Disgusting Tweet By A Trump Surrogate

This little gem was tweeted by Trump surrogate "Pastor" Mark Burns:
He deleted it shortly after a firestorm of outraged tweets, but not before he started screaming during an interview on MSNBC, in an article at RaW Story entitled "Black Trump surrogate Mark Burns goes ballistic defending Clinton blackface cartoon on MSNBC." Click here for the article, by Arturo Garcia.

Trump On Torture

"Would I approve waterboarding? You bet your ass I would. In a heartbeat. I would approve more than that. It works. And if it doesn’t work, they deserve it anyway for what they do to us."

Evolution Of The Politics Of Climate Change

This video clip, 10:58 in length, traces U.S. political thinking on climate change (it used to be a matter of some bipartisan consensus!). It's from Vox, called "Ten years since an Inconvenient Truth" (Al Gore's film), by Joss Fong and Joe Posner:

Cringe-Inducing Alt-Right Video

This little beauty was concocted by a group called American Renaissance, headed by Jared Taylor (that's him playing the sax in the video). The alt-right "might just save our nation"?

Trump's Links To White Supremacists

Click here for a powerful Clinton ad showing clips of KKK and other white supremacist figures expressing support for Trump. It's 1 minute, 11 seconds. (I think you have to un-mute it to get the sound.) It's followed by a bunch of anti-Clinton comments.

Wisconsin Politics, Scott Walker's Career, Race In Milwaukee

Click here for an article in the New Republic by Alec MacGillis entitled "The Unelectable Whiteness of Scott Walker." It's a long read, but a good one.

Republican Support For Obama

I've lifted this in its entirety from Quora by James McInness in answer to the question: "Why do people seem to think Republicans are out to make Obama's presidency difficult?"

“I think we are called to pray, I think we are called to pray for our country, our leaders and, yes, even Barack Obama. But I think we should be very specific about how we pray, we should pray like Psalms 109:8 says. [May his days be few; may another take his place of leadership.]” - Sen David Perdue (R) (the rest of the verse calls for the death of the leader, making of his children barren and beggars, blotting out his family line, etc.)

“The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.” - Sen. Mitch McConnell (R)

“We’ve gotta challenge them on every single bill and challenge them on every single campaign.” - Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R)

“For the next two years, we can’t let you [Obama] succeed in anything. That’s our ticket to coming back.” - Sen. Mitch McConnell (R)

“If he [Obama] was for it, we had to be against it.” - Sen. George Voinovich (R)

“We're going to do everything — and I mean everything we can do — to kill it [President Obama’s policy agenda], stop it, slow it down, whatever we can.” - Rep. John Boehner (R)

"The strategy of being obstructionist can work or fail. So far it's working for us." - Sen. Trent Lott (R)

[T]he Senate confirmed fewer of [Obama's] district and circuit nominees than every president back to Jimmy Carter, and the lowest percentage of nominees - 58% - than any president in American history at this point in a President's first term. By comparison, Presidents George W. Bush, Clinton, George H.W. Bush, Reagan and Carter had 77%, 90%, 96%, 98%, and 97% of their nominees confirmed after two years, respectively.

Senate Republicans' mass obstruction of Obama's judges stands in stark contrast to the treatment afforded to past presidents. Indeed, the Senate confirmed fewer judges during Obama's first two years in office than it did during the same period in the Carter Administration, even though the judiciary was 40 percent smaller while Carter was in office. - From a report by the Alliance on Justice

Historical Ranking Of U.S. Presidents

Click here for the article in Wikipedia entitled "Historical rankings of Presidents of the United States."

The surveys I like are those of historians and scholars, not general opinion polls like Gallup. The latest, taken in 2015, ranks Obama at 18th out of 43; W. at 35; Clinton at 8; Poppy Bush at 17; Reagan at 11; Carter at 26; Ford at 24; Nixon at 34; Johnson at 12; Kennedy at 14; Eisenhower at 7; Truman at 6; Roosevelt at 3; Hoover at 38; Coolidge at 27; Harding at 42.

