A Fitting Trump Logo and Two Border Walls.

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© Tucker Viemeister.

American industrial designer Tucker Viemeister has designed a logo for Donald Trump based on Nazi insignia to reflect the billionaire’s “racist hate mongering”.

The logo, featuring a tilting letter T inside a white circle on a red background, resembles the swastika symbol used by the Nazis.

Viemeister created the logo in April last year, before Trump became the Republican party’s official presidential nominee, posting it on Twitter along with the words “I hope they [Trump’s supporters] don’t like it!”

He also published the design on his website with a short statement that says: “Design can show what bad things have in common, like this logo I created for Trump’s campaign of bigotry and violence.”

Following Trump’s inauguration as president and his introduction last weekend of the controversial executive order banning people from seven Muslim-majority countries entry to the United States, Viemeister said the logo had new and sinister relevance.

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“Obviously the logo is a spin on the Nazi insignia because there is a correlation between Trump’s racist hate mongering and the Nazis,” he told Dezeen.

“I’m worried that his followers will adapt it for the very opposite reasons I made it,” he continued. “They might like that connection with those white power fascists.”

“I wish I could make something that would help those followers become more inclusive and tolerant so that we can all work together to solve the issues that we all confront.”

Via Dezeen. Tucker Viemeister’s site. Moving on to the fabulous IKEA border wall! Simple! Inexpensive! Can be put together with one hex key! Only two people required!

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Washington (dpo) – “Too expensive!” “Too complicated!” “Unrealistic!” – This is the sort of criticism US President Donald Trump is currently facing over plans to build a wall along the border with Mexico. An offer from home furnishings brand, IKEA, could solve all of these problems with a single blow.

The Scandinavian furniture maker has offered the USA a practical, ready-made solution with “Börder Wåll”. All they need to do is pick it up in a van from the nearest IKEA branch and put it up where they want it to go. Totalling US $9,999,999,999.99, “Börder Wåll” is significantly cheaper than a conventional wall. Estimates suggest that a conventional wall would cost between US $15 and $25 billion.

According to government press secretary, Sean Spicer, President Trump is currently inspecting the offer:

TrumpKatalog

The simple, Scandinavian designed border wall (with a 5 year guarantee) is primarily made of pressboard with a birch effect and can be assembled with the help of a hex key. A 12,000 page instruction manual with easy-to-understand pictures makes construction child’s play – as long as there is not a single screw missing.
“However, assembly requires two people: one person can hold the wall while the second screws it together”, it states in IKEA’s offer.
The basic model of the wall is 33ft (10 m) tall and 1,954 miles (3,144 km) long, although the height and length can be extended as desired.
IKEA has already announced that it will design other products in the next few weeks that will be compatible with “Börder Wåll”. According to inside sources, this includes products such as the “Gåwk” watchtower and the “Råtåtåtåtåtå” spring-gun.

Via Postillon. German version here. (No, this is not for real. There’s no Ikea border wall, okay?)

Then there’s the wonder of The Pink Wall:

Mexican firm Estudio 3.14 has visualised the “gorgeous perversity” of US presidential candidate Donald Trump’s plan to build a wall along the countries’ border.

In response to the controversial proposal, a group of interns at the Guadalajara-based studio came up with a conceptual design that would celebrate Mexico’s architectural heritage.

 

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The giant solid barrier would run 1,954 miles (3,145 kilometres) uninterrupted from the Pacific coast to the Gulf of Mexico, and be painted bright pink in the spirit of the 20th-century buildings by Pritzker Prize-winning Mexican architect Luis Barragán.

“Because the wall has to be beautiful, it has been inspired in by Luis Barragán’s pink walls that are emblematic of Mexico,” said the studio. “It also takes advantage of the tradition in architecture of megalomaniac wall building.”

Estudio 3.14‘s Prison-Wall project – developed in collaboration with the Mamertine Corporation of the United States – was undertaken to “allow the public to imagine the policy proposal in all of its gorgeous perversity”.

Visuals show the barrier traversing hills, desert, a river, and the border city Tijuana. The structure would also incorporate a prison to detain those attempting to cross into the US.

“Moreover, the wall is not only a wall,” said Estudio 3.14. “It is a prison where 11 million undocumented people will be processed, classified, indoctrinated, and/or deported.”

