President Obama made some remarks a short while ago about Trayvon Martin and the Zimmerman trial verdict:
Excerpts from his remarks in the White House briefing room:
“Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago.”
“If a white male teen would have been involved in this scenario,” he said, “both the outcome and the aftermath might have been different.”
“The African-American community is looking at this through a set of experiences and history that doesn’t go away,” he said.
“If Trayvon Martin was of age and was armed, could he have stood his ground on that sidewalk?” Obama asked. “If the answer to that question is at least ambiguous, then it seems to me that we should examine those [“stand your ground”] laws.”
It’s almost as if he thinks he has a unique perspective to share on that particular case or that he’s suggesting that justice isn’t always applied evenly in the Greatest Country On Earth!
NickT
Good for Obama. He’s absolutely right – and we’ve got a lot of fighting to do before we get close to equal justice for all in this country.
PsiFighter37
Cue Village gnashing of teeth about Obama’s refusal to recognize we live in a post-racial society
Zapruder F. Mashtots, D.D.S. (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
Good for him. It’s long past time to talk about this shit like we mean it.
Zapruder F. Mashtots, D.D.S. (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
Good for him. It’s long past time to talk about this shit like we mean it.
PeakVT
Sometimes I really wish all those wingnut noggins would explode. This would be a good time.
Also, thank you Mr. President.
schrodinger's cat
That is why I am still an Obot. I hope TNC will be happy now, his articles since Obama’s reelection have been too whiny and too critical of Obama. I think he is suffering from a case of Liberal Villageritis, i.e. you can be a liberal in good standing with the Village iff you criticize the Democrats.
*ducks before any of TNC’s fans appear.
Rommie
He makes perfectly reasonable comments AND throws out a heaping pile of troll bait at the same time. POTUS hasn’t lost a step at all.
scav
One of the Guard’s flashing Breaking news is: “America is not a post-racial society.” Another one is about a mini-cow that resembles a panda.
NickT
@schrodinger’s cat:
I’ve thought for a while that TNC was playing the role of the latest reasonable black man to excess, possibly because the Atlantic isn’t exactly a blazing beacon of liberal courage and radicalism.
quannlace
Consider them exploded. Just read on Daily Kos a fragrant bouquet of Tweets on this, both individuals and Fox pundits. It’s absolutely amazing how these people are obsessed with violence. ‘Race riot’ is used in almost everyone.
Short Bus Bully
Holy fucking awesome! Mr. Prez just made my day.
The squidclouds of wingnut butthurt will blot the sun from the sky. Fucking glorious! We need to keep having this conversation, it IS an important one.
Fuck and yes.
pharniel
Charles Johnson at LGF is all over this – His tweet about the wingularities reactions got retweeted by WillW.
and yes – it’s just as fucked up as you can imagine.
schrodinger's cat
@NickT: It has paid off, now he gets to write for the NYT too.
Villago Delenda Est
Absolute fucking truth. I wouldn’t even leave the “might” in as a weasel word.
If the shooter were a black man and the victim a white teenager, there wouldn’t have been a trial, because the black adult shooter would have died by “accident” in police custody.
Anna in PDX
Wow, I guess he does really understand the fact that with the bigots and rightwingers, he is damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t, so he might as well use his perspective and hopefully make a few non-POC people think and acquire a measure of empathy for POC and what it is like for them in this kind of an atmosphere and with these kinds of laws.
NickT
@schrodinger’s cat:
His comments section reads like one of those ghastly seminars where no-one ever says anything interesting or challenging because the professor might be offended.
Villago Delenda Est
@PsiFighter37:
As I said in a previous thread, nuke The Village from space.
Only way to be sure.
raven
Who the fuck is TNC?
Belafon
@PsiFighter37: I believe the way it was put on twitter is “See, Obama’s the most racist president ever.”
Groucho48
Yep. Already a thread with 30-odd replies on my gaming forum. Most of them, as usual, calling Obama the racist for playing “the race card”.
For the year or so leading up to the trial, their constant and oft-repeated refrain was…this has nothing to do with racism and only black racists and their white guilt liberal allies think it does have anything to do with race.
Then, Jeantel mentioned that Martin called Zimmerman a crazy-ass cracker, and, instantly, there were a dozen threads about this was all about racism and Martin was clearly a thug and racist who brought about his own death by RACISM. (no, they aren’t very connected to reality.).
Suddenly, today, the whole thing, once again, has nothing to do with racism and anyone who thinks it does, like Obama, is just encouraging black folks to wallow in being victims. (that, of course, is pure projection on their part.)
They are also disappointed there weren’t any riots after the verdict, though, they are diligent about searching out any and all violent incidents that might possibly be connected to the verdict. I believe they are up to three, two of which have been debunked.
NickT
@raven:
Ta-Nehisi Coates. Writes for the Atlantic and, of late, for the NYT.
schrodinger's cat
@raven: Ta-Nehisi Coates.
Kay
Yeah, because that’s what he thinks. He think “youth of other colors” shouldn’t be encouraged.
Is Robert Zimmerman a celebrity now? Are we stuck with his incredibly banal and self-interested pronouncements for the rest of our adult lives?
Villago Delenda Est
@raven:
Ta-Nehisi Coates
askew
Noggins are exploding on the left and right. Apparently Obama shouldn’t be able to identify with Martin because Obama is 1/2 white. Racism is not just on the right.
Zapruder F. Mashtots, D.D.S. (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
Crap. Why do my posts sometimes come up twice? Does this happen to anybody else?
And something else I’ve been thinking about today… So this morning I was driving my 6 year old somewhere and flipping through the dial, and Sam Stein was on talking to a woman about news and they were taking calls. A white guy called in and said something along the lines that race is still a problem here, and that he thought that a lot of the people who are so vehemently against Obama are at least partly against him because of his race. And Sam Stein, who I believe is a liberal, kind of pooh-poohed that, saying that it was much more about politics.
