I think that social media is turning everyone into anti-social assholes.
I went to a Christmas party this holiday season…it was a small party, when I got there I gave the people hugs. Why? Well…because it was fucking Christmas…and because I am an affectionate person and…being Latin, it is part of our DNA…you hug people you care about, especially if it is a fucking Christmas party.
Dammit, I could feel the animosity…
It seems as if the Facebook society has given people the excuse to become pseudo-Zuckerburgs. By that, I mean…adopting an emotionally inept attitude, lacking any sentimental bonds or real human connection that is not some kind of fake fucking virtual “like” or “love” emoji. In other words, behaving like a robotic asshole.
It is all bullshit….so damn sick of those “No Touch” memes:
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Welcome to a world where the only acceptable hug…is the virtual one you get over the fucking social network.
That link takes you to a gallery of pictures representing celebrity deaths from 2018….including:
SONDRA LOCKE
The Oscar-nominated actress passed away on Nov. 3. The Any Which Way You Can star was 74 years old.
RICKY JAY
The magician and actor, best known for his roles in Tomorrow Never Dies, Deadwood and Boogie Nights, died on November 24 from natural causes. He was 72.
ROY CLARK
The country star was known for hosting Yee Haw died at the age of 85 on November 15. He died of complications from pneumonia while surrounded by family and friends at his Tulsa, Okla. home.
KATHERINE MACGREGOR
The star, who played Harriet Oleson in the ’70s hit series Little House on the Prarie, died on November 13 at the age of 93. She was living at the Motion Picture Fund Long Term Nursing Care facility in Woodland Hills, California at the time of her death.
NEIL SIMON
The famous Broadway playwright and screenwriter, known for plays such as The Odd Couple and Barefoot in the Park, died at age 91 on August 26 after battling complications from pneumonia
ED KING
The Lynyrd Skynyrd guitarist died on August 22 at age 68 after battling lung cancer.
ARETHA FRANKLIN
The iconic songstress died at home in Detroit on August 16 following a battle with pancreatic cancer. She was 76 years old.
TAB HUNTER
The ’50s movie idol (born Arthur Andrew Kelm) died July 8, three days shy of his 87th birthday. Known for starring in movies like The Burning Hills and Damn Yankees, Hunter came out of the closet in 2005 in his autobiography, confirming rumors that had been swirling since his heyday. Hunter’s cause of death was not immediately known.
KATE SPADE
The famous fashion designer died of apparent suicide in June 2018. She was 55 years old.
VERNE TROYER
The Austin Powers star died on April 21 at the age of 49. A statement was posted on the actor’s social media that said, “It is with great sadness and incredibly heavy hearts to write that Verne passed away today. Verne was an extremely caring individual. He wanted to make everyone smile, be happy, and laugh. Anybody in need, he would help to any extent possible. Verne hoped he made a positive change with the platform he had and worked towards spreading that message everyday.”
HARRY ANDERSON
The Night Court star passed away April 16 at his home in North Carolina, the Asheville Police Department confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter. He was 65. No foul play was suspected.
STEPHEN HAWKING
The renowned physicist, scientist and professor passed away at 76. His life story was portrayed in the 2014 film titled The Theory of Everything.
MICKEY JONES
The actor, whose credits included Vacation, MASH and Tin Cup, passed away Wednesday, February 7 from a long illness. He was 76.
DENNIS EDWARDS
The Temptations lead singer passed away in Chicago on February 1 just days before his 75th birthday.
OLIVIA COLE
The Emmy-winning actress, known for her work in such the famed 1977 mini-series Roots and Backstairs at the White House, died on Jan. 19 at her home in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. She was 75.
PEGGY CUMMINS
The Irish actress, best known for her performance in 1950’s Gun, Crazy, passed away at the age of 92 after suffering a stroke.
The surprise for many was the recent death of Penny Marshall:
As both a performer and a filmmaker, Marshall, who died Monday at the age of 75, stood counter to the prevailing wisdom of what women like her were supposed to be, and do. From her breakthrough as a sitcom star to her subsequent success as a blockbuster filmmaker, Marshall never seemed to get hung up on what other people thought she was supposed to be doing â or if she did, you could never tell. And as both an actress and a director, she was simultaneously big and subtle, aiming at the widest possible audience while smuggling in little grace notes that caught even fans by surprise.
When viewers of a certain age first noticed Marshall on sitcoms in the 1970s â first as Oscar Madisonâs secretary on The Odd Couple, and then as Laverne DeFazio on Happy Days and Laverne & Shirley â they saw a throwback to character actresses from â50s television and prewar movies. She was a scene-stealer with big city, white ethnic bluntness, the kind of woman who mightâve dispensed tough but loving advice to Grace Kelly or bashed a mugger over the head with an umbrella.
Give that obit a read through…it details Marshall’s work in Hollywood through the years.
Actress and director Penny Marshall died “peacefully” last night at age 75 at her Hollywood Hills home, E! News has confirmed. Her cause of death was complications from diabetes, and a celebration of life ceremony will be held at a later date. “Our family is heartbroken over the passing of Penny Marshall,” a spokesperson for the star’s family told E! News in a statement. Born Oct. 15, 1943, Penny is predeceased by her brother, actor/director Garry Marshall. She is survived by her sister Ronny Marshall; her daughter Tracy Reiner; and her three grandchildren.
A no-nonsense New Yorker, Penny’s Hollywood breakthrough came from starring in the hit sitcom Laverne & Shirley, which ran for eight seasons on ABC from Jan. 27, 1976, until May 10, 1983. But Penny found even more success behind the camera, directing hit films like Big (1988), Awakenings (1990), A League of Their Own (1992), The Preacher’s Wife (1996) and Riding in Cars With Boys (2001), among others. With Big, Penny made history as the first woman to direct a movie that grossed $100 millionâsomething she did again with A League of Their Own.
“With directing, I didn’t have to wear makeup or get my hair done. But I do not like getting up that early,” she said in a Women and Hollywood interview in 2012. “In TV we did our show in front of an audience, so we got up early only one morning. We did camera blocking in the morning and we shot at night which was a much more humane existence. No one is funny at 7 a.m. It’s faster to act, but a lot of times you are sitting in a Winnebago waiting. Directing is more funâif you can create stuff, if you can create business for people to do and not just pull lines out of people’s mouths. So if people come prepared then you can add business. I like behavior.”
A multitalented workhorse, Penny also produced a number of movies and TV series. “Penny was a girl from the Bronx, who came out West, put a cursive ‘L’ on her sweater and transformed herself into a Hollywood success story,” the Marshall family said. “We hope her life continues to inspire others to spend time with family, work hard and make all of their dreams come true.”
