Month: August 2016

by digby

There are too many disasters right now and animals are very vulnerable. The Dodo captured some stories from the Louisiana floods: 

Josh Pettit has seen a lot of hope. Often, it floats. Like when he was boating through a flood-ravaged area near Baton Rouge, Louisiana, this week, where neighborhoods once stood, and all he could see was dark, angry water for miles around.

A dog, treading wildly to stay above water that was around 8-feet high.

“She was so tired,” he tells The Dodo. “We got her in the boat and she was exhausted.” 

Pettit says the dog rested her head on his lap and cried and moaned.

Normally the Devore Animal Shelter is the primary evacuation center during emergencies such as the Blue Cut fire, said Animal Control Chief Brian Cronin. But with the closure of the 15 Freeway, centers have opened at the San Bernardino County Fairgrounds in Victorville and an Apple Valley facility. 

Because of the rural nature of many evacuated towns, Cronin said, the fairgrounds location is seeing lots of hooved and other farm animals: 109 equine animals, 26 pigs, 204 fowl, about 240 goats and sheep, and a llama, as of Wednesday morning. 

In Apple Valley, the tally as of 1 a.m. Wednesday was 133 dogs, 70 cats and 10 other pets including snakes, birds and lizards. At Devore, there were 29 dogs and six cats. 

About 2 p.m. Wednesday, a couple of people drove up and dropped off donations of food and treats for the animals. The gesture is common during such emergencies, Cronin said. 

“The amount of generosity has been heartwarming,” he said. “We even had someone contact us from out of state offering for us to call a local food store and put an order on their credit card.”

It’s way too easy to forget how many good people there are.

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A convoy full of racists

by digby

David Ferguson at Raw Story reported on a bunch of Trump supporters caught on CB radio when they didn’t know anyone was listening:

A Massachusetts convoy of Trump supporters drove from Wrentham to Foxboro in their trucks, RVs and SUVs on July 31 and were caught on tape spewing racist epithets and calls for anti-black violence. 

“Lynch the ni**ers by their d*cks!” said one driver, according to Winning Democrats, which highlighted a YouTube video of what the “Make America Great Again” convoy talked about on its CB channel when they thought no one was listening. 

“Burn every single ni**er!” said another driver. 

“All I know is we got plenty of trees to hang ni**ers from,” said another. 

The convoy drove five miles from one township to another with their U.S. and Confederate flags waving. 

I’m sure these folks will be very impressed with Trump’s outreach to the minority communities.

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by digby

You knew he’d like this about Trump:

“That speech was great, and Trump has always been this way,” Sessions, who was the first member of Congress to endorse Trump, said on the Matt & Aunie show on WAPI radio. “He bought an ad — people say he wasn’t a conservative — but he bought an ad 20 years ago in the New York Times calling for the death penalty. How many people in New York, that liberal bastion, were willing to do something like that?” 

“So he believes in law and order and he has the strength and will to make this country safer,” Sessions added. “The biggest benefits from that, really, are poor people in the neighborhoods that are most dangerous where most of the crime is occurring. And I think people can come to understand that if the message continues to pound away.”

Please. That ad had nothing to do with poor neighborhoods and everything to do with hysteria over a group of African Americans accused of raping a white woman in Central Park. And Sessions, of all people, knows that very well. He’s one of the last remaining unreconstructed Southern racists

Trump spent more than $85,000 to publish controversial full-page newspaper ads calling to “BRING THE DEATH PENALTY BACK!” The five men who were sentenced for the rape were later exonerated, but only after they had served their full sentences. The men convicted were all black and Latino and in their mid-teens. 

Their wrongful conviction settlement, which ran into millions of dollars, was sharply criticized by Trump. He wrote an op-ed in the New York Daily News in 2014 calling the settlement a disgrace. He later tweeted in response to criticism, “Tell me, what were they doing in the Park, playing checkers?” 

This alleged play for the African American community is a blatant attempt to make it socially acceptable for white people to vote Republican again. It’s possible that some will find solace in Trump’s awkward pandering but an awful lot of racism have flowed under that bridge so if you’re the kind of person who is uncomfortable defending Trump on that basis, this is unlikely to change that.

