Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Oh FFS you might as well trust a 6-year-old with a flamethrower.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

The arc of the moral universe doesn’t bend itself. it’s up to us.

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

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

We’ll be taking my thoughts and prayers to the ballot box.

Everything is totally normal and fine!!!

I conferred with the team and they all agree – still not tired of winning!

ha ha ha! Nice try weird people.

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

Republicans got rid of McCarthy. Democrats chose not to save him.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Consistently wrong since 2002

If you are still in the gop, you are either an extremist yourself, or in bed with those who are.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

I was confident that someone would point it out and thought why not me.

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

You are here: Home / Politics / domestic terrorists / Monday Morning Open Thread: It’s Always White Nationalism Week At the Trump White House!

Monday Morning Open Thread: It’s Always White Nationalism Week At the Trump White House!

by | 192 Comments

This post is in: , , , , , ,

(Tom Toles via GoComics.com)
.

This is from the beginning of August, but I didn’t get a chance to link it earlier because there’s always so much damned news. Paul Waldman, in The Week, “It’s white nationalism week in the Trump administration”:

… The power of Trump’s campaign for so many of his voters was that it wasn’t couched in euphemism and it didn’t apologize for its appeal to racial, ethnic, and religious identity. His most ardent supporters thrilled to the permission Trump gave them to cast off the chains of “political correctness” and tell people what they really thought of them — immigrants, Muslims, African-Americans, women, all of them.

What do you think “Make America Great Again” was supposed to mean? It promised a return to a time when our country was less diverse and no one questioned a hierarchy that placed white men at the top (today, of course, the hierarchy still exists, but people question it all the time). Many of those white men feel like they’ve lost something over the years, particularly if their economic prospects are limited. For them, the idea of turning back the clock so they wouldn’t have to read signs in Spanish or be polite to people they consider their lessers was nothing short of intoxicating…

While President Trump may never have had any deep thoughts about his role in a clash of civilizations, he knows what whips up his crowds. And his impulses always run toward antipathy for people not like him — even, in his more vulgar moments, toward advocacy for violence, whether it’s telling his supporters to “knock the hell” out of protesters or suggesting that what America needs is more police brutality.

“See, in the good old days this doesn’t happen,” Trump said when protesters interrupted him at a campaign rally, “because they used to treat them very, very rough. And when they protested once, you know, they would not do it again so easily.” Everyone cheered. He promised his supporters a return to those good old days, and that’s what he’s trying to give them. They can look at Washington and know that non-white people and immigrants aren’t going to be treated with kid gloves anymore. It may not put food on their tables or solve the problems in their communities, but it might be enough to convince them that America is becoming great again. And that’s all Trump needs.

***********
Apart from rededicating ourselves to a long battle, what’s on the agenda as we start the new week?

Reader Interactions

192Comments

  2. 2.

    Ruckus

    @sukabi:
    John Dingle at 91 is sharper and a better human being than drumpf ever was or ever will be. By at least twice the distance from here to the sun.

  5. 5.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    less than 2 weeks ago our media betters wrote breathless articles swearing the 71 year old Drumpf would change his ways and become responsible cuz he gave a retired general some office space.

  6. 6.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Iowa Old Lady: “We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender,”

  7. 7.

    Hkedi [Kang T. Q.]

    So with this horrible weekend, and the past two decades of republican rule, I’ve been thinking about this clip from the movie “mars attacks”, and how it’s a reflection of the gleeful lying in the face of all reality to get more power.

    Looking at the YouTube comments for the clip, it’s White Male Nutjob land. As a white male, I find the top comments really dispiriting and depressing.

    (Teaches me to read YouTube comments I guess)

  11. 11.

    OzarkHillbilly

    James Alex Fields Jr. also confided that he had been diagnosed with schizophrenia when he was younger and had been prescribed an anti-psychotic medication,

    That didn’t take long.

  18. 18.

    debbie

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    I listened to an interview with his high school history teacher, who said Fields was perceived as supporting Naziism from an early age. He seemed to tone down his opinions in his senior year, and his teacher said he thought he had finally gotten through to Fields. So much for bringing these pigs back into the fold.

  19. 19.

    The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion

    @Baud: You’re in my prayers. This was a response to Iowa Old Lady. Fat finger posting.

  22. 22.

    mai naem mobile

    @OzarkHillbilly: And somehow his mom who lives with didn’t mention that during her interview with a reporter. Does anybody know any adult whose mom they live with who doesn’t know their kid is mentails ill?

  23. 23.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    The ACLU needs to triage their support for groups on speech cases, in an effort to determine the model of society were the speakers to be ultimately successful. Would the country be egalitarian and respectful of ethnic and religious minorities?

    It isn’t so much about hate speech as it is the social order that would emerge were people like David Duke to be successful.

    There will always be horrible people who will be willing to champion the cause of whatever right to maliciously shriek “fire” in a crowded theater these Nazis claim. That doesn’t need to include the organizational resources of the ACLU.

  24. 24.

    bystander

    @mai naem mobile: I loved the part where his mother said she thought the rally he was headed to in Virginia was related to Trump, not a fascist fest. So, she was right. It was related to Trump.

  25. 25.

    satby

    @OzarkHillbilly: This is disturbing, that they’re going to try to blame schizophrenia. There’s been an effort in the mental health community to try to reduce the common assumptions about how likely people with schizophrenia are to be violent.

    The researchers note that other studies have already found a strong link between childhood conduct problems and adult violence, with or without the presence of schizophrenia.

    I was a job coach for people with mental illness.

  27. 27.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @mai naem mobile:

    The tug of extremism is probably powerfully felt by people with mental issues. The notion of absoluteness probably appeals to them as it obliterates all the gray areas in life, those things that they aren’t successful at addressing.

  28. 28.

    Baud

    Lots of people injured in the terrorist attack in Charlottesville. Where are the wall to wall interviews of them?

  31. 31.

    PST

    There is a piece in The Atlantic today by Graeme Wood about Richard Spenser, who turns out to have been his lab partner in high school chemistry. I’m not finished, but I paused to share this quotation from his interview:

    “I could just sit here masturbating in my own filth,” he said, probably rhetorically.

  34. 34.

    Zach

    Curious about GMA: Did anyone ask Sessions if the DOJ has any on-going civil rights investigations re: well documented hate crimes by members of the same racist groups protesting in Virginia? This weekend wasn’t the first time.

  37. 37.

    Quinerly

    This was probably posted in June. I don’t recall reading it, though. As a child of the South with a beloved great aunt who worshipped Lee and would recount stories of the war as told to her by her grandfather,I got a very slanted view of history. Additionally, I’m struggling the last few days with a dear friend who is staying with me for awhile. Originally from Rome, GA, now lives near Eureka Springs, Arkansas…he’s 81 and on home dialysis, set up in my back bedroom because his children here in St. Louis don’t have room for him…he really wants to argue about the Lee monument. Has been trying over breakfast to pick a fight about it. Thinks none of the monuments should come down. It’s been a long weekend. . glad for Monday. Plus, he had his third car accident in 10 months Saturday…his third car totaled and the 2nd car he has hit and totaled. Taking him for the rental car shortly. Thanks for letting me vent a bit. Didn’t mean to when I started the comment. With that said, this piece is well worth the read: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/06/the-myth-of-the-kindly-general-lee/529038/?utm_source=fbb

  39. 39.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Your feel good story for the day:

    It’s 101 degrees in St. Louis, but Raynard Nebbitt is determined to see his bridge. He sits on his purple bicycle with a mud flap on the back and balances a 4-foot scale model of a highway overpass on his handlebars. Nebbitt rides his bike an hour and 12 minutes on a hot summer day from Tower Grove South to Webster Groves, balancing the model, dodging cars and walking up steep hills on his way.

    It’s all to get to his favorite place in the world: the South Rock Hill Road bridge over Interstate 44.

    Almost nothing stops Nebbitt, 58, who has a mental disability, from these daily journeys to the overpass. Nobody quite knows what he sees in this seemingly unexceptional place — Raynard tends to be quiet and has limited speech — but he has visited almost every day for 20 years. When there’s litter on the road, he cleans it up. He often decorates the bridge for holidays. He motions for trucks to honk their horns and waits to watch trains pass on the nearby tracks. Nebbitt handcrafted the model of the overpass he takes everywhere. The street markings, billboards and pipe-cleaner power lines are all there in incredible detail. Nebbitt has even become something of a local celebrity over the years, inspiring art, a parade float and a Facebook fan page with more than 600 members.

    “Of course we all know Raynard,” said Webster Groves Mayor Gerry Welch. “Everyone has seen him on his bridge and I think people here look out for him.”

