If I see one more story like this I am going to blow a gasket:
On Monday evening, Pence refused to use the term during an interview with CNN host Wolf Blizer.
“There are some supporters of Donald Trump and Mike Pence who ― David Duke, for example, some other white nationalists ― who would fit into that category of deplorables. Right?” Blitzer asked.
“Donald Trump has denounced David Duke repeatedly. We don’t want his support and we don’t want the support of people who think like him,” Pence said.
When Blitzer pushed Pence on if he’d call Duke, who is running for the Senate in Louisiana, a “deplorable,” Pence answered, “No I’m not in the name calling business…” He added, “What Hillary Clinton did Friday night was shocking. I mean, the millions of people who support Donald Trump around this country are not a basket of anything.”
Beyond the fact that Mike Pence will engage in all sorts of name-calling if it involves calling Democrats a name, Mike Pence if god damned bigot, so why would we give a shit if he calls a Klansman deplorable. Remember, we’re talking about this fucking guy:
Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R) quietly signed legislation Thursday that could legalize discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals.
The Religious Freedom Restoration Act would allow any individual or corporation to cite its religious beliefs as a defense when sued by a private party. But many opponents of the bill, which included business leaders, argued that it could open the door to widespread discrimination. Business owners who don’t want to serve same-sex couples, for example, could now have legal protections to discriminate.
“Today I signed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, because I support the freedom of religion for every Hoosier of every faith,” Pence said in a statement Thursday. “The Constitution of the United States and the Indiana Constitution both provide strong recognition of the freedom of religion but today, many people of faith feel their religious liberty is under attack by government action.”
Mike Pence is a bigot. Yes, arguably, Trump might be worse. But let’s go full Godwin, because fuck it:
Aufnahmedatum: 1938
Aufnahmeort: Rom
Systematik:
Geschichte / Deutschland / 20. Jh. / NS-Zeit / Auáenpolitik / Reisen ins Ausland / Italien / Hitler
Just because the guy on the right is worse doesn’t mean the guy on the left is any fucking better. So why won’t Trump or Pence call Duke deplorable? It’s like the old joke- “Why don’t sharks attack lawyers?”
“Professional courtesy.”
The end.
Hal
I’m not going to use that word because Hillary Clinton used that word and now it has cooties. Someone get Pence a thesaurus, there are other words in the English language he can use to describe Duke.
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
Glad to read this. Anybody thinking Pence is somehow less odious than Trump would be making a grave error.
dr. fridge
was nice of hitler to wear a tie though.
gf120581
Not just a bigot, but a cowardly bigot, since the second the NCAA threatened to yank games and events out of the state, he backed down and had the law watered down to be basically useless.
Which actually may make Pence smarter than Pat McCrory, since he understood that basketball is God in his state.
JPL
@Hal: a fking racist pig would work.
Oldgold
Newsweek breaking story on Trump’s tangled business ties with “foreign investors.” Claims story could be game changer. Supposed to be published tomorrow.
West of the Cascades
So many things make me want to blow gaskets these days. Any bets on whether Lester Holt is having serious thoughts about whether, and how, to real-time fact-check Trump (and Clinton) in the first debate? I haven’t seen any comments from him (unlike the odious Chris Wallace who said that facts aren’t his problem as a moderator).
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
I think it’s high time we all got over our fear of saying Hitler’s name when we’re talking about Republicans. Yeah, there are going to be times when holding some Republican up next to Hitler is over the line. When we’re talking about Trump, it isn’t over the line. Shit. Sometimes when we talk about Hitler, all we think about are death camps and war. But Hitler didn’t storm into Germany in a war, and begin gassing people right from the first day. Germans voted the guy into office. I think few people at the time were voting for death camps and invading Denmark and Poland and France. People voted for him because they thought he was somebody the “serious” people could control. We all know how well that worked out . We should keep that in mind, every waking hour of every day for the next two months.
Ruckus
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
This.
Pence would not have been chosen by Trump if he wasn’t a racist. Being a racist is Trump’s entire rational for running.
