George Washington Kept His House, So…

By Martin Falbisoner - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.

By Martin Falbisoner – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.

Oh, the excuses for allowing Trump to violate the constitution keep coming in, each stupider than the last. The latest from Tom Cole (R-OK) is that George Washington kept his house while serving as president, so it’s all good, you betcha. Has anyone told Donny he has to give up his gold-plated apartment? No. Has anyone said Donny can’t manage his personal residences? No. The hypocrisy of republicans continues to float over everything, as their lies and excuses get weaker and weaker.

While ethics expertswarn not divesting will likely create an unconstitutional conflict, Congressional Republicans are apparently not concerned.

Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK) said on Wednesday that he does not think Trump needs to disentangle himself. “To be fair to him, he’s not a guy who made his money out of doing business with the government, particularly,” he observed.

Cole added that he thinks Trump’s team is “trying to be careful,” because “opponents will try to put the worst aspersions” on anything he does. “I don’t expect the family to get out of a family business, for goodness sake. I mean, you read much history, George Washington was still pretty active in managing Mount Vernon when he was president of the United States.”

Washington’s Virginia estate was hardly comparable to Trump’s self-proclaimed $10 billion portfolio.

Think Progress has the full story.

The Swamp? It’s the New Agenda.

Swamp Thing, DC Comics.

Swamp Thing, DC Comics.

Trump yakked a lot about lobbyists, and “draining the swamp”, all of it bullshit, of course. Trump’s a toxic Swamp Thing, and he’s going to have help in building and managing the swamp.

On Wednesday, however, two key Trump campaign advisers announced they would form a “full service government relations and political consulting firm” in Washington, “just a block from the White House” at 1717 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW.

Corey Lewandowski, who served as Trump’s first campaign manager and was also paid by CNN to advocate for Trump on the air, will join with senior campaign adviser Barry Bennett to launch the firm. Their mission, Lewandowski revealed, would be supporting Trump’s agenda.

“After considering multiple opportunities within the administration,” Lewandowski wrote, he determined he can best help Trump “outside the formal structure of government.” He added that for Trump to succeed, it is “necessary to have strong, organized outside groups who can help ensure the President-elect’s agenda is achieved.”

But rather than launch a political advocacy non-profit, the two have opted to launch a “government relations firm.” The firm’s website makes clear that it plans to provide “client-tailored strategy and guidance carefully designed to help our clients navigate our government.” In other words, using their access to the new administration to make sure the President-elect’s agenda includes the priorities of their clients.

As Mother Jones noted, back in February Lewandowski denounced lobbyists as willing to say or do anything to preserve “backroom deals,” and vowed that if Trump won, “people who’ve made a very, very good living by controlling politicians through their donations and making sure they get the legislation done — or not done — in Washington, DC to best benefit their clients” would find their days of influence “coming to an end.”

Or not.

Looks like lobbying is just going to be re-branded. Swamping? Perhaps Trumping, as that would most likely serve the extreme narcissist the best. This is open corruption, and they don’t care even a little. Think Progress has the full story.

Goosestepping Along…

CREDIT: Fox News screengrab.

CREDIT: Fox News screengrab.

Gee, just one post ago, I was commenting on how the constitution will glaringly highlight the hypocrisy of conservatives. Didn’t take long for blowhard Bill O’Reilly to jump onto the white supremacy ship. And I just don’t want to think about all the small-minded conservatives who are going to drink the poison kool-aid with nary a thought.

On Tuesday night, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly embraced white nationalism, criticizing minorities and liberals for trying to strip power from “the white establishment.”

“The left wants power taken away from the white establishment,” O’Reilly said, “They want a profound change in the way America is run. Taking power away from the white precincts is the quickest way to do that.”

O’Reilly was reacting to renewed criticism of the Electoral College after Donald Trump was officially enshrined as president-elect. Trump won the Electoral College vote on Monday despite losing the popular vote to Hillary Clinton by 2.9 million votes. Clinton received 48.2 percent of the votes, compared to 46.1 percent for Trump.