    But recently, life has made it harder for Nebbitt to see his bridge. Health and financial hardship in the family required him to move from Webster Groves to St. Louis last year, forcing him to make his hour long bike rides each way to get to the community where he’s become a fixture. Still, he comes every day.

    “You can’t stop him,” said Nebbitt’s sister, Kathy Nebbitt. “I tell him: It’s way too hot to be going to that bridge today. You know what he says to me? ‘Goodbye Kathy.’”

    Now the people of Webster Groves are working to bring Nebbitt back to his bridge. “This is where he belongs,” said Welch. “We all want Raynard to come home.”

    Much more at the link. Worth the trip.

  40. 40.

    Zach

    @Baud: Too bad if not. The most tragic thing about this is that the USA has been on a clear trajectory towards this weekend’s murder for over two years… and not enough people in power did enough to stop it. This includes Obama’s DOJ going easy on investigations into rightwing terrorism to avoid interfering in GOP politics… but obviously the Trump/Sessions DOJ is WAY more culpable since they’ve been ignoring and sometimes encouraging actual, escalating violence for 8 months. Particularly, the militia goons protesting arm in arm with the KKK should’ve been being arrested on the spot from day one… ditto for everyone with shields and sticks once evidence emerged that they were trained to use them as offensive weapons. Right to bear arms != right to racist harassment and intimidation.

  41. 41.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    When Jeff Sessions is making better, less equivocal statements on race than the President, that shows the extent of the problem.

  45. 45.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    Assange showed his true colors this weekend, BTW – whined about BLM and ANTIFA.

  52. 52.

    Steeplejack (tablet)

    @Eural Joiner:

    I was wondering about that. The supposed takeover announcement has some dog whistles in it, especially:

    HACKERS OF THE WORLD HAVE UNITED IN DEFENSE OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE

    Why would Anonymous throw in that very specific statement, even given the nature of the Daily Stormer site?

  56. 56.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    Those asshole 3%ers actually did a disavowal last night, as people were noting the flair on the “uniforms” of those militia shitbags that we’re protecting the Nazis.

    Loesch, of course, is whining after spending the last 8.5 years screaming “CRISIS! BUY BIG GUNS WITH EXTENDED MAGS!”

  57. 57.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Baud:

    It would have been nice in 2015 and 2016 to have had all of those pre-Snowjob surveillance tools in place in order to track Russian money and disinformation flowing into the country. Instead, we went spastic over the notion that some database somewhere might retain the hentai, brony and porn habits of losers, along with he racial epithets and political threats of old white drunks.

  59. 59.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Quinerly:

    Soldiers under Lee’s command at the Battle of the Crater in 1864 massacred black Union soldiers who tried to surrender. Then, in a spectacle hatched by Lee’s senior corps commander A.P. Hill, the Confederates paraded the Union survivors through the streets of Petersburg to the slurs and jeers of the southern crowd. Lee never discouraged such behavior. As the historian Richard Slotkin wrote in No Quarter: The Battle of the Crater, “his silence was permissive.”

    The presence of black soldiers on the field of battle shattered every myth the South’s slave empire was built on: the happy docility of slaves, their intellectual inferiority, their cowardice, their inability to compete with whites. As Pryor writes, “fighting against brave and competent African Americans challenged every underlying tenet of southern society.” The Confederate response to this challenge was to visit every possible atrocity and cruelty upon black soldiers whenever possible, from enslavement to execution.

    As the historian James McPherson recounts in Battle Cry of Freedom, in October of that same year, Lee proposed an exchange of prisoners with the Union general Ulysses S. Grant. “Grant agreed, on condition that blacks be exchanged ‘the same as white soldiers.’” Lee’s response was that “negroes belonging to our citizens are not considered subjects of exchange and were not included in my proposition.” Because slavery was the cause for which Lee fought, he could hardly be expected to easily concede, even at the cost of the freedom of his own men, that blacks could be treated as soldiers and not things. Grant refused the offer, telling Lee that “Government is bound to secure to all persons received into her armies the rights due to soldiers.” Despite its desperate need for soldiers, the Confederacy did not relent from this position until a few months before Lee’s surrender.

  61. 61.

    Kay

    Trump on his superior genetics & German blood. He’ll never denounce Nazis / white supremacists

    So funny. It’s clips of him over the last 40 years bragging about how his genes are superior.

    He’s proud of “that German blood” he has. You wonder what collection of racist garbage and fake-science nonsense he has used to develop this whole theory because it’s really fleshed out and he added to it over the decades.

    This is what he believes. He doesn’t denounce white supremacists because he shares their beliefs.

  66. 66.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    I’m learning a lot. I had no idea white supremacists allied with Putin and Assad. When did that start? It wasn’t part of the Michigan militia stuff in the 1990s. There wasn’t a word about other countries, other than the superiority of Hitler’s Germany and that was specifically backward looking – THAT period in Germany.

    This 20 year old from Kentucky considers Assad a hero? Did they worship Putin/Assad before Trump? Is that maybe where TRUMP got it? Maybe we shouldn’t assume Trump was in front of this initially- maybe he was at first a follower and sympathizer. Not reading their sites, I don’t think he’s curious enough to go down a hole like that, but maybe cleaned up and packaged in short sentences by Bannon?

    I didn’t think it was this bad, this integrated, where they’ve somehow rolled in Russia and Syria with the US confederacy.

  68. 68.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Quinerly:

    The white supremacists who have protested on Lee’s behalf are not betraying his legacy. In fact, they have every reason to admire him. Lee, whose devotion to white supremacy outshone his loyalty to his country, is the embodiment of everything they stand for. Tribe and race over country is the core of white nationalism, and racists can embrace Lee in good conscience.

    The question is why anyone else would.

    Good read. Thanx.

  69. 69.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    Well- and this should be an automatically generated line at this point- ‘Hillary Clinton said it’ but it’s different to read it on their individual social media or hear it from Trump.

    Why do they love Assad? Because he defied Obama? Apparently they think Russia is some kind of “last chance” for white supremacists. Russia…how? Russia somehow will make the US more white supremicist friendly?

    I’m having trouble with the timeline. Did the Russia/Syria/US confederacy stuff start before, after or at the same time as Trump’s birther campaign launch? Who is following whom?

  71. 71.

    Quinerly

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    Between all the reading that you, sweet rikyrah, and I do on the subject, don’t know how we missed it earlier this summer. I have bookmarked it for future sharing to friends who are bugging me over this monument shit…especially where Lee is concerned. Not in the mood to hear “it’s just stone.” In other news, spent a little time with our friend, Red. She was in a great mood…and positively radiant. Love her so much. Hope next time you are in Soulard that I can get you over to see this bathroom here she just finished. It’s really unbelievable. She out did herself. Have a great day, Ozark. Thanks for your AM posts.

  72. 72.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    You know I wondered not so much why Putin wanted Trump elected but more why Putin wanted GOP congresspeople elected. That makes more sense if there’s some kind of unified theory about Putin being the key to some “last stand” for the confederacy/white supremacy- it makes sense not because of the GOP congressmembers as individuals but because of the states and areas of the country those Republicans represent. If it’s geographic. It’s not “elect Republicans”. It’s “elect Republicans because Republicans represent Appalachia and the south”- the natural base. Putin doesn’t think Joe Blow, GOP’er from Kentucky is the key. He thinks Joe Blow’s constituents are the key. He thinks he’ll reach them.

  73. 73.

    tobie

    @Quinerly:

    Additionally, I’m struggling the last few days with a dear friend who is staying with me for awhile…on home dialysis.

    This sounds really hard. You’re being an extremely generous and loyal friend to care for him in your home. I hope you can convince him to steer clear of political topics.

  75. 75.

    satby

    @Quinerly: I’m sorry that helping your friend is taking such a toll, but should you help him get another vehicle? The next accident may kill somebody. There comes a point when people need to accept they don’t have the needed reflexes for safe driving any longer.

  77. 77.

    Tom

    @Quinerly: Back when I worked in the ER, I had to take the body of an 8 year old to the morgue the Saturday before Christmas. He was out Christmas shopping with his father when their car was broadsided by an old lady with a driving history similar to your friend. It’s been 40 years but I still remember how the kid looked with his neck broken and his head over on his shoulder, and the noises his father made when we had to tell him what happened. Turn your friend into the police, get his license taken away, and get him out of your house if he can’t be a decent guest.

  79. 79.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    I saw that statement from Trump; wow. Going by the Trump’s sulky behavior you could see the parts Kelly was making he say then he suddently changes when he does the “both sides”, I bet he improved that stuff.