Carolina Dave
@gf120581: I thought the exact thing. How someone voted dumbest congressman (ahead of Gohmert, et al) could actually be more politically savvy as a governor than our current dufus, McCrony (R-Duke Energy)
TaMara (HFG)
@efgoldman: And Jake Tapper challenged that freak Katrina Pierson on same idiocy.
Adam L Silverman
Nuns? Check! Priests? Check? Friars? Check! Pastors? Check! Ultra-Orthodox Rabbi? Check! 14 year old teenage boy? Check!
satby
OT but I just had to wade through almost two inches of water in my basement because I didn’t realize the toilet upstairs was running. I had a huge puddle this morning but when I came home on my lunch hour to let the dogs out it had drained down the basement drain. I suspected it was from my shower because that was really the only water I ran, but I wasn’t sure. Anyone have any ideas what it might be? Main drain needs rodding out?
Edited to add, I need to go to sleep soon, but I’ll check for any suggestions in the morning, thanks.
hovercraft
@Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant):
He’s as bad as Josef Mengele, there are people in Indiana who are HIV positive because of his hateful ideology. He’s bigoted against the gay, against people who dod not share his values, he let these people get infected because they are IV drug users and or are promiscuous. Who the fuck is he to judge anyone?
geg6
I hate the media so much. Just so fucking much. I don’t know that I’ve ever hated anything or anyone with this intensity except Cheney. I don’t know what to do about it though. I’m not their target audience, being a liberal and a woman.
As for Pence, he’s a piece of crap and I think Kaine will eat him alive in their debate because he’s a stupid piece of crap.
Major Major Major Major
@hovercraft: ooh, yeah, the HIV thing was DEPLORABLE. Fuck him.
Major Major Major Major
@Adam L Silverman: huh, feels like there’s a major world religion missing from that list.
hovercraft
@Oldgold:
Someone said in one of the earlier threads said Kurt Eichenwald was hinting that he has a bombshell coming. They said to follow his twitter stream.
EDIT: I think it was you?
rikyrah
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
Hey, I hear you.
Peale
Glad you brought it up. I mentioned last night that Pence certainly hasn’t governed Indiana like he’s interested in being governor of all of the residents of his state and certainly wouldn’t mind if some of them left for someplace else.
To put it in a bit of perspective, Mr. Moderate Kaisch had this spiel where he brags about listening to a rap CD and becoming so out of control outraged and upset that he had to pull over to the side of the road and throw it out the window. That little story he told about himself doesn’t strikes me as pandering in the same way. He certainly doesn’t feel the need to think that being open minded or remaining calm will get him more credit than losing his shit over music. (He probably puts “music” in quotes when talking about rap.) Doesn’t need to become a fan of the music, but still. And that is Mr. Moderate.
Anne Laurie
Mike Lee, also dumb like big sack of hair clippings. But not Pence-level dumb!
Adam L Silverman
@satby: Not to make light, but were the dogs doing this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIy_ujPBRP8
raven
@hovercraft: Rachel just read a blip from what she was told was the article. It has to do with his web of financial dealings and the international politicians and criminals (they stop short of saying he’s broken any laws). They posed the question whether he and his family will sever all ties with Trump enterprises or not.
Adam L Silverman
@Major Major Major Major: It is possible the kid is a Taoist, but beyond that I have no idea what you’re intimating…//
Peale
@Anne Laurie: Something tells me there’s not a lot of love lost between the Klan and Mormons.
hovercraft
@Major Major Major Major:
Ahem, the one you’re thinking of is know to rethugs as a “death cult”. So all the legitimate religions are represented.
raven
@efgoldman: There are no “NCAA” football events. I think it’s going to be any of the NCCA hoop games and then the championships in other sports.
Adam L Silverman
@hovercraft: The nut graphs have been leaked to NBC. Deals with Trumps financial connections and how they’ve got him so completely compromised, even without any evidence of illegality, that it would be impossible for him to divest himself of these conflicts of interest if elected President.
Mike in NC
@Carolina Dave: McCrory’s reelection TV ads are beyond stupid. Claims he loves teachers and students but “some people” want boys to use girls’ showers and locker rooms, and he calls it political correctness. All that’s missing is a tear rolling down his cheek.
