Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

Conservatism: there are some people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

The GOP couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

Prediction: the GOP will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

Republicans in disarray!

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Everybody saw this coming.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

The republican caucus is already covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

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

You are here: Home / Economics / Grifters Gonna Grift / Open Thread: White Supremacist Welfare Moocher Has A Rich Fantasy Life

Open Thread: White Supremacist Welfare Moocher Has A Rich Fantasy Life

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Big props to Jason Kander, and his uncles! Per IMBD:

“Tomorrow Belongs to Me” was written by John Kander and Fred Ebb in the style of a traditional German song, sung by the Nazi youth in the movie, to stir up patriotism for the “fatherland”. It has often been mistaken for a genuine “Nazi anthem” and has led to the songwriters being accused of anti-Semitism. This would be most surprising, as they are, in fact, Jewish (This fact has not stopped openly racist and anti-Semitic rock groups, like Skrewdriver, from recording the song and performing it at White Power rallies)…

Speaking of scrabbling around, grifting off other people because that’s his only talent…

… Spencer, along with his mother and sister, are absentee landlords of 5,200 acres of cotton and corn fields in an impoverished, largely African American region of Louisiana, according to records examined by Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting. The farms, controlled by multiple family-owned businesses, are worth millions: A 1,600-acre parcel sold for $4.3 million in 2012.

The Spencer family’s farms are also subsidized by the federal government. From 2008 through 2015, the Spencers received $2 million in US farm subsidy payments, according to federal data.

Although Spencer has attracted extensive media attention as a leader of the so-called alt-right movement—particularly after he drew Nazi salutes at an event celebrating Donald Trump’s election—he has never explained publicly how he supports himself while actively promoting his agenda via conferences and media appearances. The finances of his nonprofit think tank, the National Policy Institute, are a mystery; the organization hasn’t filed a public report since 2013. On Monday, the Los Angeles Times reported that the IRS revoked the institute’s tax-exempt status….

My first thought upon reading this: Does he charge his followers a premium for white hoods made from his own artisanally-sourced cotton?

Reader Interactions

153Comments

  2. 2.

    Sandia Blanca

    So, I have seen lots of coverage of Cheeto Benito’s numerous trips to Mar-a-Lago and his other properties on the weekends, and I believe he’s stayed at the White House one or two weekends. But what I haven’t seen is anything on whether he has gone back to T Tower at all since the inauguration. Has he been there even once? Is he paranoid about the “tapping”? Did Melania force him to stay away?

  3. 3.

    Chet Murthy

    Heh. I remember reading an interview with the author of Sendmail, a gay man, the first internet mail transfer agent (MTA) (much later superseded by Postfix), where he remarked that all those haters sending their hate-filled email around the Internets might be shocked to learn that they were using software written by a gay man.

    I don’t want to go further than my memory on this, but ISTR he got a chuckle out of the idea. I sure do.

  4. 4.

    SiubhanDuinne

    There was a really interesting interview with John Kander on Fresh Air with Terry Gross a couple of days ago. It’s probably readily accessible in the FA archives.

    ETA: Yes, here it is.

  5. 5.

    MattF

    So, Spencer gets his income from Black Belt cotton fields in Louisiana, and gets a multi-million dollar subsidy from the Federal government. You couldn’t make that up.

  11. 11.

    martian

    What sort of Democrat is Kander? Stipulated that a yellow dog is better than Roy Blunt, but I don’t want to, you know, give my heart away completely without checking.

    That song and that scene in the movie are still chilling, by the way. I watched them again after the future died. Horrified, but I guess not shocked, that the things that go bump in the night have adopted it as an anthem.

  12. 12.

    J R in WV

    @Major Major Major Major:

    Congratulations!

    We were given a “Starfighter” orchid many years ago, and it bloomed several spring seasons, before we finally killed it off. Now I have a grocery store orchid that we’ve had for a couple of years now, and it’s been growing well, putting out new leaves and such. I have it on a tiny windowsill over the kitchen sink, so I’m more afraid of watering it too much than of forgetting it to dry up.

    That’s a beautiful flower, though! Congrats, again!

  14. 14.

    Lurking Canadian

    @MattF: This is the second time I’ve seen somebody suggested there’s some kind of irony in Spencer being a cotton farmer.

    Isn’t “rich white guy who has black people to pick his cotton” kind of the ultimate expression of white nationalism in America? Why WOULDN’T you expect an American Nazi to fit that description?

  16. 16.

    Chris T.

    @Chet Murthy: Yes, Eric would be amused.

    (He might also have had a fair bit of wine first. He and Kirk have a fantastic wine cellar in the back house. Their lovely little Craftsman fell off its foundation in the 1989 quake, and they went just a little wild on the repairs. :-) )

  20. 20.

    Sandia Blanca

    @SiubhanDuinne: Just seems odd to me–he was holed up in NYC non-stop after the election, but hasn’t been back since? It’s obviously not because he is devoted to his work.

