Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

No Kings: Americans standing in the way of bad history saying “Oh, Fuck No!”

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

Fight them, without becoming them!

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

I would gladly pay you tuesday for a hamburger today.

There are no moderate republicans – only extremists and cowards.

Bark louder, little dog.

Hell hath no fury like a farmer bankrupted.

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

They want us to be overwhelmed and exhausted. Focus. Resist. Oppose.

Michigan is a great lesson for Dems everywhere: when you have power…use it!

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

All hail the time of the bunny!

The real work of an opposition party is to oppose.

Giving up is unforgivable.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

Too little, too late, ftfnyt. fuck all the way off.

You are here: Home / Politics / Domestic Politics / Today in Hashtag Violence and Terrorism

Today in Hashtag Violence and Terrorism

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I’m going to start documenting acts of hashtag violence and terrorism around the US in the wake of President Elect Trump’s election on Tuesday. I doubt it will be comprehensive as a lot of the reporting of this stuff is on Facebook and Twitter and I don’t have a presence on or really use either of those platforms other than to check a few, select twitter feeds for specific breaking news and other information. So if you all want to send me links to reports in your local media at my contact info here at Balloon Juice, I’ll incorporate them and the reporting when I do the posts. To contact me go up to the quick links, click on contact a front pager, and then click on Adam L Silverman and you should be good to go.

As a reminder hashtag violence and terrorism are:

Hashtag radicalization refers to the process that leads to terrorism, as well as acts of mass violence, that may not have a specific political objective, undertaken as a result of what is learned through the 24/7 news and social media. In this way it is a variant of G2Geek’s stochastic terrorism:

“… the use of mass communications to stir up random lone wolves to carry out violent or terrorist acts that are statistically predictable but individually unpredictable.”

What we need to document and track is threats and actual violence that are, unfortunately, being done either under the mantle of President Elect Trump’s election or in response to it. For instance:

And this:

Or this:

https://twitter.com/ShaunKing/status/796750646196191233

Or this:

https://twitter.com/LaurieSterritt/status/796834824090550272

Or this:

https://twitter.com/LauraKeeney/status/796767752044367873?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

You all get the idea. And in case anyone asks, I’m not posting the video of the white man being beaten by several African American men and one woman in Chicago, because the Chicago Police Department has indicated that this fight/beating was the result of a vehicular accident, not politics despite what is being put out on the Internet.

While it’s clear the man in the video was assaulted, it seems from initial police reports that the assault stemmed from a traffic incident. Bystanders are heard taunting him for voting for Trump, but it’s not clear from the video itself or the statements from police whether he did in fact say he voted for Trump, and if he did, whether that was the impetus for the attack.

It’s also not clear, as some publications are claiming, that the battery suspects in the video were supporters of Trump’s Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton. One woman can be heard off camera asking, “Are you gonna pay for my shit?” which seems to align with the police statement that the fight stemmed from a traffic accident resulting in property damage.

Further, the racial undertones of some of the posts surrounding the video raises the possibility that the incident is being exploited in order to further enflame tensions on the heels of a charged and contentious election.

I also will do these posts a couple of times a week. I don’t think I’m going to want to do them everyday and I don’t think anyone here is going to want me to. But documenting what is happening and the motivations behind it are important.

Reader Interactions

172Comments

  4. 4.

    mike in dc

    Shaun King, who is also documenting incidents, said he had 3000 emails by this morning. That’s not just depressing, it’s horrifying. Only a matter of time before people start dying. Trump needs to go on air and not just distance himself from this stuff, but rebuke the white supremacists directly. Meeting with the Khans would also be a good start. He may very likely not do that, and if he does not, it will be a permanent stain on his legacy.

  5. 5.

    joel hanes

    If only a genuine progressive had been the Dem candidate, some of these Trump people would surely have voted for that Dem, because policy differences are how everyone decides who they’ll vote for.
    /s

  7. 7.

    Kelly

    I spent the afternoon walking on soft green moss under big fir trees. Several small waterfalls. Harvested about a dozen chanterelles. Gave them to Mom. She’s plying her usual things will work out attitude on me just like she did when I was a boy. She’s 80. She was born just as Grandad and Grandma were coming out to Oregon after losing their farm in eastern Colorado to the Dust Bowl. She was in grade school when 4 of her brothers went off to WWII. She’s seen Joe Mccarthy, Vietnam, Nixon come and go. All the assassinations and riots in the late 60’s early 70’s. Dad lost all their money three times trying to start businesses that failed. She loved him through it all.

  8. 8.

    Hal

    Samantha Bee says it all for me for every comment I’ve read here and other social media sites asking why people of color didn’t rise up and stop Trump. For every comment about the butt hurt feelings of white Trump supporters being called racist because your aunt is one of them. Trump is the end result of white America. Not all white America, but plenty. Including my own family and friends and I’m saying this as a biracial black man.

