Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Dear media: perhaps we ought to let Donald Trump speak for himself!

Don’t expect peaches from an apple tree.

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

We won’t go back.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

T R E 4 5 O N

You know it’s bad when the Project 2025 people have to create training videos on “How To Be Normal”.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

Republicans: “Abortion is murder but you can take a bus to get one.” Easy peasy.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

… gradually, and then suddenly.

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

Of course you can have champagne before noon. That’s why orange juice was invented.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

Hi god, it’s us. Thanks a heap, you’re having a great week and it’s only Thursday!

“Just close your eyes and kiss the girl and go where the tilt-a-whirl takes you.” ~OzarkHillbilly

The frogs are rarely mistaken.

You are here: Home / Civil Rights / Monday Morning Open Thread: “If You Witness… “

Monday Morning Open Thread: “If You Witness… “

by | 131 Comments

This post is in: , , ,

Reader Interactions

131Comments

  1. 1.

    Rusty

    I agree with the general, yesterday was at our church too a pointed sermon about everyone being your neighbor. The pastor spoke very directly about how that included immigrants, it didn’t matter their legal status. We were told that putting people in cages and taking children from their parents (and permanently damaging them by doing so) is most definitely not loving your neighbor. I was at the noon time rallies right before the Fourth of July holiday that were against the detentions and family separations. Ours was led by a minister, and the speakers were a rabbi, a priest and other clergy. Outside of the hard core Evangelical churches, what people are hearing at religious services is condemnation of the detentions and separations from their faith leaders.

  2. 2.

    NotMax

    350,000 Americans in the streets last night

    Approximately 1/10th of one per cent of the population.

    :(

  3. 3.

    Zinsky

    We need to disabuse ourselves of the notion that the mainstream Republican Party represent “Christian values”. THEY DON’T! They only worship one God – the God of Money. And Democrats need to repeat this again and again until November of 2020.

    Take a lesson from Karl Rove – attack your opponent exactly where they appear strong!

  4. 4.

    plato

    Who knew things will come to such a horrible fascistic pass so quickly in under 2 years? Unbelievable.

    Voting matters.

  5. 5.

    plato

    A web of abuse: How the far right disproportionately targets female politicians

    Abuse of female politicians is rife online – and much of it is being directed by established far-right groups and figures, a Newsnight investigation has found.

    Female politicians across Europe have been targeted with threatening and misogynist content.

    On both mainstream and fringe social media platforms, analysis of selected profiles found women in politics faced frequent comments targeting their gender, race and physical appearance.

    According to Newsnight’s investigation, which used comparative studies of politicians in the UK and Europe, the abuse aimed at female MPs exceeds that directed at their male counterparts, and differed in its focus and content.

    Newsnight worked with the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), a think tank that investigates online extremism and polarisation, to examine the nature and content of comments about prominent politicians across Europe.

  7. 7.

    Baud

    @plato:

    Who knew things will come to such a horrible fascistic pass so quickly in under 2 years? 

    Most of us here.

    Voting matters.

    Truth.

  12. 12.

    Brachiator

    Over the weekend, I picked up a copy of the Civil War Monitor magazine. The title of the main cover story read simply, The Refugees, and the editors clearly meant this to resonate with current events. Estimates are that at least 500,000 African Americans escaping slavery shared the same qualities as today’s refugees, according to the UN definition: they fled persecution and sought protection in another country.

    The governor of Tennessee recently signed a proclamation honoring Confederate general and proto ICE employee Nathan Forrest. In 1864, Forrest and his troops rode into a refugee camp at Tunnel Hill. He let the residents live, but torched all of the 240 houses that they had built, and burnt all their belongings. He wanted to terrorize them, and to set an example to demoralize people who dared to defy Southern what? honor?

    The Great Orange Satan is a stable monster and spiritual descendant of Nathan Bedford Forrest. Both deserve to be taken down and tossed onto the trash heap of history.

  13. 13.

    Baud

    @Rusty:

    Outside of the hard core Evangelical churches, what people are hearing at religious services is condemnation of the detentions and separations from their faith leaders.

    That’s great, but I’d like to hear more direct condemnation of the “Christians” who support Trump’s actions.

  14. 14.

    gene108

    @Zinsky:

    I wouldn’t stop at evangelicals. The whole Republican Party needs to be savaged. First and foremost is that they have only one economic policy for all occasions, which is tax cuts for the rich. And this has proven for the past 38 years to be a colossal failure. Neither does the economy grow substantially nor do the tax cuts pay themselves, thus creating enormous budget problems.

    Their foreign policies have destroyed our standing in the world and made the world more dangerous. Bush, Jr, pulling out of the Agreed Framework and calling NK part of the Axis of Evil spurred them to restart their nuclear program. Rinse repeat with Iran.

