Shot…
Trump spent $25 MILLION on 3 Doors Down and the Piano Guys, more than Obama spent on Beyonce and Bruce Springsteen https://t.co/Ly5Ytr1SXM pic.twitter.com/8G1U6tPoNZ
— Brendan Fischer (@brendan_fischer) September 16, 2017
…John Legend, John Mellencamp, Pete Seeger, Shakira, James Taylor, U2, Usher, https://t.co/q9YkU7IIq6, Stevie Wonder…
All at Obama's.
— Dale Henry Geist (@dalehenrygeist) September 16, 2017
Chaser:
Those leftover #Trump Inaugural funds pledged to go to charity? It never happened https://t.co/I3RKauFMv2 @AP cc: @Fahrenthold
— David Beard (@dabeard) September 15, 2017
President Donald Trump’s inaugural committee raised an unprecedented $107 million for a ceremony that officials promised would be “workmanlike,” and the committee pledged to give leftover funds to charity. Nearly eight months later, the group has helped pay for redecorating at the White House and the vice president’s residence in Washington.
But nothing has yet gone to charity.
What is left from the massive fundraising is a mystery, clouded by messy and, at times, budget-busting management of a private fund that requires little public disclosure. The Associated Press spoke with eight people — vendors, donors and Trump associates — involved in planning and political fundraising for the celebration, an event that provides an early look at the new president’s management style and priorities. The people described a chaotic process marked by last-minute decisions, staffing turnover and little financial oversight…
Who would’ve thought “knowing something about the job you’ve applied for” might be useful?
Other people familiar with the committee’s activities before and after the inauguration said its efforts were hobbled by a shortage of staff with relevant experience…
Leaders of previous inaugurations expressed surprise at the slow timeline. They say they had a general handle on their finances — and had already started giving money away — within three months of Inauguration Day, though formally closing down the committees took many months longer.
“The thing about inaugural expenses, they’re not complicated,” said Steve Kerrigan, head of President Barack Obama’s 2013 inaugural committee. “You take money in, you pay it out, and then you know what you’re left with when it’s done.”
Because inauguration funds are private money, there are few limits on how leftover money can be used…
They may not have had much relevant political experience, but when it comes to quietly reallocating funds that are supposed to go to charity, nobody has more experience than the Trump Crime Cartel!
And speaking of not-passing-the-smell-test attempts to “save the public money”…
JUST IN: Trump Jr. ends Secret Service protection, claims he needs more privacy: report https://t.co/UEEH5dFjlm pic.twitter.com/C9h1KLSmEu
— The Hill (@thehill) September 19, 2017
Words of advice for Jr: Don't bother, you're probably under surveillance whether or not Secret Service is protecting you. https://t.co/S7Ccc14Xay
— Christopher Orr (@OrrChris) September 19, 2017
But the people surveilling him probably haven't learned to detest him as much as I suspect his detail has. https://t.co/VGy2iaLl4r
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) September 19, 2017
"Kids, we're moving to St. Petersburg tonight. No, not Florida."
— Schooley (@Rschooley) September 19, 2017
OzarkHillbilly
From today’s Guardian: In search of the American man: why I hitchhiked across the Rust Belt
The state of American masculinity is in flux as blue-collar jobs vanish. Drew Philp travels the midwest and Appalachia to find out what that looks like
Stop it. Just fucking stop it, and no, I didn’t read it. The headline alone is puke inducing.
MattF
“If it’s green, ask Dr. Ivanov where to put it. He’s the expert.”
satby
Good morning everyone! Thunderboomers and rain here woke me at 4:30. Catching up on the overnight threads and email… And now I want to fall back to sleep.
They delayed rollout of the new system again yesterday. And I told the doctor I’m planning on leaving in the next several weeks. I hate to pile on, but it’s seriously off the rails and it drives me nuts when I have no power to fix it even though I could, if I even wanted to be there full time. Which I honestly don’t.
satby
@OzarkHillbilly:
That statement applies to so much of our so called “news reporting”.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly: I’m starting to root for the billionaires.
lowtechcyclist
Oh, they probably have, but unlike with the Secret Service detail, he doesn’t see the disgust on their faces every day.
