Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
Apparently someone analyzed the Y’all Qaeda Beergut Putsch at the Capitol on January 6th, and it turns out they are predominantly people from communities afraid of minorities taking over. A fear they only have because they know how shitty they have been to minorities for the past 200 years.
Take it away, O-Dub:
I’m so fucking sick of this shit.
A term I never wanted to need…
Today I learned the German word "Krawalltouristen", which literally means "riot tourists."
— Tentin Quarantino (@agraybee) May 30, 2020
I was in St. Paul for the RNC in 2008 and the people who smashed windows, etc. were all mayhem tourists.
— MALARKEY PATROL ????? (@Alex__Katz) May 30, 2020
Silver-plate (tinfoil?) lining, for once the mantra BOTH SIDES seems to be true: The milky-pale anarcho-kiddies and wannabe-antifa are working in concert dissonance with the bent cops, Threepers, and grab-bag white supremacists to destroy minority communities in the name of FREEEDUMB!!!
"iM vAnDaLiZiNg ThE sTaTe"
If you cant stop yourself from weedling into every legitimate protest to act out a toddler's version of your ideology, the best thing you can do to advance the causes you're hijacking is to jump out of a plane and vandalize your parachute
— Human capital laughing stock (@TheSneerReview) May 30, 2020
Attorney General Barr says violent protests are being driven by far left extremists. But the Minnesota governor says he suspects white supremacists are fueling some of the violence.
In a time of national crisis, federal and state leaders don't appear to be on the same page. pic.twitter.com/xvgefVfPVS
— Josh Campbell (@joshscampbell) May 30, 2020
As I’ve been saying: I lived in that neighborhood, & that crowd “protesting” is very different from the residents of that neighborhood. https://t.co/FfghTjrvny
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) May 30, 2020
We’ve seen this in South Africa before. Beware of agitators and instigators who use legitimate protests to ignite chaos between protestors and police.
— Trevor Noah (@Trevornoah) May 30, 2020
Speaking of which:
is this a strongman slyly calling for a pro-regime mob to mass at his mansion’s gates against aggrieved citizens exercising rights of speech and assembly? that’s what correspondents might reasonably ask were it outside usa— this bountiful, free, egalitarian, democratic land. https://t.co/0N02mL486y
— C.J. Chivers (@cjchivers) May 30, 2020
Or, hear me out, a bunch of white jackasses co-opted a spontaneous uproar among black people, made it last beyond its natural 24-48 hour expiration date, and the president with his numbers in freefall panicked and did the only dance he knows how to do. https://t.co/D5hAXNJAXd
— Tentin Quarantino (@agraybee) May 30, 2020
Late Night Horrorshow: “Mayhem Tourists”Post + Comments (39)
As anyone who isn’t a Fox News-addled idiot with tapioca pudding for brains already knows, Trump spent weeks downplaying the seriousness of the coronavirus, frittering away precious time that could have been spent containing and preparing for the outbreak to instead scoff at warnings from experts and attempt to prop up the stock market with happy talk.
That’s because Trump himself is a Fox News-addled idiot with tapioca pudding for brains, and he approaches every issue under the sun as a PR problem/opportunity for himself:
As Trump pivots to coronavirus crisis mode, let’s not forget the months of downplaying and denial. pic.twitter.com/gH1xZAHXm5
— The Recount (@therecount) March 17, 2020
When it became clear that downplaying the pandemic wouldn’t be an effective PR strategy anymore, Trump adjusted the approach, attempting to cast himself as a wartime president who is competently leading a struggle against an “invisible enemy.” Some media dupes fell for it.
