The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

 

The good:

New rumblings are emerging about a new political party being concocted by betrayed MAGA luminaries, but according to the D.C. insiders at Pod Save America, these rumors actually pose a disaster for President Donald Trump and his allies, as well as "a gift to Democrats like you cannot imagine."

In the latest episode of the "Pod Save America" podcast, former Obama administration officials Jon Favreau and Dan Pfeiffer touched on the emerging rumors that ex-Fox News host Tucker Carlson might be plotting a run for president, as well as the rumors about a new political party that might coalesce around him. The rumors went into overdrive after former congresswoman-turned-Trump critic Marjorie Taylor Greene shared a photo to X of herself at Carlson's Maine compound, alongside Rep. Thomas Massie and Joe Kent, along with the caption, "The movement has begun."

"MAGA was betrayed. We all were. It's time for a new path forward," she added in another post.

While Carlson has denied any presidential ambitions, he did last week release a "10-point plan for America," outlining his vision for the future of the country, something that Favreau, Obama's one-time director of speechwriting, said "sounds pretty 'I'm going to run in 2028.'"

The hosts of Pod Save America, especially former National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vieter, have long despaired about the possibility of Carlson running for president, given that his established popularity with the GOP base and his well-honed media skills could make him a highly effective "demagogue." In light of this news, however, Pfieffer, Obama's former senior communications adviser, argued that Carlson's political threat to Democrats was entirely neutralized and that he would instead become a major threat to MAGA Republicans.

"There's been a lot of talk of Tucker Carlson being a formidable presidential candidate because of his media skills, mainly because of his media skills," Pfeiffer explained. "That was always under the assumption he would be the Republican nominee, right? Tucker Carlson, a third-party candidate, is a gift to Democrats like you cannot imagine."

He continued: "There aren't a lot of potential John Ossoff, [Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez], Kamala Harris, Gavin Newsom, Josh Shapiro voters who are voting for Tucker Carlson, but there are a lot of disillusioned Trump 2024 voters who might vote for Tucker Carlson. That's how you win. So that would be very good news. Like, we should encourage this. This would be great... It does speak to how much the MAGA coalition has truly fractured under Trump's second term, right? Because of Epstein, apparently because of the war, there are these incredibly prominent people with large audiences who have soured on Trump."

Every day that the bastards are fighting amongst themselves and splintering is a good day, for Democrats and for democracy.

The bad:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected President Trump's 15-point peace plan for Gaza, saying Israeli forces will not withdraw from Gaza until Hamas is "genuinely disarmed."

"We are talking about genuine disarmament, not fictitious disarmament," he said at a meeting with government ministers Sunday.

Netanyahu's comments come just over a week after President Trump announced that his Board of Peace had reached a deal with the Palestinian militant group to completely give up its weapons.

"Today, the Board of Peace reached a HISTORIC agreement for the COMPLETE DISARMAMENT of Hamas and all other armed groups in Gaza. This is a monumental step toward lasting PEACE and SECURITY," Trump wrote on social media in late July.

Under Trump's proposed peace deal, Board of Peace officials said Hamas and other militant groups would hand their arms over to a vetted international policing force.

But a senior Hamas official previously told NPR that the group would only hand over their weapons if Israel withdrew from parts of Gaza first...

Given that the Malignant Fascist is a pathological liar without the slightest knowledge base about the Middle East or skill in negotiation, combined with a toddler's attention span and attention to detail, it wasn't hard to imagine that the HISTORIC agreement he rashly trumpeted was just a creation of his desperate, diminished mind.  At best, he thought he could bum rush Netanyahu into agreeing to an agreement by making a premature announcement -- a classic Shart of the Deal move by him.  But he ends up looking like he got played like a fiddle (which he was).  He puts American prestige and lives on the line every day just to make his worthless orange self look as good as he can.  That this disgraceful behavior isn't called out for what it is every day in our credulous, broken media is another scandal of our times.

The ugly:

President Donald Trump has found a new way to go after politicians he doesn’t like: dragging their marriages into his political feuds.

On Saturday, the 80-year-old president unleashed a flurry of posts on Truth Social, including one targeting Democratic Michigan Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed, 41, and his wife.

The post paired a photo of Trump and Melania Trump, 56, with one of El-Sayed and his wife, Dr. Sarah Jukaku, putting the two couples side by side beneath the typo-riddled caption: “Two VERY DIFFERENT America’s.”

 

Trump also singled out El-Sayed’s full name, identifying him as “Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed”—a pointed choice that echoes his repeated emphasis on Barack Obama’s middle name, “Hussein.”

When asked about Trump’s post on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday, El-Sayed agreed that the two marriages represented “two very different Americas,” but turned the president’s jab back on him. He contrasted what he described as a marriage between “two people who don’t like each other” but are united by their shared interest in making “billions of dollars off of you” with his own relationship with Jukaku, which he said is rooted in genuine love, family, and even enjoying “some pancakes together.”...

The MF's completely on-brand racist, Islamophobic post got many more pointed rebukes from social media pointing out truths about his third wife and marriage, but JFC what a piece of shit we have representing our country, always in the most despicable ways possible.  Two very different Americas, indeed.

Judge Reverses Trump's Racist Move

Federal District Judge Cynthia Rufe ordered the Malignant Fascist's regime to restore exhibits that depicted slavery at George Washington's home in Philadelphia.  The MF has been trying to erase the history of African Americans' bondage and absolve white supremacists of responsibility.  From Politico:

"In a withering opinion Monday, Judge Cynthia Rufe invoked George Orwell’s dystopian novel “1984,” saying the administration had attacked the concept of truth itself as it sought to erase details of America’s legacy of slavery. She said the removal of the exhibits in January papered over Washington’s ownership of slaves and the special measures he took to avoid those enslaved persons gaining their liberty while he lived in Philadelphia from 1790 to 1797.

'The government here likewise asserts truth is no longer self-evident, but rather the property of the elected chief magistrate and his appointees and delegees,' the George W. Bush appointee wrote. 'And why? Solely because, as Defendants state, it has the power.'

