NYU Law Professor Melissa Murray shares a sobering story on “The Beat with Ari Melber” about her students “jaded and cynical” reaction to the “prospect of justice.”
Wednesday, February 19, 2020
Bloomberg Plays Turd In The Democratic Punch Bowl
Posted by Rude One
Former New York City mayor and billionaire prick Michael Bloomberg barely won his last election. In 2009, after he rammed through an exception to the city's term limit for mayors, he ran for a third term as a Republican and spent nearly $100 million on his reelection. While that's sofa cushion money for Bloomberg, it was unheard of in a local race, and he outspent his Democratic rival Bill Thompson 14 to 1. Yet, after supposedly having had two successful terms to run on, after dropping all that coin fluffing his own public image like an aging porn star injecting his dick for the third time in a day on the set, all Mayor Mike managed to get was 50.7% of the vote. Enough to win, sure, but Thompson still got over 46%.
The point here is that a hundred million bucks bought Bloomberg a just eked-through victory. There is certainly no guarantee that the $400 million and counting he's spending on the Democratic nomination will do more than give him a brief novelty surge that dies down as soon as everyone remembers "Oh, right, he's that prick."
And it's so easy to find Bloomberg being the goddamndest asshole all the time. Between the odious sustained assault on non-whites in New York City that was "Stop-and-Frisk" to his completely demeaning treatment of women in his circle, Bloomberg has left a trail of bullshit that's visible from miles away. Then there's the strongman tactics that he used as mayor to break up Occupy Wall Street, which involved a violent raid on the protesters camped out in Zuccotti Park in defiance of a court order. I was there in the aftermath, and I saw kids slammed to the ground by cops and listened as Wall Street fucks laughed about the arrested getting raped at Riker's Island. I'd bet anything they were Bloomberg voters. The thing about Bloomberg is that, until he apologized, he seemed to get off on this shit.
It's so simple to find a fucked-up quote from Bloomberg. Here he is in 2010 after then-Gov. David Paterson signed a law that prevented police departments from keeping the data they got from every single stop-and-frisk suspect, including those where nothing was found. Bloomberg scoffed, "And what's wrong with keeping the data? We have data on everything. You wait until we have facial recognition software, and somebody's going to have a record of every person that walks down by your house. You just point a camera at them, the software will do it. That's coming. I mean, these days of, we put license plates on your car. You can read those by computer now, and we know where you're driving." He wasn't wrong about the technology, but his enthusiasm sure makes it seem like he may misuse the larger data collection capabilities of, say, the NSA. Ask the Muslim community of New York how that surveillance ended up.
I'm attacking Bloomberg in a way that, frankly, I haven't attacked the other Democrats for the simple reason that Bloomberg isn't a Democrat. Unlike Bernie Sanders, most of Bloomberg's views throughout his career have never really lined up with the Democratic Party platform. He spoke at the 2016 Democratic National Convention, but, prior to that, he spoke at the 2004 Republican Convention, which was being held in New York City (with protests that were met with their own overzealous response from the NYPD).
Basically, until a couple of years ago, Mike Bloomberg is what we used to call a "moderate Republican," back when such political creatures existed in the wilds of the GOP. The best way to define "moderate" was someone who was conservative on financial shit but was sane on guns, gays, and abortion and understood that climate change is real. In other words, a Republican who believed in science and medicine. He should have run as a Republican and used his billions to force Trump into spending his war chest fending off a primary opponent. He might have actually been able to drag the GOP back to having a toe on the sane side of the line of demarcation between sanity and madness. And he would have significantly weakened Trump.
But, alas, instead, Bloomberg, with his authoritarian impulses and his record of racism, sexism, and violence, has decided to be the turd in the Democratic punch bowl, plopping into the election to ruin the thing for everyone who's been there. Already in second in national polling, with way too many people who should know better accepting his apology for Stop and Frisk, he has a real chance at the nomination. And way too many people are champing at the bit for the Democrats to have their own douchebag billionaire to face down the worse douchebag "billionaire" in the White House. Jesus, you know how fucked a nation that makes us?
To be fair, Bloomberg's website is filled with Democratic kibble in its section on his plans, so he's still better than Trump in the way that a rotting cheese sandwich is better than Trump, but it's still a rotting cheese sandwich. You'd rather toss it in the garbage than see it inaugurated. But if that's all we got...
I could see this going another way, too. That same national poll showed that Bernie Sanders has opened up a 12-point lead on second place, with 31% choosing him, his biggest margin yet. Faced with the possibility of Bloomberg, progressive Democrats and those who are just fuckin' skeeved out by Mayor Mike might be moving towards Sanders as a way of getting this goddamned thing over with before a just recently-converted former Republican buys the nomination.
Let's hope that Bloomberg is chewed up and spit out at the Democratic debate tomorrow night, making him spend his billions where he should if he's so goddamned concerned about 2020: on the Senate races.
