#puts ‘no Ronald Reagan as president’ in the fucking constitution

[dark-elf-writes]

Demond writing on the walls: DO NOT TRUST RONALD REAGAN. THE ECONOMICS DO NOT TRICKLE DOWN

———

intern accidentally finding this: what the fuck

The Isu spend years finding the perfect calculations to perfectly manipulate generations for the perfect person to save the world

Desmond has a partial high school education and years of being homeless to fuel his rage to make sure one man in particular doesn’t become president of a country that may or may not have been “discovered” yet.

Shaun sees that in his research and immediately grabs the nearest bottle of alcohol because how the actual hell would he have possibly know about the phrase “trickle down economics” much less to call a man out by name

[fuckyeahtx]

Letters From An American

Today in Fuck Abbott and the GQP Harder Than Ever Before Welcome to Fucking Gilead Edition

September 1, 2021

Heather Cox Richardson

Last night at midnight, a new law went into effect in Texas. House Bill 1927 permits people to carry handguns without a permit, unless they have been convicted of a felony or domestic violence. This measure was not popular in the state. Fifty-nine percent of Texans—including law enforcement officers—opposed it. But 56% of Republicans supported it. “I don’t know what it’s a solution to,” James McLaughlin, executive director of the Texas Police Chiefs Association, said to Heidi Pérez-Moreno of the Texas Tribune when Republican governor Greg Abbott signed the bill in mid-August. “I don’t know what the problem was to start with.”

Texas Gun Rights executive director Chris McNutt had a different view. He said in a statement: “Texas is finally a pro-gun state despite years of foot-dragging, roadblocks, and excuses from the spineless political class.”

The bill had failed in 2019 after McNutt showed up at the home of the Texas House Speaker, Republican Dennis Bonnen, to demand its passage. Bonnen said McNutt’s “overzealous” visit exhibited “insanity.” "Threats and intimidation will never advance your issue. Their issue is dead," he told McNutt. McNutt told the Dallas Morning News: "If politicians like Speaker Dennis Bonnen think they can show up at the doorsteps of Second Amendment supporters and make promises to earn votes in the election season, they shouldn't be surprised when we show up in their neighborhoods to insist they simply keep their promises in the legislative session.”

That was not the only bill that went into effect at midnight last night in Texas. In May, Governor Abbott signed the strongest anti-abortion law in the country, Senate Bill 8, which went into effect on September 1. It bans abortion after 6 weeks—when many women don’t even know they’re pregnant—thus automatically stopping about 85% of abortions in Texas. There are no exceptions for rape or incest. Opponents of the bill had asked the Supreme Court to stop the law from taking effect. It declined to do so.

The law avoided the 1973 Supreme Court Roe v. Wade decision protecting the right to abortion before fetal viability at about 22 to 24 weeks by leaving the enforcement of the law not up to the state, but rather up to private citizens. This was deliberate. As Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern explained in an article in Slate: “Typically, when a state restricts abortion, providers file a lawsuit in federal court against the state officials responsible for enforcing the new law. Here, however, there are no such officials: The law is enforced by individual anti-abortion activists.” With this law, there’s no one to stop from enforcing it.

S.B. 8 puts ordinary people in charge of law enforcement. Anyone—at all—can sue any individual who “aids or abets,” or even intends to abet, an abortion in Texas after six weeks. Women seeking abortion themselves are exempt, but anyone who advises them (including a spouse), gives them a ride, provides counseling, staffs a clinic, and so on, can be sued by any random stranger. If the plaintiff wins, they pocket $10,000 plus court costs, and the clinic that provided the procedure is closed down. If the defendant doesn’t defend themselves, the court must find them guilty. And if the defendant wins, they get…nothing. Not even attorney’s fees.

So, nuisance lawsuits will ruin abortion providers, along with anyone accused of aiding and abetting—or intending to abet—an abortion. And the enforcers will be ordinary citizens.

Texas has also just passed new voting restrictions that allow partisan poll watchers to have “free movement” in polling places, enabling them to intimidate voters. Texas governor Greg Abbott is expected to sign that bill in the next few days.

Taken together with the vigilantism running wild in school board meetings and attacks on election officials, the Texas legislation is a top red flag in the red flag factory. The Republican Party is empowering vigilantes to enforce their beliefs against their neighbors.

The law, which should keep us all on a level playing field, has been abandoned by our Supreme Court. Last night, it refused to stop the new Texas abortion law from going into effect, and tonight, just before midnight, by a 5–4 vote, it issued an opinion refusing to block the law. Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissent read: “The court’s order is stunning. Presented with an application to enjoin a flagrantly unconstitutional law engineered to prohibit women from exercising their constitutional rights and evade judicial scrutiny, a majority of Justices have opted to bury their heads in the sand.”

Texas’s law flouts nearly 50 years of federal precedents, she points out, but the Supreme Court has looked the other way. ”The State’s gambit worked,” Sotomayor wrote. She continued: “This is untenable. It cannot be the case that a state can evade federal judicial scrutiny by outsourcing the enforcement of unconstitutional laws to its citizenry."

The Supreme Court has essentially blessed the efforts of Texas legislators to prevent the enforcement of federal law by using citizen vigilantes to get their way. The court decided the case on its increasingly active “shadow docket,” a series of cases decided without full briefings or oral argument, often in the dead of night, without signed opinions. In the past, such emergency decisions were rare and used to issue uncontroversial decisions or address irreparable immediate harm (like the death penalty). Since the beginning of the Trump administration, they have come to make up the majority of the court’s business.

Since 2017, the court has used the shadow docket to advance right-wing goals. It has handed down brief, unsigned decisions after a party asks for emergency relief from a lower court order, siding first with Trump, and now with state Republicans, at a high rate. As University of Texas law professor Stephen Vladeck noted: “In less than three years, [Trump’s] Solicitor General has filed at least twenty-one applications for stays in the Supreme Court (including ten during the October 2018 Term alone).” In comparison, “during the sixteen years of the George W. Bush and Obama Administrations, the Solicitor General filed a total of eight such applications—averaging one every other Term.”

