Sunday Facepalm.

Civil rights icon Colin Kaepernick and President Donald Trump, composite image.

It’s another Trump Tantrum™. Apparently, the Tiny Tyrant thinks he’s still in reality teevee land…

“If a player wants the privilege of making millions of dollars in the NFL, or other leagues, he or she should not be allowed to disrespect…our Great American Flag (or Country) and should stand for the National Anthem,” President Trump tweeted.

“If not, YOU’RE FIRED. Find something else to do!” the President of the United States insisted.

This is not an episode of ‘The President’, dumbshit Donny. You can’t pretend fire anyone. You can’t fire them for real, either. The twit’s tweets can be seen here. Naturally, the Tiny Tyrant couldn’t leave things be with that level of blunder, oh no…

“‘Wouldn’t you like to see one of our NFL owners, when somebody disrespects the flag, say, ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field,’” Trump reportedly said at the rally. Kaepernick is not currently employed by any NFL football teams, as he was not drafted after his controversial bended-knee protests during the National Anthem last year.

You can read the full story and reactions here.

In the meantime, the NFL Players Union is standing firm:

Takeo Spikes, M.B.A: “How about all of us get together & say, “get that “son of a btch” out of the White House.” #FukingDotard.

And Colin Kaepernick’s mom had something to say too…

Teresa Kaepernick: “Guess that makes me a proud bitch!”

You can read all about that here.

Naturally, the Tiny Tyrant just can’t let it rest:

The Fucking Idiot: “Roger Goodell of NFL just put out a statement trying to justify the total disrespect certain players show to our country. Tell them to stand!” More on that one here.

I have a suggestion for you, Donny. Go fuck yourself.

Death Squads For The People Who Ruined America!

Society6.com

Ann Coulter is at it again, this time opining about the Tiny Tyrant’s apparent waffling on Dreamers. Ms. Coulter has solutions to the incredibly evil problem of treating other people with care, dignity, and respect.

Last week, Coulter appeared on the “Todd Starnes Show” to discuss Trump’s apparent willingness to betray his campaign promise to oppose programs like DACA, which is designed to protect people who immigrated illegally to the United States as children.

“We have made as clear as you can possibly make it, we want less immigration,” Coulter said. “Stop dumping the third-world on the country.”

Y’know, Ms. Coulter, the original inhabitants of this country weren’t too thrilled with your ancestors deciding to park their arses here. You could do the nice thing and leave.

She then claimed that Trump was elected into the White House because of his stance on immigration and bemoaned Trump’s recent mixed signals on the DACA program.

“If he continues down this path, well I guess there are three options. There’s the organizing the death squads for the people who ruined America, because there will be no more hope,” Coulter said.

Well, your ancestors ruined Turtle Island, so I don’t think you get to whine about “your amerika” getting ruined. So, your solution is to what? Get a committee of milk white people who have passed a genetic purity test to decide which degree of white is acceptable, and which degrees deserve death? I don’t think there’s enough shut the fuck up in the universe for you, Ms. Coulter. You mouth this shit without a second thought, in the middle of a struggle against fascism, without any thought of all the shite supremacists out there who might think that’s a mighty fine idea. Or perhaps you’re counting on that.

After some hesitation Coulter continued, “I guess the other possibility is to – well I don’t think anyone would mind him being impeached. What’s the faction opposing that? And then at least we’ll get Mike Pence. But in terms of saving America, maybe a third party.”

The Religious Reich would oppose impeachment, and they have more power than you do, Ms. Coulter. Oh, a third party! Who might that be, Paul Ryan? Zombie Hitler? I’m sure we’re all in suspense here.

Via RWW.

The Christian Extremists Behind Roy Moore.

Right Wing Watch has a comprehensive rundown of all those backing Roy Moore. In case you don’t remember Moore, here are two posts from last year, when Moore made a mess of his career at the time: one, two. Now that Moore is running for a senate seat, the religious reich is fervently backing him.

