You’re never “just joking.” Nobody is ever “just joking.”

Jason Steed’s tweet storm has gone viral, and with good reason. He tackled the idea that Trump was “just joking” about that whole 2nd amendment people taking care of Clinton.

But in a certain sense, it doesn’t really matter what Trump intended. This tweetstorm, from Dallas lawyer Jason P. Steed, explains why.

Before becoming a lawyer, Steed was an English professor. He wrote his PhD dissertation on “the social function of humor” and found something important: Jokes about socially unacceptable things aren’t just “jokes.” They serve a function of normalizing that unacceptable thing, of telling the people who agree with you that, yes, this is an okay thing to talk about.

This, Steed explains, is why “it’s a joke” isn’t a good defense of racist jokes. By telling the joke, the person is signaling that they think racism is an appropriate thing to express. “Just joking” is just what someone says to the people who don’t appreciate hearing racist stuff — it shouldn’t matter any more than saying “no offense” after saying something offensive.

Likewise, Trump is signaling that assassinating Hillary Clinton and/or her Supreme Court nominees is an okay thing to talk about. He’s normalizing the unacceptable.

This is very much the same as the standard you walk past is the standard you accept, but people are always trying to exempt humor from that, and it is not exempt, in spite of all those who wish it to be.

Vox has the whole tweet storm, and Think Progress has an in depth article and interview with Steed.

Homosexual totalitarianism is out of the closet!

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Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump will meet with a group of around 700 evangelical pastors this week, hoping to win over hardline, anti-gay Religious Right leaders who have thus far been hesitant to embrace his struggling candidacy.

Trump is scheduled to speak on Thursday at a closed-door meeting in Orlando, Florida hosted by the American Renewal Project (ARP), a group of evangelical Christian pastors. The event has been widely criticized as anti-LGBT, with another selected speaker — former Florida senator and former GOP presidential candidate Mark Rubio — fending off accusations of insensitivity for appearing at the event so soon after the tragic murder of nearly 50 people in Orlando at a gay nightclub in June.

Rubio has also defended his doing so, won’t shut up about it, actually. These are people who have no empathy whatsoever, don’t know what compassion means, and are utterly bereft of lowly sympathy.

Accusations of anti-gay sentiment are rooted in inflammatory statements made by the ARP’s founder, David Lane. Lane’s group is sponsored by the American Family Association, which is listed as an anti-gay hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. In addition, he has personally called for “war” against the “pagan onslaught imposing homosexual marriage” in the past, and repeated similarly bombastic sentiments to Bloomberg this week.

“Homosexual totalitarianism is out of the closet, the militants are trying herd Christians there,” Lane said.

Indeed, Lane appeared hopeful that Trump would be swayed to his right-wing ideology. He said he appreciated the businessman’s support for repealing the Johnson Amendment — the law that makes it illegal for churches to retain tax-exempt status if they explicitly endorse candidates — but remained focused on pushing him to embrace policies many believe discriminate against LGBT people in the name of religion.

“[Repealing the Johnson Amendment is] a good first step,” Lane told Bloomberg. “But what about the religious liberty of Christian photographers, Christian bakers, Christian retreat centers, and pastors who believe same-sex intercourse and marriage is sin? These Christians were simply living out their deeply held convictions of their Christian faith when they politely refused to provide services for a same-sex wedding. Doesn’t the First Amendment give us all a right to our beliefs?”

As usual, these bigoted hate-mongers manage to completey lose the “all” in all a right to our beliefs. Yes, we certainly do have the privilege to believe whatever we like, no matter how daft, reasonable, or hateful. The key word being all. That means you don’t get to make the rules, Mr. Lane. Your right to believe what you like does not extend to harming people, and yes, discrimination is harm.

Trump could, hypothetically, push on without such endorsements, but there is a tactical value at stake: Evangelical turnout operations are often heavily reliant on leadership — especially faith leaders who attend Pastors and Pews meetings, many of whom played a key role in evangelical get-out-the-vote efforts during the 2012 election cycle.