    And I think we’ve just found Trump’s real weak spot; his sulking when his racism is brought up. His base loves him because he’s dumb man’s idea of a powerful leader, but when Trump sulks he just looks like a little boy. The Dems and the press really need to hammer him on it.

  80. 80.

    OzarkHillbilly

    “He was a very hard-working man, a lot of energy always running from one place to another doing something,” Oren Kristal said. He said his grandfather participated in one of his grandsons’ bar mitzvahs just a few weeks ago.

    An observant Jew, Kristal himself only celebrated his bar mitzvah last year, a hundred years later than usual. He missed his bar mitzvah, the Jewish coming-of-age ceremony held when a boy turns 13, because of the first world war.

    Kristal is survived by two children, numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren, according to media reports.

  81. 81.

    Quinerly

    @satby:
    I just can’t argue this AM. His insurance co.keeps covering him and replacing these cars. I’m a semi retired atty who is keeping her mouth shut. Don’t want to be pulled into this further. It’s a mess. I know it. Family not accepting it. What males this particularly irritating is I warned him about that intersection. I’m taking a different route when I leave the neighborhood because of the construction there. Accident happened about an hour after my third warning. Thanks for listening. Just have to get through Thurs AM. Regrouping after that.

  82. 82.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay:

    Russia somehow will make the US more white supremacist friendly?

    Well, mission accomplished!

    Regarding the chicken-egg question, my sense is that Trump’s base learned to appreciate Putin and Assad after the fact, but it’s just an assumption. It’s a question worth investigating for sure.

  83. 83.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Here’s what happens when you are stopped and frisked. You are walking to work on a Monday morning. The cop car stops suddenly, two men with guns jump out, and they order you to face the building and put your hands up. They put their hands roughly all over your body, one squeezes something in your pocket and asks you, “What’s that?” You take out your asthma inhaler and show it to him. They pat you down one more time and then they just leave. They don’t apologize. Your neighbors are walking by, some looking at you sympathetically and others like they are wondering what crime you committed.

    You feel humiliated.

    Or you are going to visit your mom in the projects. The lock on the door to the lobby is always busted, and the buzzer to her apartment is broken too. You just hope the elevator is working because you don’t feel like walking up eight flights of stairs. Again.

    You open the door and enter the lobby. Four cops are waiting. You recognize a couple of them from your previous visits to the neighborhood. One officer asks where you are going. “To visit my mom,” you say. “Put your hands against the wall,” another cop says. “Why? I’m just going to visit my mom.” “Trespass” is the answer. You tell them, “I’m not trespassing.” They surround you.

    Now it’s a situation. You put your hands on the wall. They kick your feet to spread your legs wider. They make you take off your cap, they pat you up and down, they touch your private parts. Other people entering the building look away partly to preserve your dignity and partly because they hope that if they pretend not to notice the cops, the cops will pretend not to notice them.

    Nobody coming inside the building uses a key – it would be ridiculous because the lock is broken. The cops write you up a citation for trespass. One of the officers you have seen before pulls you aside and says when you go to court just bring proof of your mother’s address and the judge will dismiss the case. Then they let you go. You hate them with every fiber of your being.

    What does it mean when police go around touching people who are, in the eyes of the law, innocent? Stop-and-frisks are brutal assertions of police dominance of the streets, communicating to African American men through “three ways of feeling a black man” – sexual harassment, torture and even terrorism – that they are objects of disdain by the state.

  84. 84.

    Tazj

    @Kay: I don’t specifically know what this 20 year old believed beyond his great admiration for the Nazi regime that his former teacher described. I do know that conservative Christians have had this strange admiration for Putin for a while now. It’s disturbing, but they see him as an ally in their fight to bring about a more Christian world. He’s against the gay community, abortion(I think, I don’t know his exact views), Muslims(although he probably just says he’s anti-terrorist), anti-feminist and “very manly”. In other words, a self-professed Christian, that holds the most important “Christian” values that they do. He doesn’t let white Christian men get kicked around they way they are in this country. If there’s a terrorist attack, he’s tough, he’s taking them out even if it means taking innocent civilians with them.

    As for Assad, I’ve heard many conservative Christians complain that the persecution and deaths of Christians in the Middle East hasn’t gotten the sympathy or publicity in this country that it should have. They see Assad as a protector of Christians in Syria and think we should’ve done more to help him, and since Putin is helping him, well, they admire him for it.

  86. 86.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:

    I’m learning a lot. I had no idea white supremacists allied with Putin and Assad. When did that start?

    I don’t know about Assad, but Putin got a lot of them with his anti-gay stand. Gotta a lot of the Holy Rollers with the Anti-Gay stuff.

  88. 88.

    gene108

    @Kay:

    You know I wondered not so much why Putin wanted Trump elected but more why Putin wanted GOP congresspeople elected.

    I think it is simply because Republicans are isolationists. They refuse to ratify the most basic of international treaties, they despise the global actions on global warming, and bunch of other stuff that basically results in the rest of the world carrying on while we get left behind.

    What Republicans don’t get is if a group wants to go out but you say you d rather stay home, it is okay once or twice, but if you keep staying home enough, the next time you decide you want to join the group in going out they will not put you in charge, no matter how much you complain about how awesome you are.

    Putin gets this. And wants to accelerate it.

  89. 89.

    Mom Says I*m Handsome

    Apart from rededicating ourselves to a long battle

    I first read that as remedicating…

  90. 90.

    germy

    Am I wrong, or does this AP article make it sound like most of the violence was started by the counter protesters?

    CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (AP) — Clergy in robes. A woman handing out flowers. Black Lives Matter activists. Armed militia members. Students. Angry anti-fascist protesters.

    The diverse group of people who came to oppose a weekend gathering of white nationalists in this Virginia college town seemed to outnumber the rally-goers. The counter-protesting groups didn’t organize collectively. Instead, it was a largely organic effort among groups who shared the same mission: showing that hate wasn’t welcome.

    “They just wanted to come out and say no. They wanted to come out and show a robust love for community and what America is meant to stand for,” said Lisa Woolfork, a University of Virginia professor and 17-year Charlottesville resident. “And I find that very heartening, very encouraging.”

    Officials have not provided a crowd estimate, but there appeared to be at least 500 people supporting the rally sparked by Charlottesville’s decision to remove a Confederate monument. At least twice as many appeared to be there to oppose them.

    The violence between the groups erupted well before the event was supposed to start.

    Neo-Nazis, skinheads, Ku Klux Klan members other white supremacists made their way to the park at the same time as counter-protesters, and the two sides clashed. People threw punches, screamed, set off smoke bombs, hurled water bottles and unleashed chemical sprays. Some came prepared for a fight, with body armor and helmets. Others darted around, trying to avoid the chaos.

    “I’ve never seen that kind of hatred up front. It was pretty raw, pretty coarse,” scholar and activist Cornel West, one of the most high-profile counter-protesters, told The Associated Press in an interview Sunday.

    There were pockets of peaceful resistance, too. One woman quietly handed out flowers. A group stood in a circle, hands uplifted, singing hymns. One man toted a tuba.

    Volunteer medics bobbed in and out of the fray, helping people who had been sprayed with chemicals, and others passed out water and snacks.

    Walt Heinecke, another University of Virginia professor, obtained city permits for events in two nearby parks, and counter-protesters used the sites as a place of respite.

    Heinecke said he was surprised to see members of an armed leftist group who stationed themselves nearby, providing protection for people there.

    Meanwhile, many of the rally attendees stood behind barriers officials had put up, waiting for the event to get underway. But the speakers never got the chance.

    As the chaos grew, authorities declared it an unlawful assembly and forced the crowd to disperse. The rally leaders, including organizer Jason Kessler — a local right-wing blogger and activist — urged supporters to go home.

    Kessler blamed the violence on police, saying they didn’t do enough to maintain order and protect his group’s right to free speech.

    About two hours later, pockets of counter-protesters who had been marching through town converged on a downtown street. Hundreds were streaming along, cheering, and waving flags.

    “There was a real feeling like we had driven them out of the town,” said Ross Mittiga, a UVA researcher who recently ran an unsuccessful campaign for the state House of Delegates.

    That was quickly shattered when a car plowed into the crowd, hurling people into the air. Heather Heyer, 32, was killed and 19 others were injured. Just hours later, a state police helicopter that had been deployed as part of the response crashed in a field outside of town, killing two.

    In blog posts after the violence, the Daily Stormer, a leading white nationalist website that promoted the Charlottesville event, pledged to hold more events “soon.”

    Opponents said they’d be ready.

  92. 92.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Kay: Putin has been a big hero the cray cray right for at least the second term of the Obama presidency. That’s when I started noticing paeans to Putin on websites like The Thinking Housewife, which btw I haven’t checked since T won. Because now if I want to know what the cray cray right is thinking one has to just wait for the latest communication from the WH.