When actress, director, and general multi-hyphenate trailblazer Penny Marshall died earlier this week, one of the trending topics that followed the news was her BFF status with Carrie Fisher â fun quotes they said about each other, some cute photos, you name it. We love it! But despite the very public celebration of their friendship on social media, the women enjoyed spending time together away from lifeâs flashbulbs and recorders, really only regaling us with their lifeâs anecdotes through memoirs and rare interviews. âWeâve lasted longer than all of our marriages combined. Our crazy lives have meshed perfectly,â Marshall perhaps put it best in her 2012 memoir. âWeâve always said itâs because we never liked the same drugs or men, but I know thereâs more to it.â Here, letâs take an abridged look at the early stages of their pairing, which we promise we wonât refer to as âfriendship goals.â
Great pictures there at that link…and read the few stories as well. A cheerful look on both women’s lives.
The last surviving fighter from the doomed 1943 Warsaw Ghetto uprising by Jewish partisans against the Nazis died Saturday in Israel aged 94, the countryâs president said.
Simcha Rotem, who went by the nom-de-guerre Kazik, served in the Jewish Fighting Organisation that staged the uprising as the Nazis conducted mass deportations of residents to the death camps.
âThis evening, we part from⌠Simcha Rotem, the last of the Warsaw Ghetto fighters,â Israelâs President Reuven Rivlin said in a statement.
âHe joined the uprising and helped save dozens of fightersâ.
Hundreds of Jewish fighters began their fight on April 19, 1943, after the Nazis began deporting the surviving residents of the Jewish ghetto they had set up after invading Poland.
The insurgents preferred to die fighting instead of in a gas chamber at the Treblinka death camp where the Nazis had already sent more than 300,000 Warsaw Jews.
Speaking at a 2013 ceremony in Poland to mark the 70th anniversary of the uprising, Rotem recalled that by April 1943 most of the ghettoâs Jews had died and the 50,000 who remained expected the same fate.
Rotem said he and his comrades launched the uprising to âchoose the kind of deathâ they wanted.
âBut to this very day I keep thinking whether we had the right to make the decision to start the uprising and by the same token to shorten the lives of many people by a week, a day or two,â Rotem said.
Thousands of Jews died in Europeâs first urban anti-Nazi revolt, most of them burned alive, and nearly all the rest were then sent to Treblinka.
Rotem survived by masterminding an escape through the drain system with dozens of comrades. Polish sewer workers guided them to the surface.
He went on to participate in the 1944 Warsaw Uprising led by Polish resistance fighters against the Nazis.
And let us not forget the death of Jakelin Caal… and the deaths of other children and immigrants who seemed to lurk in the background of news story recaps:
Antelope Wells, an isolated point of entry in New Mexico, is where hundreds cross over, seeking refuge from violence
 The deceptively beautiful landscape around Antelope Wells in the remote south-western corner of New Mexico. Photograph: Don Usner/Searchlight New Mexico
The black shadows of yucca shrubs huddled under a three-quarter moon. A stiff desert wind hushed all but the deafening crunch of footsteps where a chest-high barrier divides the US and Mexico.
Behind MarĂa and her son were the thousands of miles they covered overland from Guatemala, with Mexico streaming by the bus window, day and night. On the way, she broke her ankle but pressed on with few stops.
Then came the last leg: the night crossing into the New Mexico Bootheel. The stateâs rugged, remote south-western corner was where seven-year-old Guatemalan girl Jakelin Caal crossed with her father one December night and became gravely ill.
Her death earlier this month became the symbol of a dangerous new pattern of human smuggling through New Mexico, where 20 groups of more than 100 migrants each have arrived since October, a massive increase from just eight large groups in all of fiscal 2018, according to US Customs and Border Protection. A record number are asking for asylum in the US.
I was going to end it there…but here are a few news worthy links:
A volcano…Child of Krakatoa has made some noise, this time causing a tsunami that has killed and injured many in Indonesia.
PANDEGLANG, Indonesia (Reuters) – A tsunami killed at least 222 people and injured hundreds on the Indonesian islands of Java and Sumatra following an underwater landslide believed caused by the erupting Anak Krakatau volcano, officials and media said on Sunday.
The volcano that apparently triggered a deadly tsunami in Indonesia late Saturday emerged from the sea around the legendary Krakatoa 90 years ago and has been on a high-level eruption watchlist for the past decade.
Anak Krakatoa (the âChild of Krakatoaâ) has been particularly active since June, occasionally sending massive plumes of ash high into the sky and in October a tour boat was nearly hit by lava bombs from the erupting volcano.
At last, weâre getting somewhere. Two years after Brexit and the election of Donald Trump, weâre finally beginning to understand the nature and extent of Russian interference in the democratic processes of two western democracies. The headlines are: the interference was much greater than what was belatedly discovered and/or admitted by the social media companies; it was more imaginative, ingenious and effective than we had previously supposed; and itâs still going on.
In a scathing letter to the magazineâs editors, Richard Grenell, US ambassador to Germany, claims the journalism of Claas Relotius, who resigned from the German news magazine last week, was symptomatic of anti-American bias across the mainstream media. âIt is clear that we were the victims of a campaign of institutional bias,â Grenell wrote to Der Spiegel, in a letter also seen by the daily newspaper Bild. He said he was aghast at the way âanti-American coverageâ had been facilitated by the magazine.
You can read the details at the link, main focus being:
The scandal has sparked fears that the far right will exploit the scandal to sow further distrust of the media. The German far right has a long history of attacking the press.
In recent years, the anti-immigration group Pegida and elements of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) have resurrected the Nazi-era slur of LĂźgenpresse (âlying pressâ) to describe mainstream journalism they claim does not represent the world as they see it. These voices have been further emboldened by US President Donald Trumpâs attacks on the media and his use of the term âfake news.â
âRelotius is in the end only a product of an absurdly leftist writersâ fraternity that is increasingly seldom prepared to leave its own convenient moral comfort zone in favour of the facts,â wrote Alice Weidl, a leader of the AfD, in a Facebook post.
The leading German journalist Hendrik Wieduwilt wrote: âItâs started! The fraud of âreporterâ Relotius has now been made into âfake newsâ, or strategically fraudulent lies. The AfD will exploit this for all it is worth. Thatâs probably the biggest damage of the whole scandal.â The independent media journalist Stefan Niggemeier took to Twitter to express fears the case represented a âdeep blow â not just for Der Spiegel, but for German journalism.â In a series of soul-searching written apologies, the magazine acknowledged the wider undermining affect Relotiusâs actions will have on those striving to deliver objective, informative and well-sourced reporting.
