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Hello Widdershins! It’s been a while since we had an actual Activist Tuesday. Given the flywheel o’crazy that is constantly churning in DC, we could use a few outlets for our frustration, tears and anger.
Here are some things you can do!
Marching:
We the People March – September 21, 2019 (this Saturday!)
Giving:
Official Donation Site for the Bahamas after Hurricane Dorian
Volunteering:
Onward Together – pick an organization!
That’s it for now folks. Tawk amongst yerselves – this is an open thread!
- In: 2020 Election | Donald Trump | Government | Human Rights | Immigration | Trumplandia
- 43 Comments
[Note: For those who want to help the people in the Bahamas post-Dorian, here are some resources for you.]
Last week, there was a development in the Mango Moron’s war on immigration that was almost impossible to believe. The participants in the Medical Deferred Action program, children who need serious medical help to live, were, without notice, told that their status was not going to be renewed and that they had 33 days to get out of the country. If they stayed past that deadline, they would be deported.
For many of these children, that would be a death sentence. The cruelty could not be borne, and the outrage swelled throughout the country. The cries were so loud that even that waxy-eared orangutan masquerading as President blinked, hooted and threw some Twitter feces, and then began to amend the policy.
Here was Rachel Maddow’s reaction when he did.
How did this unimaginable horror happen in the first place? For the answer, we need to look through the clarifying lens of white supremacy.
We Live in Onion Times
Posted on: August 21, 2019
Let’s never normalize what is going on with the Mango Moron, okay? He is full-on batsh*t crazy, and that’s no exaggeration.
Here are the stories we’re living through as I write this.
No one will sell Drumpf Greenland, so he’s not going to Denmark.
Jews are disloyal and un-American if they vote Democratic.
Rep. Rashid Tlaib is violent and crazy, but worst of all – WORDS!
The Onion could not make any of this up, but sometimes I feel it did.
This is the openest of threads.
Good morning, Widdershins. What a horrific weekend we all had in America, as the two mass shootings in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio created twin waves of terror both locally, and throughout the United States. We grieve desperately for the victims and their loved ones and, once again, our sense of safety “outside” is eroded bit by bit, day by day.
If only these were the first, or last, of these mass shootings in our country. According to CBS News, there have been more than one per day since January 1, 2019.
As of Sunday, which was the 216th day of the year, there have been 251 mass shootings in the U.S., according to data from the nonprofit Gun Violence Archive, which tracks every mass shooting in the country. The Gun Violence Archive defines a mass shooting as any incident in which at least four people were shot, excluding the shooter.
The toll of 251 mass shootings include five high-profile rampages in the past eight days, in which more than 100 people were shot [bolding mine]:
*A shooting in a historic district of Dayton, Ohio, with 9 people killed and 27 injured.
*A shooting at Walmart in El Paso, Texas, with 20 people killed and 26 wounded. It was the deadliest shooting of the year.
*A shooting at the Gilroy Garlic Festival in the San Francisco Bay Area, with three people killed and 15 injured.
*A shooting at a Brooklyn block party, with one person killed and 11 injured.
*A shooting at a Walmart in Southaven, Mississippi, with two people killed and two injured.
As an ENTJ, I deal with my feelings through thinking. Figuring out how we can stop this from happening is my way of processing these senseless and terrible attacks. I hope, then, you will indulge me as I go step-by-step through the conclusions that led me to the title and point of my post.
Conclusion 1: White supremacy is now a national security threat, and white supremacists are terrorists. Since most shootings are carried out by white men with white supremacist views, we need to start treating white supremacy like other terrorist ideologies and organizations. This means not only prosecuting white supremacists as domestic terrorists, but also shutting down the forums where they organize online.
The big picture: In addition to the El Paso shooter, extremist killers from the deadly attacks on two mosques in New Zealand and a San Diego-area synagogue previewed their acts of terror on 8chan. “Once again a terrorist used 8chan to spread his message as he knew people would save it and spread it,” said founder Fredrick Brennan, who stopped working with the site’s current owners in December. “The board is a receptive audience for domestic terrorists.”
Many experts agree that domestic terrorism is inspired by white supremacy, including the head of the FBI, Christopher Wray – who, ironically, was appointed by the Nazi-in-Chief, Der Drumpfenfuhrer. And speaking of that feces-throwing orangutan squatting in the Oval Office…
Conclusion 2: With their racist words and constant talk of violence against immigrants and other people of color, Drumpf and the Republicans are encouraging white supremacy, and are therefore enabling domestic terrorism. As I wrote in October of 2018, after the attacks on the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh:
I am writing today’s post with tears in my eyes and fury in my heart. For over three years now, we’ve seen the horrific evil of the worst of America become ascendant, and the media deliberately turn a blind eye to it; in fact, we’ve seen them refuse to call it by its name.
