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You are here: Home / Organizing & Resistance / Don't Mourn, Organize / Fight the Crazed Bigots: Support HIAS

Fight the Crazed Bigots: Support HIAS

by Anne Laurie|  October 29, 20188:47 am| 104 Comments

This post is in: Don't Mourn, Organize, Immigration, Religion, Daydream Believers, Rare Sincerity

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New: The Pittsburgh gunman appeared to be targeting Dor Hadash, a congregation that rented space in the Tree of Life synagogue, due to its refugee partnership with HIAS.

I talked to one of Dor Hadah's leaders, Carolyn Ban, about the attack and the gunman. https://t.co/ODb8isKyFT pic.twitter.com/2Nw94MOaPO

— Matt Pearce ?? (@mattdpearce) October 28, 2018

Pittsburgh murderer on Nazi twitter just before shooting up a synagogue. HIAS is a Jewish charity based in Maryland and NYC that helps refugees around the world. (His https://t.co/FDzFEvdUi3 account has been wiped but remains viewable on archive sites) pic.twitter.com/FpUr5UGHbw

— Helen Kennedy (@HelenKennedy) October 27, 2018

“For your benefit, learn from our tragedy. It is not a written law that the next victims must be Jews. It can also be other people.” – Simon Wiesenthal

— S.E. Cupp (@secupp) October 28, 2018

HIAS, one object of *today’s* hate-crime murders, in fact embodies the very finest in Jewish values, American values, modern values, human values.

Read their history; reflect on someone choosing to attack; support them. https://t.co/lvfi6lo4D3 pic.twitter.com/8tGMSK3ok7

— James Fallows (@JamesFallows) October 27, 2018

BTW, it gets lost amid all the political crap: George Soros has done immeasurable good in places all over the world, including the US. If just 1% of the uber-wealthy would do the kinds of things he’s done this would be a much better world.

— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) October 27, 2018

Lest it become associated it only with a cruel and horrible act, I'd like to remind everyone that Tree of Life is a reference to the Torah, and it is also one of the most beautiful songs in the Jewish liturgy.https://t.co/q0DfurXAZC

— Julia Ioffe (@juliaioffe) October 27, 2018

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Reader Interactions

104Comments

  1. 1.

    japa21

    October 29, 2018 at 9:01 am

    Now, where would he have gotten the idea that refugees were dangerous killers? This is actually a stronger tie to Trump’s rhetoric than the anti-antisemitism.

  2. 2.

    Emma

    October 29, 2018 at 9:04 am

    They hate and fear everything that is good and beautiful about humankind.

  3. 3.

    JPL

    October 29, 2018 at 9:13 am

    Ozark posted about Fox and Friends talking about refugees and the diseases that they bring. Trump tweeted about the media being the enemy of the people. Love can trump hate, but I’m not sure how we get there.

  4. 4.

    Jeffro

    October 29, 2018 at 9:14 am

    I see the NYT has up a multi-page article detailing all the ways that Trumpov, his kids, and the Trumpov Org are engaged in corruption of one sort or another.

    Further down, I see the NYT is also knocking Beto O’Rourke for favoring someone wealthy in some sort of real estate deal years ago. Certainly that towers over the current and quintessential craven-ness, lies, and Trumpov boot-licking of one Rafael Cruz.

    Sigh…

  5. 5.

    Dupe1970

    October 29, 2018 at 9:25 am

    The Jester is trying to make me famous…. poor grammar and all.

    https://twitter.com/th3j35t3r/status/1056795744693248000

  6. 6.

    Ohio Mom

    October 29, 2018 at 9:33 am

    I said this in an earlier thread: after WWII, the handful of my family’s European members who had survived the Holocaust were delivered from the refugee camps (where people could end up languishing for years for lack of anywhere to go) into the safety and care of my grandparents’ arms in the Bronx by HIAS.

    When telling this story, there was a certain reverence in the older generation’s voice when they said the words, Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society.

    I hadn’t known they were still in business until recently but proud they are.

  7. 7.

    Ken Shabby

    October 29, 2018 at 9:40 am

    Read this Sunday. Mr. Fallows is one of the few remaining lights at The Atlantic.

  8. 8.

    zhena gogolia

    October 29, 2018 at 9:51 am

    The Dana Houle tweet is on the money. I proudly state that I received funding from the Open Society foundation to bring Russian artists, scholars, and writers to my institution to talk to our students. How nefarious!

  9. 9.

    Betty Cracker

    October 29, 2018 at 9:52 am

    Trump is the most prominent and visible purveyor of the anti-immigrant hysteria that directly inspired the terrorist in Pittsburgh, but Fox News has stoked the hate and fear at the root of that violent act for ages. Check out this Josh Marshall piece, which outlines how a frequent guest on the Lou Dobbs program linked “George Soros” (code word for “THE JEWS”) with the migrant caravan Trump has made the centerpiece of his midterm elections pitch.