Former New York City mayor and billionaire prick Michael Bloomberg barely won his last election. In 2009, after he rammed through an exception to the city's term limit for mayors, he ran for a third term as a Republican and spent nearly $100 million on his reelection. While that's sofa cushion money for Bloomberg, it was unheard of in a local race, and he outspent his Democratic rival Bill Thompson 14 to 1. Yet, after supposedly having had two successful terms to run on, after dropping all that coin fluffing his own public image like an aging porn star injecting his dick for the third time in a day on the set, all Mayor Mike managed to get was 50.7% of the vote. Enough to win, sure, but Thompson still got over 46%.
The point here is that a hundred million bucks bought Bloomberg a just eked-through victory. There is certainly no guarantee that the $400 million and counting he's spending on the Democratic nomination will do more than give him a brief novelty surge that dies down as soon as everyone remembers "Oh, right, he's that prick."
And it's so easy to find Bloomberg being the goddamndest asshole all the time. Between the odious sustained assault on non-whites in New York City that was "Stop-and-Frisk" to his completely demeaning treatment of women in his circle, Bloomberg has left a trail of bullshit that's visible from miles away. Then there's the strongman tactics that he used as mayor to break up Occupy Wall Street, which involved a violent raid on the protesters camped out in Zuccotti Park in defiance of a court order. I was there in the aftermath, and I saw kids slammed to the ground by cops and listened as Wall Street fucks laughed about the arrested getting raped at Riker's Island. I'd bet anything they were Bloomberg voters. The thing about Bloomberg is that, until he apologized, he seemed to get off on this shit.
It's so simple to find a fucked-up quote from Bloomberg. Here he is in 2010 after then-Gov. David Paterson signed a law that prevented police departments from keeping the data they got from every single stop-and-frisk suspect, including those where nothing was found. Bloomberg scoffed, "And what's wrong with keeping the data? We have data on everything. You wait until we have facial recognition software, and somebody's going to have a record of every person that walks down by your house. You just point a camera at them, the software will do it. That's coming. I mean, these days of, we put license plates on your car. You can read those by computer now, and we know where you're driving." He wasn't wrong about the technology, but his enthusiasm sure makes it seem like he may misuse the larger data collection capabilities of, say, the NSA. Ask the Muslim community of New York how that surveillance ended up.
I'm attacking Bloomberg in a way that, frankly, I haven't attacked the other Democrats for the simple reason that Bloomberg isn't a Democrat. Unlike Bernie Sanders, most of Bloomberg's views throughout his career have never really lined up with the Democratic Party platform. He spoke at the 2016 Democratic National Convention, but, prior to that, he spoke at the 2004 Republican Convention, which was being held in New York City (with protests that were met with their own overzealous response from the NYPD).
Basically, until a couple of years ago, Mike Bloomberg is what we used to call a "moderate Republican," back when such political creatures existed in the wilds of the GOP. The best way to define "moderate" was someone who was conservative on financial shit but was sane on guns, gays, and abortion and understood that climate change is real. In other words, a Republican who believed in science and medicine. He should have run as a Republican and used his billions to force Trump into spending his war chest fending off a primary opponent. He might have actually been able to drag the GOP back to having a toe on the sane side of the line of demarcation between sanity and madness. And he would have significantly weakened Trump.
But, alas, instead, Bloomberg, with his authoritarian impulses and his record of racism, sexism, and violence, has decided to be the turd in the Democratic punch bowl, plopping into the election to ruin the thing for everyone who's been there. Already in second in national polling, with way too many people who should know better accepting his apology for Stop and Frisk, he has a real chance at the nomination. And way too many people are champing at the bit for the Democrats to have their own douchebag billionaire to face down the worse douchebag "billionaire" in the White House. Jesus, you know how fucked a nation that makes us?
To be fair, Bloomberg's website is filled with Democratic kibble in its section on his plans, so he's still better than Trump in the way that a rotting cheese sandwich is better than Trump, but it's still a rotting cheese sandwich. You'd rather toss it in the garbage than see it inaugurated. But if that's all we got...
I could see this going another way, too. That same national poll showed that Bernie Sanders has opened up a 12-point lead on second place, with 31% choosing him, his biggest margin yet. Faced with the possibility of Bloomberg, progressive Democrats and those who are just fuckin' skeeved out by Mayor Mike might be moving towards Sanders as a way of getting this goddamned thing over with before a just recently-converted former Republican buys the nomination.
Let's hope that Bloomberg is chewed up and spit out at the Democratic debate tomorrow night, making him spend his billions where he should if he's so goddamned concerned about 2020: on the Senate races.
Tuesday, February 18, 2020
Monday, February 17, 2020
2,003 Former DOJ Employees Call On Barr To Resign After Intervening In Stone Case
(CNN) More than 2,003 former Justice Department officials who served in Republican as well as Democratic administrations posted a statement Sunday calling on Attorney General Bill Barr to resign.
"Mr.
Barr's actions in doing the resident's personal bidding unfortunately
speak louder than his words. Those actions, and the damage they have
done to the Department of Justice's reputation for integrity and the
rule of law, require Mr. Barr to resign. But because we have little
expectation he will do so, it falls to the Department's career officials
to take appropriate action to uphold their oaths of office and defend
nonpartisan, apolitical justice," the officials wrote in a statement.