  93. 93.

    Zach

    Wow. Trump’s response to the Merck exec’s resignation from some meaningless council is one of his more unhinged… I guess there have been some emergency reorganizations or resignations or something at the Whitehouse we haven’t heard about yet. It doesn’t appear that anyone is advising Trump at all and the people tasked with explaining him aren’t coordinated at all. Did Conaway and/or Sanders quit or something? They were at least kinda holding it together.

    https://twitter.com/Merck/status/897065338566791169
    https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/897079051277537280

    Chaos of last couple weeks shows that Priebus was actually kinda sorta good at his job and that it’s just an impossible job.

  95. 95.

    Kay

    I know none of you accept my theory on this, but I maintain that Trump was protected by coming out of NYC. It was a kind of cover.

    You can’t tell me that there would have been all these excuses and rationalizations for Donald Trump’s OBVIOUSLY racist views if he had come out of Arkansas and had a southern accent. Instead of saying “this guy is a blatant racist” we heard all this bullshit fake psychology about how he was just blunt and mavericky.

    The fact that he was northeastern and urban was a kind of protection. He’s not “one of them” – not an icky lower class racist- he can’t be- he’s from the wrong part of the country and has the wrong background. I bet it made it easier for white upper middle class to vote for him in like the suburbs of Columbus, Ohio or whatever.

  97. 97.

    Quinerly

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    Let me know when you are around. If a Saturday, can meet at the Venice. I’ll buy and you can take a peek over here. Close to Red and the Venice.

  98. 98.

    tobie

    @Tazj: I’ve always found it stomach-turning but I guess the American right wing loves Putin’s shirtless displays. They must think he’s a manly man, a proud defender of whiteness and Christendom and patriarchy and they loved the disrespect he showed Obama, whom they hated more than anything else because he reminded them of just how mediocre they are.

  101. 101.

    A Ghost To Most

    @OzarkHillbilly: I told myself that, but it didn’t make it any easier to swallow.
    I’ve been an ACLU member for a long time, but defending people who want to destroy the Constitution doesn’t sit right with me. I’ll probably join again when/if the troubles subside.

  103. 103.

    Quinerly

    @Tom:
    Thanks for sharing. I’m in a box on this. Daughter out of town taking stepson to start college. Son and wife out of town until tonight. He has three appointments with doctors re the kidney stuff. He must have transportation and I am stepping back. He’s not my family, just an old dear friend of 30 years, ex client, ex business partner in a bar/restaurant business. I got out lucky with my dad…he came home to my mom one day, laid his truck keys on the counter and said he was done with driving. Never learned what if anything triggered that course of action. Never asked for them. Always after that walked to my mom’s car…passenger side when going anywhere.

  104. 104.

    MattF

    OT. About the Taylor Swift trial– The situation is in the trial really worse than you think. I was entirely unaware that there is a photo of the groping event. Apparently the judge in the case sealed the evidence to avoid prejudicing the jury. Just appalling.

    ETA: Scroll down to the bottom of the page.

  106. 106.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:

    I know none of you accept my theory on this, but I maintain that Trump was protected by coming out of NYC. It was a kind of cover.

    For White people.
    Black folk pointed out his racism beginning being sued by Nixon’s government for Housing Discrimination..
    The Central Park 5 – need I say more?

    I’ll say it again..
    How come non-Whites had his number from Day One?

  107. 107.

    Zach

    @Kay:

    I know none of you accept my theory on this, but I maintain that Trump was protected by coming out of NYC. It was a kind of cover.

    I dunno… Jeff Sessions and Mitch McConnell seem to be doing OK. I think Trump’s racism goes unpunished because most of the demonstrably bad stuff he supports is supported by a majority of America’s white middle class — particularly de facto school and housing/financial segregation and racist immigration policy. His rhetoric would sound worse with a southern accent but it’d still be drowned out by the next scandal in today’s media environment.

  108. 108.

    Kay

    I wish everyone would stop with this “they lack EDUCATION” thing too. You would think after the financial crash we would have all stopped linking education and ethics and character.

    Donald Trump (and his family) had literally the best education money can buy. What they lack isn’t the right credentials.

    You didn’t need an advanced degree to see thru Trump and an advanced degree wasn’t protection from him either. What you needed was a common definition of “character” and once you’ve defined what it is you have to be able to recognize it, or at least recognize the complete and utter lack of it.

    When FDR was elected something like 40% of Americans never went further than 8th grade, and FDR was wealthy so “coming from nothing” isn’t a requirement either. It’s like we are grasping at anything to avoid what is an inability to discern good from bad.

  109. 109.

    gene108

    @Kay:

    It also helped being from NYC because it is the media center of the country.

    NYC media saw him up close and decided he’s just a buffoon.

    Also helped with his Birther bullshit, because he was just a limo ride from damn near all the morning news/talk shows, so booking him was super easy.

  110. 110.

    different-church-lady

    @rikyrah:

    How come non-Whites had his number from Day One?

    Because non-whites in this country can’t safely indulge in delusion?

  111. 111.

    satby

    @A Ghost To Most: I think distinction has to be made between the ACLU defending the Nazi’s rights to protest peacefully (which is what the ACLU was doing) and the actual behavior of the Nazis when protesting, which the ACLU has no control over. The argument can be made that violence was predictable, but that argument can and would be used against any protest march, and the Traitor-in-chief won’t hesitate to try to suppress dissent that way.

  112. 112.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @A Ghost To Most: A question for you and others who object to the ACLU defending the free speech rights of our most loathsome creatures (because the nice people never say objectionable things): Should Fields have a lawyer provided for him at his trial?

  113. 113.

    germy

    Continuing from my comment #90, I thought the armed militia dudes were the ones walking around with hitler quotes on their shirts.

  114. 114.

    Kay

    @gene108:

    NYC media saw him up close and decided he’s just a buffoon.

    Is that what they decided though? My sense is they used a very parochial lens and decided that “everyone knew” he wasn’t really prestigious in NYC. But everyone doesn’t know that because everyone doesn’t understand the finer points of prestige and how it’s measured differently in different areas of the country.

  115. 115.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Kay:

    New York media kept foisting the idiot on us for decades for reasons that I don’t understand. I blame them – they kept sticking megaphones in his face and asking his opinion in ways that never happened with actual billionaires (Branson, Gates, Buffett).

  116. 116.

    rikyrah

    Adviser: Trump Didn’t Want To ‘Dignify’ White Supremacy By Condemning It
    By ESME CRIBB
    Published AUGUST 13, 2017 9:56 AM

    White House homeland security adviser Tom Bossert on Sunday claimed President Donald Trump’s failure to condemn white supremacists after violence broke out at a rally in Charlottesville was because he didn’t want to “dignify” the movement.

    “The President not only condemned the violence, and stood up at a time and a moment when calm was necessary, and didn’t dignify the names of these groups of people, but rather addressed the fundamental issue,” Bossert said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

    Trump on Saturday did not remark on the nature of the rally but called the clashes an “egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides” and called for Americans to “love each other.”
    ………………………………

    CNN’s Jake Tapper pressed Bossert to give his own response to the violence.

    “You on this show today have said that you condemn groups and condemn actions and condemn bigotry, but I haven’t heard you say, ‘I condemn white supremacists. I condemn neo-Nazis. I condemn the alt-right.’ I haven’t heard that,” he said.

  117. 117.

    different-church-lady

    @Kay: It’s pretty simple: the number of hard racists + number of soft racists sums to a much greater percentage of this country than we thought.

    We can no longer afford the comforting narrative that most Americans are decent people.

  118. 118.

    El Caganer

    @Kay: Agree completely. He’s from A Great Eastern Cultural Center, unlike AG Bo Secessions, who was nailed years ago. So…even though it’s been a long enough time to have figured out what he’s all about (remember those innocent young men that he was pushing to have executed? His history of discrimination in renting his properties?), he pretty much got a free ride. Until very recently, when some of Our Liberal Media changed the chant from “Four legs good, two legs bad” to “Four legs good, two legs better” without missing a beat or batting an eyelash.

  119. 119.

    rikyrah

    The Vise Is Tightening On Paul Manafort, The Mueller Probe’s Linchpin
    By ALLEGRA KIRKLAND
    Published AUGUST 11, 2017 10:40 AM

    As President Donald Trump himself said, the recently revealed predawn FBI raid of his former campaign chairman’s Alexandria, Virginia home sent a “very, very strong signal.”

    That signal, former federal prosecutors told TPM, is that Paul Manafort is the linchpin in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russia’s election interference. Whether the investigation ends up centering on potential financial crimes or possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, those former prosecutors said nailing the goods on Manafort will be key to Mueller’s case.

