;)
The Commentariat -- Nov. 14, 2016
Afternoon Update:
A number of contributors have been crediting Akhilleus for coming up with the term "confederates" to describe the right-wing party & its followers. That didn't sound right to me, so I spent way too much time checking. Akhilleus has illuminated hundreds of good ideas here on Reality Chex. But the originator of the term "confederates" was actually Monoloco, who suggested it in January 2015.
Sam Roberts of the New York Times: "Gwen Ifill, an award-winning television journalist for NBC and PBS, former reporter for The New York Times and author who moderated vice-presidential debates in 2004 and 2008, died on Monday in Washington. She was 61. Her death, at a hospice facility, was announced by Sara Just, executive producer of 'PBS NewsHour.' The cause was cancer, PBS said." A full obituary is to follow. Thanks to NJC for the lead.-- CW
Simon Tisdale of the Guardian: "When [President Obama] makes his final visit to Europe this week, in what had been planned as a triumphant farewell tour, Obama's awkward job is to reassure nervous allies that a Trump presidency will not be as bad as they fear." CW: That would be a betrayal of his beliefs -- and of reality.
Steve M. on how NPR is whitewashing the Steve Bannon appointment: "NPR's coverage of the election and its aftermath has been awful in recent days.... NPR's preferred approach seems to be letting loyalists come on one at a time, and allowing them to spin and spin and spin." ...
... CW: NPR is a broadcast operation; it relies on its share of the public airwaves (and to a very small extent, public funding) to get its stories out. Donald Trump, by virtue of his appointing a friendly FCC commissioner, will soon control the public airwaves. (Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones is probably polishing his resume'.) What you're hearing in NPR "news reporting" -- and no doubt soon in other non-political programming -- is self-preservation, not accurate news coverage. Expect NPR to become a broadcasters' Pravda on the Potomac. This is voluntary co-option. The commercial broadcast networks will do the same.
Sewell Chan & Christina Anderson of the New York Times: "Six years after the Swedish authorities opened an investigation into a rape accusation made against Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, he faced questioning about the matter on Monday. The questions were prepared by prosecutors in Sweden, where an arrest warrant for Mr. Assange was issued in 2010, but were posed by a prosecutor from Ecuador under an agreement the two countries made in August. Ecuador granted Mr. Assange political asylum in 2012, and the interview occurred at the Ecuadorean Embassy in London. Mr. Assange has lived in the embassy since June 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden over the rape accusation." -- CW ...
... The Guardian story, by Esther Addley & David Crouch, is here.
*****
CW: If you missed Kate McKinnon's "SNL" cold open, do take time to watch it; it's embedded in yesterday's Commentariat.
** Trump Names White Supremacist/Anti-Semite to Top White House Post. Michael Shear, et al., of the New York Times: "... Donald J. Trump on Sunday chose Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee and a loyal campaign adviser, to be his White House chief of staff, turning to a Washington insider whose friendship with the House speaker, Paul D. Ryan, could help secure early legislative victories. In selecting Mr. Priebus, Mr. Trump passed over Stephen K. Bannon, the right-wing media provocateur. But he named Mr. Bannon his senior counselor and chief West Wing strategist, signaling an embrace of the fringe ideology long advanced by Mr. Bannon and a continuing disdain for his party's establishment.... In a statement Sunday afternoon, the transition team emphasized that the two men would work 'as equal partners to transform the federal government.'... The official statement mentioned Mr. Bannon first.” Emphasis added. -- CW ...
... Elise Viebeck & Katie Zezima of the Washington Post: "... Donald Trump faces a growing backlash against his decision to name campaign chairman and former head of Breitbart News Stephen K. Bannon as chief strategist at the White House, a choice critics believe will empower white nationalists. A chorus of advocacy groups, commentators and congressional Democrats denounced Bannon as a proponent of racist, anti-Semitic and misogynistic views as Trump began his first full week as president-elect.... A spokesman for Trump accused critics and the media of trying to 'divide people' following the election when they raise questions about Bannon's views and history." -- CW ...
... Jose DelReal of the Washington Post: "... Donald Trump's decision to appoint Stephen Bannon as his chief strategist in the White House has drawn a sharp rebuke from political strategists who see in Bannon a controversial figure too closely associated with the 'alt-right' movement, which white nationalists have embraced.... 'Stephen Bannon was the main driver behind Breitbart becoming a white ethno-nationalist propaganda mill, the [Southern Poverty] [L]aw [C]enter wrote via Twitter in its first statements on Bannon's elevation." -- CW...
... Oops! Newt Didn't Get the Memo.* Kristine Guerra of the Washington Post: "Newt Gingrich blasted the notion that Donald Trump's campaign and rhetoric catered to what's called the alt-right movement, which rejects establishment conservatism and spreads its far-right ideology online. 'It's garbage,' the former House speaker and a Trump adviser told CBS's John Dickerson on 'Face the Nation' on Sunday when asked to comment on the alt-right movement, whose members have shown support for Trump. 'Donald Trump is a mainstream conservative who wants to profoundly take on the left. The left is infuriated that anybody wants to challenge their moral superiority,' Gingrich said." -- CW
... * Or he did get the memo but thinks he can pretend Bannon is a mild-mannered reporter. ...
