How Many Damn Defenses of That Basket of Deplorables Do We Need?
Michael ArceneauxLast November, a majority of white people in America voted for a bigot for president. If you voted for a man who campaigned on xenophobia, racism, sexism and other strains of bigotry, you either share his prejudices or you are complicit in them. The former makes you an audacious racist; the latter, a bystander, which in and of itself is a racist act. Nothing about that reality has changed since Habanero Hitler was declared the winner of the 2016 presidential election or officially sworn in to office.
But in senseless fashion, some continue to advocate on behalf of the big basket of deplorables responsible for the ongoing mess that is the 45th president of the United States. Only a week ago, I asked how many more of these disingenuous and intellectually dishonest diatribes will we collectively be subjected to? The New York Times swiftly flew in with an answer: to infinity and fucking beyond.
In the news analysis “Are Liberals Helping Trump?” Sabrina Tavernise, a national correspondent for the Times, echoes all of the greatest hits associated with any defense of 45’s supporters.
First, there is the introduction of the 45 voter, who in this case is Jeffrey Medford, “a small-business owner in South Carolina” who apparently “voted reluctantly for Donald Trump.” Next we get his rationale for helping to elect a monster who is presently trying to reintroduce a travel ban aimed at people from primarily Muslim countries while stripping protection of transgender children in public schools. For Medford, it was the sentiment that “as a conservative, he felt the need to choose the Republican.”
Then comes the bullshit: the idea that assigning culpability is cruel and unjust, not to mention the cries of victimhood.
I am with this article.
I don’t want to hear it.
I don’t care.
And, the MSM needs to stop writing about these people, like we’re supposed to ‘ understand’ them.
They are so used to our side of aisle, ‘ understanding’ things.
They continue to refuse that the paradigm has changed.
I’ll say it again.
This is NOT 2000.
This isn’t even 2004, After Dubya lied us into two wars.
This is ‘electing’ that man, after 8 years of obstruction, and disrespect of probably the best President we will see in several generations.
We don’t care why they voted for him.
The fact is..they voted for him.
He never hid behind dogwhistles.
His hatred of Mexicans. Blacks. Muslims. His disrespect of women. His ignorance, and fanning of the flames of racist hatred.
They were all obvious and there to see.
IF you voted for him..that condemns YOUR LACK OF CHARACTER.
And, NO, I don’t have to forgive or understand it. I can condemn you for it. And, never get past it.
ALL that’s at stake now? All that’s at risk, in terms of what we believe our country should be, and the American Safety Net that should never be in jeopardy, but IS because your vote?
Why should I understand, or have sympathy for you, when you CHOSE to vote for those that would harm me and mine?
No. Go somewhere and sit down. Nobody wants to hear from you. No explanation necessary. You showed who you were on November 8th.
Don’t whine if there is an appropriate response.
https://twitter.com/cschweitz/status/836948975861313536?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
From BJ:
told you….
the International IC community has been handing over stuff to The Spooks
Michael WeissVerified account
@ michaeldweiss
Evan Perez just said it on CNN, so I suppose I can here: Kislyak wasn’t just ambassador, he was Russia’s “top spy recruiter” in D.C.: SVR.
https://twitter.com/CAPAction/status/837128474540322816?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Thank you SG2 for doing the breaking news post
Sessions making plans for black people but the Scripture says..
Proverbs 26:27 If you set a trap for others, you will get caught in it yourself.
Been out of pocket for hours, and come back to this news. GOD.DON.T.LIKE.UGLY
RUSSIA, RUSSIA, RUSSIA
PBO been on vacation, sitting back going UMMM HMMMM LOL
https://twitter.com/RVAwonk/status/837123776626192385
https://twitter.com/theonlyadult/status/837110821780086785?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
LMBAO Don’t fuck with #44
https://twitter.com/mattmfm/status/837114546103943170?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
https://twitter.com/dnvolz/status/837107571794329600
https://twitter.com/3ChicsPolitico/status/837110051475189760
SOAP OPERA
Beau Biden’s widow having affair with his married brother
The widow of Joe Biden‘s late son Beau Biden has started a romantic relationship with her former brother-in-law, Hunter Biden, the former Vice President’s younger son.
Hallie Biden, who was devastated when her husband Beau died after suffering from brain cancer in May 2015, is now officially a couple with Hunter, 47, who has separated from his wife Kathleen.
The astonishing family drama caps a difficult period for the Bidens following the death of Beau at age 46. The former Vice President cited the death of his eldest son as one of the reasons he didn’t feel ready to run for president against Donald Trump.
Hunter Biden, a lawyer who has three daughters with his estranged wife Kathleen, told Page Six in an exclusive statement, “Hallie and I are incredibly lucky to have found the love and support we have for each other in such a difficult time, and that’s been obvious to the people who love us most. We’ve been so lucky to have family and friends who have supported us every step of the way.”