…Some better-known Religious Right groups, including the National Organization for Marriage and the Family Research Council, have recently gone all-in for Moore. He has also been getting serious financial support in the form of outside spending from groups like Ken Cuccinelli’s Senate Conservatives Fund and from Alabama activist Stan Pate, who has been funding ads attacking Strange.

And Moore has also quietly been getting support from some of his most extreme allies, who see him as a chance to give their Christian nationalists views the biggest megaphone yet:

Michael Peroutka is a local Republican politician in Maryland who has used wealth from a set of debt-collection businesses to bankroll Christian nationalist causes across the country, most notably by funding the career of Moore. Peroutka has funded Moore’s Christian nationalist ventures and political campaigns for decades; he gave Moore’s Senate campaign $2,500 in June and his wife Natalie gave the same amount in early August, each nearly maxing out on their individual contribution limit for the initial Republican primary.

Peroutka is a former member of the neo-Confederate League of the South—he quit when the association started to cause him trouble in his campaign for office. As recently as 2012, he was on video leading a League of the South gathering in a round of “Dixie,” which he calls the “national anthem”; in a 2004 speech to the group, he said he was “still angry” that Maryland didn’t join the Confederacy and said that his daughter had the nickname “Beth Booth,” as in “John Wilkes Booth.”

Peroutka, who runs a group called the Institute on the Constitution, advocates an extreme form of Christian nationalism, saying for instance that the Maryland legislature had ceased to be a legitimate governing body when it violated “God’s law” by passing a marriage equality bill. Last year, he presented on his theocratic view of the law to Operation Save America, an extreme anti-choice group that is trying to get government officials to defy laws on abortion rights and ultimately charge women who have abortions with homicide. (OSA has its own relationship with Moore, which we discuss below.) Along with his longtime support for Moore, Peroutka has helped to fund the campaigns of Tom Parker, Moore’s protégé on the Alabama Supreme Court, who has been trying to establish a legal framework for extreme anti-choice “personhood” laws.

Rusty Thomas, the head of the extreme anti-choice group Operation Save America, contributedjust over $200 to Moore’s campaign in three separate contributions in July and August. Although Thomas’ financial contribution is relatively small, he has been a stalwart ally to Moore throughout his tribulations on the Alabama Supreme Court.

In the summer of 2015, as Moore attempted to fight the Supreme Court’s landmark marriage equality decision, he accepted an award from OSA at the group’s gathering in Montgomery, telling them that “America is under attack” as it moves away from God and adding, “I’m sorry but this country was not founded on Muhammad. It was not founded on Buddha. It was not founded on secular humanism. It was founded on God.”

Moore responded to criticism of his association with OSA by saying: “You know, some told me ‘you know they’re a radical group.’ I said yeah. They are radical for God.”

Like Peroutka, Thomas and OSA promote the theocratic worldview that laws that they perceive to be ungodly are null and void. OSA’s main text for this belief is a book called “The Doctrine of Lesser Magistrates” by OSA activist Matt Trewhella, one of the anti-choice radicals who signed a statement in the 1990s declaring the murder of abortion providers to be justifiable homicide; in presenting the award to Moore in 2015, Thomas prayed that God would use him to “set an example for lesser magistrates throughout the United States of America that it’s time to say no to the federal beast!”

That’s just a little bit. There’s video, many links, and background on these supporters, including Anita and Mat Staver, Steve Hotze, Ken Eldred, and Eugene Delgaudio at RWW. I think a bit of fear is setting into the religious reich at this point, about how long they may have their stooge in office. Their efforts are seriously ramping up when it comes to getting as many religious reich fanatics as possible into government positions.

Silly College Kids, Voting Is Not For You!

Ann Coulter, who is part of a trifecta of evil speakers, will be at Berkeley this month, but right now, Ms. Coulter thinks it’s fine to rant away about how college students should not be able to vote.

On yesterday’s episode of the “Howie Carr Show,” Coulter vented about The Washington Post’s debunk of claims that massive voter fraud is taking place in New Hampshire; the Post found that many of the alleged fraud cases were actually out-of-state college students from casting legal ballots in New Hampshire.