    Fox issued an apology and said they won’t invite that particular anti-Semite on the air again. But as Marshall points out, the network has been peddling this dangerous garbage for years.

  10. 10.

    A Ghost To Most

    October 29, 2018 at 9:53 am

    I in principle do not give money to religious organizations (exception: Denver Rescue Mission), but I may make another exception here.

    Fucking Nazis.

  11. 11.

    Waldo

    October 29, 2018 at 9:56 am

    According to Kellyanne, Father Guido Sarducci made ’em do it.

    Problem solved.

  12. 12.

    Gin & Tonic

    October 29, 2018 at 9:58 am

    Russian state TV Channel 1 has publicly invited Megyn Kelly to host a show there.

  13. 13.

    henrythefifth

    October 29, 2018 at 9:58 am

    Meanwhile, Corey Stewart, running for Senate in VA is currently running ads that say the refugees in the caravan are coming to” rape your daughters and murder your sons.” That is not hyperbole, it’s a direct quote. You know who scares me the most? Angry white people. They are all over the place.

  14. 14.

    schrodingers_cat

    October 29, 2018 at 10:00 am

    @Betty Cracker: Lou Dobbs has been virulently anti-immigrant since Bush II decided to pass immigration reform. He used to cover Wall Street for CNN before then, in the 90s

  15. 15.

    James E Powell

    October 29, 2018 at 10:01 am

    @Jeffro:

    I have run out of ways to express how much I despise the NYT.

  16. 16.

    OzarkHillbilly

    October 29, 2018 at 10:02 am

    If this picture doesn’t scare the pants off of you, you must be some Un-American Godless heathen libtard.

  17. 17.

    James E Powell

    October 29, 2018 at 10:03 am

    @henrythefifth:

    You know who scares me the most? Angry white people. They are all over the place.

    That’s what continues to alarm me. If Trump falls, they will still be here.

  18. 18.

    OzarkHillbilly

    October 29, 2018 at 10:08 am

    @henrythefifth:

    You know who scares me the most? Angry white people. They are all over the place.

    And they have guns.

  19. 19.

    LAO

    October 29, 2018 at 10:18 am

    I will never understand how, in the current world we live in, a Jewish person could be a member of the republican party. I say this with the full knowledge that my father is a republican.

  20. 20.

    ruemara

    October 29, 2018 at 10:21 am

    @LAO: because they find a place to hate others, while believing they won’t be hated as well.

  21. 21.

    Waldo

    October 29, 2018 at 10:30 am

    @Betty Cracker: Normally, I would hope Dobbs gets canned — but I don’t want to give Today show producers any ideas.

  22. 22.

    Joey Maloney

    October 29, 2018 at 10:34 am

    @Waldo: He’d have to get a dye job first.

  23. 23.

    dmsilev

    October 29, 2018 at 10:37 am

    One bit of good news is that Gab, the home for people that even Twitter doesn’t want, is being pushed offline because PayPal, GoDaddy, and other companies that provided infrastructure or services to them have decided to cut ties.

    I’d also like to admire the FTNYT’s description of the site:

    The site, which functions like a combination of Twitter and Reddit and claims to have more than 700,000 members, is not exclusively for bigots. It has areas for various interest groups, including cryptocurrency traders, doomsday preppers and fans of Japanese-style animated pornography. But Gab’s most popular posts espouse far-right ideology.

  24. 24.

    schrodingers_cat

    October 29, 2018 at 10:43 am

    @James E Powell: You and me both.

  25. 25.

    Mike in NC

    October 29, 2018 at 10:51 am

    We ran into a neighbor at the supermarket yesterday who we hadn’t seen in a long time. He stated that he and his wife no longer watch TV news in any way, shape, or form, and they feel much better about daily life. Words to live by.

  26. 26.

    germy

    October 29, 2018 at 10:52 am

    On the subject of bigots

    There was a benefit in upstate NY to support the children of the limo crash victims. But look at the guy interviewed; the guy working the barbecue:

    https://www.news10.com/news/local-news/community-helps-to-support-children-of-limo-crash-victims/1557674246

    Can anyone here tell me what that logo is on his back? It looks like the dixie swastika with some word over it.

  27. 27.

    Waldo

    October 29, 2018 at 10:52 am

    @dmsilev:

    The site … is not exclusively for bigots. It has areas for various interest groups, including cryptocurrency traders, doomsday preppers and fans of Japanese-style animated pornography.

    Yeah, it’s a shame how a few bad apples wreck a good thing.