And I happened to think how weird it is that for anybody in the press to get taken seriously, they really have to wave away any suggestion that Obama pisses a lot of people off because he’s black, or that racism is still a huge problem here or that there could be a big percentage still of us in America who are racists. What the hell? How can it be even remotely “controversial” to say that? I mean, shit, it isn’t like we haven’t seen all kinds of racist shit spewing all over the fucking place for the last five years, but we have to buy into this fantasy that it’s “only a few bad apples” or it’s “an aberration” or “they don’t speak for most Americans” or some such shit like that. Why is there such unwillingness to talk or write about this? Yes, people like Eugene Robinson write about it and talk about it, but, well, you know, he’s Black, and you know how they are. Or Rachel Maddow talks about it, but, well, she’s a little, you know, radical. Edgy. And–keep your voice down–she’s a lesbian, and, yeah, you know how they are, too, right? So however many legitimate stories she scoops everybody on, they can wave her away, too.
What is it about the press here? We can all see this shit. Why is it so hard for them to say, “Yeah, I wish it were otherwise, but a whole shitload of Americans are ignorant, sadistic racist assholes.” We can never deal with this shit if the people who have the loudest platforms can’t (or won’t) even say it openly.
NickT
@Kay:
Incident? That’s an interesting way to describe stalking and murdering a boy who was doing nothing more than walk down the street packing candy.
kc
Oh dear Jesus. The shrieks of outrage from the right will be deafening.
batgirl
@Villago Delenda Est: Most people like to change the races but I appreciate the President’s point — I’ve always thought that if Zimmerman had stalked, shot, and killed a white 17-year old boy, he would have been convicted of manslaughter at a minimum. No need to make Zimmerman black.
Sibling Nonspecific Firearm of Random Adjective Followed by a Noun That Describes a Mental State (fka AWS)
OT, but Detroit might not be filing bankruptcy after all.
Mainly because the chuckleheads tried to do an end-around on pensioner plaintiffs who were supposed to be at the courthouse.
MomSense
@schrodinger’s cat:
Same here.
Villago Delenda Est
@Groucho48:
The mental gymnastics are pretty impressive, aren’t they? I wonder what the East German judge will give them for that?
piratedan
liked ABL’s tweet:
here’s hoping that this will lead to more dialogue, but I suspect that the Right will do their usual dance of projectionism, finger pointing and couch fainting
Villago Delenda Est
@batgirl:
Agreed. Make the kid white, and Zimmerman would have been convicted of at least manslaughter.
Nick
“I am NOT a racist,” says the principled white conservative, “it’s those race-pimps and race-hustlers Jesse Jackson and Barack Odumba who are the REAL racists!”
kc
@Kay:
Is Robert Zimmerman a celebrity now? Are we stuck with his incredibly banal and self-interested pronouncements for the rest of our adult lives?
Wait’ll he gets a paying gig on Fox.
Belafon
@askew: where?
dollared
@askew: Yeah. 1/2 is certainly enough to get you killed. Or at the very least pulled over 3X as often.
BGinCHI
Shorter Obama: Fuck the crazy crackers.
/though with love to the Betty Crackers
NickT
@kc:
Well, if Child-killer Jenny can get a seat on The View….
Chris
I expect a lot of wingnuts heard that and thought “if only.”
Bubblegum Tate
INCITING RACE WAR!
raven
@Villago Delenda Est: Man I am really out of it. I didn’t know who “Sully” or the military guy that used to have a blog but now it just twitter. I think I’m going to go get my shingle shot!
O'Brien
Howdy Groucho!
That place sure has a lot of racist fuckheads.
gene108
America-Hating-Commie-Pinko-Fag-Islamofascits-Socialist-Scum!
America is not just the greatest country on Earth, but as Sean Hannitty rightly pointed out: The U.S. is the greatest, best country God has ever given man on the face of the earth. Link
You implied assumption there’s ever been a country better than America is now or will be in the future disgusts me!
Villago Delenda Est
@Nick:
It’s a Tell fail parade, it is.
schrodinger's cat
@NickT: Everyone is so polite. I will take the jackals and hyenas of the Balloon Juice comments section any day.
Kay
@NickT:
We’re supposed to be grateful for his volunteer work-except for that last assignment.
It just doesn’t move me. I don’t want him armed and looking out for “punks.” Why do I have to be grateful that he did that free? I don’t think I do!
scav
Choosing a time, choosing a larger context for actions to play off of and against and choosing a battlefield. This could work.
Villago Delenda Est
@raven:
Make sure the shot is flu vaccine, not Wild Turkey.
Chris
@gene108:
I’ve always found the ease with which Americans blended God’s will and the United States to be bordering on idolatry, but whatever. No doubt Conservapedia’s Bible project will clear away any suggestion that American Destiny isn’t inextricably linked to Jeebus’ will.
BGinCHI
@schrodinger’s cat: Get stuffed!
schrodinger's cat
@Zapruder F. Mashtots, D.D.S. (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): I have seen Tweety say it out loud on TV at times but he is the only one, as far as I can remember.
FlipYrWhig
@kc: Being related to a wingnut celebrity was good enough to launch the careers of Bill Kristol, David Limbaugh, Michael Reagan, Brent Bozell, and Jonah Goldberg. So I’m sure The Bad Robert Zimmerman has as good a shot as anyone. Pun not originally intended, then totally intended.
schrodinger's cat
@BGinCHI: Are you insulting me? If so, I didn’t get it.
raven
@Villago Delenda Est: The booze would likely kill me!
I’m doing a quick edit of an American History text. Did you know there was a “Greaser Act of 1885”? What a fucked up country.
BGinCHI
@schrodinger’s cat: It was to emphasize the jackal quality of this place, without saying “go fuck yourself.”
Gratuitous insult fail.
gene108
@Chris:
What always got me about that quote from Sean is the implied assumption that we’ve reached the apex of human social evolution and it’s never getting any better because if we are the best now, clearly change will make us un-best because how can you be better than the best?
It’s both self-righteous ultra-patriotic gibberish nestled in some seriously nihilistic view of the world.
Kay
@FlipYrWhig:
I’ve heard him, but never seen him. I’m hoping I can keep that up.
BGinCHI
@raven: I think the case is Vinny Barbarino vs. US.
Villago Delenda Est
@Zapruder F. Mashtots, D.D.S. (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
The MSM will never deal with this shit because to do so honestly could disrupt the revenue train that is their sole reason for existence.
