Facts Be Damned. Oh, And Fuck Women.

White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon listens at right as President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting in the White House on January 31. CREDIT: AP Photo/Evan Vucci.

White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon listens at right as President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting in the White House on January 31. CREDIT: AP Photo/Evan Vucci.

One of the uglier aspects of the ‘new’ Muslim ban is a focus on ‘honor killings’, even though that’s not a massive problem here in uStates, but it’s a convenient thing to rail about when you’re attempting to incite a racial panic. Just how much the Regime does not care about victims of honor killings is highlighted by the fact that the Violence Against Women grants are going to be eliminated, even though roughly 1,500 women are murdered as a result of domestic violence per year. It should not be ignored that both Trump and Bannon have been accused of domestic violence. Nor should Trump’s attitude toward women in general, which is incredibly ugly. The reasoning behind the ban is nothing more than slimy white nationalism, and there isn’t all that much to cover the shit over, they simply don’t care. Well, that’s not quite fair. They do care about any possibility of having this ban legally overturned as well. As usual the problem does not just rest with the Regime’s legislation and executive orders. It also lies on the shoulders of all those Regime voters and supporters.

I am sick to death of people wringing their hands over these poor, poor Trumpians who start crying when the chickens come home to roost. No, I do not have sympathy for them, because they have none for anyone, they were firmly and flatly in favour of bigotry, hatred, and misogyny, and any of them who claim they weren’t, they are liars. Trump’s whole fucking campaign was nothing but a constant litany of bigotry, hatred, and misogyny, as well as a paen to the might of white, and a psalm sung to the filthy rich.

The whole excuse of “well, some of them just wanted to throw a brick at the establisment” is a fucking lie, too. One Big Lie. If those people truly wanted to buck the establishment, Trump would have been dumped and Sanders would have ended up in the white house, and we would be moving towards a properly socialized government. That would have been tossing a brick at the man. Voting for Trump? For fuck’s sake, how could you possibly get more establishment? The excuse of “they thought he was a good business man!” won’t wash either. Trump’s constant failures over the years were not a secret. His incompetency was out there for all to see, during the whole campaign. The regime voters chose to ignore it. The excuse of “oh hey jobs”? No, doesn’t wash either, because what all those white Trumpians meant by that was “stomp all over those brown peoples!”. They never have anything to say when you point out that they don’t want to work cleaning toilets and peoples’ houses.

No, no more fucking excuses. The assholes who voted in the regime who are now crying? They’re only crying because they weren’t supposed to get bitten on the arse. They wanted all those others to get fucked over. Anyroad, back to the fucked up, shit-caked ban…

President Trump’s second Muslim ban, signed on Monday, includes a provision directing the Department of Homeland Security to collect and make public “information regarding the number and types of gender-based violence against women, including so-called ‘honor killings,’ in the United States by foreign nationals.”

According to numbers from a Department of Justice-sponsored study conducted in 2014, there are less than 30 such “honor killings” in the country each year. The killings — which are “perceived by the perpetrator to be a way to restore honor to the family in the face of a perceived damage,” according to the report — are sometimes “motivated by a radical and dark interpretation of Islam,” as Fox News wrote in late 2015.

The inclusion of the “honor killings” provision in the new Muslim ban marks the second time in a week the Trump administration has outlined a plan to use federal resources “to whip up as much racial panic as possible,” as Matt Yglesias of Vox puts it. The first instance was Trump’s vow to create the Victims Of Immigration Crime Engagement office, or VOICE, during his speech to Congress last week, even though immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than native-born Americans.

In a similar vein, the number of “honor killings” in the U.S. stands in stark contrast to the roughly 1,500 women who are murdered as a result of domestic violence in a given year. But according to numerous reports, Trump’s budget proposal will eliminate the Department of Justice’s Violence Against Women grants. Those grants had a $480 million budget last year and funded 25 grant programs helping domestic violence victims, according to Mother Jones. Trump and chief strategist Steve Bannon have both been accused of domestic assault.

