August 23, 2019: PROGRESSIVE STREET NEWS BYTES...Where Liberals Walk
Donald Trump's inept administration will doom his second term
The clown and his minions
If the country should go into recession, the misfits Donald Trump has put in place to run the economy wouldn't have the slightest idea what to do, including the Oval Office lunatic. Here's the scenario...
"Washington Post economics columnist Catherine Rampell on Friday warned that President Donald Trump’s team of economic advisers is woefully unprepared to handle a recession should one strike within the next year."
There is no plan she laments...
“We have this clown car of economic advisers… you have a guy who plays an economist on TV, you have a former Hollywood producer. This is not the dream team who will be handling a crisis if we face one."
Trump in danger of engineering a global manufacturing recession...
The stock market is tanking and the White House ego maniac is still playing games with China, resulting in their latest $75 billion tariff on U.S. goods just today. You have to wonder when this will all end until the realization hits; it won't until we get rid of Donald Trump. But perhaps there is light at the end of the tunnel with the fact that some GOP donors are running scared that T-rump's tactics will result in Republicans losing big in 2020. Former Sen. Jeff Flake says...
"he’s received calls from several nervous Republican donors who fear a slowing or shrinking economy will doom the GOP in 2020 — and they’re looking to find a primary challenger for President Donald Trump."
These donors took the step even further...
"Some donors even asked Flake if he would personally consider running a primary challenge against the president, but he said he does not want to run right now and admitted that the odds of such a challenge succeeding are slim to none."
Impeachment or voted out in 2020?...
There's additional reason for trump to worry and wonder about his crazy antics that have screwed up the country and turned a large portion of the population against him. He won in 2016 with the Electoral College, the popular vote went heavily for Hillary Clinton (3 million more votes) but this time around polls show Trump's...
"net approval ratios being underwater (i.e., negative) in 10 states he carried in 2016: Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wisconsin."
“Being called a racist has led Trump in recent days to lash out — in tweets and in public comments — behavior his advisers and allies explain as the natural reaction of anyone who does not consider himself a racist but is accused of being one.”
And finally, this CNN's Anderson Cooper video is a must see in a documentation of Donald Trump's blatant racism. I have said this repeatedly, having come from a South of the 19402/1950s, where the Ku Klux Klan ran rampant over the black population and committed unimaginable atrocities, I still cannot comprehend what this white fascination of dominance over those of color is all about. I left the South to get away from this but quickly discovered...racism is everywhere.
Many in the media and groups like So. Poverty Law Center have warned of Donald Trump inciting violence with his racist targeting of women of color in Congress. Jim Cavanaugh, a retired ATF special agent-in-charge was interviewed by Anchor Joy Reid on Friday evening’s “The Last Word.” She asked...
“So those threats beginning about two years ago, increases in white nationalist activity. Have you ever heard of these kinds of increases in hate and potential hate crimes being tied to a president of the United States?”
Reid answered, “No,” he replied. “That’s very, very unusual, Joy, to have that happen.” Reid added...
“You know, when you get more power, your words carry more weight. When you get into this undercurrent of the Nazis and the white nationalists and the klansmen, they feed off of this. They feed off of public figures — on the regular media, in the government, congressmen, senators, the president — saying the things they always say,” he explained. “It bolsters them. It gives them strength and power.”
You can't get much more power than that of the President of the United States, so it is safe to say the white supremacists have the capacity of the greatest nation on earth. And that is very, very scary. The Oval Office lunatic has even primed these Nazis recently with his attacks on the four congresswomen, and there appears no abatement for Trump's racism. This country may be doomed to relive the race wars of the 1960s.
Stephen Miller is a far-right political activist who serves as a senior advisor for policy for President Donald Trump. He took over as the chillingest member of Trump's team when Steve Bannon left. Although I don't consider Fox New generally credible, I do think Chris Wallace, because of his father Mike, to be honest and believable. Wallace adamantly shut down Miller as the latter repeatedly tried to defend T-rump's racism.
Here's an example from Think Progress...
"Wallace also pointed out that Trump has criticized the four lawmakers for comments he deemed critical of America, yet attacked the nation, and Obama, with comments that were far more negative. President Obama is ignorant, this country is killers, on and on.'”
"Miller attempted to spin a 'fundamental distinction' between 'people who think we need to lean into and strengthen American’s core values' and 'people who think we need to turn America into Venezuela.' But Wallace again responded with Trump’s own quotes that were explicit attacks on America."
Chris concluded the interview with...
“I’ve never called any of his tweets racist,” Wallace admonished Miller. “But there’s no question he is stoking racial divisions.”
The Hill says Trump has nothing to fear from Robert Mueller testimony
There are disagreements with this statement from House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., who is convinced that Robert Mueller's report "presents very substantial evidence" that President Donald Trump "is guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors." There is no reason to ask who is right since there can be no real right or wrong until a court, probably eventually SCOTUS, interprets sections of the report.
Here's what Mueller said: “The report is my testimony. I would not provide information beyond that which is already public in any appearance before Congress.”
Here's what House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler said: "Democrats on the committees plan to get around this reluctance by having Mueller read from his report, and by asking him for commentary about what he’s read."
It may even be a strategy welcomed by Robert Mueller.
When Donald Trump is supposed to have more important things on his mind, definitely not thinking about the Roseanne show cancellation, according to misinformation specialist, Sara Sanders, Trump's press secretary, bam, right after she announces this, the Oval Office lunatic starts tweeting over how his feelings are hurt. Bob Iger of ABC called Valerie Jarrett to apologize for the tweet rant by Roseanne Barr, but T-rump complained that Iger had never called him, "to apologize for the HORRIBLE statements made and said about me on ABC."
Donald Trump, as the leader of the freest nation in the world, and that supposedly includes racism, didn't take Roseanne to task for the HORRIBLE things she said about Valerie Jarrett, like comparing her to an ape and the Muslim brotherhood. Rather this moron did what he always does, turned the whole matter around until it became a Donald Trump issue. Whining like some four-year-old that doesn't get his way. Simpleton Sanders explained her boss' statement about Iger by saying, Trump was "simply calling out media bias."
