QOTD -- Just Defeat Them

Leonard Pitts, Jr., responds to a progressive reader who wants him to try to "understand" Trump voters. He shares our frustration with those who think there's some mystery to unlock with Trump voters, and hits on the real "anxiety" that motivates them:

...We see the same demographic writing on the wall that Trump followers see, but where it makes them angry and fearful, it leaves us energized. Many of us are excited to see the nation that will arise from this cauldron of change. [snip] 

... Trump followers see a nation in demographic peril, so they seek a nation where those who frighten them can be regulated into irrelevance. There’s no big mystery about that. There never has been. So no, they don’t really need to be understood. 

What they need to be, is defeated.

The whole op/ed is another example of why Pitts is one of today's most valuable progressive writers. Please read him.

Tweet Of The Day -- Cinco de Mayo

We haven't seen an improvement on this, so here we go again:

If you're one of those idiots chanting "Build the wall", your ass better not be celebrating #CincoDeMayo.

— Vinay A. Ramesh (@vinaytion) May 5, 2017

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Today's Cartoons

(click on images to enlarge)


(Chan Lowe, Tribune Content Agency)


(Chris Britt, Illinois Times)


(Ann Telnaes, Washington Post)


(Steve Sack, Minneapolis Star Tribune)

The Russian Archetype For Trump (UPDATED)

If you want to know what life in America would be like with an unrestrained and emboldened demagogue like Donald "Rump" Trump, take a look at what's happening across Russia today. Autocrat and kleptocratic thug Vladimir Putin has had thousands of dissidents rounded up and detained so that they wouldn't organize and participate in mass demonstrations against Putin's inauguration on Monday. After his fraudulent "election" in March, Putin will become the longest serving head of Russia since Josef Stalin, an apt comparison given Putin's human rights record and his wistfulness for the former Soviet Union. Wasn't it nice that obsequious bootlicker Rump "congratulated" Putin on his sham election?

In Moscow today, Putin opponent Alexi Navalny, who was barred from running in the rigged election, was detained as he addressed a crowd in Pushkin Square:

“We will force the authorities, made up of swindlers and thieves, to take into account the millions of citizens who did not vote for Putin."

The BBC has more on the efforts of the Putin regime to shut down Navalny's voice:

"[Navalny] was barred from running for president against Mr Putin this year because of a conviction for embezzlement, which he denies, saying the case against him was politically motivated. He has been arrested at protests on numerous occasions before, and is typically held for a few weeks before being released. 

Reports say he was forced to stay at a secret location on Friday night in order to make it to the Moscow rally at all. When the Moscow city authorities warned people of possible 'negative consequences' of taking part in unsanctioned rallies on Saturday, Mr Navalny tweeted back: 'And I would like to warn everyone of the negative consequences of non-participation in the rallies. If you stay at home, Putin's gang will tear the country apart and deprive you personally of a future,' he said." (emphasis added)

The comparisons with Putin's puppet Rump are glaring. The vote suppression, the personal corruption, the autocratic impulses, the belligerence, the self-aggrandizement: both are of the same character. So, watch what's been happening in Russia since Putin's rise, and be committed to resist Rump's efforts to model it here.

UPDATE:  Read this chilling account of Russia's fake news industry.

(photo. Agence France Presse. Anti-Putin demonstrators in Pushkin Square, Moscow)

The National Memorial For Peace And Justice

On April 26, the National Memorial for Peace and Justice opened in Montgomery, AL. The memorial is "dedicated to the legacy of enslaved black people, people terrorized by lynching, African Americans humiliated by racial segregation and Jim Crow, and people of color burdened with contemporary presumptions of guilt and police violence."  Jamelle Bouie has a must- read essay about what the lynching memorial signifies for the history of the period from the post- Civil War Reconstruction to the mid- 20th Century, as well as the echoes of that history in our politics and culture today. Here's a snippet:

Lynching echoes in other ways. Our politics are in the grip of a backlash defined, in large part, by deep racial entitlement on the part of many white Americans. Indeed, racial violence—or the promise of such—remains a potent tool for defining the boundaries of white racial community. As a candidate for president, Donald Trump promised state action against Hispanic immigrants and Muslim refugees. Not as punishment but as defense—a way to keep America free of people that, in his view, cannot assimilate. How did he describe these groups? As “rapists,” criminals, and drug dealers—dangerous gang members who defile and kill innocent American women. Far from repelling voters, this language primed and activated racial fear and resentment among many white voters, supercharging its electoral potency. Trump wasn’t just defining an enemy, he was speaking a language of racial threat—of purity and morality—that has its roots in the lynching era.