    In the coming days, people will be looking for someone to blame: the pollsters, the strident feminists, the Democratic party, a vengeful god. But once you dust for fingerprints, it’s pretty clear who ruined America: white people. I guess ruining Brooklyn was just a dry run. The caucasian nation showed up in droves to vote for Trump. So I don’t want to hear a goddamn word about black voter turnout. How many times do we expect black people to build our country for us?”

    “White people, this is the worst thing we’ve ever— no, I’m sorry, that’s a very high bar. But holy s—, and don’t try to distance yourself from the bad apples and say, ‘It’s not my fault, I didn’t vote for him. Hashtag not all white people.’ Shush. If Muslims have to take responsibility for every member of their community, so do we.”

  12. 12.

    GrandJury

    If you want to look close enough it is easy to find this kind of hate and violence at any time. The cowards probably feel a bit more emboldened now but I don’t expect it to last.

    Republicans running gov’t are the real problem. These haters are just useful idiots to them

  16. 16.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Major Major Major Major: If you want to get with me offline we can talk about various visualizations, as well as, perhaps, how to set up the best auto search parameters to set up a google news alert so I get a daily dump of these.

    Thanks!

  17. 17.

    lamh36

    Thank you Adam for a more constructive post than the last one..this is def a good service.

    I’ll def be keeping up with this as you post weekly

  18. 18.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    It’s a good idea to document these, unpleasant as it will be to do so. Thanks for doing it. As already mentioned, Shaun King said he’s gotten over 3000 emails reporting such instances.

  23. 23.

    Adam L Silverman

    @lamh36: My last post or the actual last post on the site before this one? Because I thought my last post was quite thoughtful.

  28. 28.

    gogol's wife

    @Adam L Silverman:

    She meant mistermix’s.

    I agree, this is essential, and this is the kind of post I’m going to continue to come here to look for. The struggle continues.

  29. 29.

    WaterGirl

    @MomSense: I love that idea. I am going to start doing that tomorrow. Are you going to wear a safety pin? Anyone else? How do we help make this a thing?

  30. 30.

    lollipopguild

    Off Topic-Newt G and John Bolton are both candidates for Trump’s Sec. of State. Two of the most arrogant self-centered GOP assholes ever made. Why yes I think both of them are Highly qualified. Either one will probably get 1 or 2 wars started right away.

  33. 33.

    Schlemazel

    @amygdala:
    I want to say I can’t wait for this horrible horrible year to end but I am deeply afraid 2017 is going to make us miss 2016

  34. 34.

    Linnaeus

    Forgive me if sound banal here, but 2018 starts right now. Get to your local and state party wherever you are.

  38. 38.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @WaterGirl: I’m going to wear one.

    @debbie: I don’t know any secret FB pages. Other than the private soapmaker group I made a fake account to join.

  40. 40.

    JPL

    @MomSense: Today I left Trader Joe’s and saw a woman wearing a hajib. I smiled and said hello. My car was parked next to hers and while backing out I noticed a sticker on her car that said a smile can be a form of charity.
    The rest of the story is that I came home and cried.

  41. 41.

    Adam L Silverman

    @lollipopguild: This is why the shitshow isn’t going to be the one everyone is expecting. The shitshow will be a combination of phenomenally bad personnel decisions that will blow up in their faces combined with overreach at both the executive and legislative branches. More on that at another time – its a post on its own.

  44. 44.

    RareSanity

    @lamh36:
    @MomSense:

    I’m used to us ganging up on the trolls, but this fighting each other is definitely no bueno.

    I refuse to be a part of the circular firing squad any more…don’t have the heart for it.

  49. 49.

    WaterGirl

    @Major Major Major Major: I had an idea this afternoon that I wanted to talk to you about, and then if you or others might be on board I was going to talk to Cole.

    After reading the breathtakingly moving comment from MomSense about her situation regarding health care, and then seeing her follow up comment about how she couldn’t put that in a letter to the editor because she has been harassed and threatened before, I had an idea.

    I was wondering if maybe we at balloon juice could create a repository where people like MomSense could tell their stories, submitted through a web form. They could tell their stories with anonymity if they chose to. I was thinking maybe we could post one story every single day from now until the end of time, or the end of Trump, whichever comes first. We could try to enlist other progressive blogs to also post a story a day. Lots of technical skills here on BJ, surely progressive websites could sign up to receive a story a day or a story a week in their inbox and post it on their blogs. Individuals could sign up and get a story to post on Facebook.

    Maybe Momsense can’t post her story as a letter to the editor at her local paper, but maybe people could take some of these stories and incorporate them into their own letters to the editor, and try to get people around the country to do this.

