We have a rare opportunity to actually vote against fascism this year. Let's hope we do so.

Iowa Republicans took the first step. Steve King is done.

An effective way to protect freedom from those who won't make compromises is to plunge them into darkness. We call this maneuver... the "almighty fuck."

You owe me a kiss.

Get in line sister.

I'm relived to see that I'm not the only one who has pondered that.

We need a blow out election but Fox Entertainment...

Because some people view "freedom" as "a guarantee of being half a rung higher up the ladder than black folks."

It's how the confederacy had people lining up to fight an impossible war, it's how the government gets the "freedom" crowd to DEMAND a tyrant.

:right:

Mattis:

Full statement:

"I have watched this week’s unfolding events, angry and appalled. The words “Equal Justice Under Law” are carved in the pediment of the United States Supreme Court. This is precisely what protesters are rightly demanding. It is a wholesome and unifying demand—one that all of us should be able to get behind. We must not be distracted by a small number of lawbreakers. The protests are defined by tens of thousands of people of conscience who are insisting that we live up to our values—our values as people and our values as a nation.

When I joined the military, some 50 years ago, I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution. Never did I dream that troops taking that same oath would be ordered under any circumstance to violate the Constitutional rights of their fellow citizens—much less to provide a bizarre photo op for the elected commander-in-chief, with military leadership standing alongside.

We must reject any thinking of our cities as a “battlespace” that our uniformed military is called upon to “dominate.” At home, we should use our military only when requested to do so, on very rare occasions, by state governors. Militarizing our response, as we witnessed in Washington, D.C., sets up a conflict—a false conflict—between the military and civilian society. It erodes the moral ground that ensures a trusted bond between men and women in uniform and the society they are sworn to protect, and of which they themselves are a part. Keeping public order rests with civilian state and local leaders who best understand their communities and are answerable to them.

James Madison wrote in Federalist 14 that “America united with a handful of troops, or without a single soldier, exhibits a more forbidding posture to foreign ambition than America disunited, with a hundred thousand veterans ready for combat.” We do not need to militarize our response to protests. We need to unite around a common purpose. And it starts by guaranteeing that all of us are equal before the law.

Instructions given by the military departments to our troops before the Normandy invasion reminded soldiers that “The Nazi slogan for destroying us…was ‘Divide and Conquer.’ Our American answer is ‘In Union there is Strength.’” We must summon that unity to surmount this crisis—confident that we are better than our politics.

Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people—does not even pretend to try. Instead he tries to divide us. We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort. We are witnessing the consequences of three years without mature leadership. We can unite without him, drawing on the strengths inherent in our civil society. This will not be easy, as the past few days have shown, but we owe it to our fellow citizens; to past generations that bled to defend our promise; and to our children.

We can come through this trying time stronger, and with a renewed sense of purpose and respect for one another. The pandemic has shown us that it is not only our troops who are willing to offer the ultimate sacrifice for the safety of the community. Americans in hospitals, grocery stores, post offices, and elsewhere have put their lives on the line in order to serve their fellow citizens and their country. We know that we are better than the abuse of executive authority that we witnessed in Lafayette Square. We must reject and hold accountable those in office who would make a mockery of our Constitution. At the same time, we must remember Lincoln’s “better angels,” and listen to them, as we work to unite.

Only by adopting a new path—which means, in truth, returning to the original path of our founding ideals—will we again be a country admired and respected at home and abroad."

My bold.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/natio...qu4-story.html
Russia was paying bounties on US troops.
The intelligence finding was briefed to President Donald Trump, and the White House’s National Security Council discussed the problem at an interagency meeting in late March, the officials said. Officials developed a menu of potential options — starting with making a diplomatic complaint to Moscow and a demand that it stop, along with an escalating series of sanctions and other possible responses, but the White House has yet to authorize any step, the officials said.

Trump took care of that by inviting Putin to the G-7 and promising to pull 10,000 US troops out of Germany...


...and maybe a blowjob later.

Some denials from the WH now, but the louder though less unifying scandal is the report of his retweeting a video from "The Villages" where a parade of golf carts moves through a standing group of protesters. The drivers are all rabidly pro-Trump and the chants of "white power! white power!" can be heard clearly.