Former Vice President Joe Biden added that he and his wife Dr. Jill Biden have given their blessing to the relationship. He said, “We are all lucky that Hunter and Hallie found each other as they were putting their lives together again after such sadness. They have mine and Jill’s full and complete support and we are happy for them.”
Beau, the former state attorney general of Delaware who served in Iraq as a major in the Delaware Army National Guard, and Hallie have two children, named Natalie and Hunter.
A source told us that Hunter and his wife Kathleen separated in October 2015, five months after the death of Beau. Kathleen, the chairwoman of the Eleanor Roosevelt Dialogue, didn’t comment.
https://twitter.com/ExtremeLiberal/status/837047885921456128?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Republicans Hide New Obamacare Draft Under Shroud of Secrecy
by Billy House
and Arit John
March 1, 2017, 4:03 PM CST March 1, 2017, 4:24 PM CST
House Republican leaders have a new version of their major Obamacare repeal and replacement bill. They just don’t want you to see it.
The document is being treated a bit like a top-secret surveillance intercept. It is expected to be available to members and staffers on the House Energy and Commerce panel starting Thursday, but only in a dedicated reading room, one Republican lawmaker and a committee aide said. Nobody will be given copies to take with them.
The unusual secrecy is a reflection of the sensitivity — and the stakes — surrounding the GOP effort to rewrite the Affordable Care Act, a top priority of President Donald Trump, who has yet to offer his own plan.
Republican leaders are trying to avoid a repeat of what happened last time. When an outdated draft leaked last week, it was quickly panned by conservatives.
“The draft of it is going to be available tomorrow for those of us on the health subcommittee to start poring through,” said Representative Chris Collins of New York, a Trump ally and member of the health subcommittee of Energy and Commerce. “Unfortunately for you, we’re making sure it won’t be leaked.”
“We’re not having a hearing or anything,” added Gus Bilirakis of Florida, another panel member. “But there’ll be a place for us to view it, the draft.”
On Tuesday, House Speaker Paul Ryan said the bill is being handled under normal legislative procedures.
“We’re not hatching some bill in a backroom and plopping it on the American people’s front door,” he said on NBC’s “Today” show.
No Score
Collins said the panel may try to mark up the bill next week, but it hasn’t been processed yet by the Congressional Budget Office, which will provide a “score” on its cost, as well as an estimate of how many people the plan will insure. That score is critical to the debate, because the GOP plan is expected to provide coverage for significantly fewer people than Obamacare.
“It looks like, unfortunately, based on the delays, we may be marking it up and voting on it before we have a score,” Collins said.
The committee has made no final decisions on timing for any markup, said a Republican committee aide who didn’t want to be identified.
Moving ahead without a CBO score could be a problem for some members, particularly conservatives, who are worried that leaders might end up replacing Obamacare with something of a similar cost.
https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/837074985067819010?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
https://twitter.com/NBCNightlyNews/status/837083908957167616?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
John FugelsangVerified account @JohnFugelsang
“Obama divided us by race” just sounds better than “Obama really upset all the racists.”
Yes, if only that BARACK OBAMA wasn’t BLACK.
https://twitter.com/stanscates/status/837024081119600640?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
https://twitter.com/ferallike/status/837020459325657096?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
https://twitter.com/bimadew/status/837002046243016704?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Accountants involved in Oscar flub won’t work Oscars again
BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
2 HOURS AGO
The president of the film academy says the two accountants responsible for the best-picture flub at Sunday’s Academy Awards will never work the Oscars again.
Cheryl Boone Isaacs said Wednesday that Brian Cullinan, the PwC representative responsible for handing over the errant envelope that led to La La Land mistakenly being announced as best picture rather than Moonlight, was distracted backstage. He tweeted (and later deleted) a photo of Emma Stone in the wings with her new Oscar minutes before giving presenters Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway the wrong envelope for best picture.
Cullinan and his colleague, Martha Ruiz, have been permanently removed from all film academy dealings, Boone Isaacs said.
The academy president broke her silence four days after the biggest blunder in the 89-year history of the Academy Awards. She told The Associated Press that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ relationship with PwC, which has been responsible for tallying and revealing Oscar winners for 83 years, remains under review.
…
http://mashable.com/2017/03/01/accountants-oscar-flub-done/?utm_cid=mash-com-Tw-main-link#f4VbGnsOeEqx
There’s no reason for style to triumph over substance
03/01/17 02:43 PM
By Steve Benen
NBC News’ Chuck Todd recently gave Politico an interesting tidbit about Donald Trump. During the campaign, after his “Meet the Press” appearances, the Republican would request that the control room replay the interview for him – on mute.
