Tag: Twitter

Trump Racism Is Bad For America-Part II

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TRUMP RACISM IS BAD FOR AMERICA-PART ll

The Dark Jester

By T.K. McNeil

Trump Racism is Bad for America. I ended Part I of Trump Racism Is Bad For America by wondering aloud if we were about to return to the dark days of death squads, concentration camps, and gas ovens. Trump racism is obvious for anyone with eyes, ears, or a Twitter account. We are rocked out of our beds daily by angry and racially inflammatory 6 a.m. Tweets. Trump uses a practiced, coded language of dog whistles and red meat taunts that he pitches regularity to his MAGA hatted support base. The intent, an obviously planned effort to keep them agitated and ready for action. If nothing else, Trump’s base seems willfully ignorant and obsessed by fear. If Trump senses any ebbing in support he orders an extra rally, or maybe two; re-news attacks on the press; berates his pathetic Attorney General; but most notably, he intensifies attacks against immigrants, NFL players, and women. That’s how Trump racism works.

George H.W. Bus Approved Vicious Race Fear Attack Ads Against His Democratic Opponent Michael Dukakis

George H.W. Approved Race Fear Attack Ads Against His Democratic Opponent Michael Dukakis

Trump racism dressed as law and order. Have people forgotten Trump opened his campaign with an unprecedented tirade against Mexican “criminal, drug mules and rapists?” Trump has revived nativist themes that have not been heard aloud since George H.W. Bush. In 1988 HW supporters used the image of a black killer/rapist Willie Horton to effectively sabotage his opponent Michael Dukakis. Until now, that ad campaign was considered a true low point in political racist tactics.

Jump to today. In a similar tact Trump is replacing the face of black man Willie Horton with the brown face of illegal immigrant, and convicted cop killer, Luis Bracamontes. Hammering the anti-immigrant theme Trump claims that Democrats will open the country to criminals. Trump’s vitriol is toxic, but Trump is convinced that it was just such rhetoric that secured him the presidency. Instinctively, he keeps pushing the limits of what passes for barely acceptable political discourse toward an ever-darkening place.

More evidence of Trump racism keeps emerging.  Michael Cohen, Trump’s former personal attorney for over a decade opens up about Trump racism. On Friday 11-2-2018 Vanity Fair published a damning portrait of the president. According to Cohen, Trump made frequent racist comments, most particularly against blacks. Cohen claimed that Trump frequently used the N word and other demeaning statements made about black people, their intellect, their abilities, their communities and even their countries. Cohen confirmed to Vanity Fair writer Emily Jane Fox that language reported by Omarosa Manigault Newman in her book, “Unhinged An Insider’s Account of the Trump White House” was typically Trump. So, Trump doesn’t limit his hate; he hates everybody that isn’t orange.

Trump Racism Is Stoking Racial Fear And Hatred

Trump Racism Is Stoking Racial Fear And Hatred

Keeping the fire hot.  Trump has never stopped his campaigning. He has never become president of all the people. He is president of a core base and his goal is to keep them frightened and angry. He wants them fired up ready to attack whenever and wherever he points his accusatory finger. Trump racism is emerging more clearly as time progresses. Trump’s inflammatory language, reckless “otherism” and dehumanizing xenophobic attacks are clearly designed to divide the country.

Fear and Loathing is part of the performance.  It’s no surprise that we as a country have a scrubbed and shiny public face and a secret horrific Dorian Grey face.  That hidden-self, locked in the basement of our national identity is trying to come out of its imprisonment. All the while Trump, our Mad Hatter conductor, has had us on a head spinning ride of public debauchery, corruption and criminality. Trump careens from truth to delusion, to conspiracy theory, and back to racism all in blink of an eye.

Social Fears Are At The Root Of Trump’s Methodology.  That said, we all know that there is a portion of the American psyche that hates and fears immigration, that hates and fears the blacks, that hates and fears Jews, that hates and fears POC, that hates and fears the changing demographics of America, that hates and fears tomorrow, that hates and fears the unknown. Those societal fears are what Trump racism feeds on.