  22. 22.

    msdc

    @martian:

    What sort of Democrat is Kander? Stipulated that a yellow dog is better than Roy Blunt, but I don’t want to, you know, give my heart away completely without checking.

    The kind who lives in Missouri and runs sixteen points ahead of the top of the ticket.

    Don’t get fucking picky.

  23. 23.

    msdc

    I mean, I know, “Republicans want to fall in line, Democrats want to fall in love,” but jesus fucking christ.

  25. 25.

    BlueDWarrior

    @msdc: With the position we are in, we need all the center-lefts and centrists we can get that are competent at running a campaign. We can worry about “sufficient left-ness” when we’ve had Congress for a full Presidential term (at least).

  28. 28.

    Anne Laurie

    @Lurking Canadian:

    Isn’t “rich white guy who has black people to pick his cotton” kind of the ultimate expression of white nationalism in America? Why WOULDN’T you expect an American Nazi to fit that description?

    Spencer and his ilk keep insisting that they’re not racists — not white supremacists, just ‘white nationalists’ who all independently studied history & economics and realized, out of their vast thinking, that (certain selected classes) of Pure Nordic Types are inherently better & smarter & more worthy that “those people”.

    If Spencer is just another hereditary racist mouthing the same well-worn our-reich-shall-rise-again threats, it’s just not as… manly and original and newsworthy.

    “I’m not just some dumb Bubba, I have *SCIENCE* on my side!” cries the son & inheritor of dumb-bubba-ness.

  29. 29.

    Pogonip

    @Major Major Major Major: Looking good!

    I can’t grow flowering plants right now; this house faces north and was built in the 50’s so it has those stupid tiny ranch windows. I must live vicariously through others.

  32. 32.

    Anne Laurie

    @Sandia Blanca:

    Just seems odd to me–he was holed up in NYC non-stop after the election, but hasn’t been back since?

    Trump Tower NYC is surrounded, these days, by rude protestors and vulgar gawkers with no respect.

    At Mar-A-Largo, there are gates to keep people like that well away from the sightlines and hearing of Lord Smallgloves.

    He only loves crowds when they’re pre-screened to ensure everyone’s properly sycophantic adoring.

  33. 33.

    Pogonip

    Philadelphia Lawyer, are you there? I think we should request a Jack topic every week, like someone had a Star Trek topic going every week.

    I really like the design of the Daughters of Aku. They’re the villain version of swarming army ants.

    And I am eager to find out what’s up with the mysterious bushi on horseback, who keeps popping in now and then, like Bambi’s father.

  34. 34.

    J R in WV

    @Major Major Major Major:

    “as long as I fertilize them on the right schedule ” – what schedule? I just hit our little grocery mystery orchid every so often. It’s in an eastern window, with heavy woods outside, so half a day of sun when the leaves fall off, and so far until we green up come April or so.

    We have friends across the county who have a window box over the sink full of orchids, I’m thinking an east exposure, but no trees to shade it in the summer. Some of those are gnarly plants.

  35. 35.

    Chet Murthy

    @Chris T.: Yeah, I was privileged to meet them once (professionally). Didn’t want to mention names (even though non-single-neuron-disease victims can find it all in wikipedia) b/c …. well, I figure why give knuckle-draggers a leg up.

  36. 36.

    Schlemazel

    I love that whole scene from Cabaret. It encompasses what is going on in the nations at that time perfectly with a golden-haired fuzzy cheeked youth singing a song of hope & the future then turns into an ugly anthem to what is to come. I love the old man (who as seen war at least on the home front if not in person) poo-pooing them too. Then the scene ends with the question people should be asking today “So, do you still think you can control them?”

  37. 37.

    patrick II

    Since this is an open thread, I will use this opportunity to point out that Judge Napolitano’s statement that O’Bama (maternal side Irish spelling) asked the British to spy on Trump was made a week after Trump’s twitter accusation. So Trump saying that he was “merely quoting a talented legal mind” he had seen on FOX news evidently asserts Trump’s ability to time travel — an ability even less likely than getting Mexico to pay for the wall.

  39. 39.

    Jeffro

    Not surprising that a spoiled brat from a white welfare household thinks he’s entitled to rule the rest of the country/world.

    Why, if we dug a bit deeper on that issue, we might even find that he has certain insecurities about his own self-worth, and finds it easier to tamp all that down by going after other people…

  40. 40.

    Baud

    @Anne Laurie:

    white nationalists’ who all independently studied history & economics and realized, out of their vast thinking, that (certain selected classes) of Pure Nordic Types are inherently better & smarter & more worthy that “those people”.

    They seem to be doing their damnedest to disprove that hypothesis.

  41. 41.

    Ohio Mom

    @Sandia Blanca: I’ve seen pics of Melania at Mar-a-Lago so she does see Donald on at least some weekends.