The rare statement from the officials -- mostly former career prosecutors,
but also some former political appointees -- came in the wake of an
extraordinary week at the Justice Department. In just one week, career
prosecutors withdrew from a case after Barr overruled their sentencing
recommendation, the attorney general pushed back against the resident
in an unusual interview and separately ordered an examination of politically charged cases involving those close to resident Donald Trump.
The
statement went on to say career attorneys should report any troubling
actions they see to the department's Inspector General.
The
Justice Department declined to comment when reached by CNN Sunday. Barr
has so far not given any indication that he is considering stepping
down from his current role.
The
upheaval at the Justice Department began when all four federal
prosecutors who took the case against Roger Stone to trial withdrew from
the case Tuesday afternoon after Barr overruled their sentencing
recommendation hours after the resident criticized it on Twitter.
Barr on Thursday claimed he couldn't do his job
with Trump publicly commenting on sensitive investigations, but
insisted the Justice Department had acted appropriately, and, without
explanation, suggested prosecutors' recommended sentence for Stone was
too harsh.
In an interview with ABC News, Barr defended the department's rank and file.
"I cannot do my job here at the department with a constant background commentary that undercuts me," the attorney general said.
In
an unusual move on Sunday, Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who is overseeing
Stone's case, called for a "scheduling" conference call with attorneys
in the case on Tuesday, ahead of the sentencing hearing set for later
this week, according to court documents.
The
court did not provide additional details on what would be discussed on
the call, and Jackson has not yet formally acknowledged the withdrawals.
Barr zags and prosecutors worry
It was a notable zag for Barr after days of mounting scrutiny, and on Friday, the Justice Department informed former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe - a frequent target of Trump's ire - it was dropping charges against him.
At the time, Barr ordered a re-examination of several high-profile cases, including that of former national security adviser Michael Flynn, US officials briefed on the matter say. The move could bring fresh scrutiny of the political motives behind actions at the Justice Department.
Prosecutors across the country have been incensed and worried about what some perceive as growing political directives coming from Washington.
On the West Coast, one federal prosecutor said there was an overwhelming sense of "outrage" felt in his office.
A
prosecutor on the East Coast voiced concern about the potential impact
of political interference on juries and judges, who could perceive that
cases aren't being brought objectively.
And
a former prosecutor said his clients have expressed concern about
cooperating with investigations out of fear that the Justice Department
could interfere improperly in a case, putting them in jeopardy.
'That's just not normal'
Marc
Short, Vice President Mike Pence's chief of staff, said Sunday that
Barr "does enjoy the support" of Trump, telling CNN's Dana Bash on
"State of the Union" that he doesn't think "it's impossible (for Barr)
to do his job."
"In fact, I think
that Attorney General Barr is doing a great job," he added. "I think he
has a lot of confidence inside the White House. I think that the resident's frustration is one that a lot of Americans have, which feels
like the scales of justice are not balancing."
But
several Democratic senators, including presidential candidates Bernie
Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, last week also called for Barr to resign.
Democratic
presidential candidate Amy Klobuchar echoed that call Sunday on "State
of the Union," but added she does not expect Barr to step down.
"Sure,
I'd be glad if he resigned. I just don't think that is realistic," the
Minnesota senator said, adding, "But what I think is realistic is that
he is now going to testify in front of the House Judiciary Committee.
I'd also like him to come to the Senate. And, along with my colleagues, I
have asked him to do that, so we can probe him on the role of the resident in trying to influence decisions in the Department of Justice,
in particular the (Roger) Stone decision."
Klobuchar told Bash that Barr's involvement in the case is "just not normal."
"I
just think it's outrageous, knowing how hard these career prosecutors
work to do the right thing, how hard they worked on a case like Roger
Stone's, got him convicted, and then get undermined when it comes to the
sentencing," she said. "That's just not normal."
https://medium.com/@dojalumni/doj-alumni-statement-on-the-events-surrounding-the-sentencing-of-roger-stone-c2cb75ae4937
Sunday, February 16, 2020
The Price Of A Bloomberg Nomination Is Too Damn High
But the party may let a megabillionaire openly purchase its 2020 nomination anyway.
Mike
Bloomberg has offered blue America a Faustian bargain: Forfeit all
credibility on the issues of money in politics and democratic reform,
and he will spend whatever it takes to make the bad man in the White
House go away. The market for what Bloomberg is selling is large and
growing, thanks in no small part to the $300 million
he’s already spent advertising it. Many rank-and-file Democrats — like
so many disillusioned voters in democracies the world over — like the
idea of hiring a no-nonsense, post-political businessman to fix their
broken government (just, you know, a less ostentatiously racist one than America’s current CEO). Meanwhile, many Democratic elites see
Bloomberg as a (slightly unsavory) savior who can single-handedly stop
the party from nominating a supposedly unelectable socialist, provide
its vulnerable first-term suburban House members with an ideal
standard-bearer, and liberate the party from all resource constraints
and fundraising headaches as it rides a rising tide of billionaire bucks
back into power.