The team suggests that the wall could employ up to six million personnel. It could also incorporate shopping centre straddling its width, and a viewpoint from which US citizens could climb up and look down onto the other side.

A series of graphics to accompany the proposal range from posters calling for workers, to US currency emblazoned with the wall’s pink trail.

Via Dezeen. Estudio 3.14.

Paid Protesters and Offenses Against ‘God’.

AP Photo.

AP Photo.

Louie Gohmert, not exactly known for any sort of rational viewpoint, has now picked up the banner of “Paid Protesters!” and running with it. For the most part, there isn’t anywhere Gohmert is taken seriously, except for Breitbart. Yes, Fascist Daily has embraced the daft Gohmert.

That congressman is Louie Gohmert of Texas, who is well known for his crazy talk, such as his statement that gay men make ineffective soldiers because they’re getting massages from their lovers all day. But Breitbart and its ilk treat him as a serious person.

“This is fake news,” he said of the protests against Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch. “This is people who are just out there to create the appearance of obstruction. You know, Patrick Poole, remember back in one of the demonstrations on the Mall, caught one of the guys: ‘Hey, how much are you getting paid?’ He said, ‘$15 an hour. I thought everybody was getting that.’ They’re getting paid. The Soros money gets spread around.

As usual, rethugs seldom care about the source of their information. No one loves bullshit quite as much as conservatives.

Poole, by the way, is a conspiracy-minded blogger who regularly rails against “radical Islam.” It’s not clear what protest on the National Mall Gohmert is referencing, but several right-wingers have asserted that Soros funded the Women’s March on Washington and paid its participants — something the fact-checking site PolitiFact rated “Pants on Fire.”

Get those facts right before you twist them to pieces, okay? As usual, Ann Coulter has been waxing glib about the Tiny Dictator, never getting a single fact right, because hey, they have alternative facts, and those are better, right?

She particularly praised Trump’s executive order banning entry to the U.S. by residents of seven majority-Muslim countries, and his ban on refugees in general. “And as I wrote in my column in Breitbart, it’s not just that we’re worried they’re going to shoot up a gay nightclub or a community center in San Bernardino, the Boston Marathon, Fort Hood, 9/11 — that isn’t the only purpose to this,” she said. “What’s the upside? We keep bringing in all of these elderly, sickly poor people. They aren’t fleeing anything except not as good or free health care in Yemen as in America. We have our own poor people. We have our own elderly.”

:Must not drink tea when reading: Not as good or free health care in America? Okaaaaaaaaaay, we’re on another planet now, right? Because on the planet known as Earth, the country known as America has never had good or free health care. People don’t completely uproot themselves and place themselves in tenuous and frightening position because American healthcare. This is jaw-dropping willful delusion.

Well, so much for “Give me your tired, your poor,” plus Coulter doesn’t generally express much concern about impoverished American citizens. And several studies have indicated that neither legal nor undocumented immigrants are a drain on social services. Check out The New Republic’s analysis here. And, of course, some of the attacks she cited were committed by people born in the U.S. (Surprisingly, she did not mention the Bowling Green Massacre.) But misleading rhetoric like Coulter’s is exactly what builds support for Trump’s xenophobic policies.

The republican insistence on any and all terrorism being “outside” once again emphasises their view on domestic terrorism: oh, that? No, no such thing. America has a huge problem with homegrown terrorism, and the denial continues, and we will pay for that, because all those homegrown terrorists think they are home free in the Fascist States of America now. They aren’t far wrong, either.

We’ve been reporting a lot on the past week on potential Trump executive orders affecting LGBT people. First there were rumors that he would undo President Obama’s executive order prohibiting companies with federal contracts from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. He then announced he would not, a decision that was reportedly influenced by daughter Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner — although they are hardly real allies of LGBT people.

Some on the far right were not pleased with Trump’s decision. Among them was Alan Keyes, who worked in the Reagan administration and has sought the presidency, both as a Republican and as a member of minor parties.

Oh goody, yet another World Nut Daily talking head. This is sure to be predictable: Queer Bad! Transgender Terrifying!

“The existential perpetuation of humanity depends upon procreation,” Keyes wrote. “The relations between man and woman, with a view to human procreation, toward which they are naturally impelled, therefore involve unalienable right.” LGBT people, according to Keyes, are “impelled by their own will and preference toward lifestyles that have no special regard for the common good.” And they “deny and disparage the God-endowed natural right of procreation,” he added.