As always, it’s difficult to chicken-egg whether Fox News is driving the revamped Trump PR strategy or Trump is driving the new Fox News PR strategy. But with whiplash-inducing speed, everyone got on the same page within a week:
What a damning indictment of Fox News from the Post video team here. pic.twitter.com/r8Fz8vo5KV
— andrew kaczynski? (@KFILE) March 18, 2020
So, everyone is now singing from the same hymnal. But it’s hard to demonize an invisible enemy, so Trump/Fox (or Fox/Trump) are now injecting a racism angle. It was predictable; color-coding hate objects has proved so effective with the base. Here’s Trump on Twitter this morning:
I will be having a news conference today to discuss very important news from the FDA concerning the Chinese Virus!
I always treated the Chinese Virus very seriously, and have done a very good job from the beginning, including my very early decision to close the “borders” from China – against the wishes of almost all. Many lives were saved. The Fake News new narrative is disgraceful & false!
And here’s the Fox News sycophant chorus:
Brian Kilmeade denies that calling covid-19 “the Chinese virus” is racist: “It’s actually just an accurate term of where it started” pic.twitter.com/158QbMCViR
— Bobby Lewis (@revrrlewis) March 18, 2020
When this messaging campaign sinks its hooks into soft tapioca pudding brains nationwide and discrimination, harassment and assaults on people of Asian descent increase, not only will Trump/Fox not give a shit, they’ll double-down.
That’s been their MO all along. They’ve demagogued immigration in ways that resulted in the death, physical harm and harassment of countless innocent people since Trump was elected. It works for the network, and it works for Trump, so they’ll keep at it.
So no, Dana Bash, Stephen Collinson, etc.: Trump hasn’t become presidential. He’s not rising to the fucking occasion now or at any point in the future. From Trump’s perspective, the pandemic is still a PR issue. He’s just adjusting his strategy and rebranding the enemy, giving it a human face for his supporters to punch.
The GOP today, and Trump himself, make a lot of noise about how much they love Israel. What they really value, of course, is the racist and corrupt current Israeli government–and, some of them, the apocalyptic vision of Israel’s Jews massacred in a final confrontation on the plains of Megiddo, which would thus usher in the arrival of their god: Rambo Jeebus.
Trump is mystified — sincerely, I believe* — that his performative slobbering over Bibi hasn’t translated into support from American Jews, the overwhelming majority of whom interpret the obligation to “Tikkun Olam” (heal the world) rather differently than does our presidential cager of children and patron of war criminals.
Over the weekend, Trump has explored this mystery, and has reminded us what Jews really are to him. Via Vanity Fair, here’s the shitgibbon speaking to the Israeli American Council in Hollywood, Florida:
He started off by once again invoking the age-old cliché about “dual loyalty,” saying there are Jews who “don’t love Israel enough. After that warm-up he dove right into the stereotype about Jews and money, telling the group: “A lot of you are in the real estate business, because I know you very well. You’re brutal killers, not nice people at all,” he said.
“But you have to vote for me—you have no choice. You’re not gonna vote for Pocahontas, I can tell you that. You’re not gonna vote for the wealth tax. Yeah, let’s take 100% of your wealth away!” (It feels beside the point that neither Elizabeth Warren nor any other Democratic candidate has proposed a 100% wealth tax.) He continued: “Some of you don’t like me. Some of you I don’t like at all, actually. And you’re going to be my biggest supporters because you’re going to be out of business in about 15 minutes if they get it. So I don’t have to spend a lot of time on that.”
That’s us. Jews aren’t really Americans, or not American enough — we’ve got Israel to take care of. And Cash Rules Everything Around Us. (Not the best acronym, I know.)
You know, the old, familiar hate: the international conspiracy of world Jews, driven only by money, “not nice people at all.”
The Republican Party in any of its forms has not, as I write this, said anything about the shitgibbon’s remarks.
Silence = acquiescence.
That is: GOP is, until clearly demonstrated otherwise, home to and comfortable with exactly the same kind of anti-Semitism that underpinned persecution from pogroms to the Holocaust. This kind of bigotry doesn’t have to end there, of course, but to avoid an escalation of the same hate that barely a year ago “inspired” the killer in the Tree of Life massacre in Pittsburgh, those closest to the President have to respond forcefully. They haven’t and on the evidence they won’t.