    They are bad for America and have been nothing but the party of failure for twenty five years.

    Democrats in the media need to create a theme of savaging Republicans for their regular failures constantly. Do not let up. Make people associate Republican/conservative with failure.

  16. 16.

    Butch

    I can’t tell – aside from a few sporadic arrests did these raids actually happen on Sunday? Will they happen today (Monday) when people have to go back to work and are more exposed? I can’t figure out what’s going on.

  17. 17.

    satby

    @gene108: Democrats saying that just leads to more “both sides bad” perceptions fed by our failed media, though I agree with everything you said. When ex-Republicans and speakers presumed to be apolitical start speaking out it can’t be spun the same way. Which is why mainstream churches taking tentative steps to preach against the current policies is important for their membership to hear.
    Edited to add: Not that I believe Democrats shouldn’t speak out, just that the push back also has to be performed by people presumed to be not partisan.

  19. 19.

    OzarkHillbilly

    The Ebola virus has reached the Congolese city of Goma, home to 2 million people and a transport hub for swath of central Africa, for the first time since an epidemic began in the country nearly a year ago.

    The Congolese health ministry said a man who had arrived in the regional centre on Sunday had been quickly transported to an Ebola treatment centre.

    Authorities said they had tracked down all the passengers on the bus the man had taken to Goma from Butembo, one of the towns hardest hit by the disease.

    “Because of the speed with which the patient was identified and isolated, and the identification of all the other bus passengers coming from Butembo, the risk of it spreading in the rest of the city of Goma is small,” the health ministry said in a statement.

    It’s only a matter of time.

  20. 20.

    debbie

    @Baud:

    The woman living with one of my brothers is a devout Christian (in an Amazing Grace kind of way). She posted an article pointing out how Evangelicals lost their way when they found Trump, and she’s taking all kinds of abuse from her friends. They won’t change; they’ll cling harder to that bastard.

  21. 21.

    Baud

    @debbie: It’s the right thing to do, and it’ll inspire truly moral people.

    I don’t personally care who speaks for Jesus, but the right-wingers claim to. Liberal Christians need to decide whether they are going to dispute that.

  27. 27.

    Baud

    @satby:

    I agree. Too many people are delegating their own civic responsibilities to “Democrats.” It’s a crutch.

  32. 32.

    boatboy_srq

    @debbie: Trouble is that the FundiEvangelist Xtianists lost their way before they found Falwell, Swaggert, Bakker or Robertson.

    The only distinctions Lord Dampnut presents are that he’s only Xtianist-appearing when absolutely necessary, and he merely looks Elect on paper. Otherwise he’s just as abusive, smarmy, grifty and fake as all the men who actively profess to be of Gun-totin’ Capitalist White Jeebus.

    I hear Xtianist acquaintances explain that they have to let Lord Dampnut do his thing so Revelation will be fulfilled and the Messiah will return. Just sounds passively sociopathic to me: it’s beyond juat letting corrupt society burn, and fast-approaching carrying the matches for someone else to strike.

  37. 37.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @rikyrah:

    It’s why McCaskill is on a TV morning show and not in the Senate.

    Everything he says might be true to one extent or another, but that’s not why she isn’t in the Senate anymore. She lost her seat because too many Miserians have turned hard to the racist, xenophobic, Christianist, ignorance celebrating right.

  40. 40.

    satby

    @rikyrah: I don’t think any of them are trying to win over Trump voters. They’re trying to reach that huge percentage of people who don’t vote at all. We need just 10% to convert to voters for Democrats and we would consistently win.
    How to motivate non-voters is the question, but I see some hopeful signs.
    Edited: and increasing all minority turnout is a huge part of that.

  44. 44.

    Kay

    Dave Weigel
    ‏Verified account
    @daveweigel
    15m15 minutes ago
    More Dave Weigel Retweeted Bartleby
    You can dream up some lawsuit against Medicare itself, sure, but every legal attack on the ACA has focused on the parts designed to make it a market-friendly compromise.

    Funny and true. There is a negative incentive to include conservative ideas in any universal health care plan.

    The mandate wasn’t politically popular. The one and only reason it was in there was to (supposedly) limit risk to health insurance providers so they wouldn’t end up with the sickest and/or oldest pool and eliminate free riders. The truth is there is nothing they would accept if they didn’t accept Obamacare, and they didn’t. They are STILL suing on it. But just the conservative parts.

    There aren’t an endless number of ways to do this. Obamacare was about as good as they are going to get.

  45. 45.

    jimmiraybob

    @Zinsky:

    We need to disabuse ourselves of the notion that the mainstream Republican Party represent “Christian values”. THEY DON’T! They only worship one God – the God of Money.