Lincoln is 1; Washington is 2; Roosevelt is 3; Wilson is 4; Truman is 5.

Buchanan is 43; Harding is 42; Andrew Johnson is 41; Franklin Pierce is 40; William Henry Harrison is 39.

Trump Youth - Frightening

Need a good scare? Watch this clip; it's 1 minute, 15 seconds. The guy's name is Jayme Liardi.



From an article at Raw Story by David Edwards entitled "‘Trump Youth’ group run by Hitler apologist will teach millennials to root out ‘parasites’":

A website for the group encourages young voters to “[e]mbrace your destiny and become a part of the greatest battle the world has ever seen.”

“We Millennials are destined for greatness; no longer will we sit idle and watch everything our forefathers built be turned to dust,” the website says. “Our world is hurting, and it is up to us, the Youth, to become the Hero Generation and to save the world.”

The article goes on:

Writing on his personal website earlier this year, Liardi said that he did not understand the “truth” about Adolf Hitler until he read Mein Kampf.

“I began to seek out the history without the propaganda– I wanted to understand the mind of the supposed most evil man in history,” he wrote. “So I studied the events leading up to the war, the german Weimar Republic, WWI and the climate of Europe in the early 20th century. And yes, I read Adolf Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’.”

“I quickly realized that I was not being given all of the facts–that what passes for history is merely rehashed propaganda from the war,” Liardi opined. “So [I] began to follow the trail of other patriots and freedom fighters before me, on a quest for truth, justice and an end to exploitation and enslavement.”

“WWII was a turning point in human history. A battle of opposite ideologies. Nationalism vs Globalism, International Communism vs ‘Nazism’,” he said. “We too are at a [turning] point in human history; it is five minutes to midnight and we are quickly running out of time. Will it be Globalism or will it be Nationalism.”

Vancouver Real Estate Crash Imminent?

Or already happening? Click here for an article at HuffPo entitled "Vancouver Housing Crash Could Be Bad. It Could Be Good Too" by Jesse Ferraras.

Goldwater's Warning About The Religious Right

“Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they’re sure trying to do so, it’s going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can’t and won’t compromise. I know, I’ve tried to deal with them.” - Barry Goldwater

But Reagan welcomed them anyway.

This is the opinion of Mike Bowerbank on Quora:

The GOP went wrong when they became the party of God. (Thus becoming the American Hezbollah.) No compromise. Stand on principle. Claim to have God's blessings. Attack your opponents as doing evil. It started when the evangelicals took over and it's only gotten worse.

Add in a 24-hour-a-day outrage-generating machine like FOX News, and you have the recipe for the rise of Trump. FOX News was created to keep the base angry - and they're good at that. Angry people get out to vote. However, FOX created a voting bloc monster that they can no longer control. This bloc put Trump on the national ballot.

In the days of Eisenhower, the GOP was a party of sanity and balance, aside from a few very bad ideas (Wetback, intervening in Iran). Every president makes bad decisions, but lately, the entire GOP is like a laundry list of everything that is wrong with the United States.

Look, Ma: No Parachute

Click here for an article at digitaltrends.com by Kelly Hodgins entitled "Here's all the tech that Luke Aikens used for that insane 25,000 foot skydive without a parachute." (I take exception to the word "insane.")

Luke Aikins jumps from 25,000 feet without a wingsuit or parachute:

Skydivers "Human Meteors" During Perseid Meteor Shower

Click here for an article at notey.com entitled Human ‘meteors’: Skydivers shoot across night sky in Perseids plunge:

Stargazers watching the spectacular Perseid meteor shower over Spain’s Canary Islands got more than they bargained for when four LED-suited skydivers joined the shooting stars for an unforgettable show of lights.

The skydivers performed the stunt in La Palma to coincide with the annual Perseid meteor shower and honor the cosmic fireworks.

Synchronized Wind Tunnel Dancing

The next Olympic sport?