'An agency ... cannot arbitrarily decide what is true, based on its own whims or the whims of the new leadership,' Rufe declared in her 40-page ruling issued as the nation celebrated Washington’s birthday."  (our emphasis)

In the last year, the MF has sought to white wash history to remove admissions of racism from national historical sites managed by the National Park Service, issuing an executive order last year stating that exhibits that depict the U.S. as “inherently racist, sexist, oppressive, or otherwise irredeemably flawed” cause shame to the U.S., as if hiding that history wipes it away.  It's part of his regime's racist, un-American anti-DEI policies, which seek to diminish the role of diversity and equity in our society, and to replace it with white supremacy.

(photo: Park worker removes exhibit at Washington home)

 

The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

 

The good:

After nearly a month of destruction, smoke, and ash, the Eaton and Palisades fires that once ensconced Los Angeles have been fully contained, according to Cal Fire.

The two fires sparked on Jan. 7 during a historic wind event and swept through the Pacific Palisades and Altadena, killing at least 29, burning over 37,000 acres, and leaving destroyed homes and livelihoods in their wake.

"The conditions, that night, were unbearable," LA County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone said during an interview with 60 Minutes. "It was a devil wind that came out, you know, that extreme Santa Ana wind condition."

The two blazes, currently under investigation, are the second and third most destructive wildfires in California history, according to Cal Fire.

Pacific Coast Highway is set to see a limited reopening on Monday, with one lane of traffic each way and a reduced speed limit, according to an announcement by Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass. Checkpoints in the area will remain in place, with responsibilities transferring from the Los Angeles Police Department to the California Highway Patrol and National Guard.

The announcement said continued checkpoints came as a response to concerns the community had over safety in the burn area. The city had originally planned to remove the checkpoints on Sunday, according to the Los Angeles Times.

"This plan secures the Palisades and eases the strain on LAPD, whose ability to respond across L.A. has been impacted for nearly one month," Bass said in the announcement. "My priority continues to be rebuilding the Palisades as rapidly and safely as possible."...

Thanks to our genius Malignant Fascist turning on that giant faucet, no doubt.  It certainly had nothing to do with the heroic and valiant efforts of the firefighters (some from Canada and Mexico) who battled the fires, amirite?!

The bad:

As part of President Donald Trump’s new war on diversity programs, conservatives are renewing a long-running legal battle over the meaning of the Constitution’s guarantee of “equal protection” that dates back to the post-Civil War era.

Trump, as previewed in one executive order purporting to target diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies, is seeking in some instances to overturn decades-old policies aimed at protecting and empowering minority groups, both within the federal government and outside.

His administration is also likely to radically change the federal government’s enforcement priorities by using laws enacted during the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and ’60s to target diversity programs.

At the same time, conservative groups are pursuing court cases challenging policies they view as unlawfully promoting racial preferences. The Trump administration could throw its weigh behind some of those efforts.

With a 6-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court, which has already ended the consideration of race in college admissions, the Trump administration is likely to have a sympathetic audience when cases on race-related issues arise.

“It’s shocking and appalling what this administration is doing,” said Jin Hee Lee, a lawyer at the Legal Defense Fund, the group that won landmark cases during the civil rights era under the leadership of future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall.

“I would hope that the Supreme Court, regardless of their ideologies and so forth, would recognize that this is antithetical to the rule of law,” she added.  [snip]

Writ large, the fight is over what exactly the 14th Amendment’s promise of “equal protection of the laws” means. It has been raging since the amendment was ratified in 1868, when the Reconstruction period, which progressives hoped would usher in a new era of racial equality, was swiftly followed by the Jim Crow era, in which Southern states enforced racial segregation by law...

The Republican Supreme Court has not only given the Malignant Fascist immunity for "official acts" while in office, it has also declared we live in a colorblind society, so no racism, no problem!  As for the "rule of law," that ended right after the MF finished taking the oath of office (without his hand on the Bible).

The ugly:

US President Donald Trump has said he will cut all future funding to South Africa over allegations that it was confiscating land and "treating certain classes of people very badly".

Last month, President Cyril Ramaphosa signed into law a bill that allows land seizures without compensation in certain circumstances.

Land ownership has long been a contentious issue in South Africa with most private farmland owned by white people, 30 years after the end of the racist system of apartheid.

There have been continuous calls for the government to address land reform and deal with the past injustices of racial segregation.

South Africa's president responded to Trump by post on X: "South Africa is a constitutional democracy that is deeply rooted in the rule of law, justice and equality. The South African government has not confiscated any land."

He added that the only funding South Africa received from the US was through the health initiative Pepfar, which represented "17% of South Africa's HIV/Aids programme".

The US allocated about $440m (£358m) in assistance to South Africa in 2023, according to US government data.

Elon Musk, who was born and grew up in South Africa and is now a Trump adviser, has also joined in the debate, saying the new law discriminated against white people...

Once again, South African fascist and illegal immigrant co-President Elon Musk (a.k.a, Kekius Maximus, Maximus Anus) is getting the MF to dance to his tune.  The MF likely doesn't know where South Africa is, even when you spot him the "south."  But, given a chance to bully a foreign country and damage American interests abroad, the bulbous bronzed buffoon will take it.  Also, you think Musk has investments in South African land that are being threatened by those he likely considers Kaffirs, we ask rhetorically?

The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

 

The good:

Congressional leaders announced an agreement Sunday on a short-term spending bill that will fund federal agencies for about three months, averting a possible partial government shutdown when the new budget year begins Oct. 1 and pushing final decisions until after the November election.

Temporary spending bills generally fund agencies at current levels, but an additional $231 million was included to bolster the Secret Service after the two assassination attempts against Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, and additional money was added to aid with the presidential transition, among other things.

Lawmakers have struggled to get to this point as the current budget year winds to a close at month’s end. At the urging of the most conservative members of his conference, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., had linked temporary funding with a mandate that would have compelled states to require proof of citizenship when people register to vote.

But Johnson abandoned that approach to reach an agreement, even as Trump insisted there should not be a stop-gap measure without the voting requirement.