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Burning up and drowning

by digby


This is a pretty amazing shot:

The Blue Cut fire in California is hot. That heat allowed thermal sensors aboard the Landsat 8 satellite to capture a glowing image of the blaze at night.

The satellite image shows the active flames north of San Bernardino County, California, on Aug. 17, at 10:36 p.m. PDT (1:35 a.m. EDT). The fire continues to move north, northwest and northeast, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CalFire). [Earth from Above: 101 Stunning Images from Orbit]

The Blue Cut Fire started the morning of Aug. 16 in the Cajon Pass, west of Interstate 15; As of Aug. 18, the blaze had ballooned to about 35,969 acres, with 22 percent of that contained, according to CalFire.

The amount of damage from the erratic fire has been difficult to estimate, though authorities have said “numerous” buildings have been destroyed, according to the Los Angeles Times. No estimates have come out yet for the number of decimated homes, the LA Times reported.

To create the newly released image, NASA overlaid the thermal data on a daytime image to show the fire’s location, with warmer areas showing up as bright spots and cooler areas appearing dark, according to NASA’s Earth Observatory.

Landsat 8 isn’t the only satellite keeping its eye on California’s fires. On Aug. 17, at 11:50 a.m. local time, NASA’s Terra satellite got a glimpse of the fire’s smoke plumes rising and spreading across the skies. The satellite’s Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) captured the fire in natural colors. A day earlier, on Aug. 16, just 3 hours after the fire was first reported, NASA’s Aqua satellite provided a view showing smoke rising north of San Bernardino County.

Fires like this one could become more frequent with climate change, according to research. For instance, a study published in 2014 in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, revealed that in the past 30 years, wildfires across the western United States have grown bigger and more frequent. Since 1984, the study researchers found, the number of wildfires increased by seven per year, burning an additional 90,000 acres (36,000 hectares) each year.

Meanwhile, in Louisiana they’re drowning. And Donald Trump showed up there today for a photo op with “goods” to donate despite the fact that emergency management organizations always say that you should never do that because it interferes with their normal operations. The Governor told him to stay away too, but he and Pence were down there making a mess and signing autographs. Luckily FEMA reportedly has the disaster well in hand.

Perino no longer believes the polls are skewed

by digby

https://t.co/VmJpxUwKJZ

— Allahpundit (@allahpundit) August 19, 2016

I like that O’Reilly says he personally doesn’t tweet because he’s “afraid of the machine.”

And I remain stunned that political professionals were so stupid in 2012 that they actually believed that skewed poll nonsense. And from what I’ve seen so far in 2016 there are plenty of people ready to believe this again. We’re in a period of conspiracy theories and competing narratives. This time, however, Trump has got a bunch of yahoos who are armed to the teeth believing it which makes the stakes a lot higher.

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Medical Mudslinging: the swiftboats of August 2016

by digby

I wrote about the latest smear that Hillary Clinton has brain damage for Salon today

How do we know it’s the dog days of August in a presidential election year? Swimmers and swiftboats, that’s how. Actually until August of 2004, we used to call swiftboating by other names: whisper campaigns and smear jobs. But after the success of the slick, pre-packaged set of lies about Senator John Kerry’s war record this tactic will always be known for the boat that first made Kerry a hero and later destroyed his reputation.

This year, we’re treated to an especially ugly form of swiftboating.  The right wing smear machine is working at warp speed to convince the nation that Hillary Clinton has brain damage. That is not hyperbole or some kind of a joke. They are literally claiming that she is hiding a physical and mental disability that renders her unfit for office. And they are, as usual, being helped by members of the mainstream media who are simply unable to resist “reporting” such a juicy tale even knowing that it is absurd. And so it becomes part of the narrative, true or not, that will color the rest of the campaign and Clinton’s presidency should she win.

Karl Rove first crudely suggested that Clinton had a serious brain disorder when she fell and suffered a concussion a few years ago which required her to wear her thick prism glasses instead of contacts to correct temporary double vision. Nobody took him seriously at the time, but the rumor has been percolating in the fever swamps and Trump and company were obviously aware of it. Trump himself has been saying from the beginning that Clinton doesn’t have the “strength or the stamina” to be president. He also claims that she can’t campaign more than a couple of days a week and then she has to go hide and recover. (This is one of those lies so blatant that it renders people mute — Clinton is clearly campaigning constantly, indeed she’s out there more than he is.)