Trump has two objectives by promoting this:

1 -- he likes it, he likes actions that show he's liked and these drivers are mad for him.

2 -- we're not talking about Russian bounties on American soldiers now, are we?

Do you remember that comic where the people on the balcony are looking down on the angry mob and reflect that all they have to do is to get the pitchforks to start fighting with the torches...

That's Trump up on that balcony with his handlers.

Found it

Attachment 70878.

That's pretty much where we are.

All that's left to do is to see if Biden can keep from blowing it before election day.

I just read this at lunch today:

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/ar...even-for-putin

I wonder if this guy could have been a even worse admiral than a political columnist. Those damn Rooskies make him so mad he could just spit. Scary.

Surface to air missiles were OK, of course.

If Trump is The Lone Ranger, then this guy is Tonto.

Every time Putin comes out of a private meeting with Trump, he always has a smirk. He can even put a bounty on Americans soldiers, deny it, and then Trump will believe Putin. As usual deny or blame American intelligence for incompetence.

We have not seen so much contempt for the American soldier since Cheney, et al kill 5000 in Iraq for no useful purpose. To only protect Cheney's et al's legacy.

https://apnews.com/8513ec966d26d1c850e7cab0b269997c

c'mon man. show a little empathy. do you know how hard it is to run in heels?

Apparently *not* all attention is good attention. Here's a fresh news item where Trump didn't make the cut.

Fox News "mistakenly" (riiiiiiiiight) edited the picture in this news article about Jeffery Epstein and Ghislane Maxwell to "mistakenly" exclude our (mistakenly elected) President Trump.

I can't easily post the image here, but it's worth a click.

I post this here to give the man the credit he's due.

ETA:
Here's a tweet from a fellow who recognized @FLOTUS on the left hand side of the picture that aired

Fox News...

thanks, well done.

Guess who's getting A NEW TATOO!


Trump Commutes Sentence Of Longtime Friend And Adviser Roger Stone



So corrupt.

:facepalm:

How many other honest new services are reporting latest Trump lies to kill more Americans. Reported today by Deutche Welle:
International broadcasters are routinely mocking what extremists have done to America. Hopefully patriotic Americans (moderates) will vote in significant numbers this time.

All hail, a reminder to get rid of those congress critters.

I couldn't have said it better. Why Trump dislikes The Washington Post is beyond me.

Our handsome, brave, good president looked so great in his mask

And so the columnist talks about emotions. Strong healthy and virile kids. Totally irrelevant to an adult. Trump's looks. Yes that does work on so many adults who are children. I only read columnists who discuss logical conclusions from facts. All I read was emotions targeting adults who are still children.

Obviously the entire column is only about his emotions. Not one useful fact was posted. So an adult read it, and then asked, "Why did I waste my time?"

Moderates need and demand facts so that conclusions can exist later. Not one fact was in that columnist's diatribe. Is he a righty or a lefty? No adult cares. He posted no facts. So he wasted bandwidth. Preaching to adults who are children - who need their emotions pampered.

What was the only fact? Trump actually work a facemask. So much wasted bandwidth to only learn that.

The column was satirical, tw. It was intended to mock Trump, not present actual news.

tw couldn't pick up on that because he has no emotions in his bot software. :rolleyes:

.....


BWAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!

That's twice as funny as the column! I'm cryin from laughin so hard. Thank Trump my lungs are now tariffs.

I found nothing entertaining in it. Especially since same reasoning is emphatically believed by his supporters. Satire was lost in that it is Trump disciple beliefs and exactly how they think.

Satire is harder to pull off these days, it's true. Real headlines can be easily mistaken for headlines from The Onion, and vice versa.

Poe's Law

Who is writing funnier fiction? The Onion or Trump?

Even the Onion cannot write fiction as fast as Trump.

Ethics.

Those are adjuncts to COVID-19 treatment. They help keep up your strength to beat the disease. [/PSA]

ETA:

BTW, what's an endrose?

Does this only apply to a French employé?

When Ivanka Trump says she and her father are endorsing Goya products due to a 20% reduction in sales (because Goya's president openly approved of Trump's racism), then that is clearly an endorsement. Of course people who are told how to think by Fox News would not know that. Fox's purpose is to keep extremists brainwashed. So that extremists do not even apologize for the massacre of 5000 American servicemen in Iraq for no purpose.