  28. 28.

    schrodingers_cat

    October 29, 2018 at 10:54 am

    @OzarkHillbilly: So what should I do? Dye my hair and wear colored lenses? I have light enough skin to pass as a more swarthy European but have dark hair and dark eyes.
    I like the way I look, if others have a problem with it, fuck them.

  29. 29.

    bemused

    October 29, 2018 at 10:55 am

    This morning C-span Washington Journal had a great discussion with Prof David Schultz on MN political dynamics in the MN districts, 45 minutes well spent. If people are interested in how MN is trending for next week’s election, I think Prof. Schultz is spot on. I’m in district 8 and sadly think Republican Stauber will likely win. Prof Schultz grew up near Appalachia and compares the rural Iron Range as similar in culture and economics.

  30. 30.

    Chyron HR

    October 29, 2018 at 10:58 am

    @dmsilev:

    It has areas for various interest groups, including cryptocurrency traders, doomsday preppers and fans of Japanese-style animated pornography. But Gab’s most popular posts espouse far-right ideology.

    “But”?

  31. 31.

    schrodingers_cat

    October 29, 2018 at 11:04 am

    @Chyron HR: Nazi Times normalized the Racist-in-Chief, now they are extending that courtesy to the small fry.

  32. 32.

    FlipYrWhig

    October 29, 2018 at 11:06 am

    @Chyron HR: The Venn diagram for those interest groups isn’t _exactly_ one big circle, but close to it.

  33. 33.

    Gravenstone

    October 29, 2018 at 11:09 am

    @Gin & Tonic: Hah! I only half jokingly suggested the other day that she would wind up on one of Putin’s propaganda outlets. Apparently they were thinking along similar lines.

  34. 34.

    Gin & Tonic

    October 29, 2018 at 11:09 am

    @germy: “Duramax.” It’s a brand of diesel engines made by GM. There are non-treason versions of that sweatshirt as well.

  35. 35.

    Elizabelle

    October 29, 2018 at 11:10 am

    @germy: I think the sweatshirt might say DURAMAX, which (Google informs) is a family of General Motors V8 engines for trucks.

    At first wondered if it might say Qurama, which is a mountain range in — you guessed it — the former USSR.

    The Qurama Mountains is a mountain range in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan and continues into Kyrgyzstan.

    Very odd to have the Confederate flag in the mix. Nice that the guy showed up to flip hamburgers but, wow.

  36. 36.

    Gravenstone

    October 29, 2018 at 11:11 am

    @James E Powell: They’ve always been here. Difference now is that they are substantially emboldened.

  37. 37.

    germy

    October 29, 2018 at 11:12 am

    @Gin & Tonic: What’s the connection between duramax and the dixie swastika? Does GM mind their logo being used like that?

  38. 38.

    germy

    October 29, 2018 at 11:14 am

    @Elizabelle:

    Nice that the guy showed up to flip hamburgers but, wow.

    I know. Upstate NY can be a fucked up place. Lots of resentment towards “downstaters” (as they call them)

  39. 39.

    RobertB

    October 29, 2018 at 11:14 am

    @germy: Duramax diesel, used in Chevy/GMC trucks. I don’t think the Duramax logo itself is a sign of anything beyond “I like Chevy diesel trucks,” but you can get Confederate flag, Old Glory, Rolling Coal, whatever stuck in the ‘D’.

  40. 40.

    Gin & Tonic

    October 29, 2018 at 11:15 am

    @germy: Since it’s just the name and not a logo, I don’t know if they have control over that. But the overlap between upstate-NY V8-diesel-truck owners and Trump-voting neo-Nazis is probably more significant than GM’s PR department would like.

    Write them a letter and ask.

  41. 41.

    Butter Emails!!!

    October 29, 2018 at 11:16 am

    @germy:

    Do they not like the city paying for their roads?

  42. 42.

    germy

    October 29, 2018 at 11:18 am

    @Butter Emails!!!:

    Do they not like the city paying for their roads?

    They believe it’s the opposite; that somehow upstate NY is shouldering the burden for the city and those boroughs. Even the political ads all suggest that the downstaters are screwing the fine, upstate ny folk.

  43. 43.

    Barbara

    October 29, 2018 at 11:22 am

    @bemused: Could you perhaps summarize for those of us who don’t have 45 minutes to watch a video at work?

  44. 44.

    FlipYrWhig

    October 29, 2018 at 11:22 am

    @germy: Because huge numbers of people, including all Republicans, think “the city” is full of lazy deadbeats on welfare laughing at them.

  45. 45.

    Kay

    October 29, 2018 at 11:27 am

    Nate Silver
    ‏Verified account
    @NateSilver538
    57m57 minutes ago
    More
    I think there’s still too much of a tendency to chalk whatever Trump does (media-bashing, the caravan) does to being cynical but smart, base-rallying politics—when it’s not obvious that it’s “working”, at least not in an electoral sense.