[…]

But the “honor killing” provision is just the latest example of Trump trying to portray Islam in a violent light. Despite the fact that a person in America is much more likely to be killed by a right-wing extremist than a Muslim terrorist, the Trump administration has signaled it wants a federal counter-terrorism program to stop focusing on violent white supremacists and any other extremist groups not comprised of Muslims. And after the Department of Homeland Security released a report last month undermining the administration’s core rationale for the Muslim ban  — “citizenship is unlikely to be a reliable indicator of potential terrorist activity,” it found — the administration tried to downplay the report.

“The president asked for an intelligence assessment,” the a senior administration official told the Wall Street Journal. “This is not the intelligence assessment the president asked for.”

Right. An accurate assessment is provided, but the Tiny Tyrant doesn’t want that, and neither does shadow tyrant Bannon. They want shit shoveled onto a platter, and shaped into the form of whatever they asked for, providing them with a basis for the regime.

Think Progress has the full story.

Also see: The mass deportation of African immigrants that isn’t getting media attention. Nobody noticed.

iPhone or Healthcare? Healthcare or iPhone? Updated.

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The long-awaited “replacement” to ACA has been revealed, and oh, it’s not good. People have been reacting, to say the least, and rethugs are desperately trying to come up with a defense.

The Republican Party’s proposed Obamacare replacement plan is already facing a storm of criticism, and Republican lawmakers are scrambling to defend it on cable news networks.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) appeared on CNN Tuesday morning to explain why obtaining health care is a matter of personal responsibility for millions of Americans, and not an area that requires government intervention.

In particular, Chaffetz said that, under the new GOP plan, poor Americans would be forced to make wise financial decisions if they really wanted to have access to health care.

“You know what, Americans have choices, and they’ve got to make a choice,” he said. “And so maybe, rather than getting that new iPhone that they just love and want to go spend hundreds of dollars on, maybe they should invest in their own health care.”

Oh, there’s that peculiar notion of rethuglican choice again. “Here you are, you have no choice at all, isn’t that great? Now, make the right choice!” A couple of hundred dollars is not going to get anyone very far when it comes to healthcare. Anyone who has ended up with an out of pocket doctor visit could tell you that. Any money left over is eaten alive by prescription meds. Once again, we see a fine example of the loathsome and utterly disconnected attitude rethugs have towards people, especially those with wallets on the thin side – you uppity poor people really shouldn’t have anything except the very basics, it’s not right you have more! You only get a nifty phone or internet access once you’ve hauled yourself up by your bootstraps and made a fortune. Let’s have a dose of reality here, a subject which republicans consistently fail in:

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, the average premium for an individual health care plan in the United States is just over $235 per month. Buying an iPhone 7 through a wireless carrier and paying for it in installments over a two-year period costs $27 per month.

In other words, forsaking an iPhone 7 will save Americans enough money to pay for roughly 11% of what it would cost to get health insurance.

I’m not wealthy, and I don’t have a smartphone of any kind, but that’s because I don’t like phones. I still think all people should have healthcare, I don’t give the tiniest of shits what kind of gear they may or may not have, because that’s not in the least bit relevant. It is the same old ugly republican line, though: if you don’t have something, it’s your fault. Oh look, you got something. Well, it’s because of that you can’t have anything else. The basic fuck you, while avoiding any responsibility for it.

The so-called replacement plan is a travesty, and that’s an understatement. I’m sure people expected it to be, but as usual, the news is worse than what we imagined. Think Progress has a break down of 6 very important points to the new “plan”. Click on over for the full details, which are appalling.

House Republicans released on Monday a plan to undo Obamacare that will likely leave millions more Americans uninsured.

After significant internal division about the path forward on Obamacare, lawmakers unveiled two bills that, taken together, would repeal and replace President Obama’s signature health care reform law. House committees are expected to hold votes on the bills as early as this week.

Here’s what you need to know about the legislation, and what it says about the House GOP’s plan for the future of health insurance in America:

It includes massive cuts to Medicaid, the program that provides coverage for millions of low-income Americans.

It defunds Planned Parenthood and eliminates abortion coverage.

It includes a big tax break for insurance companies that pay their CEOs more than $500,000 per year.

A significant portion of the bill is devoted to ensuring lottery winners don’t have access to Medicaid.

