudanese students. Law, literature, grammar, geography, and surgery were studied."

In a chapter on "African Culture" Dr. Du Bois tells of the achievements of African negroes as workers in iron bronze, copper, wood, and pottery, recalling that "Schweinfurth, von Luschan, Boaz, and others incline to the belief that the negroes invented smelting of iron and passed it on to the Egyptians and to modern Europe."

All this was swept away by the slave trade, says the author. He estimates that every slave imported to America cost "five corpses in Africa or on the high seas," and that the American and Arabian raids together meant the death, expatriation, or forcible migration of at least 100,000,000 natives. "And yet people ask today the cause of, the stagnation of culture in that land since 1600!"

The last two chapters are devoted to the negro in the United States. The author defends the fifteenth amendment, believing that it alone could have insured his race such measure of freedom as it now has. He holds that in the chaos of reconstruction days "the venality was much greater among whites than negroes," and that "while ignorance was the curse of the negroes, the fault was not theirs, and they took the initiative to correct it." As usual, Dr. Du Bois opposes Booker T. Washington's ideas of education, one of the few mistakes that he makes in this book. The whole is written with an intellectual force, a breadth of learning, and a judicious poise that compel respect." [Source]

There are a lot of thinkers like  Dr. Shufeldt floating around out there today. (Just read the comments section in this and other blogs.) Although they have become somewhat marginalized  (Somewhat. You can still find his book on Amazon.), because it is not currently proper to express such views in polite company.




   

Holiday wishes.

I am hanging out with the fam and waiting on Santa.

This is a good time for you field hands to tell me what your Holiday wishes are.

Mine is the tried and true, "peace on earth and good will to all men." 

Well, almost all men.  

Free the Rockettes.

 I have never been a fan of the Radio City Rockettes. I saw them  once as a youngster while visiting New York, and I was like,...eh.  

Still, it's hard not to feel sorry for them these days, given the fact that they are being held hostage and forced to perform for the inauguration of Herr trump.

Apparently team trump has been having a hard time finding  A-list performers for his big day, and he is not too pleased about it. The tweeter in chief let his feelings be known in no uncertain terms, recently.

"Donald J. Trump

✔ @realDonaldTrumpThe so-called "A" list celebrities are all wanting tixs to the inauguration, but look what they did for Hillary, NOTHING. I want the PEOPLE!

7:59 PM - 22 Dec 2016"

Sorry Donald, "the people" can't sing and dance. And I suspect that you would be singing (pun intended) a different tune if Elton John and all  the other A- listers you invited had accepted your invitation.

“I usually don’t use social media to make a political stand but I feel overwhelmed with emotion. Finding out that it has been decided for us that Rockettes will be performing at the Presidential inauguration makes me feel embarrassed and disappointed. The women I work with are intelligent and are full of love and the decision of performing for a man that stands for everything we’re against is appalling. I am speaking for just myself but please know that after we found out this news, we have been performing with tears in our eyes and heavy hearts. We will not be forced! #notmypresident

The Rockettes will have to suck it up and kick up their legs for the country. 

There is one silver lining, though. The Donald will  not be allowed to go backstage and harass them. 

Too many people will be watching.  

*Pic from wikipedia.com 

One more for Rushmore?

Every self- respecting man with a sartorial sense should subscribe to GQ Magazine. He should do it  not only for the fashion tips; the magazine features some excellent writing as well. The editor, Jim Nelson, is one of the best writers in America.

With that in mind, I would to leave you with the following article he penned recently about our soon to be departed president, Barack Obama.

"Something is dawning on us—it’s almost too soon for us to admit, but it’s there, a half-considered thought only now blooming in our brains. Maybe we dismiss it with one of those quick cognitive fly swats. Nah, too early to say or I hate that guy. But the truth is coming, and it sounds like this: Barack Obama will be inducted into the league of Great Presidents.