Dick Cheney Quotation, 1994

"Once you got to Iraq and took it over---took down Saddam Hussein's government---then what are you going to put in its place?

That's a very volatile part of the world, and if you take down the central government of Iraq, you could very easily end up seeing pieces of Iraq fly off. Part of it, the Syrians would like to have to the west. Part of it---eastern Iraq---the Iranians would like to claim; they fought over it for eight years. In the north you've got the Kurds, and if the Kurds spin loose and join with the Kurds in Turkey then you threaten the territorial integrity of Turkey.

It's a quagmire if you go that far and try to take over Iraq."

This Can't Be For Real - Can It?

Triumph the Comic Insult Dog Conducts a Trump Focus Group:

Anti-Hillary Protests -- In 1994

This is a post by Digby on her blog, Hullabaloo:

In his biography of Hillary Clinton, A Woman in Charge, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Carl Bernstein writes about the 1994 Reform Riders campaign, a nationwide bus tour designed to build support for President Clinton’s health-care reform agenda. The idea was to emulate the famous 1960's Freedom Rides but the campaign was plagued with protesters. In Portland, Ore., the route was blocked by an “angry anti-Clinton mob” who had their own bus, which was covered in red tape and dragged by a tow truck with a sign reading THIS IS CLINTON CARE. A plane bearing protest signs flew overhead. Hillary Clinton met the Reform Rider activists in Seattle where she delivered a speech on health care. The result was a mob scene. Here’s Bernstein:

"By the time the caravan had reached Seattle the threat of violence was constant. All week, talk radio hosts, both in the Northwest and on national broadcasts, implored their listeners to confront the Reform Riders to “show Hillary” their feelings about her. This "call to arms," as she described it, attracted menacing hordes, many of whom identified themselves as militia members, tax resisters and anti-abortion militants. She estimated that at least half of the 4,500 people in the audience of her Seattle speech were protesters. She agreed for the first time to wear a bulletproof vest. Rarely had she felt endangered, but this was different. During her speech, the catcalls, screaming, and heckling drowned out much of her remarks. When she left the stage and got into a limousine, hundreds of protesters surrounded the car. They were rabid with hatred. Several arrests were made by the Secret Service, which impounded two guns and a knife."

She had to wear a bulletproof vest because people were trying to kill her --- over her health care plan.

Clinton Will Put Miners And Coal Companies Out Of Business?

I've repeatedly heard on TV or read on the Internet that Hillary Clinton told a West Virginia audience "We're going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business." That sounds like an enormous insensitive blunder, but here is her statement in its full context:

So for example, I'm the only candidate who has a policy about how to bring economic opportunity using clean renewable energy as the key into coal country. Because we're going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business, right?

And we're going to make it clear that we don't want to forget those people. Those people labored in those mines for generations, losing their health, often losing their lives to turn on our lights and power our factories.

Now we've got to move away from coal and all the other fossil fuels, but I don't want to move away from the people who did the best they could to produce the energy that we relied on.

So whether it's coal country or Indian country or poor urban areas, there is a lot of poverty in America. We have gone backwards. We were moving in the right direction. In the '90s, more people were lifted out of poverty than any time in recent history.

Because of the terrible economic policies of the Bush administration, President Obama was left with the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, and people fell back into poverty because they lost jobs, they lost homes, they lost opportunities, and hope.

So I am passionate about this, which is why I have put forward specific plans about how we incentivize more jobs, more investment in poor communities, and put people to work.

Trump Exposes Trump - YouTube

YouTube: 5 minutes, 43 seconds.

Compilation Of Trump Self-contradictions

Democrats' Advantage In The Electoral College

The electoral college consists of 538 members, called electors. Each state has a number of electors equal to the number of its congressional representatives plus two for its senators. (D.C. is given a number equal to the least populous state -- currently three.) Seven states, along with D.C., have three electors; California is the largest, with 55. Texas has 38; Florida and New York have 29 each; Illinois and Pennsylvania have 20 each. 270 votes are required to win the presidency.

