SCOTUS stays execution of Georgia death row inmate amid claims of racial bias
His guilt is not contested, but only whether racial bias led a juror to favor the death penalty.
Put aside that, apparently, the juror was drunk when he made and signed the affidavit in question, making it legally invalid.
Put aside that, on the other hand, he seems to have been acquainted with the victims, contrary to his oath and requirements for eligibility to serve on such a jury.
Right here is the supposed evidence of invalidating bias, apparently.
According to his affidavit, Gattie said, "In my experience I have observed that there are two types of black people: 1. Black folks and 2. "N****rs."
Gattie went on to say in his affidavit, "I felt Tharpe, who wasn't in the 'good' black folks category in my book, should get the electric chair for what he did."
As of 2001, Georgia carries out its executions by lethal injection.
"After studying the Bible, I have wondered if black people even have souls," Gattie said.
Gattie later said in a deposition that he did not intend to use the n-word as a racial slur, according to court documents.
Weeks after the interview, Tharpe's attorneys returned to Gattie's home and read his statements back to him, periodically stopping to ask him if the statements were accurate, court documents say.
Gattie had only one correction, but the rest of his statement stood, court documents filed by Tharpe's attorneys say.
He signed the 1998 affidavit under oath.
"He basically admitted his criteria for deciding to sentence Mr. Tharpe to death had much more to do with his race than any of the facts of the crime," Kammer said.
No, he didn't.
It might be true, but he didn't say that or what means or entails that.
The man who said so is hoping you have problems with reading comprehension.
Anyway, the murder was in 1990, the trial in 1991, and the affidavit was taken in 1998.
The matter is just now being considered by the Supremes.
If the affidavit reveals bias it reveals there was bias in the man 7 years after the trial.
It does not and cannot reveal there was bias in him at the time of the trial.
Saturday, September 30, 2017
Hillary's weak sisterhood theory: It was those awful white men who made those white women vote for Trump
Clinton's story, to which all the right-thinking do now and will in future nod until they realize what it actually means, is a revealing fantasy in its view of the astonishing psychic hold all those big strong men have on all those little weak women.
Why Hillary Clinton was right about white women – and their husbands
Many had expected Clinton to rally women, the same way Barack Obama rallied black voters in 2008 – and if she had, she would have handily trumped Donald Trump.
But while Obama won 95% of the black vote, Clinton won just 54% of women – a percentage point less than her male predecessor atop the Democratic ticket.
Among white women in particular, she fared even worse: a slim majority voted for Trump.
Last week, Clinton, who has had a lifetime to contemplate the women’s vote, copped to having a theory.
“[Women] will be under tremendous pressure – and I’m talking principally about white women. They will be under tremendous pressure from fathers and husbands and boyfriends and male employers not to vote for ‘the girl’,” she said in an interview as part of a tour promoting her new memoir of the 2016 campaign.
And all those white husbands, fathers, boyfriends, and male employers, so aggressively dominant you would think she must be talking about Saudi Arabia, followed those white women right into the voting booths to make damn sure they did the right thing, too.
Does this mean all those big, bossy men who dominate politics worldwide would have completely cowed stubby little Hillary?
If that's what she truly sees as typical in male-female power relations, I mean.
Remember her story of how she felt about Trump stalking her on the debate stage, how she wanted to respond with an angry protest and personal insult but did not?
And did she not dare?
GW just laughed at Al Gore when he tried the same tactic.
Remember that old film of some early male competitor for office coming across the stage to her podium and lecturing her?
She froze like a deer in the headlights.
Why Hillary Clinton was right about white women – and their husbands
Many had expected Clinton to rally women, the same way Barack Obama rallied black voters in 2008 – and if she had, she would have handily trumped Donald Trump.
But while Obama won 95% of the black vote, Clinton won just 54% of women – a percentage point less than her male predecessor atop the Democratic ticket.
Among white women in particular, she fared even worse: a slim majority voted for Trump.
Last week, Clinton, who has had a lifetime to contemplate the women’s vote, copped to having a theory.
“[Women] will be under tremendous pressure – and I’m talking principally about white women. They will be under tremendous pressure from fathers and husbands and boyfriends and male employers not to vote for ‘the girl’,” she said in an interview as part of a tour promoting her new memoir of the 2016 campaign.
And all those white husbands, fathers, boyfriends, and male employers, so aggressively dominant you would think she must be talking about Saudi Arabia, followed those white women right into the voting booths to make damn sure they did the right thing, too.
Does this mean all those big, bossy men who dominate politics worldwide would have completely cowed stubby little Hillary?
If that's what she truly sees as typical in male-female power relations, I mean.
Remember her story of how she felt about Trump stalking her on the debate stage, how she wanted to respond with an angry protest and personal insult but did not?
And did she not dare?
GW just laughed at Al Gore when he tried the same tactic.
Remember that old film of some early male competitor for office coming across the stage to her podium and lecturing her?
She froze like a deer in the headlights.
The historic nation states of Europe are many of them far from really that
Case in point: Spain.
Tensions high as Catalonia readies for disputed independence vote
Is the anti-EU, nationalist/populist European right on board for the eventual European consequences of their alleged ideal of a world of actual nation states?
At least The UK, Spain, Switzerland, Belgium, and The Netherlands would be partitioned each into two or more new and sovereign nation states each more deserving of the name than its parent.
That some of the areas seeking to form new states strongly approve and would want to join the EU dilutes the harm done to the EU by secession movements within some of its major member states.
Tensions high as Catalonia readies for disputed independence vote
Is the anti-EU, nationalist/populist European right on board for the eventual European consequences of their alleged ideal of a world of actual nation states?
At least The UK, Spain, Switzerland, Belgium, and The Netherlands would be partitioned each into two or more new and sovereign nation states each more deserving of the name than its parent.
That some of the areas seeking to form new states strongly approve and would want to join the EU dilutes the harm done to the EU by secession movements within some of its major member states.
Be glad there was a way to get rid of him
Price out as HHS secretary after private plane scandal
A determined enemy of the work of the agency he was appointed to head is now gone.
But probably the next guy will be as bad.
A determined enemy of the work of the agency he was appointed to head is now gone.
But probably the next guy will be as bad.
Protectionism abandoned, too, by this fickle Duce?
Ali and Steph report the idea of a tariff or of Ryan's border adjustment is gone.
The plight of PR has led to the third emergency waiver of the protectionist Jones Act that requires sea commerce between US ports to use US flag shipping in a month, one each for Texas, Florida, and PR.
And it has called attention to the Act being mostly responsible for goods from anywhere in the mainland US costing about twice as much in PR as they do in Texas or Florida, and in turn responsible for the poor state of finances of the island's government at all levels.
The Duce has progressively abandoned so much of the distinctive Trump agenda of the 2016 campaign, the Buchananite agenda, the Breitbart Steve Bannon agenda, the pro-Medicare and pro-Social Security agenda, the universal and wonderful health care agenda, the sulfurous racist agenda, the disastrous protectionist agenda, that he has slid more and more into being a mere sock-puppet for standard issue Republican conservatism.
The most incompetent, personally ludicrous, and gormless agent of standard issue Republican conservatism in decades.
The plight of PR has led to the third emergency waiver of the protectionist Jones Act that requires sea commerce between US ports to use US flag shipping in a month, one each for Texas, Florida, and PR.
And it has called attention to the Act being mostly responsible for goods from anywhere in the mainland US costing about twice as much in PR as they do in Texas or Florida, and in turn responsible for the poor state of finances of the island's government at all levels.
The Duce has progressively abandoned so much of the distinctive Trump agenda of the 2016 campaign, the Buchananite agenda, the Breitbart Steve Bannon agenda, the pro-Medicare and pro-Social Security agenda, the universal and wonderful health care agenda, the sulfurous racist agenda, the disastrous protectionist agenda, that he has slid more and more into being a mere sock-puppet for standard issue Republican conservatism.
The most incompetent, personally ludicrous, and gormless agent of standard issue Republican conservatism in decades.
So why is Breitbart reporting this?
Chuck Schumer: During Our Negotiations Trump Said ‘OK, We Won’t Do the Wall’
Schumer said, “On DREAMers, he said, you know, that he understood that they didn’t come in through any fault of their own, that they’re good Americans, good kids.
"And then he said he wants the wall in return. And we said ‘No. No wall, Mr. President.’
"And he tried that for about 15 minutes, but he’s not going to push me around verbally or any other way.”
He added, “And he finally said, “OK, we won’t do the wall. We’ll do some other kind of border security.”
Schumer said, “On DREAMers, he said, you know, that he understood that they didn’t come in through any fault of their own, that they’re good Americans, good kids.
"And then he said he wants the wall in return. And we said ‘No. No wall, Mr. President.’
"And he tried that for about 15 minutes, but he’s not going to push me around verbally or any other way.”
He added, “And he finally said, “OK, we won’t do the wall. We’ll do some other kind of border security.”
MSNBC, Dem media, in full-on Kartrina mode
AM Joy had a young PR Latina ex-navy officer on to speak first in the name of all Puerto Ricans everywhere in the US and then for all Americans.
After a few minutes of full-on Katrina denunciations, in the name of Puerto Ricans on the island and everywhere, of Trump and his administration for a wholly inadequate response to Maria marked by incompetence, indifference, and racist malevolence, she went on to insist that Puerto Ricans all over America, and especially those leaving the island to escape the hurricane's aftermath, will all vote immediately wherever they find themselves.
And then she announced that all Americans everywhere know "we have a moral duty to rebuild Puerto Rico", and in a tone of righteous anger certain of victory she intoned we will demand that it be done.
She is only one of the many who over recent days and in days to come will speak for Puerto Ricans, minorities, and all Americans, urging fantastic expectations converted into proofs of racism and demands for action.
To motivate partisan loyalty and get out the vote, given the occasion, right wing media, the Republican Party, Trump personally, his administration, and his supporters in general give voice to the most revolting, outrageous, and stupid beliefs, absurd demands, and insane rage of the white rabble.
Similarly, to motivate partisan loyalty and get out the vote, given the occasion, left wing media, the Democratic Party, its leaders in person, their administrations when in office, and their supporters in general give voice to the most revolting, outrageous, and stupid beliefs, absurd demands, and insane rage of the nonwhite rabble.
It is part of how they do it that each side converts the propaganda of the other, of this type, into fodder for its own.
President Trump slams San Juan mayor, other Puerto Rico leaders: 'They want everything to be done for them'
They wind each other up, one could say.
And it works all the better if on the other side those giving voice are racially and ethnically appropriate for the role.
So we see pro-criminal race riots and natural disasters provide grist for both mills.
To some extent it is theater and cynical playacting.
But to a very real and perhaps greater extent it is wholly, frighteningly sincere.
After a few minutes of full-on Katrina denunciations, in the name of Puerto Ricans on the island and everywhere, of Trump and his administration for a wholly inadequate response to Maria marked by incompetence, indifference, and racist malevolence, she went on to insist that Puerto Ricans all over America, and especially those leaving the island to escape the hurricane's aftermath, will all vote immediately wherever they find themselves.
And then she announced that all Americans everywhere know "we have a moral duty to rebuild Puerto Rico", and in a tone of righteous anger certain of victory she intoned we will demand that it be done.
She is only one of the many who over recent days and in days to come will speak for Puerto Ricans, minorities, and all Americans, urging fantastic expectations converted into proofs of racism and demands for action.
To motivate partisan loyalty and get out the vote, given the occasion, right wing media, the Republican Party, Trump personally, his administration, and his supporters in general give voice to the most revolting, outrageous, and stupid beliefs, absurd demands, and insane rage of the white rabble.
Similarly, to motivate partisan loyalty and get out the vote, given the occasion, left wing media, the Democratic Party, its leaders in person, their administrations when in office, and their supporters in general give voice to the most revolting, outrageous, and stupid beliefs, absurd demands, and insane rage of the nonwhite rabble.
It is part of how they do it that each side converts the propaganda of the other, of this type, into fodder for its own.
President Trump slams San Juan mayor, other Puerto Rico leaders: 'They want everything to be done for them'
They wind each other up, one could say.
And it works all the better if on the other side those giving voice are racially and ethnically appropriate for the role.
So we see pro-criminal race riots and natural disasters provide grist for both mills.