WTF, Chickenshit Pat?
satby
@Adam L Silverman: No, they were barking for me to come, and as I barely had a chance to sit down I didn’t respond for several minutes, so serves me right it got as deep as it did I guess.
Peale
@raven: She of course needs to exit the Foundation right away! And spend time finding a whole new board and new officers in a week or she’s compromised! But honestly, no one could expect Trump to exit his business. I mean, it’s business and business is something serious. Unlike foundations, which apparently are just ways to bribe officials into dropping lawsuits against you.
(Note: Actually, I don’t really feel that Trump Enterprises has been a serious going concern for years. It seems like kind of a joke, actually).
hovercraft
@raven:
I guess I need to check my DVR, it’s recording but I wasn’t watching.
Major Major Major Major
@hovercraft: no, they have apocalyptic death cultists right there in the habits.
Peale
@Adam L Silverman: Yep. I can imagine the poor sod tasked with running the Trump Enterprises blind trust. If the trustee defaults on the debt, does the russian mob break his legs or Trump’s?
Adam L Silverman
@Anne Laurie: And the Trump surrogates savaged Senator Lee all day on TV.
Joel
@hovercraft: Look, I hate bigots like Pence as much as anyone else.
But Mengele conducted awful experiments on people, including children.
Major Major Major Major
In all seriousness though, isn’t this like the textbook example of when you are supposed to use a token Muslim for a photo-shoot?
hovercraft
@Adam L Silverman:
Well given all of the threads downstairs, I guess this will be a huge test for the media. Will they shrug it off or will they go into a feeding frenzy? I guess we’ll know soon enough.
Tokyokie
@Peale: I call bullshit on Kasich ever owning a rap CD.
Gertrude the Duck
Just because the guy on the right is worse doesn’t mean the guy on the left is any fucking better
I think it does, actually.
If A is worse than B, then B is better than A.
hovercraft
@Major Major Major Major:
I forgot that since the Pope got into a spat with Trump, papists were bad again. But I was referring to the ones a tick to the East of the Vatican, who live in an arid are of the world.
NorthLeft12
My status as a lapsed Catholic was heavily influenced by the the support [by my former church] of bigoted and discriminatory laws like the one Dumbass Pence signed above.
Embarrassed for those nuns who chose to associate themselves with this hateful law.
Adam L Silverman
@satby: I’m sorry you had the flood. I had my entire house flood when I lived in a bedroom community outside Little Rock – the night before I was leaving for a work related conference. The rental agent was great (something to be said for small towns), had the cleanup folks on site within 1/2 an hour. They ultimately found out there was a walked out drain line that made a couple of U turns outside the footprint on the way to the street. She took care of all of it and my four foots and my dog sitter were good to go while I was away.
Major Major Major Major
@hovercraft: Hindus? Dude, there’s like half a billion of them, you can’t just write off an entire religion that big like that.
Felixmoronia
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.): Hitler was never elected to any political office. The one time he ran for office he lost. It is suspected that the NAZI party paid a huge bribe to Hindenburg to have him appoint Addi as chancellor.
PPCLI
I wish people would ask pence about this Trump supporter, who sucker-punched a 69 year old woman with an oxygen tank and laid her out:
http://wlos.com/news/local/69-year-old-woman-punched-in-face-outside-rally-by-trump-supporter
This is a more compelling example than Duke, I think, for this reason: Trump originally mishandled Duke, but his people now can dig in and say “look, we reject his support! Everybody has supporters that are in one way or another (ok, they won’t use this word) deplorable.” That’s not an unreasonable response. What needs to be said is that unlike other politicians that have deplorable supporters, Trump actually reaches out to and encourages his deplorables.
Enter this guy. No doubt every politician has a few supporters who could become violent at a protester. I have the impression that Trump has more of these, but I don’t have hard data at my fingertips, so let’s leave that aside.
The key point is that no Presidential candidate in my memory has ever announced to a rally that if someone assaulted a protester and was charged, the candidate would pay their legal fees. That is an entirely different level of reaching out to the most violent element in the Trump world.