âWe are aware that the Relotius case makes the fight against fake news that much more difficult,â wrote the incoming Spiegel editor-in-chief Steffen Klusmann and deputy editor-in-chief Dirk Kurbjuweit in a joint open letter to readers. âFor everyone. For other media outlets that are on our side and for citizens and politicians who are interested in an accurate portrayal of reality.â
One more link because, this is really a heavy post for a Sunday before Christmas…
Hundreds of books about the Middle Ages are published each year. They cover a vast number of topics, sometimes offering new research, sometimes retelling stories for new audiences. What makes one book stand out above the rest?
Iâve made it a habit the last few years of keeping track of as many new books about the Middle Ages as I can â a process that leads me to visit many libraries and book stories. I canât possibly get familiar with all the works that have come out, so my choices are subjective, but I think the books mentioned below will prove to be important contributions to medieval studies. I look for those that I think will enlighten and expand our understanding of the Middle Ages, that are well written and well researched, and will have lasting significance in their field.
So, what is the book of the year?
The Golden Rhinoceros: Histories of the Africa, by François-Xavier Fauvelle, is my choice for the medieval book of the year. Itâs not a particularly large book at just 264 pages, but it offers readers a great trove of topics related to the medieval history of Africa (with the exception of Egypt and the Mediterranean coast). It consists of 34 separate stories, each about six to eight pages long. They cover events between the eighth and fifteenth centuries, and zig-zag across the African continent, so you will be at first reading about Mauritania, then going to Zimbabwe, and then off to Ethiopia. Fauvelle is highly effective in giving us snapshots of life in these places, all the while acknowledging that his sources are often fragmentary and sparse.
Fauvelleâs aim in this book is to show that Africa was not mired in the âdark centuriesâ as many historians have assumed, but was going through something more akin to a âgolden ageâ during the Middle Ages. Many of his sections reinforce the idea that merchants were flourishing in medieval Africa, with gold and slaves being sent across the continent into the Arab world, India, and even to China. Perhaps medievalists have been too focused on the connections between medieval Europe and Africa, which are very limited, and havenât yet researched the much deeper relations between the Islamic and African worlds. Here Fauvelle offers a guide to historians on how they can learn more about Mali, Somalia or the Sahara, and the role they played in the medieval world.
There are a few other interesting reads that are recommended at that link, so please click over to check them out…one that even discusses emotions and sensibility in the middle ages…fascinating.
Well….I wish everyone a happy holiday, this is an open thread.
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Today’s post is a bit all over the place…so I hope you can follow it…my brain is feeling the effects of the tRump presidency and it has become almost debilitating. I feel like I have some form of OCD, there is the constant itch in my thoughts. I can’t get rid of it. Like some kind of diseased earworm that has set root deep in my mind. I cannot stop thinking about tRump and what he is destroying. Everything is crumbling before me. The itch is so bad, that I almost feel like grabbing an ice pick and jamming it in my ear. If only to get these tRumptonian thoughts out of my mind.
All commitments made so far in talks with the U.S. over trade will be withdrawn if President Donald Trump carries out his threat to impose tariffs, China said Sunday.
While both sides reported some progress in discussions this weekend about how to reduce Chinaâs $375 billion goods-trade surplus with the U.S., Trumpâs revival last week of a plan to slap tariffs on $50 billion of Chinese imports has cast the talks into turmoil.
âIf the U.S. rolls out trade measures including tariffs, all the agreements reached in the negotiations wonât take effect,â state-run Xinhua News Agency reported Sunday, citing a statement from the Chinese team that met with a U.S. delegation led by Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross.
Does that also include the agreements made regarding the new tRump Tower and all those convenient new trademarks Ivanka was granted…(which we will touch on in a moment.)
The Xinhua report came after Ross met Sunday with Chinese Vice Premier Liu He for talks that Ross called âfriendly and frank, and covered some useful topics about specific export items.â At the same time as negotiators focus on technical steps to reduce the U.S. deficit, Trumpâs swerve has rattled Beijing as it raises the possibility that any agreement made could be simply torn up by the president.
âChina is concerned over the U.S.âs unpredictability, especially after Trump turned an about-face on tariffs,â said Gai Xinzhe, an analyst at Bank of Chinaâs finance institute in Beijing. âTrump needs to give out more goodwill in exchange for really productive negotiations. Bluff, threat, and willful moves might work in business bargaining, but they could backfire in talks among nations.â
Yada, Yada, Yada…haven’t we heard this before? I think someone who is very fond of pantsuits brought this particular negative trait of tRump’s personality up during the debates? I don’t know…maybe I am wrong, but I know we have talked about it countless times here on the blog before that anus-lipped tangerine turd was installedin the White House.
When former president Bill Clinton traveled to North Korea in 2009 on a humanitarian mission to free two U.S. journalists, he delivered strict instructions to his team ahead of their meeting with dictator Kim Jong Il: âWeâre not smiling.â
In several photos, including a formal portrait with their hosts in Pyongyang, Clinton and his aides kept their game faces on â looking serious and determined, befitting the tone of the mission, according to a person familiar with the trip.
President Trump took a decidedly different approach on Friday when he welcomed a North Korean official to the White House for the first such meeting in 18 years. Trump beamed as Kim Yong Chol â a former spy chief accused of masterminding the sinking of a South Korean navy vessel in 2010 that killed 46 sailors â presented him with a cartoonishly oversize envelope containing a letter from Kim Jong Un, the nationâs current dictator.
The two posed for a photo in the Oval Office with Trump proudly showing off the envelope â an image that White House aides promptly distributed to the public.
The warm display left some former U.S. officials whoâve negotiated with North Korea arguing that Trump had already handed Pyongyang another public relations victory before winning concessions on its nuclear program.
âNo question this is speed dating,â said Christopher R. Hill, a former State Department diplomat who led the U.S. delegation in the Six-Party Talks with North Korea during the George W. Bush administration. He recalled being rebuffed in his bid to personally deliver a letter from Bush to Kim Jong Il â in a standard business-size envelope.
By contrast, Hill said, the North Koreans already âhave gotten the whole enchiladaâ from Trump.
Letâs look more closely at this photo for a minute.
Zoom in.
Zoom in again.
See how the North Korean spy chiefâs mouth turns down on one side and up on the other as he âsmilesâ?
They run death camps and have threatened to nuke us constantly — but unlike the Canadians, those gravy-drenched monsters, these incredible North Koreans haven't tried to increase the price of milk. https://t.co/MK0Ug6xYNE
I feel like we have been on some kind of hamster wheel of that replays itself every day…this cycle of tRump chaos and scandal and destruction of democracy…is leading to one thing. Desensitization.
