Recently, whenever we see a frenzy of our fellow progressives wailing, gnashing their teeth and predicting the imminent end of democracy, I feel there is a clear disconnect between those predictions and the actuality of what’s going on in the country. Usually, some collection of political setbacks triggers this outpouring of pessimism. Russian trolling probably helps stoke the flames. I think the best antidote to defeatism is to look back at the long list of breaches of the public trust perpetrated by the right wing extremists currently mismanaging out government.
Let us review just some of the reasons why this fight isn’t over:
- There’s the overt cruelty of separating children from their parents and housing them in cages.
- There’s the casual cruelty of the tariff wars.
- There’s the absence of gravitas, grace or even coherence from any public utterance.
- There’s the constant kowtowing to Vladimir Putin, Mohammad Bin Salman Al Saud and even Kim Jong-un.
- There’s the kleptocratic vigor with which the inner circle enriches themselves.
- There’s the rogues gallery of assistants, associates and fellow greedy swillers at the public trough.
- There’s the monumental, epic, unprecedented, unbelievable and stupefying embrace of ignorance.
- There’s the absolute mess the republicans are making of health care.
- There’s the flat out denial of science and the refusal to deal with the climate crisis.
- There’s the never-ending venal, self aggrandizing, whiny and increasingly absurd claims of unearned credit for nonexistent accomplishments.
- There’s the never ending stream of lies.
- And now there’s this most obvious open display of racism and xenophobia.
Add in all the expected revelations from subpoenaed documents and people and you have an administration mired in crisis. Their main defense is to deflect and distract. Our job is to not let them get away with it. We have the numbers and the power to inspire each other and any but the dedicated cult members, who have wed themselves to the big lies and big liars that have temporarily usurped our government.
Remember, Donald tRump is just a small-minded man in an ill-fitting suit, with an absurd tie and a ridiculous comb over. Thee is nothing attractive about him. He may be the singularly stupidest man to have ever visited the White House, let alone occupy it. That stupidity is on daily display and has to grate against the previous leadership of his party like withdrawal hits an addict. They’ll continue to fluff him only so long as they think there’s a tiny bit of advantage to be had from doing so.
In keeping with today’s theme, Sam Bee did a 26 minute retrospective on more than a year’s worth of her immigration coverage.
The crisis at our southern border is neither good nor new! For over a year we’ve been covering the various atrocities the Trump administration has committed against migrants seeking asylum. So strap in! It’s time to take a walk down Memories We Can’t Forget Lane.
Stephen Colbert was on fire last night. I’m thinking about framing his monologue and hanging it on my wall. It was so good they broke it into two parts.
and
On to the news.
We Should Just Give Him a Sheet to Wear. As a Bonus, It’ll Cover His Stupid Hair
When the sitting President of the United States overtly displays his racist freak flag the way tRump
managed it over the weekend, it’s another big deal in the never ending game of “How low can he go?” How will this effect his supporters? I don’t know. What it will do is inspire the resistance to fight harder.
On Sunday OverBoneSpursStormyHairFuror tRump told several of our Democratic congresswomen to “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.” Since they just came from Congress, I guess he’s saying they should go back there and continue to work on fixing our government by holding the criminally infested Executive Branch accountable for its actions.
Since then, El Rezidente Compost Mentis just had to double down on a hand where he doesn’t even have a pair (double entendre intended). Sure, he’s going to cement the racist vote (and the spineless congressional enabler vote), but the rest of us are recoiling in disgust (again).
There’s been something of a media eruption.
Wonkette: Trump Says His Racism Is Cool, Because Many Racists Agree With Him!
Hey, y'all hear the Nazi who murdered Heather Heyer in Charlottesville is going to prison for "Throw Away The Key" number of years, now that he's been sentenced on state charges on top of his federal life sentence? We're sure President Grand Wizard thinks that's pretty unfair.
But that's not what Donald Trump talked about in his weird-ass press conference today. He did, on the other hand, say his white supremacist tweets against four Democratic congresswomen of color were OK, because many people agree with his white supremacist tweets:
It doesn't concern me because many people agree with me.
What, did you think there was going to be some nuance or context surrounding his quote? LOL OK, we're talking about a "stable genius" here, we're lucky he used a verb.
Mother Jones: Trump Stages Full-Blown, Racist Meltdown at “Made in America” Event
President Donald Trump on Monday further escalated his racist attacks against four Democratic congresswomen of color who have been sharply critical of his presidency by telling the freshmen lawmakers that they were free to “leave” the country if they were unhappy with his administration.
“If you’re not happy here, then you can leave,” Trump told reporters in a chaotic news conference for a “Made in America” event at the White House. “As far as I’m concerned, if you hate our country, if you’re not happy here, you can leave.”