Coulter first explained to Carr that she didn’t think students should be voting in states where they attend college if they don’t establish permanent residency in that state, but then said that it would be  “outrageous” for a college student to change her residency to her college town.

Oh right, you can’t manage to refute the WP’s finding, and you can’t manage any reasonable response, so the answer is “college kids shouldn’t be able to vote! they are too stupid brainwashed!” So, Ms. Coulter, why do you think it’s worth your time speaking at colleges, if it’s not an attempt to radicalize young people into being mindless ragebigots? That is the point, right? After all, you and Bannon and Yiannopoulos aren’t going to Berkeley to whip up a nice froth of hate just to be followed by a “hey, kidding! you’re too young and dumb to matter, thanks for the money, bye.”

On the social level, where humans in general lag way behind in forward movement, things tend to get better with each new generation. Each new generation tends to be more thoughtful, more mindful, more accepting, and more involved in what’s happening in their various worlds. Me, I think that’s a good thing. Us older folks, we have to be careful our brains don’t rust shut while we weren’t listening. It’s important to keep our brains and our viewpoints exercised, and I would never once consider stripping young adults of their right to vote, ffs, that’s barbaric. And damn stupid. Not to say it can’t be a challenge, listening to young people, but y’know, you need to remember that enthusiasm you had long ago before life pounded you into the ground a thousand times.

Coulter then reached the conclusion that “college kids shouldn’t be voting” at all.

“It’s just to get the results of 13 years of Chinese-style brainwashing,” Coulter said. “I don’t think that people should be able to vote until they’re 30.”

Yeah. Could this be retroactive? After all, if you want to strip years of voting eligibility away from young people, then all the voting you did for that 12 years, well, those need to be taken away. Let’s have decades of recounts! Then we could just fuck all the rules, and put certain people in office, or back in office, for periods of time. Fun, right? Calling this nonsense stupid is an understatement. Of course, given that Ms. Coulter is over 30, that makes things very convenient for her, doesn’t it?

Via RWW.

Movimento Brasil Livre Shuts Down Queer Art Exhibit.

Danillo Villa, “Fuck” (2016).

Conservative assholes everywhere are getting their way anymore. In this case, a bunch of conservative asshole libertarians got an art show shut down a month early.

Santander Cultural, a gallery space sponsored by the eponymous Spanish bank, decided to close Queermuseum after receiving an onslaught of vitriolic criticism on social media and from gallery visitors last week. People have accused the artwork of being offensive as well as harmful to children, citing blasphemy, pedophilia, and bestiality. One of Santander’s buildings was recently tagged with the phrases “the Santander Bank supports pedophilia” and “they are antichrists.” Behind these protests is the libertarian group Movimento Brasil Livre (MBL), which has gained traction throughout the country ever since it drew mass support of former President Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment. “Pedophilia, zoophilia, and the sexualization of children definitely do NOT represent the LGBT universe,” the group wrote earlier today on its Facebook page.

In an interview with Hyperallergic, Fidelis, the curator, said he hadn’t been consulted by Santander and was caught off-guard by its decision. According to Fidelis, during the 25 days that the exhibition had been up, there had been no complaints. It wasn’t until last Wednesday that members of MBL began infiltrating the exhibition, assaulting visitors, and taking videos of the exhibition and posting them to Facebook.

In one video, three men pan over the artworks, exclaiming, “See for yourself whether this is art!” Among the images they linger on are Adriana Varejão’s 1994 painting depicting gay and interracial sex and Antonio Obá’s “Et Verbum” (2011), where communion wafers are scrawled with words such as “vulva,” “tongue,” and “asshole.” “This guy should be in jail,” one of the men says, referring to Fidelis. “They are perverting the notions of family.” 