Hal
So Kellyanne dumped Secret Service also. What’s going on? Don’t want anyone overhearing any more Russia conversations?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@satby:
Could be worse, we had a minor earthquake during the 11pm news.
p.a.
“Y-Y-You mean the Secret Service are federal agents? They’re not loyal to me?! Daddy! Get mo Bo Dietl!”
rikyrah
Good Morning,Everyone ???
bystander
Moanin’ Joe is saying the FNYT is reporting Manafort will be indicted. Now, the Times said the same thing about Clinton, so go figure. But the thought of everyone seeing Manafort being hustled off put some kick in my coffee.
p.a.
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
… we interrupt breaking news to bring you breaking news! things are breaking!
Baud
@rikyrah: Good morning.
bystander
@bystander: Oops. Just saw last night’s thread on the topic of Manafort’s indictment.
It’s Moanin’ Joe’s 10th anniversary, so it’s a bothsiderist fest.
satby
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I just read that. Good thing it was minor!
efgoldman
@bystander:
I don’t know why they don’t just make an animatronic Broder and have him as a regular “guest” a couple of days a week
Baud
Back on topic, has anyone followed up on Trump’s Irma donation?
?BillinGlendaleCA
Hmmm, the MS Windows lock screen is a pic of a reading room from a library, it looked familiar; it’s the reading room of the main library at Washington.
satby
@Baud: they seem to be getting curious about what happened to all the leftover money that was promised to charity after shitheel’s inauguration and also never got delivered.
The clue by four of truth can’t beat some reporters hard enough.
Keith G
Oh, so Trump is a bad person. Who’da guessed?
Baud
@satby: Wasn’t there a promise of money to vets during the campaign?
?BillinGlendaleCA
Got my triple boot(mac, windows, linux mint) machine finally working, yeah me!
Mustang Bobby
Good morning. One of the benefits of being Officially Old in Miami is that I get a Golden Passport for the Metrorail system and can ride for free. So instead of paying $30 a week for a tank of gas, putting up with Miami’s legendary traffic (over an hour to go 18 miles in the afternoon), I pay $11.25 for a monthly parking pass, drive 6 miles, park in covered and secure parking, and take the train. The Metro Mover drops me at the front door of the office. So far so good; I got to the office in the same amount of time as the morning commute in the car.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: He was eventually shamed into pay that.
satby
@Baud: yes, and I think Farenhold (sp?) shamed drumpf into actually delivering on that one, but not sure.
Manyakitty
@Hal: Maybe they’re making room for a special detail from Blackwater?
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Yes and Farenthold shamed them into following thru, at least in part.
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
@satby:
@OzarkHillbilly:
Thanks.
satby
News is saying that Dominica sustained “mind-boggling” damage from Maria. Hope commenter other Betty and family are safe.
Manyakitty
@Baud: David Farenthold is keeping track. So far, around 250k paid out, all private funds because the nominal “foundation” is under investigation.
Baud
@Manyakitty: Thanks.
Quinerly
@satby:
Good morning! Bad thunderstorms here in St. Louis last night. A terrified Poco. Now he is snoring.? Have a great day!
Boudica
Toys r us declaring bankruptcy due to debt from leveraged buyout by Bain years ago. No way Mittens becomes UT senator after having killed Toys r us..
Baud
@Boudica: But if he can manage three more bankruptcies, he may still be president.
satby
@Quinerly: yeah, these came from over dere by youse! But they’ve lost a bit of oomph because it’s mostly rumbles. We really needed rain, so it’s a good thing.
satby
@Boudica: it also went bankrupt before I seem to recall, soon after Bain got their mitts on it.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
satby
Think I need to go lie down for another hour or so; coffee isn’t doing a thing for me and I don’t have to go to work until 1.