He then dismissed the firestorm he created on Sunday after targeting a group of freshmen Democrats—all of whom are American citizens with only one born outside of the US—telling them in nakedly racist terms to “go back” and fix their home countries. “A lot of people love it, by the way. A lot of people love it,” Trump said on Monday, referring to the incendiary tweetstorm, which has since drawn fierce condemnation from Democrats, but few reactions from Republicans.
The Atlantic: Trump Tells America What Kind of Nationalist He Is
When President Donald Trump declared himself a “nationalist,” he was telling the truth, but he was inadequately specific.
On Sunday morning, the president told four members of Congress to “go back” to the countries “from which they came.” The remark, a racist taunt with a historic pedigree, inspired a flurry of fact-checking from mainstream journalists who were quick to note that Rashida Tlaib, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley, and Ilhan Omar are American citizens, and that only Omar was born abroad, in Somalia. It was a rather remarkable exercise in missing the point.
When Trump told these women to “go back,” he was not making a factual claim about where they were born. He was stating his ideological belief that American citizenship is fundamentally racial, that only white people can truly be citizens, and that people of color, immigrants in particular, are only conditionally American. This is a cornerstone of white nationalism, and one of the president’s few closely held ideological beliefs. It is a moral conviction, not a statement of fact. If these women could all trace their family line back to 1776, it would not make them more American than Trump, a descendant of German immigrants whose ancestors arrived relatively recently, because he is white and they are not.
How Quickly They Forget
This is just a reminder just how far tRump has dragged his followers off into the rightwing white supremacist nutjob fever swamp. Their favorite, Saint Ronnie, didn’t agree with him. There’s even a video of him not agreeing.
What About the Rest of the Republicans?
The abject surrender of republican office holders to the openly racist tRump is yet another millstone to hang around their craven necks. Embracing racism is not a winning political strategy. By remaining silent in the face of it, the republican party is making itself complicit. The prospect of getting rid of the racist-in-chief and his lickspittle brigade of toadies and sycophants should help to supercharge our voter registration efforts even beyond where they are now.
Rolling Stone: If Republicans Don’t Share Trump’s Racism, They Should Probably Let Us Know
On Sunday, Maggie Haberman of the New York Times suggested that Trump’s decision to keep running with the attacks was due in part to his party’s refusal to condemn them. “Subtext is no one in his party challenged him today so now he’s trying to make it a straight up/down referendum on this,” she wrote. Trump probably would have kept attacking the congresswomen anyway, but the GOP’s silence certainly isn’t helping. It also shows just how wholly the president’s white nationalism has subsumed the Republican Party. Trump’s values are their values, and Trump values an America that is white. This is no longer an issue of subtext.
It wasn’t that long ago that most Republicans would at least feign disgust whenever Trump would show his true colors.
The New Yorker: A Racist in the White House
What’s curious is just how many people have resisted seeing squarely Trump’s racism, his shrewd exploitation of animosity, hatred, and division for political advantage. Trump is hardly a man of subtle concealment. W. E. B. Du Bois wrote that Andrew Johnson’s unwillingness to enact policies to give freedmen land, a decent education, or voting rights resided, first and foremost, in “his inability to picture Negroes as men.” Trump’s hostility toward minorities and his capacity to signal that hostility to others has never been a secret. This quality is central to his politics and his appeal.
Republicans and Independents, evangelicals, and many others who might have voted for Trump in 2016 will eventually have to ask themselves whether it is possible to go on believing that he is a man of sufficient character to hold the Presidency. They will have to ask themselves what it means to overlook his racism and what this says about them. How can they believe it is possible to support a racist and escape that in themselves? Or will they pronounce themselves, as Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin did, “not concerned”?
The present moment is never fixed, or not for long. History is in the hands of members of Congress who have the option to collude or impeach, go along or resist; it is in the hands of citizens who can vote or stay at home. In 1989, we lived the illusion of unstoppable democratic advance. Democratic values have since receded. In 2008, we enjoyed the illusion of racial progress. Today, Donald Trump is in the White House.
He Lost His Senses a Long Time Ago. Now He’s Lost His Census Too
Last week our very own Dingleberry on Steroids got smacked down yet again by the courts. After a bit of bluff and bluster he claimed victory and caved on adding his question to the census. The toilet paper he keeps using to paper over his signature failures is shredding quickly. It remains to be seen if his supporters will notice.
Vox: Trump’s census citizenship question fiasco, explained
President Donald Trump has finally admitted defeat on his effort to add a question about citizenship to the 2020 census.
On Thursday afternoon, the president said that continued litigation over the matter would interfere with completing the census forms on time — so he was throwing in the towel. “It’s deeply regrettable,” Trump said. Trump said he would instead issue an executive order calling on agencies to turn over data on citizenship to the Commerce Department.