The worship of Mammon is the doom of this country.
IowaOldLady
A while back, someone on this site said it took Obama’s election to show them how racist the country still is. Before that, s/he thought some people were still racist but mostly, we’d made progress. Then came the 2008 election and suddenly we had pictures of the POTUS with a bone in his nose and ordinary looking folks laughed.
That rang true for me. It’s been very educational and not in a happy way.
Zapruder F. Mashtots, D.D.S. (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
I just watched the clip, and I liked how he spoke about how Black Americans get followed when shopping or they cross the street and hear car doors lock or people grab their handbags more tightly when they get on the elevator. And I could just hear the wingnuts screaming, “But he can say ‘Nigger!’ and I can’t!” Since, after all, that’s clearly the greater injustice.
gbear
@schrodinger’s cat: Another Obot checking in. This may actually be kind of fun. I love it when he comes out and just says stuff that makes perfect sense. The village can’t deal with it
raven
@BGinCHI: In 1885?
“The Greaser Act was an anti-Mexican law enacted in 1855 in California, thinly disguised as an anti-vagrancy statute. The law defined a vagrant as “all persons who are commonly known as ‘Greasers’ or the issue of Spanish and Indian blood… and who go armed and are not peaceable and quiet persons.” The law was repealed a few years later.”
cleek
whatever. he’s still the worst ever and no real liberal should do anything but spit on the ground when his name is mentioned.
Chris
@gene108:
Yeah, and it’s tied in to their belief in the Founding Fathers specifically as the apex of all possible evolution. It’s why everything that came afterwards is considered heresy, because it can’t possibly be that the Founding Fathers got it wrong.
The deification of the founders is one of the things that pisses me off the most about U.S. politics. Treating politics as religion (fundamentalist religion at that) is one of the many reasons we can’t get shit done.
NickT
@BGinCHI:
Ted & Hellen
Why is Obama making this all about HIM?
Why is he inserting HIMSELF into this story?
He’s so self obsessed, so egocentric, so MEMEMEMEMEMEMEME all the time, you know, like Snowalden.
All snark aside, he really ought to put a sock in it and pay attention to his own job in, you know, Washington D.C.
gene108
Also, too the one take away I’ve gotten – in terms of broader social implications – is a large percentage of the U.S. population thinks black men are scary and therefore harsher treatment of them is justified.
If nothing else this message has really been lit up for the world to see.
askew
@dollared:
Yep, funny how Obama is only considered white when racists on left and right want to attack Obama over something.
Villago Delenda Est
@NickT:
But I was looking for an argument!
pillsy
@Villago Delenda Est:
Make the kid white, and Zimmerman would have copped a plea early because he wouldn’t have had bigots bankrolling a quarter-million dollar defense.
Sibling Nonspecific Firearm of Random Adjective Followed by a Noun That Describes a Mental State (fka AWS)
@cleek: because drooonnneeezz and snoooowden
Violet
NBC did a Breaking News thing on this, with Brian Williams anchoring and Chuckie Todd standing outside the White House. Really kind of amazing. So glad the President did this. So glad.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I’m sure more than a few ‘respectable’ Villagers will timidly, or not so timidly, scold Obama for politicizing race and/or a ‘minor’ criminal case (forget who said that about the Zimmerman trial). I’m talking about the likes of Uncle Brokaw and Parson Meacham, not the usual Fox News suspects. And I only read about half the comments, so I don’t if any of our own usual suspects have weighed in to echo Geraldine Ferraro’s “it’s almost as if you’re supposed to be apologize for being white”.
Along these lines, Bill “Motherfuckin’ Iced Tea” O’Reilly thinks talking about ingrained cultural racism, even to listen to someone talking about it, is unpatriotic.
NickT
@Villago Delenda Est:
No, you weren’t!
Kay
So I read the whole thing. Do people really think it’s a radical thing to say?
It just seems (typically) measured and complete and calm to me.
Maybe he was screaming and pointing and pacing wildly when he said it.
OR they’re just having their weekly nervous breakdown. It IS Friday, and they haven’t had one since Sunday.
askew
@Belafon:
Daily Kos mostly. I need to stop reading that site. It pisses me off every time I bother to read something there.
Patrick
@Ted & Hellen:
He did. Acting like a leader is his job.
Belafon
@Ted & Hellen: I’m going to answer this seriously, even though that’s not what you are looking for.
Race is still a very big issue in America, and therefore it’s something Obama needs to keep bringing up. As long as we refuse to discuss race, we will not fix the issues caused by it.
BGinCHI
@NickT: Pretty solid. Coffee-nosed is right on the mark, and since I commuted in on my bike today (feels like 97, against the wind) I am indeed festering and malodorous.
Now you can get back to going and fucking yourself.
NickT
@Kay:
Look at TeddyTroll’s immediate response – to try and blame the president for talking about American reality. I think that’s pretty telling about how confident the racists are in the quality of their own arguments.
Betty Cracker
ATTN: As a personal favor, could y’all please ignore Stalky McTrollerson, who is attempting to make yet another thread all about him? kthxbai!
Kay
@Zapruder F. Mashtots, D.D.S. (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
Michael Steele actually talked about that yesterday. He had a long story.
Imagine being him. He actually won elections and they fired him.
Patrick
@Kay:
If it is, then I am a radical. By the way, then Chris Wallace on FoxNews is also a radical since he agreed with it.
NickT
@BGinCHI:
BGinCHI
@Kay: I wish that guy had the brain and the stones to flip on the GOP and ratfuck them. Wonder if he knows where any of the bodies are buried?
PeakVT
@Betty Cracker: Or install Greasemonkey and Cleek’s pie filter.
schrodinger's cat
@BGinCHI: I was actually thinking about how we drove away EDK and more recently boring Freddie.
BGinCHI
@NickT: Stupid Macbook Pro doesn’t have a coin slot!
Thanks Obama!
Oh, and say hi to your mother for me.
Belafon
@askew: That’s just a few people, and they are getting hammered for it.
We have T&H here; are you going to leave here as well?
NickT
@BGinCHI:
I’m sorry, but I’m not allowed to argue unless you’ve paid!
BGinCHI
@schrodinger’s cat: If you want to make an omelette….
