Month: August 2017

“A total eclipse of the facts”

Trump attacked the media more viciously at his Phoenix rally than I’ve ever seen him do it before and that’s saying something. I watched on CNN because they were carrying the live feed and I had to write about it for Salon and happened to be on it when Don Lemon of CNN had this to say as it ended:

“Well, what do you say to that? I’m just going to speak from the heart here.

What we witnessed is a total eclipse of the facts. Someone who came out on stage and lied directly to the American people and left things out that he said in an attempt to rewrite history, especially when it comes to Charlottesville.

He’s unhinged, It’s embarrassing and I don’t mean for us, the media because he went after us, but for the country. This is who we elected President of the United States.

A man who is so petty that he has to go after people he deems to be his enemy, like an imaginary friend of a 6-year-old.

His speech was without thought, without reason, devoid of facts, devoid of wisdom. There was no gravitas.

He was like a child blaming a sibling on something else. He did it. I didn’t do it.

And certainly opened up the race wound from Charlottesville.

A man clearly wounded by the rational people abandoning him in droves, meaning the business people and the people in Washington now questioning his fitness for office and whether he is stable.

A man backed into a corner it seems, by circumstances beyond his control and his understanding. That’s the truth.

If you watch that speech as an American, you had to be thinking what in the world is going on? This is the person we elected as President of the United States? This petty, this small, a person who who’s supposed to pull the country together? Certainly didn’t happen there.”

That’s about right.

. 

Voices of the cult

by digby

The Guardian talked to some of the people at the Trump rally. Here are some of their comments:

• Trump is breath of fresh air. He’s totally not a political person. He’s a businessman: he’s anti-left, he’s anti-PC, he’s anti-stupid. He just wants to go in and make the best deal for Americans that he can. 

• Of course he’s not racist. That’s a label people want to put on someone when they don’t agree how to solve a problem. You don’t see the issue, so you attack. That’s the way the left has operated in our country very effectively. 

• Both sides were wrong in Charlottesville. Everyone has a right to peacefully protest under the first amendment but this was a form of domestic terrorism: the left started it and the white supremacists helped it explode. Trump was trying to say Nazism and Marxism are on the same spectrum: they want to control how you think, how you live. 

• Middle America, the middle class, the blue-collar workers, the small-business owners like hearing from our president, but the media in our country is leftist. They can’t get the real story. The media has lost all integrity: they’re a disgrace. They’ve sold their souls for political gain. People want a president who is not politically correct, who will say it like it is and will not do it because he wants to get elected. 

• He’s trying. Politicians are getting in the way, and sometimes his mouth gets in the way. When you put in someone who’s not a polished politician, that’s what you get. He tells it like a normal person, not someone raised to be politically correct 100% of the time. 

• Social media is the way of the future. It should be used. I don’t think he’s always thinking right when he does it. But he’s not a politician, so I forgive it. I approve of the fact he’s willing to take on social media. 

• I voted for him because he was the best candidate running. I agreed with him on border protection and didn’t want someone being investigated by the FBI sitting in our president’s seat. He’s doing pretty good so far. Healthcare is Congress’s fault mainly, because they can’t decide what they want and need to figure it out. 

• I don’t think he’s a racist. I think if they’re calling him a racist, they may be racist 

• I’m pleased so far except for Congress. He’s tried as hard as he can. He never stops working. He cares about the country and the people. We have too many Never Trump Republicans. John McCain really messed it up on healthcare. They weren’t voting to pass the bill, they were just going to take it away and look at it. I think McCain should be a Democrat and Jeff Flake isn’t strong on immigration. 

• I watched Charlottesville from the beginning to the end and there was violence on both sides. Neither retreated. The extreme left and the extreme right, they punched each other out. When Trump made statements about it, he told the truth on everything. 