Sort of like that opening scene in Boyz in the Hood, where the kids are desensitized to the violence in the street…as they walk home from school. Calmly explaining the process of decay in a bloody crime scene.
Which later comes to a point where the bloody scene has moved beyond this to an actual dead body lying beside a railroad track, as young teens discover the body and young adults play football. The violence and murder is no longer an issue for the young adults…the teenagers are disturbed by the smell but do not react more than that, as they too are desensitized to the fact that murder and death is a common occurrence in there everyday world.
That link will give you a look at the scene…from a film critic perspective. I thought it was a good one. Like I said my post is all over today.
My point being, this is a tactic. A tRump way of controlling and manipulating things, an authoritative government…administration at work. And the media is complicit in its actions in bringing about the downfall of democracy.
This is a very good column from @laurenduca, who warned of Trump's media manipulation tactics well before he took office. Wish the weaker members of the press would heed her words, then and now. https://t.co/amv6sJTSIA
excellent column by @laurenduca on the media's anxiety about Trump's lies, his "abusive relationship with the truth" & the legacy of disinformation campaigns, cc. @sarahkendziorhttps://t.co/Don2nvmMPh
Lately there has been a reinvigorated conversation around labeling something a lie. The debate boils down to a question of intent: Journalists who are most cautious with the âlieâ label argue that we cannot truly know Trumpâs purpose for shitting on the very concept of facts. Is he working off of misinformation? Is he exaggerating with his âArt of the Dealâ tactic of âtruthful hyperboleâ? Is he hallucinating an anthropomorphic pumpkin that is telling him what to say? We are not inside the presidentâs brain, they argue, and so we cannot know.
One such journalist is Maggie Haberman, a White House correspondent for The New York Times. On Sunday, May 27, she responded to criticism about her frequent refusal to use the word âlieâ in her work with a series of tweets. âI have written stories about his lies, falsehoods, whoppers, half-truths, salesman-like stretches,â she tweeted. âThe reality is that what he does can be hard to label because, as anyone who has worked for him will tell you in candor, he often thinks whatever he says is whatâs real.â As far as Iâm concerned, all of those euphemisms for âliesâ still mean lies, and if, as Haberman asserts, he really believes them, then she should report that it is also possible that the president is out touch with reality.
By the way, Haberman is one of the authors of an article in the New York Times that is getting a lot of attention recently…I have more on that later on in the thread.
Duca continues:
As the leader of the country, Trump is the core source for our perception of the state of the union. Once he took office, his abusive relationship with the truth came with the official seal of the White House, and that is of crucial importance. The Trump administration is now waging an unprecedented campaign of disinformation on the American people. The president of the United States is working to undermine our shared foundation of truth so that we have no choice but to accept his version of reality.
Trump himself has reportedly admitted that this is his aim. On stage at the Deadline Club Awards Dinner on May 21, 60 Minutes host Leslie Stahl told PBS Newshouranchor Julie Woodruff that Trump told her he undermines the press so that the public will have no grasp on what is true. During an informal meeting with then candidate Trump in 2016, Stahl said, she asked Trump why he was constantly attacking the media. “He said, ‘You know why I do it? I do it to discredit you all and demean you all so when you write negative stories about me, no one will believe you,ââ she told Woodruff. If this is true, and those are Trumpâs intentions, the endgame is to deprive journalism of any value whatsoever.
Much of Trumpâs war on the truth appears to be based in exploiting widespread media illiteracy among the citizenry. Journalism is not about striving to appear fair, but maintaining a rigorous objectivity for the purpose of serving the public. The ultimate allegiance of the press is to our fellow citizens. It is crucial that journalists do a better job at explaining our purpose and be radically transparent with all editorial decision-making. That means calling a lie a lie, and if we donât, then fully providing readers with the reason why the word âlieâ is not appropriate, along with context for understanding this administrationâs abusive relationship with the truth.
[…]
Authoritarianism works to corrode our shared foundation of truth, pushing us to a point where we so doubt our own sanity, it becomes too much of a chore to even care what is true. Such is the goal of the Trump administration: to bombard us with so many conflicting versions of reality that we throw our hands in the air and give up on being certain about anything at all. The falsehoods, whoppers, and salesman-like stretches all come down to this: Without the truth, we have no foundation from which to resist.
Fucking Hell…
I really should end the post on that huge point alone…but there are a few other things I want to bring to your attention…real quick.:
Why would Trump lawyer @JaySekulow lie multiple times about 1 particular fact? Because that fact shows @realDonaldTrump engaged in an act of obstruction of justice.
The lies show even he doesn't believe his stupid argument that @POTUS is above the law & cannot obstruct justice. https://t.co/ZmJ1RA0mM7
1/ The letter from Trumpâs lawyers admitted to an impeachable high crime. It is close enough to felony obstruction/witness tampering. If thatâs not an impeachable abuse of power (dictate a false statement to a witness and lie about dictating it), what is? https://t.co/mhlVSUx5FL
Trumpâs team not only argues that he can pardon himself but also argues that he has unlimited power to investigate his enemies and end investigations into his friends. If this sounds like tyranny to you, thatâs because it is. https://t.co/1dWv8OG04X
In Trump's "God Manifesto," he asserts his right to cancelâat his pleasureâany federal law enforcement investigation into his own actions, the actions of his family, or the actions of his associates. It is, in short, the bald claim that he and his are beyond the reach of the law.
This would be a valid legal argument â if our government were a dictatorship. Fortunately, we are a government of laws, not men. And in America, no one is above the law, including the president. https://t.co/yxtu9HUUkz
Our democracy is under attack. The notion that the president is above the law is so preposterous on its face that the media should have its hair on fire. We can't normalize this attack as a legitimate debate.
Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte has told a U.N human rights expert who said the countryâs judicial independence was under threat to âgo to hellâ, warning against interference in domestic affairs.
If the UN ever sends a human rights expert to the US to check up on the obvious offenses going on at our southern border…I bet we would hear the same shit coming out of tRump’s mouth.
Let’s take a look at some more tweet shit storms:
This whole thing stinks worse than anything any modern president has ever done in public. If only we had some warning Trump would sell out to Chinese interests for a few bucks, besides his whole life. https://t.co/H6omEf2lTZ
Itâs unlikely Trump murdered Melania in a fit of rage and the people around him are helping to cover it up while they figure out what to do next. But the fact I used the word âunlikelyâ instead of âimpossibleâ or âludicrousâ kinda shows you the state of our leadership today.