Bipartisan negotiations began in earnest shortly after that, with leadership agreeing to extend funding into mid-December. That gives the current Congress the ability to fashion a full-year spending bill after the Nov. 5 election, rather than push that responsibility to the next Congress and president...

Getting this out of the way before the election is good;  not letting Republicans attach a showboating proof of citizenship test to the CR is better;  Trump losing his bid to sabotage government funding is best.

The bad:

Former President Donald Trump suggested he could efficiently conduct mass deportations if reelected because immigrants have "serial numbers." 

In a Sunday interview on Full Measure, host Sharyl Attkisson challenged Trump on his promise of mass deportations.

"Don't you think the first time there is an image on television of a family tearfully being told to board a bus that that whole program would end?" Attkisson asked.

"That's right," Trump said. "You take a young woman with two beautiful children, and you put her on a bus, and it ends up on the front page of every newspaper. It makes it a lot harder."

"So yes to mass deportation, even of women and children," he continued. "You put one wrong person onto a bus or onto an airplane, and your radical left lunatics will try and make it sound like the worst thing that's ever happened."

Trump said that he would work with local authorities to round up immigrants by "serial numbers." 

"But we're getting the criminals out, and we're going to do that fast, and we know who they are, and the local police know their names, and they know their serial numbers," he insisted. "They know everything about them."

"We're not a dumping ground," he added. "We're going to get all of those people out, and we're going to get them out fast."  (our emphasis)

This is white nationalist fascism, pure and simple.  This is the kind of divisive hate and prejudice that our country fought against in WWII, and it's right here, right now in America.  By now, people know who he is, so anyone who votes for this dangerous fascist buffoon at this stage is a dangerous fascist buffoon, too.

The ugly: 

Several top operatives on Republican Mark Robinson’s campaign for North Carolina governor have stepped down, just days after a CNN report uncovered inflammatory comments the candidate made on a porn website.

Robinson’s campaign announced Sunday evening that general consultant and senior adviser Conrad Pogorzelski III, campaign manager Chris Rodriguez, finance director Heather Whillier and deputy campaign manager Jason Rizk have stepped down from the campaign. Pogorzelski confirmed the news when reached by CNN.

“The reports are true that I, along with others from the campaign have left of our own accord,” he told CNN in a statement.

Pogorzelski also named additional officials who left the campaign: deputy finance director Caroline Winchester, political director John Kontoulas, political director Jackson Lohrer and director of operations Patrick Riley.

The departures come in the aftermath of a CNN report uncovering inflammatory comments the lieutenant governor and Republican nominee for governor made on a pornography website message board over a decade ago. The lewd comments included Robinson describing himself as a “black Nazi” and how he used to go “peeping” on women at a public gym when he was 14 years old.

Robinson has a long history of making inflammatory statements but the newly unearthed message board posts go a step beyond.

Robinson listed his full name on his profile for Nude Africa, a pornographic website that includes a message board, as well as an email address he used on numerous websites across the internet for decades...

Ugly man.  Ugly ideas.  Ugly campaign.  Allow us a prediction:  not only is "black Nazi" Robinson toast, but his presence on the ballot will help Harris-Walz carry North Carolina in November. 

Trump, The Equal Opportunity Racist

 

"Dark Brandon" goes into the video vault to give us a clip of racist convicted felon Malignant Loser in 1993 arguing about Native Americans getting gaming licenses (in competition with his failing casinos), because some "don't look like Indians."  Sound familiar?  Once a racist, always a racist.  BTW, that's the great Democratic Rep. George Miller of California (now retired) giving the Malignant Loser a lesson in racist history.  Please feel free to share.

Reactions To Trump's Racist, Sexist Remarks At The NABJ

 

Here are a few reactions to convicted felon Malignant Loser's racist and sexist remarks yesterday at the National Association of Black Journalists convention, about the woman who's going to kick his fat ass in November:

Vice President Harris

It was the same old show — the divisiveness and the disrespect, and let me just say, the American people deserve better... The American people deserve a leader who tells the truth, a leader who does not respond with hostility and anger when confronted with the facts.

Colbert King, Washington Post

During his appearance before the National Association of Black Journalists on Wednesday, Donald Trump, as usual, played to the audience.

It just wasn’t the audience in the room.

Referring to Vice President Harris, Trump said, “I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black, and now she wants to be known as Black. So I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?” It was ignorant. It was insulting. And it was a statement dripping with disdain and disrespect for the assembled Black journalists. Trump knew, and they knew that Trump knew, better. Trump was not speaking to them but to a MAGA audience beyond the Hilton Chicago that loves mocking people of color. He was having jaded fun. Think. “She happened to turn Black and now she wants to be known as Black,” he said, sneeringly.

As offensive as all that was to the Black men and women staring in his direction, Trump knew it was getting a belly laugh with his crowd, who can’t get enough of that stuff...

Jessica Tarlov, on Fox "News"

My reaction is that it was a complete, absolute dumpster fire for the former president... I don't feel the need to give him any credit for showing up there because he came with a terrible attitude. []

He hit all of his regular hits, lying about his record for Black Americans... The comparison saying he's done the most for the Black community since Abraham Lincoln is obviously ridiculous. []

I thought that he was rude and offensive to the questioners...

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like this” is a cliche.

Then, on Wednesday afternoon, I watched Donald Trump’s controversial appearance at the National Association of Black Journalists in Chicago.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like this.

Or maybe in Trump World, it’s just another Wednesday. Who knows?

Seriously, even by Trump’s standards, this was bizarre at best, painful at worst. He insulted Vice President Kamala Harris — again refusing to pronounce her first name correctly, though that was hardly the worst of what he said — and questioning her racial identity.

What?

“I think it is fair to say … this went sideways, and it went sideways pretty quickly,” Kristen Holmes said on CNN after it was over...

Axios morning thing

...The tense interview is being met with GOP reactions ranging from qualified concern to outright shock, with some Republicans questioning Trump's ability to adapt to the new Democratic ticket.