    I am so sick of the story always just being about the awful actions of the other side. Let’s try to create an environment that makes it harder for them to repeal the ACA.

  50. 50.

    lamh36

    @Adam L Silverman: not your last post. I always find your posts informative even if sometimes they are long reads :-)

    I meant the very last post before this one.

    But don’t let me derail what you are doing in this post. I appreciate you posting it.

  53. 53.

    WaterGirl

    @Major Major Major Major: Even here at the University of Illinois they sent out a mass email today saying that they are aware that some students are already reporting incidents of intimidation.

    I think it’s happening already.

  54. 54.

    MomSense

    @JPL:

    That is what we have to do. Love and kindness is now resistance. Thank you so much for sharing with us. ❤️????

  59. 59.

    MomSense

    @WaterGirl:

    Just start wearing them and carrying extras in your pocket. I may put some at the food co op and some other spaces with an explanation so people can take them.

  61. 61.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @debbie: If you’re comfortable sending the name to Adam, he’ll get it to me. WaterGirl also has my email, which I’m hesitant to post because it’s a nervous time.

  62. 62.

    WaterGirl

    @Major Major Major Major: I think we’ve got the talent here at BJ for every skill that this would require. The question would be 1) whether folks think it would be a good idea, and 2) are there people who would contribute their talents to make this happen.

    Are you in on the technical stuff if others are interested in making this happen?

  66. 66.

    WaterGirl

    Adam, I posted this letter from Richard Cohen at the Southern Poverty Law Center on the previous thread. Wondering if you think this would be worth posting on the front page in the next day or two?

    Yesterday, I watched Hillary Clinton give a gracious concession speech, one that was filled with hope and a touch of reassurance. It was, in some ways, a celebration of our democracy and its stability, which depends on the peaceful transition of power.

    President Barack Obama, who campaigned fiercely against Donald Trump in the final weeks of the campaign, has been equally magnanimous, reminding us of the incredible dignity and grace with which he led our country over the past eight years.

    I share the sentiments they expressed. We do need to give Trump a chance, for the good of our country. Maybe he will surprise us and build bridges, not walls.

    But we can’t suddenly forget or forgive what he said during the campaign.

    We can’t forget that Trump called Mexican immigrants “rapists” and killers, or that he said a federal judge can’t decide a lawsuit fairly because he is a “Mexican” (he was born in Indiana).

    We can’t forget that his signature campaign promise is to build a wall at the border with Mexico.

    We can’t forget that he proposed banning Muslims from entering our country or that he suggested that the “Muslim community” was complicit in the terrorist attack in Orlando.

    We can’t forget the despicable way he talks about women or that he bragged about sexually assaulting them.

    We can’t forget that he mocked people with disabilities.

    We can’t forget that he exploited ugly, racist stereotypes when he described African-American communities as “war zones” and “hell.”

    We can’t forget that he failed to immediately disavow the endorsement of David Duke, a neo-Nazi and probably the most well known white supremacist in America.

    We can’t forget that he named as his campaign manager a man who runs a website catering to the alt-right, a rebranded white nationalist movement.

    We can’t forget that he re-circulated racist and anti-Semitic tweets.

    We can’t forget that he went on Alex Jones’ radio show and told the far-right radio host that his “reputation is amazing.” Jones is, in fact, a fabulist, a con artist known for propagating wild conspiracy theories, such as his claim that the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting was the work of the government.

    The point is, in Trump we suddenly face a president-elect who has been wallowing in the cesspool of hate and extremism.

    White supremacists who backed his candidacy are jumping for joy. They think they now have their man in the White House.

    Andrew Anglin, proprietor of the Daily Stormer, a truly sickening website popular among neo-Nazis, declared, “Our Glorious Leader has ascended to God Emperor. Make no mistake about it: we did this.”

    David Duke was equally exultant, tweeting that “our people played a HUGE role in electing Trump!”

    Kevin MacDonald, an outspoken anti-Semite and former professor, wrote, “This is an amazing victory. Fundamentally, it is a victory of White people over the oligarchic, hostile elites.”

    We can’t afford to take these statements as the ravings of extremists on the fringes of society. They are now at the gates.

    But it’s not just sieg-heiling Nazis and cross-burning Klansmen who should trouble Americans concerned about what a Trump victory portends. It’s also the more polite, suit-wearing extremists who move in mainstream political circles and already have their nose under the Trump tent.

    They’re people like Kris Kobach, the Kansas secretary of state who birthed the viciously discriminatory, unconstitutional anti-immigrant laws enacted by Arizona, Alabama and other states several years ago; and Ken Blackwell, the former Ohio secretary of state who is now a senior fellow at the rabidly anti-LGBT Family Research Council. Both are reportedly serving as key members of Trump’s transition team.

    As is customary, Trump has pledged to be a president “for all Americans.”