[…]

“Newspapers like the New York Times and LA Times have editorialized to get rid of the Electoral College,” O’Reilly said. “They well know that neutralizing the largely white, rural areas in the Midwest and South will assure liberal politicians get power and keep it… the left sees white privilege as an oppressive force that must be done away with.”

Hypocrisy, writ large and flaming, right there. The shameless dirty tactics and gerrymandering the republicans indulged in this election, to block people of colour from voting, and finding ways to conveniently lose those votes, why that was perfectly okay, yessir! There’s never any wrong as long as it’s amoral conservatives doing it, then it’s just dandy, fine, and of course it isn’t an unethical, illegal, sleazy thing to do, oh no. I’ll let The Cursing Hedgehog express my feelings about this one:

tuhina_en

Full story at Think Progress.

Oh, The Constitution.

1-frqzk1ykisd5_y33q_l9eg

The Constitution. My feelings about it? Fuck the constitution. That superannuated paen to the rich and the immoral should have been scrapped long ago, and been replaced with something progressive and relevant. The very worst of people worship that ragged document, twisting it to support evil ideologies and actions; much like people with their holy books of myths (for the hard of thinking, yes, that includes the bible). Gun fondlers adore it, as do all manner of right wingers. Republicans routinely mouth off about their constitution love, and how great and grand it is, etc. It isn’t grand. It isn’t great. It’s a document of its times, put together in the flush of a successful genocide, by wealthy, bloodthirsty men, who weren’t overly concerned with moral or ethical behaviour. You can, of course, see the appeal to republicans, but more than anything else right now, the constitution highlights the abject hypocrisy of all conservatives.

Republicans are always the first to scream “constitution!” whenever there’s something proposed which they don’t like, and they are always the first to search for the tiniest of constitutional violations in the case of someone they find appalling, like President Obama. The conservatives went lunatic fringe, searching for anything which could constitute a violation, so they could oust him from office. Now, the pres-elect will be violating the constitution in the same manner he violated a very long line of women, but who wants to bet the republicans will be zealously pursuing those violations with an aim to impeach? I don’t imagine I’ll have any takers on that bet. I’d be willing to say they are going to find every gorram excuse in the book to absolve Donny in all the violations, and with that, they will demonstrate how little they actually care about that supposedly hallowed document.

What kind of nation allows the loser of a national election to become president — and then does it again 16 years later?

What kind of nation retains an electoral process that was originally designed to inflate the influence of slaveholders?

What kind of nation permits its Congress to write a time bomb into law that periodically forces rival factions into a game of chicken that could wreck the world economy?

What kind of nation fights a civil war over the question of whether people of African descent are people or property, and then looks the other way when the loser ignores the resolution of that war? What kind of nation waits until 1965 to guarantee black people’s right to vote?

Americans speak of our Constitution as if it were a religious text. To label a law “unconstitutional” is not simply to say that it violates some procedural rule or legal technicality, it is to label it fundamentally unAmerican. To do so is to question the values of any lawmaker despicable enough to support such a law, and to suggest that those values are at odds with who we are as a nation.

But our Constitution has not served us nearly as well as we would have been served by other systems adopted by our peer nations. Nor has it lived up to the expectations of its drafters.

Now, our country is facing a man of superlative ignorance. A racist. An admitted sexual assaulter of women. A man poised to violate the Constitution the very instant he takes the oath of office. A man who openly encouraged Russia’s efforts to usher him into the White House. A man who owes his election to the underhanded efforts of deep state actors within our nation’s internal police agency. A man who lost the popular vote by nearly 3 million votes. And the Constitution has placed this man in the White House.

The Constitution gave Donald Trump command of the world’s most powerful military and an nuclear arsenal that can eradicate all life on Earth. It let him name a racist as our nation’s top enforcer of its laws. It let him use his office to sell hotel rooms to foreign diplomats. The Electoral College has voted. Trump will be our next president. This is what the Constitution hath wrought.

