Laugh and Loathe

34 thoughts on “Laugh and Loathe”

1. 

2. wapo

   George Conway: Trump is a racist president

   To this day, I can remember almost the precise spot where it happened: a supermarket parking lot in eastern Massachusetts. It was the mid-1970s; I was not yet a teenager, or barely one. I don’t remember exactly what precipitated the woman’s ire. But I will never forget what she said to my mother, who had come to this country from the Philippines decades before. In these words or something close, the woman said, “Go back to your country.”

    

   I remember the incident well, but it never bothered me all that much. Nor did racial slurs, which, thankfully, were rare. None of it was troublesome, to my mind, because most Americans weren’t like that. The woman in the parking lot was just a boor, an ignoramus, an aberration. America promised equality. Its constitution said so. My schoolbooks said so. The country wasn’t perfect, to be sure. But its ideals were. And every day brought us closer to those ideals.

   To a young boy, it seemed like long ago that a descendant of slaves had prophesied, five days before I was born, that his “four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” We would be there soon enough, if we weren’t there already. I couldn’t understand why colleges required applicants to check boxes for race or ethnicity. I’m also part Irish and Scottish. What box should I check? Should I check one at all? Will that help me or hurt me? Never mind, not to worry, those boxes would someday soon be gone.

   How naive a child could be. The woman in the parking lot — there were many more like her, it turned out. They never went away. Today they attend rallies, and they post ugliness on Facebook or Twitter. As for the victims of historic racial oppression, no matter how much affirmative action (or reverse discrimination, or whatever you want to call it) the nation offered, they, too, had resentments that never went away — in part because of people like the parking-lot woman. Those resentments often led to more, not fewer, charges of racism as the years passed — charges of institutional racism and “white privilege.”

    

   Which, in turn, bred another kind of resentment: Why, asked many an unaffluent white parent, who may never have uttered a racial slur or whose ancestors may never have held anyone in bondage, does my child have to check a box to her detriment, or be accused of “white privilege,” when the only privilege she has received came from the sweat of my brow? Why are people like me being called racist, when all I’ve done was mind my own business?

   And how naive an adult could be. The birther imaginings about Barack Obama? Just a silly conspiracy theory, latched onto by an attention seeker who has a peculiar penchant for them. The “Mexican” Judge Gonzalo P. Curiel incident? Asinine, inappropriate, a terrible attack on the judiciary by an egocentric man who imagined that the judge didn’t like him. The white supremacists’ march in Charlottesville? The president’s comments were absolutely idiotic, but he couldn’t possibly have been referring to those self-described Nazis as “good people”; in his sloppy, inarticulate way, he was referring to both sides of the debate over Civil War statues, and venting his anger about being criticized.
   [continues next comment]

3. No, I thought, President Trump was boorish, dim-witted, inarticulate, incoherent, narcissistic and insensitive. He’s a pathetic bully but an equal-opportunity bully — in his uniquely crass and crude manner, he’ll attack anyone he thinks is critical of him. No matter how much I found him ultimately unfit, I still gave him the benefit of the doubt about being a racist. No matter how much I came to dislike him, I didn’t want to think that the president of the United States is a racial bigot.

    

   But Sunday left no doubt. Naivete, resentment and outright racism, roiled in a toxic mix, have given us a racist president. Trump could have used vile slurs, including the vilest of them all, and the intent and effect would have been no less clear. Telling four non-white members of Congress — American citizens all, three natural-born — to “go back” to the “countries” they “originally came from”? That’s racist to the core. It doesn’t matter what these representatives are for or against — and there’s plenty to criticize them for — it’s beyond the bounds of human decency. For anyone, not least a president.

   What’s just as bad, though, is the virtual silence from Republican leaders and officeholders. They’re silent not because they agree with Trump. Surely they know better. They’re silent because, knowing that he’s incorrigible, they have inured themselves to his wild statements; because, knowing that he’s a fool, they don’t really take his words seriously and pretend that others shouldn’t, either; because, knowing how damaging Trump’s words are, the Republicans don’t want to give succor to their political enemies; because, knowing how vindictive, stubborn and obtusely self-destructive Trump is, they fear his wrath.

