Posted: June 1, 2016 | Author: dakinikat | Filed under: 2016 elections, Afternoon Reads | Tags: Donald Trump, KKK, Nazis, the Mafia, the MOB, Trump University |
Steve Bell, UK, The Guardian
Good Afternoon!
I’ve watched the Republican Party go straight down the drain from about the time they nominated and beatified a senile old B movie Actor for President. I really thought that was about the worst they could do after Richard Nixon. Then came Dubya Bush. That had to be the worst, right? Well, I was wrong. They’re in the process of nominating a reality show celebrity with longstanding ties to the Mafia and the White Supremacy movement whose lies more than 90% of the time and has absolutely no understanding of the world beyond his penis and phony persona. He’s a huckster with so many failed businesses–seeded by his inheritance and tax incentives–that it’s even difficult to take him seriously when he touts his special deal-making talent.
Yes, don’t we all wish we had a rich father who co-signed every deal and whose death ended the dealing because there was no longer a co-signer? Any one could do business on those terms. The laundry list above is basically what the media buries below the free advertising it bestows on a man that should be a pariah.
The other thing, too, that I think the media has to hold his feet to the fire on is he’s gotten away with this notion that he’s a superior deal-maker, and a very successful businessman. I thought about it after he went after the Iran deal. He said, “Obama negotiated this horrible deal with Iran. It’s a bad deal, and when I get to Washington, there won’t be bad deals anymore. I’m a great deal-maker.” And then the reality, the objective reality, is that he’s been a horrible deal-maker. His career is littered with bad deals. And yet, he’s essentially now a human shingle. He’s not someone who’s a particularly adept deal-maker, if you look at his whole career.
Donald Trump Biographer Timothy O’Brien
Why are the Republicans doing this to our nation? How much do they despise our country?
“This is too unreal. Can we watch something more realistic like Star Wars?” Philip Ytournel, Denmark’s Politiken
The consolidation that is now occurring within the Republican Party around this horrible human being who is widely recognized as being essentially morally and intellectually bankrupt is beyond horrifying. It is the stuff that makes the most cynical of us start applying the Godwin Frame. What kind of candidate is praised by the pariah state of North Korea?
Writing in
DPRK Today, a self-described Chinese North Korean scholar named Han Yong Mook called the presumptive Republican nominee “wise” and a “far-sighted presidential candidate.”
“The president that U.S. citizens must vote for is not that dull Hillary — who claimed to adapt the Iranian model to resolve nuclear issues on the Korean Peninsula — but Trump, who spoke of holding direct conversation with North Korea,” he wrote.
I cannot understand how many people do not see the appalling lack of character in this man. He is not fit for any level of public service and should’ve been cut off from any use of public funds years ago. It’s amazing to me that he’s not run afoul of the law before however, I am very aware that getting a rich white man into jail for stealing public treasure and racketeering is not an easily accomplished task given they can run amok in the justice system for some time. The Trump “University” scam should have landed the man in jail.
Fernando Liera, Mexico
I’ve taught university for some time both in for-profit Universities and state run Universities and community colleges. The stories coming out of the failed Trump “University” are horrifying. An article in The Atlantic written by Matt Ford refers to it as “The Art of the Swindle.” That’s very aptly put.
Predators, by and large, do not attack the strongest prey in the wild. They instead target the vulnerable, the very young, and the very old—the prey that is least able to defend itself.
Trump University, the defunct real-estate education program created by presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump, pursued a similar approach, according to its former employees in legal documents unsealed Tuesday.
“Based upon my personal experience and employment, I believe that Trump University was a fraudulent scheme, and that it preyed upon the elderly and uneducated to separate them from their money,” said Ronald Schnackenberg, a sales manager at Trump University in 2006 and 2007.
Those declarations and other internal Trump University documents depict an aggressive, ethically dubious business model that targeted potential customers’ financial fears and socioeconomic anxieties and offered Trump’s personal brand as the solution—a strategy later echoed in his presidential campaign.
The model of registering students in for-profit Universities is frequently to line up Sales People that have innocuous names like Student Adviser or Recruiter to apply the screws. Many of these For-Profits have either failed or reformed under lawsuit, threat of losing any accreditation they may have achieved or under threat of losing the ability to provide Student Loans. Trump “University” was never accredited and therefore never regulated under Federal laws. So, it operated outside even the worst of these models. Completely false information was provided to students as part of a heavy-handed sales pitch. This article from HuffPo has some extremely interesting documents that were released by Judge Curiel via a decision related to Art Cohen v. Donald J. Trump.
Since he launched his presidential bid last year, Trump has offered conflicting accounts of his involvement with Trump University. In March, Trump defended the company during a debate, saying that its salespeople “did a good job” and that the program had an “A” rating from the Better Business Bureau. (The truth is a little more complicated.) Trump has also claimed in promotional videos that he hand-picked the instructors at Trump U.
The playbooks instruct salespeople to mention Trump by name in order to intimidate potential customers who are hesitant to spend thousands of dollars on a Trump University product. “Mr. Trump will not listen to excuses,” the playbook tells salespeople to say, “and neither will we.”
In another scenario, salespeople are instructed to berate potential customers, telling them, “You’ve had your entire adult life to accomplish your financial goals… and you’re not even close to where you need to be.”
TRUMP UNIVERSITY
But according to more than 5,000 former Trump University customers, it wasn’t their plans that were flawed — it was the Trump U. business model itself. Many of the former students now suing Trump say they were pressured into spending money they didn’t have on Trump University products.
The playbook instructed Trump University employees on how to target potential customers with bad credit. “What most people do,” reads one prompt, “is handle the tuition by putting it on their credit cards because it gives them the ability to make very small monthly payments and maintain a low overhead to run their real estate project.” Later on, it says, they can “use their success in real estate to pay off the banks in a couple of months or so.”
“However, you don’t seem to have the advantage of having that kind of leveraging power,” the pitch continues. “Do you have any other seed capital or savings set aside to further invest into your real estate projects?”
TRUMP UNIVERSITY
The playbook also emphasizes the need to collect key financial information from potential customers. Salespeople were instructed to find out if clients were single parents who “had three children that may need money for food,” for example, or if they were a “middle-aged commuter.”
Steve Bell, UK. The Guardian
This is an equally horrifying lede from NY Magazine : “Trump University Told Recruiters to Target Single Parents With Hungry Kids.” The analysis is provided by Eric Levitz.