True, Trump hasn’t said that recently. (No doubt his lawyers warned him about some things). But once these remarks are made, they never go away, to those who have ears to hear.
Adam L Silverman
@Peale: Rumsfeld never divested himself when he was SecDef. In fact he refused, said it was stupid. So every time a funding or spending decision reached the Secretary level for a decision he had to recuse himself from the meeting, turn it over to the Deputy SecDef (Wolfowitz), and go wait till they’d moved on to other business.
Ruckus
@Joel:
What do you call his HIV bullshit if not an experiment on people he didn’t give a shit about? He certainly was willing to have them die.
hovercraft
@Joel:
I know, his excuse was the advancement of science, which is despicable. Pence refused to allow needle exchanges in the midst of an explosive heroin crisis because of his religious bullshit morality. There is now an HIV crisis on top of a heroin crisis. People have been infected because of his decision, despite being warned, and some of those people will die because of this. Given the fact that we are dealing with addicts, they are probably not the most responsible people, so they mat endanger many more people including possibly children. So not as bad as Mengele, since that level of depravity is almost impossible today for a public official, but by today’s standards, where this was easily prevented, as deliberate as you can get.
Adam L Silverman
@PPCLI: I fixed it for you so people can just click and go. Also, they’ve identified the guy and issued an arrest warrant for him.
PPCLI
@Tokyokie: I can absolutely imagine Kasich shouting “Stop! Collaborate and Listen!”
schrodinger's cat
@Major Major Major Major: More than half a billion, I would think. (80% of India, Nepal, Bali, plus the diaspora)
eclare
@satby: Where is your hot water heater? Any chance there is a problem with that?
PPCLI
@Adam L Silverman: Thanks. I never have been able to figure out that link biz.
I really do hope that they arrest this guy, and someone reminds our memory-challenged country about Trump’s promise about legal fees. Amazing how that one seems to have vanished into the ether.
Trump really out-Gishes Gish. The lunacy just comes so fast and so relentlessly that you could fill a notebook full of stuff that would have finished the candidacy of anyone else in history, and it doesn’t even get into the ranks of stuff people remember.
amk
@Adam L Silverman: secdef and president are two entirely different things.
Adam L Silverman
@amk: I was not aware of that.
The Other Chuck
@Peale:
In his defense, it could have been Kanye singing Bohemian Rhapsody ;)
Jeffro
@PPCLI:
I think PBO pointed this out today, too (among others) so you’re in good company for noting this! I wish more folks would join in the chorus. Trump will throw it out so fast and furious that it’s impossible to keep up with…and he has a record of malfeasance so long, it’s almost hard to believe.
The secret rules of engagement…(in 2016)…are hard to endorse!
SFAW
@TaMara (HFG):
She’s like a(n) (in)human version of cleek’s Law. I believe the phrase “sick fuck” could reasonably be applied to her.
Carolina Dave
@Mike in NC: I’m hoping that in light of the current NCAA pulling events, most reasonable NC voters will see his ads and sigh, “WTF”. If I was advising him, those ads would never appear again. Apparently ESPN used them as an intro to their segment about the NCAA pulling out. He is such a damn dufus.
Also chickenshit is correct. No guts to issue a statement last night when the news broke, just release a pitiful one today. Stand up,face the cameras, own it, or say you were wrong.
McCrony can’t go away soon enough for me, I’m sure Duke Energy has his old desk and a big bonus awaiting his retu5to the public sector.
amk
@Adam L Silverman: Then why the false equivalence?
Adam L Silverman
@amk: I was being a smartass. Do you really think I don’t know the difference between the President and the Secretary of Defense? Wasn’t making any equivalence, false or otherwise. Just stating that Rumsfeld hadn’t divested himself and it caused all sorts of silliness to ensue. Just a random factoid. That was it.
SFAW
I know this is not an Open Thread, so apologies in advance …
One of the stories on NPR earlier this evening was about a new artisanal food …
… gefilte fish.
I don’t know if I should be glad, or pissed, that artisanal corned beef and cabbage is not yet a “thing.”
Fucking gefilte fish.
