So It Begins…

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell talks to reporters after the Senate Republican weekly policy luncheon at the Capitol in Washington, July 8, 2015. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell talks to reporters after the Senate Republican weekly policy luncheon at the Capitol in Washington, July 8, 2015. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque.

Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said repealing the Obamacare health insurance system is a “pretty high item on our agenda” for the new Congress that was elected on Tuesday, calling it the “single worst piece of legislation” from the first two years of the Obama administration.

McConnell told reporters he would like to see bipartisan comprehensive tax reform, and that border security should also be high on the to-do list. He expects president-elect Donald Trump to send the Senate a Supreme Court nominee soon, and to review environmental regulations put in place by Obama, including on coal.

All those people who could only get healthcare through ACA (affordable Care act), well, look just how fast the republican thugs want to yank that threadbare rug out from under you. Gosh, having citizens who have affordable healthcare, oh, how horrible, it’s unthinkable! Much better for people to be sick, and who gives a fuck if they die? Certainly not republicans. The only thing republicans truly excel at, besides inciting fear based on racism, is holding a spiteful grudge. They just can’t wait to destroy anything President Obama did, and if it makes people suffer, hey, all the better!

And Arkansas senator Tom Cotton just can’t wait to built that wall, and to force everyone to turn over immigrants.

Via Raw Story.

White Nationalists Around the World Gleeful.

Marine Le Pen, leader of Front National, welcomed the result. Photograph: Eric Feferberg/AFP/Getty Images.

Marine Le Pen, leader of Front National, welcomed the result. Photograph: Eric Feferberg/AFP/Getty Images.

Just in case you weren’t quite depressed enough, The Guardian has the reactions of all the white supremacist bigots from elsewhere in the world, who are just over the moon about Trump. They’re taking this as a sign to start burning everything, everyone, in their march towards global fascism. Fuck every single godsdamned person who voted for Trump – you voted for a xenophobic, homophobic bigot, a rapist, a sexual predator, a con man, an open fraud, a sociopath, an ignorant asspimple who will hasten the death of the very planet which gives you life.  Fuck.  every.  single.  one.  of.  you. You make me wish there was a hell, because if anyone deserves it, you do. Instead, you have unleashed hell on millions upon millions of people, and you have signed the death sentence on your own fucking planet, you fools.

See also: Far-right leader Le Pen says Trump win ‘good news for France’.

No Comment.

A Donald Trump supporter poses with a gun while attending a rally for Trump on the first day of the Republican National Convention in July (Photo: Getty Images).

A Donald Trump supporter poses with a gun while attending a rally for Trump on the first day of the Republican National Convention in July (Photo: Getty Images).

Trump supporters are shooting their guns in the air.

November Is…

Speaking of, Alysa Landry has an excellent article up at ICTMN, about spending the last forty-five weeks writing about all the U.S. presidents, and their impact on Indigenous peoples: Indians Are Invisible: What I Learned Researching US Presidents. Highly recommended reading. The whitewash goes deeper than anyone thought.

McCrory Defeated. Updated.

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In a tiny bright spot, McCrory was defeated, and that means the rollback of HB2. Thanks to all those North Carolinians who voted their sense of right, and gave McCrory a very well deserved boot to the arse.

With 100 percent of precincts reporting, Democrat Roy Cooper was ahead by just a few thousand votes. Cooper has 2,280,398 votes compared to 2,276,059 for McCrory.

The Human Rights Campaign and Equality North Carolina issued a late-night news release elaborating on their win.

“We are confident that once the results are certified, Roy Cooper’s victory will be confirmed,” they wrote. “By electing Roy Cooper their next governor, North Carolinians have sent a powerful message across their state and this country that the days of anti-LGBTQ politicians targeting our community for political gain are over. While McCrory may have been surprised by the overwhelming opposition in this state and across the country to his discriminatory politics, the same will not be true for lawmakers who are considering doubling down on anti-LGBTQ extremism in the future. This is a wake-up call.”

Via The Advocate.