• You go back and look over the years and Trump is not a racist. Last week, Sean Hannity pulled videos of him denouncing the KKK and neo-Nazis. He used to get awards from some of the black organisations because he would go in and help them. When the left can’t win in debate, the only thing they can say is, “You’re a racist.” Sometimes it’s an excuse. 

• Is Trump racist? Hell, no. The stuff about Charlottesville is bullshit and I agree 100% with what he said. There are haters on both sides. The KKK had the legal right to express their opposition and they got a permit and everything would have been fine except that counter-protesters came with baseball bats and rocks. It’s not the KKK that started it. If they’d just let them kick around in the streets, that would have been it. Paid protesters started it and the media does not want that narrative to be told. 

• I voted for him because it was an obvious choice. Hillary Clinton had decades of foul play and illegal acts, and she was attached to Bill Clinton, who had decades of foul play and illegal acts. I’ve got nothing good to say about either of them. 

• The American people are sick and tired of a namby-pamby politician who is politically correct. Want a businessman who can make decisions. Best leave if it hurts your feelings. I want Trump to continue to call it like it is. I would vote for him if he quit the Republicans and started his own party. 

• I think Trump is doing as well as he possibly can considering all the foot-dragging and whining and non-belief in his election, with the media doing all it can to delegitimise him. The stock market has confidence in him and unemployment has plummeted 

• I agree with him about a border wall. Immigration needs to be under control. We have to know and approve who’s going in and who’s coming out. If you have no border, you have no country. We don’t have a problem with Canada. 

• I want [Arizona senators] Jeff Flake and John McCain gone as soon as we have the next vote. Both are anti-Trump and are trying to sabotage Trump at all costs. I’ve been disappointed with McCain for decades. I admire his military service but being a good soldier does not make you a good politician. This vote on healthcare was just a slap in the face to Trump. 

• The media has been distorting the truth for decades. They’re so leftwing. If you said the glass was half full, they’d call you a Nazi and say it’s half empty. Now they don’t make sense any more and CNN is fake news. This Russia thing is made up: they don’t have a shred of evidence after a year. 

• Do you have any doubt there’s blame on both sides in Charlottesville? When you have half the country calling everyone racist, when everyone in the Democratic party is racist, I don’t know what you expect. If you have an agenda when you put words in people’s mouths, people aren’t happy. If Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama had said the same things that Trump did, it would have been wonderful. 

• Given the situation he is dealing with, anybody is better than Obama or Clinton. If you don’t like the way Trump is acting, you always have the option to leave the country. A lot of people promised to and none of them did, which is too bad. 

• The media are very biased. I have never met an honest journalist in my life. Your profession is more for ratings than reporting. You can’t turn on the news without things being slanted one way or another. Let people make their own decision. 

• The Democrats are going to continue to protest and in the process they’re going to tear this nation apart. The protesters against Trump are haters. I fought for free speech all my life and they don’t believe in free speech. 

• Trump is absolutely not a racist. I tend to agree with what he said about Charlottesville. If you look at any situation there’s usually three sides: yours, mine and the truth. It’s not just one side doing something. Everybody has a right to their opinion. It’s freedom of speech. If I recall correctly, one side has a permit to be there legally while the other tore a statue down illegally. 

• There needs to be some type of barrier put up between us and Mexico. There’s got to be some kind of regulation to stop people coming into America illegally. There have always been walls throughout history. If you can do it the right way, I’m all for that.. 

• You’ve got to give him a chance. It’s a learning job and you’ve got to take things as they come. I like a man who has the ability to speak his mind. We’ve all been in the position of working in a company where we wish we could speak our mind without worrying about the consequences. He can speak his mind without worrying about scaring somebody or worrying about offending somebody. 

• I voted for him because I was tired of politicians. He spoke to me on a personal level, not a political level. Considering some of the things he’s got in front of him, I think he’s done quite well. He hasn’t had the support of the Republican party to do the things he wants but he’s made a huge difference to the economy in particular. 

• In true Trump style, he spoke what he felt about Charlottesville. It might not be the political thing to say, but he was correct. I don’t believe he’s racist. 