It’s worth remembering that even before Donald Trump launched his pseudo-fascist campaign for the presidency, he was already among the most loathsome humans our great nation has ever produced. On Tuesday, U.S. district court judge Gonzalo Curiel ordered the public release of Trump University’s “playbooks” — guides the (bait-and-switch scheme masquerading as a) real-estate school used to recruit (or con) its enrollees. The playbooks show that prospective students were encouraged to pay for the program, which could cost up to $35,000, by going into credit-card debt.
“We teach the technique of using OPM … other people’s money,” reads one sales script that was obtained by The Hill. “Most students who are invited to this program use established lines of credit, like a credit card, utilizing the bank’s money, OPM, to handle their tuition. I’m not talking about tens of thousands of dollars, but on the other hand, not a couple of hundred dollars either.”
In practice, Trump University staff delivered this message a bit more crudely, according to newly released written testimony obtained by the New York Times. “It’s O.K., just max out your credit card,” Corrine Sommer, an event manager at the school, recalled her colleagues telling prospective students.
If a cash-strapped applicant said, “I don’t like using my credit cards and going into debt,” the playbook instructed recruiters to respond, “[D]o you like living paycheck to paycheck? … Do you enjoy seeing everyone else but yourself in their dream houses and driving their dreams cars with huge checking accounts? Those people saw an opportunity, and didn’t make excuses, like what you’re doing now.”
Most charmingly, the playbooks suggest recruiters exploit the desperation of a single parent with hungry children in order to convince said parent to take on massive credit-card debt.
The Republican Party is well known for its massive and nasty Opposition Research and character smear blitzes. Roger Stone is with Trump so he obviously was not on the job working against his friend. However, where were the people behind Jeb Bush? This massive amount of information has been out there. The Politico link which leads to the first quote is an interview with five Trump Biographers who all basically find him to be an appalling person with pages of examples and citations.
Both the press and the Republican party have not done due diligence with Trump. Are they that obsessed about Hillary Clinton that they’ll let a fascist in the White House with less morality than any sentient being slithering, crawling, or slinking in the deepest, darkest nether regions of our planet?
So, the Mafia connections are pretty brazen also. You can read my friend Peter’s take on them here at First Draft. Peter excerpts a particularly horrifying article from David Cay Johnston.
David Rowe, Australia, The Australian Financial Review
I’m not the only one who has picked up signals over the years. Wayne Barrett, author of a 1992 investigative biography of Trump’s real-estate dealings, has tied Trump to mob and mob-connected men.
No other candidate for the White House this year has anything close to Trump’s record of repeated social and business dealings with mobsters, swindlers, and other crooks. Professor Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian, said the closest historical example would be President Warren G. Harding and Teapot Dome, a bribery and bid-rigging scandal in which the interior secretary went to prison. But even that has a key difference: Harding’s associates were corrupt but otherwise legitimate businessmen, not mobsters and drug dealers.
This is part of the Donald Trump story that few know. As Barrett wrote in his book, Trump didn’t just do business with mobbed-up concrete companies: he also probably met personally with Salerno at the townhouse of notorious New York fixer Roy Cohn, in a meeting recounted by a Cohn staffer who told Barrett she was present. This came at a time when other developers in New York were pleading with the FBI to free them of mob control of the concrete business.
From the public record and published accounts like that one, it’s possible to assemble a clear picture of what we do know. The picture shows that Trump’s career has benefited from a decades-long and largely successful effort to limit and deflect law enforcement investigations into his dealings with top mobsters, organized crime associates, labor fixers, corrupt union leaders, con artists and even a one-time drug trafficker whom Trump retained as the head of his personal helicopter service.
Now that he’s running for president, I pulled together what’s known – piecing together the long history of federal filings, court records, biographical anecdotes, and research from my and Barrett’s files. What emerges is a pattern of business dealings with mob figures—not only local figures, but even the son of a reputed Russian mob boss whom Trump had at his side at a gala Trump hotel opening, but has since claimed under oath he barely knows.
Tom Robbins writing for Vice also has some very telling information.
Actually, there’s an old FBI memo that puts a different spin on Trump’s attitude about the mob. It is a classic example of a young but already shrewd Trump hard at work. It was written in 1981 by a veteran FBI agent, reflecting meetings that he and a fellow FBI official were having with the 35-year-old developer from Queens, then a rising star in New York’s business firmament. The topic of the meetings was Trump’s pending plunge into the Atlantic City casino industry. And while the memo was written in the stilted language of FBI-bureaucratese, Trump’s wide-eyed comments were recorded with what seems like barely suppressed amusement. “Trump advised agents that he had read in the press and media and had heard from various acquaintances that Organized Crime elements were known to operate in Atlantic City,” the memo states.
Then, there are the ties to white supremacist groups. This recent Forbes article is on his propensity to retweet NAZIs. Okay, I finally Godwinned.
Trump is “giving us the old wink-wink,” wrote Andrew Anglin, editor of a white supremacist website called The Daily Stormer, after Trump retweeted two other “white genocide” theorists within a single minute. “Whereas the odd White genocide tweet could be a random occurrence, it isn’t statistically possible that two of them back to back could be a random occurrence. It could only be deliberate…Today in America the air is cold and it tastes like victory.”
It is possible that Trump ― who, according to the campaign, does almost all of his own tweeting ― is unfamiliar with the term “white genocide” and doesn’t do even basic vetting of those whose tweets he amplifies to his seven million followers. But the reality is that there are dozens of tweets mentioning @realDonaldTrump each minute, and he has an uncanny ability to surface ones that come from accounts that proudly proclaim their white supremacist leanings.
There’s this article from The Atlantic which diagram’s Trump’s language to the KKK of the 1920s which would indicate his father’s influence. Where was the sunlight on this last fall? The analysis is by Kelly J. Baker.
Making America great required exclusion, intolerance, and vitriol. Unfortunately for the Klan, their message of 100 percent Americanism started losing ground by the end of the 1920s. Public scandals involving Klan leaders and convictions of Klansmen for murder made white Americans reconsider their allegiance to the order and its increasingly tarnished ideals. The Klan started to appear too extreme and dangerous for even the slightest association. Their steep rise was tempered by an equally steep fall. Moreover, the Klan developed an image problem: their persistent association with racism—which continues to plague the modern Klans despite efforts to rebrand their image to reflect the love of the white race, not racism per se.