UPDATE: McCrory refuses to concede.

A Day of Mourning.

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Welcome to the nightmare, writ large in the greasy crayons of greed, hate, ignorance, and fear. This is not my country, I stand without one. I don’t know what this place is anymore, outside of a place where terror resides and flourishes, a place where people are proud to be stupid and violent. I’ve felt broken many times in the past, but I don’t know that it’s ever bit quite as deep as this day does.

It took us an extra 32 years, but we finally reached 1984.

Breaking: 1 Dead, Multiple Victims Shot at California Polling Station.

Police are responding to an active shooting in Azusa. (KTLA-TV Channel 5).

Police are responding to an active shooting in Azusa. (KTLA-TV Channel 5).

One person was killed and at least three others were wounded Tuesday in an active shooting near a polling place in Azusa.

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Capt. Jeff Scroggin said police were dealing with at least one suspect who was heavily armed.

At least one of the victims was headed to the polling station to vote, a law enforcement source told The Times.

Officers arrived about 2:02 p.m. in the 300 block of North Orange Avenue to find multiple shooting victims and a man with a rifle. The gunman immediately fired at least 20 shots at police, said the source.

Under a hail of gunfire, officers took cover and returned shots at the man, who retreated into a home in the 500 block of Fourth Street, said the source, who requested anonymity because the case was ongoing. No officers were injured in the shooting.

[…]

Azusa Union School District issued a lockdown for Slauson Middle and Mountain View Elementary schools about 2:15 p.m., officials said. A nearby daycare center and preschool was also locked down.

Los Angeles County Registrar Dean Logan said the shooting was affecting two polling stations at Memorial Park, a preschool, and Dalton Elementary school.

He urged voters to avoid the area and “if necessary, cast a ballot at an alternate polling location.”

Oh, this is so bad. So very bad. My heart to the victims, and the family and loved ones of the person who was killed, for no reason at all. The word at the moment is this person is still at large. If you are in the area, please, please, do whatever you need to do to be safe. This is a bloody nightmare, and we all know who we can thank for this one.

Full story at the LA Times.

Seven Young Artists…

Today, Americans will decide who will be the 45th President of the United States of America. An online exhibition considers the national and international consequences of this election. The group exhibition entitled, Pulling Down The Walls, organized by Galerie Number 8, examines some of the bigger issues—immigration, race, gender and equality—of the year. Featuring artists, Campbell Addy, Ivan Forde, Justin French, Nicolas Henry, Hector Mediavilla, Leonard Pongo, and David Uzochukwi, the pop-up show uses portrait, landscape, and reportage photography, to show what’s at stake in this presidential election. Read and see more at The Creators Project.

Justin French, Patriot, 2015, 20 x 30 inches. © Justin French.

Justin French, Patriot, 2015, 20 x 30 inches. © Justin French.

 

Hector Mediavilla, Latingo Border #6, 2010, 48 x 60 inches. © Hector Mediavilla.

Hector Mediavilla, Latingo Border #6, 2010, 48 x 60 inches. © Hector Mediavilla.

Right Wing Terrorism Awaits.

Shutterstock.

Shutterstock.

[…] Already there are militias preparing for “civil unrest in the days following a victory by Democrat Hillary Clinton. They are convinced “the Islamic State, or agents sent by Mrs. Clinton, or both, may soon descend” on them. At Trump rallies, supporters warn of coming riots nationwide and “another Revolutionary war” to remove Clinton from office.

This rhetoric can be dismissed as fantasies stewing in the overheated imagination of reactionaries who envision race wars and their neighborhood going “up in flames” every time a centrist Democrat is elected or Black people march for justice. But there is another grave risk likely to explode after a Clinton victory: right-wing terrorism, particularly mass shootings.

Over the last year, as white male anger congealed around Trump, there has been a lull in mass shootings, about 60 percent of which are carried out by white men. While a causal relationship between his campaign and domestic terrorism can never be proved, there are reasons to think the drop in mass shootings is linked to Trump’s candidacy as well as it is more probable there will be an outburst of right-wing terrorism after a Clinton victory.