• "It was awful," one House Republican said of the interview, telling Axios it raised concerns about whether Trump can contain his impulses while running against the first woman, Black and Asian American vice president.
• Sen Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said of the Trump campaign: "Maybe they don't know how to handle the campaign, and so you default to issues that just should simply not be an issue."
• "That was not a demonstration on how to win over undecided voters," another House Republican said...

Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ)

“I think those are the comments of a desperate, scared old man, who, over the last week especially, has been having his butt kicked by an experienced prosecutor, and I think he’s worried,” Kelly told reporters outside the Capitol on Wednesday.

“And she’s going to continue to do this, and she’s going to win the election in November, and she’s going to be our next president...” 

"Harris' War Room"

 

Donald,

Kamala Harris is both Black, and Indian. You can be two things at once.

Kind of like how you are both a rapist and a racist. pic.twitter.com/d50TfzRPtp

— Harris War Room (Text JOIN to 30330) (@HarrisWarRoom) July 31, 2024

More reactions later in "Tweets/ Xeets Of The Day." 

Smarmy Trump Lets His Racist Flag Fly (Again)

 

This clip from the convicted felon Malignant Loser's appearance at the National Association of Black Journalists convention today in Chicago speaks for itself:

 

We'll let the Harris campaign reply:

Harris campaign statement on Donald Trump’s remarks at the NABJ pic.twitter.com/atHw27Crfu

— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) July 31, 2024

 

 

Trump's Racist Attacks On Prosecutors Not New

 

The Malignant Loser has been in legal difficulties throughout his lawless life, but not as serious and widespread as the four cases and 91 felony counts he now faces. His constant outbursts and attacks on prosecutors and judges are an outgrowth of his history of using racist language and dog whistles to get support from white supremacists and anti-Semites. The Associated Press has a report:

"The early Republican presidential front-runner has used terms such as 'animal' and 'rabid' to describe Black district attorneys. He has accused Black prosecutors of being 'racist.' He has made unsupported claims about their personal lives. And on his social media platform, Truth Social, Trump has deployed terms that rhyme with racial slurs as some of his supporters post racist screeds about the same targets.

The rhetoric is a reminder of Trump’s tendency to use coded racial messaging as a signal to supporters, an approach he has deployed over several decades as he evolved from a New York City real estate tycoon to a reality television star and, eventually, the president. Even if he doesn’t explicitly employ racial slurs, his language recalls America’s history of portraying Black people as not fully human."  (our emphasis)

It's no wonder that one of his bigoted cult members in Texas left a threatening and racist voicemail with Federal District Judge Tanya Chutkan who's overseeing the Malignant Loser's January 6 election fraud and conspiracy trial in Washington, D.C., after being triggered by one of his social media rants. His cult members don't need explicit directions to act out their racism; the Malignant Loser's winks and nods always work for them. Then there's the documented evidence of the Malignant Loser's animus toward people of color from his past, cited in the AP article:

"In 1989, Trump took out full-page newspaper ads calling for five Black and Hispanic men accused, and ultimately convicted, of rape to receive the death penalty. The 'Central Park Five' were exonerated in 2019 and Trump responded to the news by saying, 'You have people on both sides of that.'

Just before he was elected president in 2016, Trump referred to U.S.-born District Judge Gonzalo Curiel as 'Mexican.' He said without evidence that Curiel had a conflict of interest over Trump’s efforts to 'build the wall' on the U.S.'s southern border. While in office, he said four congresswomen of color should go back to the 'broken and crime infested' countries they came from, ignoring the fact that all of the women are American citizens and three were born in the U.S.

And in bluntly vulgar language while he was president, Trump questioned why the U.S. would accept more immigrants from Haiti and 'shithole countries' in Africa."

As he approaches justice for his various crimes, the Malignant Loser will revert to his feral and lawless self, deliberately stirring up hate and violence in his effort to escape punishment, and the dog whistles will increasingly be replaced by the bullhorn.

 

Cohen's Book Details Trump Depravity, Racism

The Washington Post has obtained a pre- release copy of former Trump fixer Michael Cohen's book, "Disloyal: A Memoir," scheduled for publication on Tuesday.  In the Post's summations, Cohen covers Trump's fascination with Vladimir Putin's wealth, their "confluence of shared interests" in working to defeat Hillary Clinton, and the power of the disinformation campaign Trump supporters like the National Enquirer's former CEO David "Pecker" Pecker that was waged to great effect.

But we were struck again by the passages that paint the by now dry- and- ready- to- frame picture of Trump as a vile racist, misogynist, and hypocrite.  If none of this is surprising but all of it's still shocking, you've been paying attention for the last decade or more:

Cohen writes that during the 2016 campaign, Trump was dismissive of minorities, describing them as “not my people.” “I will never get the Hispanic vote,” Cohen recounts Trump claiming. “Like the blacks, they’re too stupid to vote for Trump.”

Cohen describes Trump’s obsessive hatred of Obama, including claiming that the only reason the former president got into Columbia University and Harvard Law School was because of “f---ing affirmative action.” He also recounts Trump’s “low opinion of all black folks.” claiming that Trump once said while ranting about Obama, “Tell me one country run by a black person that isn’t a s---hole. They are all complete f---ing toilets.”

After South African President Nelson Mandela died in 2013, Trump said he did not think Mandela “was a real leader — not the kind he respected,” Cohen writes.

Instead, Cohen writes that Trump praised the country’s apartheid-era White rule, saying: “Mandela f---ed the whole country up. Now it’s a s---hole. F--- Mandela. He was no leader.”

Cohen writes that before winning the presidency, Trump held a meeting at Trump Tower with prominent evangelical leaders, where they laid their hands on him in prayer

Afterward, Trump allegedly said: “Can you believe that bulls--t? Can you believe people believe that bulls--t?”

“The cosmic joke was that Trump convinced a vast swathe of working-class white folks in the Midwest that he cared about their well-being,” Cohen writes. “The truth was that he couldn’t care less.”

Cohen also depicts Trump as being crude toward women, including inadvertently commenting on Cohen’s then-15-year-old daughter as she finished up a tennis lesson: “Look at that piece of a--,” Trump said, according to Cohen. “I would love some of that.”