It could trigger a “death spiral” in the individual insurance market.

It will result in a lot fewer people having health insurance.

Via Raw Story and Think Progress.

UPDATE: Oh my, looks like the Tiny Tyrant is scrambling for something, anything, in the face of the overwhelming scorn for “Trumpcare”. This hasn’t stopped the appearance of Mr. Tweet, though, who started out with this:

Our wonderful new Healthcare Bill is now out for review and negotiation. ObamaCare is a complete and total disaster – is imploding fast!

Jesus. How can anyone be that fucking disconnected from reality and still be on the planet?

Also see: How would repealing the Affordable Care Act affect health care and jobs in your state?

 Across the country, 29.8 million people would lose their health insurance if the Affordable Care Act were repealed—more than doubling the number of people without health insurance. And 1.2 million jobs would be lost—not just in health care but across the board.

A Taxonomy of Trump Tweets.

Earlier this year, George Lakoff, a cognitive linguist at the University of California, Berkeley, crafted a “taxonomy” of how Trump uses Twitter to shift the conversation from unwelcome reports and subsume the news cycle with his own agenda.

There’s an excellent analysis of The Ministry of Truth at The Washington Post. Recommended Reading.

Distracted By A Photo, Again.

President Trump walks to Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House with his grandchildren Joseph and Arabella Kushner, before departing for Florida on March 3. (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post).

President Trump walks to Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House with his grandchildren Joseph and Arabella Kushner, before departing for Florida on March 3. (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post).

Trying to read a rather important article about the Tiny Tyrant’s latest meltdown, which also contains some serious stupidity – he’s intent on proving President Obama wiretapped him, even though it has been pointed out to him, more than once, that if a wiretap was approved, that would mean there was evidence of criminal activity on Trump’s part. The average bear would have backpedaled on this nonsense right away, saying they shouldn’t have taken Breitbart so earnestly or something, but no. In the not so quiet background, Bannon is encouraging this idiocy, with talk of deep state having it in for Trump. So naturally, he ran away to Florida (a bit more on the later). Anyroad, I’m reading, but keep scrolling back up to look at that photo. That’s tape on his tie, right? (Click photo for full size.) Three pieces of tape. I’ve never seen that one before. Anyone out there also tape up the back of their tie?

As for the Tiny Tyrant’s need to run off to Florida every weekend, which is not only costing taxpayers millions for each trip, it’s not endearing the residents of West Palm Beach to him, either.

Residents and business owners in West Palm Beach complained over the weekend that President Donald Trump’s frequent trips to his Mar-a-Lago resort are making their lives miserable.

NBC News reported that Trump’s weekend visits were not only expensive for the taxpayers, but the safety measures implemented by the Secret Service are also costing local business owners big.

“We’re basically going broke,” a spokesperson for Southern Helicopter told NBC News. “We were not expecting him to come down almost every weekend.”

Jonathan Miller, the president of Stellar Aviation Group, worried that his business would go under if Trump continued to make Mar-a-Lago his weekend destination. Miller estimated that he is losing $30,000 each weekend because of Trump.

Additionally, the taxpayers of Palm Beach County are already on the hook for $1.7 million in extra security, and the White House has so far ignored requests to reimburse the county.

Facebook, Oh, What The Fuck?

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Everyone knows Facebook’s incredibly fucked up policies concerning nudity, and it looks like they’ve dropped the ball yet again. Since 2015, Marines have been uploading illicit images of fellow Marines who happen to be women, inviting all manner of commentary, and it’s not pretty. I do realize all the fallout here doesn’t belong on FB, but a share of it does. As for the rest, Jesus Fuck, the military, what an unbelievable mess it is.

The U.S. Department of Defense is investigating hundreds of Marines who used social media to solicit and share hundreds — possibly thousands — of naked photographs of women service members and veterans.

Since Jan. 30, more than two dozen women – many on active duty, including officers and enlisted service members – have been identified by their rank, full name and military duty station in photographs posted and linked to from a private Facebook page.

In one instance, a woman corporal in uniform was followed at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina by a fellow Marine, who surreptitiously photographed her as she picked up her gear. Those photographs were posted online in the Facebook group “Marines United,” which has nearly 30,000 followers, drawing dozens of obscene comments.