That statement doesn't even deserve an answer if the person, being who he is, does not recognize blatant racial slurs when he sees them. But then we are talking about the same person who based his run for the presidency on racism and white nationalism. And he won, but thank God, not with the popular vote, which would mean this country is populated by the same kind of moron they voted for. It was the Electoral College, and it is in bi-partisan general agreement now that the College is out of date and should be replaced.
MLK was killed with a gun and gun nuts are celebrating their toys today in Richmond
Richmond at its worst
NPR reports...
"The city of Richmond, Va., is under a state of emergency Monday morning as thousands of gun ownership enthusiasts and armed militia members gather at the Virginia State Capitol for a large rally aimed at quashing new gun laws."
This is in retaliation to Virginia's Gov. Ralph Northam temporarily banning firearms from Capitol grounds and a number of gun control laws passed recently in the state. This all coincides with the fact that today is Martin Luther King's birthday and he died from gun violence, which rings alarm bells with locals it could turn into a white supremacist incident like Charlottesville. It was here anti-racism protesters left protester Heather Heyer dead and 19 others injured.
Racism and guns definitely don't mix and it is those two issues that are the number one problems in this country today, especially fostered by the maniac in the White House. READ MORE...
This is the epitome of racism with the end result a completely innocent person's death. The victim was black. Not sure but think shooter was white. In the scenario a black teenager knocked on what he thought was his and his girlfriend's door at 12:30 AM, receiving no answer. Darryl Bynes, 32, inside the apartment,
didn't open the door, grabbed a gun and went onto his balcony to confront Omarian Banks, 19. After a short conversation, Bynes shot him and then told Police he shot Banks in self-defense.
"I just hear faint voices and a gunshot, and then I hear him yell. And I heard all the fear in his voice and he was just, 'I'm sorry! I'm at the wrong door!' The man was like, 'No, you're not at the wrong door!' And he shot two more times and then it was silent."
Darryl Bynes had not even been confronted face-to-face with Omarian Banks at this point. The latter was downstairs in the parking lot headed to his car, posing absolutely no threat to Bynes, but the gun nut shot the young man from his balcony in what appears to be cold blood. And it was all a huge mistake when Lyft let Banks off at the wrong apartment entrance and he was confused because he and his girlfriend had just moved in.
This all happened in Atlanta and Darryl Bynes is charged with murder.
Racism is still rampant in Arizona evidenced by the anti-immigration law SB-1070 passed in 2010 by deposed State Sen. Russell Pearce.The state finally got rid of the likes of him, surrounded by his buddy J.T. Ready, racist and neo-Nazi from Pearce’s hometown of Mesa, AZ.Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, a Pearce supporter, has his own problems with racial discrimination from his raids on towns in his county for the sole purpose of harassing Hispanics.
Russell Pearce, Sheriff Arpaio
The people of Arizona must agree with this dogma because they elected Arpaio Sheriff in 1992 and he is still in office.Pearce was elected to the Arizona legislature in 2000 and served there eleven years before he was recalled in November of 2011.They both come from solid Arizona roots dating back to 1987 when Gov. Evan Mecham rescinded the former Governor Bruce Babbitt’s decision to honor Martin Luther King with an Arizona holiday.
That was almost 25 years ago but the Rev. Warren H. Stewart still remembers the struggle that eventually ended up with a MLK holiday in Arizona.Stewart, a prominent Phoenix pastor who was the face of the movement then, says the state legislature viewed King as a Black hero but also as an agitator. In those days African-Americans represented only 3 percent of the population.But in 1990 voters went to the polls to decide whether or not King should have his holiday.The proposition failed and Stewart felt he had done all he could.
Below is a must see video of Evan Mecham racism and other stupidity:
But then the football hit the fan.By now Arizona had a reputation for being a racial battleground.The state was boycotted by well know musicians and national conventions decided to take their business elsewhere.However, it was the cancellation by the NFL of the 1993 Super Bowl scheduled to be played in Sun Devil stadium that broke the racists’ backs.The game was moved to Pasadena, California.
Rev. Stewart set things in motion again but didn’t like the idea that the change of the state’s attitude was due almost entirely to the loss of the Super Bowl.Stewart took his dilemma to apartheid activist Leon Howard Sullivan who lived in Scottsdale and who said the Reverend had piqued the consciences of the business community, followed by his admonition to take their money because it was for a good cause.
Stewart did and ran a campaign resulting in MLK Day being approved by a vote in 1992.Arizona was the only state that had to put this holiday to a vote after a 1986 decision by President Ronald Reagan naming it as a national holiday.On the first King Holiday in January of 1993, 19,000 Arizonans celebrated, joined by civil-rights activist Rosa Parks and musician Stevie Wonder.Phoenix won the Super Bowl for 1996.
Rev. Stewart still believed the King Holiday was only a symbol and much still needed to be done for Arizona to move “from symbol to substance” in the treatment of all races and ethnicities.Just recently he said that after 20 years this still has not happened.He mentioned the anti-immigration bill SB-1070 and said the incivility of politics today is turning Martin Luther King’s dream into a nightmare.
My gut tells me that if Arizona doesn’t wake up soon from this horrible dream and get rid of those in state government that harbor those prejudices, there won’t be enough advertising possible to draw tourists and new business back to the state.
That, and there is something else to consider...testing...
The increase on Donald Trump's approval for coronavirus handling would be good, except it doesn't consider all the facts. The U.S. lags miserably behind other countries in testing, thus, the number of cases is no doubt drastically more than those recorded so far. As an example, Forbes is reporting...
"As of March 11, South Korea had conducted 4,099 tests per million of its inhabitants while the U.S. only managed 26. The most recent government data was compiled by website Our World in Data and it shows that by March 17, South Korea's number of tests per million people climbed to 5,567 while the U.S. figure increased to 125 tests per million of the population. Even though that should climb steadily over the next couple of days, it is still cause for serious concern."