“Then there’s the amount of time he spends after the interview is over, with the sound off,” Todd said of Trump. “He wants to see what it all looked like.”
The insight tells us something important about the president’s priorities: as far as Trump is concerned, what he says is less important than how he looked while saying it. Substance is fine, as far as it goes, but style is the real priority.
As coverage of the president’s address to Congress continues, it’s hard not to wonder just how many pundits feel the exact same way.
The Washington Post’s Robert Costa noted this morning that White House officials were “frankly surprised” this morning at pundits’ praise for Trump’s speech. The reporter’s sources said the president’s agenda “has not changed,” and there’s “no big shift in policy coming.”
Morale at State Department at Rock Bottom
by Martin Longman
March 1, 2017 2:33 PM
Here’s how things look from inside the State Department:
Do you want another perspective?
Those quotes come from an excellent piece Julia Ioffe just had published at The Atlantic.
Trump Won’t Be Filling Hundreds of Agency Jobs
by Nancy LeTourneau
February 28, 2017 2:24 PM
A lot of publications have been reporting that, while Trump complains about the Democrats delaying confirmation of his cabinet picks, there are hundreds of positions where the administration hasn’t even offered a nominee. In this interview, the president admitted that he’s not planning to do so.
That is an important admission as it reflects on both Trump and his so-called “shadow president,” Steve Bannon. As we’ve already noted, in his speech at CPAC, Bannon suggested that one of his main goals was the deconstruction of the administrative state. Leaving important policy positions open is step one in that process. Of course, that also leads to the kind of incompetence and chaos that we’ve already witnessed from this White House. But for Bannon, that is more likely a feature than a bug.
When it comes to the president himself, this move reflects on what others have described as his management style (or lack of one). Drawing from those who either worked for Trump or wrote about his business dealings, Michael Kruse says:
Trump biographer Tim O’Brien summed it all up by saying, ““He’s not a great manager. He’s a performance artist pretending to be a great manager.”
Extended Senate Delays Leave a Rural State Voiceless
by Peregrine Frissell
February 28, 2017 6:30 PM
Obstructionism is the norm in Congress, and one minor ripple of continued deadlock is disproportionately being felt in Montana. As Senate Democrats do everything in their power to delay confirmation of Trump’s Cabinet picks, a fraught political debate is surfacing in the Big Sky State: Should sitting members of Congress awaiting approval for Cabinet roles still cast their votes?
Congressman Ryan Zinke, Montana’s lone representative and Trump’s pick for interior secretary, missed 87 percent of his votes between his re-election in November and mid-February, according to a report by Montana Public Radio. (Trump chose him for the position in early December.) Last year, Zinke missed just 2.7 percent of his votes, just barely above the median for members of the House.
An absence like Zinke’s may garner less vitriol in some states, but rural states with miniscule populations — Montana has just over a million residents — face to lose their entire voice in the House of Representatives as long, drawn-out political fights delay key confirmation hearings. Zinke hasn’t indicated why he has shirked his congressional duties, though Reps. Mike Pompeo, Tom Price, and Mick Mulvaney also were nominated for Trump’s Cabinet and have similarly abstained from voting. Zinke’s office did not return a request for comment from the Monthly.
The God-King Spews White Power on Congress
Posted by The BPI Squirrel | Mar 1, 2017
Last night the God-King gave Congress a big ol’ White Power salute…. (More)
“Trump likes to use anecdotes as evidence”
“But-but-but Squirrel!” some wingnut somewhere howls, “This wasn’t a white power speech. Didn’t you hear him open with a call for civil rights!”
Actually no, I didn’t hear that, because I didn’t watch the speech. I have better ways to get indigestion. But I read it this morning, and it’s true that he started with a fillip to unity:
Tonight, as we mark the conclusion of our celebration of Black History Month, we are reminded of our nation’s path toward civil rights and the work that still remains. Recent threats targeting Jewish Community Centers and vandalism of Jewish cemeteries, as well as last week’s shooting in Kansas City, remind us that while we may be a nation divided on policies, we are a country that stands united in condemning hate and evil in all its forms.
Except this was the God-King’s first mention of the murder of an Indian immigrant by a white supremacist last week in Kansas City. Like the murders at Quebec mosque by a white supremacist last month, the God-King would rather no one noticed, or at least that no one blamed white supremacists. So he mentions them as briefly as possible, if at all. He gave the murder in Kansas City just nine words … and that’s if you include the linking phrase “as well as.”
https://bpicampus.com/2017/03/01/the-god-king-spews-white-power-on-congress/
India: Mourners Protest Trump at Funeral of Srinivas Kuchibhotla
HEADLINES MAR 01, 2017
In India, crowds of people protested against Donald Trump at the funeral of 32-year-old Srinivas Kuchibhotla, an aviation engineer who was shot and killed by a white man in Kansas last week. Navy veteran Adam Purinton reportedly yelled “Get out of my country!” before opening fire on Kuchibhotla and his friend, who was wounded. Purinton apparently thought the two Indian men were Iranian. Purinton is white. At the funeral in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad, mourners chanted “Down with Trump” and held up signs reading “Down with Racism.”
https://www.democracynow.org/2017/3/1/headlines
Of all the incredibly stupid statements being made by Trump et al, I think Betsy DeVos is winning so far this week.