Respected nonpartisan political handicapper Nathan Gonzales has recently rated the states as solidly Republican or Democrat, leaning R or D, and tossups. He believes there are 217 safe votes for Democrats, with 32 leaning D, for a total of 249, only 21 short of the magic number of 270. Republicans, though, have only 191 safe votes, and according to Gonzales, none of the states lean R; they are 79 votes short. 88 votes are rated as a tossup.

Belmont and Fishtown

Social scientist Charles Murray writes here in the Wall Street Journal of two imaginary composite communities, a well-off, educated Belmont and a working-class Fishtown:

To illustrate just how wide the gap has grown between the new upper class and the new lower class, let me start with the broader upper-middle and working classes from which they are drawn, using two fictional neighborhoods that I hereby label Belmont (after an archetypal upper-middle-class suburb near Boston) and Fishtown (after a neighborhood in Philadelphia that has been home to the white working class since the Revolution).

To be assigned to Belmont, the people in the statistical nationwide databases on which I am drawing must have at least a bachelor's degree and work as a manager, physician, attorney, engineer, architect, scientist, college professor or content producer in the media. To be assigned to Fishtown, they must have no academic degree higher than a high-school diploma. If they work, it must be in a blue-collar job, a low-skill service job such as cashier, or a low-skill white-collar job such as mail clerk or receptionist.

People who qualify for my Belmont constitute about 20% of the white population of the U.S., ages 30 to 49. People who qualify for my Fishtown constitute about 30% of the white population of the U.S., ages 30 to 49.

I specify white, meaning non-Latino white, as a way of clarifying how broad and deep the cultural divisions in the U.S. have become. Cultural inequality is not grounded in race or ethnicity. I specify ages 30 to 49—what I call prime-age adults—to make it clear that these trends are not explained by changes in the ages of marriage or retirement.

He goes on to illustrate changes that have occurred in Belmont and Fishtown since 1960, using the categories of marriage, single parenthood, industriousness (unemployment), crime, and religiosity.

He comments on the enormous cultural differences between the two communities that have grown since 1960, when society was much more egalitarian, and on the growth of the "power elite":

It gets worse. A subset of Belmont consists of those who have risen to the top of American society. They run the country, meaning that they are responsible for the films and television shows you watch, the news you see and read, the fortunes of the nation's corporations and financial institutions, and the jurisprudence, legislation and regulations produced by government. They are the new upper class, even more detached from the lives of the great majority of Americans than the people of Belmont—not just socially but spatially as well. The members of this elite have increasingly sorted themselves into hyper-wealthy and hyper-elite ZIP Codes that I call the SuperZIPs.

... the nation's power elite does in fact live in a world that is far more culturally rarefied and isolated than the world of the power elite in 1960.

And the isolation is only going to get worse. Increasingly, the people who run the country were born into that world. Unlike the typical member of the elite in 1960, they have never known anything but the new upper-class culture. We are now seeing more and more third-generation members of the elite. Not even their grandparents have been able to give them a window into life in the rest of America.

It's a problem. What can be done about it?

... the most successful Americans will continue to trend toward consolidation and isolation as a class. Changes in marginal tax rates on the wealthy won't make a difference. Increasing scholarships for working-class children won't make a difference.

The only thing that can make a difference is the recognition among Americans of all classes that a problem of cultural inequality exists and that something has to be done about it. That "something" has nothing to do with new government programs or regulations. Public policy has certainly affected the culture, unfortunately, but unintended consequences have been as grimly inevitable for conservative social engineering as for liberal social engineering.

The "something" that I have in mind has to be defined in terms of individual American families acting in their own interests and the interests of their children.

Murray is a right-wing guy with the American Enterprise Institute, but this article is worth reading.

The Republican Dilemma, 2016

“Do we run the risk of depressing our base by repudiating the guy, or do we run the risk of being tarred and feathered by independents for not repudiating him?” asked Glen Bolger, a Republican pollster working on many of this year’s races. “We’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t.”