This attack was echoed by Matt Drudge as far back as October when he appeared on conspiracy monger Alex Jones’ show and said “she’s old and she’s sick, she is not a viable, vibrant leader for this country.”  It’s no surprise then that this latest full blown swiftboat offensive began on Drudge’s web site. It’s one of his specialties.

On August 7th he linked to an obscure right wing website that had posted a picture of Clinton tripping on some porch steps and being steadied by a couple of aides under the title “2016: Hillary Conquers the Stairs.” He neglected to mention that the picture was taken in February.

The next salvo came from Trump’s friends at the National Enquirer which published a screaming headline “Hillary Clinton’s Secret Health Crisis.” And according to Ben Collins at the Daily Beast, “by the middle of the day the No. 2 trending Google search about Hillary Clinton was: “Is Hillary having health problems?”

That night Trump surrogate Sean Hannity devoted his show to fanning the rumors, even bringing in the Fox Medical A-Team who appear regularly on the network to diagnose her from afar and demand to see a complete neurological workup and all of Clinton’s medical records. He continued the rumor mongering throughout the week.

By this time the fall was old news. Now she was said to be having seizures and speaking oddly and having weird expressions on her face and exhibiting muddled thinking. When a protester tried to rush the stage at one of her rallies and a secret service agent stepped to the podium and said they had things under control, people said he had a diazepam pen in his hand at the ready, apparently in case she had a seizure right there on the spot. (It’s all rubbish, of course.)

Meanwhile, the “Alt-right” has gone completely over the edge with this craziness. Collins writes that the conspiracy site Info Wars has turned over its entire site to these rumors:

Hillary Clinton supposedly has Parkinson’s disease, syphilis, brain damage, a brain tumor, autism, a degenerative disease that is giving her seizures and/or strokes, and a blood clot, according to InfoWars writer Paul Joseph Watson. Oh, and he says she has a drug problem. All of these diagnoses—save for Parkinson’s, which commanded a separate full-length article—came in a single one of Watson’s YouTube videos released on Thursday. It now has over 1.6 million views at press time.

And yes the mainstream media has joined in the fun. On MSNBC Chris Matthews has devoted several segments to the issue, apparently convinced that where Republicans blow smoke there must be fire saying, “what are the Republicans up to on this health issue? Why are they on to this? What do they know? Is there something we don’t know in the health records? Something that could change this election around?”

Newspapers are running stories pointing out that she uses a stool on stage when someone else is giving a speech as evidence that she’s too weak to stand. Web sites are posting picture arrays of Clinton using a pillow behind her back as if that’s a sign that she “needs propping up.” Dr Drew Pinsky of Celebrity Rehab weighed in saying that he’s concerned that Clinton isn’t getting the proper medical care for “her condition.” (Even Newt Gingrich called that “junk medicine.“) And fake medical records appeared out of nowhere and started making the rounds prompting Clinton’s physician to reiterate her earlier declaration that Clinton was a healthy woman capable of handling the duties of president.

Last night Trump surrogate Katrina Pierson took it to a new level by offering up a full diagnosis on MSNBC, saying there are “reports of observations of Hillary Clinton’s behavior and mannerisms,” that Clinton suffers from “dysphasia” — a neurological condition that limits a person’s  ability to communicate or understand speech. I’m going to take a guess that Pierson didn’t come up with those talking points herself.

This confluence of activity didn’t happen by chance. It was planned and executed from InfoWars to Youtube to Drudge to Hannity to The Daily Mail to MSNBC and finally the NBC Nightly News and The New York Times.   And regardless of what the fact checks say, a whole lot of people in this country now believe that Hillary Clinton, a woman of great intelligence and impressive endurance, is a brain damaged invalid. Swiftboat mission accomplished.