• Nobody knows what he is going to do, like the North Koreans, which is a good thing. We’ve been predictable for too long. 

• He’s got a point about the media. It’s hard as a consumer to find an outlet that tells you the basic facts. They should be giving us the facts so a human being with a little bit of brains can make their own minds up. 

• I voted for him because of diversity. He actually practices diversity unlike liberals, who don’t practice diversity. Obama had this whole country thinking about skin colour. Trump doesn’t look at skin colour. He doesn’t label anyone who’s non-white a minority, just people. Skin colour is colour, not culture. His cabinet is nothing to do with skin colour: they’re right for the job. 

• Antifa is the KKK, just without the history 

• Both sides in Charlottesville are bad. He’s absolutely right. The Antifa [anti-fascist groups] are the equivalent of the KKK and both were responsible. Antifa is the KKK, just without the history. The Confederate flag is not racist: only 5% of slave owners had the Confederate flag; the US flag is more racist. Do you think I’d be that stupid to vote for an actual racist to be in office?

Those last few are the words of a young Trump voter whose mother is Japanese Amrican and father is African American.

*sigh*

The one who said this is a young white woman:

I didn’t want someone being investigated by the FBI sitting in our president’s seat. 

Well that certainly worked out.

And then there’s this guy:

This Trump supporter is shouting at protestors: “McCain needs to die now!” pic.twitter.com/pwjogHfYgH

— David Catanese (@davecatanese) August 22, 2017

They have just as many excuses as their Dear Leader for why he is such a failure. He can do no wrong in their eyes.

.

Feeding his empty soul with hate and fury

by digby

I wrote about the Arizona rally for Salon this morning:

On Monday night Washington Post reporter Phillip Rucker tweeted this:

Tonight is a new President Trump: Acknowledging a flip-flop and talking about gravity of office, history & substance.

— Philip Rucker (@PhilipRucker) August 22, 2017

This is a tiresome cliche at this point (“tonight he became president,” “he’s pivoting” etc.) and Rucker was, for good reason, immediately barraged with criticism. But when asked how long he thought this new Trump would last, he answered this way:

Roughly 24 hours. Mega rally in PHOENIX tomorrow night… https://t.co/IS2TEWKbAA

— Philip Rucker (@PhilipRucker) August 22, 2017

The assumption on the part of well, everyone, even those who complimented him for his presidential mien, was that teleprompter Trump was not permanent and he was going to immediately revert to his natural state: racist, immature and crude.

This is progress. It took the media and the establishment over two years to absorb the fact that the Trump we saw on the campaign trail was the real Trump. There is no hidden statesman, his antics weren’t an act. And just because he is capable of woodenly delivering an unconvincing speech written by someone else, it doesn’t mean that he will stop tweeting every outrageous thought that passes through his mind while watching Fox and Friends during his obviously elaborate morning hair and man tan ritual.

Trump made the decision to go to Arizona solely to bathe himself in the febrile adoration of his followers after a tough couple of weeks defending Nazis from the hostile elites in Washington. Many people were aghast that he was going to hold one of his raucous campaign rallies in the wake of those odious comments about Charlottesville where he was sure to employ his usual divisive rhetoric and protesters from all sides would undoubtedly gather outside and possibly mix it up with one another.

Phoenix mayor Greg Stanton took to the pages of the Washington Post to beg Trump to let feelings cool before coming back to his town:

America is hurting. And it is hurting largely because Trump has doused racial tensions with gasoline. With his planned visit to Phoenix on Tuesday, I fear the president may be looking to light a match.

That’s why I asked the president to delay his visit. It’s time to let cooler heads prevail and begin the healing process.I’m not optimistic the White House will heed that call.