... ** Paul Waldman: "There has been way too much euphemizing about Bannon, so let's talk plainly. He's not just a 'controversial' figure who ran a 'provocative' web site. He is one of the foremost drivers of the spread of white nationalism in the United States today, and Breitbart is a firehose of thinly veiled racism and anti-Semitism, spewing its endless supply of poison into our politics.... And now to the cluelessness:... The man ran for president for a year and a half, and is surprised that the presidency is such a big job. Meanwhile, his aides were under the impression that the Obama staffers would stick around and be working for them now. This is appalling, but it shouldn't be surprising. Those of us who actually contemplated a Trump presidency during the campaign were particularly disturbed not just by Trump's ignorance, but also by the fact that it was accompanied by a certainty that he knew everything he needed to know, despite the fact that he knew virtually nothing." (See also Margaret Hartmann's report, linked below.) -- CW ...
... Zachary Pleat of Media Matters provides a good overview of Bannon's racist, misogynist, xenophobic, anti-Semite, anti-LGBT views, as expressed in his hate site Breitbart "News." -- CW ...
... Kim Bellware of the Huffington Post: "Breitbart has propagated conspiracy theories, like Planned Parenthood having Nazi ties or Clinton aide Huma Abedin being a spy for Saudi Arabia. The website traffics in misogynist and racist stories; it frames women who push back against harassment or gender bias as weak and incompetent and portrays people of color and immigrants as inherently criminal. Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) spokesman Adam Jentleson said Trump's choice of Bannon 'signals that White Supremacists will be represented at the highest levels in Trump's White House.' 'It is easy to see why the KKK views Trump as their champion,'...." -- CW
Emily Schultheis of CBS News: "... Donald Trump said in a wide-ranging interview with '60 Minutes' that his role of appointing a Supreme Court justice is 'very important' -- and that he plans to appoint pro-life justices. 'I'm pro-life,' he said. 'The judges will be pro-life.'... When [interviewer Lesley] Stahl followed up on the question, asking whether it's okay that some women might have to travel to other states to receive abortions, Trump said there's a 'long way to go' before discussing that.... During the third presidential debate, he suggested that third-trimester abortions were currently legal and that Clinton supported allowing them -- both things which are not true. Trump added that his Supreme Court nominees would also be 'very pro-Second Amendment.'... As for same-sex marriage, Trump said after the Supreme Court ruling last year it's the law of the land -- and that he is 'fine' with that being the case." -- CW
Ben Jacobs of the Guardian: "... Donald Trump returned to Twitter on Sunday morning, to attack a familiar target: the New York Times." -- CW ...
... Daniel Politi of Slate: "... this latest attack came shortly after Trump told 60 Minutes that he will be 'restrained' on how he uses Twitter." CW: There's "restrained" and there's "restrained." In this case, I think "restrained" mean, "didn't wrap anti-NYT tweets in Star of David or hangman's noose." ...
... Brian Stelter & Jill Disis: "On Sunday morning, Trump tweeted: 'Wow, the @nytimes is losing thousands of subscribers because of their very poor and highly inaccurate coverage of the "Trump phenomena.'" Trump did not cite any evidence to back up his claim. And the Times flatly says it is not true. The newspaper crunched the numbers on Sunday morning.... Then it responded to Trump, naturally, on Twitter. 'Fact: surge in new subscriptions, print & digital, with trends, stops & starts, 4 X better than normal,' the Times said.... On Friday, the newspaper's publisher, Arthur Sulzberger, wrote a letter to subscribers saying 'let's pause for a moment on those famous instructions that Adolph S. Ochs left for us: to cover the news without fear or favor. As Donald Trump begins preparing for his new administration, those words have rarely felt more important,' Sulzberger said. In a followup tweet, Trump wrongly characterized the letter as an 'apology' for earlier coverage." -- CW
Amy Wang of the Washington Post: "In a '60 Minutes' interview scheduled to air Sunday..., Donald Trump said he planned to immediately deport 2 million to 3 million undocumented immigrants who 'have criminal records' after his inauguration next January.... According to The Washington Post Fact Checker, Trump likely gets these estimates from a Department of Homeland Security fiscal 2013 report saying there were 1.9 million 'removable criminal aliens.' However, that figure includes undocumented immigrants and people who are lawful permanent residents, or those who have temporary visas." CW: In other words, these are people whose "crime," at most, is being here, not violent criminals.
Michael Birnbaum of the Washington Post: "Perplexed foreign ministers from the European Union nations met Sunday to try to assess the election of Donald Trump..., underlining the uncertainty for America's closest allies over issues as wide-ranging as Iran, Russia and climate change. The emergency dinner gathering was a measure of how suddenly the U.S.-Europe relationship has been cast into disarray by the election of a man most European leaders openly campaigned against. The E.U. is deeply dependent on U.S. cooperation for a host of European priorities, many of which Trump called into question on the campaign trail." -- CW ...
