Tuesday, January 31, 2017
Here's The Daily Beast Article Where Bannon Describes His Mission To Destroy Everything HE Hates
In addition to Steve Bannon being called an anti-Semite, White Supremacist, a wife-abuser (according to police reports), and racist, we can add Leninist, since The Daily Beast reported that Bannon's ardent dream is to "destroy the state."
Bannon's love affair with Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov's tactics is quoted in this Daily Beast article:
Steve Bannon, Trump's Top Guy, Told Me He Was 'A Leninist' Who Wants To ‘Destroy the State’
The Breitbart executive director turned GOP leader boasted at a party about his goal of destroying the conservative establishment.
"...we had a long talk about his approach to politics. He never called himself a “populist” or an “American nationalist,” as so many think of him today. “I’m a Leninist,” Bannon proudly proclaimed.
Shocked, I asked him what he meant.
“Lenin,” he answered, “wanted to destroy the state, and that’s my goal too. I want to bring everything crashing down, and destroy all of today’s establishment.”
Bannon was employing Lenin’s strategy for Tea Party populist goals. He included in that group the Republican and Democratic Parties, as well as the traditional conservative press.
I emailed Bannon last week recalling our conversation, telling him that I planned to write about it and asking him if he wanted to comment on or correct my account of it.
He responded: “I don’t remember meeting you and don’t remember the conversation. And as u can tell from the past few days I am not doing media.”
Leninist Steve Bannon bragged about wanting to destroy America
Trump's closest advisor and now member of the NSC, Steve Bannon, stated these words to The Daily Beast:
“I’m a Leninist,” Steve Bannon told a writer for The Daily Beast, in late 2013. “Lenin wanted to destroy the state, and that’s my goal, too. I want to bring everything crashing down, and destroy all of today’s establishment.”
Congratulations, Trump voters, for willingly taking part in the destruction of "the state."
Just imagine, my friends, if the first African-American POTUS had one of his closest advisors make such an ominous and traitorous statement about our government and country.
It is astounding how Trump voters see nothing wrong with this chaotic administration that is hell-bent on fundamentally changing and destroying the U.S.
David Frum, Conservative writer, warns people to open their eyes and see the Trump administration for what it is:
"A president who plausibly owes his office at least in part to a clandestine intervention by a hostile foreign intelligence service? Who uses the bully pulpit to target individual critics? Who creates blind trusts that are not blind, invites his children to commingle private and public business, and somehow gets the unhappy members of his own political party either to endorse his choices or shrug them off? If this were happening in Honduras, we’d know what to call it. It’s happening here instead, and so we are baffled."
I'm not baffled, and I'm betting a majority of clear-eyed, rational Americans are not either. The Trump-Bannon presidency has been very clear in what it wants to do to America. And that's why millions of Americans have spontaneously taken to the streets to let this chaotic and dangerous administration know that we will not let it happen.
And finally, Jonathan Alter:
"The most striking thing about President Trump’s first 10 days in office is that the ardent nationalist who pledged to put “America first” is emerging as the least American president of the United States. By least American, I mean least connected to the larger democratic values that define the country. Our national identity is unique in the world because it’s based not on race, religion, or country of origin, but on ideals that transcend party. Such ideals are at odds with a president who lies promiscuously, destabilizes the government with impulsive, discriminatory, and inhumane policies backed up with jarring firings, and cannot allow his White House to apologize or admir error under any circumstances, even for neglecting to mention Jews in a Holocaust commemoration. Those are the telltale signs of a foreign dictator, not an American leader."
Monday, January 30, 2017
TRUMP FIRES ACTING ATTORNEY GENERAL YATES
and
THE HEAD OF ICE.
A Clarifying Moment in American History
From the Atlantic by Eliot A. Cohen:
Some Americans can fight abuses of power and disastrous policies directly—in courts, in congressional offices, in the press. But all can dedicate themselves to restoring the qualities upon which this republic, like all republics depends: on reverence for the truth; on a sober patriotism grounded in duty, moderation, respect for law, commitment to tradition, knowledge of our history, and open-mindedness. These are all the opposites of the qualities exhibited by this president and his advisers.
