Our president. Our shame.
ATTENTION AMERICA:
This is a clip from last night of Donald Trump slandering women and doctors. He is accusing them of conspiring to murder infants wrapped in blankets.
This should be headline news for weeks.
Instead it will likely be forgotten by tomorrow pic.twitter.com/lCnv59BaZz
— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) April 28, 2019
The baby is born, the mother meets with the doctor. They take care of the baby. They wrap the baby beautifully. And then the doctor and mother determine whether or not they will execute the baby
His imaginary scenario is false. Anyone who executes a baby after it is born healthy is a murderer, and would be treated as one. This is a man throwing red meat to a mob of anti-abortion fanatics, feeding their fantasies and giving them justification for violence.
He has been lying nonstop for his entire life, and yet the NY Times still refuses to recognize that simple fact, instead referring to that claim as “an inaccurate refrain”.
Our president is an out-of-control demagogue who whips up his followers into a frenzy with lies. He must be impeached. Now.
Perhaps they’d accept a compromise. We could shoot the baby with an AK47.
While I agree with you about the Mango Mussolini, the problem is look what replaces him if Donald tRump is impeached – Mike Pense. Do you really want a Christian Dominionist as President? It really would be a case of King Stork replacing King Log.
But that’s not going to happen, because we’re operating under a archaic 18th century concept of governance that didn’t account for out-of-control demagogues… at least not the 21st century variety. The president’s party controls the Senate and the SCOTUS and they’ve made it clear that put their ideology and greed above and beyond “rule of law” they supposedly cherish.
It’s not just the president that needs to be removed from power. It’s the American system that needs be torn down and too many–both Republican and Democrat, Conservative and Liberal–have too much of a vested interest in tearing it down. Meanwhile, as appealing as armed revolution is to hot-blooded malcontents like myself, even the most determined freedom fighters equipped with the best weapons the present laws allow is no match against our ultra-modem military.
We can hope to unseat Trump in the next election, but that’s assuming that there is going to be another election. Even if there is, it assumes that the election won’t be rigged via gerrymandering and minority vote suppression. Even it that works out, we’re just going to get another corporatist Democrat who will pander to the billionaires while pretending to be nicer to non-whites, women, and LGBTQs than the GOP. Nothing will change. Nothing will improve. Then, another fascist Republican will win who will drag civilization back further.
Unless you’re lucky enough to have the means to leave this capitalist, Christian shithole country to economically and culturally saner climes, the best you can hope for swift death before the final apocalyptic end comes.
True.
.1. There has been a huge increase in right wingnut/xian terrorist attacks.
A few days ago, a xian terrorist on his way to bible study deliberately ran into a crowd of people he said looked like…Muslims.
Two days ago, a xian terrorist shot up a synagogue in southern California.
.2. Wherever you have hate speech, you will have hate violence.
.3. After Gabrielle Giffords, US Representative, was shot in 2011, the number of death threats I got went way down.
The FBI started arresting people for death threats, a felony.
Shooting politicians definitely gets you more attention and better service from the police.
That is because politicians are their bosses and control their salaries.
.4. Lately, after 7 years, I’ve started getting death threats again.
The right wingnuts and xian terrorists are definitely being enabled by the current administration and people like me (and most of you plural) are potential targets.
It’s been obvious for a while that right wingnut/xian terrorist hate crimes and terrorist attacks have been increasing.
In the last decade 74% of US terrorist attacks have been right wingnuts/xian terrorists.
24% of them were from Muslims.
A whole 2% were from left wingnuts.
The only question at this point is; how many more right wingnut terrorist attacks will there be?
The only reason the last two in the last week had low death tolls, is because the terrorists weren’t very competent.
You can’t count on that all the time though.
It’s a rhetorical question, we will simply have to count up the attacks as they occur.
There will be more, and probably a lot more attacks.
As many as they want, it seems. The Democrats have shown to have no stomach when it comes to dealing with right-wing terrorism (e.g. their cowardly hand-wringing over the outcomes at Ruby Ridge and Waco followed by their spineless response to the Oklahoma City bombing). They second anyone even looks into the issue, the mainstream right starts shrieking and howling about the “left-wing witch hunt” against “patriots” and gun-owners until they back off.