    If he truly means it, he must first boot the extremists out of his tent and tell them in no uncertain terms that they will have no voice or place in his administration. If he does that, perhaps he can begin to stanch the bleeding from the wounds he ripped open in our country.

    But, given the early signs, we’re not counting on it.

    No, we’re going on what Trump has been saying all along. The time is now for progressives everywhere to unite and fight with everything we have.

  68. 68.

    WaterGirl

    @MomSense: I wanted to ask you what you thought of the idea I proposed upthread, especially because it was your comment that inspired it.

    Edit: would love feedback from everyone, really.

  70. 70.

    JPL

    @MomSense: This is what I wrote to my Republican black friend

    I’m just not in a place where I can do idle chit chat.. Give me some time.
    The Republican plan for health care is to place everyone with a preexisting health problem into a bucket. That’s like only selling life insurance to those who are going to die. That’s not pro life by the way.
    My son and his wife are going to get great tax cuts, but he actually understands that is the wealthier subsidies. He also understands that the color of his skin makes him safe. I can’t repeat the words he used last night. They are frightened to have children now and I can’t blame them.
    Hillary had the word drone in her email and for you to defend Petraeus and not her has always bothered me.
    I’m tired of fighting..

    When my lily white child was in kindergarten, he asked me if was a minority.. He didn’t understand this white/black thing cause no one is truly one color or the other.

  74. 74.

    CZanne

    @MomSense: Thanks. Box of pins broken out. Every shirt, coat, and cardigan now have one.

    That reminds me of the Norwegian Resistance and their paper clips. And the Norwegian Resistance knew a thing or three about resisting. I wonder if my Friends’ Service Committee has a need for another pair of hands, even if the hands are attached to a brain that can’t quite wrap itself around a deity?

  77. 77.

    JMG

    These punk kids need a dose of reality. Like having their asses beaten and left naked tied to s flagpole by the team’s offensive line. Like being expelled from school and their lives ruined. Choices.

  81. 81.

    MomSense

    @JPL:

    That sums it up. Aasrrrghhh. Emails emails emails. Doesn’t everyone pretty much hate all the work, personal, commercial, and fundraising emails in their own lives by now? To me it seems like such a strange issue to obsess about.

  87. 87.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @CZanne:

    That reminds me of the Norwegian Resistance and their paper clips.

    You can’t just drop a nugget like that and walk away. Tell.

  91. 91.

    Mike in NC

    @amygdala: Just a really shitty year. So many talented artists gone, our beautiful cat gone, and now we get a daily dose of Drumpf as Dear Leader.

  94. 94.

    Jeffro

    @Linnaeus:

    Forgive me if sound banal here, but 2018 starts right now. Get to your local and state party wherever you are.

    Not banal at all – smart!

    And if you’re in VA, 2017 started yesterday…get to your local party office and ask them for a shit-ton of voter registration forms, a few pens, and a clipboard!

  95. 95.

    Adam L Silverman

    @efgoldman: Lawful orders will be followed. Unlawful ones will not. I doubt these guys are smart enough to recognize they’d need to rewrite the individual Service doctrinal manuals and the UCMJ to make torture even remotely okay. Moreover, the general officers/flag officers are better educated, better prepared, have actually had to do the strategy and policy education in Joint Professional Military Education 2/Military Education Level 1. They understand strategy and policy in a way that almost no one that is going to be appointed, Senate confirmation or non-Senate confirmation required. They have the ability to slow anything down. They have the ability to weight the Operation Orders, Execution Orders, policies, and guidelines. Moreover, since the vast, vast majority of the Republican/conservation foreign, defense, security, and intelligence professionals have already said they won’t work in a Trump Administration, you’re looking it far, far more junior appointees at the Deputy Assistant Secretary and Director and Deputy Director levels. They are going to have limited experience and the four stars and their staffs are going to eat them alive. The SecDef, SecArmy, SecNav, SecAirForce, are important, but if they’ve got the D or E teams as their supporting staffs, they’re going to get tied into knots by the general officers/flag officers.

  98. 98.

    lamh36

    @Adam L Silverman: Naw…no derailing. I don’t really have it in me to do so right now.

    Even if I did want to how I’ve been feeling since Tuesday was over, is too much to try to express via a blog comment.

    I’ll just say say this –>

    @wilw 26m26 minutes ago
    Listen, I don’t expect anyone to care, but I’m working through stages of grief. Today, I’m stuck on anger. Maybe unfollow me for a few days.

    Eventually I’ll get to “acceptance” stage, but the way I feel now about certain groups of people who I know voted for Trump in spite of his racism has changed likely forever. I’ll never be as open with those folks as I used to.

    Anyway…

  99. 99.