Have a good day everyone.
ThresherK
Huh. I didn’t know Trump had interest in a music management co.
He took 30% off the top, right? I mean, if he didn’t, it’s practically malfeasance against the spirit of
griftentrepreneurship.debbie
I hope the General Assembly finds some way to express their disgust when Trump tells them to “Make the UN Great.”
bystander
@efgoldman: Animatronic figures require skilled maintenance. The care of Mike’s Barnacles is much more simple.
bystander
Joe just said that it was Obama’s foreign policy doctrine that resulted in the disaster that is Syria. That’s why I wasn’t invited to attend the festivities.
FlipYrWhig
@bystander: You tell ’em, Joe! The Middle East region was humming along pretty great when George W. Bush was president! :/
Kay
They’re really excited about the huge tax cuts for rich people:
Can they do this without gutting health care? They’re surely not cutting defense spending.
It’s the Brownback magic theory that just failed spectacularly in Kansas and Ohio- cutting taxes raises revenues:
Baud
@Kay: Republicans cutting taxes on the rich is no surprise. It’s what they do and what they say they’ll do.
rikyrah
OF COURSE, the Inaugural Funds never went to charity. They are nothing but a bunch of GRIFTERS.?
Phylllis
@Mustang Bobby: That’s pretty cool. Happy belated birthday btw. I’ve been working on our Perkins project this week. What fun.
rikyrah
@satby:
Hey satby. Hope things get better at work.?
SFAW
@Boudica:
Such a kidder, you are.
rikyrah
@satby:
That, after the foundation stories, they actually thought that these GRIFTERS would give the money to charity?
Phuck Outta Here ?
Elmo
Commencing Day Six without water. Well pump went kablooey on Thursday. Plumber came Friday and replaced the bad foot valve. But pump wouldn’t prime.
Came back Saturday and worked for five hours on a solution. No prime. We agreed he’d come back Monday with his well guy and replace the jet pump with a submersible pump. He wouldn’t take any money for the work he’d done, since “it didn’t accomplish anything.”
Called back Sunday to say his well guy knew a better way to get the pump to prime so we wouldn’t have to shell out three grand for the submersible. Good news.
They came out yesterday and worked for three hours. No joy. Plumber was crestfallen and hugely apologetic that we would be another day without water. He promised to come back today with well guy and submersible pump. Fingers crossed.
I’m fortunate. We have bottled water for drinking anyway; we had saved some well water in a 50 gallon barrel when we weren’t sure about Hurricane Irma’s path; and we hadn’t yet drained my wife’s outdoor therapy pool, so there’s plenty of water for us, the animals, and for flushing. I have a gym membership so there’s a shower available not far away. And I have a quarter-million Marriott points, so in a pinch we could check in to the Residence Inn and have showers and a dishwasher. I am as well set up as anyone could be.
But I am ready for camping to be OVER, thankyouverymuch.
rikyrah
@Mustang Bobby:
Saving money is always a good thing ?
rikyrah
@Boudica:
Bain…
Why am I not surprised ?
Woodrowfan
I have two followup questions to earlier posts.
1. What happened to the jerk that abandoned Walter in Cole’s home? Was he ever prosecuted?
2. One of the folk here was going to take positive comments to give to Ms. Clinton at a book signing. Did that happen?
thanks
Kay
@Baud:
Because they planned on paying for it by gutting poor and working class healthcare. Now they’ll just pretend to pay for it and quietly get rid of middle class tax breaks later. I think they want to get rid of the state tax deduction because that accelerates race to the bottom- reduces investment in things like education at the state level.
rikyrah
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
What is SIGNIT?
Is this the
Tick tock Dude?
rikyrah
@Kay:
This is the lie that they have been telling since Reagan, Kay
Lapassionara
@Kay: Where are all the debt and deficit scolds? Sort of odd, how they go silent when R’s are in charge. If only we had some way of remembering their inconsistencies.
Good morning.
rikyrah
@Woodrowfan:
Check today’s post with Alain about the result of the Hillary book signing.
