Lazy Saturday Reads: Trump’s Amerika
Posted: August 12, 2017 Filed under: Afternoon Reads, Foreign Affairs, U.S. Politics | Tags: Charlottesville VA, Donald Trump, North Korea, Venezuela, Wag the Dog, white nationalists, White supremacists 101 Comments
neo-Nazi white supremacists in Charlottesville, VA last night
Good Afternoon!!
White “nationalists” are involved in a violent demonstration in the streets of an American city today. There has so far been no reaction from the “president,” who of course has a number of these crazies working for him in the people’s house.
According to reports on MSNBC, the rally–supposedly a protest of the removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee–has now been declared an “unlawful assembly.” Interestingly,there are lots of Confederate flags on display in the crowd, but I have yet to see an American flag. Until recently, there hasn’t been much attempt by police to control the “protesters” either. It’s certainly a different scene from the police crackdowns we have seen at demonstrations organized by Black Lives Matter.
Boston.com: Hundreds face off ahead of white nationalist rally.
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (AP) — Hundreds of people are facing off in Charlottesville ahead of a white nationalist rally planned in the Virginia city’s downtown.
Rally supporters and counter-protesters screamed, chanted, threw punches, hurled water bottles and unleashed chemical sprays on each other Saturday morning.
Men dressed in militia uniforms were carrying shields and openly carrying long guns.
From Twitter earlier today:
NBC News: Protesters Clash at White Nationalists March in Virginia, Local Emergency Declared.
Altercations erupted Saturday morning and at least two people were hurt as white nationalists and counter-protesters violently clashed in Charlottesville, Virginia, where local police and the governor declared a state of emergency.
Supporters of the “Unite the Right” rally descended again on the city’s downtown in opposition to clergy members and other groups, who stood in a line singing, “This Little Light of Mine,” to drown out the profanity and slurs.
“Love has already won. We have already won,” the counter-protesters responded.
But as the violence intensified with shoving and punching, demonstrators covered their mouths after what appeared to be tear gas was released into the crowd.
The city and Albemarle County both issued a “declaration of local emergency” for the two jurisdictions to request additional resources. Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe also declared a state of emergency to allow for a response to quell the violence.
The rally hasn’t even started yet, but it has been called off. We’ll have to wait and see what happens next.
Yesterday White House employee Sebastian Gorka defended white supremacists. Think Progress: White House adviser says people should stop criticizing white supremacists so much.
On Wednesday, Gorka lashed out at “at [New York Times reporter] Maggie Haberman and her acolytes in the fake news media, who immediately have a conniption fit” and brought up McVeigh. He added that “white men” and “white supremacists” are not “the problem.”
It’s this constant, “Oh, it’s the white man. It’s the white supremacists. That’s the problem.” No, it isn’t, Maggie Haberman. Go to Sinjar. Go to the Middle East, and tell me what the real problem is today. Go to Manchester.
Gorka noted that the Oklahoma City bombing was 22 years ago, which is true. But since 9/11, right-wing extremists — almost always white men and frequently white supremacists — have been far more deadly domestically than Muslim extremists. A study found that in the first 13.5 years after 9/11, Muslim extremists were responsible for 50 deaths in the United States. Meanwhile, “right-wing extremists averaged 337 attacks per year in the decade after 9/11, causing a total of 254 fatalities.”
I wonder if he went to the rally in Charlottesville?
Meanwhile, Trump has apparently been threatening a nuclear holocaust in an effort to change the subject from the Russia investigation, because there’s no sign of the U.S. military gearing up for war or of the government moving to evacuate U.S. citizens from South Korea and other areas that could be threatened by strikes on North Korea.
US Naval Base in Guam
Defense News: If the US is going to war in North Korea, nobody told the US military.
If you watch cable news or follow the president’s Twitter feed, you might be under the impression that the U.S. is heading to war with North Korea. But somebody, it seems, forgot to loop in the U.S. military.