Trump, in one spectacular week, has already shown himself one of the worst of our presidents, who has no regard for the truth (indeed a contempt for it), whose patriotism is a belligerent nationalism, whose prior public service lay in avoiding both the draft and taxes, who does not know the Constitution, does not read and therefore does not understand our history, and who, at his moment of greatest success, obsesses about approval ratings, how many people listened to him on the Mall, and enemies.
[snip]
"There was nothing unanticipated in this first disturbing week of the Trump administration. It will not get better. Americans should therefore steel themselves, and hold their representatives to account. Those in a position to take a stand should do so, and those who are not should lay the groundwork for a better day.
There is nothing great about the America that Trump thinks he is going to make; but in the end, it is the greatness of America that will stop him."
Sunday, January 29, 2017
Demonstration in Boston Against Trump's Muslim Ban
Last weekend I marched with 170,000 other Bostonians in the Women's March.
This weekend, thousands more Bostonians (I haven't read any numbers yet) poured into Copley Square, this time to protest bigotry, hate, and Trump's ban on Muslims entering this country.
We gathered only a few blocks away from the horrific Marathon bombings of 2013 to demonstrate to ourselves and our fellow Americans that rational people do not blame all 1.6 billion Muslims on the planet for the irrational and murderous acts of the few. We affirmed our belief in justice, compassion, and solidarity with our Muslim brothers and sisters.
The executive order that Trump signed this weekend is deeply unAmerican, inhumane, and unConstitutional, and it appeals to our worst, not our better angels.
Our Republican Governor Charlie Baker:
Republican Gov. Charlie Baker released a statement Sunday saying the Trump administration's executive order puts the state's global community "at risk."
"I believe focusing on countries' predominant religions will not make the country safer as terrorists have showed they intend to strike from across the world," the statement read.
"The confusion for families is real. The unexpected disruption for law abiding people is real. And the lack of guidance associated with such an abrupt and overwhelming decision is hugely problematic for all involved."
Baker added that he hopes the federal courts will offer clarity quickly.
Trump and his goons will have to pay attention.
 |
Credit: Nicolaus Czarnecki |
This Is Who We Are Now
The following post by Michael Arnovitz won't change the minds of the folks on the far right rabid blogs who refer to all Muslims/Moslems as "vermin." Those people are unreachable -- they are, to me, like people with a terminal disease. They can't be helped.
But perhaps there are people whose minds are not as badly infected as those who wish to rid our country and planet of all Muslims. Perhaps we can reach those people and allow them to see how unAmerican and destructive Trump's policies are for the US and the world.
People are marching and reaching out to each other because over the past 8 days we've seen how much harm the Trump-Bannon Administration is capable of inflicting as a result of the mindless executive orders being signed by a know-nothing maniac.
Here's just one victim of the Trump-Bannon political evil.
THIS IS WHO WE ARE NOW
BY Michael Arnovitz
This is Dr. Samira Asgari.
Dr. Asgari, a specialist in human genomics and genetics of infectious diseases, holds a doctorate from the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland. She authors papers with titles like, “Disease-Corrected Hepatocyte-Like Cells from Familial Hypercholesterolemia-Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells,” and has given lectures on how rare genetic defects might make infants more susceptible to viral respiratory infections. (http://bit.ly/2kFyUkw)
Last May, Soumya Raychaudhuri (PhD, MD), an associate professor of medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, attended a talk by Dr. Asgari at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York. Dr. Raychaudhuri’s lab studies “the basis of autoimmune disease using techniques in human genetics, bioinformatics, and systems biology,” so both he and Dr. Asgari work in related fields.
He was impressed enough with her talk that he invited Dr. Asgari to work on a tuberculosis project at his laboratory. Dr. Asgari agreed, and was granted a J-1 Visa to work in the United States along with two years of funding for her research by the Swiss National Science Foundation.
Earlier today, after months of planning, Dr. Asgari boarded a plane from Switzerland to Frankfurt. She then attempted to board a plane for the United States, where she was promptly rejected. You see, even though she lives in Switzerland, Dr. Asgari is an Iranian national. So she no longer qualifies for Trump’s America.
It doesn’t matter that she already had an approved Visa, and it certainly doesn’t matter than she was going to be engaged in high-level research aimed at defeating tuberculosis, Type 1 diabetes, and rheumatoid arthritis. She’s Iranian. She’s Muslim. She’s not welcome. With no other choice, Dr. Asgari returned to Switzerland where she now has no job and no place to live.