So, operating without open arguments or opinions, the Supreme Court has shown that it will not enforce federal law, leaving state legislatures to do as they will. This, after all, was the whole point of the “originalism” that Republicans embraced under President Ronald Reagan. Originalists wanted to erase the legal justification of the post–World War II years that used the “due process” and “equal protection” clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to apply the protections of the Bill of Rights to the states. It was that concept that protected civil rights for people of color and for women, by using the federal government to prohibit states from enforcing discriminatory laws.

Since the 1980s, Republicans have sought to hamstring federal power and return power to the states, which have neither the power nor the inclination to regulate businesses effectively, and which can discriminate against minorities and get away with it, so long as the federal government doesn’t enforce equal protection.

Today’s events make that a reality.

Worse, though, the mechanisms of the Texas law officially turn a discriminatory law over to state-level vigilantes to enforce. The wedge to establish this mechanism is abortion, but the door is now open for extremist state legislatures to turn to private citizens to enforce any law that takes away an individual’s legal right…like, say, the right to vote. And in Texas, now, a vigilante doesn't even have to have a permit to carry the gun that will back up his threats.

During Reconstruction, vigilantes also carried guns. They enforced state customs that reestablished white supremacy after the federal government had tried to defend equality before the law. It took only a decade for former Confederates who had tried to destroy the government to strip voting rights, and civil rights, from the southern Black men who had defended the United States government during the Civil War. For the next eighty years, the South was a one-party state where enforcement of the laws depended on your skin color, your gender, and whom you knew.

Opponents have compared those who backed the Texas anti-abortion law to the Taliban, the Islamic extremists in Afghanistan whose harsh interpretation of Islamic Sharia law strips women of virtually all rights. But the impulse behind the Texas law, the drive to replace the federal protection of civil rights with state vigilantes enforcing their will, is homegrown. It is a reflection of the position that Republicans would like women to have in our society, for sure, but it is also written in the laughing faces of Mississippi law enforcement officers Lawrence Rainey and Cecil Ray Price in 1967, certain even as they were arraigned for the 1964 murders of James Earl Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Henry Schwerner, that the system was so rigged in their favor that they would literally get away with murder.

When they were killed, Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner were trying to register Black people to vote.

[chamerionwrites]

[joanfontaine]

George Washington said "Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth."

John Adams said "The happiness of society is the end of government".

Thomas Jefferson said "That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves."

James Madison said "The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted."

James Monroe said "The best form of government is that which is most likely to prevent the greatest sum of evil."

John Quincy Adams said "Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost."

Andrew Jackson said " It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their selfish purposes."

Martin Van Buren said "The government should not be guided by temporary excitement, but by sober second thought."

William Henry Harrison said "But I contend that the strongest of all governments is that which is most free."

John Tyler said "Nature governs man by no principle more fixed than that which leads him to pursue his interest."

James K. Polk said "One great object of the Constitution was to restrain majorities from oppressing minorities or encroaching upon their just rights."

Millard Fillmore said "An honorable defeat is better than a dishonorable victory."

Franklin Pierce said "We have nothing in our history or position to invite aggression; we have everything to beckon us to the cultivation of relations of peace and amity with all nations."

James Buchanan said "The test of leadership is not to put greatness into humanity, but to elicit it, for the greatness is already there."

Abraham Lincoln said "If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong."

Ulysses S. Grant said "I have never advocated war, except as a means of peace."

Rutherford B. Hayes said "He serves his party best who serves the country best."

James Garfield said "A brave man is a man who dares to look the devil in the face and tell him he is a devil."

Chester Arther said "Men may die, but the fabrics of our free institutions remain unshaken."

Grover Cleveland said "Above all, tell the truth."

Benjamin Harrison said "The disfranchisement of a single legal elector by fraud or intimidation is a crime too grave to be regarded lightly."

William McKinley said "That's all a man can hope for during his lifetime—to set an example—and when he is dead, to be an inspiration for history."

Teddy Roosevelt said "To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."

William Howard Taft said "Politics, when I am in it, makes me sick."

Woodrow Wilson said "If you want to make enemies, try to change something."

Warren Harding said "America's present need is not heroics but healing; not nostrums but normalcy; not revolution but restoration."

Calvin Coolidge said "Character is the only secure foundation of the state."

Herbert Hoover said "Peace is not made at the Council table or by treaties, but in the hearts of men."

Franklin Delano Roosevelt said "Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education."

Harry Truman said "You can not stop the spread of an idea by passing a law against it."

Dwight Eisenhower said "There is nothing wrong with America that the faith, love of freedom, intelligence and energy of her citizens cannot cure."

John F. Kennedy said "If we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity."

Lyndon B. Johnson said "If government is to serve any purpose it is to do for others what they are unable to do for themselves."

Richard Nixon said "Always give your best, never get discouraged, never be petty; always remember, others may hate you. Those who hate you don't win unless you hate them. And then you destroy yourself."

Gerald Ford said "Truth is the glue that holds governments together. Compromise is the oil that makes governments go."

Jimmy Carter said "Our American values are not luxuries but necessities—not the salt in our bread, but the bread itself. Our common vision of a free and just society is our greatest source of cohesion at home and strength abroad—greater than the bounty of our material blessings."

Ronald Reagan said "We are a nation that has a government—not the other way around. And that makes us special among the nations of the earth."

George H. W. Bush said "I want a kinder, gentler nation."

Bill Clinton said "There is nothing wrong in America that can't be fixed with what is right in America."

George W. Bush said "Recognizing and confronting our history is important. Transcending our history is essential. We are not limited by what we have done, or what we have left undone. We are limited only by what we are willing to do."