... Annals of "Journalism," Ha Ha Ha. Christopher Dickey & Asawin Suebsaeng of the Daily Beast: "Breitbart, which currently has operations in London and Jerusalem, certainly has plans to expand in France and Germany with new bureaus to cultivate and promote the populist-nationalist lines there. Bannon, elevated Sunday night from the head of Trump's favorite public-relations outfit masquerading as news outlet to a White House senior counselor, is right now the direct line between the European far-right and Donald J. Trump, leader of the free world." CW: Of course Trump & Bannon have plans to dismantle the "free" part of "free world."
Paul Krugman: "... the consequences of the new regime's awfulness won't be apparent right away. Opponents of that regime need to be prepared for the real possibility that good things will happen to bad people, at least for a while." -- CW
Jonathan Chait: "Whatever signs of normality [Trump] has given since Tuesday's triumph are, thus far, purely superficial.... It is now within the realm of imagining that the United States will come to resemble some sort of illiberal democracy or quasi-democracy -- Berlusconi's Italy or, eventually, even Putin's Russia.... The man who thought he was through with politics has, it turns out, one more essential role left: Beginning next year, Obama needs to rally the opposition, to community-organize his coalition, and to exploit his celebrity to make the case for saving his legacy.... Trump's election is one of the greatest disasters in American history.... The proper response is steely resolve to wage the fight of our lives." -- CW ...
... The Drumpf Whisperer. Margaret Hartmann of New York: "The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday that President Obama 'plans to spend more time with his successor than presidents typically do' because he realized during their meeting last week that Trump 'needs more guidance.' Per the Journal:
During their private White House meeting on Thursday, Mr. Obama walked his successor through the duties of running the country, and Mr. Trump seemed surprised by the scope, said people familiar with the meeting. Trump aides were described by those people as unaware that the entire presidential staff working in the West Wing had to be replaced at the end of Mr. Obama's term. -- CW
Melanie Eversley of USA Today: The post-election uptick in hate crimes is greater than what occurred following 9/11, according to hate-crime watchers like the SPLC. CW: I suspect this is because there are more groups to "hate" and the targets are ubiquitous, whereas the Muslim population was relatively concentrated & comparatively small. There's not a town in the U.S. that doesn't have women to victimize, for instance. ...
... Daniel Politi lays out a partial list of post-election racist incidents, which are occurring around the country. See also Ken W.'s comment at the top of today's thread. Clearly, Trump's election has emboldened the deplorables, as if they weren't bold enough already. ...
... Casey Quinlan of Think Progress: "In the days following the election, students are already invoking the name of ... [Donald Trump] while they spread white supremacist messages." -- CW
** Henry Grabar of Slate: "For nearly half a century, Democrats have worked to position themselves as America's metropolitan party.... Trump won dominant support in rural America. He outran Romney by more than 40 percent in large swaths of the Midwest. His rural success was not confined to the Rust Belt.... The metropolis has economic power but little political power. The American countryside has limited economic power but vast political power.... When politicians inveigh against 'urban America,' they're often stoking their constituents' race-based fears. But 'urban' is now also code for class, power, money, and the Democratic Party.... Americans are less geographically mobile than at any point since 1948. Young Americans are not going to sacrifice their dreams to accommodate the country's byzantine electoral system, which was designed to grant the franchise exclusively to landowners." -- CW
"Trump's America." CW: Just two weeks ago, a reader snapped a picture of Union Square, where a group of a dozen or so Clinton supporters gathered. Here's what Union Square looked like Saturday, courtesy of the same reader:
I love the poorly educated! -- Donald Trump, Nevada Republican primary victory speech, Feb. 23 ...
... Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone: "The Democratic Party's failure to keep Donald Trump out of the White House in 2016 will go down as one of the all-time examples of insular arrogance.... But the party's willful blindness symbolized a similar arrogance across the American intellectual elite. Trump's election was a true rebellion, directed at anyone perceived to be part of 'the establishment.' The target group included political leaders, bankers, industrialists, academics, Hollywood actors, and, of course, the media. And we all closed our eyes to what we didn't want to see.... America is like a giant manor estate where the aristocrats don't know they're aristocrats and the peasants imagine themselves undiscovered millionaires." -- CW
AND Trump Born in Pakistan, Not Eligible to be U.S. President! Times of Israel: "After years leading the false charge that President Barack Obama was born outside of the United States..., Donald Trump is facing his own minor 'birtherism' moment, with a Pakistani television network claiming the New Yorker was born in Pakistan.... The report, not unlike the claims once made against Obama, appears to have originated with social media posts.... According to Neo News, Trump was born as Dawood Ibrahim Khan in the now-Taliban-controlled Waziristan region of the country in 1954. After his parents were killed in a car accident, a British Indian Army captain took little Dawood to London, where the Trump family later adopted him and brought him to America, the report claimed.... Neo News even provided a photo of the alleged young Trump, wearing what appears to be traditional Pakistani boys' garb." CW: I sure hope the NYT is following up. By 2020, 69 percent of Democrats should be convinced Trump is not a natural-born citizen.