    Adam L Silverman

    @a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): As I wrote the other night, we work for the Constitution and through it for the American people. We hammered this over and over, not that it needed much hammering, in, at least, my seminar at USAWC. All of us – the uniformed and civilian members of the faculty team – year in and year out were very, very serious in making sure this message was transmitted, received, understood, and internalized if it wasn’t already.

  100. 100.

    Jeffro

    @lollipopguild:

    Gee I cannot wait to see who gets the Fema post, probably just in time for Hurricane season.

    Perhaps not at today’s meeting, but I can see Obama making a point to Trump between now and Jan 2017…”I know you’re going to nominate whomever you’re going to nominate for these cabinet posts and what not, but whatever you do, find a person with half a brain for FEMA – lives will depend upon it, and you don’t want to be the next George W”

  103. 103.

    Jeffro

    @a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):

    Richard Engel said on NBC “Tonight Generals are reading the constitution.” To see what they are legally obligated to do, he said. Starts about 1:00 in.

    Now there’s a mental image to cheer all of our hearts: Trump issuing orders (not just to DoD…to whichever agency or whatever floats his boat any given day) and people sitting in their agencies going “yeah, lemme get right on that”

    What do you do when you can’t just tell generals, DNIs, and federal workers in general, “You’re fired”?

  104. 104.

    NotMax

    Still too internally verklempt to say much. Not today, not tomorrow, but eventually resiliency will out and something more approaching personal normalcy will arrive, overcoming the sharp-edged sensation of having been ideologically raped.

    Gravely disappointed and deeply ashamed about too many of my fellow citizens, about too many too willing to jettison the very concept of commonwealth. Finger pointing to foment divisiveness or elicit revenge not permitted in my toolbox, however, and flatly refuse to allow Tuesday’s outcome to change that.

  105. 105.

    rk

    In my children’s school, a swastika sign was made on the school bus window. One of the mom’s saw it and reported it. My son got into an argument with another kid who said “nuke the Middle East). In our adjacent school district the superintendent reported graffiti and swastikas painted on the walls targeting LGBT students, jews and latinos. What is surprising to me is the targeting of gays and jews is almost instantaneous. This when Trump’s daughter and son in law are jewish.

  107. 107.

    rk

    I forgot to add that girls are being targeted with lewd comments similar to those made by dear leader.

  108. 108.

    mike in dc

    Tangentially on-topic, we need to get waaaaay better at “working the refs” with the MSM. Get on there, reframe the issue away from how they present it, complain about unfairness, stick to attack points. Lather, rinse, repeat. Eventually they get leery of getting criticized all the time and soften their coverage ever so slightly. If it doesn’t work, then sad to say, we probably need our own version of Fox News.

  109. 109.

    lamh36

    I’m looking for a good “internet stick” for my laptop. Like I said, mom’s doesn’t have cable or internet, but if I could just get a internet stick for the laptop, I can manage no cable!

    Any suggestions?

  110. 110.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @efgoldman: Torture is against the Geneva Convention. Any service member who is ordered to do it at any level is obligated to refuse to carry out the order (or pass it on). I once refused to carry out an illegal order (on something much less than torture but illegal nonetheless), my BC told me that he had given me at direct order and I needed to follow it. I said that it was illegal and that we could take it to the battalion commander. That ended it. It was pit of the stomach tightening scary to do that though.

  111. 111.

    Kay

    Trump could come out and give a speech and apologize for his racist campaign and urge school children not to imitate what they heard. He could do that if he was a decent person. He’s an adult. He has agency.

    Every day he fails to address this is a failure of leadership and character. He’s already a poor President. He failed the first test.

  113. 113.

    amygdala

    @NotMax: Too many of our fellow citizens, to be sure, but important to remember that it was not the majority of them. Hillary won the popular vote.

  114. 114.

    Adam L Silverman

    I just freed a whole bunch of you that had been sent to the trash, not moderation. I’ve got no idea what caused it, but Frosty – I just got your email and your comments are now where they should be.

  115. 115.

    Kay

    I think it’s probably tough for teachers to tell children not to imitate the President-elect when the President-elect has never apologized or even acknowledged that he did anything wrong.

    You can’t really tell a 10 year old it’s a bad thing to do when they just watched the President get hugely rewarded for the same behavior by half the country.

  116. 116.

    Miss Bianca

    And so it begins…

    Honestly, I’m not sure where I’m at. Still smarting a little from being told, by a smug young Jill Stein voter, that my saying any white person who voted for Trump, or who enabled Trump by voting for anyone but HRC, was acting out of white priviliege or white blindness to the needs of others, was my “projection”. Afraid I opened up on him a bit for that.

    Next week’s Democratic Central Committee meeting for my county should be interesting. A wake, and then…with any hope, a re-commitment to building the state party to the point where we can run local Dems and at least be competitive, if not win.