    Even the Evangelical Christians that have surrounded him, the court Evangelicals to quote one Evangelical historian, are mammon preachers extolling the virtues of profit as reward. Christ just gets in the way of the true message. “Christian values” is just a weapon in their hands.

  46. 46.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    but every legal attack on the ACA has focused on the parts designed to make it a market-friendly compromise.

    Um, no. The first attack was on the mandate, sure. But it was also on Medicaid expansion, which was not a market friendly compromise. The second attack was based on a claimed loophole in the statutory drafting, which would have affected States that didn’t set up their own exchanges. Statutory ambiguity can exist in a hypothetical Medicare for all statute too.

    The current attack is based on eliminating the mandate which makes the ACA less market friendly.

    It’s true that conservatives won’t accept anything that works.

  47. 47.

    Another Scott

    @jimmiraybob: Ever since Falwell explicitly aligned with Viguerie and Weyrich (see Jill LePore’s 2011 piece at the NewYorker), the “religious right” has merely been a tax-free arm of the Republican Party.

    In the late nineteen-seventies, the Republican strategists Richard Viguerie and Paul Weyrich, both of whom were Catholic, recruited Jerry Falwell into a coalition designed to bring together economic and social conservatives around a “pro-family” agenda, one that targeted gay rights, sexual freedom, women’s liberation, the E.R.A., child care, and sex education. Weyrich said that abortion ought to be “the keystone of their organizing strategy, since this was the issue that could divide the Democratic Party.” Falwell founded the Moral Majority in 1979; Paul Brown, the founder of the American Life League, scoffed in 1982, “Jerry Falwell couldn’t spell ‘abortion’ five years ago.”

    For the leadership of these groups, it’s politics, not religion. We need to understand that.

    My $0.02.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  48. 48.

    MomSense

    @Kay:

    The mandate is one of the only Republican contributions to the ACA. The mandate and the exchange were part of the Bob Dole introduced Heritage Foundation alternative to Hillary Care. They were part of Romney Care and conservatives didn’t really argue about them then. What the GOP really hate is the Medical Loss Ratio which forces insurance companies to spend money on actual health care. The GOP hates it (and all the other patient protections) because the insurance companies hate them. But the patient protections and the Medical Loss Ratio are popular so the GOP pretends they hate the mandate.

  49. 49.

    Kay

    I read that Republicans are rejecting Ivanka’s “market friendly” family leave policy. She says she will change it any way they want. You know the change they want? Not to offer it to everyone. It will be voluntary for employers.
    Which, of course, is not a “family leave policy”. They may as well pass a resolution saying “we support (some) higher income parents”.

    They can’t offer ANYTHING that is actually universal. They’re too far Right. It’s impossible to do within the ideological limits they’ve set for themselves. Democrats can (and do) move Right. Republicans can’t move Left. Cannot.

    So Democrats (I think sensibly) see this as an advantage. They can move within 3/4’s of the available options and their opponents are limited to 1/4 on the far Right. I think that’s why liberal Democrats have so much trouble getting Democrats to stay to the Left. It’s hard to voluntarily limit your options.

  50. 50.

    plato

    Only one of the Members of Congress pictured below was born outside the United States.

    It’s me, also the only one who was not the subject of a racist tweet by the President today. All of us — including those like @Ilhan and me born elsewhere — are proud Americans.

    pic.twitter.com/EOUCCj7Ldx— Rep. Don Beyer (@RepDonBeyer) July 14, 2019

  52. 52.

    (((CassandraLeo)))

    @Brachiator: “Great Orange Satan” is usually seen as a reference to Daily Kos, for the record. I think using it as a reference to Dump is insulting – to Satan, who has a lot more great music praising him, if nothing else.

    @gene108: I have taken to closing every one of my comments here and at LGM with a call (in Latin, because I am nothing if not pretentious) for the wholesale destruction of the Republican Party. It belongs with the NSDAP and the CPSU in the ash bin of history.

    @rikyrah: She is still the President in Exile, as far as I’m concerned. Dump will never be a legitimate president, which is why I always use the asterisk to refer to him and his administration*.

    Ceterum censeo factionem Republicanam esse delendam.

  53. 53.

    Kay

    @MomSense:

    I have to say I was ok with the mandate. Medicare has a mandate. Everyone has to pay for it and they have to pay for it WELL before they use it.
    No one screams bloody murder about that, except 17 year olds the first time they encounter withholding :)
    I don’t know- taxes are a mandate. I hate this argument “I don’t use it- why should I have to pay for it?” I think that’s childish.

  55. 55.

    Baud

    @Kay:
    @Baud:

    Weigel is basically trolling progressives to stoke ACA hate. His retweet about Pelosi this weekend reveals his true self.