In other words, T-rump is being given credit for doing a job that is much less than even half done. But, it gets worse. The favorability increased, incidentally, right after he adopted the racist approach of calling COVID-19, the "Chinese virus." His double-digit followers loved it, as did those others who make up the 55% approval rating. RawStory's explanation...
"This is the kind of crisis that opportunistic racists barely dared dream of before. Indeed, Fox News host Tucker Carlson has been all but pleading for weeks for Trump and his fellow right-wing talking heads to move away from denialism and towards racist exploitation."
The obtuse oaf explaining his racism...
[Trump] "like all racist trolls, is playing dumb when called out for it. He’s said it’s 'not racist at all, no, not at all' and that he wants 'to be accurate' and that the virus 'comes from China.'” And listen to this...
"Trump’s racist trolling is sending Carlson into bouts of near-orgasmic ecstasy. On Tuesday, he swooned that the president’s 'Chinese virus' rhetoric was an example of 'Trump at his very best.'”
Which points out the fact of just how racist Fox News is, as well as being the country's largest purveyor of misinformation. Carlson plods on with absurd conspiracy theories that aren't worth mentioning, and then Sean Hannity agrees with lowlife Rush Limbaugh "that the coronavirus crisis was a hoax." Between Fox News and Donald Trump, COVID-19 could be the "death" of the United States.
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White nationalism or white supremacy is the belief that white people are superior to those of all other races, especially the black race, and should therefore dominate society. It's hard to believe this kind of concept could persist in the 21st century. Don't get me wrong, it has been prevalent over the years since the Civil Rights Act of 1968 also known as the Fair Housing Act. There were others before it but Lyndon Johnson thought he was putting on the final touches with his late sixties bill. Although there was some noticeable breakthrough, racism in its purest form still exists.
What we never thought possible in this country is the fact that, even though there have been racists presidents before him, no other administration has ever prided itself in stocking its staff, even its cabinet, with white nationalists. Donald Trump not only welcomes their company, he encourages their participation in the sport by regularly practicing his own. It's like who can one up the other. As Salon's headline expressed...
Donald Trump’s white nationalist “genius bar”: Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller, Michael “Decius” Anton and beyond
Further: "Donald Trump’s administration is built around a brain trust of white nationalists." Folks, these crackpots are all proud of a trait that normal, civilized people consider abhorrent. In addition to the above, Donald John's new Atty. General, Jeff Sessions, has been a racist most of his adult life. And according to the Washington Post, half of Trump supporters are racists, proving my earlier point that racism has been prevalent over the years, in spite of targeted legislation. We are a truly pathetic nation that allows these lowlifes not only to exist, but also to proliferate.
Said it once and here it is again, "How about concentration camps for racists?" my headline from an earlier post. May sound far-fetched but wouldn't it be fun to visit their compound and flip them the bird through the chain-link fence...with barb-wire around the top, of course.
Steve Bannon, Donald Trump's chief strategist and top adviser, has already established his credentials as a white nationalist, racist and anti-Semitic. As an avid reader, he espouses to "The Fourth Turning, a book by William Strauss and Neil Howe, that history unfolds in cycles of 80 to 100 years. At the end of the cycle, the old order is destroyed and replaced." It would appear that Stevo plans to be there at the end of the cycle and implant the Trump/Bannon, perhaps the other way around, vision of common national purpose Trump announced in his first address to Congress on Monday.
As far as the speech goes, it was well received by Republicans as one would suspect but Sen. Chuck Schumer's comment was that, "Trump's speeches and the realities are very, very far apart. Until his reality catches up with his speeches, he's got big trouble," Others said he even looked a bit presidential, hoping he might maintain that and not revert to the crude behavior he has exhibited on Twitter and otherwise since entering office. But these hopes were born and played out before and it only took one news cycle to send Donald John romping down the crass road to vulgarity again.
Here are some comments by Lacy MacAuley, an activist and member of the Washington DC Antifascist Coalition...
"I absolutely think Steve Bannon is connected to a network of white nationalists. Just in the last few years there have been contractual obligations between white supremacist James O’Keefe at Project Veritas and Breitbart."
"Mr O'Keefe was known, she said, for taking down institutions and organisations via fake news."
"I would say that Steve Bannon is the advocate for white nationalism in the White House and there’s no doubt in my mind on that. It’s not just through Breitbart, it’s through his entire line of work."
There is the indication that Steve Bannon, when recruiting to fill out the National Security Council position, added himself to the NSC without Donald John knowing. Grounds for dismissal by most anyone, except someone with a hidden agenda. He was able to do this since he was the one writing the Executive Order, not Trump. The President was pissed but the fact that Bannon stays put is evidence of just how powerful the man is. Daryle Lamont Jenkins, executive director of the anti-racist organisation One People's Project exclaims...
"We've been dealing with a cluster of white supremacists within the beltway of the Washington DC area who do just that (using theories and academia to justify their racism): they try to back up their racism and justify why they should have a separation of the races, and justify a more strident attack on African Americans in the name of 'fighting crime'."
That's about as scary as it gets. Beginning to sound like Charlie Manson's Helter Skelter, starting a war between blacks and whites. Charlie was a confirmed white supremacist who went to the extreme of carving a swastika into his forehead with a knife. He had a following he mesmerized by convincing them that he was Jesus Christ, turning them into killers that would do his bidding. I'm not saying Steve Bannon is another Charlie Manson, but I am saying that Donald Trump, normally a man who seems to need no one, is definitely enthralled by Stevo's philosophies. That's what's scary.
The UK Independent reports that last July Breitbart had "...become the 'platform for the alt-right'. Now his platform has become the government." Well, that's even scarier. Donald John has been guilty of racially insensitive remarks in the past, and during his campaign refused to condemn the white supremacists who advocated for him, like David Duke and Richard Spencer. Here are some examples during his drive for the presidency...