This is who we are now
Saturday, January 28, 2017
Welcome To Trump's Chaotic America
Remember when the Stupids on the rabid right were howling about Mr. Obama "fundamentally changing America?"
Fools. Biggest fools on the planet.
This is what Trump has done to America:
Maryland police question U.S. citizen's immigration status
BEL AIR, Md. -- A U.S. citizen was asked her immigration status while taking a walk in her neighborhood in Maryland.
The Bel Air Police Department is owning up to its misstep and says it will learn from the incident,
CBS Baltimore station WJZ-TV reports. “I didn’t expect this to happen in Bel Air. Walking while brown? He said, ‘No, no, no, nothing like that,’”
Bel Air resident Aravinda Pillalamarri said. Pillalamarri told WJZ-TV Bel Air police officers demanded her ID after a resident called her in as suspicious.
“I had just come out for a walk, so I didn’t have my ID. And he said, ‘Why don’t you have ID? Are you here illegally?’” Pillalamarri said.
If you're an American and have off-white or dark skin and you're walking in your neighborhood, be careful. Trump has told America and the world that you're suspicious.
Friday, January 27, 2017
Thursday, January 26, 2017
America. This is your president speaking. Really. This isn't satire.
From Trump's ABC News interview yesterday about the speech he made Saturday in front of the Memorial Wall of Honor at the CIA:
"That speech was a home run. See what Fox said. They said it was one of the great speeches. They showed the people applauding and screaming…. I got a standing ovation. In fact, they said it was the biggest standing ovation since Peyton Manning had won the Super Bowl, and they said it was equal.
I got a standing ovation. It lasted for a long period of time. You probably ran it live. I know when I do good speeches. I know when I do bad speeches. That speech was a total home run. They loved it…. People loved it. They loved it. They gave me a standing ovation for a long period of time. They never even sat down, most of them, during the speech."
From PM Carpenter
"The point here isn't to ridicule the president of the United States' penchant for self-inflating gibberish. The point, the obvious one, I should think, is rather that this is an unstable man whose thoughts and speech positively scream his instability — and he is the president of the United States."
************
I've lived through 11 US presidencies.
I've never heard a more insecure, self-absorbed, mentally unstable statement like the one quoted above in all those years.
Someone needs to take the nuclear codes away from this crazy man. Quickly!
“In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it.”
“In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it.” --Winston Smith
We need journalists like Charles Blow now more than ever:
"After Trump and his press secretary, Sean Spicer, got called out by the press for lying about Trump’s inauguration crowd size and viewership, Spicer limped back to the mic and whined of Trump’s press coverage: “The default narrative is always negative, and it’s demoralizing.”
No, sir, the default is to call a lie a lie; lies are negative because they are the opposite of the truth; and Trump continuously lies. Also, he who is devoid of morality is immune to demoralization.
You can’t wring water from a rock. [...] We all have to adjust to this unprecedented assault on the truth and stand ready to vigilantly defend against it, because without truth, what’s left?
Our president is a pathological liar. Say it. Write it. Never become inured to it. And dispense with the terms of art to describe it.
A lie by any other name portends the same."
Wednesday, January 25, 2017
TRUMP PROMISES AMERICAN TAX PAYERS THAT HE'LL REIMBURSE THEM AFTER THEY PAY FOR HIS WALL. JUST LIKE HE REIMBURSED THE PEOPLE HE DEFRAUDED WITH HIS FAKE TRUMP UNIVERSITY?
Wait.
Didn't Comrade Trump brag, boast, holler, scream and brag again that Mexico would pay for his beautiful wall?
President Trump confirmed today that taxpayers will pay for his border wall rather than Mexico as he promised, but vowed that Americans will “absolutely” be “reimbursed at a later date.”
The Madness of Comrade Trump
NOTE: Trump's daughter, Tiffany, is registered to vote in two states. Up until today, Trump's chief strategist, Paul Bannon, was registered to vote in two states. Trump cabinet nominee, Steven Mnuchin, is registered to vote in two states. Let the investigation of voter fraud begin by investigating Tiffany, Bannon, and Mnuchin! If they voted for trump, was it LEGAL???
It's looking increasingly clear to the world that trump is stark raving mad.
Donald Trump Promises Investigation Into ‘Illegal’ Voting He Made Up
There’s absolutely no evidence of widespread voter fraud.