Barack Obama said "Change will not come if we wait for some other person, or if we wait for some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek."

Donald Trump said "I did try and fuck her. She was married, I moved on her like a bitch, but I couldn't get there. And she was married. You know I'm automatically attracted to beautiful. I just start kissing them. It's like a magnet. Just kiss. I don't even wait. And when you're a star they let you do it. You can do anything.... Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything".

[cksmart-world]

The completely unnecessary news analysis

by Christopher Smart

Aug. 11, 2020

COPS GET OFF, PROTESTERS GET PRISON

Let's say you got angry. Real angry. The cops had shot and killed a young man who was running from them. Then the District Attorney ruled the shooting “justified,” because the young man had a gun. Let's say you got so mad that you and 200 like-minded folks protested and you threw red paint on the street outside the D.A.'s office and then on the building itself to symbolize the blood of the dead young man. Then, let's say the D.A., who had been under a lot of pressure for how he would rule on the shooting, kinda lost it and charged you and six other protesters with first-degree felonies, punishable by up to life in prison. Let's say the world looked upside-down: cops were getting off after a killing and protesters were going to jail. Let's say you had to sell your house and spend any savings you had on attorney fees to get the charges reduced to a third-degree felony. Let's say you were branded as a felon and whenever you applied for a job or tried to rent housing you carried the scarlet “F” that pretty much screwed up your entire life. Let's say Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill said that's justice. And let's say we then asked him, what the fuck, dude?

MAKEOVER: REAGAN AND TRUMP ON MOUNT RUSHMORE

Remember when Republicans deified Ronald Reagan and wanted his likeness on money, buildings, roadways and Mount Rushmore. Whatever happened to the Trickle Down Expressway and the Ketchup Is A Vegetable National Park? It's probably those damn Democrats who stood in the way on account of they were forever wounded when Cape Kennedy was returned to its original name, Cape Canaveral. Utahns were particularly enamored with Reagan and wanted to rename the Kennecott Copper Mine as The Ronald Reagan Pitt. But for reasons that aren't clear, Nancy Reagan didn't like the idea. Times change and now Donald Trump wants his due. He told South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem that he wanted his face on Mount Rushmore (we did not make this up). Recently, many of the thousands of Harley riders at the Sturgis (South Dakota) Motorcycle Rally wore T-shirts with Trump's likeness on Mount Rushmore between Teddy Roosevelt and Abe Lincoln above lettering: “In Trump We Trust.” The only problem is that there isn't much space between Teddy and Abe, so Trump's face is kinda squished so he looks like Marty Feldman who played the walleyed, hunchback Igor in the movie Young Frankenstein. It is what it is.

POOR PEOPLE DON'T NEED HEALTHCARE

There is nothing in the U.S. Constitution that says healthcare is a God-given right. That's among the reasons the Utah Legislature just cut $2.5 million for public health clinics that serve 13,000 uninsured low-income people. Bleeding-heart liberals are crying foul that those folks are left out in the cold while legislators have access to the best healthcare available. Maybe that' so, but those poor people chose to be poor, while our lawmakers chose to be righteous. After all, our legislative leaders have to balance the budget somehow in these troubled times — and after tax cuts, well what are you going to do? And don't start with that business about how Utah voters had to go it on their own to get Medicaid Expansion under the Affordable Care Act because Utah legislators refused to accept federal funding to underwrite healthcare for 150,000 low-income Utahns. Look, Republican lawmakers have their priorities and it's not supporting Marxism by providing healthcare to the Great Unwashed. We live under capitalism not socialism. If we give them healthcare, the next thing you know, they'll want affordable housing and education. Nowhere in the Constitution does it say that education is a guaranteed right. If poor people want those things, they should become rich. That's just how it works.

Post script — Well patriots, here we are in a limbo of boredom punctuated by periods  of white-knuckled fright. When some folks hear, “Black Lives Matter,” they freak out. “All lives matter,” they retort, as though someone was trying to steal something from them. “All lives matter,” they whine as if they, too, had suffered slavery and 400 years of systemic racism — only their predicament is somehow worse. “Blue lives matter,” they bark, grabbing up their guns and rushing out to protect police from protesters who want law enforcement to stop taking the lives of African Americans. Someone said that we have to go through these convulsions every 50 years to renew the blood supply to what eventually becomes anemic democracy. Talk about optimism. If you aren't so upbeat and feel a bit confused lately, you're not alone. Our stalwart and virtuous Congressman Chris Stewart is right there with you. “No one knows what is true anymore,” Stewart lamented as he straightened his tie and puckered up to embrace one of President Trump's 20,000 false or misleading claims since taking office on Jan. 20, 2017. “Our trust in the media has been destroyed because of their active deception,” Stewart declared. What a frowny-face. He apparently doesn't realize how swimmingly well things are going in Trumpworld: The economy is skyrocketing like never before. Covid-19 is disappearing faster than dinosaurs in a comet storm. And Beach Blanket Bingo is back. Unfortunately, Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello are nowhere to be found and people are dying (no pun intended) for some good news. So, here are some of the bright spots the staff here at Smart Bomb has identified: Joe Biden cannot hurt God. The NRA is doomed. Bill Barr was spotted riding a bicycle in a Speedo. (A spokesman for Barr said, not true, he never wears Speedos.) McDonald's fired its CEO and is suing him for have a sexual relationship with McRibs. And 103-year-old Dorothy Pollack from Muskegon, Mich., got her first tattoo — a green, spotted frog. Now if that doesn't bring a smile to your face, nothing will.