It did this because our Constitution remains the product of a compromise with moral monsters who believed that human beings could be owned as property. It did this because our Constitution offers no guarantee, or even much in the way of likelihood, that the men and women elected to lead the country will share the preferences of the nation as a whole. It did this because our Constitution fosters voter ignorance. It did this because our Constitution can be gamed — and was gamed quite successfully by the Republican Party.

Emphasis mine. And right there is exactly what the constitution means to conservatives: a means to get their way, to make sure fascism comes marching in, wrapped in a flag and carrying a bible. Nothing is sacred to conservatives, nothing at all. Well, no, a couple of things are sacred to conservatives: the state of their wallet, and the power to oppress and destroy other people.

The full story is at Think Progress, a highly recommended read.

ETA: It seems that even those republicans who might have spoken out are now too overcome by fear to do so. Ain’t fascism fun?

ETA: It’s begun, let’s write special laws, and Donny can just pardon people as he goes along!

Fuck every single person who has brought us to this, and fuck all those who will stand by silently, letting it happen.

Merry Christmas! You’re Fired.

161220083513-christmas-grinch-780x439

General Motors: GM announced Monday that it will lay off 1,300 workers at a Detroit plant. The workers make the Chevy Volt, in addition to the Chevy Impala and Buick LaCrosse.

Those job cuts are in addition to 2,000 other GM (GM) employees who will lose their jobs within a month.

Boeing: Layoffs are nothing new for Boeing in 2016 — the company has already fired thousands as demand for jumbo jets slumps. But Boeing (BA) told employees Monday it will continue to cut jobs at its commercial airplane unit in 2017, citing fierce competition with rival Airbus and a drop in new orders.

Airbus also told its labor unions in November that it was cutting around 1,200 jobs.

GoPro: The action camera company announced plans last month to lay off 200 workers. That comes after it laid off more than 100 employees in January.

Many of the latest job cuts come as GoPro (GPRO, Tech30) plans to shut down its entertainment unit. That group was responsible for featuring videos shot on GoPro’s action cameras.

Xerox: The company is splitting in two before the end of the year, and company President Jeff Jacobson says layoffs are coming — even though the point of the split was to stem the company’s sales slide.

He declined to say how many will be let go, but the 39,000 employees at Xerox’s (XRX) legacy copier business are most likely to be impacted.

Caterpillar: After laying off 10,000 employees last fall, Caterpillar (CAT) said last week that it will issue another round of pink slips.

The construction giant didn’t say how many jobs will be cut, but it said it will try to place as many as possible in new jobs at the company. A post-recession rebound has proved difficult for Caterpillar. Its forecast for the coming year is pretty dour.

The Limited: The clothing store told all 248 employees at its Ohio home office that their jobs are in jeopardy. Earlier this month, the company said on an earnings call that it is looking for cash to keep the company alive, and it might have to shutter stores.

Ho Ho Fucking Ho. And people think Trump is going to magically fix this? The man who handed Carrier millions upon millions so they can automate people out of their jobs? Dream on, as you fall into poverty.

More bad news here: Trump ignores Indiana factory relocating to Mexico.

Via CNN.

Pressure. (Updated.)

From left to right: Trump International Hotel, President-elect Trump, Ambassador of Kuwait Salem Al-Sabah, The Four Seasons Hotel CREDIT: AP/Flickr/Composite.

From left to right: Trump International Hotel, President-elect Trump, Ambassador of Kuwait Salem Al-Sabah, The Four Seasons Hotel CREDIT: AP/Flickr/Composite.

The Embassy of Kuwait allegedly cancelled a contract with a Washington, D.C. hotel days after the presidential election, citing political pressure to hold its National Day celebration at the Trump International Hotel instead.

A source tells ThinkProgress that the Kuwaiti embassy, which has regularly held the event at the Four Seasons in Georgetown, abruptly canceled its reservation after members of the Trump Organization pressured the ambassador to hold the event at the hotel owned by the president-elect. The source, who has direct knowledge of the arrangements between the hotels and the embassy, spoke to ThinkProgress on the condition of anonymity because the individual was not authorized to speak publicly. ThinkProgress was also able to review documentary evidence confirming the source’s account.