    

   But none of that is good enough. Trump is not some random, embittered person in a parking lot — he’s the president of the United States. By virtue of his office, he speaks for the country. What’s at stake now is more important than judges or tax cuts or regulations or any policy issue of the day. What’s at stake are the nation’s ideals, its very soul.

   

    

   By George T. Conway III

   July 15 at 7:15 PM

4. I like George. He has a knack for peeling the veil away.

5. hah, pogo, at first reading I thought you wrote “he has a knack for peeing the vile away”

6. Pat, would that be a close cousin to praying away the gay?

7. NY Times:  The Painful Roots of Trump’s ‘Go Back’ Comment

   […]

   Those who study language and rhetoric say the president’s “go back” comments — or, at least, the sentiment behind them — have roots beginning as far back as the 1600s, when dissidents were banished from American colonies for advocating total religious freedom. Later, a set of laws passed in 1798 allowed the deportation of noncitizens who were considered dangerous, were from hostile nations or had criticized the federal government.

   Amos Kiewe, who studies rhetoric at Syracuse University, guessed that the president’s tweet was most likely meant to sow divisions in the Democratic Party — and perhaps kick-start another news cycle that reporters would breathlessly follow — but that it had the side effect of surfacing a phrase with a history that is particularly racially divisive.

   “There has always been this xenophobia, fear of the other,” Mr. Kiewe said, “the foreigner, the person who looks different. It has hit different minorities for many decades.”

   It was there in 1882, when the Chinese Exclusion Act sought to curb the number of Chinese workers and families entering the United States to find day-labor work, from building railroads to doing laundry. And it was there in the 1840s, when anti-Irish and anti-Catholic sentiment in the United States led to the creation of a nativist political party designed to weed out foreign influence.

   [continues]

    

   Hard to correlate and reconcile that history noted above with this charge (one of many) against the tyrant in the Declaration of Independence:

   He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither,… 

8. And from the world of stupid human tricks:

   Mountain Biker Jumps the Tour de France Peloton

   And more stupid human … stuff:

   50 years after Apollo, conspiracy theorists are still howling at the ‘moon hoax’

9. Eugene Robinson’s piece at WaPo today is a good bookend to George Conway’s piece.

   Donald Trump’s presidency is melting down into a noxious stew of racism, failure and farce. With breathtaking cynicism, the Republican Party pretends not to notice.

   Trump had to know there would be outrage and uproar over his Sunday tweetsadmonishing four progressive members of Congress, all of them women of color, that they should stop “telling the people of the United States . . . how our government is to be run” and instead “go back” to the “totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.”

   The president’s motives are obvious: He was proudly displaying his white-supremacist racial views, drawing a bright line between his aging white political base and the rest of the country, and clumsily trying to exacerbate tensions within the Democratic Party. But why choose now to lob this political cluster bomb? My guess is that he wanted to change the subject from Thursday’s humiliating surrender, when he had to abandon his quest to put a citizenship question on the 2020 Census that would have guaranteed an undercount of Latinos.

   “Trump is a racist” does not exactly qualify as breaking news. But the silence from prominent Republicans is staggering — and telling. It amounts to collaboration — perhaps “collusion” is a better word — with the president’s assault on diversity and pluralism. In the coming campaign, you will hear Republican candidates at every level claim to be colorblind and embrace all Americans regardless of race or ethnicity. Do not believe them. Their failure to speak out now tells us everything we need to know about their true feelings.

   The farcical aspect of this disgraceful episode is that, while Trump hoped to further divide squabbling Democrats, he ended up bringing them closer together.

   The four Democratic House members he attacked — Reps. Ayanna Pressley (Mass.), Rashida Tlaib (Mich.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.) and Ilhan Omar (Minn.) — have indeed been at odds with Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and the rest of the Democratic leadership on some issues. Calling themselves “the Squad,” they fought hard against Pelosi’s approach on funding border security. They display none of the meekness expected of first-term members and are unfamiliar with the concept of deference.

   * * *

   There’s nothing new about the Republican Party playing footsie with racists, going all the way back to the “Southern strategy” pioneered by Richard M. Nixon. But as Trump has toppled the traditional pillars of Republican philosophy — fiscal responsibility, free trade, markets undistorted by government interference, muscular foreign policy, equal opportunity for all to pursue the American Dream — the GOP is reduced to being the party of no: no on abortion, no on immigration and no on diversity. Following Trump’s lead, the party practices the politics of resentment. Republican politicians appeal to voters not by stoking optimism about what can be accomplished but by stoking fear about what will happen if “they” — the Democrats — gain power.