Alright Wilson, get the guys to put down the kumbacha and Pepto-Bismol and play us a little something to bring our spirits up. And please, — no belching or croaking:

Jeremiah was a bullfrog, he was good friend of mine I never understood a single word he said But I helped him drink his wine He always had some mighty fine wine, sing it Joy to the world, all the boys and girls now Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea And joy to you and me And if I were the king of the world I tell you what I would do I'd throw away the cars and the bars in the world And I'd make sweet love to you, sing it now

Joy to the world, all the boys and girls now Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea Joy to you and me

(Joy To The World - Hoyt Axton)

[teafortwo29]

White Men Asking Barack Obama to Lead the Resistance Need to Do the Work Themselves

Michael Arceneaux  10/20/17

Yana Paskova/Getty Images

In the final press conference of his presidency, Barack Obama reiterated that he would largely keep mum once his successor took office. “It is appropriate for him to go forward with his vision and his values,” Obama explained. However, that statement did come with a bit of a caveat.

For Obama, there would be “certain issues or certain moments where I think our core values are at stake��� that might “merit me speaking out,” he said. Those issues included “systematic discrimination being ratified in some fashion,” “explicit or functional obstacles to people being able to vote,” “institutional efforts to silence dissent or the press” and “efforts to round up kids who have grown up here and for all practical purposes are American kids and send them somewhere else.”

Of course, all of these things have happened—yielding statements from Obama on issues relating to immigration, climate change, and healthcare.

Still, this has not been enough for many who are understandably drowning in the misery of this administration—one spearheaded by a terribly erratic aspiring tyrant whose only real consistency since taking office is to dismantle the accomplishments of his predecessor, the man whose citizenship he questioned to gain political legitimacy.

In recent weeks, more men—notably white ones—have publicly called on former President Obama to play a larger role in the resistance of his successor. They want him to go further than he has—and forgo the tradition of former presidents taking a more apolitical stance after leaving public office—because citizens are suffering under the most atypical president in American history.

Among such men are Charles Pierce, whose work I greatly admire and who just this month wrote for Esquire that while Obama has more than earned his time of leisure ...

[T]he country is burning down at the moment, literally and figuratively. A concerted effort being made to obliterate all the achievements of his eight years in office is one or two timorous votes away from succeeding. We’re lurching toward war on the Korean peninsula, and there’s one natural disaster after another being dropped on a government that is half-staffed at best and being run by fools and lunatics in any case. Race and class and gender and all the other national wounds are being inflamed purposefully in the hopes that nobody will notice that the institutions of American democracy are unable to cope with the simple fact that the American people elected, yes, a fucking moron.

Those institutions are not capable of withstanding these assaults much longer without cracking.

... and Robert Kuttner, co-founder and co-editor of the American Prospect, who, in a piece for HuffPost titled, “Missing in Action: Barack Obama,” also published in October, claimed:

But the part that especially attracts Trump’s hatred is anything that Obama accomplished.

Some of these policy reversals are so unpopular even among Republicans that Trump has punted the issue of the Dreamers and the proposed Iran reversal to Congress. That way, Trump can signal his own hatred for anything Obama did but rely on Republican legislators to save sensible policy.

So, where, you might ask, is Barack Obama, as his legacy and his most important accomplishments are being systematically dismantled? Well, at last report he was in Brazil, offering a totally unremarkable set of platitudes to a corporate audience.

The common characteristic of those who heard it was that they could afford to pay upwards of a thousand bucks a ticket.

And then there was another piece published this month at HuffPost from former presidential candidate and election-2000 spoiler Ralph Nader, who, in an essay titled, “Obama: Too Cool for Trump’s Crises,” had this to say:

Obama could, for example, work to strengthen civic groups and help substantially to create new organizations to address urgent needs (such as averting wars); he could back opposition to Trump’s destructive policies that are running America into the ground while shielding Wall Street and the dictatorial corporate supremacists whose toadies Trump has put into high government positions.

Obama is a big draw and can raise hundreds of millions of dollars faster than most. Furthermore, he has the unique ability to fill the void the mass media is desperately looking to fill by serving as a counterweight to Trump. Hillary, hawking her latest book, doesn’t fit the bill here.

Instead, Obama, besides raising funds for his presidential library (about $1 billion), is getting press primarily for being paid $400,000 or more per speech before Wall Street and other big-business audiences.

The fact that Kuttner and Nader take issue with Obama’s doing what many modern presidents have done after leaving office is a curious critique, especially because they are essentially asking him to forgo amassing a fortune in order to clean up another mess made by white supremacy.

And yet, when Obama was treated to unprecedented amounts of hostility from the political right, neither Kuttner nor Nader came to his defense. I recall Nader claiming that Obama was worse than former President George W. Bush and dubbing him a “war criminal.” Years before that, Nader called Obama an “Uncle Tom for the giant corporations.” But suddenly, Nader now is repeatedly calling on Obama to be his hero.

Kuttner may not have employed hyperbole and slurs to criticize Obama, but he certainly did criticize him on health care and on trade, and he wrote an entire book dismissing his presidency based on a failure to live up to progressive standards that those who paid arguably closer attention to the campaign never saw candidate Obama promise to live up to.

Obama is not above criticism. I didn’t like his excessive use of drones, either. Nor did I care for his health care plan not including a public option. Obama had a lot of legislative accomplishments in the beginning of his term, but those who believe that he squandered other opportunities or sometimes caved into Republicans too easily—assuming that they would behave in kind—have a point.

Obama has a lot to do with the fact that the Democratic Party nationally was weak from an organizational front when it came time for the 2016 presidential election, which would have been the burden of any nominee. And he sure should have said a lot more about Russia’s role than he did.

There are other complaints, but most of all, I loathed the way he talked to black people: a paternalistic, admonishing and often condescending tone that he never duplicated with white folks.

That said, people like me spoke about the racism in which Obama’s administration was often entangled—while two of these exhausting, self-righteous, progressive white men feigning moral clarity did not.

Charles Pierce did, but his error mirrors those of others who want Obama not only to jump in with “the resistance” but also to lead it: Obama is not that guy.