Let’s be very, very clear. The modern Republican party, once home to noble public servants like Abraham Lincoln and Dwight D. Eisenhower, has become a refuge for the most deplorable sub-human creatures that ever crawled upon the surface of the earth.
There is no longer any difference between Republicans and Nazis.
It is taking a long time for the realization to percolate through our culture, but this weekend we are seeing the political world begin to focus its wrath on the people who deserve it. Writes the incomparable Jennifer Rubin in the Washington Post:
For decades now, Republicans have insisted mass murders with semiautomatic weapons are not reflective of a gun problem. I can no longer comprehend how such a ludicrous assertion is remotely acceptable. But in one sense they are right: It’s not merely Republicans’ indulgence of the National Rifle Association that puts Americans’ lives in jeopardy; it is the support and enabling of a president that inspires white nationalist terrorists — and even denies white nationalism is a problem.
[snip]
…we are awash in hate crimes and white nationalist-inspired mass murders. We have a president whose words inspire and bolster perpetrators of these heinous acts. That makes Trump not only a moral abomination, which no policy outcome can offset, but a threat to national security. Those encouraged by his words in recent years kill more Americans than Islamist terrorists. If that is not justification for bipartisan repudiation of this president and removal from office at the earliest possible moment I don’t know what is. Those who countenance and support this president for his white-grievance mongering are not merely “deplorable” but dangerous.
As I write this, Democrats have taken to the airwaves and Twitter to demand #MoscowMitch recall the Senate and put the gun control measures the House passed FIVE MONTHS AGO to a vote. (Note: McConnell has allegedly fractured his shoulder. If true, thoughts and prayers, Mitch.) For those who have been yelling at Nancy Pelosi for months saying she isn’t doing enough and her strategy sucks, she was right all along. This is EXACTLY how to win against the Rethugs and Drumpf. Show your priorities. Show that you keep your promises. And if you don’t get your way, show the contrast between your actions and those of the Rethugs. Which leads me to my final conclusion…
Conclusion 3: Spend your time on voter registration efforts before the 2020 election. For far too long, there has been a “bothsides” epidemic on gun control. The truth is, when Democrats are in charge, we get legislation like the assault weapons ban in 1994; when Republicans are in charge, we get the overturning of the assault weapons ban, the loosening of laws against mentally ill people getting access to guns, open carry laws…the list goes on and on. This obvious truth has been obscured by a psy-ops campaign against the American people, led by the NRA and its enablers (now including Russia, as we know!).
In 2020, we need to both keep the House, and take the Senate and the Presidency. The Republicans’ white supremacist-enabling inaction on gun control is literally killing hundreds of thousands of people, both at the border and here at home. Let’s do our best to make sure everyone votes blue next November. Our lives depend on it.
This is an open thread.
- In: Breaking News | Congress | Donald Trump | Kremlin Klan | Open Thread
- 81 Comments
At long last, Widdershins, we will hear Robert Mueller’s words today. Here are some reactions across the mediaverse.
Vox states that Mueller will be asked about Attorney General Barr, and how he handled both the report and the investigation.
Al Franken has 19 choice questions he would ask Mueller. I still can’t believe how he got railroaded out of office. What an effective Senator he was…we miss you Al!
The LA Times thinks Mueller’s testimony should be a call to action for Congress. The twist? It’s not a call to impeach, but a call to legislate against the gross liberties Drumpf has taken with our democratic norms and conventions. That’s a ten-four from me…we need to make sure no one does this again, EVER.
Most people are united in saying that even if Mueller says absolutely nothing beyond what is in the report, he will be extremely impactful to those who haven’t read it.
What do YOU think? This is an open thread.
Our media is shocked, shocked! at the Mango Moron’s latest disgusting attacks on the four female JDs who are women of color. Fainting couches all over the country are groaning under the weight of all the privileged doyens and doyennes of the press who have not previously been able to admit that he is a dyed-in-the-wool, white-hood-wearing, white supremacist-loving, LEGAL immigrant-hating RACIST.
It’s no longer something they can avoid. Saith the Charlotte Observer:
“Go back where you came from” is among the worst of racist tropes. It divides us by ethnicity and skin color. It says that even if someone is a citizen or legal immigrant, they are not part of the rest of us. That runs contrary to who we should be as Americans, and if Donald Trump didn’t know it when he typed the words, he surely did later when people responded with appropriate outrage. But the same president who referred to Haiti and African nations as “shithole countries” and said African visitors would never “go back to their huts” once again doubled down on his racism.