OzarkHillbilly
@Elmo: A couple summers ago we lost power for 5 or 6 days. As a fellow well user I can say unequivocally, it sucks to be you.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Kay,
There are a lot of Republicans that get the state tax deduction. The Republicans in those districts would be on the hook for voting for it. It’s a vote that will not go over well, and that is simple to break down in a campaign ad.
Elmo
@OzarkHillbilly: Yep. But to be fair, losing power AND water, esp. in the height of summer, is way worse. No A/C AND no showers massively sucks.
And I can still cook, even if I don’t really want to because dishes.
SFAW
RIP Dr. Paul Gray, ’54/’55/’60
e to the u, du/dx, President Gray.
OzarkHillbilly
@Lapassionara:
The same place they’ve always been, in the armpit of the Republican party.
Kay
@rikyrah:
Trump’s gross with the military spending. They’re gonna go on a godammned tear. The idiot wants to see some big new weapons go past from his balcony. Can’t they give him a bulldozer to play with?
25 years ago there was a wildly popular video for small children. It was construction equipment and drivers- giant wheels, like that. Really spare narration- “here comes the bulldozer!”. My kids loved it. Do a parade with that stuff. It’s safer.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@rikyrah:
Signal Intelligence.
I think so.
rikyrah
I’m still pissed at the muthaphuckas who had the nerve to protest Nancy Smash yesterday about DACA. Phucking purity ponies make me sick.??
dopey-o
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Did you go full Hackintosh, or is it Apple hardware?
gene108
@Kay:
The beauty of “tax cuts boost the economy” is right-wingers figured out paying enough people to lie about how it is true, even when all evidence says otherwise, confuses enough people to be able to keep enacting the same failed policy over and over again.
It really is amazing what a few billion in propaganda can buy you.
Kay
@Lapassionara:
Good morning! The deficit scolds camped on Morning Joe. Odd how they aren’t invited anymore. Remember “Fix the Debt”? What happened to those dour old rich men lecturing us? They’re busy calculating their tax cut.
SFAW
@Kay:
Let me guess, he’ll have that parade on May Day?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@dopey-o: It’s a full Hackintosh. It’s my old(2013) HP i7. I had to replace the video card, the AMD card was causing problems so I got a GeForce GTX 1050.
ETA: I originally had it set up on my really old HP(2009) Core Duo. But the power supply died and I decided to do some re configuring. I had to re-install everything since the old machine was BIOS and this one is UEFI.
Baud
@rikyrah: This is beyond purityism. It’s not like Nancy is at all ideologically opposed with their policy goals.
Baud
@Kay:
I believe they are lecturing us on civility now.
SFAW
@rikyrah:
Was that here? Or in the “real” world? I missed it, either way.
Well, as our esteemed efgoldman is wont to say:
Fuckem
SFAW
@Baud:
As I said above about something else:
Fuckem.
Lurking Canadian
@Boudica: This is renewing my rage at the Bain business model. Pretty fucking easy to get rich when you can borrow money, then pocket it and make somebody else pay it back.
Actually, now that I see it in black and white, I realize that’s just Republican tax policy writ small.
rikyrah
@SFAW:
Phuck Outta Here to all those muthaphuckas ?
SiubhanDuinne
@Woodrowfan:
It did! See a full report from commenter Luthe one level down, in today’s “On the Road….” instalment.
ETA: I, too, have wanted to know what ever happened with that guy who previously owned John’s home, and abandoned Walter.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@SFAW: I’ll let this young lady I photographed on Sunday evening speak for me.
OzarkHillbilly
@Elmo: We have propane for cooking and a generator for AC/freezers/frig. For bathing I headed down to Indian creek. Actually was very therapeutic. Me, the water, and the birds.
randy khan
Of course, one difference between the Trump inauguration and the Obama inauguration is that everyone who didn’t have to attend demanded to be paid, so there probably isn’t that much left over.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@randy khan: …and with the Obama inauguration you didn’t have George W. Bush commenting “that was some weird shit”.