One member of the Facebook group suggested the service member sneaking the photos should “take her out back and pound her out.” Others suggested more than vaginal sex. “And butthole. And throat. And ears. Both of them. Video it though… for science.”

Senior officials with Headquarters Marine Corps have verified that incident as well as the distribution of photographs of other active duty and veteran women through the page and links out to a Google Drive.

The photo sharing began less than a month after the first Marine infantry unit was assigned women on Jan. 5 and underscores ongoing problems of sexual harassment within the military ranks and could hurt recruitment of women. Officials within the Defense Department confirmed it also puts service members at risk for blackmail and jeopardizes national security.

The activity on the Marines United page was uncovered by The War Horse, a nonprofit news organization run by Marine veteran Thomas Brennan. Within a day of Brennan contacting the Marine Corps headquarters on Jan. 30, social media accounts behind the sharing had been deleted by Facebook and Google at the Corps’ request and a formal investigation by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service has been launched.

However, it is clear that the actions taken so far have not fully stopped the activity: photos of the woman followed at Camp Lejeune were posted on Marines United on Feb. 16, more than two weeks after the linking accounts had been shut down. The Marine who shot those photos has been discharged from active duty, Marine Corps officials confirmed.

“We need to be brutally honest with ourselves and each other: This behavior hurts fellow Marines, family members, and civilians. It is a direct attack on our ethos and legacy,” Sgt. Major Ronald L. Green, the most senior enlisted Marine on active duty wrote in an email response. “It is inconsistent with our core values, and it impedes our ability to perform our mission.

The service is deeply concerned about the damage the incident could do to the Marines, according to a document provided to generals yesterday warning them of the upcoming story.

Yes, I imagine they are deeply concerned, but as usual, they are not at all concerned with the right things. Perhaps a bit less focus on creating killing machines, and a bit more on being a decent human being, for fuck’s sake. Apparently, a good many of your recruits need to be taught that either being a rapist or encouraging rape is wrong.

…The War Horse submitted multiple requests for additional comment to the Secretary of Defense and Commandant of the Marine Corps. Both declined to comment on specifics of the situation, citing the ongoing investigation.

However, in his email, Green added additional perspective, repeatedly denouncing the “degrading and demeaning behavior” of Marines United members and encouraging Marines — and all service members — to be “a voice of change” for the better.

“As Marines, as human beings, you should be angry by the actions of a few,” Green wrote. “Ultimately we must take a look in the mirror and decide whether we are part of the problem or the solution.

“…We need to realize that silence is consent — do not be silent.”

Yes, it would be nice to see the military address the rampant rape culture infesting it, but it seems all that happens every time there’s an inconvenient spotlight on such behaviour, is lip service. Time to step up, don’t you think? What happened to the standard you walk past is the standard you accept?

The full story is here, and much worse than the excerpts included here.

President Jekyll and Mr. Tweet.

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Whoever was keeping Mr. Tweet locked up tight lost the battle, and unhinged tweets are once again littered about, this time mashing up Pres. Obama, wire taps, McCarthyism, and Watergate. I’m just going to include one here:

How low has President Obama gone to tapp [sic] my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!

No, Teeny Tyrant, this isn’t Watergate, and you aren’t Nixon. You’re a corrupt fucking idiot, who has his very own massive scandal to worry about. I wonder, does he think this twittershit actually makes a difference? Apparently, this latest appearance of Mr. Tweet was triggered by an article in Breitbart. You can read about that here. You can read some of the responses here.

I just want to focus on one thing: the very sacred election process. Right. Would you be talking about all the voter suppression which took place? Pretty sure you’d consider that bit sacred, seeing as it was illegal, unethical, and well into evil territory. Or is it the travesty of the electoral college that’s sacred? One thing is for certain, you don’t consider the votes of millions of people to be shit, let alone sacred. I expect the Idiot-in-Chief meant sacrosanct, but that word is a bit big.