They did not. Trump chose Arizona for a reason. Signaling last week that he planned to pardon the notorious Sheriff Joe Arpaio, a staunch Trump supporter, who has just been convicted of criminal contempt in federal court for violating a judge’s order to stop profiling and illegally stopping latino drivers, Trump obviously needs to get back in touch with his anti-immigrant base where he feels he can let his racist flag fly more freely. He touched a third rail with his defense of Nazis and got zapped.I think most of us expected that he was reminded by that experience that the politically correct right wing way to express those ugly sentiments in America today is to slag immigrants and Muslims and let people sublimate their loathing for blacks and Jews within those categories. Everybody gets the message and you don’t have to overtly side with Nazis and the KKK.

Well, he did slag immigrants, as usual. And while he didn’t literally pardon Arpaio, he made it very clear that he intended to do so saying, “I’ll make a prediction, I think he’s going to be just fine. But, but I won’t do it tonight because I don’t want controversy.” He didn’t say it was because Arpaio is an old guy who deserves mercy after years of public service or something like that. He said it was because Arpaio did the right thing in defying the court. So much for the president defending the rule of law.

And in what was probably the most substantive piece of news, he said in passing “if we have to close down our government, we’re building that wall.” (No “who’s going to pay for it? Mexico!” call and respond in the rally.) That has been mentioned in the press as a possible Freedom Caucus tactic but it appears the president is eager to join that nihilistic band of miscreants. He said that the Democrats have “nothing but socialism” and “maybe a step beyond socialism from what he’s seeing.”

He never mentioned the 10 sailors who died two days ago in the Singapore straits, not even another “oh that’s too bad” which is truly sad considering that he constantly uses veterans and active duty military as his favorite prop.

But all that was just the tip of the iceberg. He gave a rousing 2016-style campaign rally that was as angry, divisive, unrepentant and crude as anything he did during the campaign. His attack on the media was fierce and sounded even more threatening than usual. There was even a “lock her up chant” just for old times sake. What set this one apart was the 42 minutes he spent recapitulating his response to Charlottesville and throwing salt into the still raw wounds of that ugly episode. He just cannot leave it alone.

He tediously repeated verbatim what he insisted was his message of love and unity in the wake of that Nazi and neo-confederate rally, interspersed with commentary about how the press never covered what he said .He completely elided the fact that he had blamed “many sides” and called those who marched with Nazis and the KKK “good people.” He could barely find a moment to mention that the killing of Heather Heyer was “terrible” before he moved on to how the media had unfairly crucified him and pointed more fingers at the counter-protesters. It was all about him.

He said that “they” will not stop until they take down the statues of George Washington, Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt (for whom they said they are still looking for an excuse.) And then he went all in saying: “they are trying to take away our history and our heritage.”

Of course nobody’s trying to take down statues of Washington, Lincoln and Roosevelt. There is a movement to remove the statues of confederate leaders who fought a war to defend slavery, most of which were erected nearly a hundred years after the war was over to protest civil rights for African Americans. Our president stood before a crowd of cheering supporters and claimed that noxious “history and heritage” for them and for himself.

We always suspected that when he said “Make American Great Again” he meant “Make America White Again.” After last night in Phoenix, there’s no longer any doubt.

.

Perchance to dream
by Tom Sullivan

Ron Brownstein at CNN has an analysis of voting patterns that is at once unsurprising and eye-opening. With exceptions, of course, the coalition of states pushing to end the Obama administration’s protections for “dreamers,” undocumented children brought to the U.S. by their parents, is composed primarily of states with the lowest percentages of them. These states, which form the core of GOP strength, are those with the lowest exposure to non-native-born residents.

“Most Americans know and love the José or Mohammed they know; but are afraid of the José or Mohammed they don’t know,” says Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum. His book, “There Goes The Neighborhood,” explores the impact of changing demographics. We fear what we don’t know. Who knew?

Brownstein writes:

Democrats rely on what I have called a “coalition of transformation” that is largely comfortable with these changes, from increasing racial diversity and tolerance for diverse lifestyles to the transition toward a post-industrial economy. This coalition revolves around voters who are younger, more diverse, heavily urbanized, and among whites, both more secular and more tilted toward white-collar professions.