To some extent it is theater and cynical playacting.
But to a very real and perhaps greater extent it is wholly, frighteningly sincere.
Friday, September 29, 2017
Sadly, not a false analogy
Trump’s Tax Plan Is An Act Of Political Domination By The Rich
Trump is for the rich in American politics what Mussolini was for the rich in Italian politics.
In many, many ways, Trump is a mini-Mussolini.
We can only hope he doesn't try to grow to full size.
Reading Milza and Berstein.
Trump is for the rich in American politics what Mussolini was for the rich in Italian politics.
In many, many ways, Trump is a mini-Mussolini.
We can only hope he doesn't try to grow to full size.
Reading Milza and Berstein.
The beatings continue
San Juan mayor criticizes US officials for calling Puerto Rico relief effort 'good news'
When asked to comment on the hurricane in PR, and while expressing appropriate condolences and sympathy, an official - acting Homeland Security secretary Elaine Duke - commented that in view of how awful Maria was it was good news there weren't many more deaths.
“I know it is really a good news story in terms of our ability to reach people and the limited number of deaths that have taken place in such a devastating hurricane,” Duke told reporters on Thursday.
It's been a Democrat pig pile on Elaine Duke every news hour since.
Revolution? No, thanks.
Are Democrats not screwing up?
In reply to remarks of Steve M.
The Democratic Party is not for people who want an actual and literal revolution, and for that I am very grateful.
The only mass party in America committed to anything close enough to revolution to be a worry is actually the Republican Party, openly and often angrily committed to repeal or rollback of all, or nearly all, of the progressive changes to the constitution, government, law, and American life since the dawn of the 20th Century - all of which are defended by the Democrats.
The Trumpists differ from other Republicans not in their rejection of the actually existing America but in their level of rage, the frankness of their racial issues, and their open admiration for undemocratic, unrepublican, authoritarian leaders and regimes in comparison to, say, our own government in DC, its constitutional processes, its separation of powers, its parties, and its leaders.
The Democratic Party is committed to cumulative, incremental, and continuous improvement of the American economy, government, and society, continuing the history of progressive reform.
That actually makes it, of the two mass parties, the one more accurately called "conservative".
So, no, not revolutionary. Not at all.
Too, I posted this comment.
I think you are wrong to conflate the Trumpists with the Tea Baggers and others of the conservative movement whose shared revolutionary aim is to roll back most of the progressive changes in America since the beginning of the 20th Century, especially those diminishing the market freedom of employers, producers, and sellers, taking money from the rich, or democratizing our constitution.
The Tea Baggers and the other radicals, especially in the House, are willing to use government shutdowns and even clashes with the debt ceiling to extort concessions in their war against contemporary America.
But the Trump followers take their "patriotic" hostility to the really existing America all the way to despising our "rigged system" of democratic republicanism openly, denouncing "the system" for its "corruption" and expressing genuine admiration for authoritarian executive rule and even dictatorship.
He has not been alone, but Pat Buchanan has been very clear and very voluble in this essentially treasonous and not very crypto crypto-fascist trend on the American right and within the Republican Party.
So far as the rhetoric and attitudes of the Bernie-boy left have shared these themes they have in practise contributed to and legitimated this side of Trumpism, and have been used by the right for that purpose during and since the 2016 campaign.
The idea of left wing revolution in America is a ridiculous and childish fantasy, and was that even during the 60's and 70's.
The idea of a rightist revolution has always been more realistic and hence more menacing, and left wing revolutionary blather has only ever made revolution on the right more of a threat.
In reply to remarks of Steve M.
The Democratic Party is not for people who want an actual and literal revolution, and for that I am very grateful.
The only mass party in America committed to anything close enough to revolution to be a worry is actually the Republican Party, openly and often angrily committed to repeal or rollback of all, or nearly all, of the progressive changes to the constitution, government, law, and American life since the dawn of the 20th Century - all of which are defended by the Democrats.
The Trumpists differ from other Republicans not in their rejection of the actually existing America but in their level of rage, the frankness of their racial issues, and their open admiration for undemocratic, unrepublican, authoritarian leaders and regimes in comparison to, say, our own government in DC, its constitutional processes, its separation of powers, its parties, and its leaders.
The Democratic Party is committed to cumulative, incremental, and continuous improvement of the American economy, government, and society, continuing the history of progressive reform.
That actually makes it, of the two mass parties, the one more accurately called "conservative".
So, no, not revolutionary. Not at all.
Too, I posted this comment.
I think you are wrong to conflate the Trumpists with the Tea Baggers and others of the conservative movement whose shared revolutionary aim is to roll back most of the progressive changes in America since the beginning of the 20th Century, especially those diminishing the market freedom of employers, producers, and sellers, taking money from the rich, or democratizing our constitution.
The Tea Baggers and the other radicals, especially in the House, are willing to use government shutdowns and even clashes with the debt ceiling to extort concessions in their war against contemporary America.
But the Trump followers take their "patriotic" hostility to the really existing America all the way to despising our "rigged system" of democratic republicanism openly, denouncing "the system" for its "corruption" and expressing genuine admiration for authoritarian executive rule and even dictatorship.
He has not been alone, but Pat Buchanan has been very clear and very voluble in this essentially treasonous and not very crypto crypto-fascist trend on the American right and within the Republican Party.
So far as the rhetoric and attitudes of the Bernie-boy left have shared these themes they have in practise contributed to and legitimated this side of Trumpism, and have been used by the right for that purpose during and since the 2016 campaign.
The idea of left wing revolution in America is a ridiculous and childish fantasy, and was that even during the 60's and 70's.
The idea of a rightist revolution has always been more realistic and hence more menacing, and left wing revolutionary blather has only ever made revolution on the right more of a threat.
Honore goes at it, with so many others
He and many others join in the outcry in the Democratic media against the administration and Trump, personally, making use of fantastic expectations and faux outrage to urge unfulfillable demands, and using all that to attack the administration, the GOP, white America, and Bozo endlessly for racism while, more or less incidentally, training America to insist on extensive involvement of the feds in natural disasters.
MSNBC's reporting on scene in PR, for example, is one long shower of complaint and blame directed at the federal government, the administration, and The Duce, sprinkled with invitations to desperate islanders to complain along with active and express solicitations of accusations of racism.
Only few and grudging admissions that the magnitude of the disasters in Texas, in Florida, and in the islands, along with more or less to be expected snafus and difficulties, all account for delays and glitches that are in fact wholly normal and understandable, given the situation.
In particular, issues related to the fact that PR and the Virgin Islands are, indeed, islands rather far off the mainland, reachable only by air or ship, whereas Texas and Florida, part of the contiguous US, can also be flooded with trucks from anywhere else, relatively quickly and easily.
Many things in life don't happen as quickly as one would like.
Many don't happen at all.
MSNBC's reporting on scene in PR, for example, is one long shower of complaint and blame directed at the federal government, the administration, and The Duce, sprinkled with invitations to desperate islanders to complain along with active and express solicitations of accusations of racism.
Only few and grudging admissions that the magnitude of the disasters in Texas, in Florida, and in the islands, along with more or less to be expected snafus and difficulties, all account for delays and glitches that are in fact wholly normal and understandable, given the situation.
In particular, issues related to the fact that PR and the Virgin Islands are, indeed, islands rather far off the mainland, reachable only by air or ship, whereas Texas and Florida, part of the contiguous US, can also be flooded with trucks from anywhere else, relatively quickly and easily.
Many things in life don't happen as quickly as one would like.
Many don't happen at all.
They behaved just like the Democrats, in other words
The Russians, that is.
And the Republicans, in playing on race.
And the Republicans, in playing on race.
Though the posited goal is different, it fits their pro-Trump activities during the election.
Annoying, of course.
But consider how far the reaction to the Russian meddling has itself been, as Trump defenders and allies have sometimes said, mere and perhaps even hypocritical political propaganda.
And whether and how far tu quoque may be in this matter a valid defense.
(Of course, much the same was said of Watergate, the scandal and its uses.)
Reputedly, the US has meddled in similar clandestine fashion in European politics - the politics of allies, adversaries, and others - for many decades, and did not even slow down with the end of the Cold War.
Our interference in the politics of states born of the breakup of the Soviet Union like Ukraine, aimed against Russia, has been considerable.
Major participants on both sides did the same sort of thing in the USA to affect our politics before and after our entry into both world wars.
Come to that, the US government used such methods alongside much more open ones before and during both world wars and during the Cold War, domestically, to affect Americans and American politics, with directly pro-war and pro-Cold War, pro-ally and anti-enemy propaganda only the tip of the iceberg.
A social media campaign calling itself "Blacktivist" and linked to the Russian government used both Facebook and Twitter in an apparent attempt to amplify racial tensions during the U.S. presidential election, two sources with knowledge of the matter told CNN.
. . . .
Both Blacktivist accounts, each of which used the handle Blacktivists, regularly shared content intended to stoke outrage.
"Black people should wake up as soon as possible," one post on the Twitter account read.
"Black families are divided and destroyed by mass incarceration and death of black men," another read.
The accounts also posted videos of police violence against African Americans.
. . . .
The Blacktivist accounts provide further evidence that Russian-linked social media accounts saw racial tensions as something to be exploited in order to achieve the broader Russian goal of dividing Americans and creating chaos in U.S. politics during a campaign in which race repeatedly became an issue.
The Russian allusion to free expression and the First Amendment and the apparent normalcy of such international media propaganda are interesting.
Are there relevant international or even global treaties or norms?
And how far do, and how far should, freedom of expression and First Amendment protections extend to foreigners, including foreign governments?
Is not mine a "fake user" account?
Who says I only have, or have had, only one, using only one pseudonymous identity for blogging and commenting?
And though admittedly my pseudonyms have always been within conventions making them recognizable as such, to those aware of the conventions, the practise is widespread on the web of blogging with pseudonyms intentionally not recognizable as such.
And though admittedly my pseudonyms have always been within conventions making them recognizable as such, to those aware of the conventions, the practise is widespread on the web of blogging with pseudonyms intentionally not recognizable as such.
Thursday, September 28, 2017
Took him no time, at all to get there
Honoré: Trump doesn't care about people of color
Told you.
Retired Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré, who commanded the military response to Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, slams President Donald Trump's response to hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico.
Told you.
Retired Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré, who commanded the military response to Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, slams President Donald Trump's response to hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico.
Joe responds to the election of Judge Roy Noodle
Scarborough: I’m tired of GOP being the ‘stupid party’
"I'm just tired of us being the stupid party," Scarborough said.
He made the comments while discussing Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore, who won the state's Republican primary in a runoff this week.
"You’ve got a guy that wants to get elected to the United States Senate, doesn't even know what DACA is or the Dreamers are, which means he is so isolated from any news, from any knowledge of the debate in Washington, D.C., that you even wonder why he's applying for the job," Scarborough said, slamming Moore, who earlier this month was forced to defend himself for not knowing the acronym DACA stood for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals immigration program.
He wasn't just ignorant of the acronym.
He was ignorant of the thing, of the issue, of the entire controversy.
Joe later extended his lament about the triumph of both ignorance and plain, utter stupidity in his party by express and repeated references to Bozo.
Moore is likely to win the general election in December, despite efforts by establishment Republicans to foil his victory in the runoff against Strange.
Moore has railed against the GOP establishment and the failure of the Republican-controlled Congress to fulfill key parts of the Trump's agenda, and he has vowed to "end Mitch McConnell’s reign as majority leader."
Scarborough, a former Republican congressman, announced earlier this year that he had decided to leave the GOP to become an independent.
Why are the voters who chose and continue to endorse people like Sarah Palin, Donald Trump, and Roy Noodle invariably described as "angry"?
Because they don't actually get their way.
Yet they know they are a minority, despised and scorned by not just "the elites" but also everybody else who isn't a participant in their madness.
Why should they get their way?
Why should they expect to get their way?
Why should we indulge in the least their demands to get their way?
Trump always, today Meadows, and regularly other GOP liars insist the anger and outlook unique to these voters is actually the anger and outlook of the whole American people, but however flattered they may be by that ludicrous falsehood they know perfectly well it's just a ludicrous falsehood.