Josh Marshall: "Paul Ryan ... just said he will try to rush [the demise of Medicare] through early next year while repealing Obamacare.... Ryan claims that Obamacare has put Medicare under deeper financial stress. Precisely the opposite is true. And it's so straightforward Ryan unquestionably knows this. The Affordable Care Act actually extended Medicare's solvency by more than a decade....Ryan says current beneficiaries will be allowed to keep their Medicare. Says. But after the cord is cut between current and future beneficiaries, everything is fair game. For those entering the system, Ryan proposes phasing out Medicare and replacing it private insurance with subsidies to help seniors afford the private insurance.... You'll hear lots of people calling this 'reform' and other catchwords. But Medicare is a single payer, universal health care system. Replacing it with private insurance means getting rid of it." -- CW ...
What people don't realize is, because of Obamacare, Medicare is going broke. -- -- House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), interview with Fox News Channel, Nov. 10
It's bad enough that Ryan, like many politicians, uses imprecise rhetoric such as 'broke'.... But the House speaker really went off the rails when he said on national television that Obamacare is making the program go broke. That’s the exact opposite of what happened. -- Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post
News Lede
Guardian: "New Zealand battled severe storms and violent aftershocks as the country struggled to recover from a devastating earthquake that swallowed roads, twisted railway lines and left towns and cities smashed and deserted." -- CW
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Spokane Report:
One of my sisters, taking phone calls last Friday at the Spokane Democrats office, told me about two calls, one from a lesbian couple in an outlying community, the other from a black man living in the city. Both reported that it was only AFTER Tuesday that the Trump signs sprouted on the properties around them. Both callers said they felt threatened; one thought a move might be in order.
Factual or not, the reports had the ring of truth to me. The emboldenment of haters is a predictable consequences of Trump's victory, and Bannon's appointment as any kind of "strategist" will only strengthen the very dark side of our politics.
If there's anything positive about this, it may be that now some of the anonymous enemy is donning uniforms, we know who they are.
BTW, I see a report thatTrump says he won't take a salary as President (recognizing perhaps that a man is only worthy of his hire?). As my wife said, at least that will pay for a foot or so of the Wall.
Quote DJT on "60 Minutes":
“After the border is secure and after everything gets normalized, we’re going to make a determination on the people that they’re talking about — who are terrific people. They’re terrific people, but we are gonna make a determination at that,” Trump said. “But before we make that determination . . . it’s very important, we are going to secure our border.”
They are "terrific people" (does that mean "really good" people?) but after everything is "normal" we'll decide whether to send them out or give them some kind of non-voting gastarbeiter status -- the latter because no GOP Congress will allow a path to citizenship (and voting).
So, not to worry folks ... you are not going to see "normal" and the border will never be secure enough for Jeff Sessions and friends. So the decision on "what to do about undocumented aliens" will be deferred forever, allowing employers to continue to take advantage of vulnerable workers, state/local governments to tax them but short them on community services, and start to drive them further into a separate underground economy and society.
Let's pivot to terrorism.
There is a pretty broad consensus in the U.S. counterterrorism community that the U.S. is less vulnerable to the alienation of ethnic and religious minorities than are european nations. U.S. immigrants, documented or not, tend to buy into the idea of "being American" more than, say, immigrant Turks buy into the idea of "being German. " We are not really a melting pot, but there is a place in our stew for all sorts of vegetables.
Consequently, the U.S. strategy for dealing with the potential for domestic terror includes playing to immigrants' desire to "be American", even while they remain, say, ethnic Irish, Polish, Italian, Somali ....
But if you tell huge groups of resident immigrants that they will never "be Americans", you create a large internal society that does not feel it should be loyal to or supportive of "America." And in that sub-society, disaffection and hostility can be justified by feelings of alienation, rejection, inferiority, etc.
And those are conditions that do cause protests and violence, by people who cannot tolerate their feelings of injustice.
The way the DJT immigrant plan is going is counter to current domestic counterterrorism strategy and could lead to increased domestic terrorism.
In NY Mag, Jonathan Chait has a piece that works in concert with the Taibbi piece in Rolling Stone that CW mentions above. What should Democrats in Congress — and Barack Obama, and you — do now?. "Citizens, United"
The Trump administration will make the last failed Republican presidency look like an age of reason. The United States has never elected a president so openly contemptuous of democratic norms. There’s no So You’ve Elected a Bullying, Racist, Authoritarian Swindler As President pamphlet within easy reach.
HE IS NOT MY PRESIDENT.
Five days in:
Major parts of the 'disaster' called Obamacare will be kept. The plan for handling the 20 million people being dumped is......
The wall is now a fence.
The deportation of 11 million is now 2-3 million who are the criminals. It turns out that the word criminal has a new meaning. And the plan to identify those people is.......... Of course, the new POTUS does not know that the Obama administration actually deports all real criminals.