Despite the fact that Donald Trump is actually older than Clinton and does not appear to be particularly fit, there has been virtually no scrutiny of his health. Indeed, the fact that he most likely dictated the ridiculous letter his doctor supposedly wrote for him, in which the doctor declared that he could “state unequivocally” that if Trump were to win he’d be the “healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency” hasn’t raised the kind of suspicion that one might expect. isn’t it odd that a man of his age and prominence doesn’t see a top flight doctor who could vouch for his health?

The same cannot be

Many years ago, I coined a term called “Cokie’s Law” after DC doyenne Cokie Roberts who when asked about whether or not Hillary Clinton really blamed Bill’s rough childhood for his misbehavior, “at this point it doesn’t much matter whether she said it or not because it’s become part of the culture. I was at the beauty parlor yesterday and this was all anyone was talking about.”

Trump: Importantly, she lacks the mental and physical stamina to take on ISIS and all of the many adversaries we face

Matthews: Well he’s being doing that and did it against last night in a recorded comment Why is that relevant?

Kellyann: Many things are relevant to…

Matthews: the health of the other candidate. Why is that a focus?

Kellyann: They think that his tax returns are relevant, but both of their health is not relevant. But I’ll say this, he is a very …

Matthews: I think they’re both relevant if there’s a health problem. But is there a health problem of Hillary? He keeps saying she’s got a health problem

Kellyann: Oh I have no idea because I’m not a doctor. let me make that very clear. I have not examined her a patient, I wouldn’t be qualified to …

Matthews: Well, he’s not either

I want to say something about that. She and Senator Warren and a whole lot of them at the Democratic convention were in the hometown of Philly Chris. Somehow it’s ok for them to insunlt this guy six ways to Sunday every chance they get and if he shoots back with one comment it’s “ahhh look at him, he’s attacking a woman he’s attacking her health.” Have you seen the way the speak about him? I would laying it all down tomorrow if she would have a debate on the issues because she can’t …

Matthews: Just an hour ago Trump campaign spokeswoman Katina Pierson said Clinton had a condition called dysphasia, which is a loss of the power to use and comprehend words. Here’s what she said:

I’m not a doctor, you’re not a doctor, Kellyann your candidate’s not a doctor neither is Hillary Clinton. But your people are putting out the word that there’s a hidd… you’ve seen this with Michael Dukakis. you’ve seen how politics works. You put out rhe word there’s something wrong with the guy there’s something wrong with the woman and people start buzzing about it. is this a tactic that you like?

Kellyann: oh I don’t like it as much as just taking her on on the issues and taking her on on the issues blah, blah blah… Clinton foundation.

Matthews:  good point. Don’t bury your lead.

Cokie’s law is still in effect

So, I just watched Andrea Mitchell of MSNBC standing on a rope line where Clinton was taking selfies with voters peppering her with questions about her health. And why was she doing this?  Because Trump and his henchmen are trying to make a bogus case that Clinton is an a weak, sick old woman who doesn’t have the strength to do the job.  Chris Matthews devoted a whole segment to getting to the bottom of this “story.”

This is a manufactured hit job by the likes of Matt Drudge and Sean Hannity which the mainstream media, particularly MSNBC, finds irresistible apparently.

Here’s Chris Matthews on it:

MATTHEWS: Hannity is ranting on this topic. What’s going on? What are the Republicans up to on this health issue? Why are they on to this? What do they know? is there something we don’t know in the health records? Something that could change this election around?

Democratic strategist Steve McMahon tries to put that false rumor to rest.

MCMAHON: No. There’s no indication there’s anything like that This was something that was thrown out there as a canard about a year or so ago that Hillary Clinton had somehow had strokes or something. And, it’s ridiculous. (It’s) what happens when a campaign appears to be failing, and they make charges that don’t seem credible at all, it actually reflects more on the person making the charge.

Nope, that is not enough for Tweety. He keeps it alive.

MATTHEWS: Is it smart to make a charge like this if they know it’s not going to be proven true? Is it smart if they can lead into something actually coming out or they can force some information out of her medical records. Why would they go into a wall on this? Why say something that will be demonstrably proven wrong within a matter of weeks?

MCMAHON: Because they don’t think beyond the next news cycle. They are just desperate and grasping for straws and you can see it.