    “Cynical, but smart” is going to be the death of us all. People acting like horrible, venal mean-spirited assholes has to stop being held up as admirable. It’s not.

  46. 46.

    germy

    October 29, 2018 at 11:28 am

    Speaking of upstate NY, the local NBC news affiliate had some terror last weekend:

    Police give all-clear after bomb threat at WNYT

  47. 47.

    Jay C

    October 29, 2018 at 11:31 am

    Proud to say I clicked on the first link to HIAS I found (Saturday), and made a donation right away.

    @Waldo:

    Yeah, love how Kellyanne tries to make “anti-religious attitudes” the “rationale” for the Pittsburgh slaughter.
    I mean, she’s half-right in a way: Richard Bowers DID seem motivated by “anti-religious” feelings: I guess the fact that it was just one particular religion that sparked his animus is too simple a concept for even her to grasp…..

  48. 48.

    L85NJGT

    October 29, 2018 at 11:33 am

    The days of white rural Americans voting for farm-labor Democrats are gone. No amount of Washington Monthly think pieces are going to change this reality. Mechanization, resource depletion, low birthrates and out-migration are all factors, and so is the need to import labor for facilities like Dole and Hormel processing plants.

  49. 49.

    cain

    October 29, 2018 at 11:35 am

    @FlipYrWhig:

    @germy: Because huge numbers of people, including all Republicans, think “the city” is full of lazy deadbeats on welfare laughing at them.

    It’s actually full of young professionals who want to live there now. Downtowns across the country is being invigorated because nobody wants to live in suburbs anymore.

  50. 50.

    cain

    October 29, 2018 at 11:36 am

    @L85NJGT:

    The days of white rural Americans voting for farm-labor Democrats are gone. No amount of Washington Monthly think pieces are going to change this reality. Mechanization, resource depletion, low birthrates and out-migration are all factors, and so is the need to import labor for facilities like Dole and Hormel processing plants.

    Just move em out of the country.

  51. 51.

    Brachiator

    October 29, 2018 at 11:36 am

    It is amazing how someone like Soros is demonized, but the certifiably evil Koch brothers are still unknown to many people.

  52. 52.

    FlipYrWhig

    October 29, 2018 at 11:37 am

    @cain: Very true, but the stereotype isn’t going to die until the people who lived through Death Wish and “welfare queens” all do.

  53. 53.

    Immanentize

    October 29, 2018 at 11:39 am

    I’m from upstate NY originally. I think that the upstaters all feel that The City (as it is referred to, which also pisses off people in other cities) and its environs get all the resources and have all the political power. Largely true and unavoidable just due to sheer population size. But there is also a political reality of state-wide politicians ignoring upstate. In fact, one of the things that made Hillary so popular as a NY Senator was her willingness to visit, listen to and promote policies that were good for upstate.

  54. 54.

    Kay

    October 29, 2018 at 11:39 am

    Democrats basically own health care in this country- if you’re watching these campaigns instead of Donald Trump you are watching Republican after Republican claim to support Democratic health care policy and legislation. It’s stunning if you were watching in 2010- it’s a 180.

    Democrats could ALSO own public education in this country and they have the absolute ideal climate to do that, with Betsy DeVos atop the conservative ed policy heap:

    Success in several governor races where education looms large would give Democrats a political foothold in states that President Trump carried just two years ago, and an important check on Republicans as the states redraw political districts after the 2020 census.

    Republicans not only left the field on public education, they attacked public education. Openings don’t stay open forever. If Democrats don’t grab this they’re crazy. They can own college too- as far as financing and affordability. Add education to health care and they don’t have to run on anything else. They could win with just those two.

    Let Republicans all follow Trump down the “caravan” hole- in the meantime we can grab everything people vote on.

  55. 55.

    L85NJGT

    October 29, 2018 at 11:42 am

    @FlipYrWhig:

    When faced with the decline of urban industrial age manufacturing in the 70s and 80’s the GOP blamed the victims. There was lots of bullshit about endemic cultural problems.

  56. 56.

    Jay C

    October 29, 2018 at 11:45 am

    @Immanentize:

    In fact, one of the things that made Hillary so popular as a NY Senator was her willingness to visit, listen to and promote policies that were good for upstate

    Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand as well. Less surprising, though, as she actually is something of an “upstater”. I recall when she was appointed in ’09, that most of the portside blogosphere went nuts, pissing and moaning that she was just another “Upstate gun nut”. Funny how things have worked out since……

  57. 57.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    October 29, 2018 at 11:55 am

    @Kay: Republicans still have taxes and they are running on that here in the People’s Republic of California. “(fill in any random Democrat here) is going to raise your taxes by 22 trillion to pay for one size fits all medical care…”. That’s what they’re calling Medicare-for-all.