What do I say about the angry Republican masses who mob the polls to vote for these people, their anger and their outlook?
I say they are notorious idiots, fools, ignoramuses, and vicious bigots whose intentions are despicable, whose anger is a joke, whose agenda is utterly contemptible, whose desires are perverse, and whose beliefs are a system of wretched delusions.
To hell with them.
May they choke on their goddam anger.
"I'm just tired of us being the stupid party," Scarborough said.
He made the comments while discussing Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore, who won the state's Republican primary in a runoff this week.
"You’ve got a guy that wants to get elected to the United States Senate, doesn't even know what DACA is or the Dreamers are, which means he is so isolated from any news, from any knowledge of the debate in Washington, D.C., that you even wonder why he's applying for the job," Scarborough said, slamming Moore, who earlier this month was forced to defend himself for not knowing the acronym DACA stood for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals immigration program.
He wasn't just ignorant of the acronym.
He was ignorant of the thing, of the issue, of the entire controversy.
Joe later extended his lament about the triumph of both ignorance and plain, utter stupidity in his party by express and repeated references to Bozo.
Moore is likely to win the general election in December, despite efforts by establishment Republicans to foil his victory in the runoff against Strange.
Moore has railed against the GOP establishment and the failure of the Republican-controlled Congress to fulfill key parts of the Trump's agenda, and he has vowed to "end Mitch McConnell’s reign as majority leader."
Scarborough, a former Republican congressman, announced earlier this year that he had decided to leave the GOP to become an independent.
Why are the voters who chose and continue to endorse people like Sarah Palin, Donald Trump, and Roy Noodle invariably described as "angry"?
Because they don't actually get their way.
Yet they know they are a minority, despised and scorned by not just "the elites" but also everybody else who isn't a participant in their madness.
Why should they get their way?
Why should they expect to get their way?
Why should we indulge in the least their demands to get their way?
Trump always, today Meadows, and regularly other GOP liars insist the anger and outlook unique to these voters is actually the anger and outlook of the whole American people, but however flattered they may be by that ludicrous falsehood they know perfectly well it's just a ludicrous falsehood.
What do I say about the angry Republican masses who mob the polls to vote for these people, their anger and their outlook?
I say they are notorious idiots, fools, ignoramuses, and vicious bigots whose intentions are despicable, whose anger is a joke, whose agenda is utterly contemptible, whose desires are perverse, and whose beliefs are a system of wretched delusions.
To hell with them.
May they choke on their goddam anger.
A late Indian Summer
Wife and I went up to Erie on Monday and came back today.
Gorgeous weather, high 80s with clear skies and a nice breeze to keep it comfortable.
Pleasant motel with a free hot breakfast and dirt cheap off season rates.
No wifi in the rooms, but plugs for high speed internet through ethernet.
Wifi in the lobby, bar and grille, and dining areas.
Gorgeous weather, high 80s with clear skies and a nice breeze to keep it comfortable.
Pleasant motel with a free hot breakfast and dirt cheap off season rates.
No wifi in the rooms, but plugs for high speed internet through ethernet.
Wifi in the lobby, bar and grille, and dining areas.
Echoes of NK propaganda
Well, people who absolutely don't want military action to stop the NK drive for nukes echo the lie that this nation that has lived in peace, unattacked and uninvaded, for more than 60 years, is suddenly terrified it's only chance to survive utter, unprovoked destruction by the US is a successful race to acquire ICBMs that can carry nukes to Chicago.
Why are so many of them Americans who should know better?
And almost certainly do.
Wednesday, September 27, 2017
Remember Katrina?
Democrats made it an orgy of racial grievance and race-baiting whites in general, Bush in particular, and the whole GOP.
Coverage of the aftermath of Maria in PR is drifting that way.
The knee
Yesterday, Huckabee Sanders began the presser with a five minute celebration of the historic integration of the schools of Little Rock.
Then, asked about the president's expression of racial grievance in Huntsville, the day before, she denied it was that and praised the president for defending patriotism, castigating disrespect for the flag and the anthem.
That was the story she stuck to throughout challenges and questions.
Last night, the Democratic media continued their irrelvant claims of the protection of the First Amendment and at last shifted to vigorously echoing, not reporting, the players' racial complaints.
Too, they brushed aside talk of the flag, the anthem, and patriotism as a smokescreen for white racial hostility toward the athletes and their actions.
Meanwhile, white ownership and management are supporting the kneelers, having no interest in enraging half their players and maybe provoking a strike or worse.
Monday, September 25, 2017
Another racist hate crime?
Nashville church shooting: Chapel usher hailed a hero after pouncing on gunman saving dozens of lives
Robert Engle jumped on Emanuel Kidega Samson after he shot dead a woman and injured seven others in Burnette Chapel Church of Christ, Tennessee.
They don't even say, but they show pictures.
Engle is white and the shooter is black.
Not once do they mention the race of the victims.
But the story in a single sentence reports,
The FBI have launched a civil rights investigation into the shooting after racial reasons were given for Mr Samson’s attack.
Robert Engle jumped on Emanuel Kidega Samson after he shot dead a woman and injured seven others in Burnette Chapel Church of Christ, Tennessee.
They don't even say, but they show pictures.
Engle is white and the shooter is black.
Not once do they mention the race of the victims.
But the story in a single sentence reports,
The FBI have launched a civil rights investigation into the shooting after racial reasons were given for Mr Samson’s attack.
The knee flap, day two. Or is it day three?
Trump called for firing players for their political expression on field.
The response has been a vigorous defense of the First Amendment by left media, players, owners, coaches, and other sports figures, which they probably (and probably rightly) judged would play a lot better with most of America than efforts to support, or even report, the players' racial complaints.
When the left get a heckler's veto at a school or get somebody fired very publicly for political expression that sometimes is not even public they are very clear that the First Amendment protects no one from being fired and guarantees no one a venue to speak.
PS.
Amusing, how often the players' defenders insist they are "smart, thoughtful guys".
I love their integrity. Their humanity. Their patriotism, even.
New Graham-Cassidy 'Kill Americans First' Bill Aims Bribe At Reluctant Senators
Special goodies for their states for Rand Paul, Lisa Murkowski, John McCain, and Susan Collins, at least.
Because what really matters to them is not pissing off too many of their voters by sticking it to them, in particular.
Special goodies for their states for Rand Paul, Lisa Murkowski, John McCain, and Susan Collins, at least.
Because what really matters to them is not pissing off too many of their voters by sticking it to them, in particular.
Sunday, September 24, 2017
Not enough
Republican Susan Collins likely to deal fatal blow to Graham-Cassidy bill
Maine senator who voted against previous efforts to repeal the ACA told CNN it was ‘very difficult’ for her to envision a scenario where she’d vote for the bill.
Not enough to just not vote for it.
We need her to vote against it.
Maine senator who voted against previous efforts to repeal the ACA told CNN it was ‘very difficult’ for her to envision a scenario where she’d vote for the bill.
Not enough to just not vote for it.
We need her to vote against it.
Why did Trump poke the bear?
Sure, his shtick about the knee was aimed at whites who resent and even fear the ubiquitous race-baiting propaganda of eternal and immutable black victimhood - and equally eternal and immutable white guilt.
But so is the reaction he intentionally provoked in the Democratic media.
See this morning's furious barrages of that same propaganda at CNN and MSNBC.
Not that his own resentment isn't palpable and sincere, but The Duce is adept at welcoming the hatred and using it for political advantage.
Of course.
As much as anything else, that is why he is in The White House.
To appreciate the venom, the menace, and the unfounded character of much propaganda against whites you have to think of the anti-Semitism found everywhere in Europe, but of special intensity in central and eastern Europe, before the Second World War.
(Recall, for only one example, the conspiracy theory for long circulated by the Nation of Islam and echoed by many others, that AIDS was an invention of white people to kill large numbers of Africans and other blacks.)
And the old joke that ends with two questions.
"Why the bicyclists?"
"Why the Jews?"
Saturday, September 23, 2017
Bernie on foreign policy
A clear presentation of some of his views.
On the whole, I see no objection to inequality per se and regard it as a natural and inevitable feature of capitalism, the "system of natural liberty" that is the best way to organize economic life.
In fact, I think the stop-at-nothing pursuit of equality motivated by hatred of the rich has brought about most of the political disasters of the 20th Century.
But I agree this is a shocker.
There is no moral or economic justification for the six wealthiest people in the world having as much wealth as the bottom half of the world’s population – 3.7 billion people.
Is that even true, that "the six wealthiest people in the world" have "as much wealth as the bottom half of the world’s population – 3.7 billion people"?
Wow.
Anyway, in a man suspect of being soft on communism, this in his speech, quoting a part of Churchill's Iron Curtain speech with approval, is adroit.
(Bernie later in the speech handles his "sister cities" problem with equal adroitness.)
Almost 70 years ago, former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill stood on this stage and gave an historic address, known as the “Iron Curtain” speech, in which he framed a conception of world affairs that endured through the 20th century, until the collapse of the Soviet Union.
In that speech, he defined his strategic concept as quote “nothing less than the safety and welfare, the freedom and progress, of all the homes and families of all the men and women in all the lands.”
“To give security to these countless homes,” he said, “they must be shielded from the two giant marauders, war and tyranny.”
How do we meet that challenge today?
How do we fight for the “freedom and progress” that Churchill talked about in the year 2017?
At a time of exploding technology and wealth, how do we move away from a world of war, terrorism and massive levels of poverty into a world of peace and economic security for all?
How do we move toward a global community in which people have the decent jobs, food, clean water, education, health care and housing they need?
. . . .
Today the Soviet Union no longer exists.
Today we face threats of a different sort.
We will never forget 9/11.
We are cognizant of the terrible attacks that have taken place in capitals all over the world.
We are more than aware of the brutality of ISIS, Al Qaeda, and similar groups.
We also face the threat of these groups obtaining weapons of mass destruction, and preventing that must be a priority.
. . . .
A great concern that I have today is that many in our country are losing faith in our common future and in our democratic values.
For far too many of our people, here in the United States and people all over the world, the promises of self-government -- of government by the people, for the people, and of the people -- have not been kept.
And people are losing faith.
In the United States and other countries, a majority of people are working longer hours for lower wages than they used to.
They see big money buying elections, and they see a political and economic elite growing wealthier, even as their own children’s future grows dimmer.
So when we talk about foreign policy, and our belief in democracy, at the very top of our list of concerns is the need to revitalize American democracy to ensure that governmental decisions reflect the interests of a majority of our people, and not just the few – whether that few is Wall Street, the military industrial complex, or the fossil fuel industry.
We cannot convincingly promote democracy abroad if we do not live it vigorously here at home.
It is true that liberals broadly favor the democratic features of modern states because they enable the people to defend and advance their interests against the rich.
But nothing guarantees they will do that, and democracy also enables demagogy, and has enabled popular support for anti-democratic political movements in the past such as fascism, Nazism, and Communism.
People famous for themselves playing the demagogue, vigorously denouncing "the system", the parties, and various features of our constitutional government as "rigged", are not in the best position to give lectures warning us about the people losing faith in democracy.
The effrontery of their doing so is more than a little offensive.
Still, though much else that Bernie says about the struggle between democracy and authoritarianism is good, he signs up quite explicitly for a too lefty version of globalism and immediately goes on to rehearse his sometimes wrong-headed, peacenik Cold War convictions.
Interestingly, while he deplores the Invasion of Iraq as the worst error of recent times, he never cites the earlier war to overthrow Taliban Afghanistan as an error.
And this is not only wrong but dangerous.
Inequality, corruption, oligarchy and authoritarianism are inseparable. They must be understood as part of the same system, and fought in the same way.
On the whole, I see no objection to inequality per se and regard it as a natural and inevitable feature of capitalism, the "system of natural liberty" that is the best way to organize economic life.
In fact, I think the stop-at-nothing pursuit of equality motivated by hatred of the rich has brought about most of the political disasters of the 20th Century.
But I agree this is a shocker.
There is no moral or economic justification for the six wealthiest people in the world having as much wealth as the bottom half of the world’s population – 3.7 billion people.
Is that even true, that "the six wealthiest people in the world" have "as much wealth as the bottom half of the world’s population – 3.7 billion people"?
Wow.