As far as tRump using Melania’s twitter account…there is precedent:
Just dropping this exchange into the discussion of whether Trump, when questioned about Melania, takes over her account and writes her tweets… pic.twitter.com/3X8a9xfAdq
— đBeth Donahue-Weedmanđ (@bdonahueweedman) May 30, 2018
But…keep this in mind, as BB wrote about yesterday as well…:
One of America's most famous male journalists of the 1970s did not report on domestic violence in the White House because, he says, he did not understand that the president hitting his wife was a criminal act https://t.co/CppVrZqThN
— Rebecca Baird-Remba (@thecitywanderer) June 2, 2018
On Ivanka Trump and her trademarks…
Ivanka Trump's fashion line has been rebranded as 'Adrienne Vittadini' and sold for a portion of the price to Stein Mart stores-heads up #GrabYourWallet shoppers. https://t.co/GBXQ89WbXB
LIARS All of them. ivanka is now (with her 13 new patents from gina) selling her clothing line under the name 'Adrienne Vittadini', at Stein Mart & other locations. She knows the T word is toxic, so she got around it. *wink wink*#boycottAdrienneVittadinihttps://t.co/RqM5cP1eVp
The image above is from the Instagram of one of the survivors from the Valentine’s Day murders at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. It is just one of the victim reactions to the killings…another has been the vocal call outs and public outcries from many MSDHS students. They are not taking the “thoughts and prayers” bullshit. They want action. Take a look at what these brave student survivors are doing to stand up for their murdered friends and fellow children nationwide.
Survivors of the school shooting in Florida are calling for a march on Washington to demand action on gun control. "People are saying that itâs not time to talk about gun control, and we can respect that. Hereâs a time: March 24, in every single city." https://t.co/qlQK4GsR0Tpic.twitter.com/XEbXClHT99
To the politicians saying this isnât about guns, and that we shouldnât be discussing this rn:
We were literally being shot at while trying to gain an education. So this is about guns. You werenât in the school while this was happening. We were, and weâre demanding change.
One hundred of my classmates and I will be traveling to Tallahassee this Tuesday and wendsday to speak with our state senators and House of Representatives members. The amazing student who is organizing the whole trip is named Jackie Corin.
For those in my mentions, telling me to shut up, telling me I donât know what Iâm talking about,& many other things. Know that I stand my ground, as a douglas student. A student whoâs lost classmates, friends, & coaches. For the rest of my life, I will demand change. #neverforget
let it be known that cruz messed with the wrong school. We as students are using social media as a platform to have our voices heard. Let it be known that we are and will be in contact with our legislators & politicians. Change is now. & it is starting with the survivors.
Cameron Kasky, a student who survived the Parkland school shootings just said in an interview: "There's a section of society who will just shrug this off & send their thoughts & prayers but will march for hours if they have to make a rainbow wedding cake."
On Friday, April 20th we want students to attend school and then promptly WALK-OUT at 10:00 am. Sit outside your schools and peacefully protest. Make some noise. Voice your thoughts. "We are students, we are victims, we are change."
As many have pointed out, the out spoken nature of this reaction is different from the mass murders of before. Perhaps because the media is actually paying attention to them?
I don’t know. But as you can see, tRump has been busy this morning:
Fucking hell…
If Barack Obama, as President, acted like Trump did this morning on Twitter, we would have thought that his account was infiltrated by an 11-year-old Russian hacker.
There has never been an occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue who used murdered children to defend himself in a criminal investigation. This is worse than a new low. This is the most despicable act by a subhuman vile eunuch ever. @realDonaldTrump#Mueller has got you. https://t.co/2EMtcJ2WgS
Incomprehensible pain and loss at a high school, yet again, and itâs children who are the leading voices for action. Meanwhile, our president uses the tragedy to attack the investigation of a foreign adversaryâs interference in our democracy. Shameful. https://t.co/ULo0gXUWhL
Our entire Nation, w/one heavy heart, continues to pray for the victims & their families in Parkland, FL. To teachers, law enforcement, first responders & medical professionals who responded so bravely in the face of danger: We THANK YOU for your courage! https://t.co/3yJsrebZMGpic.twitter.com/ti791dENTy
Immediately after visiting hospitalized survivors of the Parkland mass shooting for 20 min, Trump went to a "Studio 54" themed party at Mar-A-Lago.
A woman who posted a photo of Trump there has edited her Instagram post to say Trump "did NOT dance" and was supposedly "somber." pic.twitter.com/0pTA9V7dIL
On this Fourth of July weekend, I wanted to bring some crime stories into focus. Various cases that recently have come to pass with no justice or punishment that seemed to spit in the face of the “people.”
I will get to mention this a bit further down in the post, because as usual…tRump has dominated the news cycle again this morning. This time with an absurd Tweet, or should I say twit.
In President Donald Trumpâs arena, this is how you shift the American attention away from a feud with MSNBCâs âMorning Joeâ crew:
[…]
From the Associated Press on the wrasslinâ video:
Itâs not clear who produced the brief video, but it was posted from Trumpâs official Twitter account.
Trumpâs been stepping up verbal attacks on the media â and cable networks particularly. But an adviser thinks âno one would perceive that as a threat. I hope they donât.â
White House homeland security adviser Tom Bossert also tells ABC that he thinks Trumpâs âbeaten up in a way on cable platforms that he has a right to respond to.â
White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said last week Trump âin no way, form or fashion has ever promoted or encouraged violence.ââ
Well, many around the wires were making statements and comments about the wrestling twit…
CNN had this to say:
"The President in no way form or fashion has ever promoted or encouraged violence. If anything, quite the contrary." – @SHSanders45 6/29/17
CNN on Sunday called President Donald Trumpâs tweet of a video of himself attacking a figure whose face was obscured by the CNN logo âjuvenile behavior far below the dignity of his officeâ and suggested Trump âstart doing hisâ job governing instead.
[…]
In its full statement, CNN said Sanders âliedâ and accused Trump of encouraging âviolence against reporters.â
âInstead of preparing for his overseas trip, his first meeting with Vladimir Putin, dealing with North Korea and working on his health care bill, he is instead involved in juvenile behavior far below the dignity of his office,â CNN said. âWe will keep doing our jobs. He should start doing his.â
As a prominent conservative senator accused Donald Trump of âtrying to weaponise distrustâ in his attacks on the media, the president tweeted a video of himself, starring at a pro wrestling event, body-slamming to the floor a man with a CNN logo for a head.
[…]
A director of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) told the Guardian âcharged rhetoric onlineâ, issued by the White House, âundermines the media in the US and emboldens autocratic leaders around the worldâ.