Wait. One of the Greatest? you ask, your thumb emoticon poised to turn up or down on me. The guy haters love to hate with their very best hate game? Like 20-Dollar Bill great? Like Mount Rushmore great?

Yep. (We just won’t build Mount Rushmores anymore.) In so many ways, Obama was better than we imagined, better than the body politic deserved, and far, far better than his enemies will ever concede, but the great thing about being great is that the verdict of enemies doesn’t matter.

Get one year of GQ for only $15! Click here to subscribe

In fact, and I say this as a Bill Clinton fan, I now feel certain that, in the coming decades, Obama’s star will rise higher than Clinton’s, and he’ll replace Bill in the public mind as the Greatest Democrat since FDR.

This has to do with the nature of Obama’s leadership, which is to play to legacy (and Clinton’s impulse, which is to play to the room). Bill Clinton will long be revered because he’s charismatic, presided over an economic revival, and changed and elevated the view of the Democratic Party. Barack Obama will long be revered because he’s charismatic, presided over an economic revival, and changed and elevated the view of the presidency. He’s simply bigger than Bill.

More to the point, Obama’s legacy is the sort that gets canonized. Because the first rule of Hall of Fame-dom: The times have to suck for the president not to. Civil wars, World Wars, depressions and recessions. You got to have ’em if you wanna be great. That’s why we rate the Washingtons, Lincolns, and Roosevelts over That Fat Guy with the Walrus Mustache. Like Obama, these Great Men were dealt sucky hands, won big, and left the country better off than it was before.

But it’s also why we downgrade the Jimmy Carters and Herbert Hoovers. Were they as bad in real time as we remember them in history? Probably not. But they were dealt sucky hands, only played one round, and left the country feeling worse off. Legacy Game over. (Hoover reminds me more and more of Donald Trump! Elected with little political experience, Hoover was a rich bastard whose central theme was that government was wasteful. His answer to the Great Depression was to start a trade war and build a massive project called the Hoover Dam. The dam turned out to be a giant wall that did not stop or solve larger problems. Déjà vu, thy name is Trump Wall!)

Obama has a few other edges in the long haul of history, beyond specific hurrah moments like Obamacare, rescuing the economy, and making America way more bi-curious. Being the first black president of course secures a certain legacy. But what now feels distinctly possible is that, just as Martin Luther King Jr. dreamed, over time he may be judged less for the color of his skin than for the content of his character. That character came across every time haters or Trumpers or birthers tried to pull him down into the mud or question his American-ness. He just flew above it all. And, luckily, he took most of us with him. He was the Leader not only of our country but of our mood and disposition, which is harder to rule. At a time when we became more polarized, our discourse pettier and more poisoned, Obama always came across as the Adult in the Room, the one we wanted to be and follow.

Ironically, one of the lock-ins to his Hall of Fame Greatness was originally supposed to be his Achilles’ heel, the shallow thing critics loved to smear him with: his eloquence, his “reliance” on speeches and teleprompters (Sarah Palin once famously screeched, “Mr. President…step away from the teleprompter and do your job!” while herself reading from a teleprompter), as if addressing the country as a whole, trying to unify or inspire people, were a superficial thing. But pivotal words at pivotal moments are not only how we come to admire great leaders, it’s the primary way we remember them. The first thing most people can recall about Lincoln? The Gettysburg Address. FDR? Fireside chats. George Washington? His amazing Snapchats. (George was first with everything.)

With Obama, each thoughtful step of the way, from his soaring acceptance speech (“The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep…”) to his epic speeches on race and religion, his responses to the shootings in Tucson and Newtown, the killing of Osama bin Laden, the opening of Cuba (“Todos somos Americanos!”), and countless other momentous occasions, he knew how to speak to our better angels at a time when it was hard to locate any angels.

Lastly, there’s the arc of history, bound to bend downward. As our unity becomes more frayed, more tenuous, and the ability for any politician to get anything done more unlikely, the job of president will become less LBJ tactical and less FDR big-dealer. The job will largely be to preside. To unify where and however we can. In this way, too, Obama pointed the way forward.