The foremost reason is recent history. The day after Obama’s inauguration in 2009, Keith Luke, a 22-year-old neo-Nazi, went on a rampage of murder and rape in Brockton, Massachusetts, saying he was “fighting for a dying race.” Over the next two years there were at least seven other cases of deadly right-wing political terrorism carried out by white men, with targets including a Planned Parenthood clinic, the Holocaust Museum, an IRS building, and massacre in Arizona that nearly claimed the life of Congresswoman Gabby Giffords. There were other aborted political terrorist attacks or ones that ended in the death of the gunman only. The common thread was attackers were motivated by anti-government sentiment, often fueled by the likes of Fox News, Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin.

[…]

The violence is already bubbling up. One examination of the public Facebook pages of more than 240 active militias found a significant spike in recent activity of members vowing insurrection and violence if Clinton wins. These groups also wax and wane according to who is president. Under George W. Bush, the number of Patriot groups, which include many militias, declined by 85 percent from the peak of the Clinton era, to a low of 131 in 2007. Within five years, under Obama, the number of Patriot had grown an astonishing 10-fold.

[…]

If anything, the danger of right-wing terrorism is greater than ever. Much of that aggression has been channeled into Donald Trump’s campaign, which may account for the drop-off in mass shootings. That’s why his defeat is likely to see a rise in attacks. The militias preparing for insurrection are a vector of future terrorism. Shane Bauer’s eye-opening look into these militias found they walk “a delicate line between stoking its members’ paranoid fears and fantasies of rebellion and holding them in check.” Some militia leaders admitted they expelled or even reported members to authorities whom they suspected were planning to kill Muslims or assassinate politicians.

[…]

Trump has convinced millions of heavily armed Americans that if he doesn’t win, then it will be the end of America. And with many followers going around with an itchy finger on the trigger, convinced war is inevitable, how long before some of them start shooting?

Arun Gupta’s full article is well worth reading. Our interesting times are about to get more interesting, and much more terrifying.

Oh, the irony.

Glenn Beck at FreePAC (Photo: Screen capture).

Glenn Beck at FreePAC (Photo: Screen capture).

Glen Beck is now going on and on and on about how wonderful the Obamas are, just great people, a great president, great, I tell ya! Oh, and Pres. Obama made me a better man! I thought that was supposed to be god’s work. Glenn also stated that he’s now a supporter of Black Lives Matter. Maybe it’s just me, but I’d look askance at Glenn wanting to be an ally. I’m just going to post this one quote, you can go read all the rest.

“We’ve made everything into a game show,” he said, “and now we’re reaping the consequences of it.”

You don’t say, Mr. Glenn jazz hands and tears Beck. I didn’t make everything into a game show, and I didn’t watch any of it either. When it comes to blame in that regard, perhaps you’ve heard of these items called mirrors, Mr. Beck. Time for a long, deep look. I expect that if Mr. Beck gets the opportunity to jump right back into the game show game, he’ll take it, with bells on. Who knows what he’ll say then. Quite the irony overdose for a morning, especially one which requires voting.

Full glurge is here.

North Carolina Boasts Over Voter Suppression.

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An early voting location in Greensboro, NC. CREDIT: AP Photo/Skip Foreman.

North Carolina, almost making nDakota look good. The NC GOP has been working hard on voter suppression, and they are getting a result, an unfortunate one.

After Republican leaders mounted a concerted and illegal effort to make it harder for African Americans to vote in North Carolina, the party apparatus celebrated on Monday that fewer African Americans have voted in North Carolina this year.

In July, a federal appeals court struck down an “omnibus” election law, passed by the GOP-controlled state legislature and signed by Gov. Pat McCrory (R), writing that it was “hard not to come away with the conclusion that North Carolina’s lawmakers wanted to get caught engaging in unlawfully racial discrimination.” The court found that the GOP legislature had “requested data on the use, by race, of a number of voting practices,” and then “enacted legislation that restricted voting and registration in five different ways, all of which disproportionately affected African Americans.” In an unsuccessfulappeal, the state actually claimed that its efforts would instead increase minority turnout.