The presidentâs tweet was issued on Sunday morning, hours after Trump used a speech honouring veterans in Washington to say: âThe fake media tried to stop us from going to the White House. But Iâm president, and theyâre not.â
The tweet contained doctored video from a Trump appearance on Wrestlemania XXIII in 2007, in which he âbody-slammedâ â and subsequently shaved bald â Vince McMahon, the WWE promoter and husband of Trumpâs Small Business Administration chief, Linda McMahon. Trump is a member of the WWE hall of fame. The video appeared to have been taken from Reddit, where it was reportedly posted by a user named âHanAssholeSoloâ.
Please, can anyone stop this OrangeAssholetRump from being president?
As Americablog points out, it is not the first time tRump has called for violence.
Mashable has a mash up of Trumpâs repeated calls for violence:
Go to the link to see the video. But back to the Americablog:
And just this morning, Trump joked to his 30 million followers about beating up CNN reporters, when we are already in a climate where reporters are routinely threatened.
A CNN reporter tweeted me this morning, concerned that I was mischaracterizing Trump, and that my story is part of the âoutrage machine.â In fact, CNNâs PR dept. responded to Trumpâs post by quoting Sarah Huckabeeâs lie about Trump never promoting violence. Their clear point: Trump just promoted and encouraged violence against CNN reporters. And thatâs exactly what I wrote. I just donât see a qualitative difference between âcalls forâ and âencourages or promotes.â
ABCâs Martha Raddatz said this morning that the tweet âseems like a threat.â Raddatz continued, âyou donât think thatâs a threat to anyone, you donât think thatâs sending a message âdo that to the media, do that to CNNâ?â
Remember, this comes after recent elections put a GOP dickwad in office, who violently assaulted a Guardian reporter. From the Guardian link above:
In an atmosphere of swirling distrust between journalists and the politicians they cover, âbody-slammingâ became a loaded term in May when a Republican congressional candidate in Montana slammed Guardian reporter Ben Jacobs to the floor.
Greg Gianforte pleaded guilty to assault and was sentenced to community service. After donating $50,000 to the CPJ, he was sworn in as a member of the US House of Representatives. Jacobsâ glasses, broken in the assault, are now on display at the Newseum in Washington.
In its statement on Sunday, CNN said: âIt is a sad day when the president of the United States encourages violence against reporters. Clearly, [deputy White House press secretary] Sarah Huckabee Sanders lied when she said the president had never done so.
[…]
Courtney Radsch, advocacy director for the CPJ, told the Guardian: âSingling out individual journalists and news outlets creates a chilling effect and fosters an environment where further harassment and even physical attacks are seen to be acceptable.
âWe are already concerned about physical attacks on reporters and clearly the White Houseâs charged rhetoric online undermines the media in the US and emboldens autocratic leaders around the world. We already saw that there has been at least one serious attack recently, on Ben Jacobs, a reporter for the Guardian, and this does not create a positive environment for the press online or offline.â
The presidentâs latest outbursts suggest the social-media platform imposes no editorial standards. But should it?
The rules are simple, okay? No threats of violence. No targeted abuse or harassment. No inciting anybody else to engage in targeted abuse or harassment. No hateful conduct.
Now think about Donald Trumpâs the tweeting habits. Is he breaking those rules, which come from Twitterâs terms of service?
Violent threats (direct or indirect): You may not make threats of violence or promote violence, including threatening or promoting terrorism.
Harassment: You may not incite or engage in the targeted abuse or harassment of others. Some of the factors that we may consider when evaluating abusive behavior include:
if a primary purpose of the reported account is to harass or send abusive messages to others;
if the reported behavior is one-sided or includes threats;
if the reported account is inciting others to harass another account; and
if the reported account is sending harassing messages to an account from multiple accounts.
Hateful conduct: You may not promote violence against or directly attack or threaten other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or disease. We also do not allow accounts whose primary purpose is inciting harm towards others on the basis of these categories.
Trump has long been criticized for his impulsiveness, but less than six months into his presidency, alarm over his Twitter conduct has hit fever pitch.
[…]
Beginning on June 29, Trump began tweeting repeated insults at Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, the hosts of the MSNBC talk show, Morning Joe. Trumpâs treatment of Brzezinski was particularly strange. In addition to calling her âdumb,â âcrazy,â and âlow I.Q.â in three separate tweets, he claimed that she and Scarborough traveled to Mar-a-Lago for New Yearâs Eve and insisted on seeing Trump while Brzezinski was âbleeding badly from a face-lift.â (Brzezinski and Scarborough published a rebuke in The Washington Post, calling the presidentâs claim âa lie.â)
In true Trump fashion, the president doubled down, calling Scarborough âcrazyâ and Brzezinski âdumb as a rock.â
Does that constitute targeted harassment? And given Trumpâs huge followingâmore than 33.1 million Twitter followers on his primary accountâdoes a string of attacks against the same two individuals constitute inciting harassment? âWe donât comment on individual accounts, for privacy and security reasons,â a Twitter spokesperson told me on Saturday. Twitter also declined to tell me whether, when considering the question of a user inciting harassment, it takes into consideration that personâs number of followers or public statusâa movie star or politician, for example.
Twitterâs website does offer some clarification on how it assesses abusive behavior. The company says it assesses whether the primary purpose of an account is to harass or send abusive messages; and it looks at whether the reported behavior is âone-sided.âSetting aside Twitterâs notoriously bad track record for actually enforcing its own standards on harassment, the question of one-sidedness poses an interesting problem here.
When one of the people involved in a Twitter fight isnât just a public official but also the president of the United States, is it fair to consider anyone heâs attacking an equal player in a fight?
Actually, I reported tRump’s last tweet about Mika to twitter..I got this from them saying my report was under review.
What is funny, is that about twenty minutes after I got that notice from Twitter, I received another Twitter notice. My account had been suspended for 24 hours. Connection? I think so.
But back to the Atlantic article:
But Trumpâs Twitter conduct also raises a question about what Twitter is, and what it should be. Often, the service is treated as a new kind of public square, a place for the unfiltered exchange of ideas (and, clearly, hurling of insults). Silicon Valley has rarely stepped in to correct the persistent cultural conflation between the actual right to free speechâthat is, the constitutionally protected right that says the government cannot make a law that inhibits peopleâs freedom of expressionâand the idea that people should get to say whatever they want wherever they want to without consequence. (Complicating things further, Twitter must answer to its shareholders, and having the president use its service so routinelyâand so bombasticallyâcertainly keeps the service relevant.)