Amid intensifying online debate on Sunday, Santander announced on Facebook its decision to take down the exhibition. In the statement, it apologizes to those who felt disrespected and ultimately concludes that Queermuseum was “not in line with our view of the world.” Ironically, Santander critiques the exhibition, which celebrated marginalized artists, for not being “inclusive” and not “generating positive reflection.” The statement, which is worth reading in its entirety, is translated in full below: …

Fernando Baril, “Cruzando Jesus Cristo com Deusa Schiva” (1996) (photo by F.Zago Studio Z).

You can read all about this, and see more at Hyperallergic.

All Lives Splatter.

A Chelan County emergency services worker posted a disturbing joke to the county’s Facebook account, kidding about protesters being rammed three weeks after a Virginia protester was killed by a driver who did so.

The worker managing the county’s emergency services Facebook account posted a crude cartoon with an illustration captioned, “All lives splatter … nobody cares about your protest / Keep your ass out of the Road”

The as-yet unidentified poster included the note: “I don’t wish harm on anyone … but protesters don’t belong in the road!”

Mmm, you don’t wish harm on anyone, but you show a depiction of people being harmed because, “hey, it’s funny, and those libtards deserve it, lol!” I imagine if such was directed at you, emergency services worker, you wouldn’t find it so gosh darn amusing. I sure as fuck don’t. Handing J. Q. Public license to murder is not funny. It’s not funny that open murder is being written into law, because of course, dissent is evil, so you better do all your dissenting someplace legal, like your closet, where you can’t help to effect any change at all.

Chelan County Sheriff Brian Burnett apologized for the post on Monday, saying the non-commissioned employee intended to share it only on a personal account.

“Staff at Chelan County Emergency Management feel terrible that this inappropriate and hurtful post made it onto the Facebook page,” Burnett wrote in the news release. “Changes have already been made in procedure to assure nothing like this will ever occur in the future.”

Oh, and that makes it okay, does it, to change things so this sort of evil shit can’t make it to the official page? Naturally, having employees posting this vile poison on their personal accounts, that’s just dandy! Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think I’d want Chelan County emergency services anywhere near me. Your asshole employees would be just as prone to killing me as helping me, right, Sheriff Burnett?

In recent months, law enforcement workers around the country have been called out for posting the meme and similar statements.

A Slate examination of the trend in August – “Run Them Down”: Driving into crowds of protesters was a right-wing fantasy long before the violence in Charlottesville – highlighted three police officers and one firefighter who were caught urging vehicle attacks on protesters. One Oregon cop was fired for suggesting that drivers “push the right” pedal when facing Black Lives Matter protesters.

Pigs will be pigs, won’t they? This is what happens when cops shops refuse to hire intelligent people. This is what happens when cops shops happily hire white supremacists and assorted dumbshit bigots. Then gives them a license to be homicidal prickshits.

Via Seattle PI.

Sunday Facepalm.

Oh Kevin Swanson, the religious extremist’s extremist. He’s at it again, pouring down Jehovah’s wrath in the form of hurricanes, natch. Mr. Swanson has a solution to Hurricane Irma eating Florida, though!

Kevin Swanson declared on his radio program today that the Supreme Court should immediately reverse its Roe v. Wade and Obergefell decisions before God unleashes his judgment on America in the form of Hurricane Irma.

Swanson, who just last week said that Hurricane Harvey was the judgment of God on Houston, said that these “God-ordained disasters” are a warning to this nation to repent for its myriad of sins.

Now, Swanson said this on the 7th this month, and I have to say, it would be a fun experiment, if you could get the Supreme Court to say, okay, the law is suspended until such and such a date, and see if it would magically wither Irma. We all know it wouldn’t have the slightest effect, and the religious reich would claim that Jehovah got all sniffy ’cause it wasn’t a permanent reversal. Of course, it doesn’t take much to make Jehovah all sniffy and pissy.

“God is in control of what is going on,” he said, “and whether or not Irma is going to do $200 billion worth of damage in Miami … is all in the hands of God. Those winds are going to blow where they are going to blow, but they’re going to blow in the direction that God ordains them to go. Friends, God is in complete control and utter control of what is going on with these hurricanes.”