So here are the basic changes. We now have a two foot tall Trumpfence. A new department, the Trump Deportation Department.
A new healthcare system that looks a lot like the old one now called Trumpcare.
Ryan's plan for Medicare (now single payer universal) has been described by opponents in the past year as replacing single payer insurance with "Obamacare for seniors," involving multiple private providers, subsidies, etc. That is the handle by which critics should start to refer to Ryan's plan, when he says it is "saving Medicare."
Maybe they can sell it by offering free opioids to everyone. That should make a lot of their voters care less, and reduce the time they are on plan (reduce lifespans.)
We're nearly a week into the Age of Hate and still whenever I hear the phrase "President-elect Trump", my head feels like it's ready to rotate off my shoulders. It's a nightmare from which there is no waking up.
But the Normalization of Hatred continues apace.
This morning I heard three pieces in order on NPR. First, mental midget and amoral slug Reince Priebus came on to whine that Confederates are victims. Again. That wonderful Mr. Trump, glorious leader, is being unfairly targeted by mean spirited Americans who are protesting. "If my people did that they'd be called all sorts of names!" he cried. He also made it a point to poo-pooh any sort of problems. Trump will fix EVERYTHING.
Hard on the heels of that insult to working brains, there was an interview with one Chris Buskirk, a far right blogger who waxed lyrical about the elevation of anti-Semite and race war fan, Steve Bannon, to the lofty position of chief Hate Whisperer to the Trump Monster.
The host, David Greene asked Buskirk, who is supposedly an expert on all things cuckoo Confederate, about Breitbart headlines worked up by Bannon that propagated anti-Semitism, racial hatred, and secessionist tendencies. Buskirk claimed to be entirely ignorant of any such thing. He's never heard of Bannon or Breitbart saying or writing anything of the sort. The idea! Bannon is just a smart guy. In fact, he refers to himself as just a simple blue collar Irish Catholic Kennedy Democrat and he (Buskirk) is all for going with how people see themselves, despite any actions or words to the contrary. Greene tried several times to get him to comment on the obviously hate based rhetoric spewed by Bannon but according to Buskirk he, and Trump, are very smart guys who will do what's right for the country. When asked how he thought Bannon would take to Priebus (as chief of staff) running the Trumpy White House, Buskirk reverted a bit to Confederate form. "Oh, that's not going to happen." Meaning that Bannon would be the real power.
Buskirk also tried to point out that Priebus would be a softening influence in the Trumpy White House because he's a moderate who isn't a racist.
But wait, I thought....he's the representative of a party that LIVES by racism. What do you mean he's not a racist? Racism pays his salary!!! More normalization. It's not racism. It's a "tactic". Sure.
After that trip through the looking glass, the lede for the next story was something like "This past week, tiny brains have made big news" to which my response was "No kidding..." But the story had to do with breakthroughs in brain cell research. Science. Something neither Trump nor Bannon believes in.
I didn't care to watch Donaldo bloviate on 60 Minutes last night but I did hear that he claimed, and both Priebus and Buskirk made a point of saying, that Americans had nothing to fear. Nothing to fear? Trump has peddled nothing BUT fear for the last 18 months.
We have a lot to fear. In fact, I don't think we're quite up to a complete understanding of just how much we have to fear from these lying racist fascist pigs.
Can hatred ever truly be normal? These guys, and the media that support them, are giving it the old college try.
Oh, and one more thing about those poor Confederate victims. Over the weekend I rented a film called "Imperium", based on the true story of an undercover law enforcement infiltration into a white supremacist group. At one point, someone points out the single biggest element that will turn discontented citizens into fascists, the essential ingredient, is a strong sense of victimhood, which removes all traces of responsibility form the "victims" and allows all manner of repression against the "victimizers".
So for Reince Priebus to declare, so casually and offhandedly, that "his people" are victims of media bias, or would be, if they had protested a Clinton victory (as if there haven't been scores of violent protests throughout the campaign), is a clear indication that the Confederate Party has gone beyond nascent fascism. It IS a fascist party.
Oh and by the way, if you watch that film, remember that all those psycho Nazi motherfuckers talking about race wars and the ZOG (Zionist Occupation Government--a favorite international conspiracy hinted at by Trump several times), and the victimization of the white race....they all voted for Trump.
Pretty soon we'll have a Trump/Bannon/Nazi version of Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood on the revamped PBS. "It's a wonderful day in the white neighborhood. We torched another black house yesterday! Isn't it fun?"
Hatred is already normal for a lot of people.
Here's another front in the ongoing Twitter war. I'm not unboggled yet, but these helped. Isn't the last stage of grief revenge?
Akhilleus: I listened to the Buskirk interview, too, and could not believe it. David Greene should be ashamed of himself. I've given up on NPR.
Yesterday Driftglass had a video link to a clip from "Cabaret": "Tomorrow Belongs to Us" ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29Mg6Gfh9Co ) that might bring goosebumps or goosesteps to one's mind.