Well, that so-called grand and normal moment, oh so presidential and all that, it didn’t last long, did it? What amazes me is that anyone fell for that shit in the first place. Just because Trump can manage, with enough wrangling, to be President Jekyll for a moment, does not mean Mr. Tweet has gone away.

Also see this response:

A California Congressman took to Twitter on Saturday morning to warn President Donald Trump that — if he is correct that his Trump Tower phones were tapped — he is “in deep sh*t.”

Think Progress is also covering this story.

“And I’m Not Judging, I’m Just Saying,”

Rep. Roger Marshall. CREDIT: (AP Photo/John Hanna.

Rep. Roger Marshall. CREDIT: (AP Photo/John Hanna.)

Yet another rethug is flapping his mouth over healthcare, this time claiming that a certain class of people doesn’t want healthcare, no, and Jesus said so.

In an interview with STAT, Rep. Roger Marshall (R-KS) says he doesn’t support Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion because he believes some poor people just don’t want health care.

“Just like Jesus said, ‘The poor will always be with us,’” Marshall, a doctor and first-term congressman, said. “There is a group of people that just don’t want health care and aren’t going to take care of themselves.”

The author of the STAT piece, Lev Facher, writes that he “pressed” Marshall on that point. But the congressman “shrugged.”

“The Medicaid population, which is [on] a free credit card, as a group, do probably the least preventive medicine and taking care of themselves and eating healthy and exercising. And I’m not judging, I’m just saying socially that’s where they are,” Marshall said. “So there’s a group of people that even with unlimited access to health care are only going to use the emergency room when their arm is chopped off or when their pneumonia is so bad they get brought [into] the ER.”

Interesting that Marshall, who is a physician, thinks that medicare equals unlimited access to health care. I guess when your whole career focus is sucking up to the rich, you can get a highly skewed view of things. Medicare is most certainly not unlimited access to health care, and it’s not remotely true that people who do have medicare/medicaid don’t bother to use it. They do. Healthcare is good, but if you want people to also eat in the healthiest and most nutritious manner, and exercise, you can’t just hand them medicare. Social systems are also needed, to provide safe ways to travel, places to exercise, and in urban areas, problems like food deserts need to be addressed as well, and there’s quite a bit more which also needs to be dealt with. Here in uStates, you get the idea that quality of life is only for those with a certain amount of money in the bank.

As for that “Hey, Jesus said the poor will always be with us”, that’s a transparent and disgusting excuse to continue to wipe your feet on the backs of all those who aren’t deemed to be monied enough.

Marshall’s personal views aside, a Harvard School of Public Health study published last summer shows that Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion resulted in improved health for low-income adults — and fewer ER visits.

“Two years after Medicaid coverage was expanded under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in their states, low-income adults in Kentucky and Arkansas received more primary and preventive care, made fewer emergency departments visits, and reported higher quality care and improved health compared with low-income adults in Texas, which did not expand Medicaid, according to a new study led by researchers at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health,” a summary of the study says. “The findings provide new evidence for states that are debating whether to expand or how to expand coverage to low-income adults.”

Other studies examining the effects of providing Medicaid coverage to more impoverished people have found similar results.

Oooh, look, studies! Perhaps Rep. Marshall should stick his nose in those, and do a bit of learning. He won’t though, because if there’s one thing rethugs don’t like, it’s having their views challenged in any way.

But Marshall, citing the hospital he helped run in Kansas, suggested he’s primarily concerned with quality of care on the other end of the economic spectrum.

“Our vision was that we would look more like a hotel with customer service that delivered five-star health care,” he said. “So our cafeteria looks more like a coffee shop than it does a sterile hospital dining room. We have bright windows everywhere, and outside of every window there’s a garden. Thinking that healing is more than just a knife and a needle.”

Ah. Well, no wonder you’re not terribly interested in everyday people. They can’t fund your 5 star health hotel. I’d be willing to bet most people would feel better in that kind of environment when ill. Pity all you care about are the rich.

The purpose of the STAT interview was to highlight Marshall’s role as part of the GOP Doctors Caucus, described in the piece as “a group of 16 lawmakers with health care backgrounds who have put themselves at the center of the effort to unwind the Affordable Care Act.”