   “They” are portrayed as perhaps living near the coasts, perhaps being intellectuals, perhaps being women, perhaps being African American or Latino or Asian American. “They” are portrayed as the kind of affluent, high-and-mighty people who look down on “ordinary” Republican voters — never mind that Ocasio-Cortez waited tables to support herself, Tlaib grew up in a struggling family in Detroit, Pressley’s father was incarcerated during much of her childhood, and Omar came to this country from a Somali refugee camp.

   Trump’s brand of politics is often called “tribal,” but “racist” is a better word. The wedge he is trying to drive, with his attacks on the Squad, is essentially white vs. nonwhite. He also seeks to portray them as immigrants, telling them to “go back” to where they came from, even though Pressley was born in Cincinnati, Tlaib in Detroit and Ocasio-Cortez in New York. Omar, indeed, is an immigrant — a naturalized citizen who enjoys the same rights and responsibilities as any other American, including Trump.

   If Republicans believed even a fraction of their rhetoric, they’d be all over Trump. They’d tell him that “telling the people of the United States . . . how our government is to be run” is the right of every American and the duty of every member of Congress. Instead, Republicans embrace Trump’s racism and xenophobia. Blame them just as much as Trump.

   Perhaps most stunning is the lack of comments from the usual Robinson critics and trump suck ups defending his idiotic comments.

10. I saw the press conference with “The Squad”….   those women made me proud to call myself a Democrat.  Yeah…  they’ve been challenging Pelosi a bit lately.  I know when I was young that I challenged the status quo too.  Besides…  I’d rather have a healthy debate within the Democratic Party than have them act like goose-stepping Republicans.

11. Without seeing the presser, I can only say that the Squad is free to make whatever comments they wish, and Nancy is a big girl and will deal with them and their comments like the adult she is.  My only warning to them is that they need to stay one step back from making what demands (maybe too strong a word for the context) they have personal between them and Nancy, and if they want the change they seek to build their coalition with sufficient support ot try and get legislation put on the floor that would do what they want.  They are in a sense like the tea party was in the republican party.  It got a lot of exposure in the press, actually got some legislation passed, and has now faded to oblivion.

12. For all the folks who kept saying people voted for SFB over jobs — suck it up– you will     never convince SFB’s base to move away from him because they are racists and they are supportive of  racist ideals

    this is a turn out election and the candidate needs to be one that inspires people to turn out and vote

    simply beating Trump is not enough

13. Here’s a comment posted at WaPo by a commenter calling himself Governor Richard Bellingham.

     

    Trump strategy, keep the white nationalist flames burning and do not talk about  . . .

     . . . global warming, tax break for the 1%, taking away reproductive rights from women, healthcare inequity, rolling back LGBTQ rights, locking children in cages, Russian interfering into our democracy, Mueller testimony and report, how tariffs are killing us financially, or anything that truly matters, Nope. And let’s not especially talk about  . . .

    I’ve known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy,” Trump told New York Magazine that year for a story headlined “Jeffrey Epstein: International Moneyman of Mystery.” “He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.No doubt about it— Jeffrey enjoys his social life

    Coming from a guy who had sex with a woman 30 years younger than he is a few months after his wife Melania gave birth to their son, is really saying something. Trump knew Epstein was raping children and he turned a blind eye.

    And instead of talking about Trump and Epstein throwing, only for themselves, a party and flying in a dozen “women” (childrenamong them?) into Mar-Largo to “entertain “ them we are talking about his racist tweets. 

    Instead of talking about how Trump bragged about how he liked to walk unannounced into the dressing rooms at the teen Miss America Pageants he use to run and catch the underaged girls (i.e. children) undressed We are talking about his racist tweets.

     Instead of talking about how Trump, when he was pushing 60 years old, bragged about grabbing women by their vaginas, we are talking about his racist tweets.

     Instead of talking about how Trump stands accused by over a dozen women of sexual assault,including the act of rape, we were talking about his racist tweets.