And so that extremists will blame blacks for their own deaths. Blame peaceful demonstrators in Oregon for the violence. So that the Confederate flag (a flag similar to the Nazi flag) is protected. Claim that covid is just another flu virus. And to protect Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill: Trail of Tears.

This question wasn't answered.

She said what she was doing was "endorsing". Ivanaka clearly answered the question AND demonstrated how to 'endorse'.

An 'endrose' has no definition. Care to invent one?

That's the last rose to lose it's petals in the fall.

You're the one who posted "endrose" and you're the one who posted "employe."

Trying to invent your own language to go with your own reality?

That's kinda beautiful.

Aw shucks you're just saying that... :blush:


Oh, you mean what I wrote.

Ha!

Back to Twitler, even Fox News has seen enough.

Hey man.

tw, I apologize.

I will probably wreck the apology, but here goes anyway. I really wasn't laughing at you, I was laughing at the *absurdity* of our current situation where Poe's Law could even be applied to Alexandra Petri's column. It is definitely satire, and you make a good point, some people express themselves like this in earnest. For the record, they're absurd too. The column was funny, your response just amplified the ridiculousness, so I laughed some more.



So, let's start over. Here are a couple more examples, check them out. ABSURD!

Are these even real?
1 -- Trump says Biden will abolish the suburbs.
2 -- Trump orders secret police to round up citizens in Portland.

Column: Trump is right — Joe Biden will abolish the suburbs. And NO ONE will be safe!

Trump Unleashes His Secret Police in Portland

Trump Unleashes His Secret Police in Portland
In a dangerous authoritarian move, federal agents in camouflage and without badges are rounding up American citizens.

Donald Trump’s war on protesters is escalating, with reports emerging out of Portland, Ore., that federal law enforcement officers, wearing camouflage but without any other visible insignia, have been rounding up American citizens. On Thursday, Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB) reported that “federal law enforcement officers have been using unmarked vehicles to drive around downtown Portland and detain protesters since at least July 14. Personal accounts and multiple videos posted online show the officers driving up to people, detaining individuals with no explanation of why they are being arrested, and driving off.”

OPB quotes one person who was arrested by these officers, although never charged. “I am basically tossed into the van,” Mark Pettibone told the broadcaster. “And I had my beanie pulled over my face so I couldn’t see and they held my hands over my head.” He was taken to a building that he later discovered was a federal courthouse. Only there was he read his Miranda rights, but he was never charged. After he asked for a lawyer, he was released. Videos are circulating on social media of similar detentions.

“It’s like stop and frisk meets Guantanamo Bay,” attorney Juan Chavez told OPB. He added that these detentions were not following any rules of probable cause. “It sounds more like abduction. It sounds like they’re kidnapping people off the streets.”

On the face of it, what these federal officers are doing is illegal and unconstitutional. It’s possible that they are acting under the 2011 National Defense Authorization Act, signed by Barack Obama, which legalized the detention of Americans suspected of being terrorists. If so, then the War on Terrorism has truly come home.

The Trump administration used unidentified federal officers to patrol Washington, D.C., in early June when the scale of the protests forced Trump to go into the White House bunker. Those officers turned out to be guards from the US Bureau of Prisons who had been repurposed as ad hoc praetorian guards.

Protests have been roiling Portland for over six weeks. Even prior to these protests, Portland was a site of a long-running battle between right-wing groups like the Proud Boys and left-wing activists who are usually lumped together under the antifa label. It’s possible that the antifa connection made Portland a spot of particular interest to the Trump administration, which has used the loosely organized anti-fascist groups as a scapegoat for social upheavals in the wake of police brutality.


The deployment of unidentified federal officers is particularly dangerous in a situation like that in Portland and elsewhere in America, because it could easily lead to right-wing militias’ impersonating legal authorities and kidnapping citizens. As former CIA counterintelligence analyst Aki Peritz notes, “All it takes is one of these similar-kitted out militiamen groups to start grabbing folks off the street as well, but then having their way with them, for there to be huge, possibly violent pushback for these tactics. This hurts the police, and the citizenry.” Peritz argues, “We’re quickly entering secret police territory now. DHS is becoming Trump’s Mukhābarāt” (mukhābarāt being the Arabic word for intelligence agency, used colloquially to refer, for example, to the Egyptian or Iraqi or Libyan secret police).

Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf is currently in Portland. In a statement on Thursday, Wolf said, “The city of Portland has been under siege for 47 straight days by a violent mob while local political leaders refuse to restore order to protect their city. Each night, lawless anarchists destroy and desecrate property, including the federal courthouse, and attack the brave law enforcement officers protecting it.” Wolf warned, “This siege can end if state and local officials decide to take appropriate action instead of refusing to enforce the law.”

Wolf’s strident words echoed the law-and-order theme that has come to the fore in Trump’s reelection campaign. Trump himself sounded a racist variation on the theme in a Thursday White House virtual town hall when he decried the collapse of “law and order” in cities like New York and Chicago. Trump also claimed that Democrats were trying to destroy the suburbs. Announcing the rescinding of an Obama order against racial segregation in housing, Trump said, “The suburb destruction will end with us.”

There is every sign that Trump will continue to pound the drum of law and order until the election. Portland is likely a test case for a larger security crackdown that will be repeated in other cities.

Oregon Governor Kate Brown has been commendably blunt in attacking Trump’s assault on protesters. On Thursday, she tweeted:

Brown shouldn’t be the only one protesting. Congressional Democrats need to open up an immediate investigation into the use of federal law enforcement officers in Portland. Joe Biden also needs to make clear that if elected he’ll order an immediate house cleaning in all federal agencies and that any officers found to have broken the law will be punished. Moreover, if Trump is acting within the law, the Democrats need to make new rules so no future president can repeat this travesty.


Jeet HeerJeet Heer is a national affairs correspondent at The Nation

Genuinely worried about the US right now.

How can this be happening in America, of all places?

I know there's a huge gun culture, and I get that the police are pretty militarised so heavy handed treatment of protesters is not such a big surprise (though the degree of it has been kind of shocking) - but this?

All those people who support Trump, waving their MAGA hats and protesting their democratic freedom to not wear a mask - where the fuck are you on this?

The many times i have had arguments on here with people on the extreme end of the Republican side and been told that the US approach to gun ownership and absolute defence of the right to free expression and STATE's rights against the federal gubmint make fascism impossible in America.

So where are you now? Can you support a president who sends federal officers, in full military kit to bundle protestors into unmarked cars, without due process and against the wishes of the individual state government - just because the people they're targeting are a different political stripe?




In America?


For all I have grown in cynicism as an adult, I grew up on Superman and Rocky, in a world wholly infused with American soft power - at a deep level, I still think of America as the bastion of modern democratic values - albeit somewhat faded.

When Trump became president I was horrified and thought he would be disastrous - but I also thought the worst of his excesses would be ameliorated by the system he has to operate within. Most presidents (whatever party) are prevented from doing much in terms of radical change or action.

I was clearly very wrong.

I'm not going to say it's good here because it isn't but we can recover. We just need to get through an election cycle and absorb the nonsense after. The Trump right knows their enemy as the Deep State which is known to the rest of us as the folks who manage risks for the country. The judiciary while under assault has a long institutional memory. Chief Justice Roberts is showing signs of maintaining that. The Republican Senate has been a complete shit-show but that is also a one election issue. The Dems will want to retaliate but their best retaliation is responsible governance. Many of us have recognized that the Executive was accumulating too much power, now it should be obvious to everyone. The parties are a mess now so who knows how long the Dems can keep it together.

The actual news people at Fox are pushing back.

Trumps lack of connection to existing ideological boundaries is on display now. He's is all about States Rights for fighting the virus but all about Federal Power for busting BLM heads. He really doesn't fit in any normal American political position, it may be a reflection of a big turnover in beliefs or just a rudderless reactionary electorate. The GOP Senate believed they could manage him for their own purposes but that seems not to be the case.

Plenty of little reasons explain it. For example, many Trump officials are now "Acting ...". He fires responsible people. Replaces them with "Acting ..." people that need not be vetted. Then does not bother to hire anyone for the job - who would otherwise be vetted by Congressional or Civil Service review. He surrounds himself with a type of emotionally reactive people who will even invite Russians to manipulate our elections and then deny it publicly using insults. In short, lie. Since lying is good when a government is run by despots.