In the early fall, the Kuwaiti Embassy signed a contract with the Four Seasons. But after the election, members of the Trump Organization contacted the Ambassador of Kuwait, Salem Al-Sabah, and encouraged him to move his event to Trump’s D.C. hotel, the source said.

Kuwait has now signed a contract with the Trump International Hotel, the source said, adding that a representative with the embassy described the decision as political. Invitations to the event are typically sent out in January.

[…]

Less than two weeks after that event, Politico reported that Bahrain, another Middle Eastern monarchy, would host its National Day reception at the Trump hotel on December 7.

Congressman Jim McGovern (D-MA) harshly criticized the Bahrain event, writing in a letter to Trump that he should “reject all business income from the Bahraini monarchy and all other foreign governments.” McGovern wrote that Trump’s “private commercial dealings with a repressive governments” endanger the fundamental principle that the president will “act solely in our country’s interests.”

The Republic of Azerbaijan also recently co-hosted a Hanukkah party at the Trump hotel, despite the anti-Semitic undertones of the Trump campaign. Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, blasted the decision as “tone deaf at best, naked sycophancy at worst.”

Smaller countries like Kuwait, Bahrain, and Azerbaijan may perceive patronizing the Trump Hotel as an easy way to gain access and favor with the incoming Trump administration.

And there’s the tone of the new administration, as corrupt as could possibly be. I’m not altogether sure why conservatives aren’t in a tizzy over this, perhaps they feel this is just normal rich guy privilege, or they are hoping to get a slice of the fat pie. It’s a free for all now, whoever manages to toss a bit of money and flattery Trump’s way will get whatever they want. Today’s mood: I want off this ship before it sinks all the way down.

Full story at Think Progress.

UPDATE: Pressure on Kuwait to move event to Trump hotel a ‘paradigm impeachable offense’.

Inauguration “Opening Day”.

CREDIT: AP Photo/Evan Vucci.

CREDIT: AP Photo/Evan Vucci.

The day after his inauguration, a group of people with enough money will have the chance to hang out with President Donald Trump and even get to go hunting with his sons.

That’s according to a draft invitation obtained by TMZ for an “Opening Day” reception on January 21 at the Washington Convention Center. The event will “celebrate the great American tradition of outdoor sporting, shooting, fishing, and conservation,” and the highest sponsors (those shelling out $1 million and $500,000) will receive a private reception and photo opportunity with Trump, as well as a “multi-day hunting and/or fishing excursion” with Donald Trump Jr. and/or Eric Trump.

Both Donald Jr. and Eric have been actively involved with the Trump transition, and Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway has indicated it’s still possible they might have positions in the West Wing. This is despite the fact that Trump has indicated they will manage his business while he’s President.

This is only the latest example of access to the Trump family — and thus his administration — being for sale. Ivanka Trump, who is considering moving to DC and possibly even serving as de-facto First Lady, recently attempted to auction off a coffee date for $500,000 through CharityBuzz, but it was abruptly canceled after many questioned the ethics of so blatantly selling special access to the first family. According to the Trump Organization, they decided to hold off on the auction until “our team was aligned on steps moving forward.”

There’s more at Think Progress. I just, I, uh, can’t. The sheer amount of wrong is overwhelming, and why aren’t people seriously skeeved out over Ivanka acting the wife all the time? I’m going to bury myself in work and pretend this is all a bad dream.

NC: HB2 To Be Repealed.

Roy Cooper (Wake Forest University/Flickr).

Roy Cooper (Wake Forest University/Flickr).

Following a surprise move by the Charlotte City Council, Gov.-elect Roy Cooper said Monday that Legislative leaders have promised him to call a special session Tuesday to repeal House Bill 2.

“Senate Leader Phil Berger and House Speaker Tim Moore assured me that as a result of Charlotte’s vote, a special session will be called for Tuesday to repeal HB 2 in full,” Cooper said in a statement. “I hope they will keep their word to me and with the help of Democrats in the legislature, HB2 will be repealed in full.

“Full repeal will help to bring jobs, sports and entertainment events back and will provide the opportunity for strong LGBT protections in our state.”

Cooper’s announcement followed the Charlotte City Council’s 10-0 vote Monday morning to rescind the LGBT ordinance that prompted House Bill 2.

One piece of great news, on a day which is going to be an all around bad one for those of us who aren’t into fascism.

The Charlotte Observer has the full story.

From Think Progress: Charlotte surprisingly repeals LGBT nondiscrimination ordinance in advance of hyped HB2 repeal.

In a 10–0 vote, the Charlotte City Council abruptly repealed the city’s LGBT nondiscrimination ordinance Monday morning in what appears to be a deal with the North Carolina legislature to repeal HB2. This is a compromise they’ve rejected twice before, and it’s unclear what motivates their sudden faith that state lawmakers will actually put an end to the discriminatory law.

Indeed, there’s every reason to believe that both Charlotte and Governor-elect Roy Cooper (D) have been duped.

White Nationalism, A Global Affair.

Alexander Dugin, the leader of the Eurasian Movement (far right) takes part in a Russian nationalists’ rally in support of Serbia in Moscow, Russia, Sunday, April 27, 2008. CREDIT: AP Photo/Mikhail Metzel.

Alexander Dugin, the leader of the Eurasian Movement (far right) takes part in a Russian nationalists’ rally in support of Serbia in Moscow, Russia, Sunday, April 27, 2008. CREDIT: AP Photo/Mikhail Metzel.

Many Americans, primarily conservative, bigoted ones, are often found across the ‘net, bemoaning globalism. American wannabe nazis don’t have issues with globalism, they embrace it.

Aleksandr Dugin, is a radical, Trump supporting, self-proclaimed philosopher from Russia. Traditionalism and cultural purity are two of his most valued philosophical tenets. And while his influence may be overstated in Russia, his ideology has infiltrated white nationalist circles in the United States and parts of Europe.

One of Dugin’s biggest fans is Richard Spencer, the head of the racist National Policy Institute (NPI) and the man who popularized the term “alt-right.” Dugin’s work has been published on Spencer’s former website Alternate Right. And Spencer’s wife, Nina Spencer (who also goes by the aliases Nina Kouprianova, or Byzantina) has regularly translated Dugin’s work into English on her blog (though the blog gives the disclaimer saying that translated words are not necessarily the views of the translator).

[…]

Spencer’s adherence to Dugin’s ideology was shown as recently as last month when he tweeted a message of Dugin’s, using the same “swamp” metaphor that President-elect Donald Trump has employed when pledging to “drain the swamp.”

The Swamp is to become the new name for globalist sect, open society adepts, lgbt maniacs, Soros army, posthumanists and so on. Drain the Swamp is not only American categorial imperative. It is global challenge for all of us. Every people now is under power of its own Swamp. We all together should start the fight agains russian Swamp, french Swamp, german Swamp, and so on. We need to purge our societies from the influence of Swamp. So instead of fighting between ourselves let us drain it together. Drainers of the whole world should be united.

So, a purge. A purge of all those undesirable types from all societies everywhere. Does it take three whole guesses to figure out what their solution to all us excess people might be?

Full story at Think Progress.

UPDATE: Bannon and Dugin, Common Ground.

Bannon referred to Dugin while answering questions at a talk hosted by the religious right wing Human Dignity Institute in the summer of 2014.

“When Vladimir Putin, when you really look at some of the underpinnings of some of his beliefs today, a lot of those come from what I call Eurasianism,” said Bannon. “He’s got an adviser [Dugin] who harkens back to Julius Evola and different writers of the early 20th century who are really the supporters of what’s called the traditionalist movement, which really eventually metastasized into Italian fascism. A lot of people that are traditionalists are attracted to that.”

Bannon is referring to Dugin here. Dugin is a proponent of traditionalism — a philosophy in which all moral and religious truths come from divine revelation and are perpetuated by tradition — and counts Evola, an influential Italian fascist, as one of his influences. This speech took place in 2014, when Dugin’s support for the annexation of Crimea had him prominently in the news.

Russia, Russia, Russia!