    From the millions of dollars Manafort reportedly owed to pro-Russian interests, to his bank accounts in the tax haven of Cyprus, to his attendance at a 2016 meeting billed as an opportunity for the Russian government to provide the Trump campaign with information that would damage Hillary Clinton’s chances in the presidential race, to his retroactive filing with the Justice Department as a foreign agent, the longtime GOP operative seems to have a toe in almost every part of the special counsel’s sprawling probe. And a slew of recent reports indicate Mueller’s team is tightening the vise on the former campaign chairman.

  120. 120.

    gene108

    @Zach:

    McCinnell is not openly racist. He’s very closed about stating what he believes in.

    Sessions sort of rehabilitated himself by having several terms in the Senate and never openly using the n-word.

    Trump shot up in the polls by coming out as the most openly racist politician since George Wallace, and stayed in the lead because of it.

    He’s benefited greatly by being born in NYC instead of Buffalo or Montana or somewhere that is not the center of so much business.

  121. 121.

    Tilda Swintons Bald Cap

    Today’s Nazis don’t need material support from the ACLU. They have support from Russia, the tacit support of the Legislative and Judicial branches and the overt support of the Executive. If Nazis need a lawyer they can call Greenwald.

  122. 122.

    MattF

    @Kay: More than that– anyone in NYC who drives regularly up and down the West Side Highway hates Trump for building a long line of upper-class tenements with a big TRUMP sign on them along the Hudson shoreline. It’s how my sister first came to despise him.

  123. 123.

    germy

    @rikyrah:

    didn’t want to “dignify” the movement.

    Of course these are the same people who vilified President Obama for not using the magic words Islamik Terrorizzm

  124. 124.

    rikyrah

    He’s One of Them
    By JOSH MARSHALL
    Published AUGUST 13, 2017 10:53 AM

    As we get underway today, a few thoughts on yesterday. In addition to going out of his way not to denounce the white supremacist and neo-nazi marchers yesterday, for those primed to hear it (which is the point) the President made a point of calling out and valorizing the marchers. In his at length on-camera comments, in addition to bromides and calling for people to love each other, Trump noted that we must “cherish our history.”

    Here’s the passage

    Above all else, we must remember this truth: No matter our color, creed, religion or political party, we are all Americans first. We love our country. We love our God. We love our flag. We’re proud of our country. We’re proud of who we are. So we want to get the situation straightened out in Charlottesville, and we want to study it. And we want to see what we’re doing wrong as a country, where things like this can happen.

    My administration is restoring the sacred bonds of loyalty between this nation and its citizens, but our citizens must also restore the bonds of trust and loyalty between one another. We must love each other, respect each other, and cherish our history and our future together. So important. We have to respect each other. Ideally, we have to love each other.

    I spent the better part of a decade training as an historian. I’m definitely pro-history. But in context, this is an explicit call-out to the white supremacist and neo-Confederate forces at the march whose calling card is celebrating Southern ‘heritage’ and America’s history as a white country. Zero ambiguity or question about that. And they heard the message. White supremacist leaders cheered Trump’s refusal to denounce them and his valorization of their movement.

    Where does this come from? Who knows who wrote this text for Trump. But many of Trump’s most important speeches were written by white nationalist aide Stephen Miller, who came from Jeff Sessions’ senate office. Miller literally worked with Alt-Right leader (he coined the phrase) Richard Spencer on racist political activism when he was in college at Duke (Spencer was a grad student at the time). This isn’t some vague guilt by association. He’s one of them.

    When Gabriel Sherman asked what he identifies as a ‘senior White House official’ why the White House didn’t denounce the Nazis in Charlottesville, he got this: “What about the leftist mob? Just as violent if not more so.” Maybe I’ve missed some other background comments out of the White House. But I haven’t heard anything that approaches that level of venom about the nazis or white supremacists. When the top ideologues at Trump’s White House look at yesterday’s spectacle, they instinctively see the counter-protestors as enemies.

  125. 125.

    rikyrah

    Why are @LindseyGrahamSC & the WH quietly working their 25 governor strategy to repeal ACA.
    Will tweet thread in AM US time. Follow…
    — Andy Slavitt (@ASlavitt) August 14, 2017

  127. 127.

    Elizabelle

    @satby: Well put.

    I don’t think Mr. Dialysis should be driving another car. I wonder what his insurance company, or the rental car company, thinks about that. You’d think rates would be through the roof.

  128. 128.

    germy

    @rikyrah:

    “What about the leftist mob? Just as violent if not more so.”

    When I heard Gabriel Sherman’s quote (why doesn’t he name him?) I assumed it was Stephen Miller.

  129. 129.

    Kay

    @gene108:

    And what about the constant calls for “education”? If Donald Trump proves anything he proves that purchasing an elite education isn’t a vaccination against dumb, fucked up theories about how German “blood” is better than African or Mexican “blood”.

    Plenty of AA working class knew he was a goddamned disaster as a human being. They didn’t pick that up in boarding school.

    It’s uncomfortable to talk about so we keep casting around for alternate explanations- why did so many people follow such a lousy person? What are his redeeming qualities as a human being? What is it about Donald Trump that people found admirable?

  131. 131.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @rikyrah: An interview with the author, Paul Butler, here.

    So how did your perspective change?

    There were a few experiences that changed me.

    I remember a trial I had in the 1990s where the defendant basically had no defense. He was found with drugs and said he simply didn’t know how they had got in his pocket. The majority-black jury found him not guilty. After verdict, I went running after them to find out why. None would talk to me except for the lone white woman, and she said: “We knew he was guilty, but he was just so young.”

    Right there I was forced to reconcile this enormous respect that I gained for the jurors of the district of Columbia with this reality that in some cases they were saying not guilty when they knew otherwise.
    You never saw this in cases of violent crime, or even large-scale drug selling, but in drug possession and in low-level sales it was commonplace. And it made me start to think: maybe what they’re doing is right, keeping nonviolent kids out of prison.

    Later that decade, I myself was arrested and went to trial over false allegations of [a] misdemeanour assault. A neighbour of mine accused me of pushing her during an argument about a parking space. I was taken to a courthouse with around 150 other black men that day. I thought: ‘Oh my God, what if the judge recognises me?’ But I don’t even think she looked at me. I was just another anonymous, African American man on the lockup list that day.

    During the trial, I experienced for myself a lot of things that defendants I’d prosecuted said were evidence of how unfair the system was: police lied, witnesses who knew what happened didn’t come forward. Now I was forced to confront them myself.

    But things were dealt well for me at the trial because I could afford the best lawyer in the city, had legal skills and social standing, and because I was innocent.

    The jury took less than 10 minutes to acquit me. But the experience made a man out of me. It made a black man out of me.

  132. 132.

    rikyrah

    Aug 13, 2017
    After Charlottesville: End the Denial About Trump
    E.J. Dionne Jr.

    It should not have taken the death and injury of innocents to move our nation toward moral clarity. It should not have taken President Trump’s disgraceful refusal to condemn white supremacy, bigotry and Nazism to make clear to all who he is and which dark impulses he is willing to exploit to maintain his hold on power.

    Those of us who are white regularly insist that the racists and bigots are a minority of us and that the white-power movement is a marginal and demented faction.

    This is true, and the mayhem in Charlottesville, Virginia, called forth passionate condemnations of blood-and-soil nationalism across the spectrum of ideology. These forms of witness were a necessary defense of the American idea and underscored the shamefulness of Trump’s embrace of moral equivalence. There are not, as Trump insisted Saturday, “many sides” to questions that were settled long ago: Racism, anti-Semitism, discrimination and white supremacy are unequivocally wrong.

    A president who cannot bring himself to say this immediately and unequivocally squanders any claim to moral leadership.

    snip//

    The battles over Confederate monuments, in Charlottesville and elsewhere, reflect our difficulty in acknowledging that these memorials are less historical markers than political statements. Many were erected explicitly in support of Jim Crow and implicitly to deny the truth that the Southern cause in the Civil War was built around a defense of slavery. Taking them down is an acknowledgement of what history teaches, not an eradication of the past.

    But history is also being made now. As is always true with Trump, self-interest is the most efficient explanation for his actions: Under pressure from the Russia investigation, he is reluctant to alienate backlash voters, who are among his most loyal supporters.

    The rest of us, however, have a larger obligation to our country and to racial justice. As the late civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer might suggest, it is time to ask about Trump: When will we become sick and tired of being sick and tired?

  134. 134.

    Zach

    @gene108:

    McCinnell is not openly racist. He’s very closed about stating what he believes in.