This means Lane’s wish for a more vocally-anti-LGBT Trump could very come true, if only out political necessity. Nearly three-quarters of white evangelical Christians remain opposed to marriage equality — even though most other major religious groups in America support it. Since the group still makes up a sizable part of the Republican electorate, Trump may be hoping to revive his rapidly decreasing poll numbers by winning back the core of his Republican base.

This might be more than a probability, given Trump’s latest attempt to wrest money from people, the “Trump Gold Card“:

According to Trump, the card will signify to the world that you “are tired of a government that bows down to foreigners, refuses to even say the words ‘Radical Islam,’ and leaves our borders wide open!”

Trump-card-800x430

Trump Woos Radical Christians at Think Progress. The ‘Trumpet your Trumpness’ is at Raw Story.

32.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Whitehouse.gov.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Whitehouse.gov.

When Franklin Delano Roosevelt took office in 1933, as many as 2 million sheep grazed on the Navajo Nation.

That was in addition to hundreds of thousands of goats, cattle and horses that foraged on the 27,000-square-mile reservation spanning parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah. The Navajo population itself had quintupled since 1870 and, at the onset of the Great Depression in 1929, about 39,000 Navajos lived on the sprawling reservation, embracing a life of pastoralism and moving livestock from winter homes to summer pastures.

But the Navajo, who were almost entirely dependent on income from sheep and wool, were hit hard by the worst economic disaster in American history. The livestock population skyrocketed while revenues plummeted, and the Navajo Agency reported in 1933 that income had “greatly reduced to the vanishing point,” according to Raymond Friday Locke’s “The Book of the Navajo.”

The land was also showing signs of overgrazing and environmental distress, and its deepening gullies and parched vegetation caught the attention of the federal government. Four months after Roosevelt took office, his newly appointed commissioner of Indian Affairs, John Collier, toured the Navajo Nation and proposed an aggressive and often coercive livestock reduction program.

John Collier. Corbis image/Wikipedia.

John Collier. Corbis image/Wikipedia.

[Read more…]

Five Steves.

Trump economic adviser Tom Barrack, CEO of Colony Capital, spoke at the July Republican National Convention. CREDIT: AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill.

Trump economic adviser Tom Barrack, CEO of Colony Capital, spoke at the July Republican National Convention. CREDIT: AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill.

Trump has announced his economic policy advisory team, all men, five Steves, and one person with a Ph.D. Naturally, the amount of actual economists on the economic policy advisory team is short, to say the least. Economists on economic policy? That would be silly. Or something.

Steve Roth, a fellow real estate investor and the billionaire CEO of Vorando Reality. Roth and Trump reportedly co-own a Manhattan office tower together.

Harold Hamm, an oil and gas billionaire and chairman and CEO of Continental Resources. He served as an energy adviser to Mitt Romney’s 2012 campaign and as a major donor to the pro-Romney Restore Our Future super PAC.

Howard Lorber, president and CEO of Vector Group — a company that owns both real estate and tobacco companies.

Steven Mnuchin, a hedge fund investor and co-CEO and chairman of Dune Capital Management, he is a longtime friend of Trump’s despite the candidate’s public criticism of hedge fund investors. In May, Trump appointed him national finance chairman for the campaign.

Tom Barrack, another real estate investor and CEO of Colony Capital. He founded Rebuild America Now, a pro-Trump super PAC. During the Republican primary, Trump denounced super PACs and requested the return of all donations to any supporting him, but he hasn’t rejected their support during the general campaign.

Stephen M. Calk, CEO and chairman of Federal Savings Bank. He has been a critic of the Obama administration’s banking regulations.

John Paulson, another billionaire hedge fund manager and president of Paulson & Co. Paulson, made billions of dollars in profit from shorting the market during the 2007 housing bubble.

Andy Beal, a billionaire investor and founder of Beal Bank. In addition to making a huge profit buying up undervalued assets during the 2008 recession, he has made waves as a mathematician and high-stakes poker player.

Steve Feinberg, the secretiveCEO of Ceberus Capital Management, a private investment firm which specializes in “distressed investing.” Among the firm’s assets: Remington, the manufacturer of the AR-15.