The Klan’s message of 100 percent Americanism and restrictive immigration resonated in the 1920s, and their message gains traction again and again every time white Americans encounter social change and shifting demographics. With a black president, LGBT equality, an enormous Hispanic community, and predictions that America will soon be a majority minority country, their message resonates now, too. That’s why a former Klan leader is encouraging other white supremacists to vote for Trump and why The New Yorker’s Evan Osnos found that extremist white-rights groups also plan to vote for him. Maybe Trump doesn’t know better. Or maybe the echoes are less like echoes and more like the purposeful conjuring of a racialized message—one that too many white voters still want to hear.
You can follow any of these links to Trump’s sordid past, present, and undoubtedly our conjoined future. Perhaps both the Republican Party and the media are so caught up in their own frames that they’ve failed to take Trump seriously. We’re beginning to see more standard vetting now. However, it’s nearly too late. Phillip Bump of WAPO analyzes the consolidation of the party around Trump.
What’s changed, though, is that Republicans have warmed up to the guy. As the Times writes, “[U]nfavorable views toward Mr. Trump among Republican voters have plummeted 15 percentage points since last month; 21 percent now express an unfavorable view of him, down from 36 percent in April.” We pointed out last week that consolidating the Republican base would make Trump’s favorability numbers look more like Clinton’s, and voila.
The subtext to that is this: With their nominee settled, Republicans are rallying around him. There’s more evidence to this effect than is worth delineating, but this is not uncommon for presidential races.
There will be undoubtedly be much white washing. He’s still getting more free press than any one ever has before. Just this week as Clinton was introducing major policy initiatives on the military and veterans, the cable TV cameras were focused on an empty podium waiting the wildly-coiffed one. Corporate news chases profits and this man needs to be stopped at all costs. The two countries in the world that welcome Trump are Putin’s Russia and North Korea. The rest are horrified. We all should be horrified.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
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Posted: May 30, 2016 | Author: dakinikat | Filed under: 2016 elections, Afternoon Reads, worker rights | Tags: gun violence, Justice for Harambe, Memorial Day |
Good Afternoon!
Today is Memorial Day in the United States. It’s the day we set aside to honor those who died in service to our country. The day was originally known as Decoration Day. It was recognized in 1868 when a organization of Union veterans established the day as a day to decorate the graves of Union Soldiers. It is believed that former slaves were the first to actually have a Memorial Day type event in 1865 which inspired Northerners to do similar things.
This occurred in Charleston, SC to honor 257 dead Union Soldiers who had been buried in a mass grave in a Confederate prison camp. They dug up the bodies and worked for 2 weeks to give them a proper burial as gratitude for fighting for their freedom. Together with teachers and missionaries, Black residents of Charleston organized a May Day ceremony that year which was covered by the New York Tribune and other national papers.
The freedmen cleaned up and landscaped the burial ground, building an enclosure and an arch labeled, “Martyrs of the Race Course.” Nearly ten thousand people, mostly freedmen, gathered on May 1 to commemorate the war dead. Involved were about 3,000 Black school children newly enrolled in Freedmen’s schools, mutual aid societies, Union troops, Black ministers, and White northern missionaries. Most brought flowers to be placed on the burial field. Years later, the celebration would come to be called the “First Decoration Day” in the North.
I still find it intriguing that states like Mississippi don’t recognize the day as a holiday–other than Federal Agencies that follow Federal Holiday Schedules–since it’s considered a “Yankee” Holiday. There was a competing Confederate holiday but the two were eventually merged for all but neoconfederates like those in Mississippi. Our family used to use the day to picnic at family cemetery plots to do general all purpose gardening and clean up. I can remember mother’s personal fight to keep the peonies off the grave stones in Kansas City and various small towns in Kansas and Missouri.
A lot of people confuse Veteran’s Day with Memorial Day which in a way is a bit sad. Memorial Day is specifically a remembrance to those who died while in the military in either battle or in support of those in battle. They used to sell little red poppies to honor the World War 1 dead. We always got one in remembrance of my Dad’s Uncle Jack for whom he was named. Uncle Jack made it home but died within a few years from the effects of mustard gas. I’m not sure that we do much of anything like that any more but given we still lose many active service members to war and military excursions, we should remember their sacrifice uniquely. Veteran’s Day for those who lived through their service. Armed Forces Day for those serving now. Memorial Day for those who died while in service to our country.
Of course, what week could go by without another crazed mass shooting? Here’s the local headline from Houston: “TWO DEAD, 6 INJURED AFTER TERRIFYING MASS SHOOTING IN WEST HOUSTON.”
A man came into a west Houston auto detail shop and began shooting, killing a man known to be a customer and putting a neighborhood on lockdown Sunday before being killed by a SWAT officer, police said.
You can read the details but I’m beginning to think that we’ve got civilians in our country that are dying in battlefields too. Unfortunately, the battlefields are shopping centers, movie theatres, and all kinds of places in American Cities. 
I hesitate to bring this story up because I find it super upsetting but I know we have folks here that love our furry relations as much as I do. A child fell into a zoo enclosure last week which resulted in the shooting of a rare lowland gorilla. There are a number of videos out that I don’t have the heart to watch. Grief is turning to outrage over the gorilla’s death. Here’s a story on that.
The killing of an endangered gorilla at the Cincinnati Zoo to rescue a boy who fell into a dangerous enclosure unleashed an outpouring of grief on over the holiday weekend.
Within hours, that grief had turned to fury as critics questioned the zoo’s decision to kill the endangered 17-year-old gorilla, named Harambe, and called for the boy’s parents to be punished for not adequately supervising their child.
A Facebook page called “Justice for Harambe” received more than 41,000 “likes” within hours of its creation. The page’s description says it was created to “raise awareness of Harambe’s murder” and includes YouTube tributes and memes celebrating the western lowland gorilla and admonishing zoo officials.
“Shooting an endangered animal is worse than murder,” a commenter from Denmark named Per Serensen wrote on the page. “Soooo angry.”
Lt. Steve Saunders, a spokesman for the Cincinnati Police Department, told the Cincinnati Enquirer that they have no plans to charge the child’s parents.
That news didn’t stop tens of thousands from signing multiple online petitions calling for Cincinnati Child Protective Services to investigate the boy’s parents — who have not been identified — for negligence.
“I’m signing because a beautiful critically endangered animal was killed as a direct result of her failure to supervise her child,” one signee wrote. “I don’t blame the zoo staff for the decision they made, I’m sure they’re heartbroken.”