OzarkHillbilly
@randy khan: And those that did have to attend demanded to be paid double.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly: Moral hazard pay.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@rikyrah: signals intelligence (NSA)
This isn’t the tick tock guy, this is the ex NSA guy. The tick tock guy is the Comey press agent guy.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: I’m pretty sure no trumpkin could recognize moral hazard if it hit them over the head with a 2×4.
MomSense
@rikyrah:
It should be SIGINT which stands for signals intelligence and means electronically gathered intelligence.
I would be wary of JS for multiple reasons. He is not an ally. Example A is the way he treats Joy Reid.
Eric Garland, game theorist and futurist also says tick tock as do many people at this point.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly: Trumpkins don’t get paid. They get taken. It’s people who aren’t Trumpkins who get paid.
Tenar Arha
@satby: Me too. Was thinking about her last night. Just read a BBC article about Dominica & Maria. Then I watched a BBC roundup from Irma, and the scale of that is overwhelming.
(Also because my mind works this way, we’ll likely need to be prepared for news & cable to start normalizing these kinds of hurricane seasons w/o even explaining why it’s happening. IIRC even though BBC mentioned abnormal warm water causing Maria to jump back to Cat 5, climate change never mentioned).
Kay
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
I go back and forth on whether they’ll find anything “actionable” and be able to tie it to Trump. Most days I think odds are better that they can’t tie him. Trump’s been a sleaze his whole career and he’s adept at wriggling out of things. He’s been deposed and sued so many times I bet he’s lost count.
We do this thing in this country where it’s like “move on! brush that under the rug!”. That seems to be a powerful force, the impulse to bury it and “get busy!” or whatever. I have come to believe it’s a mistake, short-sighted and lazy, but boy is it strong.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@MomSense:
He’s an asshole, but his sources are pretty good.
gratuitous
Where’d the money go? “There is great chaos under heaven and the situation is excellent.”
Baud
Do any of these twitter pundits say anything that’s worth believing or not believing? The one’s that are reposted here don’t seem to deserve much more attention than a muted “hmm.”
Kathleen
@Baud: I so needed a laugh this morning. Thanks so much Pres Baud!
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
Counterchekist is an intell guy. Not sure what branch or if he’s active or retired.
SiubhanDuinne
I see from the banner ad up top that if I join the National Rifle Association, they will send me a knife. A free knife, with the NRA logo on the blade.
Now they want me to bring a knife to a gunfight? I am confuse.
Baud
@SiubhanDuinne: Maybe they know they are advertising on a liberal blog? No free gun for you!
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@Kay: I hear ya, but he’s sure acting like someone who has a lot to hide and a lot to lose.
MomSense
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Be very cautious. I don’t trust him at all for many reasons. I do not think he is forthcoming.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@MomSense: I like to think I’m the original person to use tick-tock on russia-gate. And I only did it cuz I love how Denzel Washington used it (tick-tock) in “Inside Man”.
Kay
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
Right, but that could easily be the knee-deep sleaze around Trump Enterprises. Trump could be afraid of a lot things, and many of them aren’t coordinating with Russia to swing an election.
I want to know what happened. I just assume his business is dirty. They can get him on that- fine with me- but I still want to know what happened in the election.
Lurking Canadian
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: Oh FFS. I hate this “I know something you don’t know, neener neener!” shit that these “insiders” peddle.
If they have evidence of literal treason, they should share it. If they’re sitting on it because national security sources and methods or whatever, they should keep their damned pie holes shut. This bragging about what they know but can’t share because it might compromise their operations is like Alan Turing running around the London pub scene in 1943 going, “Boy you wouldn’t believe the shit going on at Bletchley Park! There’s some secret shit going on there let me tell you! I can’t say exactly what’s going on but let’s just say don’t be surprised if some U-boats get sunk tomorrow! Oken-bray odes-cay, know what I’m saying?”