     Instead of talking about how we have a sexual predator as the president, we are talking about his racist tweets. 

    Trump’s campaign strategy in a nutshell folks.

    It bears consideration. My only comment is – in each instance do both.

14. I agree let’s talk about both especially since SFB is implicated in the charges of rape.

15. Condemnation of Trump starts in two minutes–live on C-Span

16. WSJ had an excellent photo of the Squad surrounding their microphone in this morning’s paper; page one above the fold. Excellent, supportive, analysis by Gerald Seib on pg 4. Also, there’s an editorial minimally critical of Trump.

17. Rep. Ilhan Omar has been a US citizen longer than Melania Trump….

18. RR,  that’s hilarious.

19. trump should go back to the Austro-Hungarian Empire where he belongs.

20. I just paged through Forbes new listing of the best colleges in each state. I was surprised to note that the Air Force Academy topped Colorado, The Naval Academy sailed away with Maryland in its wake, and West Point is stalwart in defense of New York from its vantage point on the Hudson. Congrats to all three and to us for providing them with the human and monetary resources that allowed this level of achievement.

21. West Point ahead of Stony Brook, Cornell, CCNY, Vassar, NYU, Barnard and Columbia ?!?

    If so, they don’t make Westies like they used t0. Good.

22. the guardian just minutes ago reported this tweet:

    And here once again to lend some moral clarity to the situation, Anthony Scaramucci

    @Scaramucci

     

    Would @realDonaldTrump ever tell a white immigrant – whether 1st, 2nd, 3rd or 4th+ generation – to “go back to your country”? No. That’s why the comments were racist and unacceptable.

    America is a nation of immigrants founded on the ideals of free thought and free speech.

    16.3K

    10:56 AM – Jul 16, 2019

     

23. missed this yesterday.  interesting even tho’ expected/suspected and corroborates intel community and mueller work.

    CNN: Exclusive: Security reports reveal how Assange turned an embassy into a command post for election meddling

    […]

    Despite being confined to the embassy while seeking safe passage to Ecuador, Assange met with Russians and world-class hackers at critical moments, frequently for hours at a time. He also acquired powerful new computing and network hardware to facilitate data transfers just weeks before WikiLeaks received hacked materials from Russian operatives.

    These stunning details come from hundreds of surveillance reports compiled for the Ecuadorian government by UC Global, a private Spanish security company, and obtained by CNN. They chronicle Assange’s movements and provide an unprecedented window into his life at the embassy. They also add a new dimension to the Mueller report, which cataloged how WikiLeaks helped the Russians undermine the US election.

    An Ecuadorian intelligence official told CNN that the surveillance reports are authentic.

    The security logs noted that Assange personally managed some of the releases “directly from the embassy” where he lived for nearly seven years. After the election, the private security company prepared an assessment of Assange’s allegiances. That report, which included open-source information, concluded there was “no doubt that there is evidence” that Assange had ties to Russian intelligence agencies.

    [long detailed article continues]

    Assange hasn’t been accused of any crimes related to his actions in 2016. He remains in a UK prison, awaiting what will likely be a grueling battle over his extradition to the US, where he could face spending the rest of his life in prison.

    Meanwhile, he still has allies in Russia. Within hours of Assange’s arrest, senior officials from President Vladimir Putin’s government rushed to Assange’s defense and slammed the US for infringing his rights, declaring that, “The hand of ‘democracy’ squeezes the throat of freedom.”

24. Well, Kallstadt is not exactly proud that SFB has his familial roots from there.

    When it became clear Donald Trump would be the Republican nominee for president in 2016, the German village of Kallstadt suddenly became a destination for journalists and tourists curious about the unlikely candidate’s roots.

    Trump’s grandfather had been born there and migrated to the United States in search of opportunity. Many of the 1,200 residents of the town, uncomfortable with the spotlight and the populist rhetoric Trump espoused, wished the eventual American president would forget about their quiet corner in Germany.

    Now, in the aftermath of Trump urging four Democratic congresswomen to “go back” to the “crime infested places from which they came,” some in this once economically depressed town are urging the U.S. president to remember where his own family came from.

    “Seeing the not-so-imposing homes of his ancestors might bring him back to earth,” said Thomas Jaworek, the conservative mayor of Kallstadt, where Trump’s grandfather, Friedrich Trump, was born and then left as a teenager.

