Politics of Hate category archive
Doing the Wingnut Hustle 0
Aside:
The First Amendment right to free speech protects speech. Despite this argument, it neither mandates someone else to guarantee a platform nor requires anyone else to listen.
Foundering Foundations 0
Der Spiegel takes a look at Donald Trump’s first 100 days. It is not only not impressed; it is alarmed. Here’s a bit:
Democracy lives from the ability to forge compromise, but that is a skill that Trump appears not to possess. As such, his first 100 days in office can be interpreted as an attack on the foundations of American democracy.
Do read the rest.
The Court Is in Sessions 0
Will Bunch has more. A snippet:
“The McMahon Tactic” 0
Tony Norman considers the WWE, Alex Jones, Infowars, and wingnut news fakery.
The dirty little secret is that there can be big money in playing a professional wingnut.
The Producers, Live Action Version 0
Tony Norman marvels at life’s imitating art.
Trumpled Plates 0
The San Francisco Chronical takes a look at what vanity plates are being denied in California and spots a trend.
(snip)
Keegan and others who study extremism say President Trump’s rise made many people with racist views more comfortable expressing themselves.
“They feel a little more emboldened now,” he said. “They start feeling like they’re not as fringe as they actually are.”
Alt-Universe 0
Dick Polman points out that “alternative facts” are not uniquely American.
He travels to France to find them also roaming in the wild there.
Forensics, Schmorensics 0
Elie Mystal comments on Attorney-General Sessions’s decision to abolish the the National Commission on Forensic Science, created by President Obama just a few years ago to raise standards for forensic science. In the light of the work of the Innocence Project and similar groups, those standards seem sorely in need of raising, or maybe of being created in the first place(PDF from Virginia Law Review). Here’s an excerpt from Mystal’s post:
Ryan’s Derp 0
There is nothing I can add to this.
Walleyed 0
Dick Polman thinks Trump’s border wall is a non-starter for many reasons. Here’s one of them; follow the link for the rest.
I’m waiting for Trump to say, “Nobody knew the wall could be so complicated.”
But the biggest problem is that most Americans don’t even want the wall. Turns out – and I know this comes as a shock – that the enthusiasm for walling us off from Mexico was largely confined to the subset of citizens who flocked to Trump’s rallies. Turns out that when it comes to wall spending, most of us are actually fiscal conservatives.
Trump’s proposed budget calls for a $1.5-billion down payment on the wall. According to a new national poll released today, only 28 percent of Americans like the idea. And 58 percent do not.
And God Said, “Suffer, Baby” 0
If you are going to be a Biblical literalist, you can’t pick and choose. Literalism is an all or nothing proposition. Farron Cousins explains.