The behind- the- scenes Trump portrayed in Cohen's book is a vain shell of a person without scruples, morals, a sense of duty or patriotism -- basically a confirmation of the public Trump that we've witnessed with our own eyes.  Absorbing that, who honestly doesn't think he called Americans who died or went MIA in defense of their country "losers" and "suckers"?

But "losers" and "suckers" -- that's exactly what any con man like Trump thinks of the people who believe in and support him.

Wallace, NASCAR Respond To Trump

Yesterday we noted the tweet from distracter- in- chief and Imperial Wizard Donald "Rump" Trump calling on NASCAR's only African- American driver Bubba Wallace to apologize for being concerned about the hangman's noose found in his garage at Talladega raceway;  he also took a swipe at NASCAR's decision to ban the treason flag from its events and promotions.

Ever anxious to change the subject when the heat from another of his epic bungles gets too much =cough= coronavirus spikes= cough= Russian bounties on American troops= cough=, this distraction conveniently plays into the narcissistic nihilist's desire to stoke a race and culture war in order to boost his abysmal approval and re- election poll numbers.  That has the stench of desperation and defeat all over it.

Both Wallace and NASCAR responded to the asshole's swipe.

Bubba Wallace (addressing "the next generation and little ones following my foot steps"):


 

NASCAR:

“We are proud to have Bubba Wallace in the NASCAR family and we commend his courage and leadership. NASCAR continues to stand tall with Bubba, our competitors and everyone who makes our sport welcoming and inclusive for all racing fans.”

Beyond that, on NASCAR's web page at the link above, they strongly refuted the claims made in the asshole's tweet and reaffirmed their decision to ban the treason flag.  It just might be a new day, folks.

Trump's Juneteenth Racist Message

Coincidence?  We think not:

Mr. Trump will return to the campaign trail on Juneteenth [June 19], an annual holiday commemorating the end of slavery in the United States and celebrated as African-Americans’ Independence Day. After weeks of protests over the killing of George Floyd in police custody, protests and marches are already planned this year for the holiday in many states.

In 1921, Tulsa was the site of one of the country’s bloodiest outbreaks of racist violence, when white mobs attacked black citizens and businesses with guns and explosives dropped from airplanes.

The announcement of the date and location of Mr. Trump’s rally led to widespread condemnation from Democratic officials, many of them black.

“Tulsa was the site of the worst racist violence in American history,” said Representative Val Demings of Florida. “The president’s speech there on Juneteenth is a message to every Black American: more of the same.”

“This isn’t just a wink to white supremacists — he’s throwing them a welcome home party,” said Senator Kamala Harris of California.

Although often referred to as a "race riot," it's more accurate to see the events of May 31- June 1, 1921, as a massacre of black citizens of Tulsa by racist white mobs.  Hundreds of blacks were murdered in the orgy of racial violence that destroyed Greenwood District, a prosperous black enclave in the city.  The murderers, looters and burners were the "good" white folk of Tulsa.  (You can read more about the massacre here.) 

Not surprisingly, Bunker Boy's decided to make his bed exclusively with his base of white supremacists (after all, they already have the sheets).  As is more often than not the case, he utterly misreads the country's mood in this moment in history.  And as Eugene Robinson said earlier this week, Trump's "a human cleaver who knows only how to inflame and divide."  So, he's going to continue to bumble his way, all the while inflaming and dividing, into a landslide defeat in November.  We're more and more sure of it by the day.

(Photo:  Mt. Zion Baptist Church burning during the May 31- June 1, 1921 white- on- black race massacre in the black Greenwood District of Tulsa, OK - Associated Press.  There are more photos, including some grisly ones, at the link above.)

"Trump Virus" Spreading Faster In Red States (UPDATED)

Racist sociopath Donald "Kung Flu" Trump's despicable sycophantic servant, Secretary of State Mike "Plumpeo" Pompeo, is playing his boss' coronavirus race card now in a shameful, petty, and destructive way on the international stage:

G-7 failed to agree on statement after U.S. insisted on calling coronavirus outbreak "Wuhan virus" https://t.co/nGPhaM9hj7

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) March 25, 2020

Now it looks like COVID-19 is spreading faster in states that unfortunately voted for Trump (and have Rethuglican governors like Florida's Ron "DeDope" DeSantis and Mississippi's Tate "Taint" Reeves) and who have swallowed his happy talk:

Here's another interesting comparison. Yesterday, detected cases increased by 31% in Trump states as compared to 21% in Clinton states. https://t.co/IwPxTfnoeB

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) March 26, 2020

So, given that the misinformation and lies about the virus spread in the past two months by Trump is impacting Trump states more, we should call this the "Trump Virus" right?

BONUS:  Karma continues to be a bitch.

UPDATE:  The U.S. trajectory of confirmed cases is ahead of all other countries at this stage, worse than China, Italy or Spain:

(click on image to enlarge)

Monday Reading

As always, please go to the links for the full articles/ op eds.

Phil Rucker on the front page of today's Washington Post on the racist- in- chief's deliberately stoking hatred and violence: 

President Trump has relentlessly used his bully pulpit to decry Latino migration as “an invasion of our country.” He has demonized undocumented immigrants as “thugs” and “animals.” He has defended the detention of migrant children, hundreds of whom have been held in squalor. And he has warned that without a wall to prevent people from crossing the border from Mexico, America would no longer be America.

“How do you stop these people? You can’t,” Trump lamented at a May rally in Panama City Beach, Fla. Someone in the crowd yelled back one idea: “Shoot them.” The audience of thousands cheered and Trump smiled. Shrugging off the suggestion, he quipped, “Only in the Panhandle can you get away with that statement.”

On Saturday, a 21-year-old white man entered a shopping center in El Paso, according to police, and allegedly decided to “shoot them.” Inside a crowded Walmart in a vibrant border city visited daily by thousands of Mexicans, a late-morning back-to-school shopping scene turned into a pool of blood. Twenty people died, and dozens were wounded. [snip]

Regardless of the El Paso shooter’s motivations, Trump throughout his presidency has stoked fear and hatred of the other, whether Latino immigrants or black people living in cities or Muslims.