Betsy DeVos Ridiculed for Calling Historically Black Colleges “Pioneers” of “School Choice”
HEADLINES MAR 01, 2017
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is facing backlash and ridicule after she claimed that historically black colleges and universities are an example of “school choice,” following a listening session at the White House Monday with the presidents and chancellors of these historically black colleges and universities, often known as HBCUs. In a statement, she wrote, “HBCUs are real pioneers when it comes to school choice. They are living proof that when more options are provided to students, they are afforded greater access and greater quality.” On Twitter, many ridiculed DeVos’s comments, saying they displayed a lack of historical context. HBCUs were established because black students were prohibited from attending public colleges and universities throughout much of the United States’s history. One Twitter user wrote, “Betsy DeVos said HBCUs were about school choice. As if white/colored water fountains were about beverage options.” Another user joked that it was as if DeVos had said, “Rosa Parks is a real pioneer when it comes to seat choice.”
https://www.democracynow.org/2017/3/1/headlines
The STUPID, CONTINUES TO BURN.
Ok Ladies. Help me understand how I am supposed to find common ground with people who proved with their vote, they do not care whether I live or die? What is left to ‘understand’ about people who chose to support politicians touting policies that add to the suffering of MILLIONS of people with impunity? I have longed since left the church, but I see nothing that resembles Jesus or love or compassion or grace in supporting 45. And why am I supposed to grant them reasonable and compassionate empathy about their vote now that their shame has outed them, when they proved with their vote they don’t care about the pain of others unless they are white? I’m serious here. Please. Help me.
Hi Coach4divas. YOU.CAN.NOT.
That would be like asking an AX MURDERER if you can sharpen his ax, before he chops you into little bitty pieces!
The short answer is that there is no common ground. If we start from a place where we assume that human beings are basically good, and that this goodness can always be somehow accessed, and that humans will respond with compassion when confronted with another’s pain and suffering, then we will be disappointed more often than not. And from the perspective of governance, specifically democratic governance, we will fail to legislate policies that are based on equality and justice.
But the good news is that until voter turnout = 100%, there are always more voters. People who were 16 and 17 in 2016 can vote in 2018. More of the older, conservative voters will be dead or institutionalized. Demographics in this country continue to shift away from a white majority, and, not all white people are Trump supporters.
Trump should not be the president. He is the president because an unlikely set of events opened the back door and he got in. The challenge now is to preserve our democratic institutions so that we are ready for the elections in 2018 and 2020.
There are more of us than of them. That is where we start, with that knowledge. And we will eventually prevail.
Contradicting his own team, Trump embraces ‘voodoo economics’
02/28/17 02:19 PM—UPDATED 02/28/17 03:11 PM
By Steve Benen
Donald Trump’s budget director, Mick Mulvaney, briefed reporters yesterday on the White House’s new proposed budget, which as you’ve probably heard, seeks significant new spending on the military. Mulvaney said the $54 billion increase to existing defense spending is “one of the largest increases in history,” and it will be offset by cutting investments in everything else.
“It’s the largest proposed reduction [to non-defense spending] since the early years of the Reagan administration,” Mulvaney added.
And while the core idea will be the basis for a spirited debate, it’s worth pausing to note that the president this morning painted a very different picture of the administration’s budget plans. Reuters reported:
Very interesting Twitter thread
https://mobile.twitter.com/alexandraerin/status/836815249655365632
Umm hmm
Good Morning, Everyone😐😐😐
#ICE bound a young Latino mother’s hands & feet and forcibly removed her from the hospital but Van Jones thinks the beast is presidential. He can go have a seat. I don’t want to look at his disgusting ASS again. He literally makes me ill. Disgusting groveling BlackAssFool.
Van Jones
tell it!!
Whoo LORD! That simple ASS NEGRO. I.CAN’T. JUST CAN NOT.
Van Jones
LOL THAT GIF THO! One of my all time favs.
Good morning, all.
HUMP DAY! Tell the truth Rikyrah. SIT ALL THE WAY DOWN & GET ALL THE WAY BACK.
STAY IN YOUR LANES, MOFOS. You built & voted for that.
Now FUCK OFF.