  58. 58.

    catclub

    October 29, 2018 at 11:56 am

    @FlipYrWhig:

    is full of lazy deadbeats on welfare laughing at them.

    Isn’t that what everybody calls wall street?

  59. 59.

    tobie

    October 29, 2018 at 11:57 am

    @germy: That’s it in a nutshell. Rural life is not self-sustaining and depends on massive inflows of cash from heavily concentrated urban and suburban areas to survive, but you ask any rural American about government subsidies and they insist that they’re paying for the rest of the country. I hear this all the time from my neighbors who, because of environmental protections passed by the state legislature, have gotten their $50K septic system for free. Not once does it occur to them that this is in fact a handout paid for by the liberals they hate.

  60. 60.

    Marcopolo

    October 29, 2018 at 12:16 pm

    So this brought a smile to my face. The D running against Chris Collins in NY 27 (Nate McMurray), who most (including him) thought he had little chance of beating Collins did this about a month ago:

    Eleven days after Rep. Chris Collins (R-N.Y.) was indicted for insider training last August, his long-shot opponent, a 43-year-old town supervisor from Niagara County named Nate McMurray, donned a black helmet, knee-pads, and an old pair of weathered jeans, and drove an old Cadillac into the world’s largest demolition derby.

    “Western NY deserves a strong and independent voice—and a Congressman who can take a few hits,” McMurray wrote on Facebook after emerging from his battered car.

    Politicians generally don’t participate in vehicle-on-vehicle combat, but McMurray’s wild ride around that dirt-lined arena was also symbolic. As he frequently points out, he is someone eager and able to “break the machine.”

    There’s a great photo & a little video showing the banged up car. I love this kind of barbed campaign humor sprinkled with a little self-depreciation. I honestly think we have the most amazing field of congressional candidates this year. Makes me very proud to be a Democrat.

  61. 61.

    A Ghost To Most

    October 29, 2018 at 12:16 pm

    @germy:
    It’s a good place to formerly live.

  62. 62.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    October 29, 2018 at 12:16 pm

    I hate the way Trump et al have tagged the migrant travelers as a “caravan” and made it stick. I saw someone complaining about using “tribal” to describe politics on the grounds is colonializing language. The connotations that come with “caravan” are far worse.

  63. 63.

    Gravenstone

    October 29, 2018 at 12:16 pm

    @Immanentize:

    The City

    Always reminds me of The Tick. Leaping from rooftop to rooftop, monologuing about “The City, my ‘The City’!”

  64. 64.

    Kay

    October 29, 2018 at 12:18 pm

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    They didn’t win on Trump crap tax law though- that’s unpopular. The magical tax cuts scam doesn’t reliably work anymore.

  65. 65.

    joel hanes

    October 29, 2018 at 12:21 pm

    @schrodingers_cat:

    He used to cover Wall Street for CNN before then, in the 90s

    Dobbs was a nativist bigot even then, but it wasn’t the focus of his TV work.

  66. 66.

    Ksmiami

    October 29, 2018 at 12:21 pm

    @tobie: cut them off let these areas die. No more sustaining the hateful losers

  67. 67.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    October 29, 2018 at 12:24 pm

    That tweet from Bowers – there is an argument this all basically play acting like Big Time Wrestling taken to the stupid, murderous extreme, and just look at that tweet; “Screw on your optics”, who talks like that outside a movie?

    Everyone here insists they are racists, but I strongly suspect these Trumptards only play racists for the LUZ it and frankly it’s vile. At lest in the Old South the lynchings simple class warfare and not some warped dark comedy. “11 dead in performance art” sweet loving Jesus on a pogo stick.

  68. 68.

    TCS

    October 29, 2018 at 12:25 pm

    @Betty Cracker: Stopping Murdoch profits from Trump, Brexit, racism, misogyny, climate change denial and the rest of the conservative agenda is where resistance should focus. Republicans will become more neo-nazi post 2018 election as it is their only remaining constituency (see King of Iowa). Deny the right it’s megaphone. Boycott all of Murdoch’s outlets and advertisers. Worldwide.

  69. 69.

    gvg

    October 29, 2018 at 12:25 pm

    @tobie: In general the cities are paying for the rural areas, however in my area I have never heard of any governmental agency paying for anybodies septic system. I am in Florida.
    The things the government does pay for that people take for granted is roads and the post office. They also funded electrification, but that was a long time ago. Roads are hugely important but we have had them so long, people take them for granted and don’t understand how we would all starve and go bankrupt without them.

  70. 70.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    October 29, 2018 at 12:27 pm

    @Kay: They think it still works and are running on it in CA-25 and CA-45. I see the ads every evening on the 11pm local news.

  71. 71.