Although he has not directly espoused the “great replacement” theory of white supremacists, Trump has openly questioned America’s identity as a multiethnic nation, such as by encouraging migration from Nordic states as opposed to Latin America.

In speeches and on social media, the president has capitalized on divisions of race, religion and identity as a political strategy to galvanize support among his white followers...

In the same paper, E.J. Dionne, Jr., defines the right and wrong side:

When one side proposes ways that human beings might begin to solve a deadly problem while the other side leaves it up to God, you know which side is right.

When one side proposes solution after solution to contain gun violence — and offers compromise after compromise to get something done — while the other side blocks action every time, you know which side is right.

When the president of the United States and his most incendiary media allies fuel hatred of those who are not white while his opponents say we should stand in solidarity with one another, you know which side is right.

When one side brushes aside the dangers of racist and white nationalist terrorism while the other side says we need to be vigilant against all forms of terrorism, you know which side is right. 

And when Americans are gunned down in incident after incident, when we are numbed by repeating the same sorrowful words every time, when we move within a news cycle from “something must be done” to “the Senate will block action” or “the politics are too complicated,” you know America’s democracy is failing and its moral compass is broken.

Dionne calls out Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, whose unctuous subservience to NRA gun humpers was on full display when speaking to the media:

The wrong side in this debate does not want us to come together. On the contrary, its goal after every mass shooting is to deflect and divide. Here’s what Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said when asked by reporters what we should do about gun violence. “Listen, there are bodies that have not yet been recovered,” Abbott replied. “I think we need to focus more on memorials before we start the politics.”

No, Abbott, reading from the NRA’s script, started “the politics” right at that moment, and it is an insidious form of politics. Simultaneously, he deflected by pretending it’s impolite to answer substantive questions and divided by saying that those who raise them disrespect the dead.

Nothing disrespects those who are slaughtered more than the political paralysis Abbott and those like him are encouraging.

Nothing will be done as long as the wrong side is in control of the White (Supremacist) House and the Senate, where when Moscow Mitch isn't doing favors for Putin, he's blocking gun control legislation:

After the Democrats took over the House earlier this year, they passed the most significant gun legislation in a generation, requiring background checks on all firearm sales in the country, and another bill extending the background check review period from three days to 10 days.

The Senate has yet to consider the bills. 

After this weekend's mass shootings, Democratic leaders blamed Republicans controlling the Senate for blocking them.

They began demanding that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell take action this week, arguing they could help prevent the next large-scale tragedy. McConnell's office did not say whether the Republican leader is open to dealing with gun violence with new legislation.  [Spoiler alert:  of course he isn't]

Well, let's amend that last comment.  Republicans might be willing to deal with gun violence by attacking it at the root cause... video games!

House Minority leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) took to Fox News on Sunday in the wake of two mass shootings in El Paso, TX and Dayton, OH, to suggest that blame could lie at least partially with video games.  [snip]

McCarthy’s comments echo ones made by Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick on Fox & Friends Sunday morning. “How long are we going to ignore — at the federal level particularly — where they can do something about the video game industry,” Patrick said. “In this manifesto that we believe is from the shooter, this manifesto where he talks about living out his super soldier fantasy on Call of Duty.” 

Lie, deflect, delay, repeat.  The cowardly, sociopath Republican playbook.

This comes a bit late:

A San Francisco-based Web company announced Sunday it would no longer provide services to 8chan, a website notorious for hosting lawless message boards where manifestos have appeared before mass shootings.

The move came after a screed against immigrants was posted to 8chan shortly before a mass shooter killed 20 and wounded 26 at an El Paso Walmart and shopping center. Matthew Prince, CEO of Cloudflare, a firm that protects sites from cyber attacks, said he decided to drop 8chan because it “has repeatedly proven itself to be a cesspool of hate.”

Changing topics, the trade war with China is settling in for a prolonged duration.  Here's the immediate impact on retail clothing sales alone:

The new tariffs will jack up prices for consumers at the start of the back-to-school buying season, four large retail trade associations said on Thursday.

"President Trump is, in effect, using American families as a hostage in his trade war negotiations," said Matt Priest, president of the Footwear Distributors and Retailers of America.

Stephen Lamar, executive vice president of the American Apparel & Footwear Association, said his group's members were shocked that Trump had not allowed the resumed U.S.-China trade talks to proceed further before acting.

The measure will hit U.S. consumers far harder than Chinese manufacturers, who produce 42% of apparel and 69% of footwear purchased in the United States, Lamar said.

Finally, please check out Infidel 753's link round- up (where we found that last piece on the trade war).  It seems every week he finds even more interesting links to share.  Impressive.

Tweets Of The Day

(Usual caveats, something something...) Loser!

Absolutely brutal @QuinnipiacPoll today: 57% of Independents say they would definitely not vote for Donald Trump while only 22% say they definitely would.

🚨 61% of female voters say they would definitely not vote for Trump 🚨 https://t.co/GqO6XCZx1z pic.twitter.com/Fedc1RvSer

— Matt Rogers 🎙 (@Politidope) July 30, 2019

Remarkable new findings from Quinnpiac.

Voters say by 51-45 that Trump is a racist.

Among college educated whites: 54-43 (!)

Among independents: 56-38 (!!)

Among women: 59-36 (!!!)https://t.co/i6JbVPBfCu

There's just no grounds for fearing this debate: https://t.co/G97jC5YL4X

— Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) July 30, 2019

American voters say 52-40% that Trump attempted to "derail or obstruct" the Russia investigation and say 56-31% that the Mueller report did not clear Trump of any wrongdoing, according to Quinnipiac.

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) July 30, 2019

QOTD -- Rats!

"... [W]e would above all remind Mr. Trump that the 7th District, Baltimore included, is part of the United States that he is supposedly governing. The White House has far more power to affect change in this city, for good or ill, than any single member of Congress including Mr. Cummings. If there are problems here, rodents included, they are as much his responsibility as anyone’s, perhaps more because he holds the most powerful office in the land.