Republicans mobilize a competing “coalition of restoration” centered on voters who feel eclipsed, or even threatened, by these same changes. This coalition tends to be older, preponderantly white, religiously devout, strongest outside of major cities, and increasingly tilted toward blue-collar workers.

Hillary Clinton carried over three-quarters of states with the highest percentages of non-natives. Florida, Georgia, Texas, and Arizona were exceptions.

Nationwide, according to the 2011-2015 estimates, residents born in the US comprise 87% of the population while foreign-born residents contribute 13%. But as my CNN colleague Ryan Struyk has calculated, native-born residents account for 91% of the population in the states that Trump won and only 81% of the population in the states Clinton carried.

Similar patterns hold for representation in both the House and Senate. Again with exceptions, Democrats represent areas where immigrant populations exceed the national average. Republicans with large immigrant constituencies are in the minority in the GOP caucuses.

Notably,

Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Iowa all rank in the bottom half of states in the share of their population born abroad. But with virtually every Midwestern metropolitan area suffering an exodus of native-born adults in their prime working years, many communities across the Rust Belt in recent years have actively recruited immigrants to stabilize their population base and revitalize their economies.

As a result, Republicans from this politically pivotal region have shown less enthusiasm than their counterparts in the South, Plains and Mountain West for restricting immigration: no Rust Belt state, for instance, joined the Texas-led lawsuit against DACA. Some, like Republican Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, have even established initiatives to attract and integrate immigrants. House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin has been a vocal early critic of the Senate proposal to slash legal immigration.

Immigration continues to be a fraught issue for Republicans, the New Republic reports:

On Tuesday, McClatchy reported that a group of White House officials, including yesterday’s Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, today’s Chief of Staff John Kelly, and the dynamic duo Javanka are urging the president to strike a larger immigration deal with Congress in exchange for protecting Dreamers. According to McClatchy, other top officials—Mike Pence, H.R. McMaster, and Gary Cohn—“are thought to agree” with the plan. So far that deal would include funding for the border wall, more detention beds, reducing legal immigration, and implementing the intrusive E-Verify program.

Democrats refuse to allow the president to use dreamers as bargaining chips.

It is reprehensible to treat children as bargaining chips. America’s DREAMers are not negotiable. #DefendDACA https://t.co/wErMfpWBlh— Nancy Pelosi (@NancyPelosi) August 22, 2017

So that added to the split among Republicans on the issue and Mitch McConnell’s doubts that the president can salvage his administration, we can expect the newest White House proposal to be as successful as the others.

So much winning.

* * * * * * * *

Request a copy of For The Win, my county-level election mechanics primer, at tom.bluecentury at gmail.

A reprieve

by digby

Via The Daily Beast

Missouri’s governor stayed the execution of a death-row inmate on Tuesday, just hours before he was scheduled to die by lethal injection.

Marcellus Williams was sentenced to death in 2001, after being found guilty of stabbing reporter Felicia Gayle to death in 1998. The prosecution argued that Williams had been burglarizing her home when Gayle surprised him, prompting him to stab her 43 times as she tried to fight back.

Over the past year, however, recently tested DNA evidence has raised questions regarding Williams’s guilt. DNA on the murder weapon did not match Williams and instead was found to belong to an unknown male.

Greitens said he will appoint a board of inquiry to review the case and the “newly discovered DNA evidence, which was not available to be considered by the jury that convicted him.” The board will recommend whether Williams’s death penalty will remain or be commuted.

“A sentence of death is the ultimate, permanent punishment. To carry out the death penalty, the people of Missouri must have confidence in the judgment of guilt,” Gov. Eric Greitens said in a statement.

The Missouri Supreme Court previously gave Williams a stay of execution in 2015 to allow time for the new DNA testing, which had not been available at his trial. Williams’s attorneys have maintained his innocence and argue that the DNA evidence exonerates him, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.