    PJ

    October 29, 2018 at 12:29 pm

    @Kay: I am currently reading Democracy in Chains, by Nancy MacLean, about the economist James Buchanan and the intellectual underpinnings, and political machinations, behind the Koch/libertarian takeover of the GOP and US policy over the last 30 odd years – the fundamental goal being to restrict democracy to only the wealthy (because when the government is responsive to the will of the majority (the non-wealthy), it impinges on the right of corporations and the wealthy to be free from taxation and regulation.) While the money people and politicians behind it had been upset since the New Deal came in, the whole movement was kickstarted by Brown vs. Board of Education – how dare the federal government tell the states that white people had to accept black children in their schools! In Virginia, the workaround plan in the 50’s was to shut down all of the public schools and instead provide tax-supported vouchers to parents payable to private schools (which were free at the time to bar black students). This argument was the root of the “public choice” rhetoric which Republicans still tout to this day, and which is behind their antipathy to public education (which, in their minds, was the beginning of socialism in this country). Virginia’s plan ultimately failed because it turns out that white parents in urban and suburban areas liked public schools, and even if they weren’t fans of integration, the desire for their children to get an education trumped their bigotry.

  72. 72.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    October 29, 2018 at 12:30 pm

    @dmsilev:
    They anticipated this over a year ago. Apparently hasn’t progressed much since.

    On August 15, 2017, Torba announced plans for its own cryptocurrency, expecting Gab to be subject to “blacklisting” by third-party payment processors.

  73. 73.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    October 29, 2018 at 12:32 pm

    @joel hanes: This is true, he’s been a bigot for a long time. I hadn’t seen old Lou on the TV machine for probably about 15 years and saw a clip of him the other day….damn, his face should be used as an example of what not to do for plastic surgeons in training.

  74. 74.

    tobie

    October 29, 2018 at 12:32 pm

    @gvg: The septic system subsidy is specific to the Eastern Shore of Maryland. The motivation for the program is very good. The health of the Chesapeake Bay is threatened by run-off of all kind–mostly industrial farming practices but also household effluent. I support the program wholeheartedly. I just wish the people who received the subsidy, which is $50-$60K, appreciated that it’s something taxpayers in urban areas are paying for because it’s a state priority. Everything else you write sounds right to me.

  75. 75.

    jeffreyw

    October 29, 2018 at 12:35 pm

    Is this a thing?

    Judd Legum
    ‏
    Verified account

    @JuddLegum
    Follow Follow @JuddLegum
    More
    BREAKING: A civil RICO suit has been brought against The Trump Organization, Donald Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump and Ivanka Trump in United States District Court for their participation in a pyramid scheme

  76. 76.

    Jerzy Russian

    October 29, 2018 at 12:41 pm

    @jeffreyw: I hope it is a thing. I wonder which pyramid scheme this is about?

  77. 77.

    jeffreyw

    October 29, 2018 at 12:45 pm

    @Jerzy Russian: https://twitter.com/JuddLegum/status/1056936833244975105

  78. 78.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    October 29, 2018 at 12:45 pm

    @jeffreyw: Only stuff on Google about this refers back to Judd’s tweet.

  79. 79.

    schrodingers_cat

    October 29, 2018 at 12:46 pm

    @joel hanes: @?BillinGlendaleCA: Yes he was a bigot even when he was on CNN in the aughts. But I remember a time in the 90s when he just did plain vanilla business news.

  80. 80.

    LAO

    October 29, 2018 at 12:47 pm

    @jeffreyw: A civil lawsuit was filed. Has nothing to do with criminal charges.

  81. 81.

    Martin

    October 29, 2018 at 12:48 pm

    Gee, what a shock.

    Back when the subsidy was $3 billion, Wisconsin’s non-partisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau estimated that it would take until 2043 for taxpayers to recoup the subsidy. This long payback period was due to Walker and Republicans effectively cutting the state’s corporate income tax for manufacturers to zero in 2011. This meant the subsidies to Foxconn would not be a tax write-off, but billions in cash that would be paid back by state income taxes paid by Foxconn workers. At $4.1 billion, the payback date for the state was likely 2050 or later.
    …
    All this means Foxconn needs far fewer assembly line workers. “If, six months ago, you asked me, what would be the mix of labor? I would pull out the experience that we have in China and say, ‘Well, 75 percent assembly line workers, 25 percent engineers and managers,’” Woo said. But “now it looks like about 10 percent assembly line workers, 90 percent knowledge workers.”

    Almost all the actual assembly line work, he added, will be done by robots.

    To start with, tax breaks for companies to enter your region almost never work out. That money is better spent on infrastructure that benefits the entire community and which can still be used as an incentive.

    In addition, it was obvious a $3B incentive would never pay off given the number of jobs promised (which again, never works out). Foxconn was already starting to automate jobs in China.