Anyway, in a man suspect of being soft on communism, this in his speech, quoting a part of Churchill's Iron Curtain speech with approval, is adroit.
(Bernie later in the speech handles his "sister cities" problem with equal adroitness.)
Almost 70 years ago, former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill stood on this stage and gave an historic address, known as the “Iron Curtain” speech, in which he framed a conception of world affairs that endured through the 20th century, until the collapse of the Soviet Union.
In that speech, he defined his strategic concept as quote “nothing less than the safety and welfare, the freedom and progress, of all the homes and families of all the men and women in all the lands.”
“To give security to these countless homes,” he said, “they must be shielded from the two giant marauders, war and tyranny.”
How do we meet that challenge today?
How do we fight for the “freedom and progress” that Churchill talked about in the year 2017?
At a time of exploding technology and wealth, how do we move away from a world of war, terrorism and massive levels of poverty into a world of peace and economic security for all?
How do we move toward a global community in which people have the decent jobs, food, clean water, education, health care and housing they need?
. . . .
Today the Soviet Union no longer exists.
Today we face threats of a different sort.
We will never forget 9/11.
We are cognizant of the terrible attacks that have taken place in capitals all over the world.
We are more than aware of the brutality of ISIS, Al Qaeda, and similar groups.
We also face the threat of these groups obtaining weapons of mass destruction, and preventing that must be a priority.
. . . .
A great concern that I have today is that many in our country are losing faith in our common future and in our democratic values.
For far too many of our people, here in the United States and people all over the world, the promises of self-government -- of government by the people, for the people, and of the people -- have not been kept.
And people are losing faith.
In the United States and other countries, a majority of people are working longer hours for lower wages than they used to.
They see big money buying elections, and they see a political and economic elite growing wealthier, even as their own children’s future grows dimmer.
So when we talk about foreign policy, and our belief in democracy, at the very top of our list of concerns is the need to revitalize American democracy to ensure that governmental decisions reflect the interests of a majority of our people, and not just the few – whether that few is Wall Street, the military industrial complex, or the fossil fuel industry.
We cannot convincingly promote democracy abroad if we do not live it vigorously here at home.
It is true that liberals broadly favor the democratic features of modern states because they enable the people to defend and advance their interests against the rich.
But nothing guarantees they will do that, and democracy also enables demagogy, and has enabled popular support for anti-democratic political movements in the past such as fascism, Nazism, and Communism.
People famous for themselves playing the demagogue, vigorously denouncing "the system", the parties, and various features of our constitutional government as "rigged", are not in the best position to give lectures warning us about the people losing faith in democracy.
The effrontery of their doing so is more than a little offensive.
Still, though much else that Bernie says about the struggle between democracy and authoritarianism is good, he signs up quite explicitly for a too lefty version of globalism and immediately goes on to rehearse his sometimes wrong-headed, peacenik Cold War convictions.
Interestingly, while he deplores the Invasion of Iraq as the worst error of recent times, he never cites the earlier war to overthrow Taliban Afghanistan as an error.
And this is not only wrong but dangerous.
Inequality, corruption, oligarchy and authoritarianism are inseparable. They must be understood as part of the same system, and fought in the same way.
The Duce on "taking the knee" for the national anthem at football games
The Duce embraces a blatant racial grievance in Huntsville, Alabama, while there campaigning against the Bannon/Palin/Buchananist pick, Judge Roy Moore, and for the Mitch McConnell establishment pick, Luther Strange, in the GOP primary for Jeff Sessions vacant senate seat.
A move to get his "white nationalist" supporters on board for his guy rather than their guy.
Alabama Senate race: It's Trump vs. Trumpland
President Donald Trump's political muscles are getting a workout in a Republican runoff election in Alabama that has an awkward dynamic: He's campaigning for the establishment-backed incumbent over an upstart beloved by many of his own most ardent supporters, including his former chief strategist Steve Bannon.
Motivated by personal loyalty and a sense that the race is newly competitive, Trump heads to Huntsville, Alabama, on Friday to campaign for Sen. Luther Strange, appointed in February to temporarily fill the seat that opened up when Jeff Sessions became attorney general.
The winner of next Tuesday's runoff will be the GOP candidate in a December election to serve out the rest of Sessions' term, ending in January 2021.
Strange is locked in a tight race with former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, a jurist known for pushing unsuccessfully for the public display of the Ten Commandments and opposing gay marriage.
A super political action committee tied to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who favors Strange, has pumped millions of dollars into the race, as Senate Republicans worry that Moore would be a disruptive figure in the chamber, or might even lose to Democrat Doug Jones.
. . . .
Challenger Moore, running on an anti-Washington platform, has backing from former Trump chief strategist Bannon and his conservative website Breitbart News, and the Great America Alliance, an advocacy group that supports Trump.
A rally for Moore Thursday night at a historic train shed on the banks of the Alabama River featured Trump allies including former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and former White House official Sebastian Gorka.
Palin stressed her support for the president, while arguing that Moore was a better match for Trump's "movement."
"A vote for Judge Moore isn't a vote against the president. It is a vote for the people's agenda that elected the president," Palin told several hundred cheering supporters.
Trump Calls on NFL Owners to Fire Players Who Protest, and Mocks Efforts to Make the Game Safer
His language was as harsh and direct as you would expect from a man firing an apprentice.
The NFL not with him.
NFL head and players speak out on Trump's calling for kneeling players to be 'fired'
And still more on the racial grievance front.
President Trump withdraws Stephen Curry’s White House invitation, slammed by LeBron James as 'bum'
President Trump said Stephen Curry is no longer invited to Washington to celebrate the Warrior's NBA title hours after the athlete announced he did not want to attend.
A move to get his "white nationalist" supporters on board for his guy rather than their guy.
Alabama Senate race: It's Trump vs. Trumpland
President Donald Trump's political muscles are getting a workout in a Republican runoff election in Alabama that has an awkward dynamic: He's campaigning for the establishment-backed incumbent over an upstart beloved by many of his own most ardent supporters, including his former chief strategist Steve Bannon.
Motivated by personal loyalty and a sense that the race is newly competitive, Trump heads to Huntsville, Alabama, on Friday to campaign for Sen. Luther Strange, appointed in February to temporarily fill the seat that opened up when Jeff Sessions became attorney general.
The winner of next Tuesday's runoff will be the GOP candidate in a December election to serve out the rest of Sessions' term, ending in January 2021.
Strange is locked in a tight race with former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, a jurist known for pushing unsuccessfully for the public display of the Ten Commandments and opposing gay marriage.
A super political action committee tied to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who favors Strange, has pumped millions of dollars into the race, as Senate Republicans worry that Moore would be a disruptive figure in the chamber, or might even lose to Democrat Doug Jones.
. . . .
Challenger Moore, running on an anti-Washington platform, has backing from former Trump chief strategist Bannon and his conservative website Breitbart News, and the Great America Alliance, an advocacy group that supports Trump.
A rally for Moore Thursday night at a historic train shed on the banks of the Alabama River featured Trump allies including former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and former White House official Sebastian Gorka.
Palin stressed her support for the president, while arguing that Moore was a better match for Trump's "movement."
"A vote for Judge Moore isn't a vote against the president. It is a vote for the people's agenda that elected the president," Palin told several hundred cheering supporters.
Trump Calls on NFL Owners to Fire Players Who Protest, and Mocks Efforts to Make the Game Safer
His language was as harsh and direct as you would expect from a man firing an apprentice.
The NFL not with him.
NFL head and players speak out on Trump's calling for kneeling players to be 'fired'
And still more on the racial grievance front.
President Trump withdraws Stephen Curry’s White House invitation, slammed by LeBron James as 'bum'
President Trump said Stephen Curry is no longer invited to Washington to celebrate the Warrior's NBA title hours after the athlete announced he did not want to attend.
Hillary on MSNBC am Joy right now
She says that back during the campaign when compelling evidence of Russian interference on Trump's side was presented to the Congress, Mitch McConnell, who did not question the truth of the thing or the genuineness of the evidence, responded not with outrage but with threats.
If the Democrats made any of this public, he said, the Republicans would barrage them with accusations the whole affair was nothing but the Democrats making politically motivated accusations.
Joy asked whether that wasn't in itself collusion, a point Hillary stepped away from.
She was unwilling to flatly charge The Duce, his campaign, or the GOP with collusion, saying she was leaving that to the prosecutors and investigators, though, instead, in a recitation of evidence of it she cited media revelations of events others have pointed out were in themselves just that, outright collusion in fact, whatever the lawyers might eventually say.
She stressed that the GOP is driven by its ideologically committed donors where Joy has personally pulled no punches charging the party is controlled by the donors and the donors are controlled by their personal greed.
Joy does not say it, but she clearly would agree, these are the "Let them die" plutocrats.
That makes Hillary, who herself relied on big buck donors, less harsh on the donor class than Joy.
While on the whole right on everything she talked about in the interview, Hillary was all the same often annoying, and did not omit to play the race and (her personal lifelong grudge fight) sex cards against Trump personally and the GOP as a whole.
But that was only one topic among several, and did not get more than a reasonable share of time and attention.
She did insist Comey's late nonsense about the emails cost her the election and, while that is true, it is also true, and she clearly knows it is also true though she did not at that moment allude to the fact, that there are many other factors each of which could be said to have cost her the election.
She did not omit to point out that she actually won the suffrage of the people, the mandate of the voters, and was kept out of the White House by the archaic Electoral College for the abolition of which she has elsewhere called.
She also pointed out that the system is much more vulnerable to demagogues than anyone would have believed before Trump, and America needs to correct that so far as it can.
If the Democrats made any of this public, he said, the Republicans would barrage them with accusations the whole affair was nothing but the Democrats making politically motivated accusations.
Joy asked whether that wasn't in itself collusion, a point Hillary stepped away from.
She was unwilling to flatly charge The Duce, his campaign, or the GOP with collusion, saying she was leaving that to the prosecutors and investigators, though, instead, in a recitation of evidence of it she cited media revelations of events others have pointed out were in themselves just that, outright collusion in fact, whatever the lawyers might eventually say.
She stressed that the GOP is driven by its ideologically committed donors where Joy has personally pulled no punches charging the party is controlled by the donors and the donors are controlled by their personal greed.
Joy does not say it, but she clearly would agree, these are the "Let them die" plutocrats.
That makes Hillary, who herself relied on big buck donors, less harsh on the donor class than Joy.
While on the whole right on everything she talked about in the interview, Hillary was all the same often annoying, and did not omit to play the race and (her personal lifelong grudge fight) sex cards against Trump personally and the GOP as a whole.
But that was only one topic among several, and did not get more than a reasonable share of time and attention.
She did insist Comey's late nonsense about the emails cost her the election and, while that is true, it is also true, and she clearly knows it is also true though she did not at that moment allude to the fact, that there are many other factors each of which could be said to have cost her the election.
She did not omit to point out that she actually won the suffrage of the people, the mandate of the voters, and was kept out of the White House by the archaic Electoral College for the abolition of which she has elsewhere called.
She also pointed out that the system is much more vulnerable to demagogues than anyone would have believed before Trump, and America needs to correct that so far as it can.
Friday, September 22, 2017
Doesn't actually sew it up.
And they have all of next week to get it together.
McCain to vote no on ObamaCare repeal
Doubtless the most hated Republican in the country, right now.
It will fail if no Democrats or independents support it and two more Republicans oppose it, assuming everybody, including the very gravely ill McCain, actually shows up for the vote.
The senate has 52 Republicans, 46 Democrats, and 2 independents who caucus with the Democrats.
McCain's announcement leaves GOP leadership with no room for error.
They need 50 GOP senators to support the legislation, which would let Vice President Mike Pence break a tie.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has already said he opposes the bill.
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Ky.) said earlier Friday she is "leaning against" it, and several other key senators — including GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) — remain on the fence.
McCain to vote no on ObamaCare repeal
Doubtless the most hated Republican in the country, right now.
It will fail if no Democrats or independents support it and two more Republicans oppose it, assuming everybody, including the very gravely ill McCain, actually shows up for the vote.
The senate has 52 Republicans, 46 Democrats, and 2 independents who caucus with the Democrats.
McCain's announcement leaves GOP leadership with no room for error.