    Jaworek said many of his constituents align with the rest of Germany’s views that President Trump is a threat.While he has little interest in hosting the U.S. president — citing the security and media frenzy it would cause — the mayor said that if Trump were to visit, he hoped the president would at least leave Kallstadt with a changed view on migration, citizenship and belonging.

    After all, Friedrich Trump was a migrant.

    “Everyone has his or her roots somewhere — and to demand of others to simply leave the country is paradoxical for him,” said Beatrix Riede, 61, who heads an association for women in the town.

    “I can only wish Americans that they will elect someone who turns on his mind before saying something,” Riede added.

    * * *

    Late last year, locals were in a frenzy after the U.S. Embassy indicated that Trump would be interested in eventually visiting the town. Though the town’s residents are generally against Trump’s hard-line stance on migration, many would have welcomed him.

    Now, after his racist tweets targeting four critical minority lawmakers, some residents said he is not welcome and that even his distant link to the town is a source of embarrassment.

    The owner of a local holiday home, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because she was afraid of a negative impact on her bookings, said she did not expect Trump to ever make it to Kallstadt.

    “It’s sad that this man has origins here,” she said. “It almost makes me personally ashamed.”

    Nobody loves me but my mother, and she may be jiving me too.

25. And in other news…

    ACLU, others file suit in San Francisco federal court to halt Trump asylum ban

    Add to list

    A migrant with her daughter, who returned to Mexico from the United States to await their court hearing for asylum seekers, as part of the legal proceedings under a new policy established by the U.S. government, rest outside the Our Lady of Guadalupe Cathedral in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, on July 14, 2019. (Jose Luis Gonzalez/Reuters)

    By Nick Miroff

    July 16 at 4:54 PM

    A coalition of immigrant advocacy groups led by the American Civil Liberties Union filed suit against the Trump administration in a federal court in San Francisco on Tuesday in an attempt to halt the implementation of a new policy disqualifying most asylum seekers who pass through Mexico before reaching the United States.
    The attorneys suing the government argued in their complaint that the Trump administration lacks the authority to exclude asylum seekers who arrive across the U.S. southern border, because U.S. immigration laws state clearly that the government cannot disqualify applicants on the basis of where they arrive.

    “As part of our nation’s commitment to the protection of people fleeing persecution and consistent with our international obligations, it is a long-standing federal law that merely transiting through a third country is not a basis to categorically deny asylum to refugees who arrive at our shores,” the complaint states.

    The Southern Poverty Law Center, the Center for Constitutional Rights and other groups joined the ACLU in seeking the injunction in the Northern District of California.
     

26. The Gooper’s Homegrown Terrorist activities include getting in  the way of people voting.  Get involved with local groups working to provide even access and fair elections.

27. Great American Fascists For Ever

    GAFFE

28. I lumme that edit button.

29. John Paul Stevens has passed away at age 99.  

     

30. I’ve had enough of this guy.

31. corey, apparently so have the congress critters

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jul/16/racist-tweets-house-passes-resolution-condemning-trumps-attack-on-congresswomen

    The House of Representatives on Tuesday passed a resolution condemning Donald Trump’s incendiary remarks telling four congresswomen of color to “go back” to where they “came from” as racist.

     

    The measure, which formally rebuked the president’s comments, was approved on a mostly partisan-line vote of 240 to 187.

     

    Just four Republicans – representatives Will Hurd of Texas, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Fred Upton of Michigan, and Susan Brooks of Indiana, joined Democrats in approving the resolution. The Michigan representative Justin Amash, who recently left the Republican party and registered as an independent after calling for Trump’s impeachment, also voted for the measure.

    [….]

    “Every single member of this institution, Democratic and Republican, should join us in condemning the president’s racist tweets,” the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, said on the House floor.

     

    “To do anything less would be a shocking rejection of our values and a shameful abdication of our oath of office to protect the American people.”

     

    Pelosi’s sharp words prompted a challenge of their own from Republicans, who accused the Democratic leader of violating rules that prohibit describing the president as “having made a bigoted or racist statement” on the House floor. In a separate vote, the Democratic-controlled House voted against striking Pelosi’s comments from the official record.

    [continues]

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34. NEW THREAD

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