    Additionally, the whole reason why these plants are built where they are is due to time to market. If you sign the deal and then it takes 4 years to build the factory, then you’re going to get a very different factory than what was in the deal. If you want that factory, then get the plant built in under a year. That means radically changing how you handle permitting and inspection. It means radically changing how you bid for infrastructure contracts. China builds 8km of high speed rail track every day. You don’t achieve that through lowest bidder, hey, I’ll subcontract this out to 11 other contractors, none of which have capacity to do the work right now style bidding that most cities and states do.

    Finally, Wisconsin was willing to pay Foxconn $230K for each manufacturing job created. How many more signs do we need before we realize that manufacturing jobs are going to mostly be automated? By moving off of wage based taxation and onto value-add, the state would receive tax receipts regardless of the type of labor used, and if that was all automated, then you put the tax receipts into a universal living wage.

  82. 82.

    Kay

    October 29, 2018 at 12:52 pm

    @PJ:

    That’s interesting. I took a law school course on the Ohio constitution (which I loved) and we did a lot on how public education came to be in Ohio. It’s fascinating. It was Lefty religious. They wouldn’t be called “Lefty” then- they were “progressives” but they were religious. It was this amazingly ambitious idea- they literally wanted to bring up the lower classes. No ulterior motives at all- just bring them up to the level of the people who could pay for school. There was no effort to convert them- a pure gift. It’s stunning how optimistic they were. And it happened! That’s the wild part. They succeeded. You could never do it now. It would never pass. The Kochs would never allow it.

    Imagine it as a proposal “a universal free public education system” – it would be a crazy pipe dream.

  83. 83.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    October 29, 2018 at 12:55 pm

    @Jerzy Russian:

    Explanatory Twitter thread here.

    BREAKING: A civil RICO suit has been brought against The Trump Organization, Donald Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump and Ivanka Trump in United States District Court for their participation in a pyramid scheme pic.twitter.com/darYdHc7j9
    — Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) October 29, 2018

  84. 84.

    lee

    October 29, 2018 at 12:57 pm

    For the most part I’ve blocked most of the bigots in my FB feed. I still can see them commenting on mutual friend’s posts.

    They are still saying the bomber is a false flag operation.

    When people say ‘they are beyond reaching’ they really mean it.

  85. 85.

    Mnemosyne

    October 29, 2018 at 12:57 pm

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques:

    Everyone here insists they are racists, but I strongly suspect these Trumptards only play racists for the LUZ it and frankly it’s vile.

    Nope — they’re racists. They may tell you that they’re only doing it for the lulz, but continue engaging them and you’ll realize that they really are casual, stone-cold racists.

    Racists in denial are still racists, no matter how many “black friends” they claim to have.

  86. 86.

    Kay

    October 29, 2018 at 12:58 pm

    @PJ:

    Paul Ryan, the country’s most annoying far Righter, went to a public college that wasn’t just state public education, it was federal! His college was established with a federal grant. There’s an actual deed transfer at the root of it- right from Big Government.

    Paul Ryan’s whole life is a success story of liberal policy :)

    They’re really hugely ungrateful people. They believe they earned things that were given to them. Pure, no strings attached gifts.

  87. 87.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    October 29, 2018 at 1:04 pm

    @Kay:
    Kay, do you think the Ohio General Assembly will ever flip soon? I’m guessing no. I never realized the Democrats were such a minority until looked at the graphic on the wikipedia page. It really put into perspective how GOP dominated the state government currently is.

  88. 88.

    PJ

    October 29, 2018 at 1:06 pm

    @Kay: And this is why Republicans maintain that public education has to go. I watched the “Dark Money” documentary on PBS last night, and apparently in Montana (and I would guess other parts of the country), the Koch-oriented Republicans refer to public schools as “government schools”, as in, “Now the overreaching hand of the government is interfering with your education!”

  89. 89.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    October 29, 2018 at 1:10 pm

    Sarah Huckabee Sanders scheduled to hold her first press briefing in three weeks at 2:00 p.m. (via @ddale8).

  90. 90.

    Lee

    October 29, 2018 at 1:14 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    My daughter and her friends said this is how they see people who are still Republicans:

    The GOP has turned the bigotry and racism up to 11. If you are still a Republican because whatever pet issue is important to you what you are saying is that you are ok with this level of racism because of that pet issue.

    That means you are a racist.

  91. 91.

    PJ

    October 29, 2018 at 1:21 pm

    @Kay: For them, the government only exists to serve the chosen few (the wealthy). It is only right and proper that the government protect their property and increase their wealth through the legal system, and increase their wealth and property through subsidies and below-market rate purchase or control of public resources, but to the extent that the government benefits everyone it is wasteful. The people who are not wealthy clearly do not deserve the benefits of the nation’s wealth (otherwise they themselves would be wealthy), and to take anything from the wealthy in the form of taxation is simple theft.