    I’m with the other commentators who think Trump is afraid of being surrounded by protestors if he goes back to Fifth Avenue. There were spontaneous protests right after Election Day at Trump Tower; it would be easy enough for everyone to get back on the subway and start up all over again. This time around, people already have signs and hats ready to go.

  42. 42.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Sandia Blanca:

    I know. No idea how much $$ he burned in going back to NYC from the campaign trail at every opportunity just so he could sleep in his own bed. I suppose they had his Trump Tower bed shipped to DC for him, so he at least has his own furniture and linens to make him feel somewhat comfy in that cold ole slave-built “White” House.

  43. 43.

    DissidentFish

    @Anne Laurie: I can buy the existence of “white nationalist” in some countries, but in ours, “we hold these truths to be self-evident; that all [humans] are created equal…”

    There is no such a thing as white nationalist American; it’s a contradiction in terms. An American “white nationalist” is just a white supremacist.

  45. 45.

    JPL

    @patrick II: Wait until you see his NCAA basketball bracket. He has it locked in a safe place, and will reveal it after the last whistle blows. lol

  47. 47.

    TriassicSands

    @Sandia Blanca:

    Is he paranoid about the “tapping”?

    He’d have to believe that wiretapping took place for him to be paranoid. Since he made the whole thing up, he’s probably not too worried.

    Alternatively, if he really is delusional from an undiagnosed but visible mental illness then he may be cowering under his bed at night in fear that what’s in the closet is coming to get him.

    Who knows with this lunatic.

    The idea of a Trump presidency is horrifying and he’s proving to be even more unstable and unfit than I could have imagined. But I’ll say this for a Trump presidency — there’s plenty of action. Admittedly, it gets boring since it’s all the same stuff over and over, but every day when I wake up I know that Trump will do something that day that is more ridiculous, irresponsible, dangerous, idiotic, unpresidential, etc. than any president before him has ever done.

    Trump’s inauguration crowd may have been as tiny as his fingers, but he’s setting records in “presidenting” that will find their way into history books. I expect that when Trump is finished wrecking the office of the presidency there will be more books written about him in the first five years post-Trump than most presidents have written about them in, well, forever.

  48. 48.

    Chet Murthy

    @Baud: I’m reminded of William Gibson’s “The future is already here — it’s just not very evenly distributed.” Also with that past (which isn’t quite gone).

  51. 51.

    Ruviana

    @TriassicSands: I know some people grumble about Alex Shephard at the New Republic but I like his weekly wrap-up of the Trump goings-on. The subhead is always “This week was pretty bad. But next week will be worse.”

  52. 52.

    rikyrah

    Found at POU:

    Miranda

    My sister works for the CDC where morale is at an all-time low. They have a conference this week where they had to have meetings on what they can and cannot say because the tobacco industry sends people to hear what they say. They do this every year, but this is the first year where what they say might have negative consequences for THEM, since the tobacco industry has a friend in the HHS Secretary. She said people are pissed. One division that works in studying sexual assaults, lost their funding already for studying sexual assaults on college campuses – because in some literature they said the word “rape” too many times. (I’m not making this up). They also get these morning emails from Tom Price talking about all the good going on – and he puts all these links from Fox News videos in these emails. Everybody has figured out how to send that shit straight to junk mail so they don’t even have to look at that crap.

    A friend that works for the USDA says they’ve also been getting those emails from Tom Price. He is a field biologist and says they have been told half of them will be laid off possibly because there isn’t a priority with this administration to make sure the fruits and vegetables growing in this country OR coming INTO this country are actually safe.

    Godspeed.

  53. 53.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Lurking Canadian:

    Isn’t “rich white guy who has black people to pick his cotton” kind of the ultimate expression of white nationalism in America? Why WOULDN’T you expect an American Nazi to fit that description?

    You, sir, just insulted my entire maternal lineage! All of whom were benevolent, uh, slave owners and what not. And the actual slave owning ended in the late 1800’s, so there.

    Thought to be honest, when I used to visit the plantation as a child in the 1970’s, i couldn’t tell much difference between what I was seeing and what I had learned about slaves. Except, of course, for the benevolence.

    #notallrichwhiteguyswhohaveblackpeopletopicktheircotton

    ETA: at least they all did, and still do, vote Democratic, even after the Civil Rights Act!

  56. 56.

    martian

    @msdc: @msdc:

    The kind who lives in Missouri and runs sixteen points ahead of the top of the ticket.

    Don’t get fucking picky.

    So, you skipped right over the part where I pledged allegiance to the yellow dog and straight to assuming I’m a purity pony? Jason Kander has ambitions beyond Missouri, I’m assuming. Blue Dogs have their place, and Missouri may be one of them, but I’m eying him up as a someday national contender.

    I know 11/9 has us all feeling scalded, but shit, we’re still allowed *some* picking and choosing.

  58. 58.

    ThresherK

    Wait, that Kander is the uncle of Jason Kander?

