CAPTION SATURDAY.

I need a caption for these pics.

*Pic from jetmag.com

The head birther comes clean. Sort of.

       In a way, trump's press conference and statement that the president was born in America was even more offensive than his ridiculous birther campaign to say that he wasn't.

He was forced to do so after letting his true colors show to the Washington Post , which left his handlers scrambling to play clean up.  

What he did not do was apologize, and he had the audacity to blame his years of race baiting and dog whistle messages ---sent to his David Duke like friends--- on his general election opponent.

He carried it on for years, and he tweeted about it, and he talked about it to anyone who would listen or read. So now, sadly, this disgusting episode in American life--- which was a sordid attempt to delegitimize the first African American president in the history of this country--- falls squarely in the lap of  Herr trump. 

Today, with the rest of the country looking on, he was forced to pivot, and to declare to all the world that the president was in fact born in this country.  He crusaded for seven years as the leader of the birther movement, and he took two minutes to tell us to just let it go, and in doing so, told another big lie.

Watching that spectacle that was supposed to be a press conference (just trump promoting his new hotel) you got to see trump's arrogance on full display. 

He did not have the decency to apologize to the president for being the leader of this reprehensible and racist movement over the years, and he quickly got through his proof of life type delivery as if his handlers were holding a gun to his head. 

To black folks this entire birther sham  was personal. I say shame on him. And shame on every  American who supports him as well. 

*Pic from mediamatters.org.

  

Open thread Thursday.

It's open thread Thursday field hands, and I am interested to hear your thoughts about a few political related subjects.

Why is Donald trump still refusing to acknowledge that the president was born in the United States?

Does trump Jr. believe that Nazi references are cool?

Does trump himself believe that it's funny to make fun of children whose health have been damaged because of poisoned water? 

Is there anything that Hillary will open up and be more transparent about?

Angry people.

I wonder what the rest of us did to make the deplorables so angry. I mean they are an angry bunch.

If you are brave enough to go to one of their rallies you will see what I am talking about.


I must admit that I have never understood where all the anger comes from. I mean, let's face it, most of them are white men of a certain age, and they are therefore afforded certain privileges that the rest of us can only dream of here in America. And still, they are angry and full of hate. 

"Donald Trump and those who support him always say they aren’t racist in the least, they just want to “make America great again.”

But then you see the video below of a truck convoy of Trump acolytes traveling in a convoy from Wrentham to Foxboro, Massachusetts, and it confirms every suspicion you ever had about those who are on Team Trump.

On CB radios, thinking that no one was listening in, one of the truckers exclaims:

“Lynch the ni**ers by their d*cks!”

Another driver proudly declares:

“Burn every single ni**er!”

Then a third driver joins the hate speech and tells the others:

“All I know is we got plenty of trees to hang ni**ers from.”

Nah, Trump supporters aren’t racist at all, are they? Bullshit! All you have to do is watch or listen to a group of them when an African-American or Hispanic person walks by and you’ll quickly discover that they are among the most hate-filled bags of feces to ever drag their knuckles across the ground." [Source]

 

Just wow.

 

These people are serious, folks,they are no joke.

 

Now I am really worried. I mean what happens if trump loses come November?

 

"Right-wing radio host Michael Savage has warned Donald Trump supporters to stock up on ammunition and gun for two reasons.

“If Hillary Clinton gets elected she may ban guns and we might need them if the country devolves into civil war,” said Savage on his radio show.

Savage is like several other Trump supporters who are warning of violent revolution. Last week, Trump said his supporters might have to take 2nd Amendment measuresif the election is rigged.

According to Right Wing Watch, Republican activist Larry Klayman said the country is on the brink of civil war.

“It’s a war. It’s a war between left and right. They’ve created a race war, regrettably, between black and white. Hillary Clinton is about ready to do it between men and women,” said Klayman in an interview with Newsmax.

In a World Net Daily article, former Republican presidential candidate Pat Buchanan said a Clinton win could lead to a revolution." [Source]

I bet this right-wing revolution will be televised on FOX.