While on the YouTube site I also clicked the catchy "Money, Money" video from the same show with its spectacularly evil & satiric performance by Joel Grey and Liza Minelli—money makes the world go 'round...as history continues to repeat.
I am beginning to think that Trump will not be POTUS. He seems to be totally shocked at what the actual job is. I think he thought it was just an occasional hand shake with a foreign leader and of course a party at his new house. And there is some plan for him to spend half his time at the Trump Tower. I mean he still has to run the business.
So there will be a guy named Trump to sign a legislation or shake a hand but the government will actually be run by his hired staff and the Republican Congress.
Interested to know what you all think of this article at TPM and whether Ryan will actually achieve his goal of phasing out Medicare. Ryan scares me as much, if not more, than Trump.
I'm seconding Marie's suggestion from a couple of days ago that the Democratic Party and all affiliated groups (unions especially because they all have targets on their backs now) begin running ads running down the Trump promises/lies and asking where are all the jobs? Where's the manufacturing and steel and coal jobs he promised? Where's the wall? The deportation police? Why are all those lifetime insiders running his transition? He's making nice now with the Chinese? He promised to run them down with a good ol' 'merican tank then back up over them a few times. He promised to tear up NATO agreements, let everyone get their own nukes and make it every country for themselves. We shouldn't wait 'til midterms. Start now, because the lies won't stop. And the truth will out, whether the gerbils on the right want to hear it or not.
These people are getting ready to carve us up. Paul Ryan has hate and lust in his googley eyes and he's getting ready to hand social security over to Wall Street and Medicare over to his insurance industry lobbyist buddies. And who's to stop him? Maureen Dowd?
The intolerant religious right fanatics are beside themselves with visions of being able to install their own Sharia Law.
Wall Street Masters of the Universe are all scanning the real estate sites for their fourth and fifth desert island vacation estates and yachts.
Regulations on businesses will be killed. Bankers will be freed from every sort of oversight.
Tax cuts for the rich will make the Bush era cuts look like tax hikes.
Trump World is coming and we should be trumpeting the whole sordid scene. Those coal miners in Eastern Kentucky and West Virginia who booed Hillary Clinton will have nothing. They'll be crushed. No jobs, no health insurance, no nothing. And it fucking serves them right. But their bosses will be enormously wealthy AND they as for safety regulations, not even canaries will be handed out. They'll get a pick axe, a kerosene lamp, and a "Don't come out unless you've got my money!" pat on the back.
@Akhilleus: Excellent point about fake victimization. Richard Nixon started it, Republicans liked it, and they've been using it ever since. It's been working for more than half a century, and we're seeing now where it's about to end up.
It is a lot like the appeal of Christianity, a faith-view many of the same sheeples hold. Christianity does embrace the concept of sin, but that sin can be washed away in a moment of redemptive confession & belief. You can err, but you can be saved at no personal cost to you. Your real sin is your humanity -- it's original sin, and as such, it's not your fault.
Similarly, confederates who haven't "made it" to their satisfaction are absolved of their failures, perceived & actual, because they are victims of malevolent outside forces -- Democrats and "those people." Trump is their Jesus, and like the Jesus character, he will fail to save them. But he probably will make them feel way better about what ails them. Hallelujah!
There is a huge irony in this cult of victimhood, because these same people profess to believe in self-determination and self-sufficiency: the social safety net is a copout that "those people" rely on because they won't get off their lazy asses & find well-paying, productive jobs.
"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function." Really? Maybe it's the test of insanity.
Marie
Nancy,
While listening to Buskirk lie his way over and under and around David Greene, I started ticking off all the comebacks and strategies to at least point out that he WAS lying. Nothing of the sort happened and there are a couple of fundamental reasons why Confederates get away with murder in interview sessions on both television and radio.
First, they have absolute contempt for the media and for any media representative, as well as for civil modes of discourse. They are well practiced liars and are aggressive about their lies, fairly daring anyone to challenge them. If someone does, the usual tactic is to attack them, call them biased and question their sanity. They never answer the question, but they do throw up a lot of smoke and toss off forensic flash bangs to distract and save them from actually having to defend indefensible positions.
For their part, most interviewers are sorely lacking in the skills needed to fend off such attacks and turn the thing around. Some, like Greene, have crafted interview skills based on civility and polite discourse. They are all at sea when faced with bald faced liars who will slap them in the face if they try to call them to heel (which they won't--they'll politely try to reframe the question, as Greene did this morning, which gets another round of bullshit and smirks from the Confederate liar).
Other media types such as Upchuck Todd are simply too obsequious and for the most part believe that challenging guests is just beyond the pale (even though he has no problem doing it to Democrats. This is because Confederates have developed such a reputation for not caring about obvious mendacity and being highly antagonistic and aggressive if called on their lies; people like Todd back down right away).
I think one answer is to stop inviting the liars. Or making sure to have someone handy on the panel who is well versed in what the guests are there to talk about who can at least point out the lies. But this means the networks will be okay with that, and with people like Trump BFF Jeff Zucker in charge, that ain't gonna happen.