2893

Vladimir Putin awarded Rex Tillerson the Russian Order of Friendship. Photograph: Alexei Nikolsky/Tass.

It has been leaked that Rex Tillerson is even more involved with Russia than previously thought. It’s bad enough, that 500 billion dollar deal now a possibility, but it has come to light that Tillerson is the longtime director of an US-Russian oil company, conveniently located in the Bahamas.

Rex Tillerson, the businessman nominated by Donald Trump to be the next US secretary of state, is the long-time director of a US-Russian oil firm based in the tax haven of the Bahamas, leaked documents show.

Tillerson – the chief executive of ExxonMobil – has been a director of the oil company’s Russian subsidiary, Exxon Neftegas, since 1998. His name – RW Tillerson – appears next to other officers who are based at Houston, Texas; Moscow; and Sakhalin, in Russia’s far east.

The leaked 2001 document comes from the corporate registry in the Bahamas. It was one of 1.3m files given to the Germany newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung by an anonymous source. The registry is public but details of individual directors are typically incomplete or missing entirely.

Though there is nothing untoward about this directorship, it has not been reported before and is likely to raise fresh questions over Tillerson’s relationship with Russia ahead of a potentially stormy confirmation hearing by the US senate foreign relations committee.

ExxonMobil’s use of offshore regimes – while legal – may also jar with Trump’s avowal to put “America first”.

Tillerson’s critics say he is too close to the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and that his appointment could raise potential conflicts of interest.

ExxonMobil is the world’s largest oil company and has for a long time been eyeing Russia’s vast oil and gas deposits. Tillerson currently has Exxon stock worth more than $200m.

The Guardian has the full story.

So Much for Pennsylvania.

pennsylvania-sign

Well, the Pennsylvania electoral voters all seem to have their heads firmly lodged up their asses.

One elector, Ash Khare, said he and each of the 19 others have been assigned a plainclothes state police trooper for protection.

“I’m a big boy,” said Khare, an India-born engineer and a longtime Republican from Warren County, who estimates he receives 3,000 to 5,000 emails, letters, and phone calls a day from as far away as France, Germany, and Australia. “But this is stupid. Nobody is standing up and telling these people, ‘Enough, knock it off.’ ”

[…]

“I take my job as an elector very seriously, and in Pennsylvania, Donald Trump won,” said Mary Barket, a Northampton County resident and president of the Pennsylvania Federation of Republican Women. “So any argument thereafter, especially about the nature of him being a president, is not going to have an effect on me.”

Barket said she has been inundated with phone calls and emails and letters over the last month. Some tell her to read the Federalist Papers or express fear over Trump becoming the country’s commander-in-chief.

But she said she generally doesn’t open the messages.

“I don’t have the time, first of all,” she said. “Second of all, there’s really not much to be said that’s going to do anything to change my mind.”

[…]

In interviews last week, a number of electors said there was no chance anyone will defect.

“There is zero chance of that,” said elector Lawrence Tabas, a Philadelphia lawyer and general counsel for the state GOP. “If you want to place a bet on that in Vegas, you can make enough money to retire.”

[…]

Khare said he understood that the country is deeply divided and that emotions are running high, but said he was clear on where he stands.

“I will not change my mind,” he said.

Richard Stewart, a Cumberland County resident and the state Republican Party’s assistant treasurer, said he has received probably more than 60,000 emails and hundreds of letters about his role as an elector.

He described the people contacting him and other electors as “sincere but ill-informed and uneducated with respect to the process.”

He has not engaged.

“If Hillary Clinton had won, I certainly wouldn’t be calling up her electors saying change your mind,” he said. “I know how the system works. They lost. They ought to get over that.”

Gee, thanks ever, Pennsylvania.

Via Post Gazette.

The Patriotic Duty of All Americans.

Republican Michael 'Duke' Lowrie is running for state Rep. in Louisiana's District 8 (Duke Lowrie official website).

Republican Michael ‘Duke’ Lowrie is running for state Rep. in Louisiana’s District 8 (Duke Lowrie official website).

The patriotic duty of all Americans – be the best bigot you can be! Yet another bigoted xenophobe is running for office. A republican, natch.