    In Democracy in Chains, MacLean traces the origins of the libertarian/”states’ rights” movement back to John C. Calhoun, “the Marx of the Master Class.” Calhoun, of course, was a white supremacist, but his real beef with the Union was the notion that the majority of citizens should have the power to restrict white southerners’ ability to increase their wealth through the expansion of slavery.

    The bottom line is that, for Republicans, there is no common good. If only the Founding Fathers hadn’t made the gross error of putting in that line about “providing for the general welfare” in the Constitution.

  92. 92.

    Cheryl from Maryland

    October 29, 2018 at 1:27 pm

    @PJ: I had cousins who went to one of those schools — Prince Edward Academy in Southside Virginia. They are noticeably poorly educated. And bigots. The Academy is still open but got legacy funding from a local wingnut who made it big. It is now named the Fuqua School. It’s desegrated only in that it bribes African-American athletes to go there.

  93. 93.

    bemused

    October 29, 2018 at 1:33 pm

    @Barbara:

    Many topics/districts packed into 45 minutes along with showing a few political ads and a few callers but sorry I don’t have much time right now either.

  94. 94.

    MisterForkbeard

    October 29, 2018 at 1:34 pm

    @Lee: This is basically how I’ve felt for the last couple years. Got yelled at by a liberal uncle of mine for saying so. Like, “These are good people that value the same things you do! Don’t call them racist or sexists because they’re not.”

    Me: “They say they care about it and maybe they do – but they’ll still vote for racist and sexist people and policies, so clearly they care about something else more. Tolerating racism and sexism because you want a tax cut isn’t moral and I dont have to respect it.”

  95. 95.

    J R in WV

    October 29, 2018 at 1:47 pm

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    I think anyone with NO healthcare would be extremely grateful for “one-size-fits-all” healthcare, really.

    If it is really good health care, it WOULD fit all, then wouldn’t it?

    Of course it will.

  96. 96.

    JR

    October 29, 2018 at 2:07 pm

    @cain: The death of the 9-to-5 is part of the urban migration. When you are working 9+ hours per day the idea of tacking on an extra hour+ for driving/commute isn’t so appealing.

  97. 97.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    October 29, 2018 at 2:24 pm

    @JR: In LA it’s more like a hour +, each way.

  98. 98.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    October 29, 2018 at 2:27 pm

    @J R in WV: This is California, we have MediCal and Covered California(our exchange). These ads are aimed at folk in Santa Clarita and Irvine, pretty wealthy areas.

  99. 99.

    Raven Onthill

    October 29, 2018 at 2:45 pm

    Been a HIAS supporter since they emerged as opponents of Trump’s immigration policies back in 2017.

  100. 100.

    Ken Shabby

    October 29, 2018 at 2:46 pm

    Mr. Pierce has the math off by ten but, everything else is there.
    Rhyming History:

    https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a24406000/temple-hebrew-bombing-atlanta/

    We were living in Macon, then. Good Times (not).

  101. 101.

    opiejeanne

    October 29, 2018 at 2:53 pm

    @Kay: I was reading about the same movement in Missouri in the 1800s. It started with Sunday Schools where anyone who wanted could learn to read and write and didn’t have to be a member of the church. The only text was a Bible because that is what they had at the churches.
    Later, the first “public” schools were by subscription but the fee was only paid by those who could afford it. The churches in the area around my family were all variations of Baptist, foot-washin’ Primitive Baptists, or Free Will Baptists, neither of which could be considered remotely liberal sects. I think they were both subsumed by the Southern Baptists.

  102. 102.

    opiejeanne

    October 29, 2018 at 3:50 pm

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: We lived in Anaheim and before his retirement, mr opiejeanne worked for the city of Torrance. 45 minutes away with medium traffic, but at commute times it was double that. So, 90 minutes each way, or 3 hours round trip. He shared rides with two other guys who worked there and was ever so glad when the city went to 9-80 days so every other Friday was off plus the trip home got a little quicker because a lot of traffic had cleared. He was delighted to retire and not have that commute any more. We tried to find a house in town that he could walk or ride his bike from, but prices were just barely out of our reach. The Anaheim house was a real find, a treasure, after two years in a nice but overpriced townhouse in Huntington Beach, and surprisingly the commute distance was only a mile farther because we were just below the 91 which dumps you out near the edge of Torrance.

  103. 103.

    Miss Bianca

    October 29, 2018 at 4:26 pm

    @lee: I ended up yelling at my dear friend D when he brought this shit up. It shook me.

  104. 104.

    opiejeanne

    October 29, 2018 at 4:34 pm

    @Miss Bianca: I’ve had this same reaction. How can they not see it?

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