It’s dangerous, destructive behavior, and at the least every Republican lawmaker in Congress should declare as much about their president’s outburst…
(snip)
….the Republican Party is firmly Donald Trump’s party now. It’s the party where insults and other ugliness are just being “rough around the edges.” It’s the party where locking legal migrants in crowded, unhealthy cages is acceptable immigration policy. It’s the party where it’s OK to say racist things so long as the next jobs report is encouraging.
Many people have written about Drumpf’s long, long, LONG history of racism, and I won’t go over the obvious here…but I will say, it’s encouraging to see at least some of the media using the correct words to describe him. And the snowball will keep rolling down the hill after the Democrats censure him, perhaps as early as tomorrow.
The text of the resolution, which is sponsored by freshman Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-N.J.), obtained by The Hill “strongly condemns President Donald Trump’s racist comments that have legitimized and increased fear and hatred of new Americans and people of color by saying that our fellow Americans who are immigrants, and those who may look to the President like immigrants, should ‘go back’ to other countries.”
In my opinion, Drumpf has gone too far now. Back in the days before he began squatting in the Oval Office like a feces-throwing orangutan, he, and his enablers in the media, could still pretend his oh, so very white voters were motivated by “economic anxiety.”
But not any more. Not after ripping children from their parents at the border; not after putting human beings in conditions that would make the Nazis proud; not after trying to ban legal entry to this country by Muslims and to end legal asylum protections for Central Americans; not after declaring immigration a national emergency while ignoring climate change and the real national security threats posed by Russia, Saudi Arabia and North Korea.
No, if you are voting Republican now, you’re voting racist. There’s no way of avoiding that realization and that condemnation.
It’s too bad they didn’t listen to Hillary now, isn’t it?
This is an open thread.
And so are his friends.
On Saturday, billionaire financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was arrested for the alleged sex trafficking of dozens of minors in New York and Florida between 2002 and 2005. In a criminal indictment unsealed Monday, federal prosecutors claimed that Epstein lured underage girls, some as young as 14, to his luxurious homes in Manhattan and Palm Beach under the guise of paying them cash for massages. He then molested them and encouraged them to recruit other young girls to return with them. The victims who returned with new victims were paid a finder’s fee.
“In this way, Epstein created a vast network of underage victims for him to sexually exploit, often on a daily basis,” the U.S. Attorney’s office said in a statement.
Lest we forget, this is what Drumpf said about Epstein in 2002:
“I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy. He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it — Jeffrey enjoys his social life.”
Can you not hear the sleaze dripping from his voice as he says this? The nasty, pedophiliac drool? Oh yes. He knew exactly what that overprivileged piece of shit was doing to children.
That brave woman, E. Jean Carroll, told her story and was basically ignored by the media; not because they didn’t believe her, but because they did. We all know that gob of orange goo in the White House is a sexual predator. That is one of the many, many, MANY reasons we were all so devastated after Election Day in 2016; the knowledge that tens of millions of Americans actually voted for a known sexual predator instead of the most qualified candidate for President in the history of our country, because they hate women and all people of color. White people all across this country made that decision with eyes wide open. And now we are reaping the whirlwind as more and more of the pResident’s men are starting to get caught committing horrible sexual crimes.
People like Jeffrey Epstein are Donald Trump’s friends. People like Alex Acosta are his enablers. Trump’s Attorney General William Barr has recused himself from the Epstein case (for a reason that doesn’t pass the smell test). These are just the most recent “best people” Republicans are fine with keeping in power, but there are oh, so many more.
I just have to ask: what moral compass is being used here? If you’re a Republican, do you think raping children is better or worse than separating them from their parents and putting them in concentration camps? Is raping children better or worse than letting them be killed in school shootings nearly every day? Is raping children better or worse than taking clean air, food and water away from them?
This terrible travesty of an administration has caused us to ask these horrifying questions, to compare and weigh the many cruelties visited on children and to wonder, how can anyone be okay with this? Even more dreadful, it has caused us to answer that question thus: that Republicans will put up with anything to stay in power. It doesn’t matter who gets raped, as long as it isn’t them.
Here’s to truly draining the swamp in 2020. May we make it so that all the slimy sexual predators, like Jeffrey Epstein, William Barr, Alex Acosta and so many others, are sent to prison, along with their Cheeto-hued chief.
And may we make America, finally, a safe place for our women and children.
This is an open thread.
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