Mic.com reported that Michael “Duke” Lowrie believes that it is the patriotic duty of all Americans to withhold their consumer dollars from businesses that benefit Muslims in any way.

The former paramedic and firefighter announced this week that he is running to represent Louisiana’s District 8 in the state House. He told the Shreveport Times that he stands by remarks he made about not supporting Muslim businesses or companies that hire Muslim workers.

“We are a Christian nation. The threat of Islamic terrorism is real. Too many times, politicians are sometimes so afraid to speak the truth because of the PC culture in which we live. I’ll call it how I see it. We must tackle Islamic extremism head on. I believe President Trump will do that,” Lowrie said in a statement on Friday.

No, we are not a Christian nation. That’s even written into all those old documents xenophobes such as yourself revere. I’m not a Christian, but so far, no one has shown up to revoke my citizenship. I wish you nasty, evil bigots were afraid to speak your lies and poison, the world would be a nicer place if you all put a lid on it. Since when do people who are doing nothing except working hard equate to terrorism? Only in the heads of xenophobes like Mr. Lowrie.

In a November, 2015 Facebook post, Lowrie wrote, “Many of you may or may not know but Shreveport – Bossier was one of the cities on the Islamist kill lists. Perhaps they despise our hospitality here or our over the top support for our military. Regardless the fact is the Islamist (sic) seek to kill us and make us submit to their false religion and god.”

They despise us for our hospitality! Our hospitality is so famous! Oh, so is our extremist support of military! It’s a pity these fools can’t be poisoned by irony.  Right now, I’d settle for them being able to discern fantasy from reality. Here’s the FB post:

So friend’s. The time has come that we must face and take action against this evil that has been placed before us. All day I have prayed and contemplated what to do. Many of you may or may not know but Shreveport Bossier was one of the cities on one of the islamist kill lists. Perhaps they despise our hospitality here and or our over the top support for our military. Regardless the fact is the islamist seek to kill us and make us submit to their false religion and god. There are many who worship, if you call it that, islam here among us. I do not believe they deserve the peace of our culture or the continued fruits of our society while following this religion. I for one will no longer knowingly go to or do business with any establishment that has someone who I know is a follower of islam working there. I will challenge every islamist I see to denounce their false god and religion. Those islamist here walk among us in stores and we act is if they are no different than any of us. Well im sorry they are different. Their religion demands you convert or die.

Why yes, Muslim people do walk among other people, often in stores. That’s called shopping, Mr. Lowrie. Most people have to do that sooner of later. If their religion demands you convert or die, then why haven’t you converted or died yet, Mr. Lowrie? It just couldn’t be that those people who share that Christian faith of yours simply want to live their lives without undue fuss, right? (And yes, it’s the same damn religion. Same god. Abrahamaic religions: Judaism, Christianity, Islam.) Even in the wilds of nDakota, I know a fair number of Muslim people, and no one has talked religion at all, let alone stated “convert or die!” For fuck’s sake. Oh, and “the peace of our culture”? Really? A country filled with white bigots, toxic with aggrieved entitlement mentality and way too many guns, a peaceful culture? You’re part of American “culture” Mr. Lowrie, and I’d say peace is the last thing on your mind, given your fantasies.

The “ISIS Kill List” conspiracy is a misinterpretation of an ISIS propaganda effort from March of 2015, according to Snopes.com. ISIS published a list of U.S. service personnel it deemed as enemies of Islam and their home addresses.

Snopes said, “Although the March 2015 ISIS report was treated seriously by the U.S. military and law enforcement at the time it was issued, the Pentagon noted that the list seemed to be more of an ISIS social media scare tactic using information taken from publicly available online sources than an actual threat.”

Lowrie and others among the conspiracy-minded view the “Kill List” as a blueprint of what targets the terror group plans to “destroy.”

An inability to face reality should be an automatic disqualification to holding office. How I wish.

The election to fill the House seat takes place on March 25. So far, Lowrie is the only candidate who has declared.

Oh, please, someone with a brain, step up!

Via Raw Story.