Saturday, February 15, 2020
Lou Dobbs Growls That An Independent DOJ Is 'Crap'
Lou Hobbs is furious that Bill Barr would say anything against Trump. John Iadarola, Cenk Uygur, and Jayar Jackson, hosts of The Young Turks, break it down.
Dobbs seems super angry at Bill Barr for speaking a negative word about Trump that one time.
By Karoli Kuns
Trump's Roy Cohn Attorney General Bill Barr told ABC News that Trump's tweeting has made it impossible to do his job.
Now, that might seem kind of difficult to parse if you have more than
two synapses to rub together. Was Barr simply saying the quiet part out
loud?
"I don't want to hear any CRAP about an independent Justice Department!"
Welp. There it is. I mean, the Deep State conspiracy tin foil hat spizzola is old hat already, but now we're getting somewhere. Independent Justice Department? Who needs it? You get on your knees pronto before Dear Leader, or else.
Mind you, this is all theater, too. Barr had permission to "act" upset about Trump's tweets, and Dobbs and Barr are on exactly the same page. They're all just playing their roles in the ways they think will best keep all the gears turning in the direction they want until they've achieved their ultimate goal.
Unilateral, consolidated control under the Executive Branch.
Dobbs seems super angry at Bill Barr for speaking a negative word about Trump that one time.
By Karoli Kuns
Was he trying to make stupid people believe the pretzel-logic of his actual explanation? (That he'd decided to intervene before Trump tweeted, and the tweet put Barr in the uncomfortable position of having to decide between intervening, which would make it seem like he was doing it because Trump made him, or not intervening which would be wrong because he'd already decided it was the right thing to do — are you still with me?)What Bill Barr MEANT to say was "it's tough to do the sneaky, slimy, illegal stuff when trump says the quiet part out loud." #ResignBarr https://t.co/WHw7GeMWhl— BrooklynDad_Defiant! (@mmpadellan) February 14, 2020
Fortunately, we're talking about Lou Dobbs, here, and he does NOT have two synapses to rub together, so THIS was his interpretation of Bill Barr's interview with ABC News:Keep your eye on the ball - Bill Barr’s purported reasoning is nothing more than a shell game to deceive the public.— Publius (@ThePubliusUSA) February 13, 2020
pic.twitter.com/R61yh02Av3
DOBBS: He [Trump] is keeping his promise as candidate for the office
that he holds. He is also expressing himself fully, freely, and directly
to the American people, without going through the sage intermediaries
of the national left-wing media. And, it's just, I guess I am so
disappointed in Bill Barr, I have to say this. You know, it's a damn
shame when he doesn't get what this president has gone through, and what
the American people have gone through, and what his charge is as
attorney general. And by god, if he's gonna complain, I just want to
endorse everything you've said. Those are all things to complain about.
But where the HELL is the report? Where the HELL are the indictments against the corrupt, the politically corrupt Deep State within the Justice Department, the FBI, and why in the HELL aren't we hearing apologies from someone in that rancid, corrupt department about what they permitted?
Because they had to have enablers by the dozens to pull off what they did. The 26 names that we can go through on the FBI and the Justice Department. But then, to hear this attorney general complain about this president, who's fighting every one of those damn people to do the right thing and to get this country straightened out, and it's his mission to do so. Not to carp about about his boss.
And by the way, I don't want to hear any CRAP about an independent Justice Department! This Justice Department, as does everyone, works for the president. It is part of the Executive Branch.
Did we catch that, kids? Oh, Dobbs is hopping mad at that mean AG
dared speaketh a harsh word about his lord and savior Donald Trump. He's
so angry that he, Dobbs, HIMSELF said the quiet part out loud. But where the HELL is the report? Where the HELL are the indictments against the corrupt, the politically corrupt Deep State within the Justice Department, the FBI, and why in the HELL aren't we hearing apologies from someone in that rancid, corrupt department about what they permitted?
Because they had to have enablers by the dozens to pull off what they did. The 26 names that we can go through on the FBI and the Justice Department. But then, to hear this attorney general complain about this president, who's fighting every one of those damn people to do the right thing and to get this country straightened out, and it's his mission to do so. Not to carp about about his boss.
And by the way, I don't want to hear any CRAP about an independent Justice Department! This Justice Department, as does everyone, works for the president. It is part of the Executive Branch.
"I don't want to hear any CRAP about an independent Justice Department!"
Welp. There it is. I mean, the Deep State conspiracy tin foil hat spizzola is old hat already, but now we're getting somewhere. Independent Justice Department? Who needs it? You get on your knees pronto before Dear Leader, or else.
Mind you, this is all theater, too. Barr had permission to "act" upset about Trump's tweets, and Dobbs and Barr are on exactly the same page. They're all just playing their roles in the ways they think will best keep all the gears turning in the direction they want until they've achieved their ultimate goal.
Unilateral, consolidated control under the Executive Branch.