In reality, though, Twitter is a media company. Just like CNN and The New York Times are media companies. Except, unlike in a traditional model where publishers and readers are distinct groups, everyone can be both on Twitter. So whatâs a company like Twitter to do when one of its usersâwho is also the president of the United States, by the wayâincessantly publishes attacks against individuals? Nothing, apparently. At least nothing yet. The thornier question is: What should it do? Only rarely would any news organization turn down the opportunity to exclusively print or broadcast a message from the president. (U.S. senators and presidential candidates, however, are another story.) Though itâs not like the president doesnât have plenty of opportunities for his voice to be amplified. He has said he likes Twitter because itâs a direct channel to the American people, but he has his own website where he could be live-streaming or blogging, for instance. He is also a constant subject of media attention; his press conferencesâwhen the White House permits itâare broadcast over cable and network television.
Presidents have historically made good use of new media platforms. Franklin Rooseveltâs fireside chats may seem quaint to us now, but they were a revolutionary experiment with a nascent media platform when they began in the 1930s. But, as with all things Trump-related, looking to norms and historic conventions can only get you so far. Imagine if Roosevelt had used his radio access to relentlessly criticize individual Americans by name. Trump knows that his critics are disgusted by the way he represents the country on Twitter, and he trusts that his supporters delight in their disgust.
Well, I think all that is moot when it comes to bullying and obstructing justice.
I guess I will bring up the crime and punishment in another post…but here is an update on a recent case of road rage:
A Pennsylvania man was in custody Sunday for what a prosecutor called the âsavageâ and âsenselessâ death of a recent high school graduate shot in the head during a road-rage confrontation as the two tried to merge in a single lane.
David Desper, 28, of Trainer, turned himself in accompanied by an attorney early Sunday, and police said he was charged with first- and third-degree murder, possession of an instrument of crime, and reckless endangering in the death of 18-year-old Bianca Roberson in West Goshen Township.
Desper and Roberson, who had just graduated from Bayard Rustin High School in West Chester and was planning to attend Jacksonville University in Florida this fall, were trying to merge into a single lane Wednesday as a two-lane road narrowed, Chester County District Attorney Thomas Hogan said.
âThey jockeyed for position, and he wasnât happy, so he pulled out a gun and shot Bianca in the head, killing her instantly,â he said.
After Roberson was shot, her car veered off the road, struck a tree and was found in a ditch. The shooter fled in a red pickup, driving partly along the shoulder of the highway until exiting the road. Authorities tracked the suspect vehicle on surveillance video and sorted through hundreds of tips from the public, calling on the suspect to turn himself in for his own sake and for the sake of the family.
This is an open thread.
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This little section of delight in the North Georgia Mountains…I’ve spoken before of the cross-section of folks who live and breed in the town of Banjoville. Simple kinds of folk, why the sign welcoming people to our county states as much:
I’ll give them the “Scenic Beauty” but as far as the “Friendly People” …that is open for debate.
I’ve noticed the Trump situation has made the bold hateful comments more mainstream. it is acceptable and standard and now common place to find this shit among the facebook pages of the typical Banjoville resident.
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(One of those comments is written by a superintendent of schools…more on that later in the post.)
But there is something more to it than all this hate, which is deep seated in the back mountain town mentality that populates so much of the nation. The Trump Nation. It is a nation that would never support a Cruz or Rubio, because when it comes down to it…they have Latino blood.
There was a tweet I saw yesterday that sums the whole thing up perfectly.
What Jerry Falwell did today, in endorsing Trump, is show the world that when choosing between whiteness & Christianity, whiteness rules.
Yes, when it all comes down to it, White always wins.
And this is what I see everywhere I go in Banjoville.
A White Right Wing Christian Hate that is prejudice against any and all who is not “one of them.” Living in a town like that is hell. My family has experienced the discrimination first hand many times. To this point I bring you the reason for this post. The Trump Nation embodied in Banjoville, what does this mean for society.
We live in a town where the Sheriff’s Office is so blatant about their total embrace of the practice of Separation of Church and State. This is the painted image that greats you as you walk into the Sheriff’s Office:
It is a picture by an artist, Beth Sweigard, known for painting fetuses and a sad Jesus…
….or Jesus at the Jewish Peoples’ Wall…
When I first saw that Patriotic Jesus poster in the sheriff’s department, I immediately thought about that other spectacular artist…Jon McNaughton.
Yeah, he is the artist who immortalized Clive Bundy above as some kind of western hero for the nation….
You want a real laugh, take a look at the gallery of patriotic work here jonmcnaughton. com /patriotic/
I’ve seemed to have gotten carried away there, I need to get back to the Banjoville Sheriff Dept.
Everywhere you look there is proof that the Sheriff is a holy man, even a plaque that states he has been to church more times than any other man alive on the planet. ( I kid you not.)
Tell me that a person who is not a “real” Christian will have a equal chance at justice in that building. (The color of their skin goes without saying…back before the State of Georgia forcibly frightened all the immigrants out of town, the officers made most of their arrest by stalking the Spanish Sunday Mass up at the Catholic Church…and pulling over any car leaving the church.)
How about the fine Doctors in the area? Who proudly display their affiliation in The Oathkeepers…Oh yeah, we even have one who is a leading authority member of the affiliation. How does this affect his service to the public…the entire public. (Well, I guess since he is in private practice that is not a legitimate question, but if he is the only doctor your insurance plan accepts what then?)
Then you have the teachers and administrators at the schools, counselors who are partial to the local Banjoville White Christian. Coaches who are prejudice against players… teachers who will penalize a student if they are the wrong” color or even the wrong Christian faith. (Y’all remember Catholics are a no go as well.) This is not something made up…this really happens and it effects the future lives of students.
This is the view of a Trump Nation from my little Banjoville. The hate and bitterness is nothing new, it is just becoming bolder in its execution.
Donald Trump might actually be able to pull it off. A new, nationwide poll from CNN/ORC shows that Trumpâs lead in the Republican polls has grown even stronger going into the Iowa caucus, which kicks off the primary season. Heâs reached 41 percent support amongst Republican voters, which is more than double what his closest contender, the even more ridiculous Ted Cruz, has. Even more startlingly, Trumpâs supporters seem more assured of their votes than the supporters of any other candidate. It seems Trump might do what seemed to be impossible: Overcome the resistance of party leaders to grab the nomination.
[…]
…things are looking a lot better for Trump than anyone could have predicted. Part of the issue is that his closest contender, Ted Cruz, hasnât made the progress he clearly thought he would at this late stage.