Just wondering. Has anyone at the WH checked the color of Trump's pee?
In the bio-pic, The Madness of King George III, the monarch experienced bouts of insanity that some historians say were attributable to prophyria, which supposedly changed the color of the king's urine to blue.
It's speculation, I know, but we're wondering about Comrade Trump's erratic behavior and his obsessive perseveration about the size of the inauguration day crowds and his loss of the popular vote to Hillary Clinton. Comrade Trump worries a lot about the size of things. Now he's calling for an investigation into something that didn't happen. Will we be subjected to an Alternative Facts Congressional Hearing?
According to Com.Trump's press secretary, the preznit haz a sad because the press is asking him hard questions. Com.Trump is "demoralized" because of this. Here's a thought. In the past, monarchs have had fools to cheer them and keep them amused when things didn't go their way. There are plenty of candidates for this special position to Comrade Trump. Suggestions: Louis Gohmert? Michele Bachmann? Sean Hannity?
Also, we've seen that Comrade Trump is not a details guy, so we marvel at the dozens of executive orders he's signing, not to mention the gag rules he's put in place on federal agencies he knows nothing about. How did he become so knowledgeable on such matters in such a short period of time? Could it be that others are shoving these executive orders in front of him for signature? Reports are that Com.Trump has signed more executive orders in his first few days as preznit than President Obama did in 8 years.
Is Comrade Trump's presidency a Regency Presidency? Are the inmates running what's evidently this Presidential Asylum?
THIS IS HOW THE MEDIA SHOULD HANDLE THE LYING LIES OF COMRADE TRUMP:
It's looking increasingly clear to the world that trump is stark raving mad.
Donald Trump Promises Investigation Into ‘Illegal’ Voting He Made Up
There’s absolutely no evidence of widespread voter fraud.
Just wondering. Has anyone at the WH checked the color of Trump's pee?
In the bio-pic, The Madness of King George III, the monarch experienced bouts of insanity that some historians say were attributable to prophyria, which supposedly changed the color of the king's urine to blue.
It's speculation, I know, but we're wondering about Comrade Trump's erratic behavior and his obsessive perseveration about the size of the inauguration day crowds and his loss of the popular vote to Hillary Clinton. Comrade Trump worries a lot about the size of things. Now he's calling for an investigation into something that didn't happen. Will we be subjected to an Alternative Facts Congressional Hearing?
According to Com.Trump's press secretary, the preznit haz a sad because the press is asking him hard questions. Com.Trump is "demoralized" because of this. Here's a thought. In the past, monarchs have had fools to cheer them and keep them amused when things didn't go their way. There are plenty of candidates for this special position to Comrade Trump. Suggestions: Louis Gohmert? Michele Bachmann? Sean Hannity?
Also, we've seen that Comrade Trump is not a details guy, so we marvel at the dozens of executive orders he's signing, not to mention the gag rules he's put in place on federal agencies he knows nothing about. How did he become so knowledgeable on such matters in such a short period of time? Could it be that others are shoving these executive orders in front of him for signature? Reports are that Com.Trump has signed more executive orders in his first few days as preznit than President Obama did in 8 years.
Is Comrade Trump's presidency a Regency Presidency? Are the inmates running what's evidently this Presidential Asylum?
THIS IS HOW THE MEDIA SHOULD HANDLE THE LYING LIES OF COMRADE TRUMP:
Tuesday, January 24, 2017
TRUMP WON'T LET GO OF HIS LIE THAT 3 TO 5 MILLION ILLEGAL VOTES COST HIM THE POPULAR VOTE
Trump's still selling his gold-plated pile of swill, hoping more people will believe it:
He lost the popular vote because 3 to 5 million illegal aliens voted against him.
BLOTUS* offers not one shred of a scintilla of an iota of evidence to back up his claim. We just have to believe him. Trump is undermining and disrupting the very democracy he leads.
If he really believes this lie, then he needs to call for a full investigation right now because 3 to 5 MILLION FRAUDULENT VOTES is a MAJOR scandal and threat to our democracy and needs to be investigated immediately. If trump does not act on his accusations and call for Congressional hearings, then we know he's just peddling more bullsh*t. And he's a disgrace to our country.