  56. 56.

    Betty Cracker

    @Baud: How is potentially enrolling millions of new customers in insurance plans via Medicaid expansion not a market friendly compromise?

  57. 57.

    jimmiraybob

    @plato:

    Who knew things will come to such a horrible fascistic pass so quickly in under 2 years? Unbelievable.

    During the campaign he started using rhetoric and tactics straight out of the authoritarian/dictators playbook. When he said “I am the only one” that sealed the deal for me. That was right around the time that I heard a woman being interviewed on NPR that said that her daddy used to say that what America needed was a good dictator to straighten it out. At that point I realized that he might have a chance to fulfill her daddy’s desire.

    There’s a reason that he, a hoped for strong-man ruler – a king of sorts, has such a solid base in the hard-core Evangelical community who has declared him God’s anointed ruler to save America.

    It’s actually been 2.5 years and I think that he and the Evangelicals are just now really getting rolling. (note the new Commission on Natural Rights headed by Pompeo. In his introductory announcement he essentially set the government up to determine which human rights are “good” and which are “evil” – yes, the quote marks indicate a quote.)

  60. 60.

    Betty Cracker

    @Baud: True, Medicaid and Medicare are both funding mechanisms rather than markets, but the Medicaid expansion would have resulted in millions of uninsured people being enrolled in insurance plans, and it was explicitly sold that way.

  61. 61.

    jimmiraybob

    @Another Scott:

    “…the “religious right” has merely been a tax-free arm of the Republican Party.”

    I agree that this has been the case and they now have the White House. I wonder if it’s more accurate to say that the GOP is now the tax-paying arm of the radical right-wing Evangelical church.

    PS – Thanks for the link.

  62. 62.

    HRA

    @rikyrah:

    I have been curious as to not seeing any discussions on Kamala Harris and AOL sponsoring another bill. This sponsorship with Pramila Jayapal makes me also curious as to why this is occurring during the problems in the House between Nancy Pelosi and the new Reps.

    I doubt I have used google as much in the past to get informed when I need to catch up on what is new to me.

  63. 63.

    SFAW

    @plato:

    Will his pal Cy Vance ‘buy’ it?

    Why wouldn’t? He’s bought all of the Trump Crime Family’s bullshit

  64. 64.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    I think he does a good job covering Democrats – I don’t think there’s anyone better if you’re watching the primary, and I am watching the primary.
    I might subscribe to his newsletter – no joke! He has one! :)

  65. 65.

    MomSense

    @Kay:

    Yeah, I’m ok with a mandate, too. I’m just pointing out how hypocritical and slimy the GOP is. When they introduced the mandate it was in their scoldy “why should you responsible Republicans play by the rules and do what’s right only to have those people try and cheat the system by waiting until they are sick”. It became the tyrannical government is trying to take over your health care. Socialism! Death panels! End of liberty!

  66. 66.

    Kay

    carolynryan
    ‏Verified account
    @carolynryan
    38m38 minutes ago
    More
    GOP falls silent as Trump presses non-white lawmakers to “go back” to their countries – The Washington Post

    Putting aside their racism, it’s amazing what chickenshit colleagues they are. They work with these women, who do the same job they do. But they’re too scared to stick up for them because Dear Leader will issue a nasty tweet.
    They consistently fail every test, even the most basic tests that other people pass regularly.

  67. 67.

    Kay

    @MomSense:

    The “health care debate” was horrible. It sucked. The best part of it is we don’t have to redo the dumb as shit parts of the “debate”. It was like pulling fucking teeth but at least now people have some vague understanding of the system they’re in.

    OTOH and in defense of liberals, they would have accepted a mandate in return for a public option, which is a reasonable demand and one Democrats should have given them. Making that the hill to die on wasn’t dumb on the part of liberals- it was dumb on the part of centrists.

  68. 68.

    MomSense

    @Kay:

    What this revealed for people who weren’t paying attention before is that trump and his ilk view US citizenship as whites only. Non whites are clearly not according to them. What was funny about it, in a gallows humor sort of way, was how accurate his description was of the government where they come from, namely the trump administration.

  69. 69.

    jimmiraybob

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Pompeo is free to contact me at any point in time and I’ll be happy to explain it to him, no commission needed.

    I’m going to go out on a limb and say that he’s not looking for the answers that you would give (or, for that matter, the vast literature that’s available starting with the ramifications of the Declaration of Independence with that whole “all men are created equal” clause that leads to the problematic outcome of an egalitarian and pluralistic society).

    Unless you can support defining certain rights out of existence. See, for instance, privacy, free expression, the free press, and any pesky rights that protect humans from exploitation and oppression. The would be emperor telegraphs this message every day.

