Mine hasn’t been so great. I’ve mainly been watching my country collapse around me.
-
Trump appointed a known racist and deadbeat dad, Steve Bannon, to the National Security Council. He is not qualified for the job at all.
- A major chunk of the senior management of the state department resigned.
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On Holocaust Remembrance Day, Trump issued a formal statement that somehow neglected to mention the Jewish people. Asked how, the administration made vague noises about “all lives matter” that anyone with half a brain can see right through.
Asked about the White House explanation that the President didn’t want to exclude any of the other groups Nazis killed by specifically mentioning Jews, Greenblatt told CNN that the United Nations established International Holocaust Remembrance Day not only because of Holocaust denial but also because so many countries — Iran, Russia, Poland, and Hungary, for example — specifically refuse to acknowledge Hitler’s attempt to exterminate Jews, “opting instead to talk about generic suffering rather than recognizing this catastrophic incident for what is was: the intended genocide of the Jewish people.”
Downplaying or disregarding the degree to which Jews were targeted for elimination during the Holocaust is a common theme of nationalist movements like those seen in Russia and Eastern Europe, Greenblatt said. -
Also on Holocaust Remembrance Day, he made an executive order that turned legal travelers and immigrants from 7 Muslim nations into criminals, and slammed the door shut in the face of refugees. Airports across the country erupted in protests.
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While protests against the anti-humanitarian edicts of the Trump regime raged, Ivanka Trump posts a glamor shot, just to show how disconnected their family is from reality.
Hey, Marie, how was the cake at the party?
This is all going to end in a bloody revolution, isn’t it?
I can’t find the link where I found this, but I read a report that Trump also filed candidacy paperwork for the 2020 election on the same day as the inauguration. As a candidate, he can now solicit campaign donations, and 501c3 (or whatever the code is) can not mention him by name lest they lose their non-profit status for engaging in politics regarding a candidate.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure he had my communist family members in mind. Or all the gay people who were murdered. Or the Sinti and Roma who are still treated like shit all across the globe…
A searching using Generalissimo Google™ for “trump 2020 candidacy” finds multiple links. The most reliable source I spotted seems to be the Washington Post, however, last I checked, they don’t allow ad-blockers, so I will neither read their report nor provide a link: They have no fecking business “controlling” my battery / electric usage.
I’ve seen variations of this tweet cross my screen: https://twitter.com/VoiceOfThePhan/status/825576979428679680
It shows a refugee child wrapped in one of those silvery blankets and asks, “who wore it better?”
Also noticed an additional bit of inappropriate in her picture: Jared has a possessive hand on her butt.
For anyone interested
https://notoimmigrationban.com
Susan Rice: “This is stone cold crazy. After a week of crazy. Who needs military advice or intell to make policy on ISIL, Syria, Afghanistan, DPRK?”
Frankly speaking, I more than feel like a hostage. What a shame, for the decency, the values, and the respect that the term ‘America’ ”’stood”’ for have all been lost. What a shame when it is so easy for a scoundrel to become a president just by duping the privileged into thinking that they are the underprivileged and by duping the underprivileged into thinking that the government does not work for them. Even more shameful is the fact that the latter was done solely by blocking the government from performing its duties for the last 8 years and not performing them for the 8 years before that. Sad !
I’m wondering how long it will be, before the Trump administration destroys the economy.
Americans will tolerate a lot but they really hate being poor and unemployed.
This is the GOP weak spot. Bush destroyed the economy big time which allowed Obama to get elected to fix it. Which he did.
1. The undocumented immigrants are both workers and consumers. Get rid of them and we lose a percentage or two of GDP.
2. We are alienating the rest of the world by the day.
Mexico is our second largest trading partner with a combined 1/2 trillion USD in trade.
There are 1.4 billion Muslims and they sell us cheap oil and we sell them food and technology products.
They don’t have to buy from us.