A new, more aggressive breed of professional journalists able to stand up to the Confederate liars is needed. And it need not be a screaming match. Rachel Maddow does an excellent job of putting the liars on the hot seat. Maybe we need Samantha Bee to put her comedy career on hold and start moderating a Sunday morning show.
Something has to be done. We're going to have four years of this bullshit with schemes and criminal plans dreamed up by KKK Steve. If you thought the Bush years were excruciating, these next few years will make that era seem like--I think someone earlier said it best--the Age of Enlightenment.
MAG,
I linked that "Tomorrow belongs to me" clip a few months ago and even though I was very concerned about the fascist elements in the Trump campaign, I never suspected it would become such a vital part of his elevation to the White House and even to the extent that a prime representative of authoritarian racism would become the power behind the throne. This scene could be Trump rally where the demands of the fascist leader and his rhetoric are simply taken for granted as being the absolute unquestioned and unquestionable truth.
Plenty will be saying "Oh, you're exaggerating the threat. Stop it." No, we're not. Steve Bannon, a committed racist, xenophobe, anti-Semite, and fanner of the flames of chaos is now, much more so than Priebus or Pence, whispering into the cauliflower ear of an ignorant dilettante who already leans way over into the authoritarian, fascist camp.
It's funny (in the not so hilarious kind of way) now to hear Trumpado sniff that his followers should stop being mean and hateful when, less than a week ago, he was screaming that they needed to show up armed at polls to keep "those people" from "stealing the election" and suggesting that his opponent should be "taken care of" by "second amendment people". This is the guy who was shouting that people at his rallies who didn't goosestep along with the rest of the lemmings needed to be "taken out on a stretcher".
But now he wants to pretend to be above all that street gang violence?
This asshole is beyond reprehensible. And the lies never stop.
Marvin,
I think that's been the plan all along.
@Ak: You know, I kinda do remember your linking that video at an earlier time! (Correction, my error. It is Tomorrow Belongs to ME as you wrote above, not US!)
Furthermore This scene could be a Trump rally... exactly my thoughts upon looking at that film clip from 1972...it's remarkable, I've seen those 'same' faces at his events, the same carried away enthusiasm, the same unthinking following the unthinkable.
HE IS NOT MY PRESIDENT.
The term "Shariah Law" is already taken. "Scalia Law?"
As of November 9, 2016 the empty slogan "Make America Great Again" will have a new literal meaning. We are all invited to participate.
How the vicious Alt-Right (KKK Steve's demesne) plays social media and uses "politeness policies" to their benefit.
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has been fending off those who have noticed what a great boon Facebook has been to the Orange Headed Bigot and his white supremacist horde. "No, no. It's not true" he claims.
BUT....au contraire, Monsieur Mark, the Trumpado himself said, last night, what a great help Facebook was (and Twitter) in his defeat of the forces of rationality and civility.
So Facebook and Twitter have been instrumental in helping the fascists. But what if Trump's horde of haters come after you? What if they threaten to kill you? Will Facebook be as helpful to you as it has been to the haters?
Mais non!
Mark Joseph Stern, who covers law and LGBTQ issues for Slate, recently received a particularly graphic and distressing e-mail from a Trump supporter threatening to kill him (he's had others) and decided to forward the e-mail to his Facebook community:
"To illustrate the gruesome hate that now regularly pours into my inbox, I posted the email on Facebook and made the image public. Hundreds of people shared it as an example of the bigotry that Trump has unleashed upon people like me."
Good idea, no? No, says Zuckerberg, through his company's policies. "...a few hours later, Facebook removed the image, informing me that it violated 'Community Standards.' It also removed altogether a long post that a close friend had written about the email and the threats to my life, which included an image of the threat."
But the alt-right Bannon types have been using Twitter and Facebook for years to spread hate through fake news stories, which Zuckerberg now says never happens. But I know it does. I see the bullshit that gets spread.
At first, I was going to say that I'm not in favor of Facebook starting a censorship brigade, but they already have that. Mostly, I'm pointing out how clever liars are using social media and the regular media by turning their own rules against them and against other information consumers. They make ithem good sites from which to spread the hate but enjoy the protections in place whenever those they attack try to call them out on it.
We're living in a mad, bad, sad age, my brothers and sisters. There has been a lot of talk about the Trump ascendancy being a wake up call. It's time to see how alt-right supporters of Trump and Bannon have been sticking it to us for a long time while enjoying both constitutional and policy support.
And I'm not suggesting censorship. I am however, demanding that the media get up off the fucking floor and start doing their job.
From Stephen Colbert at the White House Correspondents dinner (2006) : "But, listen, let's review the rules. Here's how it works. The President makes decisions. He's the decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Just put 'em through a spell check and go home....
Can't wait to see how this works out in 2017!
Whoa....hold your horses folks. That nice Steve Bannon (whom I intemperately refer to as "KKK Steve") cannot POSSIBLY be a racist OR an anti-Semite, this according to that world renown man of moderation, tolerance, and civility, Newtie Gingrich.