*Pic from huffingtonpost.com

 

 

 

 

One more deplorable. ("Blood needed to redeem something"?)

I think we are going to need a larger "bucket" for trump's deplorable supporters, because there is one more we have to add to that sordid lot.

Field hands, I give you the governor of Kentucky, a man who personifies the modern day far right conservative.

He is an elected official who has some rather extreme views about where we are going as a country.

"Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin has not forgotten the Jefferson quote. Speaking at the Values Voter Summit in Washington over the weekend, the Republican recalled it while suggesting that a Hillary Clinton victory in the presidential election could necessitate bloodshed:

I want us to be able to fight ideologically, mentally, spiritually, economically, so that we don’t have to do it physically. But that may, in fact, be the case….

Somebody asked me yesterday, I did an interview, “Do you think it’s possible, if Hillary Clinton were to win the election, do you think it’s possible that we’ll be able to survive, that we’d ever be able to recover as a nation?” And while there are people who have stood on this stage and said we would not, I would beg to differ. I do think it would be possible, but at what price? At what price? The roots of the tree of liberty are watered by what? The blood of who? The tyrants, to be sure, but who else? The patriots.

Whose blood will be shed? It may be that of those in this room. It might be that of our children and grandchildren. I have nine children. It breaks my heart to think that it might be their blood is needed to redeem something, to reclaim something that we, through our apathy and our indifference, have given away. Don’t let it happen.

As the Lexington Herald-Leader reports, those comments took many listeners aback. On Monday, Bevin said in a statement that his comments had been misconstrued and referred to those fighting in the military." [Source]

Nothing new here, the governor has only been echoing what the candidate and some of his surrogates have been saying all along: That if their guy doesn't win things could get violent.

For folks who hate people from the Third World as much as they do, they sure like to revert to Third World type politics. Trying to take out your opponent via bloodshed is how desperate people who depend on their political leaders for food and housing do things; It's not how we conduct our politics here in the United States.

Finally, I just saw on MSNBC that Newsweek magazine will be running a story tomorrow which might give us some clues as to why Mr trump won't release his taxes. I am looking forward to it.
Because, for the life of me, I can't understand why the press in this country will not demand that this man releases his tax returns.

I am going to close with something I asked Mr trump to do a few posts ago: Mr trump, if the IRS is in fact auditing you--- and this prevents you from releasing your tax returns--- please produce the letter from the IRS informing you of said audit.

With all due respect to your campaign manager, I am not going to call you a flat out liar, but given your history, I would just like to verify.  

*Pic from huffingtonpst.com

Tar Heel "deplorables"?

    Donald trump had a rally in North Carolina tonight, and, as is to be expected, he jumped all over Hillary Clinton  for her "basket of deplorables" comment about some of his supporters.

But here is the thing: in the middle of his tirade, one of his deplorables almost choked the life out of a supporter while the mob cheered on.

"But even as Trump defended his backers, one lashed out at protesters in the hall by appearing to punch and slap them. Trump talked through the scuffle.

While my opponent calls you deplorable and irredeemable," he said in Asheville, North Carolina, "I call you hard-working American patriots who love their country and want a better future for all our people."

But his rally was interrupted several times by demonstrators and, at one moment, brief violence. As several protesters were being escorted out by security, a man in the crowd grabbed a male protester around the neck and then punched him. He then slapped at a woman being led out. The Trump supporter was not ejected by security.

The celebrity businessman talked through the scuffle but cracked after the disturbance: "Is there any place more fun than a Trump rally?"

No stranger to making his own sweeping negative characterizations of large groups of people, Trump nonetheless deployed Clinton's remark as the foundation for a new campaign theme. The message: Clinton is divisive, while Trump is the only candidate representing "all Americans."