  117. 117.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Achrachno: The manuals were rewritten to specifically make enhanced interrogation techniques illegal. The only permitted techniques are those in the manuals now. Using any others is a UCMJ violation.

  118. 118.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Jeffro: Try to get Congress to pass legislation changing the Civil Service Protection laws. You want to watch whacky stuff happens if Congress tries that? Like the toilet in the Speakers office suddenly turning into a Bidet. Or his salary becoming $1.84 per year instead of $184,000. Or his monthly contribution to his retirement plan going to an orphanage in the Democratic Republic of the Congo? Just screw with the career civil servants.

  119. 119.

    Kay

    You wonder what’s in Trump’s head when he was the guest of the Obama’s today. He doesn’t feel the need to apologize for running a two year racist marketing campaign demeaning those people, when he’s sitting in their home?

    My grandmother would say “he wasn’t well-raised” It’s the ULTIMATE insult from her. Means she’s writing you off, forever :)

  120. 120.

    Adam L Silverman

    @efgoldman: @Omnes Omnibus: And since these specific Geneva Conventions were signed by President Reagan and ratified by the Senate they are also US Law. It is illegal for any American official to countenance and/or commit an act of torture. Regardless of whatever BS memos John Yoo wrote or Acting Attorney General Comey approved of once the Presidential Order was revised.

  121. 121.

    Mike in NC

    @efgoldman: For Thanksgiving we’re meeting our Florida friends in Myrtle Beach. I’ll propose they take early retirement and then we all move out to Lake Tahoe, CA and smoke enough weed every night to get us through the reign of Trumpenfuhrer.

  122. 122.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @Kay:

    Trump could come out and give a speech and apologize for his racist campaign and urge school children not to imitate what they heard. He could do that if he was a decent person. He’s an adult. He has agency.

    Every day he fails to address this is a failure of leadership and character. He’s already a poor President. He failed the first test.

    QFT. And he’ll fail all the rest as well.

    The world’s a scary place now

    said a young AA man with well-controlled schizophrenia and a slight developmental delay, who’s a patient of psychiatrist friend of mine, who told me he could write a book – or certainly a long essay – about his patients’ reactions yesterday. One woman just wept for an hour. Another came in and asked “can you just give me a hug?” His own elementary school children wept when they heard the news.

  123. 123.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Adam L Silverman: When I was in OCS, they took us from Benning to Andersonville to talk about war crimes. My OCS Company was the same one that Calley came through. He came up. The officers of my generation got the message. They should be the current one and two stars. I hope that they are are honorable.

  124. 124.

    Timurid

    each of them pretending to respect the other

    I was really disappointed by Obama’s reaction. It feels like the last step in the normalization process.
    He should have been stone faced. He should have said “I will carry out a peaceful transition as is my legal and moral duty, but once that’s done I’m going to do everything within the limits of the law and human decency to make sure you will be a one-term President.”

  125. 125.

    kvmj

    Adam, You need to know that the Empire Herald is a fake news site. Your first clue should have been that Mexicans were beaten up by anti Trump protestors. Why would anti Trump protestors beat Mexicans?

  126. 126.

    Tenar Darell

    @Adam

    Did you mean something like this from the Boston area?
    The 2 Babson students who pulled the Trump stunt at Wellesley College have been bounced from their frat sigep.org/blog/sigep-sta… #trumplandma

    Or like this?
    My letter to @USPS about what I witnessed today in Cambridge, Massachusetts. #Trump

    FYI, @universalhub & seems to get some of these tidbits on a regular basis. He frequently has crime, MBTA delays/disturbances, & sunrises & sunsets

  127. 127.

    Mnemosyne

    @Hal:

    I walked in to work on Wednesday morning and apologized to one of my (non-white) friends for white people sucking so bad. I’m not going to lie and pretend that this isn’t a White People Problem. It fucking is.

    And in case it’s not clear, I am Whitey McWhiterson. They call me “Shark Bait” when I go to the beach. And I have no problem saying that the root of this problem is goddamn white people.

  128. 128.

    Steeplejack (tablet)

    @lamh36:

    Depending on your cell phone and plan, you could set up your phone as a wi-fi hot spot and get your computer on line that way.

  130. 130.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Omnes Omnibus: They are, at least the ones I know. When I went through CRC at Benning the JAG who did the Rules of Engagement/UCMJ briefing used LTC (ret) Allen West as the poster person for what not to do.

  131. 131.

    Mnemosyne

    @Major Major Major Major:

    I’m skeptical that there’s been an increase in the past two days. It’s certainly possible of course.

    My guess would be that shit like this has been happening under the radar ever since Trump started running his Make America White Again campaign, and the MSM is only just waking up now and noticing it. Too late, of course.