He attacked Muslim Gold Star parents
He claimed a judge was biased because “he’s a Mexican”
He questioned whether President Obama was born in the United States
He even trashed Native Americans
He stereotyped Jews and shared an anti-Semitic image created by white supremacists
Just a few, but you can see more here. Huff Post says in a blazing headline, "President Trump’s VOICE Is About Justifying White Supremacy." VOICE means, Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement. So far it sounds like...
"...the program will be limited simply to undocumented immigrants, but will also include crimes committed by legitimate VISA holders, Green Card holders and possibly even permanent residents who are not naturalized citizens.
But then HP blasts, "Let’s call this what it is: VOICE is racist government propaganda." And isn't it interesting that Steve Bannon, formerly of Breitbart, had a section called Black Crime, which documented the crimes of immigrant communities, when it is known that immigrants are actually less likely to commit a crime than non-immigrants. Brian Stone of Huff Post adds...
"Creating this hate-list will do nothing except provide official government sanction to the opinions of white supremacist groups and the alt-right."
Remember Pat Buchanan, a presidential wanna-be from 1992, 1996 and 2000, who ran on a platform of right-wing populism and who also was a white supremacist? As far back as 2015, he was backing Trump along with other white supremacists, including David Duke. Buchanan regretted what he called the end of white America "...due to immigration and increasing rights for people of color." This is a statement that is hard to believe coming from someone who is supposedly educated and worldly. It can only be attributed to someone who is a true racist and white supremacist.
Most of this crowd doesn't believe in violence, a fact that is not true of Trump’s rank-and-file supporters. One such Donald John follower was Dionisio Garza III, 25, also a Muslim hater, who went on a shooting spree back in early 2016 in Houston, leaving one dead and six injured. In another instance...
"Jim Sherota, 53, [who]works for a landscaping company and attended Trump’s rally in Mobile, Alabama, on Friday, [August 2015] told The New York Times before Trump’s arrival that he hoped Trump would announce a plan to issue licenses for hunting undocumented immigrants and offer $50 for 'every confirmed kill.'”
Couldn't stand the heat
A bounty? Now that's interesting because back in 2015 just escaped El Chapo placed a $100 million
bounty on Donald Trump's head when the then candidate accused the Mexican government of letting him go tweeting...
"El Chapo and the Mexican drug cartels use the border unimpeded like it was a vacuum cleaner, sucking drugs and death right into the U.S."
Jake Tapper of CNN pushed Trump to disavow David Duke and rebuke any vote from him or any other white supremacists. It was a typical brainless meandering by the candidate...
"Trump claimed that he didn’t know anything about white supremacists or about Duke himself. When Tapper pressed him twice more, Trump said he couldn’t condemn a group he hadn’t yet researched."
A Virginia leader of the Ku Klux Klan told a TV reporter, “The reason a lot of Klan members like Donald Trump is because a lot of what he believes, we believe in.” And that's the scariest yet. In closing, here is a list of his "white supremacist fan club" compiled by Huff Post reporters...
"The Daily Stormer, a leading neo-Nazi news site; Richard Spencer, director of the National Policy Institute, which aims to promote the “heritage, identity, and future of European people”; Jared Taylor, editor of American Renaissance, a Virginia-based white nationalist magazine; Michael Hill, head of the League of the South, an Alabama-based white supremacist secessionist group; and Brad Griffin, a member of Hill’s League of the South and author of the popular white supremacist blog Hunter Wallace."
Robert Mueller requested guidance from the Dept. of Justice on his Wednesday testimony to Congress. Associate Deputy Attorney General Bradley Weinsheimer answered stating whatever he said must be within the boundaries of the now public report. Weinsheimer added...
"matters within the scope of your investigation were covered by executive privilege."
In case you are interested, the hearing is scheduled to start at 8:30 AM ET, Wednesday, and several TV networks will cover it. The Democrats plan...
"to push Mueller on several aspects of his investigation as well as the question if he would recommend charges against President Donald Trump were he not the President."
As an observer of Robert Mueller's actions from the beginning to the end of this whole frolic in Donald Trump stupidity and incompetence, but more significantly at the end, I got the feeling Mueller secretly wants to testify, and hopes Democrats will ask some very pointed questions he must answer under oath. If I am wrong, the hearing won't be worth wasting your time on. The testimony starts where I live at 5:30 AM and at this point I'm thinking I'd rather sleep.
4 Congresswomen who could beat Donald Trump in 2020
Donald Trump is all about racism
The smug, pompous Oval office lunatic first defended those who chanted “send her back” to Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN). Later, he even called Omar a "disgrace," then he attempted to renege on support for the crowd chants, next he returned to "a full-throated defense of the people who participated in it while talking with reporters in the Oval Office just one day later." Now this is the moron that was elected by his double-digit followers to run this country. Go figure.
He called these poor souls in No. Carolina "incredible people -incredible patriots.” Back to Trump attacking Omar...
“I’m unhappy when a congresswoman goes, ‘I’m going to be the president’s nightmare,'” Trump said, referring to remarks that Omar made during a town hall in Minnesota Thursday night. “She’s lucky to be where she is, let me tell you. And the things that she has said are a disgrace to our country.”
Well, not only has Ilhan Omar committed to making T-rump's life a nightmare, but so have her three colleagues, also racially violated by Trump. They are Alexandria Ocasio Cortez of New York, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, and Rashida Talib of Michigan. It has been said by someone recently that the best way to bring down Donald Trump is to keep pushing his buttons until he finally breaks. Have a feeling these four women of color can do the job.
If only that could happen before the 2020 election. Proof that the White House moron doesn't learn, there is word that he will use racism as part of an election strategy to appeal to the same lowlifes that cheered him on in No. Carolina. But get this, by doing so...
"he is writing off 45.9 percent of the American population and implying that because they are not sufficiently white or native-born, they are not part of the “America” he represents."
Here's the breakdown...