David Malpass, founder and president of Encima Global, a economic consulting and research firm. He held positions in the Reagan and George W. Bush administrations and unsuccessfully ran for the New York Republican U.S. Senate nomination in 2010.

Peter Navarro, a business school professor and anti-China author. He has praised Trump’s “peace through economic and military strength” strategy as “right out of the Reagan playbook.

Stephen Moore, the Heritage Foundation scholar, former Wall Street Journal columnist and founder of the anti-tax Club for Growth. His economic predictions have been wildly inaccurate.

Dan DiMicco, the former president and CEO of steel giant Nucor Corporation. DiMicco authored a 2015 book urging a return to American manufacturing.

Via Think Progress.

Sunday Facepalm.

Pat Boone Paul Archuleta/FilmMagic/Getty Images Oh, he just won’t shut up. Last week, in a column for world nut daily, Pat Boone opined on how God has done turned his back on his most favourite place, Amerikka.

Pat Boone declared that “God has lifted His hand of protection from the United States of America,” claiming that the use of food stamps, the national debt and ISIS terrorism are all signs that “we’re pretty much on our own now.”

Instead of “Morning in America,” we have 20 trillion in unpayable debt, dollar bills worth about 0 cents in purchasing power, CIA reports of festering ISIS cells in all 50 states and 47 million citizens on food stamps.

Following a president and attorney general who refuse to enforce existing immigration laws, we have a candidate who intends to admit 80,000 Syrian refugees into this country, while both the FBI and CIA guarantee there will be many trained terrorists in that number.

How can our beloved country have deteriorated so drastically? I’ll tell you how.
God has lifted His hand of protection from the United States of America.

In effect, He’s saying, “You as a people have increasingly let me know you don’t need me, you don’t even want me, to guide and determine your affairs. So … have it your way. Try it on your own for a while, and see how it goes.”

We’re pretty much on our own now.

Yes, just like we have always been. Our current state of affairs? Well, that would be humans being human, and humans are prone to fucking things up. Interesting that in the middle of all these horrible things, people on food stamps still come in for their share of blame. I guess it isn’t a proper opine if you can’t work in some way to blame poor people.

…If God can use an ass for His purpose … He can use a Donald Trump, for example. Or, of course, a Hillary Clinton. The question: Which one, if either, will actually look to Him, seek His will and not “political correctness” in the crucial decisions that will determine our future?

How will we choose? How to decide? I quote from Mae West, “If I have to choose between two evils, I’ll go with the one I haven’t tried.”

Pat Boone has never been funny, but he seems to have become an unintentional comedian. I doubt he has the slightest idea of just how much he pinged the irony meters here.

One we’ve tried, and know perhaps too well. The other is unknown, but will he seek to do the will of God if elected?

This is what we do now: Ask God to make plain to us His choice. Is there yet another David to confront our Goliath?

You better shout at that god of yours to hurry the fuck up, Pat, you’re running out of time here. Also, I have to point out that no, we have not “tried one” and we don’t know too well, because Hillary Clinton has never been president. I know it’s a difficult concept for Christians like yourself, but really, women are capable of using their brains, and having their own ideas and opinions. It might be nice if you could think through this one little problem: that David of yours seems to be quite interested in using nuclear weapons. While that might give Christians a thrill, it’s not so good for the rest of us, who are not anxious to give extinction a helping hand.

Via Right Wing Watch.

NYC: ‘Blue Lives Matter’ Bill.

CREDIT: eddtoro/Shutterstock

CREDIT: eddtoro/Shutterstock

New York has become the latest state to introduce a Blue Lives Matter bill, which would classify assaulting an officer as a hate crime. The bill was introduced today by New York Assemblyman Ron Castorina (R), with support from Council Member Joseph C. Borelli (R) and NYPD Sergeant Joe Imperatrice, the president and founder of Blue Lives Matter NYC.

Hate crime legislation currently only applies to attacks based on race, sexual orientation, national origin, and religious affiliation. But this new legislation would classify cops as a protected class, aligning them with ethnic and religious minorities and the LGBT community.

In an interview with the New York Observer, Castorina noted the recent attacks on cops in Baton Rouge and Dallas this past month as a driving force for the bill. He also blamed Black Lives Matter protests for provoking violence against law enforcement.