Donald Trump Uses The Flag And Other Symbols As Background Props For His Blatant Racism

Trump Uses The Flag And National Symbols As Background Props For His Blatant Racism

The foes of inclusiveness. The ability to whip the mentally susceptible and the White Supremacist extremist fringe into a frenzy of violence is easy to imagine. The increased racial and ethnic violence will become a growing problem as he continues to demonize the “others” in our society. This man has the biggest bully pulpit in the country and he is using it to inflame the worst elements of our society. He is using his position to promote fear and racial tensions as he divides the country with his Trump racist white supremacist agenda.

Ethnic and racial murder on the rise. The pipe bomb mailings, the synagogue massacre, the Kroger killings, the Portland light rail murders, the Heather Hyer murder are all separate crimes in separate geographical areas but with the same theme of racial and ethnic hatred.  There can be no doubt that Trump is pouring kerosene on the already raging flames of xenophobia and anti-immigrant sentiment that fueled his political rise. Violence is easy to stoke but the ability to tone it down is not likely to be found in Donald Trump. This should be of concern for all of us. Stability is what makes our great American life possible, and Trump with his firebrand demagoguery could potentially destroy that essential of our life.

The noise is so loud.  Since Trump’s election; historians, political scientists and psychologists have frantically been sounding alarm bells. How is it possible that after decades of progress the United States in the early part of the 21st century would become the epicenter of a growing firestorm of racial, ethnic and religious hate activity? It is important to remember that Hitler didn’t load the cattle cars and he didn’t personally switch on the ovens. He had his core of radicalized supporters to do that for him.

The Swastika was originally a geometrical symbol for divinity and the Nazi's turned it into a symbol of hate

The Nazi’s Took The Geometrical figure For Divinity And Morphed It Into The Most Terrifying Symbol On Earth

12,000 year old trinket. Twelve thousand years ago in a small Neolithic community in the Ukraine an early human carved a small ivory swastika and left it to be found by a modern team of archeologists. The swastika symbol has been found in archeological sites across the world from that cold Ukrainian dig to Celtic burial sites in Great Britain.

Pawns of a maniac. In a remarkable 15 year time span a geometrical figure representing  divinity and spirituality morphed into the symbol of the most murdering racist regime of the 20th century. A regime that was directly responsible for the murder of millions of human beings because they were religiously “different” than the majority. The six million dead; nothing more than pawns in a world shaped by racism and barbarism. A world where a demagogue manufactured an enemy through fiery hate-filled rhetoric.

Taking action.  A charismatic leader can point with raging illogical rants against racial, ethnic and religious targets making them the “enemies of the people.” Simply put the demagogue (Hitler in this case) convinced his followers that “his” enemies were “their” enemies. Sadly, Donald Trump incites similar reactions from his supporters. Wanting to help him, these angry, fearful, and malleable people begin to search for ways they can take action. Some will act as individuals, while others will join “militia groups.” Before long the supporters will turn the fiery hateful speech into hateful action. Getting people to hate “others” is all part of the Trump racism model.

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Net Neutrality Is A Very Good Thing

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Net Neutrality Is A Very Good Thing

D. S. Mitchell

Saturday in the middle of the night the GOP Senate passed a tax reform bill, Trump went psycho on Twitter,  an agitated North Korea fired another missile, Kushner was tied to Flynn and Russian Ambassador Kislyak, and a platoon of powerful men were being brought down for sexual harassment.

Hard to imagine, but amidst all these issues, I believe the end of net neutrality in the United States will become the most important, historically. The internet has been the bulwark of much of the country’s economic growth over the last twenty years, in fact, the internet has produced some of the most powerful and richest companies on the planet. Exemplified by Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Amazon.