"14.1 percent of Americans are either black or mixed race, including African-American, like Ayanna Pressley and Ilhan Omar. 18.1 percent of Americans are of Hispanic descent like Alexandria Ocasio Cortez. And 13.7 percent of Americans are foreign-born, like Ilhan Omar."
Either Donald Trump can't count, or his ego has grown so big that he believes he can regularly debase people of color and they will forgive all and still vote for him. I think it is a little of both. The No. Carolina rally consisted of mostly white, elderly people but T-rump thinks...
"he’s looking at the United States of America. He’s wrong. As apparently everyone but Trump knows, the population of this country is getting browner, blacker, younger, and more foreign, in the sense of being from recent immigrant stock."
Here's a depressing statement by Lucian Truscott of Salon...
"The kind of racist hatred that used to be hidden away in backwaters like Mississippi and Alabama and Louisiana and practiced by the likes of David Duke is now part of our national conversation."
I moved away from that years ago when I left the South. Not in a million years did I ever think it would come back to haunt me right out of the White House.
A former FBI agent speaks, "Too many local police don’t take the far right seriously – or actively sympathize." The Brennan Center for Justice says there is, "Racism, White Supremacy, and Far-Right Militancy in Law Enforcement." A couple of observations from Brennan...
"many have concluded that a structural or institutional bias against people of color, shaped by long-standing racial, economic, and social inequities, infects the criminal justice system."
"These systemic inequities can also instill implicit biases — unconscious prejudices that favor in-groups and stigmatize out-groups — among individual law enforcement officials, influencing their day-to-day actions while interacting with the public."
Mike German, the former FBI agent has been warning of this enigma for years, but the problems have escalated in the last couple of years as Donald Trump spews racism and white supremacy from the Oval office. In an undercover assignment in California against neo-Nazi groups in Los Angeles, California, in 1992, there were routine warnings...
"A redacted version of a 2006 FBI intelligence assessment, White Supremacist Infiltration of Law Enforcement, alerted agents to 'both strategic infiltration by organized groups and self-initiated infiltration by law enforcement personnel sympathetic to white supremacist causes,'"
There's more from German...
"A leaked 2015 counter-terrorism policy guide made the case more directly, warning agents that FBI 'domestic terrorism investigations focused on militia extremists, white supremacist extremists, and sovereign citizen extremists often have identified active links to law enforcement officers.'"
The former agent says that "white supremacists have engaged in deadly rampages in Charleston, South Carolina, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and El Paso, Texas." It gets worse...
"More ominously, neo-Nazis obtained radiological materials to manufacture 'dirty' bombs in separate cases in Maine in 2009 and Florida in 2017, which were only avoided through chance."
The point is we have been lucky when it comes to the discovery of nuclear threats before they occur. What we don't need is law enforcement standing in the way or even aiding and abetting in these events. Police are basically honest and dedicated to their jobs to protect the public. The problem is identifying those who aren't. Mike German's article here.
I grew up in the South and regularly experienced the purists of racism, but Donald Trump's style of racial bigotry is some of the worst I have seen. And, it would appear that he is more dedicated to it with his blatant perpetual delivery of insults to anyone...not like him. And that would include most of the world. Basketball player LeBron James just spent millions to open a school in his home town of Akron, Ohio for at-risk children. Don Lemon of CNN interviewed him. This is what Trump said of the interview...
“LeBron James was just interviewed by the dumbest man on television, Don Lemon. He made LeBron look smart, which isn’t easy to do. I like Mike!” (referring to Michael Jordan)
Both James and Lemon are black, as is Michael Jordan, whom Trump probably included trying to offset the backlash that his comment would receive. It didn't.
T-rump is a like a wart on the back of this country's butt that just keeps growing and won't go away. It had to take an appalling mixture of evil genes to spawn this atrocity and apparently it has been passed down at least three times. God save the universe!
It is disconcerting enough when the bubbas out there use the N word, but when it is the President of the United States, well, it hurts a little more. And that is the understatement of the year. But were we ever at the point where racism was actually subsiding, or have these niceties over the year just been a facade for a deep seated nationwide racism? I think the latter, and although not an expert on the issue, I grew up in the deep South and can recognize signals.
The RawStory reports the optimism among blacks when Barack Obama was elected President in 2008 , rejoicing again when he was reelected in 2012. I felt the same about Obama's election as I did when John F. Kennedy went to the White House. Kennedy was stopped by an assassin's bullet, Obama by a political assassin by the name of Moscow Mitch McConnell. Moscow Mitch is as much of a racist as is Donald Trump and both need to go. READ MORE...
Donald Trump is good at something. He is one of the best at racism I have ever seen and I hail from the South. There are many Republicans "sickened by President Donald Trump’s racist attacks on four Democratic congresswomen — but they still won’t criticize him publicly. The House members are Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Alexandria-Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), and Ayanna Pressley (D-MA). T-rump actually said they should...
“go back to the crime-infested places from which they came.” All four congresswomen are American citizens.
But this is the most tragic part of his reaction, a source said Trump believes his racist attacks on the women are a winning political strategy that will help him win reelection in 2020.Does that tell you something about his core base estimated to be around 30 million? A majority must be racist, based on his remark. Even with my southern upbringing, it is near impossible to fathom that kind of thought in 2019. How could any person of color ever consider voting for this imbecile?
And this story is only an extension of the above. Another writer, Alex Henderson, writing for AlterNet says Trump's statement about...
"four congresswomen of color to go back to the countries they originally came from, it was obviously a rally-the-base strategy designed to appeal to the so-called 'patriotism' of his far-right supporters."
There's that Trump base again with Henderson reconfirming the fact that a large number of these followers are racist. And no one, including the moron in the White House who made the statement, seems to have any qualms about the fact that this is a tragic reflection of what this country is all about. According to presidential historian Jon Meacham...
“What the president has done here is yet again — I think he did it after Charlottesville, and I think he did it, frankly, when he was pushing the birther lie about President Obama — he has joined Andrew Johnson as the most racist president in American history.”
Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney looks sleazy and he has repeatedly fulfilled this likeness in both Congress and in his job with the number one sleaze, Donald Trump. But Jessica Corbett of Common Dreams muses that...
"Mulvaney is quietly building an empire for the right wing” and pushing Cabinet members to impose a radical and rapid deregulation agenda across the federal government."
A former So. Carolina congressman, deeply steeped in the Tea Party that eschews its racist values, he now works in the White House and is one...
"who has built what one senior administration official called 'his own fiefdom' centered on pushing conservative policies — while mostly steering clear of the Trump-related pitfalls that tripped up his predecessors by employing a 'Let Trump be Trump' ethos."
No control, just what the Oval Office lunatic craves. But Politico says the honeymoon is over, "snapping at his acting chief of staff with some frequency, and expressing greater frustration with him than usual," and as Trump’s third chief of staff in less than two-and-a-half years, the writing is on the wall. It will happen, hopefully, before Mulvaney can spread more Tea Party propaganda.
Mark Potok, Editor of the Southern Poverty Law Center Intelligence Report, said in the Spring 2017 issue...
"The campaign language of the man who would become president sparks hate violence, bullying, before and after the election."
He was, of course, talking about Donald Trump who had adverse effects on the lowlife of our country even back in 2015. The story goes, two guys left a Red Sox ballgame late one night and ran across a homeless Mexican immigrant sleeping outside a commuter rail station. They proceeded to beat him with a metal pipe, punched him repeatedly, urinated on him and called him a “wetback." Elated with what they had done, Guillermo Rodriguez was left with cracked ribs and broken fingers plus other injuries. Arrested just a short time later, one of them, 38-year-old Scott Leader said...
“Donald Trump was right. All these illegals need to be deported.”
In another incident in Portland, Oregon, a man stabbed three people when two of them attempted to stop a man who was ranting and raving and shouting anti-Muslim insults at two young women. It was n a light-rail train where the attacker stabbed and killed the two men and seriously injured another. There were witnesses and police were able to capture 35-year-old Jeremy Joseph Christian, of north Portland. The Southern Poverty Law Center had Christian in their records that indicated he held racist, white supremacist and extremist beliefs. Trump/Bannon related? Who knows.
It is noteworthy that Donald trump had kicked off his presidential campaign just two months prior to the attack, above, on a homeless Mexican man, with a speech describing Mexican immigrants as rapists and drug smugglers. In his article Mark Potok takes us from the attack on the Mexican homeless man through Trump's inauguration. One of the first things he did was call for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the country. He attacked a Muslim Gold Star family, insinuating that Khizr Khan, whose son died in Iraq, was a terrorist sympathizer.
"He had retweeted utterly bogus claims that black people were responsible for 80% of the murders of whites. He had cozied up to some of the country’s hardest line gay-bashers. He had retweeted anti-Semitic memes and called many immigrants “not well.” He had attacked a debate moderator by insinuating that her tough questions were the result of her menstrual cycle. And his earlier boasts about grabbing women by the genitals had been revealed."
Wow! We had just elected a real gent, huh? But there's much more...
"After a Black Lives Matter activist was beaten at a Trump rally in Birmingham, Ala., he told Fox News that “maybe he should have been roughed up. In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, he urged supporters to 'knock the crap' out of protesters, adding, 'I promise you, I will pay your legal fees.' When a backer at a Fayetteville, N.C., rally sucker-punched a black protester being led away by police — an act described by the local sheriff as 'a cowardly, unprovoked attack' — Trump told two national news outlets that he was looking into paying the man’s legal fees."
Mark Potok has done a great job of documenting Donald Trump's bigotry, racism and hate ranting. But Donald Trump throughout it all remains oblivious to how terrible what he is doing and saying, and even makes this unbelievable statement following the beating of Guillermo Rodriguez. His reaction was, "While the attack was 'a shame,' Trump’s main conclusion was that 'people who are following me are very passionate.'" It is impossible to figure out what kind of blood runs in the veins of this lunatic or just how his brain synapses operate...or don't.
And finally...
"In the immediate aftermath of the election, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) noticed a dramatic jump in hate violence and incidents of harassment and intimidation around the country. At the same time, a wave of incidents of bullying and other kinds of harassment washed over the nation’s K-12 schools. The SPLC decided to make an effort to document all of this in real time."
Thanks to the Southern Poverty Law Center for the great material and I suggest you visit their site and make a donation: Southern Poverty Law Center
How many times has Donald Trump said, "[I'm] the least racist person that you’ve ever encountered?" However, history tells us that is not the case, an example of which is during Trumps' presidential campaign when he...
"...repeatedly made explicitly racist and otherwise bigoted remarks — from calling Mexican immigrants criminals and rapists to proposing a ban on all Muslims entering the US to suggesting that a judge should recuse himself from a case solely because of the judge’s Mexican heritage."
Vox tracks it back to the 1970s when Donald John was sued by the feds for racial discrimination because he would not rent apartments in one of his developments to African-Americans. It goes even further...
"It would be one thing if Trump simply misspoke one or two times. But when you take all of Trump’s actions and comments together, a clear pattern emerges — one that suggests that bigotry is not just political opportunism on Trump’s part but a real element of Trump’s personality, character, and career."
This white supremacist attitude has stayed with the man for all of his career, ushering in a spate of appointments in his administration that are racists and white nationalists. Like Steve Bannon, White House chief strategist and Jeff Sessions, the new attorney general. After the 1973 incident, it was in the 1980s when a black teenager accused the Trump Castle Casino of forcing him and other black employees off the floor when Donald John and Ivana visited. It was 1991 in a book written by a former employee quoting Trump on the handling of his money...
"Black guys counting my money! I hate it. The only kind of people I want counting my money are short guys that wear yarmulkes every day. … I think that the guy is lazy. And it’s probably not his fault, because laziness is a trait in blacks. It really is, I believe that. It’s not anything they can control."