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@efgoldman:
Holo Broder “Look, yes the Republican controlled congress can’t pass a law to save itself, President Trump is underestimation for treason, but look at the liberals; blacks are rioting in St Louis for being hunted as animals and clowns were just marching in Washington because they didn’t like being called gangsters. Both sides are at fault here”
Speaking of Broderists, apparently South Park has lost it way since Republican control of the government means they can’t just say both sides are fault and are by necessity forced to make a judgement. As Libertarians they are not equipped to do this.
SiubhanDuinne
@Baud:
The advertising algorithms are so strange on this blog. The NRA ad, as of this morning, is in heavy rotation with the Mike Huckabee ad I’ve been complaining about. I don’t actually mind ads per se — they help pay for Balloon Juice, cover John’s home remodelling expenses, buy cat food for Steve — but it’s very disconcerting that the advertisers here are so clueless about their audience.
Spanky
@rikyrah:
I’ll bet you double or nothing that it was rat fuckers rather than purity ponies.
chris
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Triple boot? I’m impressed. Multiple drives or partitions? I have Windows/Mint on separate drives and leave the Mac stuff to my one rebellious sibling.
Thought of you when I read about the Starlight Festival in Yarmouth. Of course, the hurricanes have made for cloudy skies since Friday but I hope this will be the first of many festivals. I live not far away and when I want dark sky I turn out the lights and go outside. Come visit anytime.
Sadly, at the top of that same page there is a black banner that says HATE. It’s a timeline of recent hate crimes. Racism is a global problem.
rikyrah
THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 9/18/17
Paul Manafort wiretapped and threatened with indictment: reports
Rachel Maddow reports breaking news from the New York Times about the aggressive nature of Special Counsel Mueller’s raid of former Donald Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort’s home, and news from CNN about communications intercepts of Manafort.
rikyrah
THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 9/18/17
Manafort given ‘shock-and-awe’ treatment by Mueller team: NYT
Matt Apuzzo, reporter for The New York Times, talks with Rachel Maddow about the aggressive way Special Counsel Robert Mueller is pursuing his investigation of former Donald Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort.
rikyrah
THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 9/18/17
Mueller uses search warrant to get more on Russia from Facebook
Jim Rutenberg, media columnist for The New York Times, talks with Rachel Maddow about Special Counsel Robert Mueller using a search warrant to get more information from Facebook about how Russia used its platform to interfere in the U.S. democratic process.
Amir Khalid
It was reported very recently that the family Trump has basically broken the Secret Service, causing agents to hit their annual overtime-pay ceiling and the agency to exhaust its annual budget in six months. So they’ve had to stop protecting people they’re not obliged by statute to protect; as I recall, they did that with Kellyanne Conway. Is Donald Jr dumping his Secret Service protection, or is the Secret Service dumping him?
Woodrowfan
@rikyrah: thanks!
rikyrah
What Makes Trump So Dangerous?
by Nancy LeTourneau September 18, 2017
A lot of questions have been raised about Donald Trump’s mental health. I have said that we need to talk about it not only because he is dangerous, but because the topic has been shrouded in secrecy, which only reinforces the stigma.
On October 3rd, a book “The Dangerous Case for Donald Trump” will be published. In it, 27 psychiatrists, psychologists and mental health experts assess President Trump’s mental health. Bill Moyers recently interviewed Robert Jay Lifton, the psychohistorian who wrote the forward. Before getting to what he said about Trump, here is how Lifton describes the intent of the authors:
We have a duty to warn on an individual basis if we are treating someone who may be dangerous to herself or to others — a duty to warn people who are in danger from that person. We feel it’s our duty to warn the country about the danger of this president. If we think we have learned something about Donald Trump and his psychology that is dangerous to the country, yes, we have an obligation to say so.
rikyrah
What Whiteness Looks Like From a Black Perspective
by Nancy LeTourneau
September 19, 2017
Anyone who is interested in wresting with how race and politics intermingle in this country should definitely watch these two segments from Chris Hayes’s interview with Ta-Nehisi Coates.