There’s a bit of terrifying news. One that makes it rather clear the direction ‘healthcare’ is going to take under the rethuglicans. Full story at Think Progress.

Republican Logic: A Living Wage? No, No.

Rep. Dan Shaul (Facebook).

Rep. Dan Shaul (Facebook).

A Missouri representative is rushing to kill off a minimum wage hike, on the basis that certain jobs weren’t ever meant to provide a living wage, so hey, you can keep paying people shit wages. It’s interesting, if depressing, to read all the twists and turns republicans use to justify being corrupt, villainous assholes, with a pointed interest in keeping people poor. Well, some people.

A Missouri Republican introduced legislation that would stop Kansas City from enacting a higher minimum wage — because he said workers weren’t meant to live on those wages.

Rep. Dan Shaul (R-Jefferson City) wants the statehouse to quickly pass his bill that would prohibit cities and counties from paying a higher minimum wage than what is set by state law, reported the Kansas City Star.

The bill contains an emergency clause that would allow it to go into effect as soon as the governor signs it, and the newspaper reported Shaul’s bill is moving quickly through the legislative process.

“The minimum wage wasn’t meant to be a living wage,” Shaul told the Star. “I’m all for family sustainable wages, and I certainly don’t want a family to have to work two or three jobs to get by. But grocery store baggers and fast food work isn’t where you should be working to sustain your family.”

Right. Because if the jobs you can manage to get might be as a grocery clerk or working in a restaurant, well, you should have known better, you stupid peon! Those aren’t proper jobs! Get a good, white person type job, er, white collar job! That way, you can call it a career, and get by just dandy. All that cost of living jazz, well, that doesn’t mean anything. House payments? Pfffft, get a proper job and you can get a loan! Being in debt up to your neck is the American way, you bet. Or you know, you should have just been born rich. It seems the concept of choice is a rethug Shibboleth.

Full story here.

Healthcare: Republican Hide and Don’t Seek.

CREDIT: Screencap via Twitter.

CREDIT: Screencap via Twitter.

Hide & Don’t Seek, the new rethuglican game with healthcare. They have literally hidden their ACA replacement bill. That makes it clear just how lousy it is, and that it basically only has to do with healthcare in the sense of removing it.

Democratic lawmakers spent much of Thursday wandering around the Capitol in an attempt to find House Republicans’ health care plan to replace the Affordable Care Act. They couldn’t find it.

On Wednesday, House Republicans said they would release their much anticipated plan the next day, but that only House Republicans would be able to see it. Rep. Chris Collins (R-NY) said it would be available in a “basement of an office building that adjoins the Capitol.”

“No one is getting a copy … We can go and read it,” Rep. Collins told the Washington Examiner.

Democratic lawmakers, such as Rep. Steny Hoyer, (D-MD) Rep. Jan Schakowski (D-IL), and Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ) went on an “egg hunt” for the document.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) tweeted that the bill was “under lock and key,” but that he would demand a copy so the American people could see it. Sen. Paul added that it was “unacceptable” that one of the biggest issues before Congress and the American people would be kept secret.

Paul then reportedly wheeled over a copy machine to make copies of the bill, but was barred from entering the room where it was reportedly being kept. The bill had also been moved from the room before Paul got there, Politico reported.

You can follow all the tweets and the idiotic Republican hiding of healthcare at Think Progress. I think everyone is going to find that when they get to the bill, there is no there there.

Not Enough American Exceptionalism & Free Market Glory!

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Credit: Democracy Now.

Republican Arkansas state Sen. Kim Hendren introduced a bill to the state legislature that will ban the works of historian Howard Zinn from any schools that receive public funds.

The Arkansas Times reported Thursday that House Bill 1834 would ban all public schools and open enrollment charter schools from “including in its curriculum or course materials for a program of study books or any other material authored by or concerning Howard Zinn.”

Zinn is the author of “A People’s History of the United States,” the groundbreaking re-examination of U.S. history in terms of its effects on the poor, people of color and women.

What began as a fringe interpretation of history has gradually gained ground. In 2014 and 2015, Republicans across the country fought a pitched battle against the federal AP high school history program. Conservatives argue that the curriculum looks at U.S. history through the lenses of race and class, placing too much emphasis on slavery and Native American genocide and not enough on American exceptionalism and the glory of the free market economy.