Here's a real loser, The Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino in 1992, paid a $200,000 fine for moving black and women dealers off a particular table to accommodate a gambler's prejudices. There's much more and you can see it here at Vox.
Jeff Sessions was the US attorney in Mobile, Alabama, in the 1980s, talking about a case with colleagues about a young black man who had been kidnapped and brutally murdered by two members of the Ku Klux Klan. His throat had been cut and they hung his body from a tree. This was Sessions reaction...
"As Sessions learned that some members of the Klan had smoked marijuana on the evening of the slaying, he said aloud that he thought the KKK was: 'OK until I found out they smoked pot.'"
That should say it all but there's more. David Duke, former leader of the Ku Klux Klan, is a supporter of Sessions, as well as Trump. Sessions became infamous in Alabama for calling a black attorney, "boy," at the same time prosecuting three of Martin Luther King Jr.'s rights organizers for bogus voter fraud. It was done to, "...discourage voting rights for poor and elderly people in several "black belt" Alabama counties." After Sessions testimony Tuesday, the New York Times in an editorial...
"[Sessions'] defense against charges of racism that caused the Senate to reject him for a federal judgeship in 1986 was largely to say it hurt his feelings to be called a racist, but his two decades in the Senate provide little hope that he has changed."
Sessions calls the Voting Rights Act "intrusive," and is a strong supporter of voter ID laws that disenfranchise blacks, Hispanics and the poor. He has voted against every comprehensive immigration reform bill, and back in 2016 called Islam a "toxic ideology."A firm opponent of Roe v. Wade, Jeff Sessions also opposed the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell and hate crimes protections for LGBTQ people and he voted to ban same-sex marriage. You can read additional critique on this man who is now the attorney general for the United States.
It was the 1964 Civil Rights Act that outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. When Lyndon Johnson sighed this Act into law, he had no idea that the U.S. would still be this racist in 2017, fifty-four years later. It's almost as if the paper he signed was meaningless. To Donald Trump and Jeff Sessions, it was.
Iowa has always been the come-to state for Presidents and 2016 was no different for Donald Trump. He took the state 51.1% to win against Hillary Clinton's 41.7, garnering the 6 electoral votes. Des Moines, where I spent several years, went for Clinton as did another major metro area, Cedar Rapids. Iowans are considered good, down to earth, stable people with common sense. That's pretty much true as I can attest to after spending several years in the capital city, but also having experienced a hard-line cliquishness there that forbids outsiders in until proven. I never made it.
I left in the late sixties, never sorry for my decision, and have never looked back. I tell you this to qualify the fact that I am a maverick, always have been, and always will be. Mavericks don't do well in the state, although there is a basketball team there by that name who are apparently winners. But it is people like Tom Godat, a union electrician from Clinton, Iowa, that represents a state that has been a combination of Democrat and Republican in the past, but recently has been attacked by the Tea Party. It elected Joni Ernst to the Senate, something many in the state still can't believe.
But back to Mr. Godat, who has always voted for Democrats, decided to cast his vote for Donald Trump in 2016, not that he particularly thought Trump was best, but because he thought Hillary Clinton was worse. An excellent case in point to shore up the fact that Bernie Sanders should have been the Democrats nominee, not Clinton. Tom now says he is "embarrassed" over his vote. I would suspect that a lot of good people out there are also coming to the same conclusion. What I don't understand is, after viewing Trump's campaign, why wasn't Tom Godat horrified with what he saw?
There were Donald John's comments about Mexican immigrants, about women, about veterans, the disarming of Clinton's bodyguards, saying Obama was the founder of ISIS, sicking the gun nuts on Hillary, encouraging Russia to hack Clinton's campaign, more racism calling for a ban on Muslims in the U.S., saying people in New Jersey were cheering on 9/11, suggesting one of his protesters should be roughed up, referring to his daughter in a sexual way, his bizarre comments about Megyn Kelly's menstrual period, I could go on forever but you get the idea. Why didn't Tom Godat?
Washington Post reporter, Jenna Johnson, and her photographer, Michael S. Williamson, ran into "...more than 100 Iowans [who]explained why so many of them are already disappointed in the new president." It only took four days which means they encountered 25 a day. That's an impressive number of people when you consider that Iowans aren't that open and easy to get to talk to by people they don't know. And then there's Lost Nation, Iowa, where the president received 66 percent of the vote. After Trump's election, the Iowa legislature voted to dramatically scale back the collective bargaining rights of the state’s public workers, distressing my Lost Nation residents.
The Huff Post reports that "thousands" of people across the country are unhappy with their vote for Donald John, and they are tweeting it in response to the "head tweeter's" barrage of lies and misinformation. Here's an example...
“I’m starting to feel like the biggest mistake of my young 23 years of life has been voting for [Trump],” Joseph Richardson tweeted on Nov. 21.
And that's less than two weeks after the November 8, election day. Richardson said it was a bitTrump’s Cabinet picks or the 'very childish' behavior he exhibited at a press conference last week. And he does regret his vote. Sort of." Even if he did it over, Richardson says he still couldn't vote for Clinton continuing with, “I still think Trump would be the better candidate. I’d still regret it. I’d vote for him again but I’d still regret it.” Go figure. But it is this exact kind of reasoning that political pundits were clamoring over during the 2016 election.
unsettling and added, "He doesn’t like
Now here's a guy you just have to shake your head over. Not sure if he is misinformed, full of indecision or just not too bright...
"Bill said he would like Trump to act more like President Barack Obama, who he voted against twice but considers 'an extremely honorable man who served the country fantastically.'”
I could understand a statement that said, served the country "well," or "fine," or even "right." But how can you call Obama "extremely honorable" and a man "who served the country fantastically" but still have voted against him twice? Makes no sense unless there is an ulterior motive. And that's what is wrong with our political system, people voting who haven't the slightest idea what they are doing. There were some that lashed out at Donald John for not following up on his promise to investigate Clinton’s handling of sensitive emails, a decision that also puzzles some of the pundits.