I think those two learned that the market of ideas can really pack a punch.
Michele C.
@FlipYrWhig: Seriously, Wurzelbacher got on TV for what seemed like forever.
gbear
@Betty Cracker: I left him a note on the ‘who’s your daddy’ thread. Maybe he can go back and respond to that.
Zapruder F. Mashtots, D.D.S. (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
@NickT:
I believe the words were “toffee-nosed pervert”. Though I could be wrong.
Kay
@Patrick:
I thought he did a good job with the always-popular-among-pundits “black on black crime!” angle. One side, then the other side. Very generous interpretation of their argument.
Darkrose
@schrodinger’s cat: I stopped reading TNC a few months ago. His “I don’t game any more because I’m a grownup now” post rubbed me the wrong way. He’s gotten so busy trying to be sensible and intellectual and adult that he’s become kind of boring for me. I used to read him for a perspective that was different from the default Village party line, but now he’s just another Villager as far as I’m concerned.
Ted & Hellen
@Betty Cracker:
lol
Insecure Bitter Betty
Poopyman
@Villago Delenda Est: Actually, vodka out of the freezer is prescribed for today. According to closest neighboring weather stations, the heat index here is between 114 and 117. And I’m in Maryland.
NickT
@Zapruder F. Mashtots, D.D.S. (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
I am sure you are right. Coffee-nosed has a certain charm though in our age of over-caffeinated ragegasms.
Darkrose
@NickT: I get the value of moderating comments, but they’re way too happy with the banhammer over there.
BGinCHI
@NickT: Sorry, I gave all my money to Cole’s parents so they’ll keep loving him.
Kay
@BGinCHI:
I’ve said this before but I’ve liked him ever since I saw him on tv at the WH correspondents dinner. He was really laughing at Obama making fun of him.
The rest of them laugh like this: “HA HA HA”
LAC
@Ted & Hellen:Don’t you have some fecal matter to collect for your next great painting “Dog running away from master”?
NickT
@Darkrose:
Also true. That said, this place could use a banhammer judiciously deployed from time to time.
schrodinger's cat
@Darkrose: TNC kitteh?
Darkrose
@schrodinger’s cat: Exactly!
Gin & Tonic
@schrodinger’s cat: And deservedly so.
askew
@Belafon:
It’s not just a few people and it isn’t the first time it happened there. That site has driven off the majority of the reasonable posters. All that are left are libertarians, conspiracy theorists and racists for the most part. That’s why I stick to the elections sub-site there.
And I’ve had T&H pied for ages so I don’t care how crazy he is.
Zapruder F. Mashtots, D.D.S. (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
@Kay:
Yes, why would that guy want to belong to a party that, if they could, a lot of those in it would have him back in chains picking cotton? Sometimes I wonder if maybe his eyes opened him after they went racist nuts on President Obama and then dumped his (Steele’s) ass, and he stays with the party because he gets more credit for dumping on the Republican Party if he still belongs to it than he would if he left.
Darkrose
@NickT: I don’t know who you mean. There’s someone here now who goes on a bit, but only about pie.
LAC
Good for the President. It needed to be stated and restated.
The Moar You Know
@IowaOldLady: I said that. I don’t know if anyone else has, but I’d be surprised if they didn’t.
Fucking wake-up call, the aftermath to his election was. He’s a black Republican in virtually everything but declared party affiliation, yet just about half this country would throw a party if he was lynched. That is fucked up.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kay: I think Steele is a sincere trickle-downer, so I don’t have much hope for him ever becoming a Dem and I don’t much want him. Maybe he and Ed Rendell could get together and just form the Fucking Deficit Scold Give Wall St Whatever The Fuck They Want Party.
Timmeh has added finger painting to his macaroni portraiture business?
BGinCHI
@Kay: I prefer him to the fake Dems like Terry McAuliffe. There’s a reason Rachel Maddow keeps talking to him, and I think it’s because he’s had it with the lies of the GOP.
KXB
@Darkrose:
TNC has gotten pretty boring, but I still give him credit where it is due. His essay on the pain of being overweight when he was younger, and living in a neighborhood where everyone was overweight, was jaw-droppingly good.
NickT
@BGinCHI:
He’s better than Rancid Previous or whatever their latest Grand Supremo is called.
BGinCHI
@NickT: That’s for fucking sure. At least Steele isn’t a cookie cutter College Repub.
I still think it’s possible he was in the tank for the Dems the whole time.
schrodinger's cat
@Gin & Tonic: Oh I agree!
Redshirt
Why’s he gotta use the Bully Pulpit like this? NO MOAR BULLY PULPITZ!
NickT
@BGinCHI:
I think he might be a Colin Powell repentant Republican without quite enough testicular fortitude to come out and say it.
Betty Cracker
@NickT: I think you mean Rinses Repeatus.
NickT
@Redshirt:
We wants the Teleprompterz of Doom, precious! Yessss precioussss!
Napoleon
@Sibling Nonspecific Firearm of Random Adjective Followed by a Noun That Describes a Mental State (fka AWS):
Don’t get too excited, her order is blatantly illegal. That state judge just committed contempt of court in a federal court action with her order (and if the attorneys for the pensions and unions were pushing it so are they). Basically what she is doing is exactly the same as the nullification actions some states have undertaken by passing laws saying that federal laws they don’t like do not apply. They cannot do that because of the supremacy clause in the constitution. Likewise the Constitution reserves to the federal government the right to establish bankruptcy and bankruptcy courts, all of which totally trump Michigan state laws and anything two bit asshats like that judge may want to do. I hope the bankruptcy judge hauls her and they union and pension attorneys in front of her and kick their asses good, like they deserve.
Citizen_X
@Zapruder F. Mashtots, D.D.S. (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
Boy, that really bugs them for some reason, huh? Like kids remembering some slight injustice forever. Just go ahead and say it, wingnuts. It’s not like you’re going to surprise anyone at this point.
BTW, what the hell is “the RACE CARD!!!,” other than mentioning race in any sort of critical context whatsoever?
Svensker
@Chris:
A friend of ours who’s a Calvinist pastor refuses to have flags in his church and says exactly that — many American Christians have become idolatrous pagans.