Tuesday, February 11, 2020
Trump's Ultimate Goal: The Erasure Of Barack Obama
Posted by Rude One
We talk all the time about What Donald Trump Wants asresident because
it's plainly obvious that "improving life for all Americans" is not
really on his radar, and "keeping the nation safe" is pretty low down
the list. There is the obvious greed - from the access his children have
to overseas investors to the open graft of the government paying tax
money to his properties. There is the ego burnishing, which you'd expect
from someone whose grievances include not getting an Emmy for his
reality show and not being praised enough for being resident. There is
very likely the wholesale paying off debts owed to various Russians,
Saudis, Azerbaijanis, Iranians, and who knows who else. And much, much more.
But one of his primary goals has been simple: Donald Trump wants to erase Barack Obama from the recent history of the country. He has been insidiously resetting the clock and rewriting history since he first gaslit his way to the national political stage by embracing the whole birther lie. Most other Republicans want to wipe out the New Deal and the Great Society and other progressive accomplishments, and Trump is fine doing that as long as it achieves this central objective of eliminating the black president and all his black deeds.
Trump regularly brags about all the Obama-era regulations and initiatives that he's tossed in the garbage can, some that have even left the industries affected scratching their heads at why. Just look at the environmental regulations Trump has reversed or wiped out. In one case, Trump had his EPA roll back "limits on carbon emissions from coal- and gas-fired power plants," which has led states from California to North Carolina to sue because it will lead to more air pollution in general. When Trump rolled back rules on auto emissions from the Obama administration, automakers were not overjoyed at the change because of the confusion it put into the marketplace.
In each case, Trump or some lackey from his administration crowed about how they were getting rid of "burdensome" regulations that Obama put in place that were preventing the economy from growing. Except here's the problem with that: Those regulations weren't preventing the economy from expanding. It was expanding just fine under Obama post-2010 while the nation was still doing at least something minimal to slow down climate change.
And that leads to the biggest lie that Trump tells constantly. Trump has essentially colonized Barack Obama's economy and claimed it as his own. It's oldest, whitest trick in the book. "Oh, hey," Christopher Columbus said, "I've discovered a New World" as he looked at all the people who had been there long before he ever bumbled his way to the Bahamas (and then he enslaved and tortured those people because Columbus was a monster).
Every chance he has, Trump decries Obama's presidency as a time of great economic tribulation that he alone came along to fix. In the State of the Union speech last week, he said, "The years of economic decay are over...Gone are the broken promises, jobless recoveries, tired platitudes, and constant excuses for the depletion of American wealth, power, and prestige. In just three short years, we have shattered the mentality of American decline, and we have rejected the downsizing of America’s destiny....From the instant I took office, I moved rapidly to revive the U.S. economy."
That's absolutely false. Like factually false by nearly every measure. All that's mostly happened to the economy overall since Trump came to office has been a continuation of the trends that started several years before Trump ever rode his golden escalator to the nomination. He was handed a growing economy by Barack Obama and the only thing that he did was exploit it for his own gain while completely, willfully, cruelly erasing Obama from the narrative of why things are going pretty well. It's mind-blowing that anyone can hear Trump brag about the low unemployment rate as if he's responsible for more than a point or two of its decline, as if Obama's policies didn't take care of 80% or more of the improvement since 2010-11. Trump can say that the recent job numbers are incredible, but it's not better than many, many months under Obama.
In fact, Trump could have taken Obama's economy and said, "Yeah, that was all well and good, but we need to get people better jobs and better pay." He could have built on it and crowed about any improvements he made. But he couldn't because if he did, he'd have to admit that he's just the guy who didn't screw up Obama's achievements yet. He'd have to admit that Obama did something right. Instead, Trump has made it so that his voters believe as an article of absolute faith that Obama did nothing but damage the country and Trump came along to rescue us, the white savior riding in to save the nation from the savage Negro. And all those white people at Trump's rallies are eager to believe it's true.
Of course, these are the same people who believe that the Affordable Care Act is a "disaster," as Trump says repeatedly. Even if they have benefited from it, they act like they despise it because they themselves would have to admit Obama did something to help them. The Supreme Court, with its Trump-installed, McConnell-enabled conservative majority, could come close to finishing the erasure of Barack Obama if it overturns the ACA and the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy (you know, DACA). If those two unabashedly positive steps towards a saner nation are gone, Trump will have finally gotten back at Obama for insulting him at the White House Correspondents' Dinner in 2011 and for daring to president while black.
Some Democrats are defending Obama's legacy, like Nancy Pelosi did in her press conference after the State of the Union and, obviously, like Joe Biden is on the campaign trail. But it seems like Trump's lies about Obama ought to be front and center, at least as a reminder that a Democratic president didn't screw things up. In fact, the job of a Democratic president since Clinton has been to clean up the wreckage left by the Republicans.
Trump's making a hell of a mess. Let's not allow him to throw President Obama into the trash heap of history.
(Note 1: I know that Columbus never said the phrase "New World" as far as we know. That was Amerigo Vespucci, which is also a great porn name if you pronounce the last name a little differently.)