3. Tourism and higher education are (or were) sought after by foreigners. Few Muslims are going to show up at Disneyland or enroll at State U. any more.
4. Trump is doing what Bush did. Loot the country with the 1% and hand the husk of the USA to the taxpayers to try to revive.
5. Trump is also planning to vastly increase the deficits. Which could cause a recession if the Fed Reserve has to raise interest rates to halt inflation.
It took Bush 7 years to destroy the economy.
It may take Trump a lot less time.
Naw.
1. Americans are apathetic and incurious. Not all of them but enough to elect Trump.
It would take another generation or two on present trends. At the least.
2. Revolutions are overrated anyway. They mostly don’t solve anything but can make things worse.
Data. The Bolsheviks in Russia. The French revolution. The Iranian revolution. The Egyptian revolution deep sixing Mubarak. The Arab spring. Lately, Turkey and Erdogan.
Peaceful, evolutionary change is usually better.
Yeah, you can’t mention the Holocaust without mentioning the genocide against the Jewish people. That said, I’m a bit annoyed that it usually ends there, to be fair. What about the Roma? The people with mental health issues? The social democrats, socialists and communists? The intellectual and political dissidents? I bring up political enemies of the Nazis especially whenever I need to argue against the idea that Nazism is somehow left-wing because it includes the name “Socialism” in there somewhere. Which, by the way, is an idiotic line of argument I seem to mostly come across on American websites. Not to be mean, but this outlandish idea seems to be particularly common among you Yanks.
Saganite,
Agreed.
In their attempts to excuse their own anti-semitism and insensitivity, they almost stumbled on a sensible thought. It was pure accident, of course.
In case it might be of interest to any Pharyngulites with British citizenship, there is now a petition on the UK Parliamentary website to prevent Trump from being invited to perform an official State visit to the UK over his immigration policy. While he has the right to travel to the UK in his official capacity as US President, that doesn’t mean he automatically gets all the nauseating pomp and ceremony of a State visit. The petition’s wording is somewhat annoying, going on about the visit being ’embarrassing to the Queen’ because of Trump’s immigration policy, but even republican Brits might want to hold their noses and sign anyway, just to express their rejection of Trump’s bigotry in office.
At the time of writing, the petition has 438,225 signatures, and under UK law any petition with more than 100,000 signatures must be debated in Parliament, so even if the petition doesn’t prevent the official State visit, the topic can’t just be quietly swept under the rug by Theresa May and her government, and the more signatures there are, the more pressure there will be on the UK government to acknowledge the concern of the UK populous, and that in itself will help to send a message both to Trump and to Prime Minister May, who was revoltingly slow and timid in taking any kind of stand against this clearly unjust policy – so much for the special relationship allowing her to be frank and honest in her dealings with Trump, as she just claimed in Washington a couple of days ago.
The one good bit of news: a judge has blocked the order. Given that TweeterDumb and his posse don’t know how the Constitution works, they’re likely in for a number of such reversals.
Speaking of his daughter and son-in-law, I wonder how they feel about the thinly veiled anti-semitism coming out of this administration. And as for the glossy photo, it’s what’s going on in the mirror that’s really creepy…reminds of that photo of her and TweeterDumb when she was 16.
blf @ #3 — I use AdBlock and view Washington Post articles regularly.
Also agreed. At the moment I find any previous Presidential statements on the ‘Web, but the snippets I’ve seen quoted of some of Obama’s statements, as an example, do not appear to be limited to Jews or antisemitism; i.e., avoided the trap.
robo@13, “I use AdBlock and view Washington Post articles regularly.” Interesting! I assume the WaPo is not on the “do not block ads” list (or whatever it is called)? I’m using Firefox 51.something‘s “Private Browsing” mode (on Linux), which seems to work quite well (it also trashes cookies and other litter sites like to drop on my machine). Last time I tried, admittedly some weeks ago, WaPo whinged and insisted I allow ads, which I point-blank refuse to do.