People have the right to eschew procreation altogether, y’know. Some people want sprogs, some people don’t. The key here being people. Their particular orientation doesn’t matter. All manner of hetero people can’t have sprogs, but still want them. Do they get booted onto the icky queer pile?

Keyes may be more pleased about another LGBT-related executive order, a draft of which was obtained and published by The Nation last week. It would provide companies, nonprofits, and even government employees a broad license to discriminate, without repercussions, against LGBT people and anyone else who offends a certain set of religious beliefs. The protected beliefs are that only heterosexual marriages are legitimate, that sexual relations are reserved for such marriages, that life begins at conception, and that gender is fixed at birth. White House spokesman Sean Spicer has refused to confirm or deny that the order is under consideration. We haven’t seen the far-right media weighing in on it yet, but activist groups such as the National Organization for Marriage are pushing it.

Another thing that didn’t please the far right last week was the Boy Scouts of America’s decision to admit transgender boys. “The BSA folded on God and how he ‘made them male and female,’” wrote Brent Bozell in a column on Townhall. “In today’s culture, the secular left lets man overrule God. This cowardly shell of an organization should just scrap the references to God, and every God-respecting church should jettison their Boy Scout units to the nearest secular gathering place.” He of course ignores the fact that an increasing number of churches accept and affirm transgender people — and these congregations most likely respect God.

That would be one particular god. That particular god is rejected by a whole lot of people. It has no place in my head or life. I am, as ever, amused by the whole “made them male and female” crap. Yeah, yeah, and supposedly, they were made in Jehovah’s image, too. Christians never ever think that through.

The Advocate has the full run down on fascism today.

 

A Peek Through the Window…

Via Twitter.

Via Twitter.

The NY Times has a look into the state of things in the white house. If anything, I’d say the article tries much too hard to be kind to the Tiny Dictator, and to paint him in a good light. You need to look past all the sweet icing smeared about, and pay attention to the substance. The Times describes Trump as an “outsider” president, which is utter bullshit. Trump is a sociopathic con man with absolutely no political experience. Tell the fucking truth! The substance is not at all good. As it turns out, the executive order Trump signed, placing Bannon on the NSC? Trump didn’t have the slightest idea that’s what he was signing, and he’s busy sulking about it now. Apparently, we not only have an unpresident who won’t look in the rearview mirror at all, but one who won’t read “his own” orders prior to signing. Outside of the whirlwind clusterfuck, Trump seems to spend most of his time rattling about the white house, watching television and tweeting.

[Read more…]

No Moral Equivalency, No.

CREDIT: AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky.

CREDIT: AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky.

Everybody’s talking about Trump’s latest remarks regarding Putin and Russia. Eh, so Putin murders people. We do that too, ain’t that great! It’s simply too much idiocy for me this fine Sunday, so just snippets here. After Trump spilled his latest load of bullshit, Pence ran to the defense, and it was not a good one. A difficult task, I’ll grant, but they know what they are dealing with, they should be able to come up with a finer grade of manure.

The Putin regime has been connected to the assassination of both opposition leaders and Russian journalists.

Vice President Mike Pence did his best damage control on Meet the Press, explaining away Trump’s comments by saying, “What you have in President Trump is someone who is not going to look in the rearview mirror.”

Pence also said that he doesn’t view Trump’s comments about Putin and the U.S. both being nations that kill people as a moral equivalency.

So. We have an unpresident who will not look in the rearview mirror.  A completely reckless idiot then. Anyone comforted by that thought? As for a moral equivalency, let me guess: anything ‘merica does is moral!

Then again, Mike Pence doesn’t view cigarettes as a danger to one’s health; the man once wrote that “despite the hysteria from the political class and the media, smoking doesn’t kill.” He also doesn’t view evolution as a totally valid theory; he’s advocated the teaching of creationism in schools.

[…]

At the time, [2015] Trump was basking in the glow of Putin’s compliments; Putin had recently called Trump “brilliant” — and you know what they say about looking a gift horse, or a shirtless gift-horse rider, in the mouth.