North Korea is threatening to launch missiles toward Guam; U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted Friday morning that military options were “locked and loaded;” NBC News ran a story Wednesday claiming the U.S. had ”prepared a plan” to strike North Korean missile sites with B-1 bombers.
But while the rhetoric is nearing a fever pitch in D.C., out in the Pacific you’d never know the world was on the brink of nuclear war.
In Yokosuka, Japan, the U.S. Navy’s forward-deployed ready aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan sits peacefully pier-side, along with the U.S. 7th Fleet command ship Blue Ridge. On the Korean Peninsula, the State Department has not advised American citizens to leave the country and U.S. military family members are not being evacuated. No Marines are being loaded on amphibious ships; no sailors have been recalled off leave to prepare for emergency operations; and no ballistic missile defense ships have been sortied to North Korea, the waters off Japan or to Guam, three sources said.
The frenzied rhetoric being propelled by the president’s words and fed back by the news cycle is, for the second time this year, failing to match what’s actually happening, sources told Defense News.
Continue reading at the link.
Eddie Baza Calvo Govornor of Guam
I guess Trump wasn’t satisfied with the panic he has caused around the world, because yesterday he seemed to threaten military intervention in Venezuela. But more evidence that this is nothing but a “wag the dog” strategy came in a phone call Trump made to the governor of Guam late last night. The New York Times: Trump to Guam Governor: North Korea Threats Will Boost Tourism ‘Tenfold.’
If there’s one thing that Guam does not have to worry about while the tiny island is in the nuclear cross hairs of North Korea, it’s tourism, President Trump told the island’s governor in a phone call made public on Saturday.
The threat by North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, to create “an enveloping fire” around the tiny United States territory in the Western Pacific will boost Guam tourism “tenfold,” Mr. Trump is heard saying in the recorded conversation with Gov. Eddie Calvo.
The recording was put on the Republican governor’s Facebook page and other social media accounts.
Mr. Trump said: “I have to tell you, you have become extremely famous all over the world. They are talking about Guam; and they’re talking about you.” And when it comes to tourism, he added, “I can say this: You’re going to go up, like, tenfold with the expenditure of no money.”
Trump is another P.T. Barnum, and he’s turned our government into a three-ring circus. It appears he is actually enjoying his ability to strike terror into millions of people around the globe. He’s getting off on it. I’m beginning to wonder if Trump suffers from bi-polar disorder. He is acting as if he’s in a manic phase and about to spiral out of control.
Journalist Daniel Dale tweeted a comparison of the White House readout of the Guam call vs. an actual transcript.
The New York Times and The Atlantic each have lengthy articles up asking why Trump can’t ever criticize Putin. Neither author suggests what is likely the real reason–Trump is a Russian asset.
The New York Times: Combative Trump Pulls His Punches for One Man: Putin.
TheAtlantic: Why Does Trump Still Refuse to Criticize Putin?
A couple more interesting stories I came across this morning, and then I’m going to retire to my bed to nurse a throbbing headache caused by reading about all this insanity.
The Hill: Former Mueller deputy on Trump: ‘Government is going to kill this guy.’
CNN counterterrorism analyst Phil Mudd warned that President Trump is agitating the government, saying during a Thursday afternoon interview with CNN anchor Jake Tapper that the U.S. government “is going to kill this guy.”
Mudd, who served as deputy director to former FBI Director Robert Mueller, said Trump’s defense of Russian President Vladimir Putin has compelled federal employees “at Langley, Foggy Bottom, CIA and State” to try to take Trump down.
“Let me give you one bottom line as a former government official. Government is going to kill this guy,” Mudd, a staunch critic of Trump, said on “The Lead.”
“He defends Vladimir Putin. There are State Department and CIA officers coming home, and at Langley and Foggy Bottom, CIA and State, they’re saying, ‘This is how you defend us?’ ” he continued.