After that failed, North Carolina Republicans used their two-to-one edge on electoral boards to slash early voting options and force long lines at the few early voting locations in urban centers like Charlotte, Raleigh, Fayetteville, and Winston-Salem. Unsurprisingly, almost 9 percent fewer African Americans took advantage of early voting than had in 2012.

Full story here.

In other bad shenanigans news, a Colorado amendment would take power away from voters:

A state constitutional amendment on Tuesday’s ballot will give Coloradans an opportunity to make it much harder for voters to change their laws.

Amendment 71 — known as “Raise the Bar” — would mean that in order to get an amendment on future ballots, 2 percent of voters in each of the state’s 35 senate districts would have to sign a petition. In addition, it would increase the threshold for passing a constitutional amendment from 50 percent to 55 percent.

The amendment is being backed primarily by business interests, including a massive cash infusion from the oil and gas industry.

Opponents say that passing Raise the Bar will make it nearly impossible for citizen-led initiatives to get on the ballot. Colorado is characterized by widely divergent districts. A policy popular in deeply red Colorado Springs would have trouble gaining 2 percent of voters’ signatures in liberal Boulder, for instance, and vice-versa.

“One part of the state could hold veto power over the rest of the state,” said Jessica Goad, communications director for Conservation Colorado. “There are so many issues where this could really stymie changes.”

One of those issues is oil and gas regulation.

A pair of proposed amendments that would have restricted oil and gas development in the state narrowly missed garnering enough signatures to appear on the ballot this year. Under the rules proposed by Amendment 71, they would be virtually impossible to mount.

We have all been bought and sold, tossed about as disposable pawns in corporate gaming. Oh yay. Full story here.

Oh Yuengling.

beer-protestx750

Gay bars in Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., are boycotting Yuengling after the beer company’s owner, Richard “Dick” Yuengling Jr., came out in support of Donald Trump. Last week the fifth-generation businessman gave the Republican nominee’s son Eric a tour of a Yuengling brewery located in Pottsville, Pa.

“My father’s going to make it a lot easier for business to function,” the younger Trump claimed during a news conference. “We’re going to do it right here in the U.S.”

“Our guys are behind your father,” Yuengling responded. “We need him in there.”

Following the owner’s endorsement, Rep. Brian Sims, Pennsylvania’s first openly gay state legislator, called on gay-owned businesses in the Keystone State to stop serving the company’s products. Forbes described Yuengling as boasting a “cult-like status” in the 19 states — primarily in the East Coast and Southwest — where the beer is distributed. Even President Obama is a fan.

But the buck has to stop somewhere, as Sims wrote on Facebook.

“One of the most prevalent brands in the gayborhood and in LGBT bars across the Commonwealth, is using our own dollars to back a person and an ideology that says that our lives … matter less,” he said. “More to the point, those dollars are being used right now to give power to his bigoted messages attacking our black and brown neighbors and all of the women in our lives.”

“Our communities know a thing or two about voting with our dollars,” Sims added, “and I won’t be using my hard-earned dollars to give power to any company or person who hates me. What about you?”

Following Sims’s call to arms, several gay bars swiftly dropped the brand.

[…]

Many of Yuengling’s most loyal drinkers have joined the call to #DumpYuengling. Todd Bird, who lives in Louisville, Ky., regularly drives 90 miles to Ohio for a drink of his favorite beer, but he said those days are over.

“Supporting racist, misogynist nut-job Trump is the end of the line for me,” he wrote on Twitter.

The money power of the queer community is not something to be scorned, as many companies have found before, and have had to make a decision to not be such bigoted asswipes, when they’ve seen what has happened to their bottom line. Yuengling has quite the following, and to have people dump it cold is going to hurt, even if Dick Yuengling hasn’t quite figured that one out yet. He will, eventually.

Full story at The Advocate.