Well, there are plans to make you hand over all your social media and phone contacts. US immigration is already a deterrent to people planning to go on a holiday….
+++
As I said elsewhere:
If the Democrats keep acting as if this is just an ordinary presidency and keep working (or at least trying to) with Trump then they deserve to burn in the flames they’re ignoring now. They will go down in history as traitors to humanity, though I’m afraid those messages will be chiselled into the ruins of NY.
Saganite… @ # 10: … this outlandish idea seems to be particularly common among you Yanks.
I dunno how long the “Nazis = Socialists!!!” trope has gone on, but the US right has pushed that line for as long as I’ve monitored them (starting during US war on Vietnam).
Possibly much more than that. From Discuss: Moments of Political Madness (quoting the Grauniad quoting CNN, see link for full details and additional commentary):
Well, I’ve been planning to stay here in America and fight with all I’ve got, but I like speaking Spanish, and Oaxaca, Mexico sounds safer right now. But first, Caine, is there any need for more DAPL protestors? My current job comes to an end in a week, and I’m thinking of whipping up an ultra-gigantic batch of chocolate chip cookies for everyone and making my way that direction. (Snowy and cold, I know, but I can deal.)
I work on Saturdays, and it was slow at the shop, so I followed the day’s agonizing developments on Facebook and elsewhere while I pretended to focus on work (I did get some done). As a green card holder this has hit me very hard. My country is a safely white/xian place. but the list is so arbitrary I would not consider international travel at this time. I’ve been in a little gray room, so has my mom. This was under Bush when any non-citizen was suspicious if they had a one-way ticket. It is terrifying. They held a 5 year old! They separated families! I had to hold back tears the whole day, and nearly lost it when I read about the stay. Growing up with books/movies about scary places run by dictators where the airports are a place of anxiety and danger: that’s how I feel now about the country I call home. My 70 year old (white) mom is flying from Amsterdam to visit us on Tuesday. My anxiety is a bit off the charts, although she should be fine.
@raven
Revolution might not be the word, but I would bet there’s going to be blood if we don’t keep making our voices heard in the next couple of years. Just citizens killing each other, first over principles and then over things like food and fuel, and a government turning a blind eye to it all. It’s not a revolution if the bigwigs don’t get lopped off, I guess.
I agree, absolutely. Unfortunately, some conflicts are started because a few people feel like they don’t have any other choice. Your examples bear this out as much as they show how much worse things can get after that kind of conflict.
What makes me most angry now is my own internal conflict of both wanting to find peaceful resolutions and longing for a little violence to shake up those douchenozzles who think they’ll sail through the next few years with nothing touching them at all.
I certain that after literally spending decades undermining their own democracy the Christian Taliban, the white supremacists, and the corporate stooges who got the Orange Rubber Stamp into power so they can write executive orders for him are on the verge of feeling shame for their fascist behavior.
Invite them around for tea and cookies. That’s how Lincoln freed the slaves.
Can we then do a Rasputin on them, please — poison, stab, shoot, and drown…
(Degree of snarkiness is at reader’s discretion.)
Or you could you know, get out in the streets.
That is how the lsecond to last superpower fell apart, the USSR.
Or you could you know, organize and protest.
That was how the Vietnam War ended.
1. For the keyboard Che Guevaras who find violence appealing or necessary, just what sort of specific violence do you think works? Be specific what violence, where, and directed at what and who?
Assassinate someone. Who?
Firebomb a medical clinic to protest lack of health care?
Run over a Trump voter?
Have a plutocrat for lunch. Literally, barbecued with fries?
Do a Castro in the mountains. Viet Cong in the jungles? ISIS in bombed out cities?
Terrorism?
Knock youselves out in a fantasy blood and death party.
2. Make it clear that this is entirely hypothetical and no one is going to drop the channel changer, put down their beer, and get off the couch.
The only person I saw who advocated violence in 6 years of anti-Vietnam War protests was working undercover for the FBI!!!