Keep this in mind whenever trump makes a claim about anything:
Graham blasts Trump after latest voter fraud claim
"Trump surprised the top Republicans and Democrats in Congress on Monday when, during a dinner at the White House, he repeated his claim that millions of undocumented immigrants voted for Hillary Clinton -- allegedly depriving him of the popular vote.
"I wasn't there, but if the President of the United States is claiming that 3.5 million people voted illegally, that shakes confidence in our democracy — he needs to disclose why he believes that," Graham told CNN on Tuesday."
Presidential historian, Douglas Brinkley: Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian, said yesterday Trump is “off to the worst start of a presidency in a very long time,” and it’s worth appreciating why.
The Republican, unaccustomed to public service, running a large organization, or weighty responsibilities, simply lacks the maturity he now needs. Much has been made in recent months about the dangers of putting an amateur in the Oval Office, but those concerns tend to focus on problems associated with Trump’s ignorance of public policy and public institutions.
There’s a related angle that goes overlooked: political amateurs are also unaccustomed to scrutiny, criticisms, and the pressures of the international spotlight. When the amateur lacks a mature temperament, the problem is that much more acute.
New York’s Jon Chait concluded yesterday, “Oliver Wendell Holmes famously summed up Franklin Roosevelt as a second-class intellect but a first-class temperament. Trump has a third-class intellect and a third-class temperament.
The frightening surreality of what has happened to the United States has only begun to sink in.”
*Biggest Liar Of The United States.
Monday, January 23, 2017
Kurt Eichenwald of Newsweek...
explains the egregious folly of Trump's disgraceful speech in front of the Memorial Wall of Honor at the CIA on Saturday and why his behavior was so disrespectful and, as the former director of the CIA said, shameful. It is unimaginable to me and anyone who understands what the Wall means that Trump could have desecrated it the way he did.
But Trump's never about anything unless it's about himself and his glory.
Here's Eichenwald talking about the disgrace that is the fool in the White House:
"I am going to try to explain why there is so much outrage in the intelligence agencies about what Trump did on Saturday in his CIA speech.
Imagine having a campaign rally at the National Cemetery. Or a cocktail fundraiser amid the grave markers of US soldiers in Normandy. This "event'' Trump held, purportedly to greet CIA employees, was in the Memorial Wall room, where 117 CIA employees who died in service to our country are honored. Many more have died, and it takes special approval to receive a star on the wall or be listed in the book, called the Book of Honor. Many of the names of the fallen will never be known, because their identities have to be kept secret even in death. Rarely is that room used for anything, but when it is, solemn nature of it is recognized. GW Bush was, I believe the first president to hold an event there in 2001, but it was exceedingly respectful and in keeping with the meaning of the room.
The second major event was an appearance by Obama after the killing of Bin Laden, when he went to the CIA to thank the ppl there for their often anonymous sacrifices that led to that success in the fight against terrorism. Again, solemn and fitting with the meaning of the room. Both Bush and Obama paid deep homage to those honored in the book and by the stars. CIA employees listened respectfully, but did not turn the events into rallies.
Then, Trump.
He has the audacity to bring people from his team to cheer for him and sit in the front rows. I can't imagine CIA employees cheering and whooping it up at Memorial Wall. It would be like screaming "BOO-yah!" at a funeral . Trump made a single, over-the-shoulder mention of the stars. But he spent most of his time griping about the media, bragging about the number of times he had been on the cover of Time Magazine, and complaining that everyone was lying about numbers at his inauguration and all the while, his professional cheerleaders who couldn't find their way to the CIA bathroom are sitting there, cheering for the many who apparently needs applause everywhere he goes.
It was an abomination, perhaps the most disrespectful thing I have ever seen done by any president in that kind of place.
I felt sure we would hear from former director Brennan pretty fast. Why? Because one of those stars on the wall belongs to a close friend of his who died in service of this country. And he knows who all the others are as well. For him, I'm sure, it was like watching someone having a picnic on the graves in the National Cemetery. And then the same Trump staff that was too lazy or stupid to do the advance work on the CIA trip, so that they knew the meaning of the wall, go on TV to attack Brennan as a partisan hack for wanting a room of such enormous meaning to be treated with the solemnity it deserves.
And that is an important element here. I actually don't blame Trump for this horror show on Saturday. Few people outside of government know the meaning of the wall. That was his staff's job, and they clearly had no idea what they were sending Trump to do. No sane person would agree to send a cheering squad. They are incompetent. Worse, they are arrogant, and respond to others pointing out their undeniable errors by attacking and whining.