It has to be admitted that the economic muscle created by the new online giants came at the cost of the brick-and-mortars, the analogs and the manufacturers.  This country’s economic fortunes have been dependent on the enormous growth of these internet entrepreneurs and startup companies, which have changed our world, in some ways for the better, and in some ways for the worse.

The internet, the last great libertarian frontier of entrepreneurship, free from government intervention and the constraints of the physical world, is at serious risk. Net Neutrality is about to be cancelled by the FCC, led by Republican chairman Ajit Pai.

Imagine it this way, you now access the internet to view a website, or stream video at pretty much the same speed as everyone else in the United States. The companies that built the internet must treat all traffic exactly the same, no matter where it is headed, or how it got there.

Service providers claim net neutrality is an unfair burden that limits their ability to recoup their development costs. These ISP’s (Internet Service Provider’s) have made significant investments in the online infrastructure, and they want to be allowed to monetize their investment into more revenue and higher dividends for their shareholders.

The FCC Commission is under Republican control, holding  3 of the 5 seats on the panel. If the FCC moves forward, as it keeps signaling it will, the net neutrality rule will be eliminated. If allowed to do so, ISP’s can soon sell a faster connection to certain destinations, for certain customers. For example, Twitter might benefit from that situation. A customer could load their site faster and at a lower cost than you could another site, a site which does not have the financial ability to pay Spectrum or Comcast, or any other ISP for that matter, to give faster (preferred) service to their site.

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Part VII: Behind The Curtain

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Part VII: Behind The Curtain

D. S. Mitchell

At the end of Part VI it was January 11th and Donald Trump was holding his first press conference since his Electoral College win. Trump stood to one side of the stage, flanked by Donald Jr 39, Ivanka 35, and Eric 33, listening to his tax attorney, Sheri Dillon explain to the audience of reporters and staff, the changes that were being made to the Trump Organization.

The stage with a center podium was decorated with solemn dark blue drapes and a row of American flags with long gold tassels giving the event a sober tone. On a black shrouded table, to the left of where Dillon stood at the podium, were stacks of manila folders. The stacks were impressively high. Pointing to the stacks of folders, Dillon claimed they were filled with 1000’s of documents proving that Trump was re-arranging his empire to satisfy the growing chorus of critics.

Dillon claimed the Trump “business empire” was “massive”. She emphasized massive several times. A couple of times Dillon tried to draw a correlation between Trump and former Vice President, Nelson Rockefeller as she talked about the changes being made at the Trump Organization. Evidently, she did not know that Rockefeller had released his tax returns and later offered to place his sizeable assets in a blind trust. Neither of which Trump has offered to do.

“The plan” was, according to Dillon, to put the Trump Organization into a trust to be managed by his sons and a long time executive. She emphasized that there would be no more foreign deals, an ethics advisor would be chosen and lastly, Donald Trump would have no involvement in the business. It quickly became clear that Trump was not going to sell his business or put those assets in a blind trust, or release his tax returns.

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Civil De-construction, One Tweet At A Time

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Civil De-Construction, One Tweet At A Time

D. S. Mitchell

On July 26, 2017 President Trump tweeted: “After consultation with my Generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States government will not accept or allow……”
That was the president of the United States starting his morning with an ominous tweet. Then for the next nine minutes there was no follow-up tweet. His audience (the world) was left to wonder what would follow those six dots. The reporters at Buzzfeed confirmed that Pentagon staffers and officials alike believed Trump was about to announce a strike against North Korea or another Afghan military strike.

After a mind bending nine minute wait, the president finally continued his tweet, “transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. military. Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgenders in the military would entail.”

My first thoughts, 1) the tweet is both too organized and clearly written to have been originally authored by Trump, and instead, I suspect was the work of Steve Bannon or Stephen Miller. 2)  the writer acts as if transgender military service was not already a fact of life.  If this thoughtless tweeted policy is implemented, which I assume they will attempt, it will negatively affect an estimated 15,000 service personnel who openly identify as transgender.