    And Jason opened the can of family whupass?

    Righteous.

    We Dems gotta draft a Hammerstein simply to smack down the Republicans who don’t know the meaning of You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught. (Or, for North Carolina, I Enjoy Being a Girl.)

  59. 59.

    Glidwrith

    @Aleta: If you are ever in San Diego at the right time of month, the San Diego Zoo has an awesome orchid collection that is open to public viewing for a few hours. Did you know there is an orchid which is nothing but roots?

  63. 63.

    martian

    @debbie:

    Do you mean blue dog?

    Basically. And how heartfelt a Blue Dog if so. For example, I seem to recall that Gillibrand was considered a bit more conservative before winning her Senate seat and has shifted left to align with her wider constituency. I’m just trying to get a handle on where Kander falls ideologically, how much room he has to move.

  64. 64.

    lollipopguild

    @TriassicSands: If trump had no secret deals with the russians there would be nothing for him to look and sound guilty for. He always acts as if he knows that he will be found out.

  67. 67.

    Ben Vernia

    For god’s sake, can’t reporters dispense with describing NPI as a “think tank”? It’s a guy with a website. Period. Does it think? Does it have resident scholars and such, that might conceivably merit calling it a “tank”? No. It’s a jerkoff with a website.

  68. 68.

    Mnemosyne

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Kander is buddies with you-know-who. Though I think it’s the songwriter from Fiddler on the Roof (who is also still alive and in his 90s) that he gives rap music mixtapes to.

    (The plane finally took off around 10:30 pm and I made it home, so I am currently laying in bed with an ice pack on my knee and a purring cat on my chest.)

  69. 69.

    Sandia Blanca

    @chris: Looks like you, Anne Laurie, and Ohio Mom are in agreement, and that makes sense.

    @SiubhanDuinne: I’ll bet you’re right about the bed. Do you think he made them install gold plumbing fixtures, too? (Gross.)

    @TriassicSands: Yes, I’ll say one thing for ol’ Orange Whiz, he has delivered all of us to the “interesting times” of that Chinese curse. Thanks, Donnie.

  71. 71.

    Jeffro

    @Certified Mutant Enemy:

    Missouri really fucked up re-electing that asswipe Blunt, instead of sending Kander to the Senate…

    True…repeat x20 across the country + the White House…

    As Dems, we could do worse that to constantly remind the voting public to “listen to what candidates actually say they want to do…and then what they actually do for you and yours once in office“. That is a losing proposition for Republicans every time.

  74. 74.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    that scene just makes my flesh crawl– it was going around the tubes a few months ago, and I was wondering if it was some kind of translation/adaptation of an actual Nazi song from the thirties. And now that I type that, I’m remembering where I think I remembered it from: Laraine Newman singing it in a WWII sketch in the early years of SNL

    If Kander the younger is able to deliver on his promise to fight voter suppression, his future could be very bright. I wonder if (assuming his eye is on the White House) he has the patience to play a long game, to wait our the MO gov’s office or to run again for Blount’s seat in 2022. I think one of the reasons Christie crashed so hard– I think the bridge thing was the result of he and his staff thinking they were on an unstoppable train an could get away with anything– was he thought he could/had to run in 2016

  76. 76.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Mnemosyne:

    Well, I was sorry not to have breakfast with you — I think you would enjoy our grits — but glad you made it home eventually. We’ll try to meet up on another occasion, your coast or mine.

    Until this thread, I hadn’t made the connection between Jason Kander and John Kander. Cool that they’re related. Cooler still that you-know-who is part of the mix.

  77. 77.

    Alain the site fixer

    @Pogonip: send me an email with details so I remember and I’ll schedule it to auto post once a week whiles it’s on!

  78. 78.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @Jeffro:

    As M^4 said, it’s in the main post up top:

    The finances of his nonprofit think tank, the National Policy Institute, are a mystery; the organization hasn’t filed a public report since 2013.

  79. 79.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    she should wag her finger in his face

    Daniel Dale‏Verified account @ ddale8 10h10 hours ago
    Republican former Arizona governor Jan Brewer savages Trump’s health plan, says it will “devastate” the vulnerable:

  80. 80.

    rikyrah

    Very good article:

    Unspeakable Realities Block Universal Health Coverage In America
    Chris Ladd
    Contributor
    A recovering Republican.

    excerpt:
    When it seems like people are voting against their interests, I have probably failed to understand their interests. We cannot begin to understand Election 2016 until we acknowledge the power and reach of socialism for white people.

    Americans with good jobs live in a socialist welfare state more generous, cushioned and expensive to the public than any in Europe. Like a European system, we pool our resources to share the burden of catastrophic expenses, but unlike European models, our approach doesn’t cover everyone.