Read the rest of Mudd’s rant at the link.
Nina Burleigh at Newsweek: Melania, Ivanka and Ivana Trump Wear High Heels, a Symbol of Everything that is Beautiful and Horrifying about Them.
The vertiginous spike-heel shoe is not currently in fashion, but for Ivana, Ivanka, Melania and the Trump daughters-in-law, Carrie Bradshaw’s shoe of choice never went out of style. In fact, the female consorts of the Leader of the Free World do not set foot in public without first molding their arches into the supranatural curve that Mattel toy designers once devised for Barbie’s plastic feet.
Providing the best quality for a product, being flexible, but still stronger than even the steel, Romeorim guarantees for this material and offers you a possibility to find out more by checking the designed guide.
Six months in, and the Trump women are well on their way to normalizing the footwear of the beauty pageant. The Cinderella shoe fitted on the feet of all the Miss Teen USA’s and Miss Universes who ever beamed under the Trumpian gaze in contests of yore also is the shoe that average women can bear for only a few hours at weddings or proms, before casting them off, moaning and rubbing their soles.Former Vogue editor Andre Leon Talley, a longtime friend of Melania Trump’s, believes that, other than the White House Easter Egg hunt on the lawn, Melania has not been photographed as first lady without her feet arched into one of two brands of towering high-heeled shoes that she favors, Manolo Blahniks or the 4.5-inch-heeled Oh So Kate by Christian Louboutin. (Talley says Melania picked up 22 pairs of Manolos in various colors before decamping to the White House last month.)
In their old age, these women will need serious health care for their feet.
The stiletto is a podiatrist’s dream, or nightmare, depending on your point of view, because devoted wearers ultimately require medical attention. “As you get older in these shoes, your feet are going to have problems,” Talley says. “I am not gonna say Melania is gonna have them soon, but sooner or later she is going have to come down off that high arch.”
The internet and YouTube are rife with tutorials on how to bear the pain (bandages, gel inserts, baby powder) and walk gracefully in them. Michelle Phan’s “How to Master the High Heel” tutorial has received millions of views. Her nuggets of advice include: “Your first assignment when walking in heels is to find a straight line and follow it,” and “For every step you take, you need to have a general awareness of where your heel is being placed.”
Stiletto pumps demand a critical level of attention to pebbles, cobbles, sidewalk cracks, mud, grass, curbs and stairs—all while keeping head erect and shoulders back—that has sometimes eluded even the greatest public females. Remember Naomi Campbell’s famous runway spill. Or Jennifer Lawrence tripping up the steps to receive her Oscar.
But not the Trump women. Read the rest at the link.
What stories are you following today?
peej
Carissa
ecocatwoman
grayslady
mablue2
NW Luna
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Repost from last thread.
tRump is planning an announcement for Monday and supposedly traveling to DC. Rachel Maddow floated the idea that he would appoint Manchin (D) senator from WV to Secretary of Energy. This would be a ploy to up votes to repeal and replace ACA. WV Governor just switched to republican and would replace Manchin with a republican giving them the extra vote needed.
http://www.wvgazettemail.com/news-politics/20170811/manchin-possibly-emerging-as-pick-to-lead-us-energy-department
I’d be surprised if Manchin falls for that.
Me too. But it does cause one to wonder.
//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Well, that’s sweet!!!
Good. Wish they’d have hauled him away face down.
//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
This is extremely disturbing…was anyone killed?
This disturbs me more about tRump than his impotent threats about DPRK – that he has unleashed this here, in my country. And even sucked my own brother in.
Not sure. I know there were some serious injuries. Trump is supposed to speak about it soon. Ugh.
I just half-listened on the little TV next to the kitchen – he didn’t condemn white nationalism outright. Just boilerplate platitudes and something something bigotry on “all sides”. All sides my a$$.
New from the NYT:
Mueller Is Said to Seek Interviews With West Wing in Russia Case
Oh boy oh boy oh boy!!!