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My Twitter Adversary Weighs In On NoKo

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My Twitter Adversary Weighs In On NoKo

D. S. Mitchell

I love Twitter and I can understand why the President seems to be addicted to the platform.  Whenever I leave a tweet I get both “likes” and “incoming missiles” but I love the conversation, as long as it is real, authentic, and honest. I hate hearing the same words from 10 different people.  Think for yourself, I say, at least change the words. LOL.

Twitter gives us an opportunity to open up our hearts and minds to different people and different ideas.  An opportunity to join hands with millions of people around the world some thinking similar thoughts while others from polar opposite philosophical spheres.

I know that sometimes I am guilty of throwing red meat into the arena, just to get things stirred up, but for the most part I try to present rational thought with a tinge of humor. Because in the end we all need to be able to laugh at ourselves AND our beliefs.

Sometimes the 140 character format is too limiting. What is happening in North Korea as an example. So I use my blog to vent and fume, stomp my feet and throw hand grenades at the Trump administration.

One of my “Twitter adversaries” is Melanie Gambill @magambill,  Sometimes she hits me and my left-wing philosophy pretty hard.  But, I can take it and she takes the punches I throw at her, because we know we are both just too super great people with some differing opinions. I love her spirit, if not always her adjectives.

Yesterday morning as the North Korea sword rattling was reaching new heights I asked my twitter friend, in a “back channel” message, for her as a Trump supporter to share her off the cuff thoughts on the escalating situation in NoKo. Her response was honest and forthright and I believe in her sincerity and so I am posting it for folks to read, and think about.

I am taking advantage of her a bit by this post. She didn’t know she was writing for publication. I made no changes to her message. Love U Melanie. So follow us both on Twitter and chirp in anytime.

From Melanie: Noko!! We have a huge problem!! It does not serve us to blame !! We are here now what do we do? My thoughts!! This guy is a wacko!! China should be doing what trump is!! But that is not happening!! Talks !! we are trying real hard.. sanctions ok takes time for that to kick in. And that is going to piss the little ass off. Ppl will suffer more, not him!! If he was not shooting the rockets off in everyone’s face it w/ not be so bad.. he warned us he was going to hit us.. so I think if he wanted to , as crazy as the little BOY is he w/ have just done it! Problem is soko Japan china.. he know he has everyone by the balls!! Many many ppl will die!! Humanity!! But he could just do it anyway.. he is a child with no restrictions and a lot of boom

!! If he shoot rockets at Guam!! Even if it is national waters. That is an act of war.. anything to come at our country.. Close or not.. the beast will be unleashed!! Trump is not playing., but this is the very last thing he wants to do. Or he w/ have done it too!! But he is ready and in place!! He has to do this.. Kennedy did, but he did not have to deal with a child!! That is the problem!!

5 hours ago

How do I get to your blog. I do not know much about this internet stuff.. I am interested in the conversation!! I don’t curse too much, w/ not do that!! If i get puff!! I w/ leave!! Let me know!! Busy dog day! I have pick ups , new dogs coming in. Grand child to watch. Whew. And possible war!! The 15th is when he will let us know his plan!! I think!! Right? Noko?

Dar

Bites Big And Small

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Bites Big and Small:

Kelly New White House Chief of Staff

D. S. Mitchell

Kelly left his post as Secretary of Homeland Security to become White House chief of staff.  His acknowledged mission is to “bring some order to the chaotic West Wing” according to an associated Press report.  Kelly flexed his muscle by ousting the newly appointed Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci after “the mooch” made vile and profane comments to the New Yorker magazine about other White House inner circle. Kelly intends to revise the command structure in the West Wing, so that all senior staff reports to him directly, and not President Trump.

Lawmakers are expressing hope that Kelly’s arrival will stop the internal leaks and squash the notable conflicts within the White House and pivot back to a policy agenda that has been side tracked by months of Russian investigations and internal discord.