Obama is not “too cool” for the resistance, but he is incapable of delivering the sort of messaging required of it. Look no further than his return to the campaign trail in New Jersey for Phil Murphy, the Democratic candidate for governor of New Jersey, and Sheila Oliver, who is running to be his lieutenant governor. Obama did not mention Sweet Potato Saddam by name, but he did speak about the tone on which his political ascension has been built. To the cheers of an adoring crowd in Newark, Obama claimed:

Some of the politics we see now we thought we’d put that to bed. That’s folks looking 50 years back. It’s the 21st century, not the 19th century.

Fifty years? George W. Bush won in 2004 in part by fanning the flames of homophobia and then-majority anti-marriage-equality sentiments. Bush also won by an outside group pathetically distorting John Kerry’s service in Vietnam. Before that, he won in 2000 thanks to the Supreme Court and his brother—Jeb!—suppressing black votes in the state of Florida.

Before that, his father won his presidential election in part because of a racist campaign ad crafted by Lee Atwater, the racist behind the inherently racist Southern strategy. And before that, Papa Bush served with racist Ronald Reagan, the “welfare queen” stigma slinger, who originally promised to “Make America great again.”

Obama knows this, but as he illustrated in his 2004 Democratic National Convention speech, he chooses to see America differently even when it rubs its racism directly in his face.

That’s why it was frustrating to hear Obama also say in Newark:

You cannot complain if you didn’t vote; you did not exercise the power the Constitution gives us that people fought for. This is entirely under your control. If you don’t like how things are going, you gotta vote.

Many of us who are black are turned away from the polls. It is no coincidence that the first black president was succeeded by a demagogue who fanned long-stemming racial tensions in America in the first election to take place after the gutting of the Voting Rights Act.

Speaking about Obama’s appearance in New Jersey, a senior adviser to Obama told Time magazine:

It’s in no one’s interest—including the former president’s, the Democratic Party’s, or the country’s—for President Obama to become the face of any resistance or the party. Instead, he is creating the space for leaders in the party to craft the best path forward that will make our country better.

Obama believes in America’s mythology too much to lead the resistance anyway. Obama, as Tressie McMillan Cottom brilliantly articulated in The Atlantic last December, has a misguided faith in white America.

Funny enough, while Obama delivered the political equivalent of the same old two-step, former President George W. Bush also criticized the 45th president without saying his name. Bush, however, did say something more direct:

Our identity as a nation, unlike other nations, is not determined by geography or ethnicity, by soil or blood. ... This means that people from every race, religion, ethnicity can be full and equally American. It means that bigotry and white supremacy, in any form, is blasphemy against the American creed.

The son of a political dynasty that largely owes itself to white supremacy and bigotry condemning it now is a bit comically ironic, but ultimately, much of what is happening now is related to white supremacy and the desperate clinging to maintaining the status quo. White people are so desperate to protect whiteness and maintain the societal hierarchy, they voted for a ding-dong with the intellectual curiosity of roadkill.

I wish Barack Obama would say that with his platform, but he won’t. He believes in the institutions despite the fact that 45 has gone above and beyond to show on what they were founded and on what they continue to thrive.

Obama is performing within his capability. It’s time for people to measure their expectations accordingly, to set their projections aside and to see him for the man he’s always been.

He is not anyone’s mule. Obama remains the anomaly; it’s white men who have the monopoly on power.

If white men see the country burning, they need to look inward regarding how to fix it. After all, this is all a mess of their making anyway.

As it’s always been.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Here's the weirdest, scariest stuff Trump said at today's 'I’m not ranting and raving' meltdown

Xeni Jardin:

“Peace through strength,” Donald Trump said to reporters today in a rambling, aggressive, monologue news conference that lasted nearly about an hour and a half. Trump rattled on in circular patterns about plans to “build and rebuild” the “great” military and law enforcement. He dodged questions on Flynn, Obamacare, leaked reports of turmoil within the administration, and expressed outrage at being questioned repeatedly about “this whole Russia scam that you guys are building so that you don’t talk about the real subject which is illegal leaks.”

“Russia is a ruse,” Trump said, several times.

I have nothing to do with Russia. Haven’t made a phone call to Russia in years. Don’t speak to people from Russia. Not that I wouldn’t. I just have nobody to speak to. I have nothing to do with Russia. To the best of my knowledge no person that I deal with does.

It's real bad, guys. And it can absolutely get worse.

Here is the full transcript of Donald J. Trump's remarks to the press earlier today, Thursday, Feb. 16, 2017. He is currently the President of the United States of America. I read the whole thing and watched all hour and 53 minutes of the video, so you wouldn't have to, and I highlighted the most terrifying stuff and have pasted it here with my deep thoughts. Hold me. I'm legit terrified.

There were some doozies. Here were the sections of the rambling monologue, which went on for about the duration of a feature motion picture, but was far more terrifying than anything I've ever seen at the movies.

Snip:

The press has become so dishonest that if we don’t talk about, we are doing a tremendous disservice to the American people. Tremendous disservice. We have to talk to find out what’s going on, because the press honestly is out of control. The level of dishonesty is out of control.

And then, good cop.

[T]he media is going through what they have to go through too often times distort - not all the time - and some of the media is fantastic, I have to say - they’re honest and fantastic.

But much of it is not a - the distortion — and we’ll talk about it, you’ll be able to ask me questions about it. But we’re not going to let it happen, because I’m here again, to take my message straight to the people. As you know, our administration inherited many problems across government and across the economy. To be honest, I inherited a mess. It’s a mess. At home and abroad, a mess. Jobs are pouring out of the country; you see what’s going on with all of the companies leaving our country, going to Mexico and other places, low pay, low wages, mass instability overseas, no matter where you look. The middle east is a disaster. North Korea - we’ll take care of it folks; we’re going to take care of it all. I just want to let you know, I inherited a mess.

Poor me.

Now, on to a rarely-heard sotto voce dogwhistle to white supremacists. This part's all about The Blacks and The Mexicans, aka The Illegals, who are responsible for everything bad.