    IIRC he’s never even acknowledged the photo of him beaming in front of the Confederate flag that emerged in 2015 (though he’s publicly against the flag and some monuments now).

  136. 136.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: I believe you are correct. The Beltway media loves nothing so much as to fit current events into a pre-conceived narrative. Haley Barber would have fit the narrative. Trump didn’t.

  137. 137.

    different-church-lady

    @Kay:

    What is it about Donald Trump that people found admirable?

    The same thing as any bully: he made hatred fun for them. It’s primitive and visceral. You only had to go to public school in the 70s to be familiar with it first hand.

  138. 138.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Sure, if he doesn’t have the resources to pay one.

    Here’s my thing about the ACLU – they can always say “no”. There’s a neverending line of wingnut asshole lawyers who’d love the publicity of a high profile case (I’m looking at people like Glenn Greenwald). I do think the ACLU has to look at the end goal of the speech – which is a society where the constitution is overturned, civil liberties gone and the institution of a regime of theft, exclusion and racial/religious cleansing. They can pick and choose how they’re going to apply their institutional resources and advise that while they will do no harm, that the end goal is reprehensible and that the white supremacist actor is on its own. By facilitating it, they’ve enabled it.

    I have turned down things in the past and will continue to turn things down. If I deem a goal ridiculous, I say so up front.

  139. 139.

    Kay

    @gene108:

    It also occurs to me that insisting Donald Trump is a “working class” candidate (thereby ignoring vast sections of non-white working class) is very convenient for those parts of his base who are NOT working class. How did they get a pass? I get it, I really do- “working class” were dumb enough to fall for Donald Trump but how does that explain that all of godammned Wall Street are cheering him on? Ivanka Trump and Jared travel in some pretty fancy circles. What do those people “need”? More education?

  140. 140.

    rikyrah

    The GOP Bears Full Responsibility for the Havoc in Virginia
    The madness in Virginia is the natural consequence of decades of GOP normalization of hate and rationalization of racism.

    by D.R. Tucker
    August 12, 2017

    ……………………….

    The man who questioned Barack Obama’s legitimacy as a United States citizen, and who incited all manner and manifestation of hatred before and during his presidential campaign, has no standing to call for unity. It was his supporters who are responsible for this weekend’s viciousness in Virginia:

    …………………………..

    Repugnant, Paul? Was it any more repugnant than when your hero, Ronald Reagan, held his own hate rally in Philadelphia, Mississippi, 37 years ago this month, where he proclaimed his belief in “state’s rights?” Was it any more repugnant than when George H. W. Bush shamelessly stoked racial fears in his 1988 presidential campaign? Was it any more repugnant than when Jesse Helms convinced white voters in North Carolina that nonwhites were taking all the good jobs in 1990? Was it any more repugnant than when Rush Limbaugh proclaimed in 2010 that the Affordable Care Act was a form of reparations?

    No wonder Republicans like Ryan are embarrassed by the chaos in Charlottesville. Their party stoked this hatred for decades, going all the way back to Barry Goldwater’s resistance to the Civil Rights Act 53 years ago. The madness in Virginia is the natural consequence of decades of GOP normalization of hate and rationalization of racism. This is your legacy, Republicans. As you sow, you shall surely reap.

  141. 141.

    different-church-lady

    @Kay: We keep looking for intellectual explanations. People who do hatred for kicks are NOT going to follow any rules of demographics. Racism doesn’t follow class lines.

  142. 142.

    rikyrah

    Republican Who Wishes to Unseat Warren Declares: I’m Not A Wingnut! Honest!
    by D.R. Tucker
    August 13, 2017 POLITICAL ANIMAL

    Oh, what a tangled web Trumpists weave when first they practice to deceive…

    Apparently, it has dawned upon the far-right Elizabeth-Warren-sucks crowd that taking Breitbart to heart won’t be enough to unseat the Massachusetts Senator in 2018. To that end, her expected Republican opponent, Trump disciple Geoff Diehl, is now trying another time-honored Republican tradition: attempting to fool the gullible into believing he’s a centrist after all.

    Step one in Diehl’s effort is downplaying his hatred for the Affordable Care Act, as David Bernstein notes:

    The last time a Massachusetts Republican won a seat in the U.S. Senate — the only time in the last 40 years, in fact — the fate of Obamacare was said to hinge on the outcome.

    Scott Brown won, in part, by pledging to be the vote that would kill it.

    That scenario has returned, in dramatic fashion: we just witnessed a Senate roll call in which one more vote would have moved the “repeal and replace” bill forward, likely driving a sizable stake through the heart of the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

    Yet, just a few days later, Trump-supporting, friend-of-Brown, Obamacare-opposing Republican Geoff Diehl officially launched his Senate campaign against Elizabeth Warren without drawing any attention to that topic.

    Times have changed, apparently.

    At his campaign launch last Tuesday in Whitman, Diehl barely mentioned his support for repealing ACA. Coverage of that speech, and his subsequent kickoff tour, focused on his emphasis on job creation, tax reduction, veterans’ affairs, opioid addiction, and immigration.

    Diehl has never been shy about the topic in the past.

    Just last November, he wrote the “Yes” response for a Boston Globe op-ed exchange on whether ObamaCare should be repealed.

    But that argument — or any mention of healthcare — is absent from Diehl’s new Senate campaign website. I also could not find a single mention of the issue in roughly 200 tweets and retweets from his Senate campaign twitter account since his August 1 announcement…Healthcare is, by far, the biggest issue relating to the U.S. Senate these days. Yet Diehl — like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell—seems more than ready to move on and leave that topic far behind.

  144. 144.

    rikyrah

    After Charlottesville, A Time for Choosing
    by D.R. Tucker
    August 14, 2017

    …………………………

    The hard fact is that the Republican Party has spent the past 53 years pandering to the sort of racial resentment that created Charlottesville. Barry Goldwater was morally wrong to oppose the 1964 Civil Rights Act. He could have helped to heal this country by supporting that bill, but he willfully chose to divide it by opposing the landmark legislation. Ever since, the GOP has willfully chosen to divide this country, to attract every last voter who resented nonwhites being treated as equals under the law.

    This hatred will never stop. It will never leave this country. However, it can be reduced. The first step in doing so is walking away from the Republican Party, depriving this radical political organization of your money and your votes.

    The post-Goldwater GOP has become, for all intents and purposes, a hate group. The targets of its hate are not just people of color, independent-minded women, religious minorities and the LGBTQ community, but the very concepts that truly make America great: love of wisdom, love of democracy, love of science, love of facts.

    If your soul was troubled by Charlottesville, you have to walk away. Not just from the party, but from the party’s media machine. Turn off Fox News. Change the dial from right-wing talk radio. Skip the websites that promote nothing but hatred of those who don’t usually vote for Republicans. Make a clean break.

    If you do, your children and grandchildren will thank you. If you don’t, they will judge you.

  146. 146.

    Kay

    @gene108:

    Someone was telling me yesterday that the 20 year old from Ohio/Kentucky just needed opportunity and was downtrodden.

    Except Maumee Ohio is pretty nice. I lived there for a time when my kids were small. There’s inexpensive rentals and the schools are good. I rented an entire house and my husband was driving for UPS. It’s safe and there are great parks and a great library. It’s 10 minutes to the University of Toledo which is open admission and affordable and we know he had a car!

    If I were advising someone who was lower income I would say “move to Maumee- it’s a good deal and you can afford it”.

  147. 147.

    rikyrah

    GOP senator: racist groups think ‘they have a friend’ in Trump
    08/14/17 08:40 AM
    By Steve Benen

    In the wake of the deadly violence in Charlottesville on Saturday, Donald Trump had an opportunity to condemn white supremacists and their agenda. He instead denounced hatred “on many sides.”

    Those who might want to give the president the benefit of the doubt have an added challenge to contend with: the context created by recent history.

    Trump, who rose to political prominence by peddling a racist conspiracy theory, was a different kind of presidential candidate in a variety of ways, but his overt use of racial politics was a radical departure from what Americans have grown accustomed to in recent years. In February 2016, for example, after Trump balked at denouncing David Duke and the KKK, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said, “We cannot be a party [that] nominates someone who refuses to condemn white supremacists and the Ku Klux Klan.”

    Rachel had an op-ed in the Washington Post the same day, asking what it said about the contemporary GOP that Trump enjoyed such enthusiastic support from white nationalists and neo-Nazis.

    Republican voters, however, were unmoved. As 2016 progressed, and Trump secured his party’s nomination, the campaign became a source of inspiration for white nationalists, culminating in the KKK’s official newspaper expressing support for the Republican nominee just a week before Election Day.