(Note 2: You're right. There's more Obama could have done. But considering he had a Congress that wouldn't work with him, well, we're lucky we got as far as we did.)
(Note 3: Yes, you're very smart to bring up drone missile murders and the expansion of fracking under Obama, but if you don't think an Obama presidency is better than a Trump presidency, you're an idiot.)
(Note 4: White supremacists are emboldened by this effort to erase the first black president's accomplishments. Debasing him justifies their existence. It's one way Trump enables those groups.)
We talk all the time about What Donald Trump Wants as
But one of his primary goals has been simple: Donald Trump wants to erase Barack Obama from the recent history of the country. He has been insidiously resetting the clock and rewriting history since he first gaslit his way to the national political stage by embracing the whole birther lie. Most other Republicans want to wipe out the New Deal and the Great Society and other progressive accomplishments, and Trump is fine doing that as long as it achieves this central objective of eliminating the black president and all his black deeds.
Trump regularly brags about all the Obama-era regulations and initiatives that he's tossed in the garbage can, some that have even left the industries affected scratching their heads at why. Just look at the environmental regulations Trump has reversed or wiped out. In one case, Trump had his EPA roll back "limits on carbon emissions from coal- and gas-fired power plants," which has led states from California to North Carolina to sue because it will lead to more air pollution in general. When Trump rolled back rules on auto emissions from the Obama administration, automakers were not overjoyed at the change because of the confusion it put into the marketplace.
In each case, Trump or some lackey from his administration crowed about how they were getting rid of "burdensome" regulations that Obama put in place that were preventing the economy from growing. Except here's the problem with that: Those regulations weren't preventing the economy from expanding. It was expanding just fine under Obama post-2010 while the nation was still doing at least something minimal to slow down climate change.
And that leads to the biggest lie that Trump tells constantly. Trump has essentially colonized Barack Obama's economy and claimed it as his own. It's oldest, whitest trick in the book. "Oh, hey," Christopher Columbus said, "I've discovered a New World" as he looked at all the people who had been there long before he ever bumbled his way to the Bahamas (and then he enslaved and tortured those people because Columbus was a monster).
Every chance he has, Trump decries Obama's presidency as a time of great economic tribulation that he alone came along to fix. In the State of the Union speech last week, he said, "The years of economic decay are over...Gone are the broken promises, jobless recoveries, tired platitudes, and constant excuses for the depletion of American wealth, power, and prestige. In just three short years, we have shattered the mentality of American decline, and we have rejected the downsizing of America’s destiny....From the instant I took office, I moved rapidly to revive the U.S. economy."
That's absolutely false. Like factually false by nearly every measure. All that's mostly happened to the economy overall since Trump came to office has been a continuation of the trends that started several years before Trump ever rode his golden escalator to the nomination. He was handed a growing economy by Barack Obama and the only thing that he did was exploit it for his own gain while completely, willfully, cruelly erasing Obama from the narrative of why things are going pretty well. It's mind-blowing that anyone can hear Trump brag about the low unemployment rate as if he's responsible for more than a point or two of its decline, as if Obama's policies didn't take care of 80% or more of the improvement since 2010-11. Trump can say that the recent job numbers are incredible, but it's not better than many, many months under Obama.
In fact, Trump could have taken Obama's economy and said, "Yeah, that was all well and good, but we need to get people better jobs and better pay." He could have built on it and crowed about any improvements he made. But he couldn't because if he did, he'd have to admit that he's just the guy who didn't screw up Obama's achievements yet. He'd have to admit that Obama did something right. Instead, Trump has made it so that his voters believe as an article of absolute faith that Obama did nothing but damage the country and Trump came along to rescue us, the white savior riding in to save the nation from the savage Negro. And all those white people at Trump's rallies are eager to believe it's true.
Of course, these are the same people who believe that the Affordable Care Act is a "disaster," as Trump says repeatedly. Even if they have benefited from it, they act like they despise it because they themselves would have to admit Obama did something to help them. The Supreme Court, with its Trump-installed, McConnell-enabled conservative majority, could come close to finishing the erasure of Barack Obama if it overturns the ACA and the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy (you know, DACA). If those two unabashedly positive steps towards a saner nation are gone, Trump will have finally gotten back at Obama for insulting him at the White House Correspondents' Dinner in 2011 and for daring to president while black.
Some Democrats are defending Obama's legacy, like Nancy Pelosi did in her press conference after the State of the Union and, obviously, like Joe Biden is on the campaign trail. But it seems like Trump's lies about Obama ought to be front and center, at least as a reminder that a Democratic president didn't screw things up. In fact, the job of a Democratic president since Clinton has been to clean up the wreckage left by the Republicans.
Trump's making a hell of a mess. Let's not allow him to throw President Obama into the trash heap of history.
(Note 1: I know that Columbus never said the phrase "New World" as far as we know. That was Amerigo Vespucci, which is also a great porn name if you pronounce the last name a little differently.)
(Note 2: You're right. There's more Obama could have done. But considering he had a Congress that wouldn't work with him, well, we're lucky we got as far as we did.)