We’ve ordered the Department of Homeland Security and Justice to coordinate on a plan to destroy criminal cartels coming into the United States with drugs. We’re becoming a drug infested nation. Drugs are becoming cheaper than candy bars. We are not going to let it happen any longer.

The next part is what I like to call, "I had all of their albums before you even heard of them":

We have had great conversations with the United Kingdom, and meetings. Israel, Mexico, Japan, China and Canada, really, really productive conversations. I would say far more productive than you would understand.

They’ve spread like cancer. ISIS has spread like cancer - another mess I inherited. And we have imposed new sanctions on the nation of Iran, whose totally taken advantage of our previous administration, and they’re the world’s top sponsor of terrorism, and we’re not going to stop until that problem is properly solved. And it’s not properly solved now, it’s one of the worst agreements I’ve ever seen drawn by anybody. I’ve ordered plan to begin building for the massive rebuilding of the United States military. Had great support from the Senate, I’ve had great from Congress, generally.

We’ve pursued this rebuilding in the hopes that we will never have to use this military, and I will tell you that is my - I would be so happy if we never had to use it. But our country will never have had a military like the military we’re about to build and rebuild. We have the greatest people on earth in our military, but they don’t have the right equipment and their equipment is old. I used it; I talked about it at every stop. Depleted, it’s depleted - it won’t be depleted for long. And I think one of the reason I’m standing here instead of other people is that frankly, I talked about we have to have a strong military.

We have to have a strong law enforcement also. So we do not go abroad in the search of war, we really are searching for peace, but its peace through strength.

Next, again with the boasting about vote counts:

I put it out before the American people, got 306 electoral college votes. I wasn’t supposed to get 222. They said there’s no way to get 222, 230’s impossible.

270 which you need, that was laughable. We got 306 because people came out and voted like they’ve never seen before so that’s the way it goes. I guess it was the biggest electoral college win since Ronald Reagan. In other words, the media’s trying to attack our administration because they know we are following through on pledges that we made and they’re not happy about it for whatever reason.

And - but a lot of people are happy about it. In fact, I’ll be in Melbourne, Florida five o’clock on Saturday and I heard - just heard that the crowds are massive that want to be there. I turn on the T.V., open the newspapers and I see stories of chaos. Chaos. Yet it is the exact opposite. This administration is running like a fine- tuned machine, despite the fact that I can’t get my cabinet approved.

A fine-tuned machine.

Next, yep, that's right, “Trump's Fucking Wall,” as former Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto calls it:

And the wall is going to be a great wall and it’s going to be a wall negotiated by me. The price is going to come down just like it has on everything else I’ve negotiated for the government. And we are going to have a wall that works, not gonna have a wall like they have now which is either non-existent or a joke.

Now for an attack on the Judicial branch of the Federal Government.

The court system has not made it easy for us. And are even creating a new office in Homeland Security dedicated to the forgotten American victims of illegal immigrant violence, which there are many. We have taken decisive action to keep radical Islamic terrorists out of our country. No parts are necessary and constitutional actions were blocked by judges, in my opinion, incorrect, and unsafe ruling. Our administration is working night and day to keep you safe, including reporters safe. And is vigorously defending this lawful order.

Next, a resentful mishmosh and something I don't fully understand about 'extreme vetting.' Also, basically: fuck you indigenous people and libtards, that fucking pipeline is happening.

Extreme vetting will be put in place and it already is in place in many places.

In fact, we had to go quicker than we thought because of the bad decision we received from a circuit that has been overturned at a record number. I have heard 80 percent, I find that hard to believe, that is just a number I heard, that they are overturned 80 percent of the time. I think that circuit is — that circuit is in chaos and that circuit is frankly in turmoil. But we are appealing that, and we are going further.

We’re issuing a new executive action next week that will comprehensively protect our country. So we’ll be going along the one path and hopefully winning that, at the same time we will be issuing a new and very comprehensive order to protect our people. That will be done sometime next week, toward the beginning or middle at the latest part. We have also taken steps to begin construction of the Keystone Pipeline and Dakota Access Pipelines. Thousands and thousands of jobs, and put new buy American measures in place to require American steel for American pipelines. In other words, they build a pipeline in this country, and we use the powers of government to make that pipeline happen, we want them to use American steel. And they are willing to do that, but nobody ever asked before I came along. Even this order was drawn and they didn’t say that.

This part makes me wonder if Paul Manafort is out of a job?

To drain the swamp of corruption in Washington, D.C., I’ve started by imposing a five-year lobbying ban on White House officials and a lifetime ban on lobbying for a foreign government.

Next, The Affordable Care Act. The only people who use “Obamacare” are lazy no-good non-white drug rape monsters.

Obamacare is a disaster, folks. It is’s disaster. I know you can say, oh, Obamacare. I mean, they fill up our alleys with people that you wonder how they get there, but they are not the Republican people our that representatives are representing.

So we’ve begun preparing to repeal and replace Obamacare, and are deep in the midst of negotiations on a very historic tax reform to bring our jobs back, to bring our jobs back to this country. Big league. It’s already happening. But big league.

Next, is this a threat that Trump SCOTUS nominee Gorsuch will become a Supreme Court judge, "or else"? Nice Judiciary system you got there, shame if something were to happen to it.

And one more thing, I have kept my promise to the American people by nominating a justice of the United States Supreme Court, Judge Neil Gorsuch, who is from my list of 20, and who will be a true defender of our laws and our Constitution, highly respected, should get the votes from the Democrats. You may not see that. But he’ll get there one way or the other. But he should get there the old-fashioned way, and he should get those votes.

The Q&A that followed was bonkers. Trump attacked the press throughout the Q&A. This is -- what is there to even say about this insanity? He's on a new offensive.