Well, the wind is gonna go where it goes, but Jehovah is in control, you betcha! So, that’s why Mar-a-Lago and other overblown McMansions of conservative assholes are right in the path, and that’s why we’re all getting taxed for the federal coverage of Pres. Pinchpork’s palace. So, one could go with the assumption that Jehovah isn’t upset about gay people, but conservative assholes. Unfortunately, Jehovah’s aim has always been notoriously bad, so a lot of good people are gonna get screwed over here, but Jehovah has never been one to care about ‘collateral damage’.

“The wrath of God against this nation is intense,” Swanson continued. “I wish that American leaders would sit up and pay attention … The Supreme Court of the United States needs to reverse Roe v. Wade and Obergefell now, this afternoon, before Irma does her damage. It would be a good thing if the Supreme Court of the United States understood that God is in control of these things and God is a personality and God is offended by the sins of this nation.”

Oooh, Jehovah is a personality. A psychopathic one. Yeah, I’m not shaking in my boots over your non-existent psychopath, Mr. Swanson. Climate change, on the other hand, there’s reason to be scared shitless.

Via RWW.

A New White Excuse: “I Was At Standing Rock!”

Courtesy Wind Over Fire Healing Arts Center/Facebook
A New Age “ghost dance” held in southwestern Minnesota has many indigenous people wondering just when the cultural appropriation will end.

White “aggrieved entitlement” people. They never seem to run out of excuses for their bloated sense of entitlement, of helping themselves to the least little thing; of exploiting marginalized peoples. It’s damn near a way of life for many white people. When it comes to “new age” rites, seems to me there’s a wealth of pagan history to mine, gosh, you might even find some you’re related to in some way.

Towards the later days at the No DAPL camp, I wasn’t quiet about all the entitlement-minded white people there, who had no use for the rules laid down by the people running things. Because of course, rules, they are never for white people are they? I wasn’t quiet about all the white protest/event tourists, either. People who were there to honestly provide support and help, no problem. As usual though, they weren’t the ones making a fuss or making it all about them, because they knew it wasn’t about them. They knew that in the end, they would go home, and not have to deal with it all.

In Minnesota, there’s a group who recently held their 2nd annual “Ghost Dance”. When called on this, they denied it was a ghost dance. They said it was a “Ten Moons” dance. Then they decided to go with “Ghost Dance isn’t exclusive to Indigenous people! Lots of cultures had ancestor dances! China! Africa! So it isn’t indigenous in nature.” Oddly enough, their not indigenous at all dance is decidedly indigenous in appearance, and specifically so. The history of the Ghost Dance is a dark one, once the colonials got terrified and started up more wholesale slaughter, and brutally oppressed indigenous peoples all the more out of fear. It’s not a toy for white people to play pagan. It’s not yours. It’s not your culture, it’s not your history. If non-indigenous people ever wonder why various rites and dances have been closed to outsiders, look no further.

“It would be great if everyone just joined together,” said Laven, discontented by the scrutiny of their ceremony and the charges of cultural appropriation. “We have enough crap. I was at Standing Rock, and I hear the Native Americans, and I had heard them.”

Oh my. What a fine example of white entitlement. There’s really nothing else like it. Golly, white people have had enough crap! It’s just like everything indigenous people have gone through! And now, Standing Rock is the latest excuse. Fuck you, Ms. Laven. A universe of fuck yous. You have not heard one godsdamn thing. You don’t give one little shit about indigenous people or their struggles. All you care about is exploiting them to make money. I hope you are bad-mouthed from here to the end of the galaxy, because that’s the very least of what you deserve.

Full story at ICTMN.

Yeah, about that Charlie Hebdo cover…

Mano Singham has a good post up about all the upset. As for me, this was my comment there:

Y’know, I don’t really see how this is different from noisy christian assholes saying ‘god’ was punishing Texas for having a gay mayor and allowing abortion. Yet that’s acceptable, and the mockery on the part of Hebdo isn’t.