They need 50 GOP senators to support the legislation, which would let Vice President Mike Pence break a tie.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has already said he opposes the bill.
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Ky.) said earlier Friday she is "leaning against" it, and several other key senators — including GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) — remain on the fence.
Hmm. Tendencies.
Despite Wikipedia, people who say they are white nationalists, making their usage similar to this of "black nationalism", say that what they want is an exclusively white homeland.
That is what defines white nationalism, according to them.
The traditional ethno-nationalists of Europe - Italian, German, or Scots, for example - would necessarily live in exclusively white homelands if they lived in exclusively Scots, German, or Italian homelands.
But that is not what they desire as ethno-nationalists.
It is untrue that who desires A desires every consequence of A, or even every logical consequence of A.
The infamous novel, The Turner Diaries, bedtime reading of Timothy McVeigh, espoused a version of white nationalism for which the desired, exclusively white homeland was to be the planet Earth, from which nonwhites were to be purged by extermination.
But not all white nationalists are exterminationists and not all whites who want to exterminate somebody want to exterminate everybody who isn't white.
White supremacists want something different, something far more like the old Jim Crow regime of segregation in America.
There are numerous white people who don't want any of those things, but do want to maintain the majority status of whites in America, and along with it the democratically, demographically, and numerically resulting white predominance in politics and culture.
The kind of "white skin privilege" that comes more or less automatically with whites being the majority in a democratic society in which no one is excluded from participation on account of race.
And these folks also seem generally to be called "white nationalists" by the media, ignoring the different usage of the people for and by whom the term was invented.
Too, a quick look around the Internet shows that definitions and usages of these terms vary quite a bit in different ways from the understanding here: white nationalist, white supremacist, white separationist.
But, anyway, if Bannon doesn't actually want any of the above options what does it mean to say he "has white nationalist tendencies"?
Was it nothing but a smear to please the viewers of The View?
Gotta love that GOP
Even though it's a rush job cobbled together solely so they can say they did it they included typical right wing asshole goodies like this.
Graham-Cassidy would start banning abortion coverage in Obamacare plans in 3 months
Starting in 2018, the bill would bar the use of Obamacare’s premium tax credits to pay for plans that include coverage for abortion except in the cases of rape, incest, or a threat to the mother’s life, as health care analyst Charles Gaba notes at ACASignups.net.
This would mean no plan offered on the exchanges could cover abortion.
This is a problem in itself, as a lack of insurance coverage for abortion can cause a number of problems for patients, such as forcing them to choose between paying for the procedure and paying rent.
Graham-Cassidy would start banning abortion coverage in Obamacare plans in 3 months
Starting in 2018, the bill would bar the use of Obamacare’s premium tax credits to pay for plans that include coverage for abortion except in the cases of rape, incest, or a threat to the mother’s life, as health care analyst Charles Gaba notes at ACASignups.net.
This would mean no plan offered on the exchanges could cover abortion.
This is a problem in itself, as a lack of insurance coverage for abortion can cause a number of problems for patients, such as forcing them to choose between paying for the procedure and paying rent.
Thursday, September 21, 2017
The terrorists have already won
A US passport costs a hundred bucks.
Before 9/11 you could travel from Mexico to Canada without a passport.
That was changed because of terrorism after 9/11.
A perfect Trumpist. A total asshole and a repulsive clown.
He's supported by Trumpists in opposition to Trump, who on this issue of who gets to be a senator from Alabama sides with the GOP DC establishment.
Roy Moore's defiant road to become US senator
Whether it’s the public display of the Ten Commandments or his refusal to enforce the U.S. Supreme Court’s legalization of same-sex marriage, Moore has gained national attention for his dogged and bombastic defense of his brand of Christianity’s role in the American political system.
The twice-removed former Alabama Supreme Court chief justice is now vying to become Alabama’s next U.S. senator, taking on sitting U.S. Sen. Luther Strange, who is backed by both Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and President Donald Trump.
The race has become a proxy war between the populist and establishment wings of the Republican Party, and has even pitted the president against his former top aides Steve Bannon and Sebastian Gorka, who are backing Moore.
Next Tuesday voters will choose Moore or Strange to take on former U.S. Attorney and Democratic nominee Doug Jones in the general election in December.
I can't decide whether he's a lifelong religious fraud or a genuinely religious political thug.
Roy Moore's defiant road to become US senator
Whether it’s the public display of the Ten Commandments or his refusal to enforce the U.S. Supreme Court’s legalization of same-sex marriage, Moore has gained national attention for his dogged and bombastic defense of his brand of Christianity’s role in the American political system.
The twice-removed former Alabama Supreme Court chief justice is now vying to become Alabama’s next U.S. senator, taking on sitting U.S. Sen. Luther Strange, who is backed by both Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and President Donald Trump.
The race has become a proxy war between the populist and establishment wings of the Republican Party, and has even pitted the president against his former top aides Steve Bannon and Sebastian Gorka, who are backing Moore.
Next Tuesday voters will choose Moore or Strange to take on former U.S. Attorney and Democratic nominee Doug Jones in the general election in December.
I can't decide whether he's a lifelong religious fraud or a genuinely religious political thug.
Trump acts to isolate NK
Banks, entities, and countries may do business or trade with NK or with the US, but not with both, says The Duce, per MSNBC.
This does include China, Russia, and indeed everybody, he says.
And China has told its banks to stop doing business with NK.
A White House talker on TV says this includes getting people to kick out and close their doors to NK guest workers, who, she says, are slave laborers who wages are paid back to the NK government and not to them.
This does include China, Russia, and indeed everybody, he says.
And China has told its banks to stop doing business with NK.
A White House talker on TV says this includes getting people to kick out and close their doors to NK guest workers, who, she says, are slave laborers who wages are paid back to the NK government and not to them.
Wednesday, September 20, 2017
Too big to have an editor?
Too bad.
"There were scheduling and jury issues to discuss and each side's list of exhibits were [sic] to be handed in as well."
Reading Michael Connelly's excellent Lincoln Lawyer novel, The Reversal.
Of course, if this sort of picture of the process is accurate there is little reason to think it arrives at the truth.
And much reason to regard prosecutors, defense teams, and police with contempt and mistrust.
But what do I know?
Scarborough discovers fire as Lindsey Graham echoes Bozo, calls for "chaos"
Scarborough Slams 'Reckless, Radical, Irresponsible' Ocare Repeal Bill
Joe flips out, denouncing the GOP for a measure and a process that are infinitely removed from conservative and are, to the contrary, irresponsible, horrible, and radical.
Welcome to the majors, Mr. Scarborough.
The GOP is not a party of conservatives and the so-called conservatives of America and their movement are not conservative, either.
The party, the movement, and the mis-called "conservatives" are all of them radical opponents of the American government, our contemporary American society, and our too democratic for them, too republican for them, too socialist for them, too racially diverse for them, and too secular and post-Christian for them really existing America.
The actual conservatives are the progressive - but not socialist - Democrats.
And Trump is totally on board for this.
Lindsey Graham, long called a moderate Republican by the media and the chief sponsor of this atrocity, says he is on the phone with The Duce all the time, about this, and the president will gladly sign whatever they can put on his desk.
He said for the cameras it is imperative to repeal Ocare and "stop the march toward socialism".
And no one seems to doubt the House will rubber stamp any sort of repeal the senate can pass.
This is irresponsible bomb-throwing at the US health insurance and health care systems from the same party that gave you government shutdown and several tries at defaulting in the face of credit ceilings they tried not to raise without impossibly destructive concessions, all the while blaming it all on the Democrats.
Think I exaggerate?
In exactly the same spirit of the government shutdowners and debt ceiling defaulters, they are openly rooting for chaos.
According to several Republicans, House Speaker Paul Ryan has told senators that he would not put a bill to stabilize Obamacare up for a vote in the House.
That decision essentially leaves the Senate with one option: repeal Obamacare, or let it collapse.
“He is not going to bring any bill to the floor of the House that props up Obamacare,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham.
“You’ll never clean it up tinkering with it.”
. . . .
This appears to be in line with President Trump’s oft-repeated promise to let Obamacare “fail” if it can’t be repealed.
. . . .
Graham laid out the binary choice between repeal and collapse when asked what he would say to Alaska governor Bill Walker, one of 10 state governors who publicly denounced the Graham-Cassidy bill and called for stabilization instead in a bipartisan letter on Tuesday.
“Here’s what I would tell him. If you think you don’t like this (repeal) bill, just watch what you’re getting coming, pal,” said Graham.
“Obamacare is collapsing and there’s not a lot of appetite to prop it up, so chaos is going to reign.”
Joe flips out, denouncing the GOP for a measure and a process that are infinitely removed from conservative and are, to the contrary, irresponsible, horrible, and radical.
Welcome to the majors, Mr. Scarborough.
The GOP is not a party of conservatives and the so-called conservatives of America and their movement are not conservative, either.
The party, the movement, and the mis-called "conservatives" are all of them radical opponents of the American government, our contemporary American society, and our too democratic for them, too republican for them, too socialist for them, too racially diverse for them, and too secular and post-Christian for them really existing America.
The actual conservatives are the progressive - but not socialist - Democrats.
And Trump is totally on board for this.
Lindsey Graham, long called a moderate Republican by the media and the chief sponsor of this atrocity, says he is on the phone with The Duce all the time, about this, and the president will gladly sign whatever they can put on his desk.
He said for the cameras it is imperative to repeal Ocare and "stop the march toward socialism".
And no one seems to doubt the House will rubber stamp any sort of repeal the senate can pass.
This is irresponsible bomb-throwing at the US health insurance and health care systems from the same party that gave you government shutdown and several tries at defaulting in the face of credit ceilings they tried not to raise without impossibly destructive concessions, all the while blaming it all on the Democrats.
Think I exaggerate?
In exactly the same spirit of the government shutdowners and debt ceiling defaulters, they are openly rooting for chaos.
According to several Republicans, House Speaker Paul Ryan has told senators that he would not put a bill to stabilize Obamacare up for a vote in the House.
That decision essentially leaves the Senate with one option: repeal Obamacare, or let it collapse.
“He is not going to bring any bill to the floor of the House that props up Obamacare,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham.
“You’ll never clean it up tinkering with it.”
. . . .
This appears to be in line with President Trump’s oft-repeated promise to let Obamacare “fail” if it can’t be repealed.
. . . .
Graham laid out the binary choice between repeal and collapse when asked what he would say to Alaska governor Bill Walker, one of 10 state governors who publicly denounced the Graham-Cassidy bill and called for stabilization instead in a bipartisan letter on Tuesday.
“Here’s what I would tell him. If you think you don’t like this (repeal) bill, just watch what you’re getting coming, pal,” said Graham.
“Obamacare is collapsing and there’s not a lot of appetite to prop it up, so chaos is going to reign.”
A signal of acceptance? Probably not. And that's grim.
At the UN, yesterday, Bozo barked that if NK forces the US to defend itself or its allies the US will have no choice but to totally destroy NK.
Some people saw that as a threat to destroy NK when it finally has nukes with which to hit the US, before they have a chance to use them, if NK continues development.
But if so the threat was far from explicit.
It could have been meant differently.
NK seeks nukes to enable it to invade the South without fear of US intervention.
The possibility they would nuke San Francisco would deter, they hope, the US from significant intervention, despite the presence of US forces in and around NK.
Was The Duce specifically addressing that hope, telling them not to count on it and that any move against the South would result in the utter destruction of the North?
And was that a signal of acceptance of NK having nukes as the new reality?
Of course, if that is what his remarks meant, then it will be up to future Trump, or any future president, to decide whether the threat has become a bluff, should NK actually force a decision by invading the South.
On the other hand, is Trump really the man to do all this barking and then not bite?
Remember all his mockery of O's Syrian red line against use of gas?
Remember what Trump did when the Syrians used gas, just to show he wasn't a wuss like O?
Update.
If Bozo repudiates the Iran deal the only alternatives will be acceptance of a nuclear armed Iran and war.
The American Zionists, some of whom openly called for war rather than acceptance of the deal O negotiated, know that quite well, and Bibi probably does, too.
It is absurd that The Duce plans to reject the deal in order to accept a nuclear armed Iran.