His reasoning? Perfect winger logic: Bannon once worked for Jews at Goldman Sachs AND he worked in Hollywood (which is RUN by those horrible...I mean....by Jews). I guess you could say the same for Mel Gibson, right? All those years in Hollywood, he couldn't possibly hate Jews, right? And oh yeah, Donald Trump? He once owned a record by the Four Tops so, hey, how could he be a racist scumbag? Right? "I'll be there...to give you all the love you nee-ee-eed." Oh man, Levi Stubbs. That boy could sing!"
This is what passes for logic on the right. And not just logic, but this is what passes for Unassailable Logic.
By that logic you could make an argument that antebellum plantation owners weren't racist because they lived near black people (ie, the slaves they kept chained in hovels on their property).
Oh....sure, Newtie. Now that you explained it, it all sounds like typical liberal lies.
Thanks!
And today Gwen Ifill decided not to stick around to watch the disaster. RIP Gwen...
My apologies and plaudits to Monoloco.
Have just finished a book about the development of synthetic fertilizer (easily converted to explosives), rubber and gasoline in Germany in the early 1900's.
Many familiar characters, scientists, business leaders and politicians serially take center stage. As we all know, Hitler and his fascist
followers (and before them, the Kaiser in WWI) absorbed much of what these brilliant men had done and perverted it to incalculably destructive use.
Couldn't avoid seeing the obvious parallels between Germany's penchant for autocracy with our current course. Wasn't hard at all, really. Here we've elected an obvious psychological deficient as President who then immediately appointed his own Goebbels as an advisor.
Trump has repeatedly exhibited a thin skin, a manic desire for adulation and revenge on those who have slighted him and his disdain for fact or any difference of opinion. Bannon, with his detestation of anything other than the color white and his close ties to others who feed on the same poisonous fruit, is the perfect sycophantic companion for a very damaged man.
Sorry to bring Hitler into the discussion, but think it unavoidable. In the face of such overwhelming evidence, it would be unreasonable not to do so, kind of like denying gravity or even climate change.
There is nothing more frightening or dangerous than a loser handed great power, and that's what we face.
Pence fights to keep governor's emails private. Of course.
I concur with all those saying we must fight and start now. The DNC seem to be made up of the weakest politicians ever. Co-operation with the beast just gets Dems blamed for their policies. Co-operation, for the good of the country prevents voters from seeing how bad they really are. The con definition of bi-partisanship is "Dems cave". The Dem members of congress must not ameliorate the effects of this administration. Why can't they see what we can see? I agree and also said earlier, start demanding, where's the ACA repeal (please don't call it trumpcare and give him ideas), where's the beautiful wall, the deportation force for all undocumenteds, the jobs, tax cuts for all, ban on Muslims, nukes for Saudi Arabia, and I'm preaching to the choir and don't need to list them all. Start now and don't stop. I'm betting many of his voters, like the Bevan KY voters, are banking on him not implementing his promises. Well, tough. You've wished hard enough for what you want, so now you need to get it.
I disagreed with Matt Taibbi, I don't think the Dems were arrogant, I think they (we) underestimated the prejudice and ignorance of the electorate, and the effectiveness of the wildest lies throughout the election. I still hear people saying HRC murdered 92 people, and now the protests are all riots where lefties are shooting (victimisation) trumpoids. This is particularly dangerous, and will lead to Kent/Jackson State type crackdowns and diminution of human rights/free speech.
I somewhat agree with the Chait article, and like his head line. Now we have to play the long game, just for once, and work on redistribution, voter access, registration, ID's for those who need them, and undermine the cons relentlessly. As Chait infers, any "good" programs will contain enough that Dems can use as reasons, undoubtedly all valid, to vote against. The long game is, that if this administration can be normalised, and Dems apply analgesics to programs, voters will feel smugly justified in saying "there, that wasn't so bad". Bevan, KY, was a harbinger of this. People have to be shown, you can't vote for someone whose campaign promises you don't want implemented, ever again, because we will not rescue you. I know Dems still want to work for the good of the country, but with a christo-fascist Supreme Court, how's that going to work out? We still underestimate how disastrous the shrub's administration was and is for the world. Whenever Dems co-operate with a con regime, people suffer and die, the world becomes more dangerous and less liveable.
I don't care that the white working class racist men and their female counterparts have severe butt hurt. They'll resist modernization to the death. That kind of ignorance is not redeemable. I want the Democratic Party to move away from courting this group and toward exploring the potential of the 43% who didn't vote. Surely, the portion of the 43% required to win elections isn't insurmountable. The group that the Dems are so invested in capturing, are too stupid to see they've been mobilized in service to the task of increasing Republican wealth. They're completely expendable.
Relentless, relentless, relentless: redistricting, civil disobedience, and legal challenges to voter suppression and civil rights. Money support(subscriptions /donations) for the media that investigates and reports. NPR is a disgrace and no more donations from me.
I don't know about other RC commenters but I'm having a hard time finding my way out of the anger to thinking about how to strategically move forward.
Will the suffering of these poor victims never end?