Why you can’t go around teaching history that isn’t properly whitewashed, oh no. Lies are so much better. As usual, in that exceptional American way, the truth is the enemy. Full story here.

Adding to the load of exceptional American stupidity, is Ryan Zinke, the new Secretary of the Interior. What’s he done? Why, he’s lifted the ban on lead ammunition and fishing tackle. Because lead doesn’t cause any harm at all, right? Right.

Naturally, the NRA is elated over this idiotic move. As lead causes the unintended deaths of birds and fish, you’d think perhaps all those avid hunters and fishers would have a moment of head scratching, and figure out that lead would mean less animals available for them to slaughter. And of course, having lead scattered all over the place, leaching into the ground and water, eh, what’s the problem?

In the hypocritical stupidity exceptionalism category, we have one Mike Pence, and his little email problem:

Vice President Mike Pence routinely used a private email account to conduct public business as governor of Indiana, at times discussing sensitive matters and homeland security issues.

Emails released to IndyStar in response to a public records request show Pence communicated via his personal AOL account with top advisers on topics ranging from security gates at the governor’s residence to the state’s response to terror attacks across the globe. In one email, Pence’s top state homeland security adviser relayed an update from the FBI regarding the arrests of several men on federal terror-related charges.

Cyber-security experts say the emails raise concerns about whether such sensitive information was adequately protected from hackers, given that personal accounts like Pence’s are typically less secure than government email accounts. In fact, Pence’s personal account was hacked last summer.

“It is a total witch hunt!”

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President Donald Trump and the Russian foreign minister used the same phrase to push back against the widening scandal engulfing the White House.

[…]

Trump said in his statement late Thursday that Sessions was “an honest man” who “did not say anything wrong” by denying during his Senate confirmation any contacts with Russian officials — despite having twice met with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the campaign.

“He could have stated his response more accurately, but it was clearly not intentional,” Trump said in his statement.

There’s a mouthful of double speak. If Sessions spoke more accurately, that would have meant telling the truth. As he didn’t, it was an intentional case of lying, full stop. It’s a simple question: did you meet with so and so? Here’s how to answer that one: yes or no. Could not possibly be more simple. There simply isn’t double speak wiggle room here, regardless of the shit the Tiny Tyrant is pumping out. And if there’s some sort of claim that Sessions just didn’t remember, fine, then that means he’s too damn old for the job, kick him out.

“This whole narrative is a way of saving face for Democrats losing an election that everyone thought they were supposed to win,” the president continued. “The Democrats are overplaying their hand. They lost the election and now, they have lost their grip on reality. The real story is all of the illegal leaks of classified and other information. It is a total witch hunt!”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov signaled his agreement with Trump early Friday and also denounced the scandal as a “witch hunt.”

“I can cite the media that say all this is very much reminiscent of a witch hunt and the McCarthyism era which we all thought was long gone,” Lavrov said.

This whole narrative is about corrupt liars with Nazi inclinations infesting the white house. This whole narrative is about a puppet regime. This whole narrative, well, this could go on all day. As for this godsdamn witch hunt bullshit, enough! Stop it already. It’s not in the least a witch hunt, has nothing at all in common with a witch hunt. Anyone seen The Inquisition around lately? Seen gibbets with corpses hanging? Stakes with people on fire, greasy oily smoke? No? Then shut the fuck up. Criticism is not a witch hunt. Attempting to find out the truth is not a witch hunt. Asking questions is not a witch hunt. This is the cry of fucking idiots everywhere, and in many cases, the cry of guilty fucking idiots. Oh, and McCarthyism was a commie hunt, just so you know.

Full story here.

Just One Question…

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Oh, the roiling turmoil, the ducking, the dodging, the calls for resignation, yada, yada, yada. Lots of headlines over Sessions right now. He lied. He committed perjury. Surely, I can’t be the only person not in the least bit surprised. What would surprise me is if any of the current cabinet didn’t lie during confirmation hearings. So, all the headlines:

Sessions lied to Congress about his contacts with Russia during the Trump campaign. Here’s the tape.