“If she’d watched her child he wouldn’t have been in the gorilla enclosure in the first place,” the commenter added.
A petition on Change.org asks for legislation to be passed that creates “legal consequences when an endangered animal is harmed or killed due to the negligence of visitors.” The petition has amassed more than 40,000 signatures.
Here’s another take on the situation including the videos. Witnesses say the boy wanted to go into the water inside the enclosure. They also indicated that entering the enclosure was not an easy task.
The incident drew widespread attention as dramatic video spread across the Internet showing Harambe dragging the boy like a rag doll through the water across the habitat.
The boy climbed through a barrier and fell some 15 feet to a shallow moat in Harambe’s enclosure, Maynard said.
Kimberley Ann Perkins O’Connor, who captured some of the incident on her phone, told CNN she overheard the boy joking to his mother about going into the water.
Suddenly, a splash drew the crowd’s attention to the boy in the water. The crowd started screaming, drawing Harambe’s attention to the boy, O’Connor said.
At first, it looked like Harambe was trying to help the boy, O’Connor said. He stood him up and pulled up his pants.
As the crowd’s clamors grew, Harambe tossed the boy into a corner of the moat, O’Connor said, which is when she started filming. Harambe went over to the corner and shielded the boy with his body as the boy’s mother yelled “Mommy’s right here.”
The crowd’s cries appeared to agitate Harambe anew, O’Connor said, and the video shows him grabbing the boy by the foot. He dragged him through the water and out of the moat atop the habitat, O’Connor said.
By that point, “It was not a good scene,” she said. When the boy tried to back away the gorilla “aggressively” pulled him back into his body “and really wasn’t going to let him get away,” she said.
O’Connor left before the shooting. When asked if the the barrier could be easily penetrated by a child, she said it would take some effort.
The Supreme Court is being asked to take up a bankruptcy dispute involving the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City and to decide whether to restore the health and pension benefits of more than 1,000 casino workers.
At issue is a conflict between labor laws that call for preserving collective bargaining agreements and bankruptcy laws that allow a judge to reorganize a business to keep it in operation.
“This is about how a bankruptcy was used to transfer value from working people to the super-rich,” said Richard G. McCracken, general counsel for Unite Here, the hotel and casino workers’ union that appealed to the high court.
Billionaire Carl Icahn stepped in to buy the casino – founded by Donald Trump – after it filed for bankruptcy in 2014.
As the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals said in January, Trump’s “plan of reorganization was contingent on the rejection of the collective bargaining agreement,” also known as the CBA, with the union. Icahn promised a “capital infusion of $100 million” to keep the casino in operation, but “only if the CBA and tax relief contingencies are achieved.”
With that understanding, the Philadelphia-based appeals court upheld a bankruptcy judge’s order that canceled the health insurance and pension contributions called for in the union’s contract. “It is preferable to preserve jobs through a rejection of a CBA, as opposed to losing the positions permanently,” wrote Judge Jane Roth.
The union is urging the Supreme Court to review and reverse that ruling, arguing the labor laws call for preserving collective bargaining agreements, even if they expire during a bankruptcy. The National Labor Relations Board agreed and filed a brief in the support of the casino workers union when the case was before the 3rd Circuit.
So much for Trump and the working person.
Anyway, I’m going to make this short today because most of the stories I’m reading aren’t exactly pleasant. Seems we have a streak of violence going around the country and the headlines reflect that. Chicago is having an extremely violent few days. I was thinking that the violence here might be isolated but it doesn’t appear to be.
June 2nd is “Wear Orange Day” which is a day to commit to ending gun violence. The day started in 2013 when some Chicago kids asked every one to wear orange in remembrance of a friend killed by gun fire. Maybe this holiday will become the Memorial Day for those civilians killed in the battle in our streets.
So, what’s on your reading and blogging list today?
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Posted: May 28, 2016 | Author: dakinikat | Filed under: Afternoon Reads | Tags: Cities of the Dead, economic meltdown, Japanese American internment camps, New Orleans, St. Louis cemetery #1, the bamboo ceiling, Venezuela, white washing |
Happy Memorial Day Weekend!
This is the weekend when we reflect on the costs of war. The holiday is rooted in our own civil war but it gives us a chance to think on those who have come and gone before us. Memorial Day used to be the day my family would go on picnics to the family plots in all these little towns around Kansas and Missouri armed with every imaginable gardening tool. I don’t think we were unique in that but I do think it might’ve been a regional thing to do.
I spent a good deal of yesterday in St. Louis Cemetery #1 standing by a shady palm tree near the crypt memorializing those who died in the Battle of New Orleans from the Orleans Battalion. You’ll see that there were very few dead in this battle on the side of the Republic.
The cemetery dates back to the late 1700s. It’s probably best known as the resting place of Marie Laveau and a crazy movie scene in Easy Rider. I was actually there for a funeral for a favorite professor of a friend. His family were some of the first French folks to settle here. The process of adding new family members to a crypt is an interesting one.
There were tours all around us yesterday. So, the tourists got to hear the piper, the brass band music, and the burial service provided by a priest. I’m always happy when a few of them get to see that the traditions here continue and that we all have to live around the folks who come to visit us. They get to see that we’re actually a living, breathing city and not just a place of old buildings and bars.
While Marie Laveau is probably the most famous inhabitant of crypt space, I’d suggest you read up on Dr. John Montanee who is the father of New Orleans Voodoo. Dr. John actually taught Marie.
Sometimes when a person becomes legendary they cease to be human beings and instead become the legend themselves. Dr. Jean is remembered according to his legend, as a powerful gris gris man who was rich, got a lot of women and who was the teacher of Marie Laveaux. The whole context of the trauma of the Diaspora is left completely out of his-story, and this is not only unfortunate, but it is highly disrespectful. My belief is that his goal from the onset of becoming a slave would have been to reclaim his personal power and power within the community (whatever community he ended up in), and to do so using his strength and charisma. This internal fortitude was enough to achieve his eventual freedom from slavery; it is said that his West Indian master taught him to be an excellent cook and grew quite fond of him, and eventually gave him the gift of freedom. As a result, Dr. Jean left Cuba to be a cook on a ship and eventually ended up in New Orleans where these characteristics of strength, charisma and fortitude landed him as a gang leader of cotton rollers. Within that community, he began to be known for his apparent supernatural powers and fortune telling abilities. This set the tone for his eventual great success in New Orleans. All through the various narratives of his-story, we can see his ability to transcend the normal performance of a given task and exceed all expectations.