    Like most of my neighbors I have a good job in the private sector. Ask my neighbors about the cost of the welfare programs they enjoy and you will be greeted by baffled stares. All that we have is “earned” and we perceive no need for government support. Nevertheless, taxpayers fund our retirement saving, health insurance, primary, secondary, and advanced education, daycare, commuter costs, and even our mortgages at a staggering public cost. Socialism for white people is all-enveloping, benevolent, invisible, and insulated by the nasty, deceptive notion that we have earned our benefits by our own hand.

    My family’s generous health insurance costs about $20,000 a year, of which we pay only $4,000 in premiums. The rest is subsidized by taxpayers. You read that right. Like virtually everyone else on my block who isn’t old enough for Medicare or employed by the government, my family is covered by private health insurance subsidized by taxpayers at a stupendous public cost. Well over 90% of white households earning over the white median income (about $75,000) carried health insurance even before the Affordable Care Act. White socialism is nice if you can get it.

    Companies can deduct the cost of their employees’ health insurance while employees are not required to report that benefit as income. That results in roughly a $400 billion annual transfer of funds from state and federal treasuries to insurers to provide coverage for the Americans least in need of assistance. This is one of the defining features of white socialism, the most generous benefits go to those who are best suited to provide for themselves. Those benefits are not limited to health care.

    By funding government programs with tax credits and deductions rather than spending, we have created an enormous social safety net that grows ever more generous as household incomes rise. It is important to note, though, that you need not be wealthy to participate. All you need to gain access to socialism for white people is a good corporate or government job. That fact helps explain how this welfare system took shape sixty years ago, why it was originally (and still overwhelmingly) white, and why white Rust Belt voters showed far more enthusiasm for Donald Trump than for Bernie Sanders. White voters are not interested in democratic socialism. They want to restore their access to a more generous and dignified program of white socialism.

    Absolutely on point.

    They want to return to the delusional days of Mad Men. Pretending that it was a meritocracy. Pretending that they were big fish in a big pond. In reality, they were fish in a pond where 90% of the other fish were crammed into sardine cans. Now those cans are open, they have to compete with everyone, and they’re mad about that.

  81. 81.

    Iowa Old Lady

    Re warrants, a few days ago, I thought I heard Adam Schiff explaining that there were two kinds of warrants that could be used to observe someone–FISA and criminal. You needed a judge to give you one, but you went to different kinds of judges. I gather FISA warrants don’t allow you to observe an American citizen, but criminal ones do. BJ lawyers, is that right? And could the FBI be using a criminal warrant to observe Trump? I mean, I know the Russian entanglement is the biggest concern, but it occurred to me that the guy is not exactly squeaky clean.

  84. 84.

    JPL

    @Iowa Old Lady: This was Nunes on Fox this morning talking about the investigation.
    link
    He clearly say but one meaning under investigation. Wallace didn’t flinch at all, and I tracked down the entire interview. Nunes switches to poor Flynn and leaking. It appears he leaked classified info himself. iokiyr

  86. 86.

    mai naem mobile

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I wonder if he didn’t find a position for Jan Brewer because she doesn’t fit central casting for a governmental position except maybe a prison commander. All snark aside, Jan Brewer had some real opposition from the super RWNJs in the state legislature when she agreed to medicaid expansion in the state (technically it’s a waiver state because AZ has its own version of medicaid.)

  87. 87.

    mainmata

    NPR’s “Reveal”, which radio network some on this blog regularly like to slag off did a great job and interview with that a**hole who basically said his family wealth did indeed fund his mission and flipped the interviewers off. Basically, he’s a modern day plantation owner in the ante-bellum tradition. But “Reveal” did a great job.

    Resist folks

  88. 88.

    mainmata

    @JPL: I agree. He could be a surprising progressive voice from a state that’s pretty conservative. Would be pretty refreshing.

  90. 90.

    rikyrah

    There was an Africa trade meeting with no Africans because all their visas got denied
    Posted about 12 hours ago by Harriet Marsden in news

    Each year, delegations from Africa meet with officials and business leaders in the US for the African Global Economic and Development (AGED) Summit.

    This year’s event took place at the University of Southern California (USC) in Los Angeles.

    But unfortunately, one crucial aspect was missing from the summit – any Africans.

    None of the invited delegates were able to attend, due to being denied a visa at the very last minute.

    Mary Flowers, chair of the summit, told VOA that during the previous three summits around 40 per cent of attendees were denied visas.

    This year, it was 100 per cent. Every delegation. And it was sad to see, because these people were so disheartened.

    She estimated that around 100 guests, from Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and South Africa, were unable to attend.

  91. 91.

    rikyrah

    Blake Hounshell‏Verified account @blakehounshell

    CBP detained the former police chief of Greenville, NC for ~90 minutes

    from his Facebook Post:

    This experience has left me feeling vulnerable and unsure of the future
    of a country that was once great and that I proudly called my own. This
    experience makes me question if this is indeed home. My freedoms were
    restricted, and I cannot be sure it won’t happen again, and that it
    won’t happen to my family, my children, the next time we travel abroad.
    This country now feels cold, unwelcoming, and in the beginning stages of
    a country that is isolating itself from the rest of the world – and its
    own people – in an unprecedented fashion. High levels of hate and
    injustice have been felt in vulnerable communities for decades-it is now
    hitting the rest of America.