    But there probably has also been a sharp uptick due to the adrenaline of winning the election. Hopefully it will be short-lived.

  135. 135.

    Mnemosyne

    @WaterGirl:

    I love this idea. I know that ruemara is a marketing professional (when she’s not making short films that get nominated for awards). Maybe there are other marketing professionals who could help?

    I am not a marketing professional, sadly.

  136. 136.

    sukabi

    @Kay: yes you can. It’s the responsibility of the adult to set standards of conduct for their space. If they aren’t, they aren’t doing their jobs.

  140. 140.

    geg6

    @WaterGirl:

    Penn State’s president did the same. It’s bad. The pigs are empowered. It’s going to get worse. Much worse. They are just getting a taste for it. It’s all that economic distress, doncha know?

  141. 141.

    Miss Bianca

    @Mnemosyne: Have you been able to get any writing done? I couldn’t, Tuesday eve, despite my best efforts, and last night was a bit of a wash as well – only a few hundred words – but I’ve been getting back on track tonight. Maybe it’s therapy, altho’…I was counting on my scenario to feel a bit more like alt-history, not a blueprint for the aftermath of the TrumpenJahren. : (

  143. 143.

    Mnemosyne

    @Adam L Silverman:

    I doubt these guys are smart enough to recognize they’d need to rewrite the individual Service doctrinal manuals and the UCMJ to make torture even remotely okay.

    I have to ask, and I realize I’m going to get 10,000 words in response but — if that’s the case, how did Abu Ghraib happen?

  146. 146.

    Adria McDowell (formerly LurkerExtraordinaire)

    Thank you for this, Adam. Info like this could literally help decide whether or not people choose to stay or flee to safety.*

    *I know there are those who argue that leaving is the worst thing one could do, but some of us with small children might argue otherwise. I’ll stay and fight as long as I can, but if things get too hairy….

    I’ve discouraged my husband from conceal carry in the past, but no longer. Not after the conversation we had Wed. morning.

    **I’ll be wearing a safety pin out and about from now on.

  148. 148.

    Mnemosyne

    @Miss Bianca:

    I get the NaNo posts on Facebook, and the one yesterday was, “How to Write When You Don’t Feel Like Writing.” I may try to write a bit tonight but, as I told G, I am so not in the mood to write a story with a happy ending right now.

  151. 151.

    debbie

    Trump’s on Twitter blaming the media for the demonstrations. That’s the kind of reaching out we should expect. Or, as Rudi put it, “Crybabies.”

  152. 152.

    Frankie

    Anyone else doubt Trump makes it through his first term? I have a strong feeling he’ll resign before it’s over. He’s already complaining on Twitter about the people protesting his election. I don’t think he can hack the stress.

  153. 153.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Mnemosyne: Too late in the evening for a long response. 1) It wasn’t explicit in the manuals at the time because no one realized it needed to be. 2) The Bush 43 Administration had authorized this stuff and it filtered down. 3) The command/chain of command at Abu Ghraib was deliberately suborned. The commander, a US Army Reserve one star was undermined by the military intel (MI) folks that were supposed to be interrogating the prisoners there. Like too many of the MI bubas and bubettes they wore sterile uniforms – no rank insignia and no name strips. So no one knew their names and no one knew their ranks, which made figuring out who’s orders to follow difficult. And they basically decided they ran the place, which further undermined then BG Karpinsky. This was reinforced when the same MI one star that was running the interrogation program at GITMO showed up and further suborned her authority. 4) The MI guys, regardless of rank, began giving orders to the National Guard MPs that were assigned to work as prison guards. This MP unit had been retasked/reflagged upon arrival in theater. They were supposed to do traditional MP work, but where repurposed to do prison guard duty. Only one of them, then SFC Garner, had any corrections experience. They got no, as far as I’ve ever heard, actual training to be prison guards. 5) In the US, among jails and prisons with certified corrections officers, there are always ethical and professional breaches – some minor, some major. What you got at Abu Ghraib is partially the result of putting non-corrections officers in charge of prison guard duties in a war zone – one of the highest of high stress environments.

    And that, in a nutshell, is how you get the mess that was Abu Ghraib.

  155. 155.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Adria McDowell (formerly LurkerExtraordinaire): Everyone needs to make their own decisions based on their own situations and circumstances. And that includes how best to protect oneself/one’s family. Everyone expecting gun sales would spike if Secretary Clinton was elected among the 2nd Amendment Absolutists. Turns out it is going to spike because of sales among people of color, LGBTQ Americans, members of religious minorities, etc.

  157. 157.

    Adria McDowell (formerly LurkerExtraordinaire)

    @Adam L Silverman: I knew a then SFC (now a retired SGM of fucking course) that claimed to have helped trained that unit for corrections work. Total shitbag. I can’t actually confirm if this is true, but he did work at the DB at Levenworth. My husband knew this guy for a loooooog time, like all 31Es do. We can have a separate conversation about the quality of 31Es another time if you wish.