Jeff Sessions said that people who commit perjury must be removed from office.

Jeff Sessions’ shifting, deceptive explanations for his secret meetings with Russia.

48 Congressional Democrats call on Attorney General to resign.

US Attorney General Sessions says to recuse himself when ‘appropriate’.

Just one question, and this goes for every person, not just Sessions – why in the fuck were these people ever confirmed in the first place? It would have been nice if all the democrats had been busy doing their damn job then.

A “Normal” Moment.

Trump humps flag. Twitter.

Trump humps flag. Twitter.

It seems that a good deal of media and regular folks are falling all over themselves about how reasonable Trump’s speech was, it was all so gosh darn normal, oh my yes! Except it wasn’t. It was the same old shit, wrapped up in the flag and exceptional Americanism, with a white nationalist filling. Raw Story has a brief article about this, noting the White House surprise at how media pundits were won over by this speech.

President Donald Trump’s address to Congress on Tuesday night got glowing reviews from some pundits on cable news — and it turns out even the White House is surprised by how easily they were won over.

Washington Post reporter Robert Costa tweeted on Wednesday morning that some sources he’s talked with in the White House are “frankly surprised at how pundits are warming to the speech.”

This is particularly surprising to them, Costa writes, because “Trump has not changed” and there is “no big shift in policy coming.”

Think Progress has a longer piece about this piece of bullshit which too many people are swallowing whole. Interestingly, the white supremacist scum are thrilled about it, because instead of paying attention to the bits of trapping, they focused on actual content, which is a gift to Nazis everywhere.

Speaking to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night, President Donald Trump portrayed the United States as an island of civilization under siege from immigrant cartels and terrorists posing as refugees.

Trump touted a new Department of Homeland Security office that will target “criminal aliens.” He lied about immigration’s effect on the U.S. economy, boasted about sharp rollbacks to the regulatory state, renewed his call for eradicating the Affordable Care Act, hinted at further efforts to privatize the American education system, and offered a strident defense of his administration’s Muslim ban. At no point did he deviate from the “nationalist-populist” ideology his administration has adopted under top strategist Steve Bannon, former chairman of the white-nationalist website Breitbart.

On the other hand, Trump also read off a teleprompter, tossed off a cursory denunciation of “hate,” and wrapped up the speech with some pablum about how Americans should believe in themselves.

Those minor grace points were enough to earn Trump rapturous applause from the usual pundit gaggle, which is evidently willing to embrace a white-nationalist policy agenda if the presentation includes a few Hallmark aphorisms and leaves out any overt racial slurs.

CNN’s Van Jones said Trump “became President of the United States” when he acknowledged the widow of a fallen Navy SEAL, who was sitting in the audience.

Oh FFS, really? Trump acts like a normal person for 10 fucking seconds, and people are tripping over their tongues at how great he is? Jesus Fucking Christ, it’s not enough, it’s just not enough to say we are in trouble here. We are past trouble. There aren’t even words. We’re up to our neck in fascism, but it’s okay, because someone managed to get Trump to read some nice words from a teleprompter. Why didn’t anyone bother to note that Ms. Owens wouldn’t have been a grieving widow if it weren’t for Trump’s ego and need to play war? That Trump doesn’t want to go along with the investigation requested by Owen’s father? No, he’s so very presidential because he addressed a widow.

The vile Nazi scum were elated, but for reasons grounded in reality:

David Duke @DrDavidDuke

Hail to the Chief – No change on policy to deport illegals and on track to CUT major legal immigration necessary to take our country back!

Richard ? Spencer ✔ @RichardBSpencer

After the PC bullshit is out of the way, Trump is making a Trump speech.#trumpaddress

So, what’s it going to take for all the non-Nazi scum to see what’s actually being said and what’s actually going on?

Via Think Progress.

Also see:

Trump lied. Right-wing extremists — not foreigners — commit more terror attacks in the U.S.

Trump’s address to Congress was riddled with falsehoods about the energy industry.

Trump was so busy attacking immigrants he barely acknowledged hate crimes.

Trump draws a fake conclusion from a study that actually finds immigration is good for the economy.