  93. 93.

    hovercraft

    @Anne Laurie: @Sandia Blanca:
    NYC hates him with the heat of a thousand suns. There have been protests all over the city for various things he’s said and done.

    Via NYTimes
    Protesters Ready for Trump’s First Visit to New York as President
    The distaste for President Trump in his hometown has convulsed into near daily protests across the city. Summoned by a Facebook post or cellphone alert, New Yorkers have taken to the streets to object to his policies, appointments and executive orders.

    All this, however, could merely be a prelude to the moment yet to come — Mr. Trump has still not set foot in New York City as president, puzzling and emboldening some protesters who see his weekend visits to his Florida estate as something of a retreat to friendlier ground. But whenever he does settle into his penthouse home atop Trump Tower, seething New Yorkers will finally be able to train their ire directly at Mr. Trump on his doorstep.

    “The visual of Trump coming back to New York would be the Fifth Avenue of Manhattan flooded with people angrily protesting just about everything that Donald Trump has done……..

    Since the election, immigrant groups like the coalition and Make the Road New York have been organizing via text messaging app, blasting participants with calls to action straight to their phones. It helped the coalition attract thousands of people to Kennedy Airport hours after the travel ban went into effect. Events that used to take weeks to launch now take hours, organizers said, foreshadowing what may happen when word filters out that Mr. Trump is on his way.

    “Because people are paying attention, we are able to mobilize people with very little notice,” Ms. Yakupitiyage said.

  94. 94.

    satby

    @Baud: Forbes frequently has good articles. When I share them on Facebook, I always preface it with the tag “from the notorious mouthpiece of Communism, Forbes”

  95. 95.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    Ted Lieu @tedlieu

    Trump approval drops to 37% – the worst Gallup poll any president has ever had this early in their term.

    Pretty soon the only people who support @realDonaldTrump will be the Russians.

    145 replies 1,709 retweets 3,544 likes

    BWHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAAHHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA

  96. 96.

    hovercraft

    @patrick II:
    So the T.A.R.D.I.S. was not O’Bama’s it belongs to whomever is president? How come none of the other presidents used it before?

  97. 97.

    Gvg

    @Iowa Old Lady: any American citizen can be under a normal criminal investigation. I suspect they would be very very careful to get it exactly right legally if it was even close to the President. There are rules about tapping others “accidentally” which means I think if they suspected Trump, they couldn’t also tapp lines that mainly his wife’s or kid’s or associates unless they had reasonable cause for them too. Also the individual is not the same as their company though in Trumps case the company would probably be before the individual.
    It’s theoretically possible but I don’t know, doesn’t seem as likely. Now the irs….do they do that kind of investigation? I can’t recall specifically if they do wire taps. But if he went down for anything, I think tax fraud is even more likely than treason for his personality.

  98. 98.

    Jeffro

    @Baud:

    It’s to prevent that sort of argument that the magic of “both sides” was invented.

    Oh yeah, absolutely. “Both sides” is a pro-Republican argument, definitely. They benefit tremendously from minimal thinking/heavy cynicism.

  100. 100.

    SFAW

    @rikyrah:

    Since when are you posting articles from The Onion? Why, next thing, you’ll be posting some article about Congressional hearings related to women’s rights, and there will only be men invited.

  101. 101.

    Schlemazel

    @Jeffro:
    The right thing to do is read the original comment, taking it in the most offensive way possible and unleashing righteous fury in return

  102. 102.

    BlueDWarrior

    @rikyrah: it shouldn’t surprise people on our side when their side constantly argues for basically an apartheid state. Whites and selected individual ethic minorities inside the wall, everyone else and exiled liberals outside.

  103. 103.

    Schlemazel

    @SFAW:
    I know it is hard to imagine but this is an onion article:

    After being tried and convicted of armed robbery and two counts of aggravated assault, local 24-year-old Elijah Rudin was officially sentenced Friday to generating $80,000 to $100,000 in profits for the privately held Crowley County Correctional Facility. “The defendant is hereby ordered to create a minimum of $80,000 in net profits at a medium security prison owned and operated by the CoreCivic corporation,”

  104. 104.

    msdc

    @martian: If you’re eyeing him as a national contender now, you’re getting ahead of yourself. Let’s elect some Dems to Congress and state legislatures first. Any Democratic president will depend on them to get legislation passed, and it’s not like Kander could be a national contender without a statewide win first.

  105. 105.

    SFAW

    @Schlemazel:

    The right thing to do is read the original comment, taking it in the most offensive way possible and unleashing righteous fury in return

    GOD DAMN YOU!!!!!

    Oh, wait — is it you upon whom I should be unleashing righteous fury? Or Jeffro? Or perhaps Cole??? I think I missed something somewhere.