Dr. Jean was likely a man who liked to make grand entrances in an effort to make his presence known. But, he more than likely retreated from this showy demeanor to a very warm and gregarious human being. People probably liked him more than not and he likely had many friends, and at least as many acquaintances. He would have been someone who would have started a family as soon as possible and given the culture from which he came, would likely have had more than one wife and many children. Family would have been very important to him and he would have taken his role as provider very seriously – yet another mechanism to drive his entrepreneurial spirit.
In addition to being successful in his various jobs and as a provider, he would have taken his role as a leader of the Voudous quite seriously, as well. As gris gris is a religiomagical system originating in Senegal and practiced by the priests, it makes perfect sense that he would have brought knowledge of the tradition with him to New Orleans. Gris gris is one of the most unique characteristics of New Orleans Voudou and a tradition that persists to this day – his contribution to the New Orleans religion is unsurpassed. He expected to be noticed and he was, as his legacy lives on in the heart of the Mysteries and can be heard and felt in the beat of every drum.
So, there are a lot of folks buried along side the illustrious founding families in this and the many old cemeteries to be found in New 
Orleans.
I’m using all of this to lead up to some sad news. JJ’s brother Denny lost his struggle last night after her eldest son received his high school diploma. This is one of those days where milestones can be bittersweet. We love you JJ and wish all the best as you and your family make these transitions.
So, here’s some suggested reads for today.
Here’s a follow up to my post on the collapse of Venezuela from the NYT:”Venezuela Drifts Into New Territory: Hunger, Blackouts and Government Shutdown.”
Venezuela’s government says the problems are the result of an “economic war” being waged by elites who are hoarding supplies, as well as the American government’s efforts to destabilize the country.
But most economists agree that Venezuela is suffering from years of economic mismanagement, including over-dependence on oil and price controls that led many businesses to stop making products.
Some Venezuelans are channeling their frustrations into demonstrations against the government. Mr. Maduro’s opponents, who now control the National Assembly, have been staging weekly protests in support of the recall referendum.
Last Wednesday, protesters clashed with police officers who fired tear gas at the demonstrations and were attacked with bottles and rocks.
“The economic situation of this country is collapse,” Pablo Parada, a law student, who was participating last week in a hunger strike in front of the O.A.S. office in Caracas. “There are people who go hungry now.”
Mr. Parada said the purpose of his hunger strike was to pressure the O.A.S. to push Venezuelan officials to allow the referendum to take place this year, the only way he felt the country could recover.
There is often little traffic in Caracas simply because so few people, either for lack of money or work, are going out.
On a recent day in the downtown government center, pedestrians milled about, but nearly every building — including several museums, the public registry office and a Social Security center — was empty, giving the appearance of a holiday.
Only the guards were at work.
“It’s in God’s hands now,” said one, Luis Ríos, echoing a common phrase heard here.
Here’s an interesting article in Slate on “White washing” in the Asian American Community and the “bamboo” ceiling in America. 
We’ve discussed before this via the whiter-than-white portrait of Bobby Jindal that once hung in his office.
But I have a somewhat different and darker thought: What if Asian Americans are underrepresented in media because non-Asians have yet to reconcile themselves to Asian overrepresentation in the uppermost echelons of U.S. society? Don’t see that many Asian Americans as CEOs or in other leadership roles? Just give it time. Whether you look in Silicon Valley, Wall Street, elite academia, or America’s burgeoning medical-industrial complex, you’ll find a disproportionately large and fast-growing number of Asian Americans. Earlier generations of Asians often found themselves stymied by the so-called “bamboo ceiling,” which largely reflects the fact that new arrivals in America tend not to have the social connections they need to reach the highest rungs of the organizational ladder.
Sanders continues to be a busybody loser. This time he’s suggesting what Hillary should do for a running mate choice.
“If Hillary Clinton were to win and Hillary Clinton were to bring onboard a conservative or moderate-type Democrat, I think politically that would be a disaster,” Sanders said in an interview with The Young Turks’ Cenk Uygur.
Uygur asked if Sanders had any suggestions for VP — specifically citing Sen. Elizabeth Warren(D-Mass.), whose name has been floating as a possible running mate for months.
Sanders said policy and a track record for fighting against Wall Street were the most important factors in a running mate.
I really have an intense, white-hot dislike of this man.
Here’s another one that’s a great read: “Japanese American internment survivor hears troubling echoes in Trump rhetoric.”
Sugimoto, now 80, finds herself thinking a lot about those three years she spent in internment camps in Arkansas. The spirit of that deeply disturbing part of her childhood, an episode she believes has been all but forgotten within the narrative of American history, appears to be raising its ugly head once again.
“I think it’s dangerous the way he spouts off,” she said. “Not knowing any history, making no connections with what he says should be done today – it’s worrying and upsetting.”
She’s talking about Donald Trump, and his mass targeting of ethnic and religious groups. It’s not Japanese Americans this time: it’s the 11 million undocumented immigrants, mostly Hispanic, he has threatened to round up and deport. It is alsoMuslims, who he has vowed to ban from entering the country just by dint of their faith.
And, no that’s not a ghost up there, although I do profess to being one pale white woman. That’s just whacky little me in funeral attire resplendent with some vintage stuff.
Have a good weekend! Remember, this is an open thread so share links profusely!!!
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Posted: May 25, 2016 | Author: dakinikat | Filed under: 2016 elections | Tags: abortion rights, Hillary Clinton, Mary Lou Bruner, Texas School Boards |
Good Morning!
I’ve got some good and bad news from Texas! Texas is is kinda like that you know? These are the kinds of things that happen when you 
and like-minded people get up and vote crazy out or in. Let me start with the good news. One of the worst of the Texas Christianists ran for a State Education Post and lost big time. It’s hard to even imagine her teaching small children at one time.
The East Texas woman who claimed President Obama was a drug-addicted gay prostitute in his youth was defeated in a Republican primary runoff election Tuesday, losing her bid to become one of the top education officials in Texas.
The woman, Mary Lou Bruner, 69, a former kindergarten teacher, had used her Facebook page to post her extreme views on politics and education. Ms. Bruner called the Boy Scouts “a homosexual organization” and declared that because of her conservative views, Mr. Obama “has had me investigated.” She encouraged parents to home-school their children because that was “the only way you can be in control of what they are taught,” and claimed that school shootings across the country had begun “after the schools started teaching evolution.”