3. BTW, I’ve dealt with the state agents a lot for decades. I know how they work.
The probability that DHS/FBI is reading this thread is well over 100%. !!!
Don’t say anything you wouldn’t say to an FBI agent.
Dear FBI agent,
Feck you. Feck your agency. With multiple fecks.
Quite sincerely, &tc, &tc…
Yeah, I heard that from a lot of the anti-war protesters circa 1970. Shorter hair and a ready call for violence was typically from undercover agents, be it local/county/state police or the the FBI.
Instead of just being intelligence agents and observing, they were agent provocateurs. That doesn’t build trust in “authority”.
That was due to them going broke.
That was due to America utterly losing the war and Saigon falling.
Look, I get it. You still have hope that change is possible with people while dealing with people who have no shame, no morals, and no concern for anyone or anything beyond their own narrow goals. And if the moderates and the left can focus for the decades of from-the-ground-up work required to undo the damage they did to how the republic works, you might have a chance at yanking the steering wheel out of the hands of fascists and theocrats. They always acknowledge a defeat and go quietly.
raven #24:
Strawman: the world’s worst superhero.
President Bannon* has been testing the waters this week. What he learned from the immigration ban: (a) Customs officials will follow orders, even if they require clarification. (b) Some Federal judges will stand up to those orders. Something will have to be done about them. (c) For the most part congressional goppers will fall in line, though there are still a few who seem to have some principles (mostly in the Senate). Something will have to be done about them. (d) The airlines will cooperate, but there are other businesses that will fight back. Something will have to be done about them.
Everything that has happened in the first week+ of the Bannon regime has been a test of how far they can go now, and where they have to find new strategies if they want to fully enforce the new world order.
*Just being realistic about who’s in charge.
Well gee, no hypothetical revolutionary violence scenarios.
No targets. No ops. Nothing went Bang!!! No dead bodies.
No problem. That is good. That is smart.
1. Violence can have a good reason. Self defense is legal. Stopping genocide.
Freeing a few million slaves. Stopping the old Nazis.
2. It should be a last resort. We aren’t there yet.
Don’t forget we are a majority. Hillary got 2.9 million more votes.
3. FWIW, our form of capitalism is on trend to destroy itself and most economists know it.
This isn’t a secret.
Economic inequality has been increasing for 47 years. What happens when the 1% have all the money and the 99% are just barely getting by?
The economy stops. Because no one has any money!!!
It’s already happening. This recovery was anemic. The falling lifespans of some demographics is a symptom of severe societal stess. Trump is another symptom.
One more for the road.
BTW, Che Guevara was an idiot. He got himself killed while
accomplishing nothing in Bolivia.
If you run across someone advocating or planning political violence:
1. Most likely they are working for DHS/FBI.
2. It’s possible they are mentally unhinged in some way.
3. They will probably get caught, tried, convicted, and sent to prison if they
aren’t just keyboard commandos.
Just walk away. Fast.
@ raven, #24
Of course this blog is being monitored. They watch everyplace lefties congregate, because hippies. The people at the top of the various intelligence agencies have never forgiven hippies. Where they see leftists, they see hippies, and when they see hippies they can’t hardly wait to start punching. They’ve been waiting for someone like Trump to come along and turn them loose.
So, yes, some overworked peon is dutifully monitoring this place, and taking down the necessary information. Why, they might even participate in discussions here. Thus it has been since the advent of the internet.
Anyway, in response to your number 1: I haven’t seen anyone here seriously suggest assassinations, bombings, guerilla warfare, vehicular homicide, cannibalism, or, um, terrorism. That last bit seems a bit redundant, really.
I have seen a number of commenters say they won’t simply roll over and die, if the administration starts rounding people up. I’m sure that those sorts of statements would be made public, as a justification for the death squads. Carefully edited, of course. Or maybe not; I know most Trump voters would consider “They said they’d fight back if we tried to murder them all!” a perfectly acceptable excuse for genocide.