    Get back to me on that, would you please?

  106. 106.

    Mary G

    @martian: I had been donating to him, just a tiny bit, before the election, and still get emails and follow him on Twitter, and he really impresses me. He may be ex-military and has to sound pretty Blue Dog because of Missouri, but I get the strong impression he’s quite progressive IRL. He was the MO Secretary of State and fought off a bunch of voter restriction laws while in office and is passionate against voting restrictions of all kinds. He’s started a national org, Let America Vote, to fight for voters’ rights in all states.

  110. 110.

    Ella in New Mexico

    The Spencer family’s farms are also subsidized by the federal government. From 2008 through 2015, the Spencers received $2 million in US farm subsidy payments, according to federal data.

    OF COURSE he and his slimy mother take the subsidies. If our government is ” a fool enough” to offer them, they’ll take them and laugh because they’re “ripping-off the enemy”.

    They aren’t worried about hypocrisy, they’re mocking America.

  111. 111.

    hovercraft

    @Steeplejack (phone):
    NPI is a non-profit, wow, I breezed right past that. Since they hand them out like candy, can we be :

    John Cole’s : Peoples University of Social Science and Yammering.

  113. 113.

    Ella in New Mexico

    @hovercraft: Does Trump Tower not have a helipad on top of it? You’d think he’d have indulged his ego years putting one there a long time ago. Will he land at an airport and limo into town? I can’t imagine him feeling he needed to move about NY like one of the commoners.

  114. 114.

    MomSense

    @Major Major Major Major:

    Lovely. This is the first year I’ve been without any orchids. The last two I had were reliable bloomers until my mom house sat. She kept watering them Because they “felt dry”. When my life settles a bit, I’d like to start again.

  116. 116.

    Ruckus

    @rikyrah:

    They want to return to the delusional days of Mad Men

    Exactly. This was why I could never watch that show. It wasn’t a mythical vision, it was real life, bullshit distilled into a sales pitch, a job with benefits, and quite a lot of barely hidden costs.

  117. 117.

    Jazzman

    @Ben Vernia: Reminds me of Kathy Griffin’s comeback when the “Catholic League” protested one of her performances: “I realized it’s one dude with a computer.” (The “dude”, of course, being Fightin’ Bill Donohue.)

  118. 118.

    hovercraft

    @Ella in New Mexico:
    From Quora
    Rooftop helipads were banned in New York City after 9/11. Only the three helipads; Wall St, East 30st and West 30st are open today. All of these are on the water.

    The Pan-Am helipad accident atop what is now the MetLife building also scared a lot of people, even though it was a while ago.

    ___________

    Given hi relationship with DiBlasio, and the Feds refusal to reimburse NYC for expenses, I doubt they will go out of their way to change the law, or do anything to make things easier for him.

  119. 119.

    Millard Filmore

    @SFAW:

    next thing, you’ll be posting some article about Congressional hearings related to women’s rights, and there will only be men invited.

    If there is a hearing about women having too many rights, why would inviting women help?

  126. 126.

    Jeffro

    @rikyrah: Thanks rikyrah, I just sent that article everywhere and to everyone I could think of. They need to realize the truth: the white safety net is real and provides HUGE benefits that most take for granted.

  127. 127.

    Jeffro

    @Baud:

    In Forbes, no less.

    I think the writer got a bit further into the article before actually saying “white socialism”, is how that happened.

    I’m hoping it (being in Forbes + not mentioning ‘white socialism’ in the headline) will get some friends and relatives of mine to read it when they’d otherwise dismiss it unread as “reverse racism”

  130. 130.

    Jeffro

    @Schlemazel:

    The right thing to do is read the original comment, taking it in the most offensive way possible and unleashing righteous fury in return

    lol

    I’ve been doing it all wrong then…I usually glance at the post, say something, then relate it to something off-topic (usually in a very extended manner), and then ask people to call their member of Congress and Senators (for what, I’m probably not always/often clear…just call, people!)

    I’ll try to get with the program. =)

  132. 132.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Jeffro: Christ, you’re fucking useless.as tits on a boor.

    ETA: Just trying to give you an encouraging example.

  135. 135.

    Mnemosyne

    @Ruckus:

    To be fair to the show, it was actually about how it was awful to be anyone other than a straight white man in the early 1960s, but a lot of straight white men who watched it and glamorized those times failed to understand that.

  136. 136.

    Mr Stagger Lee

    @rikyrah: With all those strategic minerals on that continent, a major FU indeed. Russia and China must be laughing their asses off.

  137. 137.

    Wapiti

    @Mary G: He’s at least progressive enough to state that his uncle is gay and Jewish. That’s not hiding under a rock.

  139. 139.

    martian

    @msdc:

    …it’s not like Kander could be a national contender without a statewide win first.