The Republican Party has been playing on white fears of black and brown humanity for a long time, and it has long been a shock to the conscience how readily so many in power have been to do so instrumentally, not because they “in their hearts” hate black people or whoever, but because it works.
Well, it has, too well — and now the next phase is unfolding: when you unleash hate, sooner or later, it always finds the Jews.
And every other vulnerable minority. We really are in this together, and 2020 truly is an existential election.
Other than that, how was your day, all you Mrs. Lincolns?
*I think that Trump is genuinely mystified by a lack of Jewish support. He’d do business with someone he loathes if it made him a couple of bucks. Wouldn’t everyone?
Image: Rembrandt van Rijn, Portrait of a Rabbi, 1635
“The Protocols of the Elders of Zion”…Modern Republican UpdatePost + Comments (79)
In the least surprising news EVER, it appears that smugglers have managed to defeat the Trump’s billion dollar boondoggle:
Smuggling gangs in Mexico have repeatedly sawed through new sections of President Trump’s border wall in recent months by using commercially available power tools, opening gaps large enough for people and drug loads to pass through, according to U.S. agents and officials with knowledge of the damage.
The breaches have been made using a popular cordless household tool known as a reciprocating saw that retails at hardware stores for as little as $100. When fitted with specialized blades, the saws can slice through one of the barrier’s steel-and-concrete bollards in a matter of minutes, according to the agents, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the barrier-defeating techniques.
After cutting through the base of a single bollard, smugglers can push the steel out of the way, allowing an adult to fit through the gap. Because the bollards are so tall — and are attached only to a panel at the very top — their length makes them easier to push aside once they have been cut and are left dangling, according to engineers consulted by The Washington Post.
Now I hardly feel smart for having PREDICTED THIS, because anyone with two functioning brain cells could have told you this was going to happen. Unfortunately, that requirement is daunting for Trump and his base, who demanded a wall to keep them dammned furriners out. Honestly, the only possible way you could think this wall would work in any way, shape, or form, is if you are so fucking stupid that you have never examined the history of EVERY FUCKING BORDER WALL EVER BUILT and so fucking racist that you think Mexicans do not have access to sophisticated technologies like ladders, shovels, and… saws.
Of course, not every one is a fucking moron, so there were actual proposals that would have been cheaper, would not have impeded on landowners rights, and not served as a giant stain on the landscape and our nation’s character, but those were ignored:
But it is fertile for an invisible kind of fence, one built of artificial intelligence, radar, drones, sensors, motion-activated cameras and even lidar, the same technology used in self-driving vehicles.
“Virtual walls” or “smart walls” along the southwest border are increasingly being billed as an alternative to the proposed concrete and steel barriers that have so sharply divided public opinion.
An electronic fence is not about preventing intrusion as much as it is about detecting intrusions and then intercepting them.
Although even the strongest proponents for such a technological solution admit physical barriers are likely best in urban areas such as San Diego and El Paso, they see a virtual wall as a cheaper and more effective way to police much of the rest of the 2,000-mile southwest border.
If you were actually serious about this hypothetical “invasion” of illegals, this is what you might consider. If you’re just concerned with riling up your ignorant ass racist base with apocryphal tales of illegal hordes, you build a fucking wall that anyone can saw through.
"A demagogue doesn’t find radicals to lead, he radicalizes his supporters."—@Kasparov63 And they radicalize each other because if everyone around them is doing it, how bad could it be? https://t.co/LC71gWLWS3
— Mig Greengard (@chessninja) October 12, 2019
So I guess the Trump rally got kinda weird?
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) October 11, 2019
Like any other addict, an adulation junkie needs to keep upping his dosage to get the same boost. Trump’s recent rallies just haven’t been doing the job for him — even the LameStream Media is bored watching the same MAGAt DeadBrainHeads yowl LAWKERUP like it was a prayer. So he’s flailing around, looking for that special attention-getting message that will make him feel alive again.