The backstory is that last month, Chief Justice John Roberts surprisingly joined the Supreme Court’s four liberals to block the proposed citizenship question from the census. The problem, per Roberts, wasn’t the question itself — it was that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross gave a “contrived” explanation for why he was doing it, rather than a “genuine” one.
It’s not quite over yet. Like always, he needs to blame someone not named Donald -— And this weeks’s winner is Wilbur.
NBC: Trump weighs ousting Commerce chief Wilbur Ross after census defeat
President Donald Trump has told aides and allies that he is considering removing Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross after a stinging Supreme Court defeat on adding a citizenship question to the census, according to multiple people familiar with the conversations.
While Trump has previously expressed frustration with Ross, 81, in particular over failed trade negotiations, Ross' long personal relationship with the president has allowed him to keep his job. And after the departure of Labor Secretary Alex Acosta, the Cabinet’s only Hispanic who resigned Friday amid questions about his role in a controversial 2008 plea agreement with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, Ross may yet receive another reprieve.
But some White House officials expect Ross to be the next Cabinet secretary to depart, possibly as soon as this summer, according to advisers and officials.
We Shouldn’t Forget About tRump’s Good Buddy, Jeffrey
tRump has a bad case of political herpes — Epstein-Barr isn’t going away anytime soon. We’ve got a conflicted Attorney General who won’t recuse and a president who talked about how he used to party with a convicted child molester/sex trafficker. The vortex of the Epstein stench is sucking tRump into its orbit. Barr will try to protect tRump. tRump will blame Clinton. They won’t succeed with anyone but their base. And they’ll lose some of them anyway.
Medium: Child Rapist and Sex Trafficker Jeffrey Epstein Will be Kept in Far Better Conditions than Migrant Children
Oh, here is a verbatim quote of Mr. Donald Trump, in his scant time between sexual assaults, practicing his verbal flatulence and discussing Jeffrey Epstein, all the way back in 2002.
“I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy,” …“He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”
“The younger side” in this case meant 14-year-old children.
Professional Justice Destroyer William Barr, has a connection to Jeffrey Epstein because HIS FATHER HIRED EPSTEIN TO TEACH IN A NY HIGH SCHOOL as someone in charge of young girls and boys. No, really. He really did. Donald Barr chose Epstein because
- Epstein had no teaching experience
- and didn’t have a college degree
Daily Beast: Jeffrey Epstein Had ‘Piles of Cash,’ Diamonds, Saudi Passport in Safe
Prosecutors are arguing he should be held without bail until trial because he’s a flight risk.
FBI agents found “piles of cash,” dozens of diamonds and an expired foreign passport in Jeffrey Epstein’s safe when they raided his Manhattan mansion last week, prosecutors revealed Monday.
The passport was issued in the 1980s and gave a residence of Saudi Arabia, Assistant U.S. Attorney Alex Rossmiller said. It was not issued under Epstein’s name but did have what appeared to be a photo of him.
The safe’s contents were disclosed during a bail hearing at which prosecutors—and accusers—argued that Epstein is a flight risk and should be kept locked up until his sex-trafficking trial.
Wonkette: Jeffrey Epstein, Stay In Jail!
Every single thing about the Jeffrey Epstein case is bizarre and appalling, and this morning's bail hearing in New York was no exception. Between defense lawyers arguing that Epstein hasn't been caught molesting any girls for 15 years now, so he should get to go home to await trial in his palace, and prosecutors pulling out a new piece of incriminating evidence every 10 minutes, US District Judge Richard Berman had his hands -- and his courtroom -- full. His honor won't issue a ruling on bail until Thursday, but ... we have a fair guess as to how that one will go.
The Old 'My Client Hasn't Molested Any Little Girls In 15 Years' Defense. Works Every Time!
Except possibly when the presiding judge is also a social worker. Epstein's lawyers argued that their client has shown "14 years of self-discipline," during which time he managed not to re-create his alleged network of paid recruiters to bring underage girls to his homes for sexual massages. Honestly, the court should give the guy a commendation for all those years when he really, really wanted to have sex with adolescent girls but managed to restrain himself! Or, as prosecutor Rosmiller put it, "The defendant keeps telling on himself here."
Then Judge Berman pointed to a study -- likely this one -- demonstrating that the risk of recidivism goes up as time passes for convicted sex offenders, rising from 5 percent after three years to 24 percent after 15 years. Not to mention the fact that prosecutors seized "an extraordinary volume of photographs of nude and partially-nude young women or girls," from Epstein's safe.
A Liar’s Just Gotta Lie
Sometimes I get the feeling Donnie is just mailing it in. Does he actually believe he’s even the teeniest bit believable? If we could just get the Nightly News to do a daily segment called, “What stupid lie did tRump tell today?” between now and the 2020 election. They owe us something for all that free uncritical coverage that helped get him elected in 2016.