It may be hard to imagine now, but in the face of rising chaos, we’ll crave unity all the more, and in future years whoever can speak most convincingly of unity will rise to the top. (It’s also hard to imagine many beating Obama at the game.) This year’s carnival election, with Trump as a kind of debauched circus barker, only makes the distinction clearer.

The absurdity and car-crash spectacle of it all have already lent Obama an out-of-time quality, as if he were a creature from another, loftier century. Whatever happens next, I feel this in my bones: We’ll look back at history, hopefully when we’re zooming down the Barack Obama Hyperloop Transport System, and think: That man was rare. And we were damn lucky to have him." [Source]

As president-elect trump continues to surround himself with the most conservative, male, white, and  ideologically pure group since Hoover, we will see in the coming years just how much Americans will miss Barack Obama.

I will leave you with the words of Bobby Womack:

"If you think you're lonely now, huh
Wait until tonight, girl
(If you think you're lonely now)
I'll be long gone
(Wait until tonight, girl)
And you'll find another man that'll treat you right..."

I have a feeling that Donald J. trump will not be that man.

*Pic from GQ.com

The fix was in.

  Poor Hillary was doomed from the start. Not that she was the best candidate to begin with, but she would have been a far better president than Herr trump.

Now it looks like the entire James Comey thing was a set up. The old white men in the FBI did not want to be led by a woman. Shades of the infamous  cross dresser himself who formally led that organization. He waged war against the "Negroes", Comey and his boys waged war against Hillary.

"The FBI warrant that shook Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign in its final two weeks has been unsealed, and the lawyer who requested it says it offers "nothing at all" to merit the agency's actions leading up to the Nov. 8 election.

The warrant was released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by Los Angeles lawyer Randy Schoenberg, who wants to determine what probable cause the agency provided to suspect material on disgraced congressman Anthony Weiner’s computer might be incriminating to Clinton. Weiner is the estranged husband of Clinton’s top aide, Huma Abedin. Under the Fourth Amendment, search and seizure can only be granted when proof of probable cause of criminal findings has been documented.

The letter confirms news reports in late October that the FBI had detected “non-content header information” suggesting correspondence with accounts involved in its already-completed investigation of Clinton's private email server. The FBI request concludes there is “probable cause to believe” that the laptop contained “evidence, contraband, fruits and/or items illegally possessed,” without providing specifics.

"I see nothing at all in the search warrant application that would give rise to probable cause, nothing that would make anyone suspect that there was anything on the laptop beyond what the FBI had already searched and determined not to be evidence of a crime, nothing to suggest that there would be anything other than routine correspondence between" Clinton and Abedin, Schoenberg said in an email to USA TODAY. It remains unknown "why they thought they might find evidence of a crime, why they felt it necessary to inform Congress, and why they even sought this search warrant," he said. "I am appalled." The FBI's Manhattan office did not immediately return a call seeking comment." [Source]

Nothing to see here, folks, move along. The men in suits got the "law and order" president they wanted. Now they will be cracking down on all those black lives matter agitators and enforcing the law from sea to shining sea. Stocks in private prisons have shot up, as those in the prison business see things looking up under the old white man in charge.

The white woman would have been too soft on crime, and they just couldn't have that.

Now, under Herr trump, stop and frisk will be implemented nationally (or so he thinks),  and  due process will be a thing of the past.

"Standing before a vastly white crowd in Ohio on Monday evening, Donald Trump made a passionate pitch to African American and Hispanic voters, whom he described as living in poverty in neighborhoods that are more dangerous than war zones.

"What do you have to lose?" Trump asked again and again."

I have a simple answer for that question: Our lives.  

*Pic from rawstory.com

   

Does your president-elect use the N-word?

I just read that there is an alleged tape of of herr trump using the N- word a few years back while he was living his celebrity life.