  158. 158.

    Tenar Darell

    @Adam (I wish I hadn’t noticed this one tonight).

    A Texas Tribune link to

    Flyers at Texas State University called for ‘vigilante squads’ to tar and feather university leaders. via @KXAN_News

  159. 159.

    SFAW

    @Adam L Silverman: @debbie:

    Nah, you’ll just end up seeing gun-control measures finally get through Congress. Not unlike the gun-control measures Reagan signed as Gov, back when he thought the Black Panthers were going to want to exert their Second Amendment rights.

  161. 161.

    Dadadadadadada

    @efgoldman: It doesn’t shine so bright now, but one thing from the last few months that really impressed me was when the FBI/DOJ/ATF/whoever arrested those white (orange, actually) militiamen for plotting to bomb that apartment complex where the Somalis lived.
    Armed force of law being used on white men trying to kill black Muslims? Maybe this whole “rule of law” thing still has some legs to it.
    Of course, when Attorney General Rudy G. drops all the charges, and President Shitgibbon pardons the plotters and names them to his Federal Anti-Scary-Dark-People task force…
    Well, it was good while it lasted.

  162. 162.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Adria McDowell (formerly LurkerExtraordinaire): My understanding was they got no retraining for the retasking, but if they did I guarantee it was minimal and pro forma. Far too much of that happened for Operation Iraqi Freedom for a lot of things. Even the basic predeployment prep on things like Islam and Iraqi culture hadn’t been updated when I got tasked to review it in 2011. And what was required as prep was minimal and largely useless. If units wanted to augment, and they could afford the time and money, then they could. Units with good leadership did. Those without didn’t.

  163. 163.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Tenar Darell: That ain’t going to go over well. The head of the Texas public higher ed system is ADM (ret) McCraven. His previous job was Commander, US Special Operations Command (he’s a SeAL).

  164. 164.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    The problem is most of this stuff is less out right racism, like say lynchings, and more trolling. And giving it attention encourages trolling.

    Can some blacks do the decent and proper thing for those Illinois idiots,celebrate Trump but dressing up with white face and golf pants. I mean seriously, white people really shouldn’t go there.

  165. 165.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Adam L Silverman: Oh that’s right, what will the gunmakers and NRA do now without a black man in the White House to scare old white guys into buying as many guns as they can? Gun sales have been at a record for years no because of that.

  166. 166.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @efgoldman: It wouldn’t work and the military would laugh at it. As the US military well knows since we Americans devolved it the only thing that works putting down an insurgency is collective punishment. See General Sherman and the South.

    The only way it would happen if there was WWII levels of anger in America against ISIS that the US military could go into Syria and just level the place without any qualms in the Military or in American society.

  167. 167.

    Tenar Darell

    @Adam L Silverman: I’ve read about tarring & feathering- I don’t want to remember the descriptions. That was one of those historical factoids, which I collect like some kind of magpie, where I went “I wish I hadn’t read that.” & then went looking for brain bleach.

    ETA But glad to hear about the head of the school system

  168. 168.

    ruemara

    @Timurid: Did you even look at the photo of him meeting Trump? Also, who the hell are you to be upset with him for acting like a fucking adult and world leader who’s on the goddamned world stage? We’re lucky the man didn’t grab a mic and cuss the people of the united states out with a stream of invective started 11/8 10pm EST and still going on right now. WE FUCKED UP. We. Not him. WE allowed Trump to be a nominee. WE allowed him to win. It may be only %18 of the eligible population, but between them and the not voting bunch, Trump is our fault.

  170. 170.

    Adria McDowell (formerly LurkerExtraordinaire)

    @Adam L Silverman: sorry for the late response, but yes, you are absolutely right in that their training would have been minimal, but they did get training.

    Ahem.

    I know far more about detainee operations than I ever cared to learn. And I wasn’t even an MP. But the training I did have was tantamount to about three weeks at Fort Bliss (this was when I was in the Reserves and had been pulled from my unit to deploy with another out of Indiana). At that time (2006), this was all the training that non-MPs were getting. Even regular MP still had to get training on detainee operations. It clearly wasn’t enough. And as Abu Ghraib happened in 2004, I’m sure the three weeks I received was probably a week or more than I got.

    The only good that came out of that particular deployment (my second) was that I met my husband on Camp Victory. Now he’s the REAL subject matter expert on this topic.

    As for training in Islamic culture, etc., I will tell you that before my first deployment (in 2004 with 1ID out of Germany), it literally was an hour class given by a sergeant who had been in Desert Storm. That’s it. And that was on active duty; I’m sure the reserve and National Guard guys and gals didn’t even get that.

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