SFAW
@Adam L Silverman:
Why ever would you think that he would even try?
Adam L Silverman
@SFAW: I was just recounting the reporting. I have no expectations.
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman: OK, why does this sound vaguely kinky/creepy?
SFAW
@Adam L Silverman:
Fair enough.
Adam L Silverman
@Miss Bianca: I don’t know. What did you have in mind?
delk
The NCAA events pulling out of NC are baseball, basketball, lacrosse, golf, and tennis.
SFAW
@delk:
Maybe they’ll move LAX back to Foxborough/Gillette
SFAW
@Miss Bianca:
@Adam L Silverman:
Jesus, will you two get a room, please?
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman: *side-eye* Not sure whether that question is more a reflection on me or you!
Miss Bianca
@SFAW: What was that you were saying *just* last night about “remind me not to get you pissed at me?” *cracking knuckles*
Adam L Silverman
@SFAW: @Miss Bianca: I’m just trying to figure out what you think is going on. That’s it.
SFAW
@Miss Bianca:
Er, um, uh … my account was hacked! Check the kerning! It was (*cough cough faint*) a body double! My keyboard was possessed!
[Goes off to a corner to quiver, quake, and weep]
amk
@Adam L Silverman: Unfortunately that’s how all things donnie dick got/get normalized – some one did that, so donnie dick doing this latest heinous thing is no bfd.
Adam L Silverman
@amk: Actually it was a very big thing just for SecDef to do it and still gets discussed.
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman: Something about the juxtaposition of nuns and priests and 14-year-old boys…I’ll just stop right there before I Make Things Worse.
Anne Laurie
@Peale:
Once you’ve started the Ponzi/pyramid scheme, you can never leave it alone. If you’re not churning new marks, the cash runs out and the regulators start asking questions.
Since at least the 1990s, “Trump Enterprises” has been a shell for Trump to extract what pennies he could he could while pursuing his new career as a reality-show actor / motivational speaker. It’s not a good use of his time & energy, to be sure. But if he ever stops finding new ‘products’ to sell to the gullible fans, the shell collapses, and he’ll end up badly compromised if not in jail. (Or — if the rumors are true about taking money from Russian oligarchs — running for his life.)
joel hanes
Let us now raise a figurative glass to James Brigg Stratton “Doghouse” Riley, Hoosier born and bred, who wanted us to understand Mike Pence and so wrote this
J R in WV
@Major Major Major Major:
So, since you mentioned it, could someone explain the diff between those robes the “Fathers” and “Nuns” were wearing and the hijabs and burkas we see on muslim women and Iman’s robes? ‘Cause I see nuthin as far as a difference there.
And the hate and blood worship of the RC church – they have packed churches full of heretics, nailed the doors shut, and set the churches on fire for the glory of god; burnt St. Joan at the stake, also, too. This isn’t made up, this is the history of Europe, wiping out whole regions’ populations to the last child, for the sake of their beliefs. How is this any different from ISIL’s burning captured enemies?
Beheading isn’t a peculiar practice limited to Middle East Death cults. It is still required in Jolly Olde England for treason to the crown, isn’t it? We never got into it here in America, scalping and lynching is more our style. Usually hanging a corpse already tortured to death, actually.
So Pence is despicable, we already knew that from the legal requirement that a miscarried fetus requires a funeral. Trump is despicable, we knew that from his every word spoken at his hate rallies. This is not news to anyone here, but apparently it is a huge and unbelievable shock to the New York Times !!! They can’t go there !!! That Trump is a stone racist bigot who hates the gay folks, the Mexican peoples, the Jewish , and the Black folks, The NY Times Can’t Go There~!!!
So sad.
XTPD
@The Other Chuck: It was an album from The Roots. Which proves Peale’s point perfectly; even with Common, Fox News had much more to work with in painting him as 2Pac 2012.
Fred
Notice that Italian tailors are better than German. I bet the boots are more comfy too.
So was the Italin piece of shit alive when they strung him up with piano wire? Maybe he was wearing all those silly medals and ribbons and his nice suit.
I know. I’m not nice. Facist scum brings that out in me. Hangin’s too good fer um.