  70. 70.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Kay:

    They consistently fail every test, even the most basic tests that other people pass regularly.

    In all due fairness Kay, they are laboring under the handicap of Republicanism.

  71. 71.

    MomSense

    @Kay:

    I think the public option was overblown to be honest. Because Medicare currently and the public option as it was constructed couldn’t negotiate for prescription drugs, and because the public option couldn’t reimburse at the lower Medicaid rates, it would not have been financially sound. Honestly, the Medicaid expansion combined with the risk corridors and the Medical Loss Ratio were really effective. The reason the GOP Senate got rid of the risk corridors in time for the 2016 election was so that insurance companies would have to raise their premiums. Then of course the Republicans all ran on how terrible Obamacare was as evidenced by the higher premiums.

  73. 73.

    Betty Cracker

    @MomSense: Bingo. Trump would find it confusing if someone told his own (current) wife to “go back where she came from.”

  74. 74.

    schrodingers_cat

    Like everything else Orange T does, the announcement about the raid was a tactic to spread fear. He wants everyone who is not in his cult to be perpetually afraid and keep looking constantly over their shoulder.

  76. 76.

    rikyrah

    @rikyrah:

    Also, people don’t actually love the health insurance exchanges. What they love is the Medicaid expansion and the protection for pre-existing conditions, and both Medicare-for-All and Medicare-for-All-who-want-it build on those popular provisions.

    — b-boy bouiebaisse (@jbouie) July 15, 2019

  78. 78.

    rikyrah

    ????

    Donald Trump is a racist. Full stop.

    If you are part of this administration, defend him in congress, or voted for him and continue to support him, you are part of that racism. I don’t differentiate between him and you.

    Dems, stop trying to court these people. They are poison. https://t.co/lRDOi8OpqA

    — Charles M. Blow (@CharlesMBlow) July 14, 2019

  80. 80.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @rikyrah:

    people don’t actually love the health insurance exchanges.

    No, but without them my wife would be fucked.

  81. 81.

    Raven

    @rikyrah: A comment following a Charles Blow NT Times column:

    “On July 14th, 1969, a new man to our infantry company joined us by resupply chopper in the morning, and left that night in a body bag on a medevac. I’ve been thinking about him as I read about “the President of United States'” treatment of minorities and women, but also after the “Media Summit” debacle on Thursday, staged to demean any media who aren’t Trump Party loyalists. I’ve been thinking about that man and about the other 13 guys I knew who died there, and the 65 guys wounded, and those who went home with maimed psyches.

    This is what they died for? So their nation could be run by a guy who hires media hit men and who vomits hatred and then tries to hide behind curtains of lies?

    An age in which what fills Trump’s “press” is literally like reading “Völkischer Beobachter” in 1934 or “Der Stürmer.”

    And the worst part of it is that 45% of Americans agree with this president’s racism, misogyny, authoritarianism, bullying and cowardice.

    This isn’t the nation I was willing to die for if this is where it wants to end up because what’s really happening is that 45% of Americans are as good as saying in silently supporting Donald Trump and his gangsters is that we should have saved the world a lot of grief by surrendering to Germany in 1939 and helping them defeat Britain and Russia.”

  83. 83.

    Betty Cracker

    @rikyrah: I was thinking about doing a post on that — not on the policy questions of the ACA vs M4A but rather the politics of it. PBO was clear that the ACA was a first step. He got the best deal he could at the time, when he had a majority that was compromised by jerks like Lieberman. It wasn’t supposed to be an immutable monument to his presidency but rather a beginning.

  84. 84.

    SFAW

    I might be getting some details wrong, because I’m too fucking lazy to re-read the CNN item, but it appears that the maladminsitration is poised to set some new rules for seeking asylum. Apparently, an asylum-seeker from a “third” country (which, in context, appears to be one not bordering the US) must apply for asylum in the first country he/she passes through/into on his/her way to the US. If he/she does not do that, then the asylum-seeker for not be allowed to seek asylum in the US.

    I guess it’s a reg, not a law, so not sure how Dems can fight it. [Not saying they can’t, just saying I don’t know the mechanism.]

    Fucking racists/fascists. I’m an atheist, but I keep hoping there really IS a Hell for all those motherfuckers.

    ETA: Re: “lazy”: a combination of that, plus it’s distressing enough that I don’t want to read it again.