Her postings drew national attention as she campaigned for a seat on the State Board of Education, the 15-member body that sets curriculum standards, adopts textbooks and establishes graduation requirements in Texas public schools. In March, Ms. Bruner earned the most votes in the Republican primary, winning 48 percent, but failed to get enough votes to avoid a runoff.
On Tuesday, Ms. Bruner was defeated by a wide margin by Keven M. Ellis, 45, a chiropractor who is the president of the school board in Lufkin. Because Republicans dominate the district, the winner of the Republican race is expected to beat the Democrat — Amanda M. Rudolph, a professor at Stephen F. Austin State University — in the general election.
“The voters did their homework,” Mr. Ellis said in a statement as he declared victory.
Ms. Bruner never backed away from her remarks on Facebook. “I’m just saying what I believe and what the people of my district agree with,” she said when she declined an interview with The New York Times in March.
One of her biggest critics, the nonprofit Texas Freedom Network, which collected and publicized her Facebook statements, said on Tuesday, “Texas escaped an education train wreck tonight.”
Bruner lost by 18%. I’m sure Texas has not heard the end of her but at least the amount of damage she can inflict on Texas children has been minimized.
Only several months ago, Mary Lou Bruner, 69, of Mineola, Texas, had been the front-runner for the powerful seat on the Texas State Board of Education, the second-largest school system in the nation.
But as conspiracy theories in Bruner’s old Facebook posts surfaced, her lead shrunk. Voters ultimately chose fellow Republican Keven Ellis, a local school board president, for the GOP nomination. Bruner lost by about 18 percent in the primary runoff.
Bruner’s Facebook posts, which have since been deleted, ranged from the biblical to bizarre. The posts went back several years and were published by left-leaning government watchdog group Texas Freedom Network.
In one, she wrote that a flood from Noah’s Ark destroyed dinosaurs — not a meteor invented by atheists.
In another, she claimed Democrats killed John F. Kennedy. And in one of multiple anti-Islam comments, she said House Speaker Paul Ryan’s beard made him look like “a terrorist.”
She also took swings at Obama, claiming he spent years as a prostitute in his twenties, which she claimed enabled him to pay for drugs and explained why he now has a “soft spot for homosexuals.”
Her defeat was celebrated by the group that had outed her Facebook posts.
So here’s what happens when crazy gets elected. “Up against strict laws, Texas women learn do-it-yourself abortions.” (h/t to Adrastos) I have no doubt that Lousiana women will be learning these tricks from their Texas sisters. We have a newly elected Democratic Governor that’s signing everything he can into law to trap and limit women’s right to health care and abortion. This is one who promised that enacting laws in support of his personal religions convictions/fetishes wouldn’t be a priority for him.
Susanna was young, single, broke and pregnant in southern Texas where, thanks to the state’s strict laws, her chances of getting a surgical abortion at a clinic were slim to none.
So she did what an estimated 100,000 women or more in Texas have done – had a self-induced abortion.
With the help of a friend, some online instructions and quick dash across the Mexican border for some pills, she addressed the issue of unwanted pregnancy in a state where women are finding abortion services too expensive and too far away.
Restrictive laws took hold in Texas in 2013, forcing so many clinic closings that fewer than 20 remain to serve 5.4 million women of reproductive age.
Supporters of the laws say they protect women’s health. The regulations require clinics to upgrade to hospital standards and doctors performing abortions to have formal agreements to admit patients to local hospitals.
But experts say that if the U.S. Supreme Court upholds Texas’ restrictive abortion laws, the numbers of self-induced abortions will escalate.
So far, the number of Texas women who have taken that option could be as high as 100,000 to 240,000, depending on how it is calculated, experts say.
“We certainly hypothesize that if there is a bad ruling from the Supreme Court that leads to more clinic closures, yes, this will only become more common,” said Dr. Daniel Grossman of Ibis Reproductive Health in California and researcher with the Texas Policy Evaluation Project at the University of Texas at Austin.
Susanna, a musician in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley who chose to use an alias to protect her identity, described her self-induced abortion two years ago at age 23 as “almost primal.”
“It was like we were back in the days of the Wild West, like we have to figure this out by ourselves and just grit our teeth and get through it,” she said.
Research shows U.S. women opt to self-induce due to the closing of their local clinic, the expense of a clinical procedure or the costs of traveling to a distant facility.
Most commonly they take misoprostol, available in Mexico without a prescription, at home.
Educating themselves on the procedure, women like Susanna’s friend Selena, also not her real name, have stepped in to teach other women to do what clinics can no longer provide.
This kind of insanity is why my daughter chose to open her practice in a blue state. She once dealt with a woman who had sepsis from a botched abortion while a 4th year med student. You may recall this story since I’ve told it before. She was in a Michigan hospital doing a rotation. The resident in charge walked away from the patient and refused to treat her. This left my daughter and the nurse. My daughter said that she wanted to be some place where she could focus on women’s health without worrying that the state wold be looking over her shoulder every times she treated a patient.
Meanwhile, Louisiana women have a 72 hour waiting period now thanks to a patriarchal asshole of a governor who actually is a Democrat. He was pushing for an equal pay law at the same time so you have to give the devil credit where it’s due, but this is just unacceptable. Even worse, it has a name that just makes women sound like we all make giddy decisions impulsively.
When it comes to Infuriatingly Deceitful Labels Anti-Choice Lawmakers Use To Disguise Their Stonewalling Access To Healthcare As Being Beneficial To Women™, we know the usual go-tos: There’s the obvious “pro-life” label, which, as we all know by now, actually stands for “pro-force women to give birth whether they like it or not” while the movement’s supporters gleefully vote against funding for living children born into dire poverty. And now, in Louisiana, there’s mandated 72-hour waiting periods for abortion patients, gently dubbed the “Women’s Enhanced Reflection Act.” How fucking quaint.
Last Friday, Governor John Bel Edwards signed into law a bill that will triple the current 24-hour period women seeking legal abortions have to wait. The law, mirrored by states like North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Utah, is slated to be enacted on August 1.
In the state of Louisiana, there are only four clinics that perform abortions at this time, and according to 2009 analysis by Guttmacher Institute of 12 different published studies on required waiting periods and counseling sessions, enacting waiting periods already effectively drives women seeking abortions to travel out of state:
“Following enforcement of the [mandatory counseling and waiting period law], abortion rates fell, the number of women going out of state for an abortion rose and the proportion of second-trimester abortions increased.”