(Note 3: Yes, you're very smart to bring up drone missile murders and the expansion of fracking under Obama, but if you don't think an Obama presidency is better than a Trump presidency, you're an idiot.)
(Note 4: White supremacists are emboldened by this effort to erase the first black president's accomplishments. Debasing him justifies their existence. It's one way Trump enables those groups.)
Sunday, February 9, 2020
MSNBC: Bloomberg Campaign Manager Drops Joe Biden Bombshell | Tim Black
Mike Bloomberg Campaign Manager explains Bloomberg's strategy and why Joe Biden's race may be coming to an end.
Tuesday, February 4, 2020
Nina Turner Destroys Media Hack - LIVE!
Dr. Jason Johnson gets mopped by Bernie Sanders National Co-Chair Live on Air.
Jesse Dollemore plays and then talks about a clip from MSNBC where Nina Turner and Jason Johnson argue over her labeling Michael Bloomberg an oligarch. Johnson insists there is no difference between Bernie and Bloomberg... that they are both just "rich guys" and "one-percenters."
Jesse describes just how MUCH RICHER Bloomberg is than Bernie Sanders, and the difference might shock you!
Jesse Dollemore plays and then talks about a clip from MSNBC where Nina Turner and Jason Johnson argue over her labeling Michael Bloomberg an oligarch. Johnson insists there is no difference between Bernie and Bloomberg... that they are both just "rich guys" and "one-percenters."
Jesse describes just how MUCH RICHER Bloomberg is than Bernie Sanders, and the difference might shock you!
Fox News Puts Amy Klobuchar On The Spot Ahead Of Iowa Caucus
Sen. Amy Klobuchar has a tough interview with Fox News Chris Wallace on the eve of the Iowa Caucus.
Fuck Every Republican Who Says Trump Was Wrong But Won't Vote to Remove Him
Posted by Rude One
Oh, fuck Lisa Murkowski. Yeah, yeah, we can thank her for doing the right thing that one time with the Affordable Care Act and still say, "Fuck Lisa Murkowski." The Alaska senator's statement on why she won't vote to convictresident Donald Trump of the crimes that she admits he
committed is just the fucking worst because she thinks she's making some
grand statement about the state of partisan divisions in the Congress
and the country. Really, it's just ass-covering and bullshit
justification.
She said that "The House rushed through what should be one of the most serious, consequential undertakings of the legislative branch simply to meet an artificial, self-imposed deadline." That "artificial, self-imposed deadline" is the fucking 2020 election. The rush was to make sure that Trump couldn't game it, corrupt it, or, you know, invite foreign countries to get involved by digging up dirt on his rivals and using U.S. foreign policy to get his way. If you know an arsonist is about to set a fire, you stop the fucking arsonist before shit is burned to the ground.
Continuing her speech to the Senate, after a bunch of both-sides garbage, she offered, "The response to theresident’s behavior is not
to disenfranchise nearly 63 million Americans and remove him from the
ballot." Except no one is talking about the disenfranchisement of voters
(well, yeah, Republicans are, but not in this case). It's one of those
idiot arguments that get the rubes to think you're standing up for them
when you're really just not making any goddamn sense. They have the
right to vote. They just couldn't vote for one particular candidate.
Murkowski is also implying that Republicans have no one else to run for
president.
Then, with willful naïveté, Murkowski said, "The Constitution provides for impeachment, but does not demand it in all instances. An incremental first step, to remind theresident that, as Montesquieu
said, 'Political virtue is a renunciation of oneself' and this requires
'a continuous preference of the public interest over one’s own.'" That's
fuckin' hilarious. Yeah, Lisa, go to Donald fuckin' Trump and remind
him of what an 18th century French philosopher said. He'll quote Sean
Hannity back at you between Big Mac bites as you dodge crumbs being spit
in your face.
Even worse is Maine's own anthropomorphic bowl of Jello, Sen. Susan Collins. Her reasoning for not voting to remove Trump from office is as delusional as someone investing in a Trump University education: "I believe theresident has
learned from this case...The resident has been impeached. That's a
pretty big lesson...I believe he will be much more cautious in the
future." I'm cynical enough to think that Collins knows this is
unrepentant bullshit, but if she really believes this, then, seriously,
someone should introduce her to Donald Trump because that asshole has
never felt chastened and the only "lesson" he's learned is "Say you're
right loud enough and often enough and everyone will agree just to make
you shut the fuck up about it."
Tennessee's Lamar Alexander, one of those fake moderates you occasionally hear about but only see as unreal Bigfoot-like blurs running past the Capitol, tried to sound rational in his declaration of Trumpian exoneration. Look at this bastard try to thread a rusty needle: "It was inappropriate for theresident
to ask a foreign leader to investigate his political opponent and to
withhold United States aid to encourage that investigation. When elected
officials inappropriately interfere with such investigations, it
undermines the principle of equal justice under the law. But the
Constitution does not give the Senate the power to remove the president
from office and ban him from this year’s ballot simply for actions that
are inappropriate."
Actually, the Constitution gives the Senate the power to remove a president if it agrees with the House and convicts that president, even for, you know, "misdemeanors." But look at that shit. Alexander says that Trump was undermining "the principle of equal justice under the law." That's pretty fucking significant. And he added, just to sound like he's a thoughtful, dignified statesman instead of the elderly errand boy for a bloated, mad, ignorant dictator-in-waiting, "The framers believed that there should never, ever be a partisan impeachment." There were no goddamn political parties when the Constitution was written. Fucking hell.
Alexander bemoans the "partisan" nature of the House vote for the articles of impeachment, yet, weirdly, doesn't seem to have any problem with witnesses being blocked from testifying by a vote of just Republicans. Apparently, "partisan" only means "Democrats."
We are moving into a degradation of this country's checks and balances the likes of which we haven't seen. Sometimes I think it's more important for Democrats to take back the Senate than it is to win the presidency. That way, Democrats can assert the power of the Legislative Branch in full and restore some kind of fuckin' balance.
Oh, fuck Lisa Murkowski. Yeah, yeah, we can thank her for doing the right thing that one time with the Affordable Care Act and still say, "Fuck Lisa Murkowski." The Alaska senator's statement on why she won't vote to convict
She said that "The House rushed through what should be one of the most serious, consequential undertakings of the legislative branch simply to meet an artificial, self-imposed deadline." That "artificial, self-imposed deadline" is the fucking 2020 election. The rush was to make sure that Trump couldn't game it, corrupt it, or, you know, invite foreign countries to get involved by digging up dirt on his rivals and using U.S. foreign policy to get his way. If you know an arsonist is about to set a fire, you stop the fucking arsonist before shit is burned to the ground.
Continuing her speech to the Senate, after a bunch of both-sides garbage, she offered, "The response to the
Then, with willful naïveté, Murkowski said, "The Constitution provides for impeachment, but does not demand it in all instances. An incremental first step, to remind the
Even worse is Maine's own anthropomorphic bowl of Jello, Sen. Susan Collins. Her reasoning for not voting to remove Trump from office is as delusional as someone investing in a Trump University education: "I believe the
Tennessee's Lamar Alexander, one of those fake moderates you occasionally hear about but only see as unreal Bigfoot-like blurs running past the Capitol, tried to sound rational in his declaration of Trumpian exoneration. Look at this bastard try to thread a rusty needle: "It was inappropriate for the
Actually, the Constitution gives the Senate the power to remove a president if it agrees with the House and convicts that president, even for, you know, "misdemeanors." But look at that shit. Alexander says that Trump was undermining "the principle of equal justice under the law." That's pretty fucking significant. And he added, just to sound like he's a thoughtful, dignified statesman instead of the elderly errand boy for a bloated, mad, ignorant dictator-in-waiting, "The framers believed that there should never, ever be a partisan impeachment." There were no goddamn political parties when the Constitution was written. Fucking hell.
Alexander bemoans the "partisan" nature of the House vote for the articles of impeachment, yet, weirdly, doesn't seem to have any problem with witnesses being blocked from testifying by a vote of just Republicans. Apparently, "partisan" only means "Democrats."
We are moving into a degradation of this country's checks and balances the likes of which we haven't seen. Sometimes I think it's more important for Democrats to take back the Senate than it is to win the presidency. That way, Democrats can assert the power of the Legislative Branch in full and restore some kind of fuckin' balance.
Monday, February 3, 2020
INEXCUSABLE!!! GOP Now Admits To Donald Trump's Guilt, Yet Decides To Let Him Off The Hook Anyway!
Jesse Dollemore discusses Wednesday's impending Senate vote on the impeachment question of removal of Donald Trump from office. Reading from multiple Republican statements wherein they admit to Donald Trump's guilt but choose cowardice over principle.
Thursday, January 30, 2020
NPR reporter says Mike Pompeo berated her after interview
Republican strategist Rick Wilson and CNN contributor Wajahat Ali join Don Lemon to discuss Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's statement in response to NPR host Mary Louise Kelly's claim that he cursed at her and demanded she find Ukraine on a map after a taping of "All Things Considered."
CNN's Don Lemon Non-Apology Apology
Wednesday, January 29, 2020
Joe Biden Can't Stand Voters
Joe Biden has no patience for campaigning, answering questions or other people's opinions.
Here's proof.
Here's proof.
Tuesday, January 28, 2020
MSNBC REPORTS: Bernie Sanders Could Win Iowa And New Hampshire | Tim Black
The Establishment is nervous.
MSNBC Reports Bernie Sanders Could Win Iowa and New Hampshire.
MSNBC Reports Bernie Sanders Could Win Iowa and New Hampshire.
UNACCEPTABLE!!! Trump Threatens Entire Senate & Adam Schiff While Republicans Quiver Like Cowards!
Jesse Dollemore discusses the reprehensible and shameful conduct of Donald Trump and Republicans in the Senate who are bowing and scraping in the face of threats. Included are clips of Donald Trump, Senator James Lankford, Adam Schiff, and reporting from CBS News.
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