  85. 85.

    rikyrah

    .@LindseyGrahamSC on Fox & Friends: “We all know that AOC and this crowd are a bunch of communists … they’re anti-Semitic. They’re anti-America.” pic.twitter.com/lsFqZi1Eu8

    — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 15, 2019

  86. 86.

    rikyrah

    Trump weighs ousting Commerce chief Wilbur Ross after census defeat
    Source: NBC News
    July 15, 2019, 5:02 AM EDT
    By Hans Nichols, Kayla Tausche, CNBC and Hallie Jackson

    WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has told aides and allies that he is considering removing Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross after a stinging Supreme Court defeat on adding a citizenship question to the census, according to multiple people familiar with the conversations.

    While Trump has previously expressed frustration with the 81-year-old Ross, in particular over failed trade negotiations, Ross’s long personal relationship with the president has allowed him to keep his job. And after the departure of Labor Secretary Alex Acosta, the Cabinet’s only Hispanic who resigned on Friday amid questions about his role in a controversial 2008 plea agreement with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, Ross may yet receive another reprieve.

    But some White House officials expect Ross to be the next Cabinet secretary to depart, possibly as soon as this summer, according to advisers and officials.

    Frustrated by Ross’ leadership of the Census Bureau, which is within the Commerce Department, Trump has been making calls to allies outside the White House musing about replacing Ross.
    (snip)

  87. 87.

    rikyrah

    “The Trump administration on Monday moved to end asylum protections for most Central American migrants in a major escalation of the president’s battle to tamp down the number of people crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.” https://t.co/YcHzPXvx0P

    — Jill Colvin (@colvinj) July 15, 2019

  89. 89.

    SFAW

    @rikyrah:

    @LindseyGrahamSC on Fox & Friends: “We all know that AOC and this crowd are a bunch of communists … they’re anti-Semitic. They’re anti-America.”

    Fuck you, Lindsey, you fascist and fascist-enabler.

  90. 90.

    SFAW

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Rep. Rashida Tlaib *is* Semitic, Lindsay, you fucking moron. Anti-Likud is not “anti-Semitic.”

    The [not] funny thing is: if the Racist-in-Chief were to start talking about how Heydrich et al “had it right, they just went about it the wrong way,” fucking traitor Lindsey Graham would be on board tout de fucking suite.

  91. 91.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    noteworthy only because the idiot in question is…. Salena Zito. I hadn’t heard of Zito in the summer of 2015, but I’m guessing she and the Jennifer Rubin of 2015 would have been in agreement on most issues

    Jennifer Rubin @ JRubinBlogger
    CNN Analyst: Trump’s ‘Go Back’ Attack Might Not be Seen as Racist Because He Said They Could Return to U.S. https://www.mediaite.com/trump/cnn-analyst-trumps-go-back-attack-might-not-be-seen-as-racist-because-he-said-they-could-return-to-u-s/ … idiotic and typical of rationalizations right resorts to

    also, if Zito is a paid CNN analysis, I’m going to ad that to the long list of reasons I don’t watch fucking CNN

  94. 94.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Betty Cracker: and runs into them all at gas stations, where they all use the same words to tell her how Obama drove them to trump. And as a shoe-leather reporter, she lost the contemporaneous notes of those conversations

  95. 95.

    SFAW

    @Ben Cisco:

    Well, this all seems horrible…

    If only you (or one of us) could turn into the Hulk, and do a little judicious smashing.

  96. 96.

    rikyrah

    @jimmiraybob:

    During the campaign he started using rhetoric and tactics straight out of the authoritarian/dictators playbook. When he said “I am the only one” that sealed the deal for me.

    I never had the luxury of not taking him seriously.

  97. 97.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:

    Putting aside their racism, it’s amazing what chickenshit colleagues they are. They work with these women, who do the same job they do. But they’re too scared to stick up for them because Dear Leader will issue a nasty tweet.
    They consistently fail every test, even the most basic tests that other people pass regularly.

    fail EVERY DAMN TIME

  98. 98.

    rikyrah

    @MomSense:

    What this revealed for people who weren’t paying attention before is that trump and his ilk view US citizenship as whites only. Non whites are clearly not according to them.

    Yep…but, didn’t you already know this?

  99. 99.

    the Conster

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    This is the media we’re supposed to have faith in to cover *impeachment* hearings 24/7 with the proper earnestness and fairness to “educate” the American public about all of Trump’s crimes, WHICH HAVE BEEN ON FULL DISPLAY FOR 2 YEARS NOW? Trump’s BFF Jeff Zucker’s CNN? Can you imagine what a “DEMS IN DISARRAY AND CAN’T MAKE THE CASE TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE” shit show a failed impeachment would be, media-wise?

  101. 101.

    MomSense

    @rikyrah:

    I knew it – but I think there are still a lot of people who haven’t wanted to or didn’t get it before.
    @the Conster:

    In my way of thinking, Nancy Smash’s tactics are because she has little regard for the media and a very unfavorable view of a good portion of the electorate. She’s not wrong.