“It’s based on this climate in this country right now where police officers are being abused and they’re being disrespected, and we’re seeing they have a target on their back, in Louisiana and in Dallas,” Castorina said. “You can envision this happening at a protest, where somebody might throw a rock or a bottle or a punch.”

Talk about a bad, knee-jerk reaction. This is completely unnecessary, as punishments for assaulting a cop are much higher than assaulting a non-cop, and everyone knows that cops will already do whatever they need to in order to tack on a resisting arrest charge, so now they’ll be busy finding ways to tack on an assault charge, too. Oh, this won’t lead anywhere bad, no, of course not. :Insert spine popping eyeroll here: Honesty would be welcome. Why not just call this what it is, a brutal enforcement of bowing down to authority? Being a cop is nowhere near as dangerous as a number of other jobs, and the majority of cops are killed in traffic accidents. The stats are quite clear as to there being many more civilians shot and killed by cops, then cops being shot by civilians.

Civilians get killed by police far more often. Law enforcement officers shot and killed some 990 people in 2015 and another 491 in the first half of this year, according to the Washington Post’s award-winning tracking of police shootings.

That’s almost 1,500 police killings in 18 months, compared to 305 law enforcement officers attacked and killed in the line of duty in the six-year span of numbers in the new report. Police officers have shot and killed about 82 people each month nationwide since the start of last year, and have been killed by attackers roughly 4 times per month going back to the start of 2010.

So of course, cops must be made into a protected class, oh my yes! As these bills pass, and they will, we can all look forward to many more people dying unjustly at the hands of cops, and those who don’t die may well end up with extended prison sentences because of cops who will claim assault. Just what our already over-burdened, fucked up penal system needs. Fuck stormtroopers.

Via ThinkProgress.

A Neuroscientist Tackles Loyalty to Trump.

Audience member Robin Roy (C) reacts as U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump greets her at a campaign rally in Lowell, Massachusetts January 4, 2016. (BRIAN SNYDER / Reuters)

Audience member Robin Roy (C) reacts as U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump greets her at a campaign rally in Lowell, Massachusetts January 4, 2016. (BRIAN SNYDER / Reuters)

A neuroscientist takes on the remarkable loyalty and obliviousness of those who support and follow Trump. It’s a fairly comprehensive article, starting with the well known Dunning-Kruger effect, and ending with the unfortunate affliction of being entertainment addicted. Just a bit from the end of the article here, click over for the full read.

  1. High Attentional Engagement

According to a recent study that monitored brain activity while participants watched 40 minutes of political ads and debate clips from the presidential candidates, Donald Trump is unique in his ability to keep the brain engaged. While Hillary Clinton could only hold attention for so long, Trump kept both attention and emotional arousal high throughout the viewing session. This pattern of activity was seen even when Trump made remarks that individuals didn’t necessarily agree with. His showmanship and simple messages clearly resonate at a visceral level.

Essentially, the loyalty of Trump supporters may in part be explained by America’s addiction with entertainment and reality TV. To some, it doesn’t matter what Trump actually says because he’s so amusing to watch. With Donald, you are always left wondering what outrageous thing he is going to say or do next. He keeps us on the edge of our seat, and for that reason, some Trump supporters will forgive anything he says. They are happy as long as they are kept entertained.

Of course these explanations do not apply to all Trump supporters. In fact, some are likely intelligent people who know better, but are supporting Trump to be rebellious or to introduce chaos into the system. They may have such distaste for the establishment and Hillary Clinton that their vote for Trump is a symbolic middle finger directed at Washington.

Full article here. I found the Hypersensitivity to Threat and Terror Management Theory sections very interesting. Going by that, it’s much easier to see why so many people have flocked to Trump, and manage to defend every horrible, evil thing he says.

Forget political incorrectness, this is simply despicable demagoguery.

donald-trump-claims-accommodating-transgender-people-is-too-expensivex750_0Well, one thing you can say for Trump is that he’s driving a record number of faithful republicans away from the GOP.

A Georgia Republican activist and member of the electoral college said on Wednesday that he will withhold his electoral vote if Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump wins the state.