I do think it important to point out, yet again, that it doesn’t actually matter if you’ve never breathed (or written, or typed) a threatening word in your life. The people who are in charge now will happily make something up, should they even bother to charge the people they pick up. Frankly, I think it far more likely that people will simply start disappearing. They’ve already said they’re reopening the black site prisons.
But perhaps there will be a few show trials. Trump and company understand the value of a good show.
@raven #24:
I don’t exactly fit into this demographic, and I can only speak for myself, but I think what people like that are truly advocating is that they want people like Trump and Bannon to hurt, truly hurt, in the same ways they are causing others to hurt: to miss their family who were just blocked from reuniting with them after years of hard work; to suddenly lose their rights and feel hopeless.
I don’t condone violence, but I would like these people to feel what they are doing to those they hurt. It won’t happen, because most of them don’t have a family they really care about in the same way, or even just the fact that they are white and will never feel the oppression of being a person of color (to be fair, I will never truly feel that either since I’m white and male, but I at least try to sympathize). That is the real reason these fantasies are worse than doing nothing; wishing these hardships on those who will never and can never suffer them does no good and takes away the time you could be doing good for others.
That is why I try to limit how much I wish vengeful empathy on others. I won’t say that others aren’t allowed to feel that way (they may not be able to do anything themselves), but I am trying to find ways to do more than just wish things were different.
What a maroon @ 29.
What I wonder is what Robert Mercer is doing these days. He’s the hedge fund billionaire behind Breitbart and the one that brought Bannon and Kelly Anne Conway onto Trump’s campaign, as well as a big chunk of PAC money, perhaps the biggest.
Seems like he is the real king maker in all of this.
Hey raven, what do you do when the police come for your muslim neighbours? What’s your response to militarised police shooting unarmed black people? What’s your strategy to save people, and I mean really concrete individuals, not some abstract idea who are being subjected to violence? What will you do when you see people beat up a gay couple?
Probably chastise them for struggling, I suppose…
While I agree that advocating for violence is always bad, I think the news out of Quebec this weekend shows us that the violence will be brought to our doorstep first. We will not need to advocate for it, but it will happen. The only question is when the government decides to stop defending the people, or selectively defending them based on race, religion etc…
I know this will be prosecuted in Canada, and likely would have in the US, for now, but as we slide down this slope I predict at some point we’ll start to see these mass murders come and go so frequently, with little to no follow up/ suspect / conviction etc… and that will be the beginning of the genocide. This is after all, exactly what Bannon and Brietbart have advocated for in the past.
Oh, look at the poor lad about whose punching some people have shed more tears than about the six innocent muslims brutally slaughtered in their mosque.
+++
Since we’re at it:
is fucking insulting and offensive considering that it’s directed at people who’ve been victims of fascist violence.
Giliell @37
Not mention this little shit (@realDaveShack) goes on to blame the attack on “refugees” which is not even close to the truth. One of the attackers was French Canadian, the one that turned himself in 20 minutes after the attack. The other has a muslim sounding name and has been labelled as having “Moroccan Origin”. His immigration or citizen status is not mentioned in any credible news source as of yet (and I’ve been checking).
Witnesses have said both attackers had “Local sounding accents”. This is starting to reek already. Why would a white French Canadian be involved in this attack and then turn himself in 20 minutes later “out of remorse”, as reports have said? I think there’s a real possibility that the Moroccan was either A) Not involved and is being set up, or B) Was goaded in to this by the white guy who did this to become a martyr for the white nationalist cause, and turned himself and the other guy in to make sure the news got out that this was perpetrated by a Muslim immigrant.
Of course this pure speculation, but this whole thing already reeks to me, and the timing is suspect.