NickT
@Citizen_X:
The real question is why they so obviously, obsessively, desperately want to say it in the first place.
Redshirt
@Citizen_X: Well, you see, Real Conservatives don’t see “color”. Only racists like the President do. Thus, “playing the race card”.
Redshirt
@NickT: Because it will piss off liberals. Literally, this is the answer to everything they do or don’t do.
Emma
@KXB: I am a History major and I have learned more about African-American history from TNC than I did in college. His posts on the Zimmerman trial alone will keep me going back just to learn more.
LAC
@The Moar You Know: “Fucking wake-up call, the aftermath to his election was. He’s a black Republican in virtually everything but declared party affiliation, yet just about half this country would throw a party if he was lynched. That is fucked up. ”
You know, I getting a little fucking tired of the “he’s a black republican” – is it that hard for some of our liberal white guys to figure out that not all of us are some caricature of a Stokley Carmichael looking to stick it to the man? He has demonstrated a track record of accomplishments that no republican, black or white, would even touch. But apparently, unless he is busting a cap into wall street bankers or hanging Bush and Cheney by the balls somewhere, he is not the “angry black guy” we voted for.
You make good points. Why do you have to wade into the same Michael Moore/Bill Maher nonsense?
shilohsmama
@Ted & Hellen: NO, motherfucker.
Bobby Thomson
@Kay:
He pretty much was even before he went electric at Newport. That’s the only Robert Zimmerman I pay any attention to.
NickT
@Redshirt:
I think on this one it’s about more than that – it’s partly about their pathological need to demonstrate their “rightful” superiority by insulting other people as crassly as they can. The fact they they are a colossal, epic, appalling waste of human DNA, well, there’s nothing there that yelling racial insults won’t fix sufficiently for them to feel good about themselves.
eemom
@BGinCHI:
Please don’t say mean things about Terry, at least until after November. He’s all that stands between me and Governor BugfuckCrazy.
schrodinger's cat
@KXB: That’s the tragedy, he is very good with an unusual perspective and originality but success has made him a boring writer.
Josie
@eemom: Yeah, context is everything.
Bill Arnold
@The Moar You Know:
Disagree. On domestic issues he’s very slightly (maybe a pixel) to the left of a Rockefeller Republican would be if there were still any national-level RRs left.
Bokonon
Even as we speak, Fox News and the other wingnut framing network members are telling their members to be outraged … very outraged. Very very outraged.
The Moar You Know
@LAC: The reality of the situation: in my fifty years on the planet, taken as a whole, Obama is well to the right of every Republican president in my lifetime save for George W. Bush. That is a fact.
Nixon, Reagan, Bush I couldn’t survive a Republican primary these days and Nixon would be “too liberal” to survive even a Dem primary. Those too are facts. That this nation has slid hard to the right is no mystery. Obama, historically speaking, is a “rock-ribbed Eisenhower Republican”. No slam on him or Ike.
That’s fine. I like sane Republicans. I wish they could call themselves that and run as such, but they can’t.
@Bill Arnold: Rockefeller Republican – that’s the term I was looking for.
BGinCHI
@Emma: We told you not to go to Liberty!
Betty Cracker
@eemom: That’s what I was saying about Bank of America executive Alex Sink during the governor’s race in FL in 2010. Hope it works out better for you!
BGinCHI
@eemom: The devil you know is still a devil. You’re gonna need a long spoon.
LAC
@The Moar You Know: You saying its a fact doesn’t make it so. I thought you were going to come back with something more than some tired DKos blathering – right of (insert a President’s name) ? Really? That’s it?
Nemo_N
CNN chyron: “Race-Baiter-in-Chief”?
With the Cavuto Mark at the end, of course.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@The Moar You Know: Wow. Obama is to the right of Reagan, and Reagan was “too liberal” for a contemporary Democratic primary. What color is the sun in your world? And how many are there?
LAC
Sybrina Fulton & Tracy Martin Comment on
President Obama’s Remarks About Trayvon Martin
New York, NY – July 19, 2013: We are deeply honored and moved that President Obama took the time to speak publicly and at length about our son, Trayvon. The President’s comments give us great strength at this time. We are thankful for President Obama’s and Michelle’s prayers, and we ask for your prayers as well as we continue to move forward.
We know that the death of our son Trayvon, the trial and the not guilty verdict have been deeply painful and difficult for many people. We know our family has become a conduit for people to talk about race in America and to try and talk about the difficult issues that we need to bring into the light in order to become a better people.
What touches people is that our son, Trayvon Benjamin Martin, could have been their son. President Obama sees himself in Trayvon and identifies with him. This is a beautiful tribute to our boy.
Trayvon’s life was cut short, but we hope that his legacy will make our communities a better place for generations to come. We applaud the President’s call to action to bring communities together to encourage an open and difficult dialogue. Our family is committed to this dialogue through the work of the Trayvon Martin Foundation.
We seek a future when a child can walk down the street and not worry that others see him as dangerous because of the color of his skin or the clothes on his back. We seek a future where our children can grow up and become the people God intended them to be.
Bobby Thomson
@The Moar You Know:
No, that is complete and total horseshit.
Nixon and Ford did some things that were more liberal, but they could and/or had to because Democrats had huge majorities in Congress, especially after the 1974 Watergate election. Reagan illegally funded the violent overthrow of the Nicaraguan government, backed Latin American death squads, made an open mike joke about bombing the Soviet Union, stopped enforcing the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, began the effort to starve the federal government through “Reaganomics,” sent military spending through the roof against nonexistent enemies, kept the minimum wage stagnant, slashed the EPA’s budget, appointed Scalia to the Supreme Court, appointed right religious nut job James Watt to head Interior, appointed right wing hack Ed Meese as Attorney General, stopped promoting fuel efficiency, stopped promoting alternative energy (including removing solar panels from the White House), ignore AIDS other than suggesting that maybe HIV positive kids shouldn’t go to school, and would have done much worse if a Democratic Congress hadn’t stopped him. Bush was better than Reagan, but almost anyone would have been.
Obama well to the right of Reagan? You’re high, stupid, or both.