No, anger at the dishonoring of patriots who died is not partisan. You don't want criticism? Do your jobs better and when you screw up, like you did by turninga most solemn place in intel world as a rah-rah location, just admit it, apologize, and move on."
BREAKING NEWS: TRUMP'S VISIT TO CIA WAS ALL A SHAM. HE BROUGHT ALONG HIS OWN CHEERING SECTION, REPORTS CONFIRMED BY CBS.
I watched Trump's performance before the CIA on Saturday and something sounded and looked fishy to me. Now my and many other Americans' suspicions have been confirmed:
U.S. officials confirmed to CBS News that Donald Trump’s team brought supporters to his speech at the CIA headquarters on Saturday to sit in the first few rows.
These 40-or-so individuals were reportedly cheering while Trump spoke, which the initial perception was that CIA employees listening to the speech were doing so.
Additionally, CBS reported that agency employees at large were “uncomfortable” with Trump’s visit, which “made relations with the intelligence community worse.”
Despite claims from the administration that some were waiting to get inside the room, the network reported that just 400 employees RSVP’d.
“Thousands” were reportedly invited.
MORE HERE:
CBS News confirmed reports that President Donald Trump brought a studio audience to his visit with the CIA on Saturday. The news agency reports that an official said the visit left a wake of “unease,” “made relations with the intelligence community worse,” and was “uncomfortable.” Intelligence people were “stunned” and “offended by the president’s tone,” CBS reports.
“U.S. government sources tell CBS News that there is a sense of unease in the intelligence community after President Trump’s visit to CIA headquarters on Saturday.” Also, Trump did bring cheering props, which fits with how he has operated previously in requiring a cheering section – a sort of laugh track of supportive extras like those his campaign hired for his announcement event. It has been confirmed by Trump insiders that the President loves props.
“Authorities are also pushing back against the perception that the CIA workforce was cheering for the president. They say the first three rows in front of the president were largely made up of supporters of Mr. Trump’s campaign,” CBS continued.
Several of the easily duped right wing blogs and news sites were ecstatic about Trump's Potemkin Village-type performance at the CIA and gushed at how warmly he was received and applauded. Trump wasn't. It was all a lie -- a shameful, staged lie that would have made a Russian historian proud.
CBS reports that it was all a sham, set up by Trump's people to make him look good.
Former CIA director, John Brennan, said Trump should be ashamed of himself.
Now we know what Director Brennan meant.
Ex-CIA director: Trump should be ashamed of himself
Former CIA Director John Brennan was reportedly "deeply saddened" by President Trump's remarks at the Central Intelligence Agency on Saturday. According to former CIA deputy chief of staff Nick Shapiro, Brennan believes that Trump "should be ashamed of himself" for his "display of self-aggrandizement."
Gaslighting in the Age of Trump
Gaslighting:
Gaslighting is a form of manipulation through persistent denial, misdirection, contradiction, and lying in an attempt to destabilize and delegitimize a target. Its intent is to sow seeds of doubt in the targets, hoping to make them question their own memory, perception, and sanity. Instances may range from the denial by an abuser that previous abusive incidents ever occurred up to the staging of bizarre events by the abuser with the intention of disorienting the victim. The term owes its origin to Gas Light, a 1938 play and 1944 film, and has been used in clinical and research literature
This was sent to me by a friend on the west coast.
Attention must be paid.
If you are puzzled by the bizarre "press conference" put on by the White House press secretary, (angrily claiming that Trump's inauguration had the largest audience in history, accusing them of faking photos and lying about attendance), let me help explain it.
This spectacle served three purposes:
1. Establishing a norm with the press: they will be told things that are obviously wrong and they will have no opportunity to ask questions. That way, they will be grateful if they get anything more at any press conference. This is the PR equivalent of "negging," the odious pick-up practice of a particular kind of horrible man (e.g., Donald Trump).
2. Increasing the separation between Trump's base (1/3 of the population) from everybody else (the remaining 2/3). By being told something that is obviously wrong—that there is no evidence for and all evidence against, that anybody with eyes can see is wrong—they are forced to pick whether they are going to believe Trump or their lying eyes. The gamble here—likely to pay off—is that they will believe Trump. This means that they will regard media outlets that report the truth as "fake news" (because otherwise they'd be forced to confront their cognitive dissonance.)