Overall, these two had a fascinating conversation. But I’d like to highlight two things that stood out to me.
First of all, Coates did an even better job of describing what his intentions were in writing the article in which he defined Trump as the first white president. Here’s the money quote from the article:
Replacing Obama is not enough—Trump has made the negation of Obama’s legacy the foundation of his own. And this too is whiteness. “Race is an idea, not a fact,” the historian Nell Irvin Painter has written, and essential to the construct of a “white race” is the idea of not being a nigger.
A study of the history of race demonstrates that Coates is right. The whole concept was “invented as a folk idea, not the product of scientific research or discovery.” Race was mainly used to differentiate what we now call “white people” from everyone else. In that way, being white primarily means, as Coates suggests, “not being a n****er.” Here is how he explained it to Hayes:
Whiteness has to come from a certain place, and throughout American history what it’s come from is the negation of blackness—the idea of not being a n****r…We’ve had white presidents before, but we’ve never had a president who so much defined himself by the president before him, who just so happens to be our first black president. My argument in the piece is, in fact, that you can’t have the idea of a white president without having a black president before him, much as you can’t have a white American in this country without a black America.
The other part of the conversation I’d like to highlight comes towards the end when Hayes asks Coates to respond to the reality that things are pretty bleak right now for white working class Americans. Here is his response:
Even within our language, when we say something like “white working class people are suffering x,y, and z, implicit in that is that white people shouldn’t be going through that—something about being white should somehow make you immune to that…There are a number of writers who get something out of that fact. It gives them a kind of moral high ground—a relationship to a victim that they don’t have with black people…I don’t ever want to allow my insistence that folks focus on the force of white supremacy to elide the fact of any group anywhere suffering. But I also don’t want to endorse the notion that whiteness should somehow give you immunity to the kind of suffering that black people have been enduring since we got here in 1619.
MomSense
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
That was a good movie. Everything Denzel does is great even when he doesn’t have much to work with script and cast wise.
MomSense
@rikyrah:
The second highlighted quote is an especially important concept that too many of us white people do not see.
rikyrah
@Kay:
This is treason, Kay. This is about collaboration with a hostile foreign power to undermine American sovereignty.
What this has shown me, without hesitation, is..
THE CURVE FOR UNQUALIFIED WHITE MEN IS REAL.
The absolute desperation to try and make this grifting, traitorous piece of garbage ‘ normal’, along with his wretched, incompetent crew…
schrodingers_cat
@MomSense: Of the many things that have driven me to exhaustion since the last election campaign is this relentless urge to put everyone in two boxes, block or white. Its so simplistic and annoying, especially when you don’t neatly fit in one or the other. Its just increased my feeling of alienation.
Though I am sympathetic to TNC’s POV it is not my lived experience though I can understand what he is saying at an intellectual level, I can’t related to it emotionally and I also feel zero affinity towards the sainted WWC or any T supporters.
I miss the promise that Barack Obama represented where you could be American no matter your country of origin or the color of your skin or the languages you spoke besides English.
rikyrah
Hurricane Maria is a Cat 5. Prayers for all in her path :(
rikyrah
By Harassing Nancy Pelosi, Immigration ‘Activists’ are Making it Easier for Trump to Deport Children
Earlier today, Leftist immigration “activists” decided that their time would be best spent in San Francisco by harassing House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi at her Dream Act rally. Activists chanted “No border, no nation, stop deportation!”, and held up signs demanding things ranging from open borders to protecting all 11 million undocumented immigrants.
Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer last week won a surrender from Donald Trump on the issue of protecting Dreamers, and they extracted the agreement without Trump’s border wall as being part of the deal. They did, however, agree that border security and enforcement would be enhanced. While there is no legislation to consider yet, the activists are evidently irate that enforcement was allowed to be included as part of the deal, and their demands… to the extent they had any positive demands at all, were as disparate as their signs.