    Those attitudes haven’t faded.

  148. 148.

    Patricia Kayden

    So is Trump going to get away with not explicitly condemning the White Supremacists who engaged in murderous violence on Saturday? Trump is known for “telling it like it is” on everything but bigotry and Russian interference.

    But her damn emails, right?

  149. 149.

    rikyrah

    After Trump’s Charlottesville debacle, Pence admonishes media
    08/14/17 10:00 AM
    By Steve Benen

    Vice President Mike Pence is in Colombia today, where he specifically condemned the American radicals responsible for Saturday’s deadly violence in Charlottesville. “We will not tolerate hatred and violence of groups like white supremacists, the KKK and neo-Nazis,” he told NBC News. “These extremist fringe groups have no place in the American debate.”

    Had Donald Trump said the same thing on Saturday, the White House wouldn’t be scrambling to mitigate the damage done by the president’s fiasco.

    But the vice president didn’t just condemn the racists the president chose not to single out; Pence also tried to redirect the criticisms towards the media.

    Pence said he took issue with “the fact that many in the media are spending more time criticizing how the president addressed the issue yesterday.”

    “Many in the media spent an awful lot of time focusing on what the president said and criticisms of what the president said instead of criticizing those who brought that hatred and violence to the streets of Charlottesville, Virginia,” Pence said.

    It’s a problematic defense. Trump faced criticism – from the left, right, and center – because much is expected from a president, especially after developments like those we saw on Saturday, and Trump failed to clear a low bar. For Pence to suggest everyone leave the president alone, and focus criticisms solely on the white supremacists, misses the point.

    But just as important, it wasn’t just “the media” that recognized Trump’s failure.

  155. 155.

    rikyrah

    Donald Trump can’t stop failing tests of moral leadership
    08/14/17 08:00 AM—UPDATED 08/14/17 08:47 AM
    By Steve Benen

    The American presidency, Franklin Roosevelt once said, is “preeminently a place of moral leadership.” It helps explain why Donald Trump is failing so spectacularly: the current occupant of the Oval Office has no real interest in providing moral leadership, or even learning how.

    The president was already scheduled to speak on Saturday afternoon – his remarks were supposed to focus on veterans’ issues – and interest in his remarks grew in the wake of the deadly violence that erupted in Charlottesville, Virginia. This was a unique opportunity for Trump to speak out clearly and forcefully against a societal scourge.

    But instead of being the president America needed, Donald Trump was Donald Trump

    “We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence – on many sides, on many sides.”

    After referencing low unemployment and other economic developments he’s eager to take credit for, the president added, “We must love each other, respect each other, and cherish our history.” Trump then transitioned back to his original remarks, explaining how pleased he with a new law that makes it easier for him to fire people who work at the Department of Veterans Affairs.

    The president made no specific reference to the white supremacists responsible for Saturday’s violence. Trump, preferring to remain maddeningly vague, could’ve condemned neo-Nazis, white nationalists, and terrorists – when someone deliberately uses a car as a weapon, driving into a crowd, no other word is appropriate – but he chose not to.

    Instead, Trump turned his attention to hatred, bigotry, and violence “on many sides,” as if white supremacists and their opponents are equally culpable for the unrest in Charlottesville.

  156. 156.

    Tilda Swintons Bald Cap

    If you want to fight Nazis give money to the SPLC, not the ACLU. The ACLU could have said no.

  160. 160.

    Adria McDowell

    @Kay: I live in the suburbs of Columbus- and fuck Trump!

    There weren’t too many campaign signs around this part of the C-bus ‘burbs, but the ones I did see were pretty evenly split.

  162. 162.

    rikyrah

    @Zach:

    Wow. Trump’s response to the Merck exec’s resignation from some meaningless council is one of his more unhinged

    Merck’s CEO is BLACK..

    does that explain things for you?

  164. 164.

    rikyrah

    What you need to know about the solar trade case threatening to upend the industry
    The International Trade Commission will hear arguments on Tuesday.
    SAMANTHA PAGE
    AUG 14, 2017, 9:42 AM

    The federal International Trade Commission will hold a hearing Tuesday on whether solar imports from China are causing “substantial damage” to domestic solar companies.

    The ITC’s determination — and President Donald Trump’s subsequent actions — could be a massive blow to the industry, which has seen double-digit annual market growth over the past decade and now employs a quarter of a million U.S. workers.

    If the tariff is imposed, annual solar installations would likely decrease, triggering a feedback effect: As the solar market contracts, costs come down more slowly, which further decreases the solar market.

    According to the Solar Energy Industry Association (SEIA), the industry could lose 88,000 jobs if the ITC accepts Suniva’s proposed tariffs. Analysts from Goldman Sachs and Bloomberg New Energy Finance have also suggested the proposed tariff and minimum pricing requirements would double the price of solar panels in the United States.

    Representatives for the solar industry say the two companies that brought the complaint are responsible for their financial woes. Both companies have struggled recently.

    The case was filed in May by Suniva, a solar panel manufacturer that had accounted for one-fifth of U.S.-made crystalline silicon panels, after the company declared bankruptcy. A month later, another company, SolarWorld, joined the petition, then immediately announced it would lay off more than half of its Oregon factory workers.

  165. 165.

    rikyrah

    They never should have invited her in the first place

    …………………………

    Omarosa Manigault Causes Uproar at Black Journalists Convention

    NEW ORLEANS — Omarosa Manigault, an assistant to President Donald Trump, caused a bit of an uproar at the National Association of Black Journalists’ convention on Friday. Though she criticized her boss for seeming to encourage police brutality, she defended the administration in a series of heated exchanges over its relationship with communities of color around the country.

    The standing-room-only event at one of the convention’s panel discussions turned contentious after she began by recounting of how her father and brother were both lost to street violence in Youngstown, Ohio.

    The panel’s moderator, Ed Gordon, a host on the Bounce TV channel, asked Manigault about Trump’s position on policing, particularly his position that police officers not be so nice when arresting suspects, and the revived war on drugs that Attorney General Jeff Sessions wants to wage.

  166. 166.

    Zach

    @rikyrah:

    Merck’s CEO is BLACK..

    does that explain things for you?

    Yeah pretty much. Also Trump has very few black allies who are more or less normal, successful people. Losing one hurts more than other defections. I bet Trump was disappointed to know Herman Cain’s not CEO of anything anymore.

  167. 167.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:

    Sure, if he doesn’t have the resources to pay one.

    Then maybe the Constitution should get a job? (snark… couldn’t help it)

    I do think the ACLU has to look at the end goal of the speech – which is a society where the constitution is overturned, civil liberties gone and the institution of a regime of theft, exclusion and racial/religious cleansing. They can pick and choose how they’re going to apply their institutional resources and advise that while they will do no harm, that the end goal is reprehensible and that the white supremacist actor is on its own. By facilitating it, they’ve enabled it.

    So in your view, defending the Constitution is the same as destroying it. The problem is when one starts deciding who has rights and who doesn’t based on their political beliefs (and whether they can afford the lawyer to defend their rights), one very soon ends up in a place where nothing objectionable is ever said about anything.

    I say objectionable things all the time and I say them in objectionable ways that are guaranteed to piss off people. My truck pisses off the racist wingnuts around here every time I drive down the street. An inspector was talking to my buddy the other day and saw my truck. When my buddy told him where I live he expressed shock that it hadn’t been shot up yet (not being there for the conversation, I can not say how sincere his “shock” was). And yet it hasn’t, in fact, I have the only feed back I have ever gotten has been from fellow travelers who aren’t as “in your face” about their beliefs.

    I can assure you, a lot of people would love it if I just STFU, and yet out here in the land of openly armed racist wingnuts, they still respect freedom of speech. I fully expect to meet one some day who doesn’t, but I’m not ever shutting up.

  168. 168.

    Tilda Swintons Bald Cap

    @OzarkHillbilly: One could argue that the Constitution is somewhat worse off after the last 48 hours from having been defended by the ACLU. There are other western democracies that seem to be able to figure this out, Germany for example, we need to have a discussion of what we want to tolerate in this country. The ACLU is helping real actual Nazis, they could have just said no it wouldn’t have harmed the Constitution in any way.

  169. 169.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @A Ghost To Most:
    When I found out the ACLU supports Citizens United, I realized something: Their mission is not to be on the right side of every issue. Their mission is to challenge all government restrictions on people’s rights. It is a valuable mission that usually does a great deal of good, but it can put them on the wrong side of things as well.