His handlers had him all set up for a good time in Minneapolis — where people vote for Muslim immigrants who are also Black, and even female! — but the natives didn’t take the bait:
Yawn… Welcome to Minneapolis where we pay our bills, we govern with integrity, and we love all of our neighbors. https://t.co/v1cXvoD9uR
— Jacob Frey (@Jacob_Frey) October 8, 2019
Why doesn't he just go to Roseau or Lake of the Woods county and stick them with a huge unpaid bill? https://t.co/6IIVNV6SBN
— Brandi Thee Nice Goose (on Halloween or whatever) (@ItsTheBrandi) October 8, 2019
Seats are emptying as Trump stretches past the 90-minute mark at this Minneapolis MAGA rally. pic.twitter.com/KmAkVPv79k
— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) October 11, 2019
He literally induced an arena of mostly white people to jeer Somali refugees in their community and read off the names of Fox hosts so people would cheer for them. It's journalistic malpractice to cover Trump like a normal politician. https://t.co/NN7AE0nByc
— Brendan Nyhan (@BrendanNyhan) October 11, 2019
Friday night, he was shipped to Louisiana to bath in some old-fashioned hardcore racist GOTV… but ended up spending most of the evening angrily defending himself against the morgue’s worth of still-rotting corpses falling out of various Trump closets.
So for his weekend retreat, he dropped in on the hardest of the hardcore — the “Values Voters Summit” evangelical beanfest / witch hunt, where those media representatives not of the body can be barred from spoiling the ‘where we go one, we go all’ happytimes…
President Trump spent a third consecutive night drinking in the adulation of his most diehard supporters https://t.co/XcpJvF3DoL via @bpolitics @JenniferJJacobs #TicToCNews
— Robert Jameson (@rhjameson) October 13, 2019
Late Night Horrorshow Open Thread: Rallying His Base Rallying HimPost + Comments (60)
Literally LOLed at the hotel internet password for the GOP retreat-> pic.twitter.com/5AACL9l6u1
— Rachael Bade (@rachaelmbade) September 12, 2019
There goes the neighborhood. https://t.co/31LVTAyuGL
— David Simon (@AoDespair) September 12, 2019
An inflatable President Trump rat sits in the parking lot at the corner of Eastern Ave. and President St., in view of the Marriott hotel where President Trump is due to speak later this evening. pic.twitter.com/a5SBABt6YY
— ulysses muñoz ☀️ (@y00lz) September 12, 2019
Even though it meant not live-tweeting during the DNC’s Houston debate, where he was guaranteed a (considerably less flattering) large audience. Per the Washington Post:
… With the president speaking here Thursday to a closed-door retreat of House Republicans, scores of protesters gathered to express opposition to White House policies and outrage at Trump’s recent tweets calling Maryland’s largest city “the Worst in the USA.”
The visit by the president — who maligned Baltimore as a “disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess” where “no human being would want to live” — was limited to a dinnertime speech kicking off the GOP retreat at the Baltimore Marriott Waterfront Hotel in Harbor East.
House Republicans selected Baltimore as the location for their three-day conference long before the president’s attack on the city, where Democrats outnumber Republicans 10 to 1. Well before the White House announced that Trump would attend the conference, a coalition of advocacy groups calling themselves the Baltimore Welcoming Committee had planned days of rallies to protest GOP policies on immigration, climate change and other topics. There was to be a singalong, a light show and a dance party. Organizer Sharon Black said Trump’s scheduled appearance “upped the ante.”
“This is about the remarks about Baltimore and his policies. You can’t really separate the two,” she said…
Of course, Donny Dollhands goes nowhere without a few of his devoted sycophants…
Absolutely effing disgusting. House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy is once again spinning conspiracy theories about why his party lost the midterms, from @DanMartinTalks https://t.co/YAVbbYyzJQ
— David Nir (@DavidNir) September 13, 2019