Jeremy
@LAC: This black republican nonsense needs to stop. If people looked at the guy’s record in the Illinois state senate, the U.S Senate, and the accomplishments he achieved as president he would be considered a center-left democrat. From social issues, the recovery act, expansion of medicaid and SCHIP, Financial regulations and the CFPB, ACA, Student loan reform, Credit Card reform, Climate change plan and new environmental regulations and so on and so forth.
The guy doesn’t get credit for doing what he said he was going to do when he ran in 2008. He is a pragmatic center-left democrat.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@NickT: Twit TWIT TWIT, not tit!
Davis X. Machina
@Jeremy: Property still isn’t theft. The commanding heights of the economy are still not owned by the workers. Not once has he called upon us to expropriate the expropriators.
You won’t catch me voting for him again.
Jeremy
@The Moar You Know: Obama is not to the right of Reagan or George H.W. Bush. The fact that you said that proves you have no clue what you are talking about.
Reagan didn’t push new environmental regulations, he didn’t push a near Trillion dollar recovery plan larger than the New Deal as a percentage of GDP that had large investments in education, health care reforms, clean energy projects, infrastructure, middle class/ working class tax cuts and new tax credits. Reagan didn’t push for new Financial regulations and the creation of the first Consumer Financial Protection Agency. Reagan didn’t support Gay marriage, allow gay and lesbians into the military, and was not pro life when he was president. Reagan did not strip subsidies to the banks through the student loan reform bill. How about being the first president to get us to Universal health care which will lead to further reforms and innovations.
You clearly have no idea what you are talking about.
Da;vid Koch
√ Withdrawing all troops from Iraq
√ Ending the war in Afghanistan
√ Keep the US out of war in Syria and Iran
√ Repealing DADT
√ Overturning DOMA
√ Regulating CO2
√ Raising car millage to 55 mpg
√ Rescuing the Auto Industry
√ Preventing a 2nd Great Depression
√ Reducing the cost of health premiums 70%
√ Ending rescission, pre-existing conditions, lifetime caps.
√ Bring health insurance to 50 million people.
√ Executive Dream Act
√ Ending gender discrimination in the Military
√ Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
√ Lilly Ledbetter Act
√ Mathew Sheppard Hate Crimes Act
√ Credit Card Reform Act
√ Food Safety Act
√ Eliminating banks from federal student loans
√ Capturing bin Laden
√ Reducing Nuclear arms by 66%
Brace yourself haters, President Obama may yet end up on Mount Rushmore.
lamh36
The usual suspects are shouting “what took so long” for President Obama to speak on verdict (btw, it’s only been 5 days people!!!). I’m betting POTUS like all of us felt the same: the first day, we were numb, by day 2 we had a simmering anger, day 3-4, juror pissed us off….Day 4-5 Trayvon’s parents spoke about their feelings. Day 5 we could talk w/o getting angry.
As for the President’s remarks, I just watched the complete statement by POTUS. It was heartfelt, personal, and without accusation and NOT divisive AT ALL. The usual racist will do what they gonna do, but that ain’t on us or POTUS.
Da;vid Koch
√ Withdrawing all troops from Iraq
√ Ending the war in Afghanistan
√ Keep the US out of war in Syria and Iran
√ Repealing DADT
√ Overturning DOMA
√ Regulating CO2
√ Raising car millage to 55 mpg
√ Rescuing the Auto Industry
√ Preventing a 2nd Great Depression
√ Reducing the cost of health premiums 70%
√ Ending rescission, pre-existing conditions, lifetime caps.
√ Bring health insurance to 50 million people.
√ Executive Dream Act
√ Ending gender discrimination in the Military
√ Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
√ Lilly Ledbetter Act
√ Mathew Sheppard Hate Crimes Act
√ Credit Card Reform Act
√ Food Safety Act
√ Eliminating banks from federal student loans
√ Capturing bin Laden
√ Reducing Nuclear arms by 66%
Brace yourself haters, President Obama may yet end up on Mount Rushmore.
Da;vid Koch
o
Kay
@Nemo_N:
It’s good, though. It’s their favorite subject. Not “race” but race-baiting, reverse racism, racism-related commentary.
Patrick
@The Moar You Know:
To the right of Reagan? Really? The same Reagan that said “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem”?
It is so funny – Tea baggers think Obama is a socialist and some people on the left think Obama is to the right of Reagan.
Do you really think that Reagan would have help enact ACA?
Do you really think gay rights would be where they are today with the help of Reagan?
Do you really think Reagan would have helped end the Iraq war?
Do you really think Reagan would have signed the fair pay act for women?
Do you really think Reagan would have appointed Sotomayor and Kagan to the USSC?
Do you really think Reagan would have help enact Dodd-Frank?
Clearly living in fantasy land is not limited to the Tea baggers…
Mnemosyne
@Zapruder F. Mashtots, D.D.S. (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
If Michael Steele wanted to become the black Zell Miller or Joe Lieberman, I’m pretty sure he would be welcomed with open arms.
Mnemosyne
@The Moar You Know:
Name an issue that Obama is to the right of Ronald Reagan on.
Jeremy
@Patrick: Well the purists on both sides are never satisfied. The wingnuts on the right think W Bush was a liberal. I recall an article talking about left wingers calling FDR a right wing conservative who betrayed liberal values. Nothing is ever good enough for irrational people.
LAC
@Jeremy: Amen, Jeremy, amen!!
Betty Cracker
WaPo has a full transcript of Obama’s remarks here. It was far more extensive than the clips I saw online when I first posted it. I like what he said at the end:
True, and well said. If you watch the whole thing rather than just the highlights, it’s even harder to understand why people are flipping out about it. Until you realize they’re just assholes.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Poopyman: Heh. If you believe the NWS, Ft. Belvoir had you beat yesterday around 3 PM:
A dewpoint above 70F is generally regarded as very uncomfortable. It was brutal yesterday. And we’re just barely into summer…
Keep cool.
Cheers,
Scott.
Mnemosyne
@Betty Cracker:
I said something along these lines to someone who was feeling depressed about race relations the other day: we will all live long enough to see the racial attitudes that we pat ourselves on our back for having today become the embarrassing racist relics of tomorrow, with our grandkids shushing us at the restaurant table because People don’t say things like that anymore, Grandma. And that’s a good thing.
