2017 archive
Selective Perception 0
Will Bunch marvels at the ability to Trumpkins, even Trumpkins who have since regretted their support of Trump, to look at Donald Trump and see a person who does not and never has existed.
Aside:
I read the same article that Bunch writes about. The author’s talent for rationalization does rather take one aback.
Cavalcade of Stupid 0
Lance Dotson, a Republican operative from Maine, offers his diagnosis of the Republican Party’s current pathology:
Follow the link for his reasoning.
The Hollow Men 0
Dick Polman reports that, as Trump administration spokespersons were not to be found on the Sunday yak shows, the networks turned to the D-list. He stands aghast at Jerry Falwell, Jr.’s, performance on Meet the Press. Here’s a bit from his column (emphasis added–follow the link for the whole article):
Ah, nope. Falwell replied: “I didn’t hear anything there that would offend somebody.”
Falwell sorta conceded that perhaps Trump could’ve been more sensitive to “my friends in the Jewish community,” that perhaps “he could be more polished and more politically correct.”
(Hang on a sec. Since when is it “politically correct” to condemn Nazis? Didn’t we conclude as a nation, on a bipartisan basis 75 years ago, that Nazis were bad?)
He goes on to report that Falwell asserted that Trump “spoke from his heart.”
If this is indeed the case, and there is no reason to doubt it, said heart is not a pretty place. Nor are the hearts of ones who would defend it.
Protection Money 0
You can’t make this stuff up.
Secret Service Director Randolph “Tex” Alles, in an interview with USA TODAY, said more than 1,000 agents have already hit the federally mandated caps for salary and overtime allowances that were meant to last the entire year.
This is what happens when you run the government like one of Danald Trump’s businesses–one bankruptcy after another.
Via Juanita Jean.
Over the Threshold 0
At Psychology Today Blogs, Gordon C. Nagayama Hall notes that white persons in the United States have higher thresholds for–that is, are less able to identify–racism and racist behavior than are others. He offers several reasons that could account for that. Here’s one:
- An example of an historical fact is, “The F.B.I. has employed illegal techniques (e.g., hidden microphones in motels) in an attempt to discredit African American political leaders during the civil rights movement”.
- An example of a false statement is, “African American Paul Ferguson was shot outside of his Alabama home for trying to integrate professional football”.
- An example of racism from the test is, “Several people walk into a restaurant at the same time. The server attends to all the White customers first. The last customer served happens to be the only person of color”.
Follow the link for the remainder of the reasons.
From the “Party of Lincoln” to the “Party of Stinkin'” 0
As I’ve noted several times, today’s Republican Party is the creation and the legacy of Richard Nixon. Nixon’s “Southern Strategy,” his decision to woo bigots and racists during his second campaign drew them into the party and they have no commandeered it.
Leonard Pitts, Jr., sums it up; here’s a bit:
(snip)
Its machinations have delivered to the GOP the presidency and both houses of Congress. Yet seldom has a party controlled so much and looked so bad doing it. Republicans find themselves saddled with an incompetent president elected on an implicit promise to make America white again. Under him, they are able to accomplish exactly nothing. They cringe as he suggests moral equivalence between bigots and those who protest them. As if all that were not bad enough, a newly revived hate movement now arrives, looking to cash in its chits.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Remember, practice makes polite.
When officials arrived they found the male victim suffering from a gunshot wound to the hip.
The sheriff’s office says the male was target practicing on the property at the time of the shooting. Deputies say it appears that another male accidentally shot the victim.
Aside:
Y’know, if they can’t even get practice right, how well do you think they will do in the big game?
Continuous Campaign Cacophony 0
Farron scornfully points out the the Trump administration is already working on deceptive campaign 2020 commercials.
Meta: Finger Follies 0
I’ve figured out and fixed why, if you came to the main welcome page for this site and clicked the link for the blog, you would get a malformed nada, nothing, zilch.
It was a typo.
Blasted computers, wnat you tu splet stuf rite.
Target Audience 0
The son of the founder of the white nationalist website, Stormfront, who has renounced his father’s views, tells what America’s Neo-Nazi, white supremacist movement looked like from the inside and why he finds it dangerous. Here’s how he starts out (emphasis added):
Much more at the link.
Afterthought:
Natch, “I’m not racist, but” means “I’m a racist, and.”
It’s a corollary to what I learned back when I did management training in communications skills:
“Yes, but” always means “No.”
Monumental Stupidity 0
In related news, my local rag reports that there might be some cracks appearing in the base.
Trial Separation? 0
Several advisory boards to the President have recently resigned en mass as a result of Trump’s embrace of Neo-Nazis and his mealy-mouthed refusal to condemn the Confederate insurgency in Charlottesville, Virginia. Admittedly these groups are largely symbolic, but there is a larger symbolism in their resignations.
At the Washington Monthly, Nancy LeTourneau considers the implications of corporate CEOs’ jump off the Trump ship. A snippet (follow the link for the complete article:
This move brings into focus a growing fissure within the Republican Party. Historically, corporate leaders have been one of the key members of the Republican coalition—along with military hawks and white evangelicals. But some of the cultural issues that define the attachment of evangelicals to the party are the very ones that are driving the corporate world away.
The conventional wisdom is that the Republican Party’s corporate masters have been willing to tolerate the Republican Party’s bigots and culture warriors so long as the corporations get the tax cuts and other breaks they want. It will be curious to see whether Trumpery leads to the dissolution of that uneasy partnership.
“Look in the Mirror, Boy,” Reprise 0
Der Spiegle devotes another editorial to Donald Trump, and this one is a barn-burner. I find this telling sentence:
Follow the link for the rest of the sentences.
Southern Twistory, Reprise 0
Werner Herzog’s Bear takes down the talking point that removing memorials to American traitors is somehow “destroying history.” (History can be misinterpreted, reinterpreted, explored, even forgotten, but it cannot be destroyed, for its fruits are all around us.) Here’s a nugget (emphasis in the original):
Southern Twistory 0
In The Roanoke Times, Halford Ryan explodes the myths that neo-Confederates and apologists for the South’s rebellion to preserve slavery tell themselves. Here’s one; follow the link for more: