By louis c
Let me give you a little background of what I've done for the past 22
years as work. I represent a union in the Greater Boston area and part
of my responsibilities is to negotiate contracts with the employer on
behalf of the union employees. The people I represent are mostly in the
maintenance departments of schools, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies,
museums and sports' facilities.
The pay ranges from a low of about $26 per hour for unlicensed
employees, to a high of $40 an hour for licensed personnel
(electricians, plumbers, HVAC). So. let's just put the average at about
$33 an hour for the sake of this argument.
A $1,000 bonus is not a pay raise. It represents less than fifty
cents ($.50) an hour for the year. 40 hours a week x 52 weeks = 2080 x
50 cents is $1,040.
The one time bonus, instead of a 50 cent raise means the bonus is
only for one year. A fifty cent raise is every year, as your salary has
increased. On top of that, overtime is now calculated at the higher rate
of pay, compounding the increase when you work the overtime.
I have generally been getting 2 and a half to 3 percent raises, per
year, for 3 year contracts. This means we are getting 75 cents to a
dollar increase each year, for each hour worked.
If I had to go into a ratification meeting on a three year contract
with a $1,000 bonus and no raises for 3 years, they'd kill me, let alone
not ratify the Tentative Agreement (TA).
When we enter the negotiations, we are often offered a bonus from
the other side, for opener. A bonus doesn't increase the salary and dies
after it is paid, as a salary increase lives on to the employee (and
all the employees to follow) forever.
These well publicized one time bonuses should be seen for exactly
what they are, part of the overall scam being perpetrated on the middle
class workers of this country.
Tuesday, January 30, 2018
Sunday, January 28, 2018
New York Attorney General To Investigate Firm That Sells Fake Followers
The
New York attorney general, Eric T. Schneiderman, on Saturday opened an
investigation into a company that sold millions of fake followers on
social media platforms, some of them copying real users’ personal
information.
The
company, Devumi, and its sale of automated followers to a swath of
celebrities, sports stars, journalists and politicians, was detailed in a New York Times article published earlier on Saturday.
While based in Florida, Devumi claims on its website to be based in New York City.
At
least 55,000 of its “bot” accounts used names, pictures, hometowns and
other details taken from people on Twitter. The real users hailed from
every U.S. state, including New York, and dozens of countries, a Times
analysis found.
“Impersonation and deception are illegal under New York law,” Mr. Schneiderman wrote on Twitter. “We’re opening an investigation into Devumi and its apparent sale of bots using stolen identities.”
The
investigation is the latest in a series of federal and state inquiries
into the commercial and political abuse of fake accounts on social
media. Tens of millions of fake accounts have been deployed to defraud
businesses, influence political debates online and attract customers.
Social
media companies, including Twitter and Facebook, have drawn intense
scrutiny for not taking greater steps to weed them out. Many of the
accounts identified by The Times appear to violate Twitter’s own
policies, but remained active on the social media platform for years,
each retweeting and promoting Devumi customers.
“The
tactics used by Devumi on our platform and others as described by
today’s NYT article violate our policies and are unacceptable to us,”
Twitter said in a message posted on its media relations account on
Saturday.
Mr.
Schneiderman, who was first elected in 2010, has brought a series of
cases focused on the emerging world of online fraud, impersonation and
abuse. In December, he began an investigation into how the Federal
Communications Commission was flooded with millions of fake comments
on a proposal to scrap so-called net neutrality rules. Many of the
comments used names and addresses borrowed from real people, almost
always without their knowledge.
“The
internet should be one of the greatest tools for democracy — but it’s
increasingly being turned into an opaque, pay-to-play playground,” Mr.
Schneiderman said.
Saturday, January 27, 2018
The Mueller Bombshell Proves Republicans Are Running Out Of Time
History will not be kind to Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, and others who stand by idly.
Jan 26, 2018
Getty Images
It came with the wind through the silence of
the night, a long, deep mutter, then a rising howl, and then the sad
moan in which it died away. Again and again it sounded, the whole air
throbbing with it, strident, wild and menacing.
—Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Hound of the Baskervilles, 1902.
So, if I read the state of play correctly,
special counsel Robert Mueller is investigating the president* and the
president*’s administration* for obstruction of justice, and Mueller has
been running this investigation for seven months knowing that the
president* came within an ace of firing him last June for the purposes
of, ah, obstructing justice. He’s had this information in his back
pocket every time a member of the administration* came before him under
oath. I’ve never been a criminal defendant charged with obstruction of
justice, but this seems to me to be a bad situation for an obstructor of
justice to be in.
The major scoop in The New York Times
that has shaken up the world can be read in a number of different ways
that all lead to the same conclusion. Right from jump, the president*
has been scared right down to his silk boxers of what Mueller would
discover regarding his campaign’s connections to Russian ratfcking and
regarding his business connections to freshly laundered Russian cash.
This conclusion does not change even if you think that White House
counsel Don McGahn leaked this story to make himself the hero or to
cover his own ass. This conclusion does not change even if you think the
ratlines off the listing hulk of this administration are thick with
fleeing rodents. This whole thing remains a product of the president*’s
guilty mind.
(And the story did shake up the world. The president* went before a gathering in Davos on Friday
and began raving about “fake news” and the perfidy of the American
media. He got booed. Many cats were called. No shoes were thrown, but George W. Bush set a pretty high bar there.)
The
story does explain the curious frenzy over the last week: the
president*’s saying that he’s “looking forward” to a chat with Mueller,
and that he might even deign to have the chat under oath; the apparent
rush to present the Congress with a half-baked “compromise plan” on
immigration that has no chance of passing the House of Representatives;
and the fact that the president* took every member of his inner circle
except his wife to Switzerland. I suspect those folks heard the baying
of the hound even before Michael Schmidt and Maggie Haberman did. More
ominous is the possibility that McGahn—or whomever—leaked this story
because the president* is thinking about firing Mueller now, or in the
near future, and whoever the leaker was understands very well what a
monumental calamity that would be for all concerned.
Related Story
You would think that we would see the wheels
turning now. You would think that Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell would
find some slivers of patriotism between the cushions of their sofas and
step up to fulfill the constitutional obligations of their respective
offices. There is a genuine crisis on their doorsteps right now, and,
next week, the president* is supposed to give his State of the Union
address, and god alone knows what he’s going to say. They have not
moved. They have given no indication that they will move. History will
brand them as cowards and as traitors to the country’s best ideals.
History’s not going to be kind to a lot of people who are living through
these insane times.
Watch Next
Raise The Steaks | Episode 1 - Otway | Esquire
Friday, January 26, 2018
Wednesday, January 24, 2018
Hackers putting malware in pirated copies of 'Fire and Fury'
Michael Woff’s book Fire and Fury has attracted tons of
attention for anyone even vaguely curious about life inside the Trump
White House and copies have been flying off the shelves. Wikileaks
posted a PDF copy of the book and pirated copies quickly began making
the rounds. Unsurprisingly, hackers jumped on the opportunity to do some
misdeeds. Cybersecurity firm employee Michael Molsner tweeted the
discovery.
The Daily Beast did a little digging into malware, which is in a PDF file with almost 100 pages cut from the full 328 page version.
The Daily Beast did a little digging into malware, which is in a PDF file with almost 100 pages cut from the full 328 page version.
The Daily Beast obtained a sample of the malware, and processed it through an online analysis service, which marked the files as a so-called backdoor. A backdoor may give hackers remote access to a victim’s computer.
So it isn’t the most devastating cyber attack, but it’s important to get your materials from authorized sources. Hackers aren’t above capitalizing on nonfiction political bestsellers to gain access to your computer.It’s not the most exciting or underground malware in the world: A slew of antivirus programs detect the malicious program, according to results from malware analysis site Virus Total.
Tuesday, January 23, 2018
McConnell is so full of shit that he should be declared a hazardous waste site
Posted by Rude One
Not for one single second should anyone trust Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on his vaguely-worded fake promise to bring up a bill for the undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children. You know, the Dreamers. McConnell is so full of shit that he should be declared a hazardous waste site, but people keep wanting to build houses on that toxic bit of Senate real estate.
Democrats caved after making multiple offers for ways to reopen the federal government that would either force action on the DREAM Act or contain protection for those recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. They even offered to fund the stupid fucking wall. It went nowhere.
To be fair, the bill to reopen the government until February 8 does contain six years of funding for the Children's Health Insurance Program, which takes that off the table on the upcoming negotiations.
And, to be fair, the shutdown has brought even more attention to the plight of the Dreamers, whose path to citizenship is supported by a huge majority of Americans, and the fact that their fate is in the hands of the callous GOP and their mad leader, Donald Trump. When the Republicans fail to do shit, and they will fail to do shit, it will (hopefully) be as clear as can be who broke their word when the government shuts down again. But we have reached the limit of trust in the political process.
At this year's Women's March, I saw many more signs about immigrants compared to last year. Hell, we even chanted pro-immigration slogans in New York City. But I've started wondering at what point is marching not enough of a statement, that the argument is not being made strongly and forcefully.
Anyone with a fucking ounce of heart was sickened by the sight of Jorge Garcia, saying goodbye to his wife and children in Michigan before being deported to Mexico, a country that he left 30 years ago, when he was ten. Garcia is, for all intents and purposes, American. He is married to an American woman. He has American children. Jesus fuck, can't we have some kind of squatters' rights to at least be left the fuck alone?
And maybe you were outraged at the idea of U.S. Customs and Border Patrol officers being able to walk onto a Greyhound bus in Florida and ask people for proof of citizenship. It's a "show me your papers" scenario right out of every anti-Nazi or anti-Soviet Union movie or book. They removed a woman from the bus and her family hasn't heard from her since. Sure, there may be some legitimate reason for the CBP's actions towards the woman. But if they really are routinely asking for your i.d., that's some 4th Amendment-violating shit right there.
And then maybe you can stomach watching this BBC report on Pacific County, Washington, which went for Trump by 7 points. The area has seen kids pulled out of schools to be with their deported parents, industries running low on workers, and general shock that, holy shit, "deportation" isn't just for undocumented murderers (of which there are precious few, despite the GOP's best efforts to scare you into thinking otherwise).
I keep wondering when is there going to be a breaking point. When is there going to be a point where the citizens of a town or city simply form a human wall against the Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers who have been showing up in hospitals and courthouses and other previously "safe" places? When will real resistance, peaceful, nonviolent, but decidedly not just about your tweets or your government-sanctioned march, come to be? When will people say that enough is enough, get themselves arrested, and all flood the judicial system so that it grinds to a halt (from the dying snail's pace it's on)?
In New Fairfield, Connecticut, another man with an American wife and two American children, Joel Colindrés, who escaped violence in Guatemala 14 years ago to come to the United States, was ordered to leave the country. He is currently appealing this decision, and several dozen people came out in this town north of Danbury to protest his possible deportation. What if agents come to take him away and some of those protesters decide that they will not allow it to happen? That is the wall that's needed, the humane, caring, righteous wall to halt the excesses of a government gone as crazy as its leader in tearing apart families, that is harming our citizens, especially the children of the deported.
This will be part of the next phase of resistance. It will happen. Perhaps with Colindrés, perhaps with Lukasz Niec. Niec is the doctor in Michigan (the fuck is up with ICE agents in Michigan?) who was brought to the United States from Poland in 1979, when he was 5 years old. He received permanent resident status in 1989. But because he had a couple of low-level misdemeanor convictions from when he was a teenager, he is subject to deportation. He's a fucking doctor. He can't speak Polish. He's not even undocumented. Hell, I left Queens when I was 4, and I wouldn't know what the fuck to do if I were sent back there, let alone a completely foreign country.
It's fucking gut check time. We are into "First they came for" territory. We've gone from the undocumented immigrants to the Dreamers to legal residents. When will we speak out? When will we act? Or will we once again wait until it is us?
The government is operating against what a majority of the nation believes, and it is harming communities, as well as families, hurting the nation in the pursuit of a blatantly nationalistic and, frankly, anti-American goal. It is long, long past the time for a new non-violent resistance movement to protect the soul of the country. And if you believe that soul is white, you can fuck off to some fantasy place and wallow in hate and ignorance.
Not for one single second should anyone trust Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on his vaguely-worded fake promise to bring up a bill for the undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children. You know, the Dreamers. McConnell is so full of shit that he should be declared a hazardous waste site, but people keep wanting to build houses on that toxic bit of Senate real estate.
Democrats caved after making multiple offers for ways to reopen the federal government that would either force action on the DREAM Act or contain protection for those recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. They even offered to fund the stupid fucking wall. It went nowhere.
To be fair, the bill to reopen the government until February 8 does contain six years of funding for the Children's Health Insurance Program, which takes that off the table on the upcoming negotiations.
And, to be fair, the shutdown has brought even more attention to the plight of the Dreamers, whose path to citizenship is supported by a huge majority of Americans, and the fact that their fate is in the hands of the callous GOP and their mad leader, Donald Trump. When the Republicans fail to do shit, and they will fail to do shit, it will (hopefully) be as clear as can be who broke their word when the government shuts down again. But we have reached the limit of trust in the political process.
At this year's Women's March, I saw many more signs about immigrants compared to last year. Hell, we even chanted pro-immigration slogans in New York City. But I've started wondering at what point is marching not enough of a statement, that the argument is not being made strongly and forcefully.
Anyone with a fucking ounce of heart was sickened by the sight of Jorge Garcia, saying goodbye to his wife and children in Michigan before being deported to Mexico, a country that he left 30 years ago, when he was ten. Garcia is, for all intents and purposes, American. He is married to an American woman. He has American children. Jesus fuck, can't we have some kind of squatters' rights to at least be left the fuck alone?
And maybe you were outraged at the idea of U.S. Customs and Border Patrol officers being able to walk onto a Greyhound bus in Florida and ask people for proof of citizenship. It's a "show me your papers" scenario right out of every anti-Nazi or anti-Soviet Union movie or book. They removed a woman from the bus and her family hasn't heard from her since. Sure, there may be some legitimate reason for the CBP's actions towards the woman. But if they really are routinely asking for your i.d., that's some 4th Amendment-violating shit right there.
And then maybe you can stomach watching this BBC report on Pacific County, Washington, which went for Trump by 7 points. The area has seen kids pulled out of schools to be with their deported parents, industries running low on workers, and general shock that, holy shit, "deportation" isn't just for undocumented murderers (of which there are precious few, despite the GOP's best efforts to scare you into thinking otherwise).
I keep wondering when is there going to be a breaking point. When is there going to be a point where the citizens of a town or city simply form a human wall against the Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers who have been showing up in hospitals and courthouses and other previously "safe" places? When will real resistance, peaceful, nonviolent, but decidedly not just about your tweets or your government-sanctioned march, come to be? When will people say that enough is enough, get themselves arrested, and all flood the judicial system so that it grinds to a halt (from the dying snail's pace it's on)?
In New Fairfield, Connecticut, another man with an American wife and two American children, Joel Colindrés, who escaped violence in Guatemala 14 years ago to come to the United States, was ordered to leave the country. He is currently appealing this decision, and several dozen people came out in this town north of Danbury to protest his possible deportation. What if agents come to take him away and some of those protesters decide that they will not allow it to happen? That is the wall that's needed, the humane, caring, righteous wall to halt the excesses of a government gone as crazy as its leader in tearing apart families, that is harming our citizens, especially the children of the deported.
This will be part of the next phase of resistance. It will happen. Perhaps with Colindrés, perhaps with Lukasz Niec. Niec is the doctor in Michigan (the fuck is up with ICE agents in Michigan?) who was brought to the United States from Poland in 1979, when he was 5 years old. He received permanent resident status in 1989. But because he had a couple of low-level misdemeanor convictions from when he was a teenager, he is subject to deportation. He's a fucking doctor. He can't speak Polish. He's not even undocumented. Hell, I left Queens when I was 4, and I wouldn't know what the fuck to do if I were sent back there, let alone a completely foreign country.
It's fucking gut check time. We are into "First they came for" territory. We've gone from the undocumented immigrants to the Dreamers to legal residents. When will we speak out? When will we act? Or will we once again wait until it is us?
The government is operating against what a majority of the nation believes, and it is harming communities, as well as families, hurting the nation in the pursuit of a blatantly nationalistic and, frankly, anti-American goal. It is long, long past the time for a new non-violent resistance movement to protect the soul of the country. And if you believe that soul is white, you can fuck off to some fantasy place and wallow in hate and ignorance.
Monday, January 22, 2018
Eagles Dominate Vikings To Reach Super Bowl LII
Source: New York Times
It was 2013 all over again for Nick Foles and the Philadelphia Eagles, as the quarterback channeled his younger self to light up Minnesota’s vaunted secondary in a 38-7 victory in the N.F.C. Championship game.
Foles’s huge performance ended the Vikings’ season and catapulted the Eagles to Super Bowl LII, where they will face the daunting task of taking on Tom Brady and the New England Patriots.
Foles, who had looked like a potential franchise quarterback in a stint as Philadelphia’s starter in 2013, was thrust back into a starting role following Carson Wentz’s devastating knee injury in Week 13. He had struggled to move the ball, with his play taking the team from Super Bowl favorite to consistent underdog.
But against the Vikings the 28 year old Foles was back to looking like the star some thought he would become. He completed 26 of 33 passes for 352 yards and 3 touchdowns. He was 10 of 11 on third-down passes, completed four passes of 35 or more yards, and turned what had been Philadelphia’s greatest weakness — its ability to generate big plays — into its biggest strength.
In an on-field interview with Fox after the game, Foles struggled to sum up his emotions, describing himself as “speechless.” “In this moment it’s unbelievable, he said. “It’s humbling.”
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/21/sports/nfc-championship-vikings-eagles.html
=E=A=G=L=E=S= Eagles!
It was 2013 all over again for Nick Foles and the Philadelphia Eagles, as the quarterback channeled his younger self to light up Minnesota’s vaunted secondary in a 38-7 victory in the N.F.C. Championship game.
Foles’s huge performance ended the Vikings’ season and catapulted the Eagles to Super Bowl LII, where they will face the daunting task of taking on Tom Brady and the New England Patriots.
Foles, who had looked like a potential franchise quarterback in a stint as Philadelphia’s starter in 2013, was thrust back into a starting role following Carson Wentz’s devastating knee injury in Week 13. He had struggled to move the ball, with his play taking the team from Super Bowl favorite to consistent underdog.
But against the Vikings the 28 year old Foles was back to looking like the star some thought he would become. He completed 26 of 33 passes for 352 yards and 3 touchdowns. He was 10 of 11 on third-down passes, completed four passes of 35 or more yards, and turned what had been Philadelphia’s greatest weakness — its ability to generate big plays — into its biggest strength.
In an on-field interview with Fox after the game, Foles struggled to sum up his emotions, describing himself as “speechless.” “In this moment it’s unbelievable, he said. “It’s humbling.”
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/21/sports/nfc-championship-vikings-eagles.html
=E=A=G=L=E=S= Eagles!
Thursday, January 18, 2018
HYPOCRITES!!! Family Values Republicans Silent As Donald Trump Pays Porn Stars Hush Money
In this ‘Dollemore Daily’, Jesse addresses the reporting surrounding the
$130,000 payment that was allegedly paid to porn actress Stephanie
Clifford (Stormy Daniels), by Donald Trump, in an effort to keep her
silent about their 2006 affair.
Monday, January 15, 2018
Martin Luther King Would Fuck Trump's Shit Up (Africa Edition)
Posted by Rude One
While conservatives continue their annual desperate attempt to colonize the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr., King stubbornly remains a revolutionary figure, one who was blatantly socialist and vehemently anti-capitalist. In fact, King drew a direct line between Western capitalism and the exploitation of African countries. He knew what had turned those countries into "shitholes." A trip to Ghana in 1957 to celebrate that nation's independence from England and the election of a new prime minister solidified King's view that the treatment of African Americans by whites in the United States was strikingly similar to the effects of colonialism in western and southern Africa.
In a sermon after his Ghana trip called "Birth of a New Nation" (goddamn, you know King knew exactly what he was doing with that title), King connected Ghana to the slaves in biblical Egypt ridding themselves of their chains, and he explained what had just happened:
"Prior to March the sixth, 1957, there existed a country known as the Gold Coast. This country was a colony of the British Empire. This country was situated in that vast continent known as Africa. I’m sure you know a great deal about Africa, that continent with some two hundred million people, and it extends and covers a great deal of territory...
"For years the Gold Coast was exploited and dominated and trampled over. The first European settlers came in there about 1444, the Portuguese, and they started legitimate trade with the people in the Gold Coast. They started dealing with them with their gold, and in turn they gave them guns and ammunition and gunpowder and that type of thing. Well, pretty soon America was discovered a few years later in the fourteen hundreds, and then the British West Indies. And all of these growing discoveries brought about the slave trade."
King continued to tell the story of the Gold Coast, bringing it to the then-present: "Finally, in 1850, Britain won out, and she gained possession of the total territorial expansion of the Gold Coast. From 1850 to 1957, March sixth, the Gold Coast was a colony of the British Empire. And as a colony she suffered all of the injustices, all of the exploitation, all of the humiliation that comes as a result of colonialism. But like all slavery, like all domination, like all exploitation, it came to the point that the people got tired of it."
After talking about how the Gold Coast became Ghana, King brought it back to his opening images, "Ghana reminds us that freedom never comes on a silver platter. It’s never easy. Ghana reminds us that whenever you break out of Egypt, you better get ready for stiff backs. You better get ready for some homes to be bombed. You better get ready for some churches to be bombed. You better get ready for a lot of nasty things to be said about you, because you getting out of Egypt. And whenever you break aloose from Egypt, the initial response of the Egyptian is bitterness."
Martin Luther King would fuck up the shit of Donald Trump and his coterie of Republican motherfuckers because that is what he did, and he would specifically fuck up Trump's shit now over the ersatz president's inability to see beyond his own racism when it comes to African nations and their people. King would call out the oppressors for their oppression because that, too, is what he did.
When we remember King, it should always be as a balls-to-the-wall fighter for people of color and, eventually, for all disempowered people. He would be in the streets, marching now, and he would be confronted by white people with tiki torches and uncontrollable cops, and Donald Trump would blame King for any violence that took place because that is what he does.
While conservatives continue their annual desperate attempt to colonize the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr., King stubbornly remains a revolutionary figure, one who was blatantly socialist and vehemently anti-capitalist. In fact, King drew a direct line between Western capitalism and the exploitation of African countries. He knew what had turned those countries into "shitholes." A trip to Ghana in 1957 to celebrate that nation's independence from England and the election of a new prime minister solidified King's view that the treatment of African Americans by whites in the United States was strikingly similar to the effects of colonialism in western and southern Africa.
In a sermon after his Ghana trip called "Birth of a New Nation" (goddamn, you know King knew exactly what he was doing with that title), King connected Ghana to the slaves in biblical Egypt ridding themselves of their chains, and he explained what had just happened:
"Prior to March the sixth, 1957, there existed a country known as the Gold Coast. This country was a colony of the British Empire. This country was situated in that vast continent known as Africa. I’m sure you know a great deal about Africa, that continent with some two hundred million people, and it extends and covers a great deal of territory...
"For years the Gold Coast was exploited and dominated and trampled over. The first European settlers came in there about 1444, the Portuguese, and they started legitimate trade with the people in the Gold Coast. They started dealing with them with their gold, and in turn they gave them guns and ammunition and gunpowder and that type of thing. Well, pretty soon America was discovered a few years later in the fourteen hundreds, and then the British West Indies. And all of these growing discoveries brought about the slave trade."
King continued to tell the story of the Gold Coast, bringing it to the then-present: "Finally, in 1850, Britain won out, and she gained possession of the total territorial expansion of the Gold Coast. From 1850 to 1957, March sixth, the Gold Coast was a colony of the British Empire. And as a colony she suffered all of the injustices, all of the exploitation, all of the humiliation that comes as a result of colonialism. But like all slavery, like all domination, like all exploitation, it came to the point that the people got tired of it."
After talking about how the Gold Coast became Ghana, King brought it back to his opening images, "Ghana reminds us that freedom never comes on a silver platter. It’s never easy. Ghana reminds us that whenever you break out of Egypt, you better get ready for stiff backs. You better get ready for some homes to be bombed. You better get ready for some churches to be bombed. You better get ready for a lot of nasty things to be said about you, because you getting out of Egypt. And whenever you break aloose from Egypt, the initial response of the Egyptian is bitterness."
Martin Luther King would fuck up the shit of Donald Trump and his coterie of Republican motherfuckers because that is what he did, and he would specifically fuck up Trump's shit now over the ersatz president's inability to see beyond his own racism when it comes to African nations and their people. King would call out the oppressors for their oppression because that, too, is what he did.
When we remember King, it should always be as a balls-to-the-wall fighter for people of color and, eventually, for all disempowered people. He would be in the streets, marching now, and he would be confronted by white people with tiki torches and uncontrollable cops, and Donald Trump would blame King for any violence that took place because that is what he does.
Sunday, January 14, 2018
Donald Trump Stayed On The Golf Course As Hawaii Panicked
He didn’t even tweet about the false missile alarm as soon as he put away his golf clubs.
Critics are blasting resident Donald Trump for continuing to golf Saturday while frantic Hawaii residents rushed for cover after a false cell phone alarm about an incoming ballistic missile.
The
Although Hawaii’s Emergency Management Agency quickly tweeted that the initial warning was an error, it took 38 minutes before a second mobile alert declared the first a false alarm. Officials said the wrong button had been pushed.
As
of Saturday evening, Trump had not issued any personal statement — or
tweet — about the scare. He did tweet about “fake news” and again called
journalist Michael Wolff’s book, Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, a “fake book.” He described Wolff as “mentally deranged.”
It’s
not clear exactly when Trump learned of the alert, although presumably
the resident would be informed of any potential threat immediately.
White House deputy press secretary Lindsay Walters said in a statement that the
“This was purely a state exercise,” she added.
A White House official told CNN that the
A senior administrative official told Politico that there was no military response around the
Former
Pentagon official Col. Morris Davis criticized the resident in a tweet
for continuing his round of golf on his “taxpayer funded vacation” as
Hawaiians “braced for a ballistic missile strike.”
Former
Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) tweeted that Trump was “somewhere on the
back nine” while “1.5 million American citizens” were told to seek
shelter.
Rep.
Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) was quickly informed of the alert error and
assured Hawaiians in a tweet that there was “no incoming missile,” even
before the second alert went out.
She
didn’t criticize Trump for golfing. But she did complain that the resident was neither taking the nuclear threat from North Korea
seriously enough nor dealing with it wisely.
A
former Pentagon communications director during the Obama administration
quipped that “thank God” Trump was playing golf during the false alarm.
Trump
frequently criticized Barack Obama for golfing when he was in office,
suggesting that he was neglecting his presidential duties.
President Obama has a major meeting on the N.Y.C. Ebola outbreak, with people flying in from all over the country, but decided to play golf!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 24, 2014
America The Shithole
Posted by Rude One
It's not even surprising anymore whenresident Donald Trump, an angry
pumpkin on top of a very large pumpkin on top of a smaller pumpkin, says
or does something racist.
He is a fucking racist. If you're a fucking racist, you do fucking
racist shit all the time because that's who you are. If he didn't say or
do a racist thing, we might say, "Oh, look, he wasn't racist in that
moment." But just because a rat in your house didn't shit all over the
floor one day doesn't mean that the rat still isn't a rat. It just kept
its shit to itself for once.
So how are we supposed to react when we hear and Senator Dick Durbin confirms that Trump called, at the very least, African nations "shithole countries" whose people he doesn't want emigrating here? My gut reaction was utter outrage and contempt, but I have nothing but contempt for Trump and everyone who supports him, including each and every motherfucker who voted for that plague rat.
Trump supporters have been shown many off-ramps where they can get off this Highway to Hell they've been on. Support for neo-Nazis was one exit. Condemning black football players who were protesting was another. Any number of lies could have worked. All along, there have been these places where they can veer away and turn around. But so many have decided they are on the road for good, and they don't give a damn what Trump says about preventing immigrants from poor black or brown countries from coming to the U.S. in favor of people from places like Norway. And no amount of my rage at what a savage cunt mite Trump is will change that because a racist is a racist is a racist.
You know what people from shithole countries do when they get here? They get jobs, sometimes the worst jobs we have because, like most immigrants who have ever come here, they aren't thinking of themselves. They are thinking of the better life they will give to their kids. That's the myth of this country we tell repeatedly: the immigrants who come here with nothing in order to have a better life for them and their families. One of my grandfathers came over from Italy. Do you think he was a doctor? Or a professional? Fuck, no. He was a laborer. And he helped build things here because that's what he did. And Italy was a shithole. Ireland was a shithole. Russia, Poland, many, many countries were shitholes. All the people in this photo came from shitholes, some with just their native clothes on their backs, because they wanted to get out of the shithole.
But let's get more recent than Ellis Island. By any measure, Liberia has been a terrible place to live for decades. Between horrific wars and horrific disease, it would be kind to just call it a "shithole." That's why hundreds of thousands became refugees and why over 60,000 of those refugees came to the United States in the late 20th and early 21st century. A whole lot of them settled in Staten Island, which, believe it or not, is still a borough of New York City. And many of those go to the college where I teach. I have taught Liberian students for years and they have been, to a person, kind, smart, engaged, and hard-working. And that's because they came from a shithole. Many of them were refugees from that shithole; some of them or their family members were tortured. They embrace the chance they have here (and are often treated like shit here for their efforts).
Funds are raised for refugees by churches, the real Christian churches, not the fake ones that promise you salvation for a price. You can read stories of an Illinois evangelical ministry helping settle Liberian refugees, of a Rhode Island Baptist church helping recent arrivals from the Congo, of the Nazarene ministry in Missouri that is assisting refugees from Syria. In other words, if you stand with your church in making sure that refugees have a place in the United States, you stand opposed to theresident. Or you're a goddamn hypocrite.
You know where else is a shithole? In large swaths of the United States, including many places where Trump voters live. A United Nations report essentially declared that the U.S. is the shithole of the "rich nations," with poverty so extreme that it is pretty much on a par with Haiti, El Salvador, and African nations. And we have one big thing in common with most of the countries Trump has condemned: no universal health care.
Theresident is a racist. We knew that. Millions of people in this
country are racist. We knew that, too. We also know that many racists
don't think of themselves as racist and sure don't want to be called
"racist." Well, here's another gut check, motherfuckers. If you can
stand with a man who believes what Trump believes, with a man who has
the power over life and death and is wielding that power against people
of color, then you have made your choice to plunge into the shithole
Trump has created and wallow around in his shit, pretending that it's
not shit at all. We are a shithole as long as Trump remains president.
Someone will say that I'm agreeing with Trump because I say some countries are shitholes. That's getting it wrong. Trump said he didn't want "all these people" from those nations coming here. But I want to get people out of there.
If you don't want immigrants from shitholes to come here, it's not because they are terrible people. It's because you are.
(Note: To be fair, Liberia just had a peaceful election, so there is always hope in any shithole.)
(Note: There are lots of shitholes that people call home. Doesn't mean it's not a shithole.)
(Note: And, no, I haven't even gotten into just how big a role the United States has played in turning many of those countries into shitholes.)
It's not even surprising anymore when
So how are we supposed to react when we hear and Senator Dick Durbin confirms that Trump called, at the very least, African nations "shithole countries" whose people he doesn't want emigrating here? My gut reaction was utter outrage and contempt, but I have nothing but contempt for Trump and everyone who supports him, including each and every motherfucker who voted for that plague rat.
Trump supporters have been shown many off-ramps where they can get off this Highway to Hell they've been on. Support for neo-Nazis was one exit. Condemning black football players who were protesting was another. Any number of lies could have worked. All along, there have been these places where they can veer away and turn around. But so many have decided they are on the road for good, and they don't give a damn what Trump says about preventing immigrants from poor black or brown countries from coming to the U.S. in favor of people from places like Norway. And no amount of my rage at what a savage cunt mite Trump is will change that because a racist is a racist is a racist.
You know what people from shithole countries do when they get here? They get jobs, sometimes the worst jobs we have because, like most immigrants who have ever come here, they aren't thinking of themselves. They are thinking of the better life they will give to their kids. That's the myth of this country we tell repeatedly: the immigrants who come here with nothing in order to have a better life for them and their families. One of my grandfathers came over from Italy. Do you think he was a doctor? Or a professional? Fuck, no. He was a laborer. And he helped build things here because that's what he did. And Italy was a shithole. Ireland was a shithole. Russia, Poland, many, many countries were shitholes. All the people in this photo came from shitholes, some with just their native clothes on their backs, because they wanted to get out of the shithole.
But let's get more recent than Ellis Island. By any measure, Liberia has been a terrible place to live for decades. Between horrific wars and horrific disease, it would be kind to just call it a "shithole." That's why hundreds of thousands became refugees and why over 60,000 of those refugees came to the United States in the late 20th and early 21st century. A whole lot of them settled in Staten Island, which, believe it or not, is still a borough of New York City. And many of those go to the college where I teach. I have taught Liberian students for years and they have been, to a person, kind, smart, engaged, and hard-working. And that's because they came from a shithole. Many of them were refugees from that shithole; some of them or their family members were tortured. They embrace the chance they have here (and are often treated like shit here for their efforts).
Funds are raised for refugees by churches, the real Christian churches, not the fake ones that promise you salvation for a price. You can read stories of an Illinois evangelical ministry helping settle Liberian refugees, of a Rhode Island Baptist church helping recent arrivals from the Congo, of the Nazarene ministry in Missouri that is assisting refugees from Syria. In other words, if you stand with your church in making sure that refugees have a place in the United States, you stand opposed to the
You know where else is a shithole? In large swaths of the United States, including many places where Trump voters live. A United Nations report essentially declared that the U.S. is the shithole of the "rich nations," with poverty so extreme that it is pretty much on a par with Haiti, El Salvador, and African nations. And we have one big thing in common with most of the countries Trump has condemned: no universal health care.
The
Someone will say that I'm agreeing with Trump because I say some countries are shitholes. That's getting it wrong. Trump said he didn't want "all these people" from those nations coming here. But I want to get people out of there.
If you don't want immigrants from shitholes to come here, it's not because they are terrible people. It's because you are.
(Note: To be fair, Liberia just had a peaceful election, so there is always hope in any shithole.)
(Note: There are lots of shitholes that people call home. Doesn't mean it's not a shithole.)
(Note: And, no, I haven't even gotten into just how big a role the United States has played in turning many of those countries into shitholes.)
Saturday, January 13, 2018
@TomiLahren and @JesseBWatters Defend Donald Trump's 'SHlTHOLE' Remark
In this ‘Dollemore Daily’, Jesse addresses the problematic comments made by Donald Trump related to immigration from countries with populations comprised predominantly of people of color rather than from Norway and other white countries, and the twisting and turning done by some Republicans to defend and come to his aid.
Wednesday, January 10, 2018
Prove That Trump Isn't A Fucking Moron
Posted by Rude One
Michael Wolff's book Fire and Fury is filled with quotes from people stating, quite simply, that Donald Trump, ersatzresident of the
United States, is a barely literate dunce. A "fucking moron," if you
will. In interview after interview, Wolff has asserted that every single
person he spoke with in the White House agreed that Trump is a
goddamned dimwit, someone barely able to walk and breathe at the same
time, a mental toddler, a shit-for-brains rich puke who dumb-lucked his
way through life because his daddy's money kept him...Wait, what was I
talking about? Yeah, that's it. He's stupid.
Predictably, whenever anyone says that Trump is not the greatest at something, the administration lickspittles go out in force to say, in essence, "Fuck you, fake news fuckos. I know Trump is the best human who ever existed and I thank God every day that He allowed me to be alive at the same time as Trump." Or words to that effect.
Here's Stephen Miller, a White House Nazi who is just begging for a punch in the dick, shortly before Jake Tapper threw him the fuck off CNN: "The reality is, is the president is a political genius who won against a field of 17 incredibly talented people" and a bunch of other opponents. Miller continued, plucking orange pubes out of his teeth, "And he did it all through the people and through his strategy and his vision and his insight and his experience." Miller's the type of creepy motherfucker who you know jacks it to murder porn. Honestly, Tapper should have grabbed Miller by the scruff of his neck and tossed him into the street like a bouncer with a noisy drunk.
Trump's brain has got other, slightly less odious defenders. CIA Director Mike Pompeo went on Fox "news" Sunday and also pretended that President Dunceface leaves Stephen Hawking in the dust. He declared, "I watched him take the information that the intelligence community delivers and translate that into policies that are of enormous benefit to America...He deals with the most complex issues and has handled them in a way that I have great admiration and respect for." Pompeo also assured us that Trump "reads."
Let's take a page from Trump himself. When questions were created by right-wing nutzoids about whether or not Barack Obama was born in the United States, Trump hounded Obama about producing his birth certificate. The best-known birther in the nation, Trump wouldn't let it go until Obama did finally make the document public. Even then, that wasn't enough for Trump, who fanned the flames of crazy until it no longer served a political purpose for him.
So let's demand that Trump fucking prove that he's not an idiot, that he's actually engaged and understands the issues. That he is "like, really smart" and that he understands tax law better than any CPA or health care as well or better than anyone. That he's fit for office. Prove it. Put the fuck up or shut the fuck up. Because right now, we're just supposed to take his word and the word of his lackeys and sycophants. And if President Obama's word wasn't good enough on his place of birth, then Trump's word sure as shit ain't enough.
Trump's gotta do a press conference, a real one, not a spontaneous one. He's gotta sit for an interview with someone who isn't one of his conservative ball washers. It's gotta be a real reporter who will ask him specific questions about specific policies and demand detail. C'mon, motherfucker. Let's see what you've got.
Also, Trump's gotta show he can act like a leader and not just an asshole pretending to be a tough guy. He's gotta give a speech where he talks actual policy and not just slogans. He's gotta focus and not just go through a list of shit like a brain-damaged monkey who can't decide what branch to sit on and throw feces, like he did yesterday in Nashville. No mentioning his electoral college win. No discussion of "Crooked Hillary." An intelligent, grown-up speech that an intelligent grown-up would make. It doesn't even have to be genius. Just stable. Show us all this magnificent man that all of his defenders see. Because right now, we sure as shit can't see it through the fog of degrading tweets and incoherent speech.
Of course, he won't do any of this. Even if Trump were asked to do it, he wouldn't because he can't. And those same obsequious fucks would get out there and tell us that he's too fucking smart for us to understand his layers and depths. Meanwhile, his idiot hordes will tell us that Trump is smart because, indeed, idiots want one of their own as their idiot king.
Here, in what we might quaintly refer to as "reality," we know that Trump's inability to speak in fluid sentences or his constant repetition and simple vocabulary isn't hidden genius. It's just a pathetic lack of intelligence. If we fail to question Trump on his basic ability to function, we are participating in a cover-up as surely as his family and every single person who won't go public with what they know about the man who bumblefucked into theresidency.
Note: Trump's lack of brain power doesn't forgive him or his vile family for any of their venal criminality. You can be dumb and evil.
Michael Wolff's book Fire and Fury is filled with quotes from people stating, quite simply, that Donald Trump, ersatz
Predictably, whenever anyone says that Trump is not the greatest at something, the administration lickspittles go out in force to say, in essence, "Fuck you, fake news fuckos. I know Trump is the best human who ever existed and I thank God every day that He allowed me to be alive at the same time as Trump." Or words to that effect.
Here's Stephen Miller, a White House Nazi who is just begging for a punch in the dick, shortly before Jake Tapper threw him the fuck off CNN: "The reality is, is the president is a political genius who won against a field of 17 incredibly talented people" and a bunch of other opponents. Miller continued, plucking orange pubes out of his teeth, "And he did it all through the people and through his strategy and his vision and his insight and his experience." Miller's the type of creepy motherfucker who you know jacks it to murder porn. Honestly, Tapper should have grabbed Miller by the scruff of his neck and tossed him into the street like a bouncer with a noisy drunk.
Trump's brain has got other, slightly less odious defenders. CIA Director Mike Pompeo went on Fox "news" Sunday and also pretended that President Dunceface leaves Stephen Hawking in the dust. He declared, "I watched him take the information that the intelligence community delivers and translate that into policies that are of enormous benefit to America...He deals with the most complex issues and has handled them in a way that I have great admiration and respect for." Pompeo also assured us that Trump "reads."
Let's take a page from Trump himself. When questions were created by right-wing nutzoids about whether or not Barack Obama was born in the United States, Trump hounded Obama about producing his birth certificate. The best-known birther in the nation, Trump wouldn't let it go until Obama did finally make the document public. Even then, that wasn't enough for Trump, who fanned the flames of crazy until it no longer served a political purpose for him.
So let's demand that Trump fucking prove that he's not an idiot, that he's actually engaged and understands the issues. That he is "like, really smart" and that he understands tax law better than any CPA or health care as well or better than anyone. That he's fit for office. Prove it. Put the fuck up or shut the fuck up. Because right now, we're just supposed to take his word and the word of his lackeys and sycophants. And if President Obama's word wasn't good enough on his place of birth, then Trump's word sure as shit ain't enough.
Trump's gotta do a press conference, a real one, not a spontaneous one. He's gotta sit for an interview with someone who isn't one of his conservative ball washers. It's gotta be a real reporter who will ask him specific questions about specific policies and demand detail. C'mon, motherfucker. Let's see what you've got.
Also, Trump's gotta show he can act like a leader and not just an asshole pretending to be a tough guy. He's gotta give a speech where he talks actual policy and not just slogans. He's gotta focus and not just go through a list of shit like a brain-damaged monkey who can't decide what branch to sit on and throw feces, like he did yesterday in Nashville. No mentioning his electoral college win. No discussion of "Crooked Hillary." An intelligent, grown-up speech that an intelligent grown-up would make. It doesn't even have to be genius. Just stable. Show us all this magnificent man that all of his defenders see. Because right now, we sure as shit can't see it through the fog of degrading tweets and incoherent speech.
Of course, he won't do any of this. Even if Trump were asked to do it, he wouldn't because he can't. And those same obsequious fucks would get out there and tell us that he's too fucking smart for us to understand his layers and depths. Meanwhile, his idiot hordes will tell us that Trump is smart because, indeed, idiots want one of their own as their idiot king.