"Finally, while we would not sink to name-calling in the Trumpian manner — or ruefully point out that he failed to spell the congressman’s name correctly (it’s Cummings, not Cumming) — we would tell the most dishonest man to ever occupy the Oval Office, the mocker of war heroes, the gleeful grabber of women’s private parts, the serial bankrupter of businesses, the useful idiot of Vladimir Putin and the guy who insisted there are “good people” among murderous neo-Nazis that he’s still not fooling most Americans into believing he’s even slightly competent in his current post. Or that he possesses a scintilla of integrity. Better to have some vermin living in your neighborhood than to be one." --  editorial in The Baltimore Sun, July 27, 2019.  We're Hackwhackers, and we endorse this message!

BONUS:  Speaking of infestations --

Who owns these Maryland apartments infested with rats & black mold? Who evicts tenants when they dare to complain & takes them to court for unpaid rent?

Jared Kushner. #INFESTED #RacistTrump https://t.co/kOf1dIWGUA

— Not_Cohen_So_Well (@design__hole) July 27, 2019

Baltimore > Mar-a-lago  https://t.co/b7shMqomGe

— Molly Jong-Fast (@MollyJongFast) July 28, 2019

BONUS II:  #trumpisarat is trending now.

BONUS III:  More pushback here.

Vid Of The Day -- Infested

Drop everything you're doing and watch this....

cc: @VictorBlackwell pic.twitter.com/N9ZWttHSzd

— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) July 27, 2019

The racist pig- man just can't help himself.  If he's interested in cleaning out crime- infested areas, he should start by vacating the White (Supremacist) House and taking all his grifting swamp creatures with him.

BONUS:

Mr. President, I go home to my district daily. Each morning, I wake up, and I go and fight for my neighbors.

It is my constitutional duty to conduct oversight of the Executive Branch. But, it is my moral duty to fight for my constituents.

— Elijah E. Cummings (@RepCummings) July 27, 2019

Elijah Cummings grew up facing racist bullies like Trump and learned to confront them with qualities unknown to Trump: courage and integrity. The great people of Baltimore have something Trump craves but will never have as he degrades the Office of the President: dignity.

— Chris Van Hollen (@ChrisVanHollen) July 27, 2019

It’s completely unacceptable for the political leader of our country to denigrate a vibrant American City like Baltimore, and to viciously attack U.S. Representative Elijah Cummings a patriot and a hero. pic.twitter.com/TJdbST6Md9

— Mayor Bernard C. Jack Young (@mayorbcyoung) July 27, 2019

Tweets Of The Day -- Projecting And Gaslighting

This is so absurd. The guy who told four minority Congresswomen to "go back" to their countries (even though three of them were born in the United States) is calling *them* racist. Projection and gaslighting wrapped into one. https://t.co/dfgMGRWAUF

— Brian Klaas (@brianklaas) July 22, 2019

White nationalists always defend their attacks on people of color as a response to The Real Racism, which is against white people who want to deny basic rights to others. https://t.co/wdI7UoOisG pic.twitter.com/cDT4Am8UdB

— Adam Serwer🍝 (@AdamSerwer) July 22, 2019

Trump's following a hoary script:

These days I often hear conservatives say that "the real racists are the ones who call other people racists." Here is notoriously racist Alabama governor George Wallace using that exact same talking point in 1968: pic.twitter.com/xPQujrb3SG

— Arlen Parsa (@arlenparsa) June 24, 2018

He's also incapable of shutting up:

Trump campaign official Mercedes Schlapp was just claiming to @jimsciutto that Trump’s criticism of the four congresswomen was aimed spotlighting their policies. A day after Trump said they were incapable of loving the US, he calls them “very racist” and “not very smart” https://t.co/G4XacTw71k

— Manu Raju (@mkraju) July 22, 2019

Keep at it, you dimwitted racist shitwhistle.

Monday Reading

As always, please go to the links for the full articles/ op eds.

Is the Republican Party a hate group?  Leonard Pitts, Jr., has our answer, which we've excerpted at length:

Here’s how The Southern Poverty Law Center defines a hate group.

It is, they say, “an organization that — based on its official statements or principles, the statements of its leaders, or its activities — has beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics.” [snip]

Granted, in its “official statements or principles,” the party doesn’t meet the SPLC standard. Its activities and the statements of its leaders are, however, another matter. [snip]

For half a century, then, the GOP has taught white voters racial resentment, taught them to prioritize concerns about white prerogative over concerns about shuttered factories, dirty water, lack of healthcare, foreclosed futures. It did this in code — “Willie Horton,” “tax cuts,” “welfare queen” — which, while obvious to all but the most gullible, still allowed respectable white men and women to maintain fig leaves of deniability.  [snip]

Donald Trump is the payoff of that devil’s bargain. His “innovation” has been to shred subtlety and abandon code. With blunt, brutish clarity, he tells four black and brown women to “go back” where they came from, and if you don’t see racism there, you’ll never see it anywhere.

Yet bad as that is, the monstrous part is that his audience, trained by 50 years of appeals to their basest selves, cheers him on. They no longer need fig leaves. That should tell you something. As should the fact that the GOP seems to have abandoned policy altogether.

What do they stand for? Do they still care about the national debt? Do they have a strategy to combat global warming? What will they do about Russia and Iran? Who knows?

Because all they are now is the party of “Send her back!” — of outrage over Colin Kaepernick kneeling and April Ryan asking questions. That’s what passes for ideas in today’s GOP. And if that’s what Trump has made them, it’s not like they fought him tooth and nail.

So is the GOP a hate group? It’s sobering that the question can even be asked. But the inevitable answer is downright chilling. Because the SPLC offers a fair and cogent definition of that term.

And the GOP fits it with room to spare.

Read more here: https://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/leonard-pitts-jr/article232893067.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: https://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/leonard-pitts-jr/article232893067.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: https://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/leonard-pitts-jr/article232893067.html#storylink=cpy

No matter how they try to distract and deflect*, racism is part of their DNA, and they have their leader who has given them permission to hate and to act on that hate.