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/kevin-swanson-hurricane-harvey-is-gods-judgment-on-houston-for-having-a-very-aggressively-pro-homosexual-mayor/

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/dave-daubenmire-hurricane-harvey-is-judgment-on-houston-for-abortion-and-having-had-a-lesbian-mayor/

They are saying it’s the victims’ fault, too. No one is yelling about that.

I can’t get all that worked up about the cover. Is it nice to mock victims of a not so natural (climate change) disaster? No. Are there lots of people in Texas, who while they may not be outright nazis, share many a view with them? Probably. Is the United States swirling down the drain of fascism fair game? Yeah, I think it is. When you’re presenting a HUGE fucked-upness on the world stage, you have to learn to take it now and then, and before reacting, at least give yourself a few moments for thinking.

I gave two examples of people who consider themselves to be patriots, conservatives, and christian. They are pointing their minatory finger, and that of Jehovah straight at Texas, and all those victims of the flood. Oh yes, goddidit, and it’s all their fault. They are unabashedly placing the blame on the victims, and yet, not even a whimper of protest, let alone a roar. Until all those fine, outraged Americans find enough spine to spit in the face of their fellow christians hollering judgment, I think you should sit down and be quiet. Look to home, and deal with all the assholes and wannabe terrorists right here. They are everywhere, all around you. Try to have something to say about that.

ETA: Oh, we have another fine example! Texas Secretary of State Rolando Pablos (R-TX):

Quebec’s Minister of International Relations Christine St-Pierre called Pablos to express her sorrow and condolences on behalf of the people of the Canadian province. She also offered equipment and manpower.

Pablos turned it down. Instead he asked for “prayers from the people of Quebec,” the minister relayed.

Understandably, the neighbor to the north was shocked.

“It was a conversation about how devastating the situation is and we want to express our support to the people of Texas,” she told CBC News in an interview.

Isn’t that just splendid, Americans? Goodness, how those republicans do look after your best interests. We deserve every drop of fucking mockery directed our way. Via Raw Story.

Targeting Twitter.

A man takes pictures of “hate tweets”, a part of the art project “#HEYTWITTER” created by Shahak Shapira, outside Twitter office in Hamburg, Germany August 4, 2017 in this picture obtained from social media. Youtube via REUTERS.

BERLIN (Reuters) – A German-Israeli artist who accuses Twitter of failing to delete hate speech tweets has taken matters into his own hands – by stencilling the offending messages on the road in front of the company’s Hamburg headquarters.

A post on video-sharing site YouTube showed Shahak Shapira and fellow activists stencilling tweets saying “Germany needs a final solution to Islam” and “Let’s gas the Jews” – clear references to the Nazi regime’s World War Two genocide of Europe’s Jews. [youtu.be/jzMTBINlLFU]

Shapira said he had reported some 300 incidents of hate speech on Twitter but had received just nine responses from the company.

“If Twitter forces me to see these things, then they should have to see it as well,” he said in the video, posted on Monday, describing the comments as violations of the social network’s community guidelines.

A very clever idea! You can read more about this at Reuters.

Adopt-a-Nazi (Not Really)!

In this Saturday, Aug. 12, 2017 file photo, white nationalist demonstrators walk into the entrance of Lee Park surrounded by counter demonstrators in Charlottesville, Va. (Credit: AP Photo/Steve Helber).

Leave it to lawyers to figure out a brilliant troll, which will help to fight hate and bigotry.

A group of Jewish lawyers in San Francisco has discovered a clever new way to fight white supremacy: adoption.

Of course, the Jewish Bar Association isn’t actually encouraging anyone to adopt or sponsor white supremacists. Instead, the group is asking the public to donate to its “Adopt-a-Nazi (Not Really)” GoFundMe campaign, which is being used to raise funds for the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a nonprofit legal advocacy organization that monitors hate groups across the country and litigates on behalf of marginalized groups. So far, the campaign has raised more than $92,000—far beyond its original goal of $10,000.