We have to unite. Like-minded people, we have to unite and vote. Our rights to our lives and bodies are in danger. There are some 
very angry white men out there that do not want what they feel they are entitled to–including the right to determine other folks’ religions, bodies, choice of lovers, and right to jobs and safety–to be shared with the rest of us. You can tell exactly what this is because it appears that a huge number of Bernie Bros are prepared to switch to Donald Trump. It’s about not letting the law treat every one equally. There are many white men and Christians that are not like this. There are some women, gay men, and racial and religious minorities that will sell us out. But, those of us who are the vast majority must ensure we vote in people who want to see rights extended to all.
For all their divergent beliefs, Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders have each tapped into raw anger and resentment that is in some ways more emotive than ideological. The dangers for Hillary Clinton are clear. By most reasonable standards, she is as unimpeachably liberal as Humphrey was in 1968, yet she is equally distrusted by the anti-establishment left. She will need to guard against defections to an anti-establishment conservative who has proved every bit as deft as Wallace.
And, like Carter in 1980, Clinton will enter the fall campaign with sky-high disapproval ratings, in no small part because her primary opponent spent a year casting her as an enemy of the common man. True, Trump is also wildly unpopular. But people tend to forget that Reagan was hardly more trusted when he unseated Carter than Trump is today—and that year, voters chose the candidate who represented a break with the status quo.
And, like Carter in 1980, Clinton will enter the fall campaign with sky-high disapproval ratings, in no small part because her primary opponent spent a year casting her as an enemy of the common man. True, Trump is also wildly unpopular. But people tend to forget that Reagan was hardly more trusted when he unseated Carter than Trump is today—and that year, voters chose the candidate who represented a break with the status quo.
Despite the fact that Hillary Clinton is supported by a huge, diverse population we still get this media meme that she represents the 
establishment candidate. She holds a record for being the most admired woman for 20 years in a row.
We have to fight these narratives. It’s important. But it’s equally important to ensure that we all vote. We need to find out who represents us up and down the ticket in the fall. Now, I voted for this governor because he definitely was not evil like David Vitter. But when he started going off sanctimoniously on a private choice concerning his daughter in an ad, I chose not to work for him. I am unlikely to be around to see him leave office. Some times, local races in backwards states are like that. But, we have a clear choice come November for President.
I am tired of watching rights that have been hard fought for and won be taken away by crazy yahoos. We have this Texas example to show us what is possible. People who cared voted. That’s all we can and must do.
So, here’s some pics to tickle Boston Boomer’s heart and a post to support JJ as she deals with her Brother Denny who is in the ER! We love you both!!!
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Posted: May 23, 2016 | Author: dakinikat | Filed under: 2016 elections, Afternoon Reads | Tags: Bill Clinton, David Brock, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Newt Gingrich, political ads, political attacks, Roger Stone |
Good Afternoon!
It’s been a long few days for me culminating with spending the morning at the LASPCA trying to spring my friend’s runaway dog. Did I mention it took three hours while I had to look at about 10 cute kittens that definitely need a home ASAP giving me those big eyes ? So, I’m late with everything, tired, and the last thing I need is to crack a virtual newspaper and read about crazy. However, we still have two crazies in the race, so it’s crazzyyy Monday!!!
We knew the Trump ads against Clinton would be bad but we’re beginning to see exactly how bad they will be. I think most newspaper Tabloids have less sensation and more facts to be perfectly honest. Is this a clickbait headline or what? Alex Jones has taken over candidate Trump’s policies and their oppo research. From TPM: “New Trump Video Mixes Bill Clinton Rape Allegation, Hillary Clinton Laughing.”
Donald Trump released a new Instagram video on Monday featuring audio from interviews with women who’ve accused former President Bill Clinton of sexual assault. The accompanying text asks if Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton is “really protecting women.”
As a photo of Bill Clinton comes into focus against a black-and-white photo of the White House, a voice can be heard saying “I was very nervous.”
That voice belongs to former White House intern Monica Lewinsky, explaining her concern about divulging her affair with the President to a grand jury.
The next voice says “No woman should be subjected to it. It was an assault.” That’s Kathleen Wiley, a former White House volunteer who alleged that Clinton groped her in the hallway of the White House in 1993, speaking with Fox News’ Sean Hannity in 2007.
The last bit of audio is taken from an infamous 1999 NBC Dateline interview with Juanita Broaddrick, a former nursing home administrator who accused Clinton of raping her in 1978. A tearful Broaddrick can be heard saying that he “started to bite my top lip and I tried to pull away from him.”
Clinton denied the assault on Willey in a 1998 deposition and has also denied Broaddrick’s rape allegation, which surfaced at the time of congressional impeachment proceedings over his affair with Lewinsky.
Trump’s video clip ends with a shot of Hillary and Bill Clinton together. While audio of Hillary Clinton laughing plays, the words “Here we go again” appear on the screen.
It’s the second time in two weeks that Trump has brought up past sexual assault allegations against Bill Clinton. He has called Hillary Clinton a “nasty, mean enabler” of her husband’s alleged affairs.
We’re about to hit through the boundaries of horrific misogyny
straight into new, uncharted territory. This is simply on the internet now, but I can only imagine what he’ll eventually try on other forms of media. This is really appalling.
And this on top of crazy Bernie Sanders and his delusional dead-enders!
There are also the usual proxies for the two campaigns. I’m not sure if you’ve had a chance to read this but you might want to look at the NYT’s profiles of Roger Stone (Trump) and David Brock (Clinton). It’s about some of their behind the scene work for the campaigns.
One takes a pint-size dog named Toby almost everywhere, smokes electronic cigarettes and wears his silver hair in a flowing pompadour.
The other has a portrait of Richard M. Nixon tattooed on his back, boasts that he owns more shoes than Imelda Marcos and traffics in conspiracy theories about the Kennedy assassination.
The 2016 election, filled with ugly insults, whispered innuendo and sordid character attacks, features two central antagonists known for their colorful traits and devotion to the dark arts of politics: David Brock and Roger J. Stone Jr.
Each has a passion for his side — Mr. Brock for Hillary Clinton and Mr. Stone for Donald J. Trump — and a zeal for attacking critics of his candidate. Their intensity and pugnacity make them either perfect villains or misunderstood masterminds, depending on your point of view.