QUESTION: I just want to get you to clarify this very important point. Can you say definitively that nobody on your campaign had any contacts with the Russians during the campaign? And on the leaks, is it fake news or are these real leaks?

TRUMP: Well the leaks are real. You’re the one that wrote about them and reported them, I mean the leaks are real. You know what they said, you saw it and the leaks are absolutely real. The news is fake because so much of the news is fake. So one thing that I felt it was very important to do — and I hope we can correct it. Because there’s nobody I have more respect for — well, maybe a little bit but the reporters, good reporters.

Next, Wikileaks:

I have nothing to do with Russia. I told you, I have no deals there, I have no anything. Now, when WikiLeaks, which I had nothing to do with, comes out and happens to give, they’re not giving classified information. They’re giving stuff — what was said at an office about Hillary cheating on the debates.

Which, by the way, nobody mentions. Nobody mentions that Hillary received the questions to the debates. Can you imagine — seriously — can you imagine if I received the questions? It would be the electric chair. OK, he should be put in the electric — you would even call for the reinstitution of the death penalty, OK?

Next, an off-the-cuff remark by Trump about Jeff Zucker, the head of CNN, whom one could say made Trump newly famous with the television show, “The Apprentice.”

QUESTION: Thank you very much, and just for the record, we don’t hate you. I don’t hate you.

TRUMP: OK.

QUESTION: So, pass that along —

TRUMP: Ask — ask Jeff Zucker how he got his job. OK?

Next, hacking.

I don’t want to be hacked. And we did that. And you have seen that they tried to hack us and they failed. The DNC did not do that. And if they did it, they could not have been hacked. But they were hacked and terrible things came in. And, you know, the only thing that I do think is unfair is some of the things were so — they were — when I heard some of those things I picked up the papers the next morning and said, oh, this is going to be front page, it wasn’t even in the papers.

Again, if I had that happen to me, it would be the biggest story in the history of publishing or the head of newspapers. I would have been headline in every newspaper. I mean, think of it. They gave her the questions to a debate and she — and she should have reported herself.

Also during the question and answer period, a reporter asks Trump about his failure to address even one of the dozens of anti-Jewish hate attacks that have taken place since Trump took power.

TRUMP:...he said he was gonna ask a very simple, easy question. And it’s not, its not, not — not a simple question, not a fair question. OK sit down, I understand the rest of your question.

So here’s the story, folks. Number one, I am the least anti- Semitic person that you’ve ever seen in your entire life. Number two, racism, the least racist person. In fact, we did very well relative to other people running as a Republican — quiet, quiet, quiet.

See, he lied about — he was gonna get up and ask a very straight, simple question, so you know, welcome to the world of the media. But let me just tell you something, that I hate the charge, I find it repulsive.

I hate even the question because people that know me and you heard the prime minister, you heard Ben Netanyahu (ph) yesterday, did you hear him, Bibi? He said, I’ve known Donald Trump for a long time and then he said, forget it.

So you should take that instead of having to get up and ask a very insulting question like that.

Next, Trump engages in tone policing, and goes completely off the rails.

You know what it is? Here’s the thing. The public isn’t — you know, they read newspapers, they see television, they watch. They don’t know if it’s true or false because they’re not involved. I’m involved. I’ve been involved with this stuff all my life. But I’m involved. So I know when you’re telling the truth or when you’re not. I just see many, many untruthful things.

And I’ll tell you what else I see. I see tone. You know the word “tone.” The tone is such hatred. I’m really not a bad person, by the way. No, but the tone is such — I do get good ratings, you have to admit that — the tone is such hatred.

I watched this morning a couple of the networks. And I have to say, Fox & Friends in the morning, they’re very honorable people. They’re very — not because they’re good, because they hit me also when I do something wrong. But they have the most honest morning show. That’s all I can say. It’s the most honest.

But the tone, Jim. If you look — the hatred. The, I mean, sometimes — sometimes... (...) And the hatred and venom coming from his mouth; the hatred coming from other people on your network.

Now, I will say this. I watch it. I see it. I’m amazed by it. And I just think you’d be a lot better off, I honestly do. The public gets it, you know. Look, when I go to rallies, they turn around, they start screaming at CNN. They want to throw their placards at CNN. You know.

I — I think you would do much better by being different. But you just take a look. Take a look at some of your shows in the morning and the evening. If a guest comes out and says something positive about me, it’s — it’s brutal.

Now, they’ll take this news conference — I’m actually having a very good time, OK? But they’ll take this news conference — don’t forget, that’s the way I won. Remember, I used to give you a news conference every time I made a speech, which was like every day. OK?

No, that’s how I won. I won with news conferences and probably speeches. I certainly didn’t win by people listening to you people. That’s for sure. But I’m having a good time.

Tomorrow, they will say, “Donald Trump rants and raves at the press.” I’m not ranting and raving. I’m just telling you. You know, you’re dishonest people. But — but I’m not ranting and raving. I love this. I’m having a good time doing it.

But tomorrow, the headlines are going to be, “Donald Trump rants and raves.” I’m not ranting and raving.

Go ahead.

Chilling.

https://boingboing.net/2017/02/16/holy-shiyat-he-crazy.html

[cynfinnegan]

102 Ways to Piss Off Republicans

1. A Liberal wrote the Pledge of Allegiance. 2. Jesus healed the sick and helped the poor for free. 3. Joseph McCarthy was an unamerican, witch hunting pussy. 4. Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee were traitors. 5. The South lost the Civil War.  Get the fuck over it. 6. The Founding Fathers were liberals. 7. Fascism and political correctness are right-wing traits. 8. Sarah Palin is a fucking idiot. 9. The Earth is round. 10. Reagan raised taxes on the middle class and working poor eleven times as President.