So, if he rejects the deal that means he intends war, unless he actually thinks that he can get a better deal.
And he might think that.
Bibi might think that.
Most people don't think that.
Some people saw that as a threat to destroy NK when it finally has nukes with which to hit the US, before they have a chance to use them, if NK continues development.
But if so the threat was far from explicit.
It could have been meant differently.
NK seeks nukes to enable it to invade the South without fear of US intervention.
The possibility they would nuke San Francisco would deter, they hope, the US from significant intervention, despite the presence of US forces in and around NK.
Was The Duce specifically addressing that hope, telling them not to count on it and that any move against the South would result in the utter destruction of the North?
And was that a signal of acceptance of NK having nukes as the new reality?
Of course, if that is what his remarks meant, then it will be up to future Trump, or any future president, to decide whether the threat has become a bluff, should NK actually force a decision by invading the South.
On the other hand, is Trump really the man to do all this barking and then not bite?
Remember all his mockery of O's Syrian red line against use of gas?
Remember what Trump did when the Syrians used gas, just to show he wasn't a wuss like O?
Update.
If Bozo repudiates the Iran deal the only alternatives will be acceptance of a nuclear armed Iran and war.
The American Zionists, some of whom openly called for war rather than acceptance of the deal O negotiated, know that quite well, and Bibi probably does, too.
It is absurd that The Duce plans to reject the deal in order to accept a nuclear armed Iran.
So, if he rejects the deal that means he intends war, unless he actually thinks that he can get a better deal.
And he might think that.
Bibi might think that.
Most people don't think that.
Tuesday, September 19, 2017
Things we don't eat
Partly for health, to avoid salt, fat, the high cholesterol of organ meats, and calories.
Partly because my wife is the Mrs. Uberbland of eating, for whom even tilapia has too much and too exotic a flavor.
My Franco-American parents regularly served together fried boudin noir, salt pork, and bacon with boiled potatoes and butter.
Sometimes fried liver and onions.
Sometimes Quebecois meat pie (my maternal grandmother's was the best) - the fat is not drained from the fried ground meats before the spiced filling is put into the pie.
Shepherd's pie.
You used to be able to find a lot of this stuff quite readily in supermarkets.
Today, not so much.
I asked the butchers at the Giant Eagle near the Village Square Mall about blood sausage and they don't carry it, or have any idea who does.
The younger ones didn't know there even was such a thing, and thought it sounded gross.
Partly because my wife is the Mrs. Uberbland of eating, for whom even tilapia has too much and too exotic a flavor.
My Franco-American parents regularly served together fried boudin noir, salt pork, and bacon with boiled potatoes and butter.
Sometimes fried liver and onions.
Sometimes Quebecois meat pie (my maternal grandmother's was the best) - the fat is not drained from the fried ground meats before the spiced filling is put into the pie.
Shepherd's pie.
You used to be able to find a lot of this stuff quite readily in supermarkets.
Today, not so much.
I asked the butchers at the Giant Eagle near the Village Square Mall about blood sausage and they don't carry it, or have any idea who does.
The younger ones didn't know there even was such a thing, and thought it sounded gross.
The Duce at the UN had red meat for everybody on the right
Bozo at the UN made a frankly shocking display of, well, himself.
He denounced, to a completely stony-faced audience, the global phenomenon of uncontrolled mass migration as a terrible injustice by the feckless nations from which people flee against the nations to which they migrate.
The nations from which they flee get to escape the need for economic and political reforms at the cost of losing their own greatest resource, their people, while the poorest folks living in the nations to which they flee - where those same fleeing masses, evidently, are not a great resource - suffer, he says, economically and otherwise from the illegal and overwhelming tide.
He reprised the Buchananite, anti-multi-nationalist, anti-globalist themes of his campaign, castigating the UN for its unfair costs to the US and its overall failures, and calling for an emerging world of prosperous, sovereign, and independent nations, spontaneously committed every one to justice, cooperation, and peace.
He sounded like a bellicose, churlish, and rather stupid man, a mini-Mussolini, embracing Wilson's ethno-nationalist vision without the League, apparently rendered miraculously unnecessary by the nations' love of peace.
A vision immediately belied by his own allusions to the situations in Korea, Iran, and Venezuela.
As for Korea, he announced that "Rocket Man" is "on a suicide mission for himself and his regime", warning emphatically that if NK forces the US to defend itself or its allies NK will be "totally destroyed".
Channeling Zionist right wing globalists who oppose the Islamic Republic - which he characterized as a corrupt and murderous dictatorship whose principal exports are violence, blood, and chaos - with all their hearts, he deplored the Iran deal vigorously, strongly hinting but not actually announcing it would be repudiated.
And he castigated Maduro's "socialist dictatorship" that is wrecking that leader's country, stating firmly that "the problem is that socialism has been faithfully implemented in Venezuela" and announcing pretty clearly that the US will be doing something or other to end that regime.
That the incompetent and absurd regime of the Bolivarians has faithfully implemented socialism in Venezuela is an accusation it will be tough to deflect for a left wing noise machine that has been playing along with MSNBC, Bernie, and the right wing bumper-sticker industry in watering down the idea of socialism.
In truth, they have done this to so great an extent that it could with equal justice be said that socialism has been faithfully implemented in the United States because we have public schools and highways.
And almost that Ronald Reagan was right to claim the adoption of Medicare was the triumph of Communism in America.
Though socialism is not going quite so badly, here, of course, as it is in Venezuela - a fact which may to some minds suggest that perhaps the problem in Venezuela isn't socialism, at all.
On the whole, a disturbing and reckless performance.
He denounced, to a completely stony-faced audience, the global phenomenon of uncontrolled mass migration as a terrible injustice by the feckless nations from which people flee against the nations to which they migrate.
The nations from which they flee get to escape the need for economic and political reforms at the cost of losing their own greatest resource, their people, while the poorest folks living in the nations to which they flee - where those same fleeing masses, evidently, are not a great resource - suffer, he says, economically and otherwise from the illegal and overwhelming tide.
He reprised the Buchananite, anti-multi-nationalist, anti-globalist themes of his campaign, castigating the UN for its unfair costs to the US and its overall failures, and calling for an emerging world of prosperous, sovereign, and independent nations, spontaneously committed every one to justice, cooperation, and peace.
He sounded like a bellicose, churlish, and rather stupid man, a mini-Mussolini, embracing Wilson's ethno-nationalist vision without the League, apparently rendered miraculously unnecessary by the nations' love of peace.
A vision immediately belied by his own allusions to the situations in Korea, Iran, and Venezuela.
Channeling Zionist right wing globalists who oppose the Islamic Republic - which he characterized as a corrupt and murderous dictatorship whose principal exports are violence, blood, and chaos - with all their hearts, he deplored the Iran deal vigorously, strongly hinting but not actually announcing it would be repudiated.
And he castigated Maduro's "socialist dictatorship" that is wrecking that leader's country, stating firmly that "the problem is that socialism has been faithfully implemented in Venezuela" and announcing pretty clearly that the US will be doing something or other to end that regime.
That the incompetent and absurd regime of the Bolivarians has faithfully implemented socialism in Venezuela is an accusation it will be tough to deflect for a left wing noise machine that has been playing along with MSNBC, Bernie, and the right wing bumper-sticker industry in watering down the idea of socialism.
In truth, they have done this to so great an extent that it could with equal justice be said that socialism has been faithfully implemented in the United States because we have public schools and highways.
And almost that Ronald Reagan was right to claim the adoption of Medicare was the triumph of Communism in America.
Though socialism is not going quite so badly, here, of course, as it is in Venezuela - a fact which may to some minds suggest that perhaps the problem in Venezuela isn't socialism, at all.
On the whole, a disturbing and reckless performance.
Hurricane Maria another category 5/4 monster of the Caribbean
The Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Hispaniola, and the Turks and Caicos Islands will all be slammed.
Then the storm will loop north into the Atlantic.
Jose off the US East Coast is running up far enough offshore to generate mostly just rain and high surt.
Then the storm will loop north into the Atlantic.
Jose off the US East Coast is running up far enough offshore to generate mostly just rain and high surt.
Monday, September 18, 2017
Sunday, September 17, 2017
Ta-Nehisi Coates has nothing on her
Hillary Clinton: there's a 'game that keeps women in their place'
Just part of her ugly side.
She speaks more bitterly about this than I recall O speaking about racism in America.
But Clinton has also spoken candidly about how deep-rooted sexism played a hand in her defeat, and about the double standards she faced as the first woman nominated by a major party for president in America’s 240-year history.
In an interview with the New York Times published Saturday, Clinton spoke further about how misogyny is used as a tool to hold women back.
“This has to be called out for what it is: a cultural, political, economic game that’s being played to keep women in their place,” Clinton said.
“The idea that women have to fit certain stereotypes; that’s a weight around the ankle of every ambitious woman I’ve ever met,” she added.
“We get constant messaging our whole lives: You’re not thin enough, talented enough, smart enough. Your voice isn’t what we want to hear.”
Gender is a dominant theme in Clinton’s book, What Happened, a 469-page autopsy of her campaign that takes readers behind-the-scenes through pivotal moments throughout the race.
. . . .
“It’s difficult for me to see my story as one of revolution,” Clinton told the Times.
“But I was part of the women’s movement that led to a revolution not just in laws, but in attitudes and doors that had been closed to young women opening.”
“I’m also conscious of the continuing double standard,” she added.
“I have to be better than everyone; I have to work harder.”
“There’s no margin for me when others have so much leeway. It’s a pressure cooker all the time.”
. . . .
Clinton said much of her motivation to write the book stemmed from wishing to spell out the consequences of failing to address the gender gap that is ingrained in every level of society.
“It will happen again if we don’t take action against it – shoehorning every woman into a little slot and saying: ‘This is where you belong,’” Clinton said.
“Girls as young as six say boys are smarter than they are. They haven’t even gotten to school yet, but their cultural antennas are already up.”
. . . .
She describes the experience as both “excruciating” and “humiliating”.
“The moment a woman steps forward and says, ‘I’m running for office’, it begins,” she writes.
“The analysis of her face, her body, her voice, her demeanor; the diminishment of her stature, her ideas, her accomplishments, her integrity.
“It can be unbelievably cruel.”
Just part of her ugly side.
She speaks more bitterly about this than I recall O speaking about racism in America.
But Clinton has also spoken candidly about how deep-rooted sexism played a hand in her defeat, and about the double standards she faced as the first woman nominated by a major party for president in America’s 240-year history.
In an interview with the New York Times published Saturday, Clinton spoke further about how misogyny is used as a tool to hold women back.
“This has to be called out for what it is: a cultural, political, economic game that’s being played to keep women in their place,” Clinton said.
“The idea that women have to fit certain stereotypes; that’s a weight around the ankle of every ambitious woman I’ve ever met,” she added.
“We get constant messaging our whole lives: You’re not thin enough, talented enough, smart enough. Your voice isn’t what we want to hear.”
Gender is a dominant theme in Clinton’s book, What Happened, a 469-page autopsy of her campaign that takes readers behind-the-scenes through pivotal moments throughout the race.
. . . .
“It’s difficult for me to see my story as one of revolution,” Clinton told the Times.
“But I was part of the women’s movement that led to a revolution not just in laws, but in attitudes and doors that had been closed to young women opening.”
“I’m also conscious of the continuing double standard,” she added.
“I have to be better than everyone; I have to work harder.”
“There’s no margin for me when others have so much leeway. It’s a pressure cooker all the time.”
. . . .
Clinton said much of her motivation to write the book stemmed from wishing to spell out the consequences of failing to address the gender gap that is ingrained in every level of society.
“It will happen again if we don’t take action against it – shoehorning every woman into a little slot and saying: ‘This is where you belong,’” Clinton said.
“Girls as young as six say boys are smarter than they are. They haven’t even gotten to school yet, but their cultural antennas are already up.”
. . . .
She describes the experience as both “excruciating” and “humiliating”.
“The moment a woman steps forward and says, ‘I’m running for office’, it begins,” she writes.
“The analysis of her face, her body, her voice, her demeanor; the diminishment of her stature, her ideas, her accomplishments, her integrity.
“It can be unbelievably cruel.”