It's amazing to me that he can accuse Clinton of  "dividing" the country when he has attempted to deligitimize the first African American  president by carrying out a well funded campaign to prove that he was not born in this country. That alone is disqualifying from where I sit. But to make matters worse, he has refused to apologize to the president or to the millions of African Americans he offended.

Until he looks us in the eye and formally apologizes to the president, every African American in this country should seriously look the other way when this man comes supplicating for our votes.

Trump's people like to counter that Hillary's people started the birther conspiracy-- which might or might not be true-- but I think it's safe to say that Mr trump used it to launch his career into right-wingnut land, and to gain the love and adoration of every deplorable in this country.

  "I have people that have been studying it and they cannot believe what they're finding," Trump said an interview that aired Thursday Morning.

Asked if he has assigned people specifically to search in Hawaii, Trump said, "Absolutely."
The business mogul, who in a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll is tied for second place among potential presidential candidates, also suggested the president is involved in an ongoing cover-up over the matter.

"He spent $2 million in legal fees trying on to get away from this issue, and if it weren't an issue, why wouldn't he just solve it?" he said. "I wish he would because if he doesn't, it's one of the greatest scams in the history of politics and in the history, period. You are not allowed to be a president if you're not born in this country. Right now, I have real doubts."  [Source]

 Donald, we are watching the "greatest scam in the history of politics" play out before our eyes. And guess what, it has nothing to do with Barack Obama.  


*Pic from chicagotribune.com

Weekend with Hillary.

  It's been a heck of a weekend for Hillary R. Clinton.

First, she (rightfully) called out half of trump's supporters as deplorables, and inexplicably she was called out for saying the obvious by people who were not part of the deplorables crew. Although, I must say, if you don't realize who these deplorables are, and what they really stand for, you might want to put yourself in that category as well.

And of course she is getting skewered for it by some political pundits, who seem to have conveniently forgotten that her opponent actually called us "losers" in a tweet that was supposed to honor the victims of September 11th.

If you have anything to do with the Clinton campaign you must be thinking that your opponent must have a great investigative team behind him who has gotten  him embarrassing pictures of all the cable news executives. I am not sure how else you can explain her opponent and his foundation being involved with scandal after scandal  (he lied about how much money he gave to 9/11 charities )and still the focus is on Clinton, her e-mails, and her statement about the basket of deplorables. 

This was from the Washington Post about trump:

"He started his campaign by branding illegal immigrants from Mexico as rapists and criminals. He has never let up, denigrating people of all kinds. In addition to Mexican immigrants, his targets have included women, Muslims, a Vietnam POW named Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), the disabled, a federal judge of Mexican heritage and a Gold Star family. At NBC’s commander in chief forum last week, he inexplicably beat up on the generals advising the president."

And that's just the tip of his iceberg built from bigotry and ignorance.

And then, of course, there are her recent health issues.

Her campaign says that she has pneumonia, and that is the reason for her early departure from the 9/11 celebrations event today. But I am not buying it.

I am guessing that having to look down the line and see three of the top deplorables in one place had to have made her sick.

I wish her luck with her recovery. She will need it.

The American press is dying for a close race (no one likes to call a game when it's a blowout), and I am pretty sure that they have gotten one.

*Pic from abcnews.go.com.











 

CAPTION SATURDAY.

I need a caption for this pic.

Example: This group of deplorables help make their hairdressers broke again.  


*Pic from shutracism.com

OPEN THREAD FRIDAY.

This is open thread Friday, field hands.

Let me know what's on your mind.

For instance, I am curious to know what you think of Donald trump ripping the American president on Russian television and praising the Russian President while  making disparaging remarks about American military generals in a military forum.

Also, was it proper for Mr trump to say that Hillary could shoot someone in front of twenty thousand people and get away with it, when he himself has said that he could shoot someone in the middle of New York and get away with it?

Oh, and he said this in front of a group of "family values" conservatives.

Thoughts?

Is it only "Black American Lives" that matter?

The Field Negro education series continues.

The following essay is important, because here in America folks need to realize that there is a big world out there. 