Keith G
@schrodinger’s cat:
Dear friggin lordy! Can’t anyone voice a plain differening opinion with out the need of some here to attribute it to a weakness or character flaw(?)…again…
Fuck
Maybe he just sees things differently than you do.
You are not alone as about 50% of the commenters here do this as if it’s de rigueur. Unfortunately.
Redshirt
@The Moar You Know:
This presupposes it’s 1968 Nixon somehow magically dropped into today’s political environment. Politicians are creatures of their times, and you can be sure if Nixon were active in politics today, he’d be King of the Wingnuts. Same with Reagan.
Pappy Bush I’ll grant you – too elite.
Jeremy
I will also add that Obama’s inauguration speech and his state of the union speech was the biggest defense of liberalism/ government since LBJ was president. After all of these things I still can’t see how someone can claim that Obama is to the right of Reagan.
metricpenny
@schrodinger’s cat:
Good thing you ducked. lol
Are you a person of color? I didn’t think so.
TNC is telling it exactly as it is. I am happy he can give a voice to millions of Americans’ discontent with President Obama’s waffling on helping to improve the lives of its most downtrodden citizens.
Yes. A rising tide lifts all boats. It’s just too bad, so sad if you ain’t got a boat.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Yes, but Poppy didn’t believe in anything save that people like him, and mostly him, should be in charge, and he would have said or signed anything he thought would make that happen, from Willy Horton to Noriega to “worse than Hitler”. And if he thought he could have gotten away with something like privatizing Social Security or voucherizing Medicare –I suspect that’s what’s behind the poster’s confusion: Jane Hamsher and Michael Moore told him (I’m betting a him) a willingness to accept Chained CPI is “gutting the New Deal”, he would have done it. And no, I don’t think CCPI is a good idea, I think it’s bad policy and bad politics, but it’s also not “gutting the New Deal”.
A Humble Lurker
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason: Actually…
Anna in PDX
@Bobby Thomson: Ah, someone else who keeps thinking this!
Jeremy
@Jeremy: correction pro choice.
johnny aquitard
@LAC: Guffaw!
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
Betty, Somerby is going to be livid about this speech.
Obama said “followed in the car”
It was THE CAR and then ON FOOT.
14 more car/on foot posts. He’s furiously writing right now, I bet.
rollSound
Definitely needed to hear that. Maybe we won’t slide into a permanent Pax Rednecka.
eemom
@Kay:
Haven’t read Somerby in years, but every time I hear his name, I experience renewed astonishment that he hasn’t spontaneously self combusted yet.
OTOH, it sounds like he’s at least moved on from 2000, so I guess that’s something.
schrodinger's cat
@metricpenny: I am not arguing with TNC’s point about what it means to be black man. I am just saying that his expectations of Obama border on unrealistic especially since Obama’s reelection.
As for my color, I am a brown tabby kitteh.
Will
http://althouse.blogspot.com/2013/07/obama-tries-so-hard-to-say-something.html#more
Althouse has a characteristically stupid and utterly clueless response to the president’s remarks. However, my big question is, where did her evil horde of moronic commenters go? She has no comments enabled these days? Might it have something to do with the racist bile that comes out of her commenters, or is it something I have simply missed. I have not been to her blog in a very long time. Any updates on this would be great.
NickT
@Will:
Her husband Meade is apparently in charge of making sure that only a paler shade of clueless bigot is permitted to penetrate Anny Whinebox’s inner sanctum. I believe one emails Meade and if one’s epistle is of sufficient quality, well then…
Zapruder F. Mashtots, D.D.S. (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
@NickT:
That’s worth mulling over. If I had to guess, I’d say that they miss those good ol’ days (whether they lived through them or have only heard about them) [racist]when them darkies knew their place and you could call ’em nigger and rape their wimmin and string ’em up or shoot ’em or torch ’em at will. Us good, God-fearin’ white folks could do that and nobody would bat an eye. You could steal from them, run ’em off their land if you wanted it, you could do anything, and nobody would care–at least nobody who would dare say anything to you about it. Your neighbors would cheer you, and your social betters (the ones who were screwing us, though we waas always too dumb to know it) would only shake their heads sadly, maybe tut-tut about behaving with such bad taste; but nobody would arrest you. If the black family you terrorized dared call the police, they’d be more likely run out of town or worse than see you arrested.
Yeah, them was the good ol’ days. But then they got all snotty and began bitching and moaning about all this shit (which was really nothing more than how God meant the world to work), and a bunch of northern pointy heads got all sanctimonious and forced, forced these Godless laws on good white folk like us and spread the scourge of miscegenation all through the pristine south.
But for a while, at least we could say “nigger”. That was the one thing we still had going for them. we could say that and not have to deal with any fallout. But, since those bad days of the middle sixties, when an intrusive federal government horned in and fucked everything up, well, at least we could call one of them “nigger” to their faces when we felt like it, and almost everybody who heard us say it would laugh.
But not now. Nope. Not any longer. That was the one way that us good folks still had to lord it over our social, economic and genetic inferiors, but slowly they took that, too. They’d taken everything else, those liberal pointy heads, and now they were going to take the last trace of immunity to bully them darkies, too.[/racist]
I think it eats at them. It really does.
[racist]Used to be, you could tell a real good racist joke, or send around an e-mail with a picture of a prominent darkie with a bone in his nose, and everybody just winked and laughed. Now you do that, and they, those all powerful they, they take your job, they begin steering clear of you socially, you lose customers, they unload on you with a ton of P.C. reverse-racist bullshit… Hell, nobody has a sense of humor any more. Nobody. It’s funny, right? It’s just a joke, right? We all used to tell ’em, didn’t we? Shit, they’ve taken everything from us, and nw they want to take that, too? It just isn’t fair. Fuck, we can’t even point to a president who looks like us any longer, they take some skinny ass, big eared jive-ass hustler and make him president and we have to listen at him preach and shuck and jive and listen to his mouthy wife spout off, too. Damn. It just isn’t fair.