Atlanta Journal-Constitution columnist Jim Galloway spoke with Baoky Vu, a tech executive and one of 16 electoral college members who will cast their votes should Trump win Georgia in November.

Vu — a longtime GOP activist and organizer — said this morning that he is seriously considering holding back his electoral vote from the real estate mogul and former reality TV star.

“I have the right to vote for a write-in candidate in the electoral college,” he said in a statement. Georgia is one of 21 states that allow its electors to vote independently of the popular vote.

[…]

Baoky Vu’s statement in full:

I’ve been active in the Republican Party for many years precisely because it has championed the aspirational ideals of Lincoln, Reagan and Kemp. Our recent standard-bearers have proudly and honorably defended those ideas on the political battlefield. From Bush 41 to Romney to Jeb and many of the other 2016 primary contestants, there was never a wavering doubt as to their character, integrity and temperament.

Until now.

This is the Republican Party of Lincoln and Reagan and Romney and Ryan, not the Party of Donald Trump. As a 2016 Presidential Elector, I am forever grateful to our state Party and our Chairman for bestowing this once-in-a-lifetime honor on me. I take my role seriously and in the face of the difficult choice before us, I will always put America First over party and labels.

Thus, I will not be voting for Donald Trump in the general election. My conscience is clear but my soul is being tested. Born in Saigon, my family knows what it is like to lose a country and my family is forever indebted to America and our allies. I have never questioned the soul, character and goodness of the Nation by who we have chosen as our leader throughout history.

Until now.

Rather than earning the American people’s respect and trust through the duration of the past year, Donald Trump’s antics and asinine behavior has cemented my belief that he lacks the judgment, temperament and gravitas to lead this Nation. Throughout the process, he has hurled insults at our heroes and their families, denigrated the disabled and praised dictators. Forget political incorrectness, this is simply despicable demagoguery.

“In this time of global challenges, we will succeed only if we come together. We’ve done it before, from the courthouse steps of Appomattox to the days after Pearl Harbor. And to my Republican brothers and sisters in arms, politics should be a honorable sport. Rather than fighting to defend the indefensible, let’s live to fight another day.

Via Raw Story.

Trump: A Nuclear Threat.

Via Raw Story. Also see: 9 Terrifying Things Donald Trump Has Publicly Said About Nuclear Weapons.

NO, Gov. Bryant, NO!

Gov. Phil Bryant. AP Photo.

Gov. Phil Bryant. AP Photo.

Apparently, Governor Bryant doesn’t understand the word no, even though it has been explained to him repeatedly.

A federal judge had some harsh words for Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant when he refused—again—to let the state enforce what many have called the country’s most discriminatory law against LGBTs.

U.S. District Court Judge Carlton Reeves refused Monday to stay his injunction against HB 1523 while Bryant organized his appeal, saying that the “absence does not impair the free exercise of religion.”

[…]

Reeves’s irritation with the case came through loud and clear in his brief, claiming he was “passing the baton” to a higher court and openly doubted if the governor would win on appeal.

Maybe that’s because the Magnolia State tried to compare businesses serving LGBT customers with forcing someone to fight in combat or get an abortion.

“Issuing a marriage license to a gay couple is not like being forced into armed combat or to assist with an abortion,” Reeves wrote.

Honestly, you can hear the exasperation in the writing.

I imagine that’s the same exasperation parents feel when presented with a toddler who refuses to take no for an answer. Grow up, Governor.

Via Out.

Anime, Porn, and JFK Conspiracies…

Supporters of Donald Trump at rally (Photo: Joseph Sohm / Shutterstock)

Supporters of Donald Trump at rally (Photo: Joseph Sohm / Shutterstock)

Some Trump supporters have spoken up on Reddit. The question was what would it take for a Trump supporter to switch to a different candidate. The responses are interesting, in a Donald sort of way.

User ThreeStarUniform said that if Trump admitted “I was only running to clinch it for Hillary,” would lose his support. Threatening a draft or saying anime isn’t real would also be an end game.