About that election commision
NAACP Lawyer: Trump’s Presidency Was Driven by the ‘Browning of America’
Did she mean to refer to the motives of the voters who supported Trump, his campaign, or the actions and agenda of his presidency so far?
Any two?
All three?
Anyway, in part, surely, that claim is right, whichever it is, though regarding all three I do think she's wrongly ignoring many other factors.
Janai Nelson, the Associate Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said Saturday on MSNBC’s “AM Joy” that the “clear browning of America” led to President Trump’s election.
“[W]hat drove this entire presidency is the fact that there is a clear browning of America,” Nelson stated.
“Black and Latino voters are going to dominate the electorate if they are able to vote — if they are included in our democracy in a way that is proper and fair.”
Nope. Not yet.
Whites will be a majority of voting Americans for a while, yet.
But even shutting the door to just nonwhite immigration would only slow that browning down, since it's largely due to differing fertility rates among the races and not so much to immigration.
Given abortion in America is significantly slowing that browning, by the way, unyielding Republican opposition to abortion undermines charges they or their agenda are driven by racism.
She went on to say that Trump’s election commission is “doing everything possible to erect barriers” to set people of color back.
There is no actual evidence they are doing anything for that purpose, and it is actually incredible on its face.
The GOP supports a variety of moves tending to disenfranchise a number of sliver demographics a majority of whose voting members are reasonably presumed to vote Democratic.
It is clear enough that excluding Democrats is the actual point, though in no case is the demographic targeted explicitly just Democrats per se.
And though in each case more Democrats than others are excluded, some others are also excluded.
New Hampshire, for example, allows students from out of state to vote only if they get a New Hampshire driver's license, a move disenfranchising a population including Republicans as well as Democrats, but more Democrats than Republicans.
And, as it happens, a move that disenfranchises significantly more whites than nonwhites, though no one supposes that is the point merely because that is the effect.
But with no actual evidence at all it is the entrenched claim, entirely uncontested on the left and not much contested anywhere but on the right, and not at all credible on its face, that voter ID laws not only disenfranchise more blacks than whites but also that that is the point.
And yet it is surely true that many whites would regard that, though not as the point, as at any rate a welcome side effect.
Well, maybe just as an amusing side effect.
Did she mean to refer to the motives of the voters who supported Trump, his campaign, or the actions and agenda of his presidency so far?
Any two?
All three?
Anyway, in part, surely, that claim is right, whichever it is, though regarding all three I do think she's wrongly ignoring many other factors.
Janai Nelson, the Associate Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said Saturday on MSNBC’s “AM Joy” that the “clear browning of America” led to President Trump’s election.
“[W]hat drove this entire presidency is the fact that there is a clear browning of America,” Nelson stated.
“Black and Latino voters are going to dominate the electorate if they are able to vote — if they are included in our democracy in a way that is proper and fair.”
Nope. Not yet.
Whites will be a majority of voting Americans for a while, yet.
But even shutting the door to just nonwhite immigration would only slow that browning down, since it's largely due to differing fertility rates among the races and not so much to immigration.
Given abortion in America is significantly slowing that browning, by the way, unyielding Republican opposition to abortion undermines charges they or their agenda are driven by racism.
She went on to say that Trump’s election commission is “doing everything possible to erect barriers” to set people of color back.
There is no actual evidence they are doing anything for that purpose, and it is actually incredible on its face.
The GOP supports a variety of moves tending to disenfranchise a number of sliver demographics a majority of whose voting members are reasonably presumed to vote Democratic.
It is clear enough that excluding Democrats is the actual point, though in no case is the demographic targeted explicitly just Democrats per se.
And though in each case more Democrats than others are excluded, some others are also excluded.
New Hampshire, for example, allows students from out of state to vote only if they get a New Hampshire driver's license, a move disenfranchising a population including Republicans as well as Democrats, but more Democrats than Republicans.
And, as it happens, a move that disenfranchises significantly more whites than nonwhites, though no one supposes that is the point merely because that is the effect.
But with no actual evidence at all it is the entrenched claim, entirely uncontested on the left and not much contested anywhere but on the right, and not at all credible on its face, that voter ID laws not only disenfranchise more blacks than whites but also that that is the point.
And yet it is surely true that many whites would regard that, though not as the point, as at any rate a welcome side effect.
Well, maybe just as an amusing side effect.
"North Korea will be destroyed"
A clip of Nikki Haley on TV saying that if the US is forced to use a military option to defend itself "North Korea will be destroyed".
Lindsey Graham reportedly commented better millions of dead on the peninsula than here.
Lindsey Graham reportedly commented better millions of dead on the peninsula than here.
Playing to the crowd on the racial left
Susie Madrak reports - gleefully? - a strange white fellow who tells us what - well, no.
It's probably not what he really thinks.
And there is something odd about his claims regarding racism and white supremacy, here.
To begin with, all white supremacists are racists.
Go check out internet dictionaries on "racism".
But most racists - I mean white racists, here, of course - are not white supremacists, white nationalists, exterminationists, and a whole lot of other awful things.
Though, yes, it has become common for people to refer to whites whose racism goes no further than wanting to maintain a white majority in the US and who are willing to go no further than fiddling with immigration rules to accomplish that as "white nationalists".
Trump seems to fall somewhere in that group, as do many of his supporters.
David Cay Johnston: Trump Is A 'Flat Out Full Racist'
"Listen, I think the record here is very clear," Johnston said.
"And maybe Miss Huckabee Sanders will think that the government should call for no one to hire me, and by the way, I don't get paid for these appearances -- Donald Trump is a racist.
"He isn't just a white supremacist, he's a flat out, full racist.
"Unless your definition of a racist is someone who hung somebody from a tree, he is a racist.
"He's made awful comments over the years.
"He is the embodiment of being a racist, just as Miss Huckabee Sanders' comments the other day, are the absolute embodiment of censorship, and should have upset every single person in america who has even a modest level of respect for our Constitution."
Phooey. Oh, pshaw.
"Wow," Reed responded.
"I then have to ask you because the rebuttal from Trump's people will say, 'why is Darryl Strawberry praising him' or 'why is he friends with Don King?'
"But that is one of the great things not understood largely by people who haven't thought about these issues," Johnston said.
"That we had a black president didn't mean we're not a racist country anymore.
"If we'd had Hillary Clinton, that didn't mean that feminism is no longer an issue or that we have equality by gender.
"That's nonsense.
"And let's remember that Strom Thurmond had a child with a black woman."
It's probably not what he really thinks.
And there is something odd about his claims regarding racism and white supremacy, here.
To begin with, all white supremacists are racists.
Go check out internet dictionaries on "racism".
But most racists - I mean white racists, here, of course - are not white supremacists, white nationalists, exterminationists, and a whole lot of other awful things.
Though, yes, it has become common for people to refer to whites whose racism goes no further than wanting to maintain a white majority in the US and who are willing to go no further than fiddling with immigration rules to accomplish that as "white nationalists".
Trump seems to fall somewhere in that group, as do many of his supporters.
David Cay Johnston: Trump Is A 'Flat Out Full Racist'
"Listen, I think the record here is very clear," Johnston said.
"And maybe Miss Huckabee Sanders will think that the government should call for no one to hire me, and by the way, I don't get paid for these appearances -- Donald Trump is a racist.
"He isn't just a white supremacist, he's a flat out, full racist.
"Unless your definition of a racist is someone who hung somebody from a tree, he is a racist.
"He's made awful comments over the years.
"He is the embodiment of being a racist, just as Miss Huckabee Sanders' comments the other day, are the absolute embodiment of censorship, and should have upset every single person in america who has even a modest level of respect for our Constitution."
Phooey. Oh, pshaw.
"Wow," Reed responded.
"I then have to ask you because the rebuttal from Trump's people will say, 'why is Darryl Strawberry praising him' or 'why is he friends with Don King?'
"But that is one of the great things not understood largely by people who haven't thought about these issues," Johnston said.
"That we had a black president didn't mean we're not a racist country anymore.
"If we'd had Hillary Clinton, that didn't mean that feminism is no longer an issue or that we have equality by gender.
"That's nonsense.
"And let's remember that Strom Thurmond had a child with a black woman."
BooMan on The Duce's bipartisanship and those who find it shocking
It's Not a Decision if You Have No Choice
Why do we need to continue to make excuses for people who know absolutely nothing about politics even though it is their profession?
What kind of dunce did you need to be not to know that the Republicans would need Democratic votes to pass a continuing resolution to keep the government operating?
How stupid do you have to be to think that the House Republicans would vote to extend the debt ceiling without needing any Democratic help?
I began writing about this September deadline in October of last year, when it still looked like Clinton would be president.
Every single thing I’ve written since the election has been colored and informed by the fact that the Republicans would need Democratic help in September.
So, it’s “disorienting”?
It’s “unconventional”?
It’s “shaking things up”?
. . . .
Anyone who is dazed because the president can’t get the votes he needs from the Democrats for the DREAM Act or to keep the government operating and to avoid a catastrophic credit default unless he caves on the stupid fucking wall is a very stupid fucking person.
Why do we need to continue to make excuses for people who know absolutely nothing about politics even though it is their profession?
What kind of dunce did you need to be not to know that the Republicans would need Democratic votes to pass a continuing resolution to keep the government operating?
How stupid do you have to be to think that the House Republicans would vote to extend the debt ceiling without needing any Democratic help?
I began writing about this September deadline in October of last year, when it still looked like Clinton would be president.
Every single thing I’ve written since the election has been colored and informed by the fact that the Republicans would need Democratic help in September.
So, it’s “disorienting”?
It’s “unconventional”?
It’s “shaking things up”?
. . . .
Anyone who is dazed because the president can’t get the votes he needs from the Democrats for the DREAM Act or to keep the government operating and to avoid a catastrophic credit default unless he caves on the stupid fucking wall is a very stupid fucking person.
Saturday, September 16, 2017
Pat Buchanan's fake nationalism
Pat Buchanan says he objects to the EU because it's a supranational organization assuming ever more sovereign authority over its members and their peoples.
He protests, he says, in the name of a historic "Europe of the nations", though the actual historic "nation states" of Europe he professes to admire are nearly all of them not really that, and most of the great powers of Europe throughout its history were not remotely that.
But though he loathes the supranational EU whose membership is entirely voluntary, whose government is increasingly democratic, and that is not the creature or tool of the imperial power of any one of its members, he admires the authoritarian Vladimir Putin for, among other things, trying to recreate the quondam Russian Empire by reincorporating into his Russian Federation, whether they will or no, various of the national states that escaped it when the Soviet Union collapsed.
Hence he opposes American action against Putin's war in Ukraine, NATO inclusion of the Baltic States, and hostility to Putin's efforts to reassert Russian control short of actual conquest of others of those breakaway nations.
A voluntary federation of European states he deplores as a betrayal of nationalism.
An empire imposed upon many nations by one nation he celebrates.
The truth is that Pat Buchanan and Europe's populist enemies of the EU loathe it for a variety of reasons quite other than its incompatibility with nationalism, beginning with the welcome it extends to non-white and not very white, and non-Christian and specifically Muslim, immigrants and refugees.
And then there is the policy of complete freedom of citizens of any member state to move about and live and work anywhere in the entire Union.
And then there is the support of the EU not only for the welfare state but for social liberalism, including but not limited to social and governmental secularism, abortion rights, equality of the sexes, and the whole package of LGBT rights.
Contrast these with Putin's policy of near establishment of Russian Orthodoxy and the continued criminality in Russia of violations of traditional Christian sexual morality, homosexuality in particular.
He protests, he says, in the name of a historic "Europe of the nations", though the actual historic "nation states" of Europe he professes to admire are nearly all of them not really that, and most of the great powers of Europe throughout its history were not remotely that.
But though he loathes the supranational EU whose membership is entirely voluntary, whose government is increasingly democratic, and that is not the creature or tool of the imperial power of any one of its members, he admires the authoritarian Vladimir Putin for, among other things, trying to recreate the quondam Russian Empire by reincorporating into his Russian Federation, whether they will or no, various of the national states that escaped it when the Soviet Union collapsed.
Hence he opposes American action against Putin's war in Ukraine, NATO inclusion of the Baltic States, and hostility to Putin's efforts to reassert Russian control short of actual conquest of others of those breakaway nations.