    @rikyrah:
    Everyone but the media had Trump’s number from day one. Their actions showed not what they knew about Trump, but how they felt about his horribleness. A plurality of whites eagerly embraced his bigotry, stupidity, and meanness. Another big chunk went LA LA LA I CAN’T HEAR YOU I CAN’T POSSIBLY BE A RACIST. Actually, I think that one sums up most of the national press. These are the people who’ve never seen a murdered black man without describing him as a scary thug.

  170. 170.

    Kay

    @Adria McDowell:

    Did you see some that,though? Because I did. There was this “how racist can he be, living in NYC?”

    Pretty damn racist, as it turns out! Has no issue with citing his “German blood” as a reason he’s superior.

    I feel like that’s part of why he used birtherism to launch his campaign- the obsession with bloodlines, the kind of intense tribal affiliations he has. We actually saw a lot of that on the Right with Obama- not presented as racism but instead cleaned up a little and presented as “look at his relatives and determine what he is“.

    I lived in the south for a time- there was a short period in rural North Carolina- and one of my customers once asked me my name and then said “what were you?” I was stumped. I don’t know- a person, a girl, a child? “Were”, when? Before what? WTF was this lady asking me?

    It wasn’t at all complicated though- she wanted to know my surname before I was married so she could determine my tribe! Duh!

  171. 171.

    Tilda Swintons Bald Cap

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    When I found out the ACLU supports Citizens United

    See I actually have no problem with their support of this. Why, because Citizens United does not want to practice murder and mayhem against other human beings, Nazis do. The ACLU could have said no in this particular case knowing the actors.

  173. 173.

    satby

    @OzarkHillbilly: Agree. As long as it’s the First Amendment, and as long as the ACLU’s mission is to protect the liberties enumerated in the Bill of Rights, it’s proper for them to defend the rights to protest even of repugnant citizens. And it’s also an action of free speech not to support the ACLU if that defense bothers someone, but I appreciate that the ACLU exists and is defending the right to protest for everyone.
    And having won the right to protest, I hope the Nazis and racists are identified, lose jobs, get massively sued, and pay any other consequences for actions that deviated from peaceful protest.

  174. 174.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:

    The ACLU needs to triage their support for groups on speech cases, in an effort to determine the model of society were the speakers to be ultimately successful. Would the country be egalitarian and respectful of ethnic and religious minorities?

    I imagine the ACLU believes, like Mill and other enlightenment free speech proponents, that such a society is most likely to arise in a country where the people in charge do not make such considerations when it comes to event planning.

  175. 175.

    Bard the Grim

    @Quinerly:

    He must have transportation and I am stepping back.

    You’re being a good friend and are dealing with a lot of s*** right now but you can’t let him drive again. He needs transportation? He can take a taxi. How will (not would, WILL) you feel the next time he crashes into somebody, trashing their car, causing a helluva lotta inconvenience at the very least, and maybe hurting or killing other people? You believe that friends don’t let friends drive drunk, right? More generally, friends don’t let friends drive when they’re a hazard to themselves and others. Please.

  176. 176.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Haven’t read through comments yet, so forgive me if this has already been discussed to death, but has the subject of Ken Frazier (CEO of Merck) come up? If not, it needs to.

  177. 177.

    The Moar You Know

    Heinecke said he was surprised to see members of an armed leftist group

    @germy: Redneck Revolt. They are good guys, so far as I can tell. Doing more research. If they’re on the level I’m joining up.

  178. 178.

    Tilda Swintons Bald Cap

    @Major Major Major Major: But this isn’t free speech it’s fucking violence, with actual firearms brandished about. The ACLU’s defense of the rally in Charlottesville seems to suggest that they don’t see violent ideology or action as a bright line. The ACLU needs to decide if they want to be tolerant of those who would use democratic institutions to destroy them.

  179. 179.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Tilda Swintons Bald Cap:

    The ACLU needs to decide if they want to be tolerant of those who would use democratic institutions to destroy them.

    They have and they do. This is well established and completely consistent with free speech absolutism. As for supporting actual violence, of course they don’t. But the planners didn’t exactly include “ramming protestors” in their agenda.

  180. 180.

    Quinerly

    @satby: @Bard the Grim: @Elizabelle:
    Thanks for the comments. Juggling the best I can on this. We all know some things are easier said than done. I was on the phone with a contractor re a building project of mine when houseguest wanted to get the rental car. He was impatient and snippy. Another neighbor ended up taking him. There are certain things I have no control over and didn’t realize all these changes in him until he got here Friday and he couldn’t even get up the steps. State Farm keeps giving him rental cars and paying off these accident. His driver’s license was just renewed in Arkansas at age 81 in January. Stepping away from it. Thanks.

  181. 181.

    A Ghost To Most

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    When I found out the ACLU supports Citizens United, I realized something: Their mission is not to be on the right side of every issue. Their mission is to challenge all government restrictions on people’s rights. It is a valuable mission that usually does a great deal of good, but it can put them on the wrong side of things as well.

    All of this. I just don’t want my donations used to defend people who are bent on damaging or destroying the Constitution. The ACLU sees it differently; they see it as their duty to defend even defilers of our democracy.
    I have belonged to the ACLU for a long time, but we disagree here.

  182. 182.

    The Moar You Know

    I’m glad the ACLU exists and understand what they’re doing and why. They are welcome to continue. Wrong, but welcome. We no longer live in a society where we can afford the costs of free and unlimited speech.

    They will never get another dime from me.

  183. 183.

    Jay C

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    He missed his bar mitzvah, the Jewish coming-of-age ceremony held when a boy turns 13, because of the first world war.

    I’m guessing this is the last time that that particular factoid is going to appear in anyone’s obit…

  185. 185.

    J R in WV

    I joined the ACLU the day after Drumpf was elected. [ If he wants to play up his German Blood, he can by dog go by his German name! ] I knew going in that they are well known for supporting the right of Nazis to parade in a Jewish neighborhood. So I can’t very well dump the ACLU now that they’ve helped current Nazis get a rally permit in a college town.

    But I will admit – it is a very hard knot to swallow. I’m having trouble getting it down, and only because I know they put far more effort into fighting Trump’s fascist tendencies than helping Nazis get permits will it go down at all.

    I also joined the Southern Poverty Law Center the day after the election, which is more explicitly anti-Nazi anti-fascist than the ACLU.

    The ACLU seems to think that if the Nazis take over, the ACLU will be allowed to continue in business because they helped the Nazis when the Nazis were down. I doubt that personally – I think the ACLU lawyers would be the first bunch of folks the Nazis rounded up for the camps. Just my cynicism, I guess.

    TL;DR I’m going to stick with the ACLU, it seems silly not to. We all knew they helped the Nazis get a permit to march in Skokie, Illinois years ago.

  186. 186.

    Tilda Swintons Bald Cap

    @J R in WV: JR you can’t possibly compare those Skokie idiots with what is happening today. The Nazis this weekend have the full support of the POTUS, they are receiving material benefits from Russia at least in the terms of social media if not actual money. These guys should get no extra help from anyone. They are not the same thing, again I ask what possible damage to the Constitution would have been done if the ACLU had simply said no?

  188. 188.

    Ruckus

    @Quinerly:
    We got my mom to say she would give up her car if the DMV wouldn’t renew her license. One yr they didn’t. She told me that she could retake the test. I said bullshit, you said you’d give up driving if they denied your license. They did, you are done. I thought she’d tell me to go fuck myself but she just handed over her keys. My dad was easier. He went into the hospital for a small procedure and upon release a couple of days later had to be put into a home. We never mentioned anything about his car or apt or anything, he just accepted it. Have a friend of over 35 yrs who posted on FB that he was hanging up his helmet at 72 yrs old and no longer riding his motorcycles. Dozens of “friends” were horrified that he would do this, I think I was the only one to congratulate him for making that decision. So many of us geezers refuse to see that we aren’t what we were, not all that long ago. That driving is not as easy as we’ve always said it was. I don’t mind walking and taking the train and I hope to make that decision before I do anything stupid.
    You are between a rock and a hard spot. Good luck with whatever you do.

  189. 189.

    J R in WV

    @Tilda Swintons Bald Cap:

    And I’m agreeing with you. But still going to support the ACLU even so. Sorry ’bout that.

    I will be writing them a letter, and I will make the points that others have made, will quote some who gave good reasons. I won’t stop supporting them, as the vast majority of the work they do is in opposition to Trump’s idiocy.

  190. 190.

    J R in WV

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    I do expect the driver of the car must have a lawyer to receive a fair trial. Not that I like it, but I admit it is a requirement of a fair trial.

  191. 191.

    J R in WV

    @Kay:

    ….What are his redeeming qualities as a human being? What is it about Donald Trump that people found admirable?

    The racists found Trump’s racism very attractive! Otherwise, you’ve got me stumped.

Comments are closed.