The memorial itself is a punch to the smug gut of American "exceptionalism." From the memorial's web site (link above):

Set on a six-acre site, the memorial uses sculpture, art, and design to contextualize racial terror. The site includes a memorial square with 800 six-foot monuments to symbolize thousands of racial terror lynching victims in the United States and the counties and states where this terrorism took place. 

The memorial structure on the center of the site is constructed of over 800 corten steel monuments, one for each county in the United States where a racial terror lynching took place. The names of the lynching victims are engraved on the columns... 

Due to the malignancy in the Oval Office and the Komplizen in his regime and the Republican Party, millions upon millions of his worshipful followers have felt empowered to emerge from under the rocks where fear and resentment have always existed. Of course, racial intimidation in service to a white supremacist hierarchy can be seen today in excessive police violence in minority communities, in voter suppression and racial gerrymandering, and in individual acts of cruelty large and small.  This memorial is an opportune reminder of what happens when a vicious racial philosophy is allowed to take hold, and why we can't let that happen again.

Today's Cartoon Threefer

(click on images to enlarge)


(Ellis Rosen, The New Yorker)


(Tom Toles, Washington Post)


(Matt Davies, Newsday)

Puerto Rico's Fight Against "Disaster Capitalists"

As our fellow Americans in Puerto Rico still struggle to recover from last September's devastating Hurricane Maria, they're also in a struggle to maintain their public infrastructure, from schools to roads to their public electric system. Much like after Hurricane Katrina, opportunists -- "disaster capitalists" -- have descended on the island to try to privatize the most basic of local government services.

With the commonwealth's government, led by Trump coddler Gov. Ricardo Rosselló, either standing aside or partnering with these disaster capitalists, many are pessimistic about Puerto Rico's return to a semblance of "normalcy":

"Even when these residents get their power and clean water restored, the future doesn’t look bright for Puerto Rico. Among many changes for the worse, the government wants to cut retirement benefits, loosen pro-worker labor laws, and close schools.

And if that wasn’t enough, the Atlantic hurricane season begins in less than a month — on June 1 — and Puerto Rico is still far from getting the lights back on for the entire island. [snip]

Residents of Puerto Rico have demonstrated incredible patience over the past seven months since Hurricane Maria struck the island. On May 1, though, Puerto Ricans decided enough was enough. They protested the government’s botched recovery effort and the government’s proposed spending cuts on basic needs.

The residents — organized by unions, community, education, political, environmental, and religious organizations — also protested efforts to use the hurricane as an excuse to privatize government services on the island. [snip]

'The disaster capitalists, the Trump administration and even leaders in our own local government want to force the people of Puerto Rico to sell off our public assets in order to meet unjust debt obligations to international banks,' Jose Menendez, chair of the Puerto Rican chapter of the Sierra Club, said in a statement this week. 'We will not allow Hurricanes Maria and Irma to be used as an excuse to rob the people of Puerto Rico of our most valuable assets.'”

This is happening in America, to our fellow citizens. It's disgraceful and it has to stop.

Weekend Music

It's been a long time since we featured one of our favorite evocative songs, but since it happens to be the birthday of electric violinist David LaFlamme, here's a reprise of "White Bird" from It's A Beautiful Day's eponymous album, released in 1969.  You can just smell the sandalwood and feel the cool, sun- drenched breeze off San Francisco Bay, right?

QOTD: More Wheels On The Bus...

“Rudy is a great guy... he’s working hard, learning the subject matter... he is a great guy. He knows it’s a witch hunt, that’s what he knows. Rudy knows it’s a witch hunt, he started yesterday... he’ll get his facts straight. It’s actually very simple, there has been a lot of misinformation really.” -- (emphasis added) Pathological liar and degenerate Donald "Rump" Trump, speaking to reporters about his stellar lawyer Rudy "Noun, Verb, 9-11" Giuliani, as he left for the National Rifle Rampage Association convention in Dallas. He'll never get his "facts" straight because they're always-changing, alternative facts. Also, Rudy 9-11 is an unhinged loose cannon, as he's demonstrated over the past 48 hours, who can't stay away from the TV cameras.