"Let's be honest: When people say "Black Lives Matter," what they really mean is that Black American Lives Matter.

Not Afro-Brazilian lives, not South Sudanese lives and certainly not Congolese lives. Just black American lives.

In July, as outrage over the police shooting of Alton Sterling dominated the news -- propelling black protesters across the world to the streets, much as Black Lives Matter protesters shut down London City Airport on Tuesday -- 300 people were killed in Juba, South Sudan.

That same week, an estimated 8,500 people were also killed in Congo, Africa's largest Sub-Saharan country, where proxy wars over control of its mineral resources that go into our mobile phones killed more than estimated 5.4 million between 1998 and 2008 -- and continue to claim 1,500 lives, with 1,100 women and young girls reportedly raped each day.

Yet, as with most killings in Africa, there wasn't any international protest within black communities in the diasporas to defend the humanity of these black people.

I cannot help thinking about this paradox: our preoccupation with the killing of black people in the United States versus our almost overt disregard for the killing of black people in Africa.

Why do we feel strongly enough to take to the streets over the killing of black people in Baltimore, Ferguson, Missouri, or Baton Rouge, Louisiana, but remain silent about killing in the Congo, Brazil or South Sudan?

Is it because Staten Island, Ferguson and Baton Rouge were flooded with media reporters from almost every major news outlet, with vigorous editorial discussion in the morning, noon and evening for viewers around the globe, while crises in the Congo and across Africa barely receive any airtime?

Is it because victims in the United States are black and their killers are white, whereas in places such as the Congo both the victims and perpetrators are black?

Or, perhaps, is it because we still see black people in Africa as primitive, not as fellow humans?

Whichever way you look at it, it cannot be right that our indignation arrives only when black people are killed in the United States.

Friends of mine have offered a predictable rebuttal: Black Lives Matter, I have heard it argued, must remain a US-focused campaign because of the impunity with which white police officers (even in the relatively enlightened 21st century) disproportionately kill black people for, in the words of James Baldwin, no other reason than simply being black: a painful reminder of the compromised existence black people have had in America since 1619.

My answer to this is simple. Police killing of black people in the United States is a symptom of a structural and systemic problem -- so far omitted from conversations -- that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. called white supremacy: the ideology that inspired Nazi Germany, the Berlin Conference, the slave trade, apartheid South Africa, Jim Crow South, the Ku Klux Klan, white privilege, white power and the West's love affair with Africa's strongmen.

This problem doesn't just trouble America. Every black person lives in constant menace of it -- on both a personal and societal level.

According to popular culture, to paraphrase Muhammad Ali, Jesus is white, angels are white and Snow White is white. Outside of popular culture all synonyms for "blackness" in the dictionary are nasty and negative, while every synonym for "whiteness" is positive and beautiful.

In Brazil, it is a fact that Afro-Brazilians -- people who self-identify as black or brown and who make up 53% of Brazil's population -- are poor, marginalized and almost three times more likely to get killed than their white counterparts, according to the UN Children's Fund.

At the United Nations, it goes much further. The Rwandan genocide in 1994 is perhaps the most consequential example. At the height of the killing, the UN Security Council decided to reduce its peacekeepers from the meager 2,500 trying to prevent the killing to merely 270, while at the same time sending an additional 6,500 troops to strengthen the already 24,000 UN troops deployed to save lives in Bosnia, where the victims were white.

Understanding this (for this generation and for generations to come) is so crucial and critical that it must be emphasized. Police killing of black people in the United States and the West's support for regimes responsible for mass killing in places such as the Congo are practically inextricable. They both kill black people.

And if our protests in US and UK streets and across the globe on social media are a reflection of our moral outrage, then surely killings in Juba, Congo or Brazil must also be a priority. This means expanding Black Lives Matter from a social policy issue to a foreign policy test in the United States, UK and across the globe. Otherwise our protest looks like a sham and hypocrisy, thinly disguised as moral outrage." [Source]

*Pic from blacklivesmatter.com