I know right? HURRY!!!!!!
Hurry hurry hurry hurry!
//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Avalokiteshvara help us.
om mani padme hum
Did they catch the driver?
tRump kept calling Charlottesville “Charleston” at first – reporters saying he seemed uncomfortable, it was awkward and he ultimately ditched the Q&A session.
Not yet. He’s a murderer now.
Virginia is a death penalty state.
Good God Almighty!
Joan Walsh was on AM Joy this morning and was pretty unimpressed with these alt-right showing up with their “mommie’s tiki torches”. She won’t give them anything more than utter contempt as should we all.
Until one of them is a murderer.
//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Trump is invalid! He is full of hate. He is cold, cruel, and frankly, sick.
Trump tweets: “sad.” Seems more concerned with lying about his “working” vacation.
Wow. Law enforcement guy on MSNBC calls out POTUS, says he should get rid of the sympathizers in the WH. Jim Cavanaugh
Speaking truth!
It would mean getting rid of POTUS too.
I saw that – Cavanaugh specifically called out Gorka with his Nazi pin.
I know that I am supposed to condemn all violence but actually I am glad that there were people there willing to risk a violent confrontation to send the message ‘”Not today motherfucker!”
If regular Germans had kicked Nazis in the ass in the 1920s when the brownshirts started their intimidation tactics all of world history would be different.
The one thing that I will never forget about the Women’s March after the election was the NAACP official who spoke. “NOT ONE STEP BACK!” was his rallying cry. Not for women, not for minorities, not for humanity.
Let’s make that a reality, “NOT ONE STEP BACK!” If I have to take a punch in the head for hat so be it. I am usually totally nonviolent. But I am ready to fight for the right thing.
NOT ONE STEP BACK!
Not one step back………I’ll never be one to step back.
I read today that 16,000 women have reached out to Emily’s List for help running for local offices.
NOT ONE STEP BACK!
Blub
Not one step backward.
Fuck him. The violence comes from his side.
He’s a fucking breeder for the KKK.
Exactly what I was thinking..he doesn’t condemn the bigoted, hate filled alt right!
Remember that he offered to pay the legal fees for any supporter who beat up a protester?
GOP, you lie down with dogs and get up with fleas.
You’ve been lying down with dog whistles for fifty years.
Own it and make repairs.
I’m reading that they got the guy. Here’s an incredible photo from the Boston Globe…
I’m grateful that there were a lot of warnings and pleas asking people to stay out of Charlottesville today. My liberal women’s group posted a warning and Governor McAuliffe posted a warning. There was intel that the white supremacists intended violence so a lot of us stayed away.
Charlottesville is a beautiful, historic city and this is heartbreaking.
Janicen, that photo has me all screwed up. Seeing it makes me scream from my soul.
I’m sorry, Fannie. I thought it captured exactly what happened well along with the license plate of the car but moderators, please take it down if you feel it’s too disturbing.
No. We need to see what happened. Trump should be made to sit down and watch the videos and view the photos.
Yes we need to see what happened. Cable news is not playing the most disturbing videos which is understandable.
MSNBC is now playing a tape of the car attack – it shows the car as it hits the other cars.
No don’t be sorry. I’ve been posting all week long about the Aryan Brotherhood, and here is the photo to prove what I was trying to get across. They are a fatal breed of people, and they aren’t going to change.
Why did the police stand by for so long just watching people assault each other?
McAuliffe is going to give a presser in a couple minutes. From what I understand, the State Police were on standby. They did not want to repeat the scenes from Ferguson and Baltimore. The violence was supposedly scattered and spotty. The actual rally was not supposed to start until noon.
I’m sure he’ll do a lot better than the so-called “president.” They’re going to show it on MSNBC.
Once things started to bubble over, the state police contacted Governor McAuliffe and asked him to declare a state of emergency. He did that and that gave the state police the authority to shut things down and move in.