@3 Two words: Bernie. Sanders. I like some of the other candidates, particularly Warren and Gabbard, but I’m not remotely confident in their ability to control the narrative to the degree necessary right now. Both would make excellent VP choices for Sanders, though Gabbard moreso because she’s also younger, to allay concerns about Sanders’ age (which I would argue are overblown, but still exist). Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez could, and I’m positively giddy about the prospect of her running for president, but we need to get there first, and Sanders is currently damn near our only hope of not only beating the Democratic establishment at their own game, but also then roflstomping Donald Trump into next century.
I have the same opinion of Hair Furor as everyone else here, but I think impeachment would be a bad idea. Pence would continue Trump’s awful policies without most of Trump’s public relations baggage, meaning Pence would have an easier time getting re-elected in 2020 than Trump would.
And I hope the Democratic nominee isn’t Bernie Sanders or Joe Biden. I think that for both of them, their time has come and gone, and it’s time for new blood. Plus, and I know no one here wants to hear this, the nominee needs to be someone who can actually beat Donald Trump, and I’m far from convinced either Sanders or Biden can.
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blockquote>Two words: Bernie. Sanders.
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blockquote>
Two words: Too old.
Two more words: too much baggage.
Warren is actually has made actual policy statements while the rest just strutting about declaring how “not Trump” they are. Her only impediment seems to be the possession of a vagina.
Also, AOC just got into Congress. That’s where we need her to be right now. Not just to represent left-wing issues, but to build some experience. Give her a few terms first. THEN let her run for the executive branch.
AOC is only 29, so it’s not as if that’s a choice. If she wanted to be president or VP, she’d have to be at least 35.
@9&10 Not yet for AOC? Yes, absolutely. She’s not even eligible to run yet, so obviously not yet. But she’s done more good in her first few months in congress than most of its denizens have done in decades, especially the Democratic leadership. She’s already a far better representative of left-wing issues, and for the people she represents, than the corporatist hacks running the country into the ground; why should she need their experience to be considered legitimate?
Sanders has made at least as many statements on policy as Warren. He’s “too old”? He’s more energetic than I am, and I’m younger than AOC! Too much baggage? The guy’s the most popular politician in the country. He sells left-wing ideas to right wingers and they LIKE him for it! He’s in his mid-70s with a 60-year track record of being right before it was popular. He also yanks the narrative out of the hands of corporatists and rightists with ease. Did you see his Fox News town hall where even Foxwatchers cheered Medicare for All?
Look, I like Elizabeth Warren. I like her quite a bit. Her policies are usually top-notch. Usually. But she’s not a leader on most issues like Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez are. In her field of expertise she’s amazing, and either in the Senate or as Secretary of the Treasury, she is and will remain an invaluable ally. But a leader she is not; she’s too willing to bend to establishment assumptions about how campaigns “should” be run, namely to the right rhetorically at least. You can see this in how quickly she moved away from a hard push for Medicare for All. I don’t see her galvanizing a popular surge to unseat not only Trump but congressional Republicans as well. I’d love to be wrong about that, but I don’t think I am.
Trump has gone from wrapping his lying agitprop in a thin veil of sarcastic irony and hyperbole, to baldfaced fabrication of hatred on a mass scale. That along with calling the FBI leadership ‘scum’ (and along with all his other totalitarian yelling) is an outright declaration of war on democracy as far as I’m concerned. He’s crossed the line fuzziness and all.
And one thing we know about impeachment, it’s a weak implement a best in the current era. The R’s have let the D’s paint themselves into a corner where they don’t have the sense to fight their way out.
My prediction, it’s going to get a whole lot worse before it gets any better.
@thirdmill: Part of the purpose of impeachment isn’t to get rid of Trump. It is one of the core mechanisms for keeping the executive branch in check. If it is not used against Trump — who is now claiming he will refuse congressional subpoenas — it means congress is abandoning their constitutional responsibilities.
You don’t think a President Pence would tread more carefully with a congress that has demonstrated a willingness to impeach for behavior he is also tied up in?