Virginia Heffernan tells us not to buy into the media narrative of Trump's juggernaut base:

Back in the arena at East Carolina University, the bellowing helped the modest-sized rally make up in volatility what it lacked in numbers. Trump lied again. He said there were no empty seats. There were empty seats. Trump’s aide Brad Parscale took on the Spicer role, crowing on Twitter that 20,000 people were in the venue. Accurate counts put attendance at about 8,000. (For comparison, an average of 18,000 people attend every single men’s basketball game at the University of North Carolina.)  [snip]

Trump’s support is clearly not all phony. Polls show Republicans approve of the job he’s doing in high numbers, which raises the question of how big that polling pool really is. Trump’s critics, in any event, do their cause a grave disservice by following his lead and exaggerating his support, which gets people buzzing and may generate a bandwagon effect: real support following simulated support.

Or something even more sinister could happen. Anti-Trumpers might become cowed and discouraged enough to stay away from the polls because they are convinced the specter of a massive GOP base can’t be beat.

Don’t listen to Trump’s lies, skip the alarmism, and turn down the “send her back” volume. Above all, remind yourself that Trump’s Gallup approval rating has fluctuated between terrible (36.8%) and bad (42.7%). He isn’t our all-time favorite. Period.

Skip the alarmism, stay focused and work like hell.  That's how we excise the tumor in the White (Supremacist) House.

Greg Sargent explains why the "send her back" chant at Trump's North Carolina rally was a breaking point:

What changed? Well, the Times also reports that Trump advisers privately warned against letting these sentiments get out of control at his rally.

So I submit to you that the key difference is twofold: Trump’s naked hatred and cruelty was captured on live television, and along with it, so was the seething anger of the hard-core Trump base.

The whole nation saw in dramatic fashion that Trump voters understood his meaning perfectly well, and watched them not just agree with it but also amplify it with as ugly and hate-curdled a chant as one could imagine.

Sargent has much more about the Republican panic that has set in around their heretofore muted racism being exposed in such raw form.  And, of course, the "send her back" chant was led by Trump's rally leaders.

*Distraction/ deflection watch:  Lest we forget (we won't), there's the testimony Wednesday of Robert Mueller that has Putin's puppet in a state of agitation, and the connections between sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein with fellow predator Trump, something that's also never far from Trump's "mind."

As always, Infidel 753 has been laboring to bring us an impressive array of links to interesting items around the internet and beyond.  Go see what we mean!

Read more here: https://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/leonard-pitts-jr/article232893067.html#storylink=cpy

The Racism Is A Feature Of The Con

Matthew Yglesias tells us "it’s impossible to understand why the Trump Show we see on stage works without appreciating what’s happening behind the scenes and who benefits from it."  In other words, follow the money:

On Monday, Brian Schwartz of CNBC reported that “Trump, Republican National Committee turn to titans of industry to help raise over $100 million in second quarter.”

That massive haul of financial cash comes in part from people who backed Trump in 2016. But it also features big bundles of cash from donors who supported other GOP candidates in the 2016 primary and then stayed aloof from Trump. It includes people like Stephen Rosenberg, CEO of the real estate investment partnership Greystone. Rosenberg backed Hillary Clinton in 2016, but wrote a $360,600 check to the Trump reelection campaign — and I’m guessing it’s not because he appreciates the way Trump drives liberal elites wild with his blunt talk.

Trump’s signature tax bill didn’t pay for itself as promised or lead to a massive surge in business investment, but it did boost bank profits to record levels. And it spurred a massive series of stock buybacks that benefitted rich people who own lots of stock and corporate executives with stock-linked compensation packages. He’s approving a Sprint/T-Mobile merger that will raise cellphone plan prices for consumers, repealed net neutrality regulations, and in one of his first acts decided to allow internet service providers to sell private user data to advertising companies.

Under Trump, decades of steady progress on non-climate air pollution have finally been reversed, and his administration is hard at work writing new rules that would increase water pollution levels as well. [snip]

This agenda, no less than Trump’s racism, is an absolute disaster for America’s immigrants and communities of color who are generally lower-income and more vulnerable to corporate abuses and pollution than more privileged people.

But critically, it is also an absolute disaster for the vast majority of white people. There are simply very few people who benefit from a combination of more pollution and less economic competition, and there’s no way for the tax cutting to balance that out unless you’re part of the tiny minority of the public that derives the majority of its income from stock ownership.

Trump’s politics of racial division are not particularly popular — his approval ratings are worse than those of any prior president at this point in his term except Jimmy Carter — but it’s still true that framing Trump as a symbol of white privilege is almost certainly more favorable to him than framing him as a person whose governance has concrete material implications for Americans of all ethnic backgrounds.

Neo- fascist con man Donald "Boneless Racist" Trump and his rotted- out Republican Party are focused on what they've always been focused on:  the plutocrat class.  That's certainly not news, as conservatives have been conning low- and- middle- income white people for over a century by fanning racial animosity while they steal more and more wealth from suckers like you see at Trump's Nuremberg rallies.  At this point in time, the conned are fully reveling in the racist con, since Trump hates the same people they've been taught to hate.  That's called "winning" in Trumpland.

The problem for Trump and his rotted out party may be that the con, which has historically been encouraged by dog whistles and winks, now is full- blown, public racism as seen in this week's Nuremberg rally in North Carolina.  A line many of us saw crossed early on in the Trump era (starting with the "Mexico is sending rapists," continuing through the Muslim travel ban, and into the Charlottesville, VA, episode) has now been boldly and irretrievably crossed in July 2019 in the minds of some in the mainstream media and a significant majority of Americans, who see this and don't like it.  While it makes some Republicans nervous that the game is up, it still may not be enough to drive the plutocrats and their millions away from Trump, as they've already shown what they value, and it certainly won't make a dent in Trump's hardcore, white nationalist, knuckle- dragging base.  But they're not a majority in this country.

Democrats can and should still make the moral and political case that Republican racism is part of the larger con to "comfort the comfortable, and afflict the afflicted," regardless of race or ethnicity.  To coin a phrase, the racism is a feature, not a bug of the Republican con.