As you can probably see from the television scenes, Charlottesville is an old city with narrow, often cobblestone streets. There were pockets of demonstrations everywhere. I think it was hard to effectively police while still allowing the protest to happen. I agree, the comparison to Ferguson and Baltimore where the protestors were black create optics that the police were soft on the white protestors. That is not the case. Virginia is very progressive in it’s policing with a lot of neighborhood interaction. When there were BLM protests in the city of Richmond, police actually marched along with the protestors.
I apologize for the misplaced apostrophe. *its*
I’m pretty shaken. We always park in that parking garage when we go there and frequent all of those streets. We’ll be going in that direction tomorrow because it’s my husband’s mother’s birthday. We’re going to take a different route and drive the back roads so we don’t drive close to Charlottesville. Not that I think it would be dangerous but I just don’t want to see any cars with confederate flags or any of that crap.
Thanks, that is good to know.
Every time I’ve protested here for women’s rights or when we were picketing the Health Department over abortion regulation, the police were very nice and we felt they were there to protect us, not harass us.
Thanks for the background info, Janice.
Yes, thank you.
Ditto…… be safe.
Old tactic. That is what they did in Watts. It is what thy did in Detroit. Let ugly things happen so that when they finally swoop in with brutality and overkill they can say, “I thought you asked us to do something?”
It is cynically and the opposite of serve and protect but it is what they do.
Right on!
As the chief of police in Charlottesville just said, NONE of the injuries were a result of police actions. There was no brutality on the part of the police.
Well, it certainly looks like instead of protecting they were inactive.
Other than the victims of the terrorist driving the car, what serious injuries have been reported? I hate being in the position of defending cops but it’s lazy to point to police and say it was all their fault. They weren’t perfect, but there are no images of them beating the shit out of American citizens. As well, they shut things down as soon as serious violence broke out. The terrorist with the car attacked people who had gathered after the police canceled the protest and dispersed the crowd.
I didn’t know that part, janicen (that the cops had dispersed the crowd). The Cville police chief in the video clip I posted downthread did say that none of the injuries were from policy on protestors.
Because the police are the problem. Where were they? For sure they damn well knew that the KKK was chock full of violence and lawlessness. This is there history, and the police damn well know it. I think that the next speech, Trump will talk about law enforcement. I bet you.
I mean this started last night.
//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
MSNBC reporting that state police helicopter has crashed in Charlottesville.
How horrible. And they are reporting 35 injuries now, up from 19.
Horrible, just horrible. Preparing three caskets.
From last night.
//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Again…but her emails. Oh how I wish she was in the White House.
Heartbreaking.
I am sickened by seeing Nazi flags on display on American soil. Shocking!
https://twitter.com/isteintraum/status/896504567814176769
Hope he is taking a hot shower tonight, with lots of soap.
//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
I’ve been thinking … Trump needs a diversion from his Russian collusion and treason … so he blathers inciting tweets on the international front…and in case that’s not enough diversion, he uses back channels to drop hints to his nazi followers?
Perp’s murdering act is treated as “criminal homicide”
This is so tragic on so many levels. I wonder if he’s a young kid. I do not condone it regardless of course, but this infection doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Queue the “lone wolf” defense in 3, 2, 1.
Just as an aside – has anyone else really come to like Richard Painter? I sorta wish more Dems were that outspoken.
He’s the former GWB official who is always on MSNBC.
Yes, he seems a throwback to the Republicans back in the days of Eisenhower.
Hell, Nixon’s healthcare plan was more liberal than Romney/Obamacare.
Whut, they don’t a memory of all that.
My father was sent to Europe to fight Nazis.
Thank God, he came back or I and my sisters wouldn’t be here.
Salute to your father.
My dad too.
Salute to your dad.
https://twitter.com/JeanLR/status/896389719365488640
The McAuliffes knew the two state troopers who were killed today.
BB and anyone close to Boston —