Here, in what we might quaintly refer to as "reality," we know that Trump's inability to speak in fluid sentences or his constant repetition and simple vocabulary isn't hidden genius. It's just a pathetic lack of intelligence. If we fail to question Trump on his basic ability to function, we are participating in a cover-up as surely as his family and every single person who won't go public with what they know about the man who bumblefucked into the
Note: Trump's lack of brain power doesn't forgive him or his vile family for any of their venal criminality. You can be dumb and evil.
Monday, January 8, 2018
Saturday, January 6, 2018
Puerto Rico Is Suffering For Our Sins
Posted by Rude One
Before we forget about it completely in the fog of Michael Wolff's book about the fog that Donald Trump apparently exists in, let's pause to recognize that, post-Hurricane Maria, Puerto Rico is still fucked and it won't be unfucked for a long time. How can we list the ways?
- It might be May before the entire island has power. Half the people on the island, including those in some urban areas, do not have electricity. And while the Army Corps of Engineers thinks that power will be restored to 95% of Puerto Rico by March, we're still talking Americans living without power for 6 months since the storm, and, in the more remote areas, 8-9 months, just in time for the 2018 hurricane season to start. (Those areas still have over 80,000 people in them.)
- Some of those remote areas still don't have potable water. FEMA has been insisting that 95% of Puerto Ricans have access to drinkable water, but the island's water was a fucking mess before the storm. Yeah, pre-Maria, 99.5% of the island's citizens drank water that violated the Safe Drinking Water Act. And after the storm, with water treatment plants needing, you know, electricity, even if you get your water from your kitchen sink, it still was contaminated with bacteria, as seen by an uptick in illnesses caused by those little fuckers.
- Connecticut's two senators, Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal, both Democrats, returned this week from a visit to the island. Murphy, in particular, was stunned by what he saw. He said that "'almost none' of the aid Puerto Rico was supposed to receive has been delivered as part of a $36.5 billion October package that also allocated relief for Florida and Texas." And Murphy believes that the final death toll from the failure of the federal government to send the aid needed will be "in the multiple thousands."
- Speaking of the death toll, it's already estimated to be over 1000, when you take into account things like the people who died because the power grid was destroyed and they couldn't get dialysis. Don't take my word for it. Listen to the demographer who helped come up with that number. Alexis R. Santos-Lozada believes that the lower number of 64 directly attributable to the hurricane in action will remain the official death count. She warns, "[M]inimized figures could weaken efforts to provide relief to communities affected by the hurricane at the local and international level." The governor of Puerto Rico, Ricardo Rosselló, just launched an effort to look into the actual number of deaths.
- While it looks like the issue might be shortly fixed, Puerto Rico is a primary place where IV bags and saline fluid are made, and so there has been a shortage of those in hospitals on the mainland. Amazing how this shit works. The FDA is saying that the manufacturing plant is back on the commercial grid, but, holy shitballs, did you even know this was happening?
- Meanwhile, there has been an exodus of Puerto Ricans to the mainland United States, which they can do freely and legally (sorry, Trumpenheimers) because they are Americans. Hundreds of thousands of them have come to settle here. At least 200,000 are now living in Florida, which Trump won by 113,000 votes in 2016. Anecdotally, many of those new residents are registering to vote. PR Gov. Rosselló is saying he will work to mobilize the millions of Puerto Ricans in the states to take revenge on Republicans in 2018.
And that, in the end, will be the only way to unfuck a part of the United States that our madmanresident wants us to forget about.
Before we forget about it completely in the fog of Michael Wolff's book about the fog that Donald Trump apparently exists in, let's pause to recognize that, post-Hurricane Maria, Puerto Rico is still fucked and it won't be unfucked for a long time. How can we list the ways?
- It might be May before the entire island has power. Half the people on the island, including those in some urban areas, do not have electricity. And while the Army Corps of Engineers thinks that power will be restored to 95% of Puerto Rico by March, we're still talking Americans living without power for 6 months since the storm, and, in the more remote areas, 8-9 months, just in time for the 2018 hurricane season to start. (Those areas still have over 80,000 people in them.)
- Some of those remote areas still don't have potable water. FEMA has been insisting that 95% of Puerto Ricans have access to drinkable water, but the island's water was a fucking mess before the storm. Yeah, pre-Maria, 99.5% of the island's citizens drank water that violated the Safe Drinking Water Act. And after the storm, with water treatment plants needing, you know, electricity, even if you get your water from your kitchen sink, it still was contaminated with bacteria, as seen by an uptick in illnesses caused by those little fuckers.
- Connecticut's two senators, Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal, both Democrats, returned this week from a visit to the island. Murphy, in particular, was stunned by what he saw. He said that "'almost none' of the aid Puerto Rico was supposed to receive has been delivered as part of a $36.5 billion October package that also allocated relief for Florida and Texas." And Murphy believes that the final death toll from the failure of the federal government to send the aid needed will be "in the multiple thousands."
- Speaking of the death toll, it's already estimated to be over 1000, when you take into account things like the people who died because the power grid was destroyed and they couldn't get dialysis. Don't take my word for it. Listen to the demographer who helped come up with that number. Alexis R. Santos-Lozada believes that the lower number of 64 directly attributable to the hurricane in action will remain the official death count. She warns, "[M]inimized figures could weaken efforts to provide relief to communities affected by the hurricane at the local and international level." The governor of Puerto Rico, Ricardo Rosselló, just launched an effort to look into the actual number of deaths.
- While it looks like the issue might be shortly fixed, Puerto Rico is a primary place where IV bags and saline fluid are made, and so there has been a shortage of those in hospitals on the mainland. Amazing how this shit works. The FDA is saying that the manufacturing plant is back on the commercial grid, but, holy shitballs, did you even know this was happening?
- Meanwhile, there has been an exodus of Puerto Ricans to the mainland United States, which they can do freely and legally (sorry, Trumpenheimers) because they are Americans. Hundreds of thousands of them have come to settle here. At least 200,000 are now living in Florida, which Trump won by 113,000 votes in 2016. Anecdotally, many of those new residents are registering to vote. PR Gov. Rosselló is saying he will work to mobilize the millions of Puerto Ricans in the states to take revenge on Republicans in 2018.
And that, in the end, will be the only way to unfuck a part of the United States that our madman
Tuesday, January 2, 2018
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