Others voiced their reason to vote for Trump was his promise for change, to drain the swamp. Many of this group think the swamp is fuller than ever, but others believe Trump is following through on his promises. Even the alt-right and its white nationalists are down on Donald Trump. Remember Richard Spencer? The guy "who stood at a podium shortly after Donald Trump's election and, in a video that went viral, shouted 'Hail Trump!' while several in the crowd celebrated the victory with a Nazi salute." He's not sure now his President will be racial enough.
From what I have read, a large number of Trump voters have combined to strongly object over the fact that Donald John did not investigate, subsequently prosecute Hillary Clinton over the email issue. This is a major campaign promise that he broke, and the fact that this is one of the primary annoyances of those who voted for the man, it is yet just one more instance that reflects the amount of animosity toward Hillary Clinton. This was clear from the early 2016 campaigning right through the November election. A leading reason Democrats are in the hole they are now in.
Donald Trump's top adviser and chief White House strategist, Steve Bannon, described Richard Spencer asone of the leading intellectuals of the alt-right movement. CNN reported that...
"Spencer is a white nationalist who believes that there should be a 'peaceful ethnic cleansing,' where people who are not of European descent voluntarily leave the United States."
Not that it is important since this deranged kind of thinking probably has no chance of ever being initiated in this country, but what if they don't leave voluntarily? But just maybe the thought of ethnic cleansing isn't so far out when you consider Trump has already provided the model in his latest Muslim ban of now six countries just announced in Monday's address to Congress. More from Slate on Bannon/Spencer connection...
"In August, [2016] Bannon proudly described his site as 'the platform for the alt-right,' a movement with Spencer as one of its intellectual leaders, again, according to Bannon’s own site."
It is said the Vice President is only a heartbeat away from the presidency. In the case of Steve Bannon, this is a heart beat that could change the direction of the greatest free nation of all time.
In the Civil War of 1861, there was a clear distinction between opponents; north of the Mason Dixon Line and south of the Mason Dixon Line. The north, of course, were the federal forces being opposed by the Confederate Army in the south. Eleven southern states left the Union in 1860 and 1861 because of the long-standing disagreement over the institution of slavery...
Although the North did want to block slavery, they were also concerned that an extra slave state would give the South a political advantage.
As you can see, there is no doubt why they were fighting this war, and also no question who the players were. So, now to the question, 'How would you separate this country in a civil conflict of today?' As an example, on my street in a Phoenix suburb, I know of at least one other liberal family, but for the most part, the rest are conservatives, one known Trump supporter. We are right next door to each other so do you see the problem of opposite sides doing battle?
Of course, we don't yet know what kind of clash it would turn out to be; a violent one or a war of ideologies addressed through social media and the press. Or, a combination of both, possibly somewhere in between. This is perhaps one of the biggest unknowns that has ever faced this country. Marc Fisher's perspective in the Washington Post is...
"It’s easy and logical to conclude that the United States today stands as close to the edge of civil war as it has since 1861."
'The Next Civil War' Looks At Our Current Divided Area And What's Ahead...
There seems to be no doubt of the imminence, but no one appears to be sure of the shape it will take. The experts surmise why...
"They point to evidence that can seem persuasive: a blizzard of threats against FBI agents, judges, elected officials, school board members and elections supervisors; training camps where heavily armed radicals practice to confront their own government; and polls showing that many Americans expect violent conflict."
What bothers me most is "that many Americans expect violent conflict." To substantiate that Science.org says...
"Firearm deaths in the United States grew by nearly 43% between 2010 and 2020, and gun sales surged during the coronavirus pandemic."
Despite all the propaganda from NRA head, Wayne LaPierre and his Republican minions, we know what more guns on the street means; more shooting violence and more innocent deaths. But not so fast says Marc Fisher, with all the violent rhetoric there may be another expectation. There are, indeed, plenty of threats...
"But the Anti-Defamation League and other watchdog groups are not seeing the kind of specific planning by private militias and online assemblages of radicals that was evident before last year’s Jan. 6 insurrection and the white-supremacist march in Charlottesville in 2017."
There is more from the ADL...
“We are living in a country where disinformation, conspiracy thinking and lies have resulted in deadly attacks,” said Oren Segal, vice president of the ADL’s Center on Extremism. “It’s not exactly kumbaya in this society. But we have been going through this for a long time now, and I don’t see people coming together in the more coherent organizing we saw prior to Jan. 6.”
But Robert Reich says, "The second American civil war is already happening." He thinks America is becoming "two versions of itself and wonders "how will the two be civil toward each other?" This article, although over 3 months old, still hits the mark in this issue. Reich explains it this way...
"The second American civil war is already occurring, but it is less of a war than a kind of benign separation analogous to unhappily married people who don’t want to go through the trauma of a formal divorce.
"One America is largely urban, racially and ethnically diverse, and young. The other is largely rural or exurban, white and older."
As conservative writer Kurt Schlichter said in his book, We'll Be Back: The Fall and Rise of America, "It's nice to hold cities, but if you do not also hold all the rural territory between the cities, as well as the routes to the places where you are getting your food and fuel, you have a real problem." So what's the answer? Americans are flocking together based on ideologies with animosity toward those in the opposing party higher than at any time in living memory.
Then, Marc Fisher points out there are two sets of analysts...
"those who say we’re heading toward civil strife and those who say the threat matrix is largely limited to lone rangers and small, disorganized groups whose dangerous but scattered acts don’t constitute a civil war — agree there is little chance of an organized, violent attack on the government, or of local or state authorities taking up arms against their federal counterparts. But there remains a sharp divide over whether a mounting series of individual and small-group attacks could add up to a warlike conflict that destabilizes the country."
Don't know which is worse. In one case there would be a defining difference in warring factions but near impossible to separate the two as in the Civil War of 1861. But in the second, it could be literally neighbor fighting neighbor. It would give a new name to block parties and can you even comprehend being shot at by the folks next door? There are so many issues from abortions to racism and it doesn't look like there is a peaceful way to settle this.