This, of course, is not a big deal to trumpsters. In fact, I suspect that it would have gotten him more votes in certain quarters if live footage of him dropping the N- bomb were to be revealed. "I love that trump guy. He is not politically correct. He tells it likes it is."    

Anyway, you always have to consider the source, and in this case the source is none other than Tom Arnold. I loved the guy in True Lies, but I am not sure if he is the most trustworthy fellow out there. 

 "In the wake of the infamous Access Hollywood “grab ’em by the pussy” hot mic moment that nearly tanked President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign in October, there were reports that outtakes from Trump’s old show The Apprentice held even more embarrassing material, such as the real estate mogul using racial slurs and making extremely offensive remarks.

In fact, with producer Mark Burnett threatening to sue anyone who released any leaked video footage, you had folks like billionaire Mark Cuban offering to cover the $5 million legal penalty. Alas, nothing extremely damaging ever got released from Trump’s time as Apprentice host. But, it appears that at least one person says the footage exists and that he actually has it.

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Last week, comedian and actor Tom Arnold told a radio show in Seattle that he has “the outtakes to The Apprentice where he says every bad thing ever, every offensive, racist thing ever…I have that.”
And if you were wondering if Arnold was joking, he told host Dori Monson that the main reason he hasn’t released anything is because of the “$5 million confidentiality agreement” that will hit the editors and associate producer who sent out the tape.  

However, that didn’t stop him from saying what is in the show’s outtakes.

Hundreds of people have seen these. It was sort of a Christmas video they put together. He wasn’t going to be President of the United States. It was him sitting in that chair saying the N-word, saying the C-word, calling his son a retard, just being so mean to his own children. Oh, this is so funny, this is this guy.

Tom Arnold is friends with the new host of The Celebrity Apprentice, Arnold Schwarzenegger. The two starred in the 1994 blockbuster True Lies. He also told the show that Schwarzenegger’s agent wanted him to release the tape in an effort to help Hillary Clinton.

For his part, Arnold doesn’t think the tape’s release would’ve hurt Trump in the end, saying that he thinks it would have made people like him more for being “politically incorrect.” [Source]

Sadly, like trump's tax returns and his medical records, we will probably never see trump going all KKK  on video anytime soon. Now, more than ever, he will be protected, and if there is such a video out there, it will be guarded over like the man himself.

Speaking of guarded, there is talk out there that Herr trump is will be bringing in his own private security force to Washington when he becomes president. I guess he will need them along with the Secret Service to go after the nasty press that he hates so much.

 "President-elect Donald Trump has continued employing a private security and intelligence team at his victory rallies, and he is expected to keep at least some members of the team after he becomes president, according to people familiar with the plans.

The arrangement represents a major break from tradition. All modern presidents and presidents-elect have entrusted their personal security entirely to the Secret Service, and their event security mostly to local law enforcement, according to presidential security experts and Secret Service sources.  

But Trump — who puts a premium on loyalty and has demonstrated great interest in having forceful security at his events — has opted to maintain an aggressive and unprecedented private security force, led by Keith Schiller, a retired New York City cop and Navy veteran who started working for Trump in 1999 as a part-time bodyguard, eventually rising to become his head of security.

Security officials warn that employing private security personnel heightens risks for the president-elect and his team, as well as for protesters, dozens of whom have alleged racial profiling, undue force or aggression at the hands of Trump’s security, with at least 10 joining a trio of lawsuits now pending against Trump, his campaign or its security.

“It’s playing with fire,” said Jonathan Wackrow, a former Secret Service agent who worked on President Barack Obama’s protective detail during his 2012 reelection campaign. Having a private security team working events with Secret Service “increases the Service’s liability, it creates greater confusion and it creates greater risk,” Wackrow said." [Source]

I don't think that trump worries too much about the confusion and chaos that he is creating with these moves. I think he knows exactly what he is doing and he has a master plan in place

*Pic from businessinsider.com.