In the same interview, Trump said that Putin is “running his country, and at least he’s a leader, unlike what we have in this country.”

“I’ve always felt fine about Putin,” Trump pointed out. So, points for consistency? “He’s a strong leader. He’s a powerful leader.”

Oh look, the Tiny Dictator wants points for consistency. No. No fucking points for you. The full story is at Think Progress.

Glorious, Stubborn New Yorkers!

Rider cleans up Nazi graffiti -- Twitter.

Rider cleans up Nazi graffiti — Twitter.

Magnificent New Yorkers, at first appalled and silenced by nazi graffiti all over the subway car they found themselves in, pulled themselves together and removed every last bit of it. Warms up my little black heart, it does.

Gregory Locke wrote in his facebook:

I got on the subway in Manhattan tonight and found a Swastika on every advertisement and every window. The train was silent as everyone stared at each other, uncomfortable and unsure what to do.

One guy got up and said, “Hand sanitizer gets rid of Sharpie. We need alcohol.” He found some tissues and got to work. I’ve never seen so many people simultaneously reaching into their bags and pockets looking for tissues and Purel. Within about two minutes, all the Nazi symbolism was gone.

Nazi symbolism. On a public train. In New York City. In 2017.

“I guess this is Trump’s America,” said one passenger. No sir, it’s not. Not tonight and not ever. Not as long as stubborn New Yorkers have anything to say about it.

Wherever you find yourself, stand. If you’re scared, reach out, we can all stand easier with one another. Via Raw Story.

Cowards.

Mary Ann Ahern NBC via Twitter.

Mary Ann Ahern NBC via Twitter.

Republicans continue in their fine tradition of cowardice, hiding and running away from their constituents, who want some actual answers about healthcare and other issues. These aren’t the first cons to run away in the face of questions from those they claim to represent, but the pace of Runaway Sir Robins has definitely picked up.

Constituents of Rep. Peter Roskam (R-IL) have been trying to share their concerns regarding the Republican-led effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act. A meeting with 16 constituents was abruptly canceled by Roskam’s staff this week when they learned a member of the press was present, and Roskam’s appearance at the Palatine Township Republican Organization on Saturday was changed from being open to the public to a members only event, according to the Chicago Tribune.

More than 300 people showed up to protest outside the closed door meeting, expressing concerns ranging from the Obamacare repeal to President Donald Trump’s Muslim ban.

“We can no longer accept that he refuses to hold town hall meetings or meet with constituents who may disagree with his voting record,” Carolynne Funk told the Tribune. “The stakes are now too high to tolerate being shut out of the democratic process any longer.”

Video posted by Citizen Action Illinois from the protest reportedly shows Roskam leaving out of the back door while the crowd can be heard chanting “shame on you!”

[…]

Roskam wasn’t the only Republican to face an angry crowd of constituents on Saturday.

A sizable crowd gathered at a town hall held by Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA) while constituents inside expressed their concerns regarding the policies of the Trump administration and the Affordable Care Act repeal, according to KQED reporter Katie Orr, who was present.

Orr posted video on Twitter showing McClintock being escorted out of the event by police.

ThinkProgress’ Laurel Raymond identified several other recent instances of Republican lawmakers going to great lengths to avoid their constituents: Earlier this week, a small group of constituents went to Sen. Tom Cotton’s (R-AR) state office to discuss Obamacare. The door was locked and Cotton’s staff hid inside, saying the senator wouldn’t be taking constituent meetings. Rep. Barbara Comstock (R-VA) invited constituents to “mobile office hours.” When they showed up to discuss health care and Trump’s Muslim ban, she never joined them. Rep. Dave Brat (R-VA) told a meeting of conservative groups last week, “Since Obamacare and these issues have come up, the women are in my grill no matter where I go.”

“Since Obamacare and these issues have come up, the women are in my grill no matter where I go.” Does Brat style himself a rap star or something? Nope, a 52 year old white male. Speaking that way doesn’t make you cool, Mr. Brat. It makes you sound like an idiot. You aren’t being surrounded by groupies. As it seems to escaped your notice, women are human beings, and these human beings in particular are represented by you, and they’d like to know just what the fuck it is you think you are doing. That would be because they are affected by your actions. I guess the constituents wanting answers who happen to be male are just fine, and not all up in your grill?

Full story at Think Progress.