Although Rump is known for saying nice things about people he soon fires, we're hoping Rudy stays on -- and keeps talking -- for a very long time.

Remember The Name "Emerdata, Ltd."

Wednesday's announcement by the sinister data analysis / manipulation firm Cambridge Analytica (CA) that they were initiating bankruptcy proceedings because of fleeing clients should be met with real skepticism. While their exposure during the 2016 elections as a tool of white supremacist and CA co-founder Steve Bannon to suppress the vote for Hillary Clinton through targeted social media messaging was damaging, their most immediate cause for failure was their Facebook data theft scandal.

However, an in-depth report by BBC indicates that the closure of CA may not be the end of their right-wing efforts. The ex CEO of CA, Alexander Nix, is a director on the board of directors of Emerdata, Ltd. along with wingnut financier Robert Mercer's daughters Rebekah and Jennifer, and Johnson Chun Shun Ko, a Chinese businessman with ties to right-wing mercenary supplier Erik Prince. The Mercers were key financial backers of CA. Whistleblower Christopher Wylie, who led data research efforts at CA, tweeted,

"Remember: Cambridge Analytica specialises in disinformation! We need to make sure their shutdown is not just some rebranding or a way to hide from investigations."

Indeed, we can't let this cast of data criminals out of our sight. The 2018 elections are six months away, and it's a given that they'll be working to shift the U.S. elections to the Rethuglicans under new names.

The Wheels On The Bus Go 'Round And 'Round

A Vanity Fair reporter who's well sourced in Trumpworld, Emily Jane Fox, said this morning on Morning Blow that, based on her reporting for her upcoming book, "Born Trump," multiple sources familiar with sociopathic liar Donald "Rump" Trump say he'd throw son-in-law Jared "Mr. Ivanka" Trump under the bus if it what was necessary to save Rump:

“I have talked to a handful of people, especially in reporting the book and for Vanity Fair, who are close to the president, who have been close to him for years, who said if it comes down to it, there’s no question that Jared is going to be thrown under the bus. If the president is presented with a choice of saving himself or his son-in-law, Jared is out before you can say Jared.” (emphasis added)

Kushner was assigned a ridiculous number of  major "jobs" in the White (Supremacist) House by a jealous Rump, probably to set him up for his eventual failure ("See Ivanka, daddy's a better man."). He was also identified as attempting to set up a back channel to the Kremlin with indicted felon Michael Flynn and former Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Those conversations apparently led to Kushner meeting with the CEO of a sanctioned Russian bank, Sergey Gorkov,

Now that Flynn is cooperating with Special Counsel Mueller, he likely has substantial information compromising Kushner, and the Rump legal team -- such as it is -- probably knows it. Kushner does, too.

(photo: "You want me to meet you at the bus stop?")

Kimmel Mocks Giuliani's Defense Of Trump

Jimmy Kimmel reviews Trump legal eagle consigliere Rudy "Noun, Verb, 9-11" Giuliani's performances on Fox "News," crazy eyes and all:

QOTD II: The Disposable Son-In-Law

“Jared is a fine man, you know that. Men are disposable. But a fine woman like Ivanka? Come on.”  Legal eagle and consigliere for un- indicted co- conspirator Donald "Rump" Trump , Rudy "Noun, Verb, 9-11" Giuliani, yesterday on (what else?) Sean "Heil" Hannity's sh*tshow, opining that prosecutors would "cross a line" by going after Ivanka "Complicit" Trump, but hubby Jared... meh. Robert Mueller on line 2, Jared.

Today's Cartoon Threefer

(click on image to enlarge)


(Jack Ohman, Sacramento Bee)


(Steve Sack, Minneapolis Star Tribune)


(Mike Luckovich, Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

QOTD: Spearfishing

Former Trump campaign communications advisor Michael Caputo was interviewed by Special Counsel Robert Mueller's team yesterday, and it's clear he was grilled by experts:

"It's clear they are still really focused on Russia collusion. They know more about the Trump campaign than anyone who ever worked there...The Senate and the House are net fishing. The special counsel is spearfishing. They know what they are aiming at and are deadly accurate." (emphasis added)

For the record, Caputo worked in Russia in the 1990s and had Russian business dealings. He's also a former associate of treasonous players Paul Manafort and Roger Stone. In other words, another Russian link.

Happy spearfishing.