The strategy is simple: according to the GoFundMe page, donors are encouraged to give some amount of money for each of the 300 expected attendees at an upcoming “free speech” rally put on by the right-wing Patriot Prayer group at Crissy Field on August 26. Many of the attendees will likely be white nationalists or members of similar hate groups.

According to the Adopt-a-Nazi campaign, no donation is too small.

“Two cents per attendee is a $6 donation,” organizers wrote. “A dime is $30. Why not a quarter? That’s only $75.”

You can read more about this at Think Progress, or just head over to the fund to donate or share. Yep, I donated, and now I’m sharing. :)

White Supremacy: Just Background Noise.

Tucker Viemeister.

It’s a forlorn hope, that republicans might stumble over a conscience, discover their humanity and embrace that of others. It really does not seem to matter what the Tiny Tyrant does, there are those who will squink all over, in an attempt to cover over the massive piles of shit left in the wake of the Tiny Tyrant. As we have all been witness to, Trump gets worse, week by week, day by day.

As CNN noted on Friday, in the last four weeks alone, President Trump has fired chief strategist Steve Bannon, fired Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, hired and fired communications director Anthony Scaramucci, publicly shamed his own attorney general and Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, banned transgender troops via twitter, made up two phone calls, thanked Russian President Vladimir Putin for expelling American diplomats from the country, threatened nuclear war with North Korea, and defended attendees of a white supremacy rally.

And that’s not even half of it.

But Steve Cortes, a member of Trump’s Hispanic Advisory Council, said on Fox News Sunday morning that if Republicans just cut taxes, all of that will be background noise.

“Clearly, he had a tough week. There’s no way around that,” Cortes said.

“All presidents have tough weeks,” Cortes said Sunday. “I believe that will become background noise once we get taxes done, and once this economy starts growing the way it’s capable of.”

Yes, a tough week, brought on by the defense of fucking nazis being “fine people”. You opened your mouth, and Trump obligingly shit in it, and you decided to swallow it. Nice.

[…]

“The economy’s already accelerating. There’s a lot of optimism out there in the country,” Cortes said. “If we can throw tax cuts into the mix, I think this economy can absolutely take off, and then I think we’d see those poll numbers rebound very, very quickly for the president.”

There’s a lot of optimism out and about? Where? Oh, yes, in the crowds of nazis, sure. Everywhere else, not so much. Perhaps you should get outside once in a while. People are not optimistic about an idiotic, ignorant, maniacal bigot being in control of things, for a given value of control. People are not optimistic about not being nuked. People are not optimistic about not getting into yet another fucking war. People are not optimistic about bigotry being elevated to “great america” status. People are not optimistic about the blatant slaughter of all things which could help us avoid the worst disasters of climate change. People are not optimistic about the economy. The list goes on and on.

Rep. Dennis Ross (R-FL) made similar comments last week, telling Bloomberg that Trump’s comments about white supremacists were “frustrating” because he wanted to start focusing on tax reform.

“[It’s] very frustrating for those of us who want to start focusing on the issues ahead—tax reform, infrastructure, the debt ceiling,” Ross said. “I wished we would start focusing on those issues, and we need to start healing and bringing people together—instead of peeling back the scabs.”

Right. Your idea of tax reform is handing tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires, and you’ve made sure there are zero safety nets for everyone else. That will cheer everyone up for sure. You don’t start healing and bringing people together by announcing that nazis are “fine people” and everything was really the fault of those filthy liberals. The reason those scabs peel back so easily is that there is a massive wound underneath, still oozing blood, covered over, but certainly not healed. Healing does not take place by ignoring a wound. Now the Tiny Tyrant and his henchidiots, like you, Rep. Ross, have dumped toxic wasted in the wound, and you want to talk healing. Isolation, genocide, and subjugation are not things which heal. They do not unite. And those things are what you stand for, handwaving reality, because those people, they don’t actually matter to you.

Think Progress has the full story.