3. Creating a sense of uncertainty about whether facts are knowable, among a certain chunk of the population (which is a taking a page from the Kremlin, for whom this is their preferred disinformation tactic). A third of the population will say "clearly the White House is lying," a third will say "if Trump says it, it must be true," and the remaining third will say "gosh, I guess this is unknowable."
The idea isn't to convince these people of untrue things, it's to fatigue them, so that they will stay out of the political process entirely, regarding the truth as just too difficult to determine. This is laying important groundwork for the months ahead.
If Trump's White House is willing to lie about something as obviously, unquestionably fake as this, just imagine what else they'll lie about. In particular, things that the public cannot possibly verify the truth of.
Sunday, January 22, 2017
More on The March
Secret Service slaps down White House claim that
‘magnetometers’ shrank inaugural crowd size
from Daily Kos:
They came. The call went out and … they came. In Washington, yes. In Los Angeles. Boston. Chicago. In Denver, and in Austin. But also in Bethel, Alaska where the high temperature for the day was -21. They came in conservative strongholds like Lubbock, Texas and Colorado Springs. They marched in Oxford, Mississippi, and in Oklahoma City. They marched in London and Paris and Madrid and flooded the streets of Amsterdam. They marched on the tiny Isle of Eigg in the Scottish Hebrides, and by their thousands in Nairobi. They brought their children. They got up in retirement homes where even 101-year-old feet showed they could still march.
They invented chants. And songs. They created signs that were clever, arch, hilarious, artistic, defiant, angry, touching, and heartbreaking. They wore T-shirts in sunshine and coats in the driving snow. They wore those glorious, glorious hats.
It was beautiful. So beautiful that it sometimes hurt to watch—in the best possible way.
After a day that seemed so dark, where it felt like hope had been crushed and the light had been dimmed, when optimism seemed lost and justice diminished, they showed that there is still a word that means all those things, all at once, and much, much more.
Women.
"...it was a march for women’s rights, but it was also a rebuke to the language, goals, and person of Donald Trump."--Mark Sumner
The eloquence of Kevin Baker:
"What they [those who voted for Trump] have done is a desecration, a foolish and vindictive act of vandalism, by which they betrayed all the best and most valiant labors of our ancestors.
We don’t want to accept this, because we cannot accept that the people, at least in the long run of things, can be wrong in our American democracy.
But they can be wrong, just like any people, anywhere. And until we do accept this abject failure of both our system and ourselves, there is no hope for our redemption."
Saturday, January 21, 2017
There Are More People At National Mall For Women’s March Than Attended Trump Inauguration
CNN is reporting that there are already more people at the National Mall for the Women's March On Washington than attended Trump's inauguration.
Boston (And Other Cities) Women's March
Millions of Americans here and abroad marched today, not only for women's rights, but also to show solidarity AGAINST the man who was inaugurated yesterday and who now lives in the White House. This is "unpresidented," as Trump once famously tweeted, for so many Americans to demonstrate their disapproval of a brand new president and his plans to trample on not just women's rights but the rights of other Americans. Knowing Trump's insatiable vanity and need for adulation, this worldwide march of millions against him must really burn his prodigious arse. Let's hope he gets the message.
The estimated crowd size by Boston police was 125,000 to 150,000. I was there, and those numbers are accurate. The Boston Common was a sea of women, men, children, signs, and pink hats. What I found interesting was that there were very few posters or signs denigrating Trump, but the ones that did were quite clever. Most of the sentiments expressed on posters were about women's rights, human rights, "Love Trumps Hate," "Kindness Matters," "Hands Off My Reproductive Rights," etc.
The crowds were friendly, funny, and happier than the crowds I saw at a Tea Party demonstration in 2009 on the Common. There were lots of young couples with their children, and, of course, because this is Boston, thousands of students as well. The older generations were well represented, too. One white-haired gentleman held a sign that read "It Must Be Bad Because Even I'm Marching!"
Photos courtesy of Dan W., blogging friend, Boston Common:
Blogging friend, Stephen B. in Atlanta:
Niece from central Massachusetts:
Nieces marching in Portsmouth, New Hampshire:
Boston Common:
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