That should be the end of it. But no. We continue. He asks Susan Page of USA Today what are her thoughts and she brushes it off as pretty ridiculous. So he turns to the last of the panel.

↓ Story continues below ↓
Republican Strategist Matt Schlapp does his damnedest to turn the fake Hannity claim into a story about her accessibility, and thus we should surmise her health is compromised; as if they are one in the same. You know, GOP logic, 1+1=5, right?

SCHLAPP: Democrats often say, people in the press often say hey, she’s awfully hard, she’s not very available, he’s very available, he’s too available. It’s hard to get her on our shows, hard to…

MATTHEWS: Does that mean she’s hiding ailments?

SCHLAPP: I don’t know. she’s certainly behind some kind of veil.

As if the needle is skipping on the record…McMahon attempts to put this matter to rest, again.

MCMAHON: If i’m not mistaken, Hillary Clinton’s doctor put out something that addressed this some time ago. i don’t think there’s anything; there’s nothing to see here as the police would say.

Thankfully, there are commercials, at least sometimes!

Here’s an example of the idiocy that’s going around and which MSNBC is helping to perpetuate:

After months of clicking “next” on Getty Image galleries of Hillary Clinton, Heat Street, a website known for its bombshell exposé on who feminist writers block on Twitter, has made another jaw-dropping discovery: the Democratic presidential candidate frequently sits on or near comfortable-looking pillows.

According to Heat Street:

Hillary is being propped up by a pillow, and it’s hardly the first time this has happened. In fact, the former secretary of state used to include propping cushions on her list of demands during her lucrative time on the paid celebrity speaking circuit.

With the help of the all-powerful Microsoft Paint “arrow” tool, Heat Street then highlights the many times Secretary Clinton has appeared in public sitting with a pillow behind her back, apparently — ahem, excuse me, this is hard to write — so she’ll be more comfortable. In one upsetting image, Clinton even goes a bit further: The photo shows her seemingly being propped up by a pillow, perhaps in an effort to appear taller — a thing women never attempt.

The old bag is little more than an invalid!

There’s another starling expose out there that shows her sitting on a stool on the stage while someone else is giving a speech at her rallies, which is obviously a sign that she can barely stand on her own.

Correcting corrections corporations of America
by Tom Sullivan

Eden Detention Center (CCA) in Eden, Texas. Photo by WhisperToMe, public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

The Justice Department yesterday announced in a memo it will begin to phase out its use of private prisons, concluding they are (according to the Washington Post) “less safe and less effective at providing correctional services than those run by the government.” Good riddance. Now for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the U.S. Marshals Service. And state prisons.

Washington Post:

Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates announced the decision on Thursday in a memo that instructs officials to either decline to renew the contracts for private prison operators when they expire or “substantially reduce” the contracts’ scope. The goal, Yates wrote, is “reducing — and ultimately ending — our use of privately operated prisons.”

“They simply do not provide the same level of correctional services, programs, and resources; they do not save substantially on costs; and as noted in a recent report by the Department’s Office of Inspector General, they do not maintain the same level of safety and security,” Yates wrote.

That report is here. Yates continued:

“The fact of the matter is that private prisons don’t compare favorably to Bureau of Prisons facilities in terms of safety or security or services, and now with the decline in the federal prison population, we have both the opportunity and the responsibility to do something about that,” Yates said.

Private prisons stocks got hammered after the announcement. Bloomberg reports:

Corrections Corp. fell 35 percent to $17.57 at the close of trading, the real estate investment trust’s biggest drop since its initial public offering in 1997. GEO Group plummeted 40 percent to $19.51, also the largest decline in its 22-year history as a publicly traded company. The stocks pared losses of about 50 percent as analysts said the impact may be less severe than initially expected. Corrections Corp. climbed to $18.85 in after-hours trading after saying that today’s decision relates to facilities that represent just 7 percent of its business. GEO Group rose to $20.72.

[…]

While the federal government overall generated 51 percent of Corrections Corp.’s revenue last year, today’s action affects the Bureau of Prisons and doesn’t apply to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security and accounted for 24 percent of Corrections Corp.’s 2015 revenue, according to the company’s annual report. The Justice Department also oversees the U.S. Marshals Service, which accounted for about 16 percent of Corrections Corp. revenue.