Now maybe we could deal with all this, but what’s worse is that they still get to say it. Shit, you ever hear that darkie Chris Rock? How ’bout Richard Pryor? They say it all the time, and nobody cares. Nobody fires them. Nobody bad mouths them. How’s that fair? They get to call us names and joke about southern whites being inbred and ignorant, and we can’t say shit back to ’em. Well, maybe we could live with that, but “nigger”? You gonna take that away, too, and let them say it whenever they want? That was our one last club. That was all we had left. And now, not only do we not get to say it no more, but they do. And we have to sit there and listen to ’em say it.
Well, fuck, I say. You can take away our rights. You can take away all our fun. You can make over the whole society so they get every break, every time. They take our jobs, they take our dignity. They get one of them to be president, even, and that’s a real sore point, just isn’t right. But there’s fuck-all we can do about it now. Everything’s stacked against us, they get all the breaks. But you can’t sit there and tell me they get to say “nigger”, too, and we don’t? That’s going too far. Maybe we can’t do anything about it to reclaim our rightful slur, but I’ll be damned if we aren’t going to say anything about it![/racist]
Plantsmantx
@askew:
Where are the left examples?
ChrisNYC
@Will: I googled “Ann Althouse turned off comments” and this came up:
http://althouse.blogspot.com/2013/07/oh-my-my-myleave-comments-turned-off.html
and this, from earlier
http://althouse.blogspot.com/2013/07/theres-still-way-to-comment.html
I think it was attacks on her. Men’s rights people (?). That place was always so nasty and awful, which was fine until they turned it on her, apparently.
Pogonip
@KXB: Do you have a link for that?
Steeplejack
@Pogonip:
Maybe this piece—“Shame.”
BruinKid
Charles Johnson over at LittleGreenFootballs is keeping track of the racism being spewed on the right in reaction to Obama’s remarks today.
lojasmo
@PeakVT:
Almost makes me want to shell out a few hundred for an actual computer. Alas no social fixer for iOS.
God, that fucker is insufferable.
Kropadope
@LAC: You make the mistake that people are using the term “Republican” as an insult. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a perfectly reasonable mistake. However, his Republicanish demeanor is actually the reason I support him and the handful of Democrats I’ve supported.
I think he does an excellent job persuing the social justice goals I care about while respecting business. That he wants to help labor; focus on the middle class; and not soak the rich but simply stop the unethical among the rich from stealing, is a good thing. Prior to like 1980, that would have made him a Republican.
Groucho48
@O’Brien:
Yep! They’ve whittled you down to a remnant of your self.
Kropadope
Then again, my model Republican is Theodore Roosevelt, the party left me if not a century ago, at least several decades.
debbie
I think the real barometer of the truth of Obama’s statements has been the degree of right-wing outrage. That “bitter whites with their guns” statement, for instance. Earlier tonight Pat Buchanan called Obama’s remarks today “insidious.” I think by the end of the weekend, the needle will have spun past infinity.
Bill Arnold
@Jeremy:
Won’t argue with all of that, but Reagan’s recovery plan was as I recall 750 Billion in 1981(?) dollars of deficit spending, about 1.6 trillion in 2009 dollars. And it wasn’t even necessary; when P. Volcker decided we had learned our lesson on inflation/suffered enough, he dropped interest rates around 8 percent.
lojasmo
@Kropadope:
Please enumerate all the social justice programs championed by republicans prior to 1980.
Kropadope
@lojasmo:
Well, some Republicans, but then a lot of Democrats were against these things too:
Universal healthcare, conservation efforts, protections for unions, the civil rights and voting acts, there were probably more but im not in a very reasearchy mood tonight
Kropadope
replace conservation efforts with environmental protections
Bill Arnold
@Bill Arnold:
In case it’s not clear, part of this is that B. Obama works with the cards that he’s been dealt, which suck, a lot.
In a very slightly friendlier climate, e.g. if Al Franken had gotten a few thousand more votes, BO could and probably would have done a lot more good than the considerable amount he has accomplished.
Bill Arnold
@debbie:
This is a tempting sentiment, however, liberals shouldn’t let themselves be defined by the tears of their enemies; this is a weakness of the Republican right. I’m proud of our president for the truths he said, that have been running through minds capable of holding opposing thoughts for months now. (That, and for his trolling finesse.)
fuckwit
@Villago Delenda Est: It’s not a weasel word. It’s fucking reality and science. The POTUS does not usually do counter-factuals, and, when he does, he’s very careful to qualify them. Nobody can know FOR SURE the result of a hypothetical situation, so he uses “might”. Of course, he could have used statistics too, like that chart I saw recently about the results of stand your ground situations by race. In situations where it’s a white victim and a black killer, the killer most of the time gets convicted. In cases where it’s a black victim and a white killer, the killer most of the time walks free. But Americans seem bored by statistics (c.f. Nate Silver leaving NYT). And if you slide a hypothetical into those statistics, you still have to use “might”, because neither of those are 100%.
fuckwit
@NickT: Whaaat? I came here for an argument!
Will
@ChrisNYC:
Thank you so much. That explains a lot.
Will
@NickT:
And the new policy explains so much of what I always thought of Ann’s regular commenters: that they hated her guts, and just enjoyed bullying her into moving ever further rightward, incoherently as always but desperate for their approval. Looks like she finally woke up to the type of people she had attracted.
ricky
@Villago Delenda Est: If a white male teen were involved the outcome might have been different.
Yep. George Zimmerman would probably have spent the evening telling his
wife about some of the bargains he passed by at Target while stocking up on the week’s lunch supplies. Because he probably would not have taken a second look at the white teen when he drove by him.
Groucho48
@fuckwit:
And, what’s more. If he overstates the case the tiniest little bit, within a couple hours, there will be 30000 right wing blog posts calling him out, the MSM, of course, will judiciously decide that Obama is being needlessly divisive and Politifact will give him 3 Pinocchios.
AxelFoley
@LAC:
Thank you. That “He’s a black Republican” bullshit needs to end. Would a Republican end DADT? DOMA? Sign the Lilly Ledbetter Act? Pass the American Care Act?
GTFO with that “He’s a black Republican” shit.
AxelFoley
@Bobby Thomson:
Gracias. I know not to take Moar seriously now.
AxelFoley
@Da;vid Koch:
Helluva list of accomplishments. I might have to save this to pimpslap the haters with.