Approximately a month before his installation Kelly had a loud and fiery private interaction with President Trump related to published complaints by the POTUS about what he considers too many foreign travelers coming into the United States. In their private meeting Kelly told the president that the ongoing admissions are standard, and stated that many people have legitimate reasons to visit the United States.  The president apparently felt that all the visitors allowed under the expanded travel ban were making him “look bad.”

This seems like a strange marriage, a disciplined four star general, and the petulant, undisciplined narcissist real estate tycoon.  I think from what I’ve read they do share many core ideas.  We will need to watch the atmosphere around the West Wing and see if Kelly can bring structure and control to a wildly out of control executive branch.

Trump Threatens To End Obama Care:

Legal Cases Fight For Separation of State and Religion

President Trump has threatened for months to stop billions of dollars in federal monies to insurers and force the collapse of  “ObamaCare”.  Nicholas Bagley a Law Professor at the University of Michigan told the Associated Press Tuesday, “Trump thinks he’s holding all the cards. But Democrats know what in his hand, and he’s got a pair of twos. He continued, “Democrats aren’t about to agree to dismantle the Affordable Care Act just because Trump makes a reckless bet.”

Bagley and other legal experts are saying that the president is handing the insurers a “solid court case, while undermining his own leverage to compel Democrats to negotiate, especially if premiums jump directly related to the actions of Trump.

The executive office should be making a decision soon whether he will continue to give the required legal financial help to low-income consumers, reducing their co-pays and deductibles.

Trump Promises To Continue His Twitter Use:

Donald Trump Is Addicted To Twitter And There Is No Rehab On The Horizon

Perhaps John Kelly will be rethinking his decision to come to the White House sooner than I thought.  On Twitter the president said, ” Only the Fake News Media and Trump enemies want me to stop using Social Media (110 million followers) Only way I can get truth out!” Trump will continue to live in his alternate universe unfortunately accompanied by about 35% of Americans.

Trump Calls The White House “A Dump”

Sports Illustrated ran a story that claims President Trump was overheard to say the reason he goes to his own golf clubs is because the White House is “a real dump”. If this story is true I think we should evict the creep. The honor of living in that house is something that this man does not appreciate, or does he appreciate the history of the house or that it is the people’s house and we do not want it turned into a miniature Versailles palace.

Join the Resistance

Dar

Health Care In America

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Health Care In America

D. S. Mitchell

The GOP nicknamed the Affordable Care Act, “ObamaCare” and spent seven plus years condemning the program, and promising to “repeal” the entire act, and  “replace” with some nebulous unspecified improvement.  Remember Trump telling the country’s voters they “will have great health care. Cheaper health care.  Everybody will be covered.” What the GOP Congress has offered, and Trump claims he will sign, is a bill that would gut services, slash Medicaid expansion and strangle insurance subsidies.

It has been made obvious since Trump’s inauguration that this candidate had no plan and his rhetoric was a total and complete fabrication.  In the recent struggle, the repeal forces are re-energizing and narrowing its focus to eliminate at least the most unpopular mandates of the ACA, such as mandating that everyone buy insurance, and companies with 50 or more employees provide employee insurance.  Those two issues, along with the rapidly rising costs, and decreasing policy options in the private marketplace deserve immediate attention.

Republicans have made hay deriding and chastising the Democrats for a less than democratic process during the drafting of the ACA (ObamaCare).  Truthfully, the drafting of the ACA was an example of transparency compared to recent efforts by Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan to bring their repeal and replacement to resolution by passage of a new health care law.

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Since When Do We Establish Policy Via Tweet?

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Since When Do We Establish Policy Via Tweet?

D. S. Mitchell

Trump gets an idea and decides to change carefully crafted government policy, and then throws it out via Twitter.  Since when should this be an okay thing? No plan, no developed policy, Trump just issues a “royal tweet,” as if it were a king’s decree.

Trump Tweets That Transgender Individuals Will Not Be Allowed To Serve In The U.S. Military

On Wednesday morning, apparently while he was in the can doing his morning dump, the President of the United States decided to announced his personal reversal of a carefully thought out Defense Department policy.  Trump assassinated the transgender military plan through a trio of early morning tweets.