The Reddit community agreed that anime was a critical issue for them this election. “I didn’t even know I could be this triggered,” ihatethesidebar admitted.

This is an issue? That’s news to me.

Pornography is also an important issue for Reddit users. “Coming after internet porn is getting pretty f*cking close to finishing him off in my book,” one person wrote, as snickers followed.

Jrf_1973 is concerned about the TPP. They would be done if Trump were to say, “I’ve spoken to Hillary, and she is definitely definitely going to stop TPP. And I know I said I was going to do that, because it’s such a terrible treaty.. but if Hillary is truly against it, and I believe she is, then I must be for it. So if elected, I will absolutely pass TPP.”

Users agreed that they understood all of the words in that statement and that Trump has “the best words.”

Uh…I’m at a loss for words. Words that when strung together actually make sense, that is.

Redditer thisishowiwrite said that when they saw the list of tweets of Trump denying climate change is real, that was the end for them. Another user corrected them saying that Trump only denies climate change, unless it impacts him.

[…]

Another Reddit user described a creative event in detail that it would take to pull support from Trump this way: “Says he loves ISIS and takes a big sh*t on the American flag that’s covering the casket of a dead soldier while Westboro Baptist Church throws confetti on him.”

ScipioAfricanvs remarked that Mr. Trump has already taken “a big sh*t in the casket of a dead soldier,” referring to Cpt. Khan.

I’m glad someone pointed out the situation with Trump and his complete nastiness towards the Khan family.

A user who admitted his father is a die-hard Trump supporter who would never leave the candidate, summed it. “He could murder his wife, I wouldn’t care.” “We arent voting for trump, we are voting to find out the truth about Obama and where he came from, and what grades he got, and who his real father is,” his father told him.

“My dad then started talking about how he will never find out what happened to JFK, maybe his grandson (age 9) will find out, but in my dad’s lifetime he won’t get to know,” the user continues. “And it is ‘obvious the JFK assassination was set up by someone in the government.’ But we won’t ever know what really happened with JFK, or all the secrets Obama has. A vote for Trump would ‘reveal all of Obama’s secrets’ and ‘get Obama and Hillary locked up.’”

The user clarified, “My dad also believes that trump can’t actually harm America because ‘Congress won’t let him.’ But Hillary and Obama will make America a third world country that we won’t be able to recover from in my (me, age 31) lifetime.”

How in the hell anyone could possibly reason with the above person is beyond me. There’s an intense level of stupid in this country.

Via Raw Story.

Natural Roles and Abilities.

jedwards_112007_180x238White nationalist James Edwards, who is credentialed by the Trump campaign, decided to speak out about Hillary Clinton, and what his god thinks about that uppity woman.

James Edwards, host of The Political Cesspool, reflected on Chelsea Clinton’s speech at the Democratic National Convention and opined that Hillary Clinton could “not be the mother God wants you to be” because she was an “extremist radical, feminist.”

“So I’m sure that there is love between Hillary Clinton and her daughter, but I did not see the family and familial bonds out of the Clinton family that I saw from the Trump family,” he explained. “Does anyone really believe that Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton sleep in the same room? Does anyone really believe that Hillary Clinton even sleeps with men?”

Weren’t you just whining about Chelsea Clinton’s speech? Do you think she came from a cabbage patch or something? Personally, I don’t think about who people might be sleeping with. None of my business. I find it more than telling that far right assholes can’t seem to think about anything else.

“Should Hillary Clinton be president of the United States?” Edwards asked his listeners, adding that “under God’s law, a woman should not even have dominion over her household.”

“There are natural roles and abilities that men and women have that are God-ordained and together, they are complementary of one another, and together, a man and a woman can raise a family,” the radio host insisted. “The husband is the ruler of the house under God’s law, and that’s the law that I abide by,”

Edwards went on to assert that the country would be “better” if women did not have the right to vote.

“I mean, ask yourself that because we see women are so — even more than men, and even though men now — need this status, they need to be accepted, they need food, water, shelter, and status in order to survive, but women especially need that,” Edwards said. “You know, I think the model before suffrage was a husband and a wife come together as a unit and the man casts the vote for that family.”

What an idiot.

Via Raw Story.