  102. 102.

    OGLiberal

    @Rusty: At my kids’ Catholic Church this past weekend (I’m an atheist – I go because they want me to go and they’re just kids) the retired, in his 80s priest (he does every other Saturday) somehow slipped in a reference about how “we reject socialism” in his homily about the Good Samaritan. He does this often – slipping in political stuff where it doesn’t belong. (in the past his slipped in something about our government having the right to protect itself against illegal immigrants) He also made a point of noting that he’s from the same neighborhood as our president. Old white dude pissed that the browns ruined the Jamaica, Queens, where he grew up. It takes a lot for me and my wife not to walk out – we always explain to the kids where he’s wrong.

    He also thinks that the sex stuff the church has been covering up for generations is because of an evil gay Vatican faction hell bent on destroying the church. Said how much he misses Joey Ratz and has refuted Francis several times from the pulpit.

    So it’s not just crazy Evangelicals. And his message probably goes down well here in rural NE Pennsylvania – this is Trump country…a bunch of white folks whose ancestors were poor immigrants (Irish, Italian, Polish, etc) who are scared to death of the brown people who make up less than 1% of the population where they live.

  105. 105.

    Ben Cisco

    @rikyrah: We’re going to get an opportunity to see if enough of the voting population considers you and I to be citizens (or even HUMANS) or not. No amount of dissembling, spin, or self-delusion can hide that now. The jaundiced jackass has made the question clear as day. No hiding place.

  107. 107.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @MomSense: this morning I saw a rose tweet arguing, as best as I could follow, that Nancy Pelosi picked all those Blue Dog candidates in 2018 to stop the Revolution, just like she and Rahm did in ’06 and ’08. It’s amazing what fantasies the purity left projects on to Democrats they don’t like, and the fantasy electorates they imagine Pelosi and RAHM! are suppressing. I breathe deep and remind myself that twitter is not real life, then I remember that Stein’s margins in the “blue wall” states were larger than trump’s margin over Clinton, and… and… and….

    I may not make it to November 2020

  108. 108.

    schrodingers_cat

    @<a href="#comment-7341970 @MomSense: @rikyrah: Be that as it may, his rhetoric fills most immigrants with dread because they know that their acceptance by the Orange hordes is conditional, at best. Even my immigrant friends who are from Norway and Russia don’t feel sanguine about this hateful rhetoric emanating from the mouth of the Orange Sauron.

  109. 109.

    Gin & Tonic

    Great Twitter thread here live-tweeting the Epstein bail hearing. US Attorney says they found or became aware of a passport from a third country bearing Epstein’s photo but not his name. Expired now, but like somebody said in the comments, there’s never just one fake passport.

  110. 110.

    Harbison

    Hard to say what’s worse: Trump being racist or white people saying Trump is racist.

  111. 111.

    J R in WV

    @jimmiraybob:

    I wonder if it’s more accurate to say that the GOP is now the tax-paying arm of the radical right-wing Evangelical church.

    As IF Republicans pay any taxes?!?!!!! Come on Jimmiraybob, you know better than that!

  112. 112.

    rikyrah

    Amid Suggestions That She ‘Focus on Tennis,’ Serena Williams Says She’ll Fight for Equality to the Grave

    Maiysha Kai
    Yesterday 10:00am

    “The day I stop fighting for equality and for people that look like you and me will be the day I’m in my grave,” said Serena Williams, at a press conference following Saturday’s loss in the Wimbledon finals. The statement was made after a female reporter referenced previously published opinions that Williams should “stop being a celebrity for a year and stop fighting for equality, and just focus on the tennis.”

  113. 113.

    MomSense

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Right there with you. I love it when the same people who hate blue dogs bemoan the end of Dean’s 50 state strategy. WTF did they thjbkbit meant to run candidates who have a chance to win swing and +R districts? I can’t with the stupid sometimes.

  114. 114.

    Brachiator

    @rikyrah:

    “The Trump administration on Monday moved to end asylum protections for most Central American migrants in a major escalation of the president’s battle to tamp down the number of people crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.”

    Just recently got up here in Southern California, and sadly see that Trump is already dialing up the racism.

    He is clearly trying to keep non-white people out of the country. He is also trying to obliterate the idea that people, especially non-white people, have any right to asylum. So, anyone attempting to cross the border for any reason is a criminal, unless Trump creates an exception.

    I expect Trump to hammer home the lie that Democrats are all for open borders, and for the dumbest reporters to pick up this lie and run with it.

    ETA And the dumbest fools and pundits will bloviate over how Trump really is not racist despite doing things which are, you know, really, really racist.

  115. 115.