On the wall of Mr. Stone’s office in South Florida, which has an undisclosed address because of the death threats he said he had received, hangs a “Spy vs. Spy” cartoon, which young staff members titled “Brock-Stone” after the two battling operatives.
“The dynamic between the two of them is very interesting,” said Hank Sheinkopf, a Democratic strategist who knows both men. “This will be a battle about who’s tougher.”
Politics has always attracted flamboyant characters with a sometimes-reckless devotion to a cause, and both these men seem to enjoy their outsize images.
Mr. Brock, 53, divides his time between Washington and the West Village in Manhattan, throwing lively salons and wooing liberal donors on both coasts, often accompanied by Toby, his schnoodle — a schnauzer-poodle mix.
We frequently read our friend’s at Brock financed pro-Hillary blog Blue Nation Review. The NYT article has some interesting stories on him and the purpose of his pro-Hillary PAC.
Mr. Brock now runs Correct the Record, a “super PAC” that coordinates with the Clinton campaign to defend Mrs. Clinton, and American Bridge, a related group that digs up opposition research to defeat Mr. Trump. (Enough to “knock Trump Tower down to the subbasement,” as Mr. Brock put it in remarks to liberal donors, according to Politico.)
His mission now will largely be to get inside Mr. Stone’s complicated head to anticipate, and stay ahead of, Mr. Trump’s attacks. Mrs. Clinton’s allies have vehemently denied that she was involved in silencing Mr. Clinton’s accusers, but Mr. Trump will continue to push that assertion as the two candidates battle for the support of women voters.
Mr. Stone acknowledged that Mr. Brock’s operation has significantly more resources, but he said the traditional tactic of dismissing these accusations as sordid rumors could backfire. “Brock is calling us conspiracy theorists and trying to make us all sound kooky,” he said. “The only people that scares away are the elites.”
Mr. Brock’s group Media Matters for America has taken direct aim at Mr. Stone, labeling him “the underbelly of the Trump machine” and assembling an encyclopedia on his tactics, including his involvement in a National Enquirer article that accused Senator Ted Cruz’s father of associating with Lee Harvey Oswald before President John F. Kennedy’s assassination. Mr. Stone calls Media Matters part of “the Clinton slime machine.”
Both men operate outside the official campaigns, though Mr. Brock directly coordinates with the Clinton campaign through Correct the Record. Mr. Stone said he had “no formal or informal role” within the Trump campaign, but he is close to Mr. Trump and has had a major influence on strategy.
And both have taken risky moves that have created drama and tensions within the campaigns they are ostensibly helping.
We probably are experience some Nixonian election tactics this year. So, I am going to use Media Matters as the go to for this story on the potential of 
Newt Gingrich showing up as Trump’s VP. I didn’t want to go directly to the National Review but you can if you’d like! It’s amazing to me that what looks like a slate of serial adulterers and cheaters is going after Hillary on her husband. The optics on that alone are so bad as to make your eyeballs peel. It can’t be to attract women. It must be a full throttle all speed ahead to grab white men’s votes.
Fox News figures are praising network contributor Newt Gingrich as a “great choice” for Donald Trump’s running mate. They have touted Gingrich — the first speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives to be punished by the House for ethics violations — as “a genius,” “a conservative with bona fides,” and someone who would “bring tremendous stability, tremendous gravitas, incredible intellect,” and “judgment experience.”
Trump Is Considering Gingrich As His Running Mate
Bloomberg: Trump Has Discussed Gingrich As His VP. Bloomberg reported that “Trump has discussed in recent days the possibility of selecting former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich as his running mate, according to people familiar with the talks.” [Bloomberg, 5/11/16]
Trump: Gingrich Is “Absolutely” On His Short List For VP. The Fox News morning show Fox & Friendsasked Trump if Gingrich was on his short list for vice president. Trump responded: “Absolutely. I’ll say yes, because he’s been such a supporter. I mean, anybody that supports me is on the shortlist as far as I’m concerned.” [The Hill, 5/20/16]
Gingrich Has Suggested He Would Accept The VP Slot. Gingrich stated during a Fox News interview that he would be “very hard-pressed not to say ‘yes’” if offered the spot. [The Huffington Post, 5/16/16]
Trump Aide: Staffers Were Informed Gingrich “Will Have His Hand In Every Major Policy Effort.”National Review reported of “Gingrich’s ascent to Trump’s inner circle”:
Gingrich’s influence within Trump World is widespread. Inside Trump’s newly established campaign offices in Washington, D.C., his fingerprints are everywhere. “Right from the minute I joined we were told that Newt will have his hand in every major policy effort,” says one Trump aide. “So one of the things I do when I’m researching or writing anything, in addition to looking at what Trump has said about anything, I look at what Newt has said.”
Gingrich’s ascent to Trump’s inner circle — and potentially to the vice presidency — marks a reversal of fortune for the speaker, who in recent years has fallen out of favor with party elites over his vocal criticisms of the Iraq War and Paul Ryan’s proposal to reform Medicare. On both issues, the views that irked GOP insiders were squarely in line with the unorthodox positions Trump has espoused on the campaign trail. [National Review, 5/23/16]
So, it will be ugly if it’s the doughboys but it’s an easy take down on the sexcapades at least. I still can’t believe any woman would find Newt’s history 
with women any more appealing than Trump’s. Still, Trump’s campaign insists they will be aggressive in their ads against Hillary,
A top strategist for the Republican National Committee said Sunday on conservative talk radio that presumptive nominee Donald Trump has made clear he wants to launch “aggressive” attacks on Democrat Hillary Clinton.
“Republicans have been accused in the past, and some degree rightfully so, of not tearing the bark off of our opponents, and this year Donald Trump has made it very clear we are going to be aggressive” to get a Republican in the White House, Sean Spicer RNC chief strategist and spokesman, said.
“We’ve been at it for four years going through her record,” Spicer also said, as quoted by Breitbart. “This idea that people know who she is and that they’ve seen everything is just ridiculous.”
Spicer, speaking with Breitbart News Sunday on SiriusXM radio, added the party has only “scratched the surface” with Clinton.
I never understand the appeal of these kinds of attacks. They really turn me off. It’s one of the reasons I’m ready to do just about anything within the legal boundaries of the law to see that Bernie Sanders goes back to the Vermont outback, never to be heard from again. Why do all the remaining dudes in this race all represent the angry white male, women-hating prototype? Are there really that many of them left out there?
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