11. Reagan legalized abortion as Governor of California. 12. Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency. 13. Ronald Reagan supported gun control. 14. Global warming is real. 15. Republicans hate illegal immigrants, unless they need their lawns mowed or their houses cleaned. 16. The military is a government-run institution, so why do Republicans approve the defense budget? 17. The Cold War might be over, but the Soviet Union still exists.  Ask Putin. 18. Paying taxes is patriotic. 19. Republicans: Peddling the same failed economic policies since 1880. 20. The Republican Party began as a liberal party. 21. The previous President’s full name is Barack Hussein Obama, and he was born in the United States of America. 22. George W. Bush held hands and made out with the King of Saudi Arabia.  So does Trump. 23. President Obama saved the American auto industry, while Republicans wanted to destroy it. 24. Hate is not a Christian virtue. 25. Jesus was a liberal. 26. Republicans spend MORE money than Democrats. 27. Tea parties are for little girls, not political parties. 28. Public schools educate all children; private schools are for indoctrinating rich children. 29. The Constitution is the law, NOT the Bible. 30. Sharia law doesn’t exist in the United States of America. 31. The first law of Sharia is "OBEY THE LAWS OF THE LAND YOU LIVE IN." 32. President Obama was NOT a Muslim. 33. Corporations are NOT people. People are people. 34. Fox News isn’t real news; it’s just a racist, sexist, hateful, right-wing propaganda machine. 35. The Federal Reserve was a Republican idea. 36. Women are equal citizens who deserve equal rights. 37. Women control their own bodies. 38. Abortion is a relevant medical procedure.  Just ask Rick Santorum's ex-girlfriends. 39. Please, for fuck sake, use spell-check. 40. It’s “pundit”, not “pundint”. 41. Social Security is solvent through 2038. 42. Health care is a right, not a product. 43. Roe v. Wade was a bipartisan ruling made by a conservative leaning Supreme Court. 44. G.O.P also stands for Gross Old Perverts. 45. The donkey shouldn’t be the Democratic mascot because Republicans are the real jackasses. 46. Barack Obama ordered the killing of Osama Bin Laden. It took him two and half years to do what Junior Shrub couldn’t do in eight. 47. Waterboarding IS torture. 48. 9/11 happened on George W. Bush’s watch, therefore he did NOT keep America safe. 49. Republicans invaded Iraq for oil, so Iraq should be allowed to invade Texas to get it back. 50. Separation of church and state is in the Constitution.  It’s called the First Amendment. 51. Muslims are protected by the Constitution, just as much as Christians are.  Get the fuck over it. 52. Barack Obama was the first African-American President, get over it. 53. The Oval Office is NOT a “whites only” office. 54. America is a nation of immigrants; therefore, we are ALL anchor babies. 55. The white race isn’t disappearing, it’s evolving. 56. God is a particle. 57. Evolution is real. 58. The Earth is 4.54 billion years old, not 6,000. 59. The Founding Fathers did not free the slaves, though James Madison tried to. 60. The Revolution was NOT fought over slavery. 61. Paul Revere warned the Americans, NOT the British. 62. Federal law trumps state law. 63. The Civil War WAS about slavery, not states' rights. 64. Corporations care more about profits than they do about people. 65. Getting out of a recession requires government spending. 66. Glenn Beck is a nut-job. 67. Republicans: Paranoid since 1932. 68. Republicans don’t want to pay for your birth control, but they want you to pay for their Viagra. 69. Republicans actually NEED Viagra.  They can't get their dicks up otherwise. 70. Fox News is owned by an Australian and has a Saudi prince as an investor. 71. Republicans complain about immigrants taking American jobs, then freely give American jobs to foreigners overseas. 72. Republicans hate communism, so why do they refer to themselves as red states? 73. Labor unions built this country. 74. Republicans hold America hostage as a political strategy; the temper tantrum throwing kind of political strategy. 75. Jesus was a JEW, not a Christian. 76. When Republicans see black, they attack. 77. Inside every Republican is a Klansman or a Nazi waiting to bloom. 78. Republicans only care about children BEFORE they are born.  After that, they're fucked. 79. Republicans are hypocrites, they’re just too stupid to know it. 80. The Christian Right boycotts movies that have violence, and then promotes guns and insurrection. 81. I think, therefore I am NOT a Republican. 82. Republicans who oppose gay marriage are most likely in the closet themselves. 83. Churches should stay out of politics, or be taxed. 84. People are too poor to vote Republican. 85. Democrats think for themselves, Republicans form think tanks to do it for them. 86. Republicans hate education because they couldn’t hack it in school. 87. Greed is one of the seven deadly sins and Republicans wallow in it. 88. A little liberalism on the Left is far better than a little fascism on the Right. 89. The current corporate tax rate is the lowest in 60 years, so stop whining about it being too high. 90. Republicans: Anti-Gay Marriage, Pro-Lesbian sex.  Just ask Melania's former porn co-stars. 91. Republicans: Terrorizing the American people since 1981. 92. Republicans have their own terrorists.  Just look up Timothy McVeigh or Dylann Roof. 93. Republicans love outsourcing American jobs to Communist countries.  Just ask the Chinese and Putin's Russia. 94. The Republican answer to the oil spill was to apologize to BP, a foreign oil company. 95. Democrats will be working hard to bring jobs to Americans, while the Republicans tea bag each other in the middle of the aisles. 96. Voter disenfranchisement is immoral and un-American; that’s why Republicans do it. 97. Republicans would let your house burn down unless you pay them to put it out. 98. Democrats want to take care of the sick. Republicans take their credit cards and then deny them medical attention. 99. Republicans say teachers are union thugs, then proceed to rape and mug the entire middle class on behalf of corporations. 100. Republicans think rape isn’t a crime, but miscarriages are. 101. Republicans are morons, and arguing with them is a waste of time! 102. Government spending was at its SLOWEST since the Eisenhower administration while Obama was POTUS.  Now it's gone as insane as Trump.

Bottom line? If you want to piss off a conservative, TELL THEM THE TRUTH.