    MomSense

    @schrodingers_cat:

    The response to his rhetoric is the litmus test for decency for all people. I’m so sorry about the fear he causes – in addition to the horrible actions.

  116. 116.

    OGLiberal

    @schrodingers_cat: A good number of the Russian immigrants from NYC that I know – and I know a number of them – think Trump is pretty good. And they really liked Mayor 9/11. They are not very fond of the non-whites in their outer borough neighborhoods. White tribalism and racism knows no borders.

    I also have a feeling they kind of like Putin as well. (most of them left well before he was in any position of public power)

  117. 117.

    jl

    I think Klobuchar gave a great answer. Of the centrist candidates, I think she would be the best on communication and policy.

  118. 118.

    Brachiator

    @Harbison:

    Hard to say what’s worse: Trump being racist or white people saying Trump is racist.

    Let me know when you figure it out.

  120. 120.

    schrodingers_cat

    @MomSense: My Russian friend was fairly apolitical before T was elected. No more. And she lives in red upstate NY. My Norwegian friend has always been a liberal Democrat. Most women, irrespective of national origin and other factors find him loathsome for obvious reasons.
    ETA: You don’t need to apologize you are not responsible for Orange or his mandarins.

  121. 121.

    schrodingers_cat

    @MomSense: They live in a bubble, they think that everyone is dying to vote for a fire breathing lefty given half a chance. I spoke to BS supporter this weekend. All that the Ds need to do is field candidates like AOC and they will get a thumping mandate.

  122. 122.

    Brachiator

    @OGLiberal:

    So it’s not just crazy Evangelicals. And his message probably goes down well here in rural NE Pennsylvania – this is Trump country…a bunch of white folks whose ancestors were poor immigrants (Irish, Italian, Polish, etc) who are scared to death of the brown people who make up less than 1% of the population where they live.

    Very Interesting and sobering anecdote. Thank you for sharing it.

  124. 124.

    jimmiraybob

    @J R in WV:

    As IF Republicans pay any taxes?!?!!!! Come on Jimmiraybob, you know better than that!

    I was thinking more of the working class R base. The farmers, the ranchers, the coal miners, the wage earners and salaried middle management without an accounting and legal team. The “real American” base. The common clay of the Heartland. The sucker underbelly of the party that supports “blue collar” billionaire con men.

  125. 125.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Matthew Gertz @ MattGertz
    Sen. Lindsey Graham looking directly into the Fox & Friends cabinet to tell President Trump that he is the superior golfer is one of the more pathetic things I can imagine.

    the video’s at the link if you can stomach it, I watched with the sound off. He looks like some washed-up actor who was a beloved side-kick on a middling sitcom thirty years ago and is now on a second-rate media tour to sell his memoirs (“tell us about the time you and Barbara Eden got stuck in an elevator, what a story!”), including the recipes that helped him lose forty pounds!

    For the better part of twenty years, he was one of the Most Serious Voices in politics.

  126. 126.

    OGLiberal

    @schrodingers_cat: It’s a bit of a mix but I find the Eastern Church/secular ones to be more likely to be on the Trump train. Again, while they are Russian speaking they aren’t necessarily recent arrivals – although the 30-year time frame still applies for many of them. The Jewish ones tend to have more education and exposure to folks outside of the Russian emigre community (mostly because of their jobs) so that may make them a bit more left leaning.

  127. 127.

    Michael Cain

    @Baud:

    Medicaid isn’t an insurance market anymore than Medicare for all would be an insurance market.

    The question I keep hoping to hear asked at one of the debates goes like this: “33% of Medicare beneficiaries in total, and a much higher percentage in metro areas, have Medicare Advantage plans operated by private insurance companies. What happens to those under ‘Medicare for All’?”

    This past year my wife and I switched from a Kaiser exchange policy to Kaiser Medicare Advantage plans. What we noticed is that some of the out-of-pocket things (copays, drugs) went up, some went down, and the premium went down a lot.

    It is a rare week that neither of us get advertising in the mail urging us to switch to a different Advantage plan.

  128. 128.

    OGLiberal

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: He was one of the most serious voices because he was best friends with John McCain – who, we all know, was the most serious, reasonable and centrist politicians ever and you can’t ever say anything to challenge that! MAVERICK!

    Lindsey’s primary base is, I’m sure, full of raging racist lunatics – his behavior is based on fear of a primary, amplified because his security blanket recently passed away. (and screwed over Trump big time on the way out) In other words, he’s an unprincipled coward.

  129. 129.

    James E Powell

    @MomSense:

    What the GOP really hate is the Medical Loss Ratio which forces insurance companies to spend money on actual health care.

    No, what the GOP really hates is that there would ever be a popular benefit that was credited to an African American. It undermines their entire narrative.

Comments are closed.