Mark Joseph Stern writes at Slate:

Private prisons are often touted as a deal for taxpayers, and the industry has heavily promoted the notion that they are less expensive to the government than traditional facilities. This contention, however, appears to be a myth. While industry-funded studies have found that private prisons are marginally less expensive, independent analyses have arrived at a different conclusion: These facilities cherry-pick their inmates, housing the healthier ones and passing along the “high need” (i.e., more costly) prisoners to government-run prisons.

Like charter school school companies. Another form of rent-seeking, this business model has always been obscene. Juleyka Lantigua-Williams observes at Atlantic:

Another set of concerns has to do with the private prisons’ business model. They make money from warehousing people, and will need to refill their buildings in order to remain in operation. Where will they find institutional or governmental clients who can generate and replenish the tens of thousands of bodies needed to fill their facilities?

There’s a great likelihood they will turn to states that don’t already employ them. The potential implications for states of entering into contracts with private prisons range widely. For example, there are serious financial considerations, as it costs more to house a prisoner in a private institution than in a public one. Marc Mauer, executive director of The Sentencing Project, attributes the use of private prisons with facilitating “the unprecedented growth in incarceration, particularly in the federal system.” He characterized their use as “a stain on our democracy” that allowed “profit-making entities to be handed the responsibility of making determinations of individual liberty.”

Don’t let the cell door hit you on your way out.

The Orange Julius Caesar has no clothes

by digby

His hands look appropriately small

Sorry folks, if I had to see that you do too: 

It may be gone, but you can’t un-see it.

City Parks Department workers removed a naked statue of Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump from Union Square around 1:20 p.m. It had entertained crowds for hours before that.

Dozens of New Yorkers stopped to gawk and pose with the full-frontal sculpture, which had been plastered with stickers reading “#DONALD JK TRUMP” and “MADMAN,” but they were interrupted by workers who carted the statue away.

Onlookers booed as two Parks Department workers pushed the naked sculpture from its base, breaking it at The Donald’s shins.

An engraved plaque at the bottom read “The Emperor Has No Balls,” with the base bearing the signature “Ginger.”

“Take his nasty feet, too!” one woman yelled as the men carted the statue away to a nearby truck.

Crowds followed the figure as city employees placed it face down in the flatbed — but not before one passerby slapped the statue’s butt.
[…]
A group called “INDECLINE,” which appears to be a clothing and accessories retailer based in California, posted a video to YouTube Thursday of multiple naked Trump statues being created in a studio.

I don’t think this is the last we’re going to see of naked Trump. God help us.

NYC parks department on naked Trump statue: “NYC Parks stands firmly against any unpermitted erection in city parks, no matter how small.”

— Josh Dawsey (@jdawsey1) August 18, 2016

Just how many Nazis are on his team anyway?

by digby

You’ll remember the above neo-Nazi Trump volunteer that PBS profiled a while back. Here’s another big anti-Semite in his inner circle of advisers:

Allegations of anti-Semitism have surfaced against one of Donald Trump’s foreign policy advisers, raising further questions about the guidance the Republican presidential nominee is receiving.

Joseph Schmitz, named as one of five advisers by the Trump campaign in March, is accused of bragging when he was Defense Department inspector general a decade ago that he pushed out Jewish employees.

The revelations feed two themes that his opponent Hillary Clinton has used to erode Trump’s credibility: That he is a foreign policy neophyte, and that his campaign, at times, has offended Jews and other minorities.

Schmitz, who is a lawyer in private practice in Washington, says the allegations against him are lies. All three people who have cited the remarks, including one who testified under oath about them, have pending employment grievances with the federal government.

Daniel Meyer, a senior official within the intelligence community, described Schmitz’s remarks in his complaint file.

“His summary of his tenure’s achievement reported as ‘…I fired the Jews,’ ” wrote Meyer, a former official in the Pentagon inspector general’s office whose grievance was obtained by McClatchy.

Meyer, who declined to comment about the matter, cited in his complaint another former top Pentagon official, John Crane, as the source and witness to the remarks. Crane worked with Schmitz, who served as inspector general between April 2002 and September 2005.