A voluntary federation of European states he deplores as a betrayal of nationalism.
An empire imposed upon many nations by one nation he celebrates.
The truth is that Pat Buchanan and Europe's populist enemies of the EU loathe it for a variety of reasons quite other than its incompatibility with nationalism, beginning with the welcome it extends to non-white and not very white, and non-Christian and specifically Muslim, immigrants and refugees.
And then there is the policy of complete freedom of citizens of any member state to move about and live and work anywhere in the entire Union.
And then there is the support of the EU not only for the welfare state but for social liberalism, including but not limited to social and governmental secularism, abortion rights, equality of the sexes, and the whole package of LGBT rights.
Contrast these with Putin's policy of near establishment of Russian Orthodoxy and the continued criminality in Russia of violations of traditional Christian sexual morality, homosexuality in particular.
The last straw?
Rod Dreher on the DACA flap on the right
Trump has alienated the right wing noise machine all along the spectrum.
His voters are a whole nuther story.
Wait and see how his next mass "campaign" meeting goes.
Trump has alienated the right wing noise machine all along the spectrum.
His voters are a whole nuther story.
Wait and see how his next mass "campaign" meeting goes.
Actual Democrats respond to Bernie's push for single payor
Eat your heart out, MSNBC.
Top House Democrat distances himself from 'single payer' push
Rep. Steny Hoyer, a Maryland Democrat, told reporters that the single payer approach is one of several ideas that Democrats are discussing, saying the party is united on principle of giving "access for Americans to offer quality, affordable health care."
But he also said that single payer has "significant administrative issues" and said that he and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi are focused on "preserving the (Affordable Care Act) and making it work better."
This whole thing is Bernie relitigating his primary loss to Hillary and his supporters trying to force their agenda, again, on real Democrats.
And the Bernie supporters are already threatening to desert Dems running in 2018 who don't buy into Medicare for all.
What's wrong with single payor?
Too much market power enabling a government run near-monopoly or outright monopoly to dictate treatment and even research priorities according to political agendas.
And, anyway, what would a government run near-monopoly or outright monopoly of computer purchasing have made of Bill Gates and the computer revolution he started?
A wide open market enabled his success despite the total disinterest of the big computer firms.
And a wide open market of medical service buyers enables treatment and research decisions largely independent of political agendas.
Actual Democrats do not think capitalism and market competition are bad things.
They think those are good things.
And they do not at all think inequality is per se so bad a thing it must be at least bitterly regretted if not altogether ended.
Top House Democrat distances himself from 'single payer' push
Rep. Steny Hoyer, a Maryland Democrat, told reporters that the single payer approach is one of several ideas that Democrats are discussing, saying the party is united on principle of giving "access for Americans to offer quality, affordable health care."
But he also said that single payer has "significant administrative issues" and said that he and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi are focused on "preserving the (Affordable Care Act) and making it work better."
This whole thing is Bernie relitigating his primary loss to Hillary and his supporters trying to force their agenda, again, on real Democrats.
And the Bernie supporters are already threatening to desert Dems running in 2018 who don't buy into Medicare for all.
What's wrong with single payor?
Too much market power enabling a government run near-monopoly or outright monopoly to dictate treatment and even research priorities according to political agendas.
And, anyway, what would a government run near-monopoly or outright monopoly of computer purchasing have made of Bill Gates and the computer revolution he started?
A wide open market enabled his success despite the total disinterest of the big computer firms.
And a wide open market of medical service buyers enables treatment and research decisions largely independent of political agendas.
Actual Democrats do not think capitalism and market competition are bad things.
They think those are good things.
And they do not at all think inequality is per se so bad a thing it must be at least bitterly regretted if not altogether ended.
While the Bernie left gets high on Medicare for all
Senate Republicans throw another health care Hail Mary
Republicans have been searching for eight months now to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. That effort effectively died on the floor of the Senate in July when the party couldn't get 51 votes do little more than punt the serious health care policy questions to a conference committee.
Still, a small group of Republicans led by Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana are trying to bring the effort back before it's too late.
The Senate's parliamentarian has suggested that the GOP only has until the end of September before their reconciliation vehicle -- the budget bill that allows them to pass health care with a simple majority -- expires.
Graham and Cassidy are expected to unveil Wednesday their latest proposal to overhaul health care, but rank-and-file members aren't sounding too optimistic.
Timing is a big reason.
"We are in the fourth quarter with about 30 seconds left," said Sen. Tim Scott, a Republican from South Carolina who added that the bill was the last "bullet left in the chamber."
Republicans have been searching for eight months now to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. That effort effectively died on the floor of the Senate in July when the party couldn't get 51 votes do little more than punt the serious health care policy questions to a conference committee.
Still, a small group of Republicans led by Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana are trying to bring the effort back before it's too late.
The Senate's parliamentarian has suggested that the GOP only has until the end of September before their reconciliation vehicle -- the budget bill that allows them to pass health care with a simple majority -- expires.
Graham and Cassidy are expected to unveil Wednesday their latest proposal to overhaul health care, but rank-and-file members aren't sounding too optimistic.
Timing is a big reason.
"We are in the fourth quarter with about 30 seconds left," said Sen. Tim Scott, a Republican from South Carolina who added that the bill was the last "bullet left in the chamber."
Friday, September 15, 2017
Trump vs black girl media race baiter
Trump attacks ESPN after anchor calls him a white supremacist
It is untrue.
No way he gets an apology.
See the previous post about Ta-Nehisi Coates.
She might well believe it.
Or she might be using "white supremacist" the way some lefties use "fascist".
Or, she could be just saying what is contrary to her own belief for effect.
Or saying it for effect without any particular view of its truth value.
More likely than not, she knows it's false.
Why hasn't she been fired?
Because Sarah Huckabee Sanders said she thought it a "fireable offense"?
Nah.
ESPN isn't going to risk problems with the multitude of black athletes and their supporters.
They'd rather risk trouble with the White House and The Duce, I'd guess, and that's probably wise.
And maybe their political stance is genuine and not simply a business strategy.
It is untrue.
No way he gets an apology.
See the previous post about Ta-Nehisi Coates.
She might well believe it.
Or she might be using "white supremacist" the way some lefties use "fascist".
Or, she could be just saying what is contrary to her own belief for effect.
Or saying it for effect without any particular view of its truth value.
More likely than not, she knows it's false.
Why hasn't she been fired?
Because Sarah Huckabee Sanders said she thought it a "fireable offense"?
Nah.
ESPN isn't going to risk problems with the multitude of black athletes and their supporters.
They'd rather risk trouble with the White House and The Duce, I'd guess, and that's probably wise.
And maybe their political stance is genuine and not simply a business strategy.
So much for MSNBC
Officials: Trump has military options for North Korea
Is this the time to point out that the US could and should move toward Trumpist, Buchananite, anti-interventionism?
The world would get along well enough without our meddling, or our people paying for the power required by globalism, in blood or treasure.
If we withdrew from the peninsula, NK would not target us and would not target SK, either.
Nor would they target anyone else, except perhaps Japan, which would then get its own nukes and thus create a balance not only with NK but, potentially, with China.
But America will no more climb down from globalism than ancient Rome would fall back from empire.
Don't want to pay the price?
Your children or grandchildren may be drafted.
Or nuked.
Your assets may be lost.
Move, perhaps to Argentina.
Or Sweden.
Can't afford to move?
Too bad.
Reading Milza and Berstein on how Italy coped with their totally unnecessary and unpopular participation in The Great War.
Multiple top Trump advisers said Friday there are military options available for dealing with the North Korea crisis, despite some experts and former Trump allies saying that there are no good options for the region.
Multiple top Trump advisers said Friday there are military options available for dealing with the North Korea crisis, despite some experts and former Trump allies saying that there are no good options for the region.
Breitbart has bought in
Bradley Manning is Chelsea.
He is a she.
Harvard revokes Chelsea Manning fellowship invitation after criticism
He is a she.
Harvard revokes Chelsea Manning fellowship invitation after criticism
The Duce wants preventive detention
Whenever there's an incident involving or appearing to involve Muslim - never non-Muslim - terrorism the first thing he says is that the perp was, or perps were, known to security agencies but (obviously) not detained.
Without saying it - or has he said it? - , he wants preventive or administrative detention of possible Muslim (but apparently not non-Muslim) terrorists.
He wants a law of suspects.
Theresa May rebukes Donald Trump over tube bombing tweets
This is unconstitutional in America and not wanted by any of our allies, so far as I know.
Just one of the many ways in which Trump shows himself comfortable with some features of fascism not compatible with the rule of law and respect for human rights.
Consider his recommendations of police brutality and the deliberate targeting for murder of family members of terrorists.
Oh, and this.
Trump again seizes on terror incident to call for travel ban
Trump tweeted.
"The travel ban into the United States should be far larger, tougher and more specific-but stupidly, that would not be politically correct!"
. . . .
The ban was ordered to be in effect for 90 days, during which the administration would assess vetting procedures and whether they're secure enough.
Trump's executive order also requires reports on its effectiveness.
That clock is set to run out before the end of this month, and the administration has not indicated yet what it will do next.
ISIS has claimed responsibility since the above was written.
Without saying it - or has he said it? - , he wants preventive or administrative detention of possible Muslim (but apparently not non-Muslim) terrorists.
He wants a law of suspects.
Theresa May rebukes Donald Trump over tube bombing tweets
This is unconstitutional in America and not wanted by any of our allies, so far as I know.
Just one of the many ways in which Trump shows himself comfortable with some features of fascism not compatible with the rule of law and respect for human rights.
Consider his recommendations of police brutality and the deliberate targeting for murder of family members of terrorists.
Oh, and this.
Trump again seizes on terror incident to call for travel ban
Trump tweeted.
"The travel ban into the United States should be far larger, tougher and more specific-but stupidly, that would not be politically correct!"
. . . .
The ban was ordered to be in effect for 90 days, during which the administration would assess vetting procedures and whether they're secure enough.
Trump's executive order also requires reports on its effectiveness.
That clock is set to run out before the end of this month, and the administration has not indicated yet what it will do next.
ISIS has claimed responsibility since the above was written.
Shit disturbers
Ages ago, a Canadian friend at grad school used to refer to political activists of any stripe as "shit disturbers".
If our own politics don't seem to support quite such universal infamy there is always the story of Italian politics from the beginning of the 20th Century to the crisis at Fiume.
And beyond, of course.
But that's as far as I have got.
Reading Pierre Milza and Serge Berstein, Le fascisme italien, 1919-1945.
The political actors are all contemptible wretches, worst among them so far being the loonies of the right.
The Italian state at the time was extraordinarily undemocratic owing to numerous factors including a very narrow franchise and a very strong monarch facing a legislature of relatively limited power, independence, and representivity.
Recall that the war had begun with the Italian state betraying its alliance with Germany and Austria by not entering the war on their side.
As M and B tell it, the subsequent decision for Italy to enter the Great War on the side of the allies had virtually no popular support.
It was made by three conniving politicians, the king and two of his ministers, shielded by a furious nationalist and imperialist propaganda, in return for promises by the allies of wide expansion of Italian territory and imperial power into parts of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
The promises were largely betrayed by Wilson, whose influence at Versailles was - inexplicably, to my mind - out of all proportion to the contribution of America to the war.
The Italian contribution was much greater.
The Italian right went nuts at Fiume.
The idea of a march on Rome to bring down the regime began to circulate, and seemed popular with everybody who had a voice but the Italian Socialist Party and the union with which it was affiliated.
And these refused any open or practical support to the "bourgeois regime", their sole objective being to imitate the Bolsheviks and force on Italy a revolutionary socialist dictatorship "of the proletariat".
Mussolini did not want the regime brought down by others and began to undermine the rebellion.
This is a significant fact, crucial to events in Italy, Germany, Spain, and elsewhere in Europe in those years.
A very large segment of the shit disturbers of the era and even some of the mass parties were expressly hostile to the regimes in place and hostile to democratic republics or constitutional monarchies in principle.
These include various tribes of socialists and anarchists as well as the sorts of right wingers who eventually lined up with fascists, nazis, and movements and regimes close to them.
Something to think about in the face of the political campaigns and commitments of The Donald and Bernie, and their supporters.
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