CNN: Fact check: Trump makes 3 false claims in 19 words about his approval rating
President Donald Trump made three false claims on Saturday in a single 19-word tweet.
The
tweet: "94% Approval Rating in the Republican Party, an all time high. Ronald Reagan was 87%. Thank you!"
Facts First: Trump does not have a 94% approval rating among Republicans; he is at 90% in Gallup polling. Trump has not recorded the all-time high for Republican approval; his peak ranks sixth out of the seven Republican presidents after World War II. And Reagan's peak was 94%, not 87%.
The Wicked Witch of the West Wing Got Some ‘Splaining to Do
I wonder how George feels about this. He called his wife’s boss a racist this morning, so maybe he’s all for her testifying. Those Conway dinner table conversations have got to be pretty damn freaky.
CNN: House Oversight plans vote to hold Kellyanne Conway in contempt unless she testifies
The chairman of the House Oversight Committee on Monday said the panel will vote to hold White House counselor Kellyanne Conway in contempt of Congress later this month unless she agrees to appear to testify in a hearing.
Monday. Chairman Elijah Cummings, a Maryland Democrat, said the committee will hold a contempt vote on July 25, but implored Conway to testify before then to "help us avoid that situation."
A letter sent to Cummings from White House counsel Pat Cipollone ahead of the hearing Monday said Conway would not appear at the direction of President Donald Trump.
50 Years Ago This Week
Ok, I’m pretty much tired of talking about tRump, so let’s remember something we can all be proud of.
Smithsonian: Twenty People Who Made Apollo Happen
As in any great drama, there were big parts and small ones. Some—the astronauts certainly, and top managers like Wernher von Braun—achieved lasting fame. Most played roles so small or brief that few recall their names today. But without Ellie Foraker to sew their spacesuits, or Emil Schiesser to chart their course, or Lynn Radcliffe to test their spacecraft engines, the astronauts might never have reached the moon. And when it was over, all of them could take a bow, the stars as well as the stagehands, and know they had played their part. Here are some of the members of the Apollo cast.
In Defense of Flora and Fauna
There was some good international news last week. I’m not sure if they caught Usay and Uday during the sweep. I remain optimistic.
From Interpol: Wildlife trafficking: organized crime hit hard by joint INTERPOL-WCO global enforcement operation
A joint worldwide customs and police operation has resulted in the seizure of large quantities of protected flora and fauna across every continent.
From 4 – 30 June, INTERPOL and the World Customs Organization (WCO) coordinated Operation Thunderball, with police and customs administrations leading joint enforcement operations against wildlife and timber crime across 109 countries.
The intelligence-led operation identified trafficking routes and crime hotspots ahead of time, enabling border, police and environmental officers to seize protected wildlife products ranging from live big cats and primates to timber, marine wildlife and derived merchandise such as clothing, beauty products, food items, traditional medicines and handicrafts.
Musical Interlude
In honor of the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 blowing all our minds.
Short Takes
tRump is trying to turn American into American’t.
I wonder how many boxes of Bandaids tRump goes through every day patching up that thin skin of his?
There is so much churning going on in the tRump White House they ought to be marketing tRump butter instead of those stupid red hats.
tRump goes through his Executive Branch office holders faster than a chef goes through pot holders during a grease fire.
What’s the difference between a rabid tRump supporter and a person in a deep coma? — The person in the coma has a better chance of waking up.
tRump never met a policy he could understand.
Roma Downey is planning to sue tRump for his disgusting real life remake of her show. In the new version, Touched by an Asshole, Donnie, Mitch and Billy are a trio of assholes sent to Earth to tell depressed and troubled people that God hates them and has completely forgotten them. The new show is very popular with people who sport swastika tattoos and that are sexually stimulated by strangling kittens and puppies.
Required Pet Photo
Today’s Quote(s)
What can you or I do? Alone, almost nothing. Yet one person – you alone – can make the difference. . . . The failure of just one person to join, to participate, to do whatever he or she can – your failure or my failure – may mean that there is just one too few to win the fight for sanity, and so leave the world on the road to destruction. Each of us, all of us, must do what we can. — Archibald Cox
He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it. — Martin Luther King Jr.
Who knows himself a braggart,
Let him fear this; for it will come to pass
That every braggart will be found an ass. — Shakespeare
Closing Notes
Continuing good wishes to {{{{oldhippiedude}}}} and {{{{Msdude}}}}
Continued speedy recovery to {{{{niftywriter}}}} my every other Tuesday partner.
Check out Yosef 52’s most recent call to action: Why Am I a GOTV Fanatic? Come Take a Look at This.
We’ll end the festivities with another Dylan cover from a benefit concert appearance by Jerry, Bobby and John Kahn from 1987. I got a kick out of the introduction.
Disclaimer: No conspiracy theories were promoted during the writing of this roundup.