It’s not like he couldn’t have known this. This guy’s father was a well known Bircher. And his sister is the notorious Mary Kay Letourneau.

I’m beginning to think we needn’t worry about his “extreme, extreme, vetting” because this man couldn’t vet his way out of a paper bag. Of course it’s just as likely that he did vet this fellow and found his anti-Semitic qualifications to be sterling.

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Trump Supporters Want To Cage And Ship Out Mexicans

by Spocko

I just saw part of the Triumph’s Summer Election Special 2016 for Hulu on YouTube. In this segment a focus group of Trump supporters watch fake new Trump commercials and then give their take on them. It’s funny, clever—and scary.

The fake ads range from the ridiculous to the horrific. What is astonishing is how many of the members agreed with the ideas expressed, and wanted to help The Donald implement them.

I’ve run and participated in focus groups before. People knew they were being recorded. If the group was going to be shown or broadcast, releases had to be signed. I would have been fine if my opinion on garlic-flavored Pepsi was released to the world on YouTube. (Note: I’m against it!) But after watching the participants in this focus group video, my first thought was,”They can’t be serious. They don’t REALLY believe that.” But what if they do?

When I first heard the violent rhetoric, bigotry, sexism, homophobia and hate coming out of right-wing talk radio I believed what a lot of people did. “It’s just an act to get ratings.” I thought that if you had a serious conversation with these people they would admit it. “Of course I don’t believe that stuff! I’m not a monster! This is just entertainment.” Back in 2004 I confirmed that the local right-wing talk radio hosts weren’t joking. That’s when I took action to alert their advertisers and defund them. Talk of killing people wasn’t funny then and it isn’t funny now. Threatening speech is not protected speech.

So what is our response when we see, hear or read Trump supporters who are serious about harming others? What should we do? Dismiss it as a joke? Assume they were being sarcastic? Change the channel?

Also, it’s one thing for people to make their racism or bigotry known to the world, it’s quite another when they talk about capturing large groups of people and shipping them off in trucks as casually as we ship heads of lettuce.

How Trump gets away with murder threats

When Politicians say something horrible, and are challenged about it, the media often gives them a “second bite of the apple.” They are given the opportunity to “walk the comment back.” Some have surrogates who “clarify their meaning.” The surrogates demand that the public “understand it in context” or explain how they define words differently than the rest of the world.

All this is designed to help a politician pull back from the abyss of self-immolation. Politicians and their staff know this and take advantage of this process all the time. It’s a good practice for journalists to follow, since it can clear up misunderstandings and one-sided attacks. Regular people should be given this chance too. I say this because many of us have said or written things in haste or anger. However, if after discussion and analysis, the intent is clear, there should be consequences.

Welcome to NaziTown. Population: You

The writers for the special obviously set up the fake ads to have parallels with Jews in Germany. It’s clearly, “Can we get Trump supporters to admit they would act like Nazis?” I mean, come on, “Ethnic group goes into a small space, the doors are locked from the outside and they are hauled away.” Sound familiar? I would think most people could see the connection, maybe they did, but it was cut out of the clip. (I added the Schindler’s List footage with the Trump supporters voice over. It gave me the creeps, too damn close to reality!)

Later in the segment they suggest abortion clinics be put in poor neighborhoods and women be paid to have abortions (but with a cap, otherwise they’ll just get pregnant for the free casino chips!) Another segment, not shown, sounded like a Dr. Mengele experiment. “I agree with Donald Trump that the only way to compete with the Chinese is by lowering their IQ by injecting their water with various paints and solvents.” WTF?

I asked David Feldman, one of the writers on this special, to have Robert Smigel on his podcast to talk about this segment. Were the participants all actors in on the gag? If not, who got the sign off from the focus group participants who were in the clip? What did they tell them about the piece? I’d also love to hear from the participants. Will they say, ‘I knew it was a joke!” or will they “double down” on their comments?

If they are serious, that Trump’s horrible ideas are the best, I’ll quote Triumph “Yes they are. For me to poop on!

Cross posted to Spocko’s Brain and Crooks and Liars