    There’s a Mistah Trump on the Twitter machine who’d like a word with you…

    What’s that? You don’t think both sides would do that? I dunno anymore to be honest. Seems like Dems do better when the Republicans don’t have years to take aim at our candidates. I have a lot of mixed and contrary thoughts about it. But Kander is clearly playing to a national audience on Twitter, so I think it’s worth giving him a look over. I’ve disliked in the past how people with a talent for sound bites gather a lot of progressive support and attention before cratering. I think I might have even donated to Grayson myself, at one point. Lesson learned. And maybe I am getting ahead of myself, but when I’m deciding how to divvy up the bountiful contents of my change jar for statewide races, I do get a mite picky.

    @Mary G: Now that sounds good! Since Holder and Obama are intending to join the voting rights fight, I wonder if there will be a joining of forces? Seems like there are scads of little, state level operations that could maybe become the foundation for a new national org.

  141. 141.

    Another Scott

    In other news, it’s a good thing that Russia and Syria defeated the rebels in Aleppo, and the Putin cease fire plan means that Russia has all the cards and the US has been left behind, and Syrian civil war is over, isn’t it?

    What? What’s that?

    BBC News:

    Syrian security forces have engaged in fierce clashes with rebels on the eastern outskirts of Damascus.

    Artillery shells and rockets landed in the heart of the capital as part of a surprise rebel attack launched in the Jobar district.

    The assault began early on Sunday with car bombs and suicide attacks, activists said. State media said secret tunnels were also used.

    The military says it managed to push the rebels back.

    Government warplanes launched more than 30 air strikes on rebel positions, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a group of activists monitoring the conflict.

    Damascus only has a few opposition-held areas, and Jobar is the closest to the city centre. Control of the war-damaged area – which is split between rebels and jihadists on one side and government forces on the other – has been fought over for more than two years.

    AFP correspondents in Damascus said the army had closed routes into the strategically important Abbasid Square as explosions reverberated across the city.

    The Observatory said the rebels had initiated the attack to relieve pressure on fighters under attack from government forces in the districts of Barzeh, Tishreen and Qabun.

    Last Wednesday, at least 31 people were killed in a suicide bomb attack at the main court complex in the centre of Damascus.

    Later, another suicide bomber attacked a restaurant in the western district of Rabweh, injuring more than 20 people.

    The attacks came on the sixth anniversary of the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad.

    Meanwhile, Donnie’s people at the Pentagon are planning to send 1,000 more US “non-combat” troops there….

    Bigly Fun Times ahead!!1

    :-/

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  142. 142.

    Jinchi

    I knew that there are people who love The Sound of Music, and I knew that there were neo-nazi’s out there, but I always thought the two groups were mutually exclusive.

  143. 143.

    Jinchi

    @Another Scott:

    Meanwhile, Donnie’s people at the Pentagon are planning to send 1,000 more US “non-combat” troops there….

    Does anyone know which side we’ll be fighting on?

  146. 146.

    PIGL

    @rikyrah: I guess maybe they should start having those meetings somewhere else. For example Rome or Paris or Berlin or Peking.

  147. 147.

    hovercraft

    @greennotGreen:
    Your acronym is nicer than mine
    John Cole’s
    Peoples
    University of
    Public
    Policy and
    Yammering.

    vs

    John Cole’s :
    Peoples
    University of
    Social
    Science and
    Yammering.

  149. 149.

    martian

    @Major Major Major Major: Sure, Kander has some experience, and I feel certain he could pass a basic civics test, which puts him head and shoulders over most members of the current maladministration, but it’s a whole new game. Or is it? I go in circles with it, to be honest. Does experience matter at all? Only to Democrats? Trump, Dubya, Reagan – objectively, they were fucking incompetent failures before they were ever elected president. Getting elected is not about competence and experience, I’m thinking. Even before Twitler. Maybe Democrats have been missing the point all along.

    I don’t know. I’m probably not making a lot of sense here, but I’m feeling like Trump is not the aberration or exception a lot of people think he is. Maybe the system isn’t even broken like it seems and the electoral college functioned as it was intended to by the people who created it, the people who felt the franchise should be restricted to white, male landowners. We idealized a system that was always unequal and intended to always be so. Trump is the truth of it.

    God, I’m not even drinking, and I’m drunk rambling.

  152. 152.

    martian

    @Omnes Omnibus:
    Must there always be one directly? I said it was a ramble.

    Where Kander’s concerned, I’ve mainly expressed interest in his potential and defended that. For the rest, I’m just trying to piece together some coherent understanding of what’s happened out of my incoherent thoughts. Puzzling over what the path forward is. I thought our country better than this, but what does that even mean? What assumptions did I wrap up in that? I’m sure it’s irritating waiting for the point to arrive. Not there yet.

  153. 153.

    Jinchi

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    What does the Sound of Music have to do with a post featuring a song from Cabaret? Aside from Nazis?

    I guess it shows my limited knowledge of 50 year old musicals with Nazis.

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