The “1%” aren’t the real problem. They are only a symptom. THIS is the face of the real enemy.
And if that’s the situation, he would be president for maybe a year (depends on how quickly impeachment happened).
Would he accomplish much? No. Would the Republicans be divided and have a rough time in the 2020 election? Yes.
I don’t know if they would pick Pence or some other asshole to run. Either way, it’s difficult to see this as a good scenario for Republicans.
But impeachment is simply what they should do anyway. Maybe it’s bad for Democrats, bad for Republicans, bad for both, good for both, or none of the above. It doesn’t matter, because it comes with the job that we hired them to do. If they want to tell us that they won’t do their jobs, they can of course resign whenever they like.
…As if the solution to the problem is another politician. …Unfortunately, times have changed – specifically, how so many people are gravitating towards social media echo chambers, which reinforce their prejudices and biases. Unfortunately not an easy problem to address. I used to compare popular infotainment media to junk food, but when people become hooked on it to the point of denying truth and reality, and getting a “high” off the emotions it produces, that’s when it becomes more like drug addiction.
As we all know he is the youngest person. So maybe he is just afraid that his doctor will wrap him in a blanket and execute him. One mans fear is another mans dream, as Sophoklit said.
from where I sit it looks to me that trump got elected because of his image “the Boss” not because of any specific policies except maybe his thinly veiled racism / nativism. Along side all the voter suppression tactics, it was his image primarily from TV that won the day. Pence got his “job” because he in the vernacular is a suck ass with zero charisma. Regardless of his ideals and beliefs I doubt that very many of the ambitious republican politicians would wait and not challenge him for election. I also think that there would be much more independence shown by the senate and house republicans should Trump be removed before the election. Pence is a dangerous person who holds negative ideas and beliefs but I doubt he has the power to hold all those other ass holes together.
uncle frogy
@15 Republican politicians? I’d say they’re also a symptom. The problem, ultimately, is the system. A system that encourages and rewards sociopathic disregard for the wellbeing of one’s fellow humans. A system that discourages cooperation and mutuality in favor of “getting yours.” Capitalism.
Pence can also be impeached. Impeach Trump and his replacement better watch his step!
jack16
Specialfrog, and Consciousness Razor, just to be clear, I have no doubt that Trump has committed multiple impeachable offenses. The question is not whether he deserves to be impeached; the question is what would be the political ramifications of impeachment. And while I’m willing to be persuaded otherwise, my current assessment is that allowing Trump to serve out his term hurts the GOP far more than impeaching him would. Impeachment would energize the GOP base like nothing else. It would give Mike Pence cover to continue enacting awful policies without Trump’s personal and public relations baggage. With a Republican Senate majority, it wouldn’t even be successful, so we would get all the bad stuff from it with no tangible benefit. And Consciousness Razor, in point of fact the Congress we have now will not do its job, especially not with a GOP Senate Majority. While I agree with you that people who don’t want to do their job should resign, that’s not the current political reality. If Nixon had had Trunp’s Congress, he would have finished out his second term; if Trump had Nixon’s Congress, he would have been gone by now.
And the real problem isn’t Trump’ it’s the voters who elected him. For all my hatred of the electoral college, the fact that it was even a close election tells me that the problem is with the American people. That’s not going to change by impeaching Trump. Real change will only come when the hearts and minds of the voters change. Or when there’s been a revolution, whichever happens first.
I doubt either of us can claim to know the answer with much confidence.
And I don’t agree with you that this is “the question.” It’s a question, for which we don’t have a good answer. Is it an important one to ask?
But you’re telling us what you believe would happen if Trump were impeached and convicted by at least 67 Senators. That’s the only way he would be removed. There’s no reason to speculate about an inconsistent scenario, in which Trump is convicted while a large number of other Republicans aren’t responsible for making that happen. In that case, the Republicans may be split about it (not unanimously in favor of removing Trump), but then you have to follow through with what it means for them to be split and what it means to reject a lot of what Trump represents about the current incarnation of the GOP.