Living in wingnut-world.

We really do live in strange times.

Imagine just creating your own alternative universe, where facts don't matter, and your beliefs-- no matter how far-fetched--- are constantly being reinforced to you by your ideological soul-mates.

Welcome to conservative America.

"Even as Hillary Clinton's popular vote win over Donald Trump tops 2.8 million and (still) counting, a majority of Republicans do not believe it to be true.

Respondents’ correct understanding of the popular vote depended a great deal on partisanship. A large fraction of Republicans — 52 percent — said Trump won the popular vote, compared with only 7 percent of Democrats and 24 percent of independents. Among Republicans without any college education, the share was even larger: 60 percent, compared with 37 percent of Republicans with a college degree.

Whether Republicans truly believe Trump won the popular vote or whether they are reacting with spite towards the questioner is unclear. Do they truly not know? Did they tune out after election day, paying no further attention beyond reading the next-day headlines? Or is the apparent refusal to recognize reality a pathologic choice, rather than an ignorant one?" [Source]

I can't really say that I am surprised by this. We are talking about the same group of people where a majority actually believe that the president was born in another country, and that there were actually WMD's in Iraq. 

Is it any wonder, then, why we can't get a consensus on climate change in this country?  

The president- elect has one of the most powerful false-news pushers at his side, and he is himself prone to read more Alex Jones than he does The Economist.  (Yes Donald, it is "unpresidented")

It's cool to feel sorry for these folks from a distance and write about them on blogs. But when they start occupying the halls of power, and acting out their sick delusions in real life, then it all starts getting just a little bit too scary for yours truly.

Finally, speaking of scared, if you are not worried about trump, and the people he is surrounding himself with to lead our country, please take the time to read what Michael Lewis (The Big Short) had to say about the dangerous con that trump and his pals are playing on America.  

This of course only applies to those of you who don't reside in wingnut world. If you happen to be living in that particular right-wing bubble, don't waste your time. I am sure that you honestly believe that everything is just fine.








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CAPTION SATURDAY.

I need a caption for this pic.

Example:

~What's that thing on the side of his head? I wonder if it is some kind of new American weapon. I must get next to this man.~

*Pic from slate.com

From Russia with love.

Donald trump is mad at the White House and Obama again, and here is why:

"Today during a press conference, President Barack Obama responded to a reporter who asked if he is uneasy about President-elect Donald Trump‘s close ties to Russia and Vladimir Putin. Obama responded that

He began by addressing the intelligence report that indicates Russia had a hand in influencing the election, then moved on to what that meant for politics in America.

This is part of what I meant when I said we gotta think about what’s happening to our political culture here. The Russians can’t change us or significantly weaken us. They’re a smaller country, they’re a weaker country, their economy doesn’t produce anything that anyone wants to buy except oil and gas and arms. They don’t innovate but they can impact us if we lose track of who we are. They can impact us if we abandon our values. Mr Putin can weaken us just like he’s trying to weaken Europe if we start buying into notions that it’s okay to intimidate the press or lock up dissidents or discriminate against people because of their faith or what they look like.”'

Donald doesn't like it when you bad mouth his guy. I mean his on his fourth leg of his victory tour now thanks to comrade Putin. But, sadly, for Donald, everyone except the most tone deaf wingnut now believe that the Russians were all in when it comes to getting trump elected.

Of course, if you are trump, this is the last thing you want to hear, and it is the worst thing that you could do to his huge ---but very fragile--- ego.

Finally, Jamelle Bouie has a article in Slate.com that is causing some folks to cry foul. Something about him comparing Dylann Roof.

Personally, I think there is a lot of truth to what he wrote. But hey, what do I know? I am just your friendly neighborhood blogger.

OPEN THREAD THURSDAY.

 

It's open thread Thursday y'all.

I am curious to know what you think of the Russians pretty much hijacking American democracy these days.

But you can holla at me about whatever.