Not sure on this source, but it looks like the Moroccan has now been cleared of any wrong doing and is considered a witness, while the white guy, Alexandre Bissonnette, is the one who called in from the side of the road and turned himself in 20 minutes after the attack.
http://www.tvanouvelles.ca/2017/01/30/les-deux-suspects-sont-alexandre-bissonnette-et-mohamed-khadir#cxrecs_s
You know, even if this had been an Islamist attack on other Muslims, it wouldn’t make Spicer’s reaction any less punchworthy
#40, not trying to correct you Giliell, but it did confuse me, I assume you mean “Spencer” not “Spicer” as in the confirmed Neo Nazi that got punched and not the Trumputin spokesdouche?
raven #30
Of course if we were there you wouldn’t be able to write that, would you?
This is like saying ‘math ends because nobody has any numbers!!!111’
http://globalnews.ca/news/3214989/sean-spicer-hints-quebec-city-mosque-shooting-justifies-trump-travel-ban/
Unfucking believable, spicer implies that the Quebec killings justify Trump’s ban. This after 24 hours of Fox news falsely reporting that the shooter(s) were Moroccan muslims. These idiots should try reading the news before they speak / tweet, the real news, not faux news.
Also from this article, about the shooter:
Bold emphasis is mine. Is there any doubt that Harris, Dawkins and Hitchens bear some responsibility with their islamophobic neocon rhetoric? I should probably cross post this to the latest Harris thread.
I’m personally ashamed that I was once a fan of the “Four Horsemen of Atheism”.
Re: Greenblatt.
Reaffirming that the Holocaust, which resulted in the murder of one third of the Jewish people, along with countless members of other minorities, will forever be a warning to all people of the dangers of hatred, bigotry, racism and prejudice,
1. Resolves that the United Nations will designate 27 January as an annual International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust;
http://www.un.org/en/holocaustremembrance/docs/res607.shtml
The resolution properly remembers all victims of the Holocaust.
There is much to disturb about Trump’s first few days in office; this one is a distraction.
Bullshit. First read Orac on Trump’s Holocaust denial. I’ll wait….
OK, you’re back? I’m not going to repeat Orac’s arguments; if you don’t find them convincing, take it up with him. But here’s the thing: attention must be paid. Trump has been upfront his beliefs and intentions all along. He said he was going to build a wall; he’s building it. He said he was going to repeal the ACA, he’s working to repeal it. He said he was going to kill the families of terrorists; he’s killing them. He said he was going to ban Muslims from entering the country; he’s banning them. He said he was going to punish women for having abortions; he’s working on that (so far he’s limited himself to women outside the US, but I’d be willing to bet a decent chunk of money that his regime is looking for ways to punish women in the US who have abortions.)
Next up: he’s said that he’s at war with the press; expect him to fight a war with the press. Not a figurative war, a real war. Expect casualties.
So when he intentionally repeats the tack that white supremacists take regarding the Holocaust, it is not a distraction. It is a harbinger.
Attention must be paid.
I wish I could be that optimistic. It is much more likely that this will end in the indefinite rule of the far right, in some form or other; and that will end either in nuclear war, or catastrophic climate change – or, indeed, nuclear war precipitated by catastrophic climate change.
Which said, now is not the time to give up the struggle against evil, nor (yet) to resort to violence except in self-defence or direct defence of others.
Ericthebassist
You’re right. I kerp mixing up Spencer and Spicer. Can’t imagine why…
@42, AlexanderZ
I didn’t understand your response here at first, but you’re basically saying that the govt can “print” more money, right? I’ve seen that advocated a lot recently as a way to end unemployment and poverty and such in otherwise prosperous countries.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_creation
http://moslereconomics.com/mandatory-readings/innocent-frauds/
http://www.realprogressivesusa.com/news/economic-issues/2017-01-26-what-if-the-government-prints-money-to-pay-the-national-debt
http://elliswinningham.net/index.php/2016/06/22/the-foundational-problem-of-the-left-the-taxation-of-the-rich-prior-to-spending/