“After consultation with my generals and military experts, please be advised that the U.S. government will not accept or allow–transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. military.  Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming–victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgenders in the military would entail. Thank You.”

The declaration blindsided his Defense Secretary, James “Mad Dog” Mattis, who is currently on vacation. Apparently, on Tuesday Trump notified Mattis and other key officials he was moving toward such a decision and left it at that.  So, during his 6:00 a.m. dump, Trump decided there was no reason to wait–on the announcement, so he fired away, in more ways than one.

Outrage from nearly every corner slammed back at Trump.  Many pointing out that the military spends more on Viagra than transgender medication.  Senator Tammy Duckworth, an Iraq war hero (D. IL.) called out Trump publicly about his questionable deferments during the Vietnam war, and indicated his lack of service put him in an awkward position when making Tweet policy for the military. Another pundit asked why the government was spending 3.6 M on every Trump trip to Mar-a-Lago and was now worried about the very minimal cost of transgender medications. Others were asking if the several million dollars for transgender care of military personnel was being done in an effort to find more money for the “Trump Wall”?

Questions hammered the White House Press Secretary at a news briefing later Wednesday.  Sara Sanders announced that the White House and the Defense Department would be working to figure out logistics of how “to lawfully deal with transgender troops who are already serving in the military.”  Huckabee Sanders admitted that to her knowledge no new policy had been initiated and further, that no conversations have taken place, and none are currently underway to insure a smooth transition of Trump’s new tweeted policy. Really, absolutely amazing, and not in a good way.

A statement from the Pentagon indicated there would be no change to military policy at this time. A 2016 Pentagon study estimated 1,500 to 7,000 service personnel were openly serving as transgender individuals.  A public group put the number of transgender individuals serving in the U.S. military closer to 16,000.  The Human Rights Campaign calls the military the “largest employer of transgender people in America.”

Calamity Politics offers opinions, analysis, and speculations, in a mostly critical examination of the U.S. national political scene.

Join the Resistance

Dar

Scratching My Head

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Scratching My Head

D. S. Mitchell

Calamity politics’ mission is to share political opinions and comments on the urgent news of the day.  Our goal is to empower and connect people with a forward looking progressive agenda. I admit I often use the blog to release my own pent up emotions. It isn’t a crime, but it should at least be acknowledged.  Furthermore, I want it understood that I am a fervent  anti-Trump voice  and supporter of the Resistance. That said, today I am going to disrespect DonaldJ. Trump Jr. What the hell? Is this guy so attention starved that he wanted to bring a bunch of Russian tricksters and propagandists into the 2016 Presidential campaign to smear Hillary Clinton and impress Daddy? Is he so greedy for power that he would sell out the most sacred element of our Democracy, our vote, to a foreign power? Is he so stupid he needs help because he can’t tie his own shoe laces? Is he so used to operating outside the law that calling the FBI to report the intent of a foreign government to interfere in the US election didn’t even occur to him or the other attendees at this recently uncovered meeting. This whole story that is emerging about Donald, jr, and the lady Russian lawyer has me and most of the world scratching our heads.

The confirmed 6/9/2016 meeting, was between Trump, jr, Paul Manafort, Jared Kushner and a Russian attorney at Trump Tower and is the first known meeting between members of the Trump inner circle, both family and campaign staffers. The emerging story is grim and depressing when viewed as a family joined together to betray the United States; and in effect, mount a successful coup of the government; aided and abetted by a foreign adversary.

I am not surprised, but as more information is being brought to light my anger keeps mounting. How the fuck off kilter do you have to be to sell your country out? Too fucking immoral  and fucking disgusting to be anywhere close to the White House and the role of President of the United States, in my opinion. Trump must be impeached immediately along with his Vice President, Mike Pence.  OMG my hair is on fire.

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