During one prolonged tirade, people claiming to be ‘undocumented youth’ (looking at the chanters, I find it hard to believe that they were all undocumented), demanded that they not be “a bargaining chip”, and that a ‘clean’ Dream Act pass without enforcement. Interrupting Pelosi at another point, they chanted “All 11 million!” in reference to the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the US, whom one assumes they wanted to be legalized immediately.
Even the demands of a ‘clean’ Dream Act and comprehensive immigration reform (“all 11 million!) are not the same, not to mention that comprehensive immigration reform has always included beefed up border enforcement, which the assembled mob could not be more against.
Put it all together, and the chants and the demands amount to nothing more than incoherent emotional blobbery, with no productive organization or positive agenda.
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: BS supporters and/or purity ponies are idiots with the political acumen of a potato.
Tenar Arha
@Amir Khalid: He’s dumping them due to “seeking privacy” according to NYT. It seems to me to be a kind of smart-stupid choice, because if he is under in person surveillance by FBI it’s unlikely they’re cooperating in any way with the Secret Service but using other means like, I dunno, paying house cleaners cash. Plus, I would assume that with manpower issues and probable likelihood of financial crimes, electronic methods is much more efficient and effective.
Spanky
@rikyrah: Ratfvcking, pure and simple.
Architeuthis
@OzarkHillbilly: It’s nowhere near what it seems; a quote from the end:
It’s not kissing WWC redneck ass or justifying Trump voters.
schrodingers_cat
@OzarkHillbilly: I am with you I have a media induced fatigue about the sainted WWC (who have to vote R to really count)
PJ
@rikyrah: It’s not just a curve for white men (though it is), it’s the notion that Republican crimes, no matter how large – and particularly if they are enormous in their magnitude – should never be prosecuted “for the good of the country”. We saw this with Iran-Contra, which at least had Congressional hearings, and then with the lies leading up to the Second Iraq War and the policy of torturing terror suspects, which got no hearings, let alone prosecution, not to mention all of the fraud and profiteering involved in the Iraq War, while Bill Clinton was subjected to endless investigation, leading to impeachment on whether or not he lied about getting a blowjob, and Hillary, of course, is still being hounded about her emails. I know why he did it, but I think Obama made a big mistake in letting the Bush Administration off the hook.
MomSense
@schrodingers_cat:
I miss it, too. I actually think that Clinton was trying to build on that coalition and push it to mean being more active about injustice that faced any member bloc of the coalition. Honestly, I think there was a huge strain of the Wilmerites who actively work against that coalition and it’s pretty obvious if you look at the pols they target.
schrodingers_cat
@MomSense: I know the BS types well, I have taken grad level econ classes for them. Most of them were disappointed in Obama and had fairly unrealistic expectations of him.
Mike in NC
Fuck the fucking Rust Belt already.
Elizabelle
@OzarkHillbilly: That was actually a terrific article. Meeting people getting left behind by our economy. Thinking on fear, and that Trump is a weak man’s idea of a strong man. Hollowed out masculinity; hollowed out economic possibilities for too many.
And now these fuckers are taking a run at healthcare again — gut it to give the economy’s winners a tax cut.
Bring back the guillotines.
brettvk
@OzarkHillbilly: I lived in rural Webster County for a year in 8th grade, and during a few electric outages I would go down to our spring-fed section of the Finley to wash my hair (as I couldn’t go to school with day-old hair). I remember how my scalp would sort of crinkle up because the water was so cold.
J R in WV
@rikyrah:
SIGINT is an abbreviation for Signals Intelligence, in other words, intercepted electronic communications, from telegraph messages back in the day through telephone calls in the not-long-ago to computer-to-computer connections today.
What “SIGINT nails Trump” means is that the writer is alleging that Mueller has recordings of Trump saying and doing criminally liable things. We can only hope!
Brachiator
Running government like a business…
Tehanu
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
“Minor” is right. It was over before we realized it was an earthquake. First one we’ve had in a while.