Furthermore, he has inspired a type of 'adult who is still a child' mentality that is also found in posts from Urbane Guerrilla and henry quirk. They don't reason rationally. They use emotions to justify personal attacks and insults. Then lies need not be exposed or even discussed. As if that is reasonable or an 'adult acting like an adult'.

Charlottesville, Virginia demonstrated this early on. And still, so many remained perfunctory of That Don and his long criminal history. So many foolishly credit him with the Obama economy that makes him look good. Only recently have many finally started to see The Don for who he really is. Before Covid, The Don had already started a major recession.

Notice how bad The Don had to be before so many saw it. He finally said masks are necessary. And then lies saying he always believed mask are good and necessary. No problem. Adults, who are still children, will even believe that obvious lie.

Same trends exist in Poland and Hungary. Once an 'adult child' is convinced that all institutions are conspiring against their extremist, then their support for that extremists is fully entrenched - will never change. Will always ignore facts. How many knew Nixon was a victim when reality clearly said otherwise? Entrenched - because thoughts come from a Reptilian brain.

So many also rabidly knew Saddam had WMDs when facts clearly and blatantly said he did not. All that is obvious in The Cellar back in and after 2002. And still so many in America, who believed those outright lies, refuse to apologize for their part in killing 5,000 American servicemen for no purpose. That would force them to admit why they were so easily deceived. To learn why some adults still do not think logically; are manipulated by targeting a child's (reptilian) brain.

Demonstrated are so many who know only from their feelings / emotions. A powerful machine promotes outright and obvious lies as if fact. A great purveyor of misinformation and extremism is Facebook. Run by a man who has no interest in being responsible - who only wants profits. Another source of the dribs and drabs of misinformation that slowly turn a government into totalitarian.

The President is now threatening to send Storm Troopers to cities run by Democratic Mayors. Since only those cities (he lies) contain anarchy. Another little change that, well, that is how 1930 Germany became 1940 Nazis. We are suppose to learn from history.

Gerrymandering is still standard practice. In Florida, it was done repeatedly even after laws were created to make it illegal. Florida only partially restricted gerrymandering finally when its Supreme Court said the Republican Party was intentionally and brazenly violating the law. But only required four districts to be reconfigured.

The Economist demonstrated how we are doing so much harm to America using 'death by a thousand cut' methods. What Trump did to Senator Sessions is another example of how totalitarianism happens.

A hotbed of this problem exists when great and responsible Republicans are being replaced by people who have a Nazi party attitude. Like 1930 Nazi Party, they claim to believe in government. But in reality openly endorse and work towards totalitarianism. That party has become popular among whites only who harbor racist tendencies. Even administration officials are only 'Acting'. Only approved by The Don. Whose entire life has been similar to Al Capone.

Al Capone was finally convicted on tax evasion. The Don even sacked a prosecutor (in Southern Manhattan) who job is to investigate tax evasion. Trump[ replaced that Prosecutor with another "Acting" supervisor. Al Capone would be jealous. Nobody even in the Cellar complained.

This 'death by a thousand cuts' was pioneered / promoted in America by Newt Gingrich. Who demonstrated how to obtain power by lying - attack the person rather than address an issue. Newt was a genius at this technique of using emotions and insults to rally 'adults who are still children'. What has changed in American politics. He is a Democrat so he must be liberal - therefore evil. A Trump mantra because it entrenches his mostly white, racist, and emotional 'strongest' supporters.

Chris Wallace remains the only senior correspondent in Fox who asks damning question. Another was finally driven out a year or so ago. I really do not understand why Chris Wallace is not fired. Because he has repeatedly used these type expressions when some lies are so egregious. "That is not true, sir."

Jennifer Griffin also getting it done at Fox.


Weirdly, a stable genius allowed Bob Woodward to tape his interviews. He knows his supporters though, nothing he could say matters. His words always mean what they want them to mean.
https://www.npr.org/2020/09/09/91113...to-avoid-panic

Wow. Can anyone confirm? Someone said Trump did not lie today. Has the Universe ended?

you mean when he was talking about the people who want war for their war machine money?

You mean he could not keep his mouth shut for even one day?