Just last week the state’s highest court denied petitions to stop the execution due to the new evidence. A spokesperson for Attorney General Josh Hawley arguedthat the DNA tests made no difference since the state had enough non-DNA evidence proving Williams is not innocent. The state said it has two witnesses who said Williams confessed to them, and can also prove that he sold Gayle’s laptop after her murder, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.

“The item was a kitchen knife with both male and female DNA on the handle,” Hawley’s office argued in a court filing. “It is reasonable to assume people not involved in the murder handled the knife in the kitchen. And there is no reason to believe Williams would not have worn gloves during a burglary and murder, as he wore a jacket to conceal his bloody shirt after he left the murder scene.”

They are saying that eye witness testimony is enough to execute someone even when there is DNA of an unknown person on the murder weapon. If it’s not enough to get him a new trial the state should certainly have found that it’s enough to commute his death sentence. Prosecutors cling to their convictions no matter what and it’s sick. They are supposed to have a higher calling than defending their record.

To go ahead and kill when there is any doubt at all about guilt is barbaric. Of course, it’s always barbaric.

.

The alt-right platform back in bidness

by digby

Not that it ever went away …

During Steve Bannon’s first full weekday back running Breitbart, the website he once called “the platform for the alt-right” published a defense of the VDare Foundation, a white supremacist organization that cancelled a conference scheduled to take place in April 2018 after a Colorado Springs resort owner warned they couldn’t ensure attendees’ safety.

The piece, written by openly xenophobic former Colorado congressman Tom Tancredo, claims the resort owners’ decision — which came in response to pressure from local officials — shows that “the left does not need to show up and disrupt an event, they can merely threaten to do so and city officials run for cover like cockroaches.”

Though Bannon tried to distance himself from white nationalism shortly after the election, Breitbart’s decision to run the Tancredo column on his first full day back indicates that the site will continue to defend and promote white nationalism — sometimes under the guise of the First Amendment.
[…]
Bannon’s return comes after a tough stretch of time for Breitbart. According to Sleeping Giants, a online group that has successfully pressured hundreds of advertisers to abandon Breitbart.com, the site has lost more than 2,500 advertisers in recent months.

They have multi-billionaires Robert and Rebekah Mercer. They don’t need advertisers.

.

All Hail Trump


by digby

Have a drink handy before you watch this focus group of Trump voters on CNN this morning:

Trumpism is a cult. He can do no wrong. He is their Emperor God.

.

Trolling 101

by digby

This is Bannon’s real insight — understanding the shallow, bitchy, adolescent mind of the right winger:

This is their audience:

The world is being taken over by teen-age bullies.

.

by digby

The crown prince of oleaginous sanctimony weighed in on Trump again this morning:

LAUER: You are a loyal defender of this president and you should be commended for that. But other top Republican leaders have rebuked him. Top military leaders have rebuked him. Business leaders have rebuked him for his comments on Charlottesville, and you continue to defend him. Are you putting your loyalty above, and in front of, what’s in your heart and your gut? 

PENCE: Matt, I know this president, I know his heart. And I heard him on the day the Charlottesville tragedy happened when he denounced hate and violence in all of its forms from wherever it comes. I heard him on that Monday, and I heard him as well on Tuesday, like millions of Americans did, where he condemned the hate and the bigotry that was evidenced there. 

LAUER: But [he] went back to saying there’s blame on both sides. 

PENCE: Look, we understand that criticism comes with this job and this president has the kind of broad shoulders to be able to take it.

Pence’s claim that Trump has “broad shoulders” and can take all the criticism is especially comical. Trump reportedly raged in private that his early comments were deemed insufficient, and he spent most of last week lashing out wildly as the condemnations, and defections, rolled in.

If Pence somehow succeeds Trump in the White House it will just be a slightly lower number of the seven circles of hell.

.

There’s one Trump adviser who really gets him