Again with stuff about “the question” and “the problem” and “real change.” Either we follow the constitution and don’t hold the president to be above the law when he breaks, or we don’t. If that’s not “the problem” for you, okay, but I’m not telling you that this is intended to fix “the problem” and bring “real change” whatever that means to you. I’m sure it’s not going to do a whole lot of stuff … but so what? I never implied that it would. So how could this count as a good argument against impeachment?
Trump’s soundbite there sounds like someone grafted a palliative care NICU story to anti-abortion propaganda. It’s horribly dangerous for a president to be spreading this nonsense, and it’s going to result in more people being murdered…
“So, in this particular example, if a mother is in labor I can tell you exactly what would happen. The infant would be delivered. The infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother.”
Anyone want to guess who said this?
Sounds a lot like what Trump just described.
It’s Ralph Northam. The VA governor (of forgotten blackface fame). He was on a radio show talking about a bill introduced into the VA legislature.
Tell me again PZ, who is throwing red meat to whom and whipping up his followers with lies?
teejay @25: My bolding.
And no, I don’t think anyone has forgotten the blackface, or the Michael Jackson moonwalk comments.
Keep trying, sunshine. Whatever it is you’re trying to do…
Teejay: you might notice that Northam ain’t that popular around these parts.
But he’s not President and his entire career before politics wasn’t as a grifter. It is quantifiable that Trump lies many times more often than other politicians. And it is demonstrable that the lies are more egregious.
Look at your own example. Trump says “execute”. Northam says “having a conversation”. Trumps lie is more egregious, more brazen, and would be slanderous of any individual person. Northams claim is arguably accurate, it’s just that he’s clearly being disingenuous about the conversation.
Is there really a need for these false equivalancies?
@26: And there’s the details teejay contemptibly left out.
Yet more evidence he is a venal liar.
“Look at your own example. Trump says “execute”. Northam says “having a conversation”. Trumps lie is more egregious, more brazen, and would be slanderous of any individual person. Northams claim is arguably accurate, it’s just that he’s clearly being disingenuous about the conversation.
Is there really a need for these false equivalancies?”
I’m really confused. So Northam says “have a conversation” about a child who has just been born, alive (deformed, perhaps) and that is somehow substantively different than Trump’s claim that “the doctor and mother determine whether or not they will execute the baby”? What is this “conversation” Northam is talking about? It’s obviously about whether or not that child – born alive, again – will live or not. You can use whatever euphemism you like to describe what they’re talking about, but if one of the outcomes is that the child will die, then “execute” is well within that realm.
You can not like what Northam said – and I don’t. You can say Trump exaggerated what Northam said – and you might be right, but what politician doesn’t exaggerate the words of their opponents. But what you can’t do is say Trump is making all this shit up out of whole cloth. That is a contemptible lie, even if it is directed at someone who is a contemptible liar.
teejay@29,
Nonsense. Deciding only to give someone that you believe will soon die in any case palliative care – which is what the conversation would be about – is emphatically not the same, legally or ethically, as killing them. Doctors do it all the time, in that vast majority of jurisdictions where euthanasia is not legal.
why respond to anyone who has such a low regard for reason or truth and only wants to get a rise from people they do not respect in the least?
If such people were to vanish tomorrow I might notice but I would not feel very bad about it.
uncle frogy
teejay wrote:
Of course you’re confused because that’s not what Northam says. He starts with talking about the doctors resuscitating the baby which should be your first clue that something is wrong. Those born alive do not typically require resuscitation. In this context, the “conversation” is obviously about palliative care. Does the family want to have the doctors try to extend the life of this deeply unwell baby, or just try to keep it comfortable and as free from pain as possible?
That is a heart-wrenching decision, and to have it turned into “execute the baby” is cruel and cynical beyond belief.
teejay, #25
I know you understand the crucial difference between what Northam said and what the Orange Sexual Assaulter said. You even quoted Northam as using the word “resuscitated”, which completely sets what Northam is saying apart from what Donald is saying.
teejay, #29
By leaving out the context that Northam was talking about (that something is wrong with the baby and that doctors try to save the baby first), Trump is doing worse than making it up: he’s dangerously misconstruing what was said.
Oh and where did Northam say that doctor and mother decide whether to kill or execute the baby? Letting someone who can’t be saved die is the same as executing them? Fuck off.