Mea culpa time. Iâve long thought that Ted Cruzhad a strong chance of knockingTrump out of the race, and that Cruz would either win the nomination or at least winnow it down so that Rubio could sneak up and grab it. In my own defense, the theory was pretty sound. I argued that Christian right voters would move away from go-nowhere candidates like Mike Huckabee and Ben Carson and coalesce behind a single candidate. It seemed that Cruz, who is an even nastier bully than Trump but speaks fluent evangelical-ese in a way that Trump canât master, was well-positioned to suction up those Christian right voters.
The evangelicals did abandon the smaller candidates but, in a somewhat surprising twist, they flocked to Trump. Cruzâs once robust support amongst evangelicals is plummeting. He now has only 20 percent of the evangelical vote, whereas Trump has 37 percent of their support.
Trumpâs ability to win over evangelical voters is the surest sign yet that his campaign will not collapse as quickly as every predictive model imaginable suggested it should. Prying Christians off Trump should have been easy! Heâs been married three times and literally cheated on his first wife in a church. His attempts to pretend he cares about religion have been limp and unconvincing, and yet, his base of support with evangelicals is only getting stronger.
The best explanation for why comes from Adam Lee of Daylight Atheism, who points out that âevangelicalism isnât especially concerned with beliefs, nor has it ever has been.â
âWhether itâs Prohibition and communism, dancing and divorce, or abortion and gay marriage, evangelicalsâ pet causes have changed radically over the decades,â he adds. âThe issues themselves have only ever been important as a boundary marker, a way to delineate Us from Them.â
Trump fails comically to convince anyone heâs ever even cracked a Bible, he is the master at the âus vs. themâ narrative. It turns out this is actually all the majority of Christian conservatives needed. All that stuff about Jesus and family values was merely window dressing. All that really matters is being told that people like them are better and more worthy than other people, and whoever can do that the most effectively â turns out thatâs Donald Trump â will beat out the competition.
The us vs them….no that is not the right way…it is more like I said above, Trump pulls this “he is one of US” or “they are not one of us”… is more like the wording to me. One of Us being the key phrase. Us being only White Caucasians, accepting Jesus as your Savior kind of Christian, Us.
Anyway, that is my observations of Trump supporters, for another look, take a gander at this: The Return of the Middle American Radical An intellectual history of Trump supporters.
However, I think the reason Trump happened is because of the media’s lack of calling Trump out for his racism, sexism, and every other thing the bigoted asshole has done.  Of course the Media isn’t only to blame. I think the corporate powers are a YUUUUGGGEE part of the problem too.
Watch this interview from The Young Turks that touches on the media and corporate sponsors.
Oh, the other points of the interview are very well taken, but y’all get the message here.
Although the article is not as bad as the headline makes it…
This feud has gotten ridiculous. Republican front-runner and businessman Donald Trump is now threatening to boycott the upcoming GOP debate if host Fox News doesn’t remove Megyn Kelly as a moderator.
I don’t usually like the argument that takes the form of, “if candidate can’t stand up to X, how can they stand up to the Islamic State?” But I do wonder how Trump will be able to handle anyone as president if he can’t take the sort of pointed questions about his weaknesses that originally soured him on Kelly.
It all started last August at the first GOP debate, when Kelly asked Trump about the New York businessman’s comments toward women in the past. The question was one of the most memorable of the debate, and prompted Trump to later claim: “you could see there was blood coming out of her eyes ⌠Blood coming out of her wherever.”
Kelly has recently poked fun at former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s endorsement of Trump, and hosted National Review editor Rich Lowry, whose magazine has come out against the Republican front-runner.
And here we are. This insignificant back and forth has caused Trump, for the fourth time this cycle, to threaten to boycott a debate. Trump said he would boycott two CNN debates if CNN President Jeff Zucker didn’t donate money to charity. He also threatened to pull out of the CNBC debate if the format wasn’t changed (rival Ben Carson made a similar threat as well).
This makes Fox News spokesperson Irena Briganti’s statement all the more relevant: “Donald Trump is just trying to build up the audience for Thursday’s debate, for which we thank him.”
Trump is unlikely to actually boycott the debate and host his own town hall for rival networks, as he has claimed he would do. But if he has no plans to actually do this, his ongoing comments and actions toward Kelly are troubling.
How will Trump handle a hostile press if he is president? We know the press will be more harsh toward a Republican president, and that the press is especially hostile toward Trump, so will he just shut them out? And does Megyn Kelly, on a right-leaning network, really need to be public enemy number one to the Trump campaign?
I realize that this, like everything Trump does, is for attention, but it ultimately brings into question his ability to handle adversity and criticism.
That and imagine his fat sweaty fingers on the button of our nuclear arsenal.
It is an afternoon on Sunday. I have not checked online since early Friday Morning, (Wait, do I have the times right?) Oh well, whatever the hell the time frame is…I can always tell the passing of the hours by my Newsblur reader.
<———– See, all the big numbers of articles I have to go through. And yes, I do name all my folders “Minx Crap” because that is my way. I have a sense of humor that some would get offended by, but who gives a fuck right? It is my personal way to deal with things. (For fucks sake…)
Quick example, one of my friends got a kick out of the name of the town I was in this weekend, for my daughter’s State Honor Choir…Cumming, GA. “Was I joking?” he asked…nope, would you believe I was not…joking.
He then said to me, that a friend just told him of an Intercourse, PA. Which I replied, yup…there is a Bird-in-Hand and a Tickle-me-Balls, Pennsylvania too! (The first one is a real town, the second one is something I made up.) I wonder if he believes both are somewhere on a road map of PA? Gawd, I hope I don’t offend those folks who live in the State of Pennsylvania. Eeesh….
Anyway, you see the numbers by the folders…those are the unread articles within the feeds I subscribe to.
It says a lot without even looking at the stuff behind the folders. Ah, shit went down alright, but not shit that the right wing was too excited about. Per the 3 Minx Crap RWN (aka Right Wing Nuts) folder after all that time, the 25+ sites I follow were relatively quiet.
My main crap blogs were busy, but not scandalously busy. These are the left wing blogs…
And a shitload of Main Stream Media news…(BTW, no Fox News Feed in any of my folders, the only right leaning news feeds I have in my main stream folder are NYTs, CNN, and WaPo…uh…The Hill. A few border main stream, right leaning…Politico, FiveThirtyEight, Memeorandum etc.)
The point I am making here is that I have no clue what the fuck happened this weekend. Looks like something big, which the right did not want to get involved in, and the left was fine touching with a 25 foot pole.
As far as my Medieval/Science/History folder and my “Other” folder, which is mostly Classic Movies, technical movie stuff and fine art, photography, music, ballet etc. Seems to me that it was a busy weekend for the Humanities.
So due to this extreme situation, and my extreme laziness…tiredness. This will be an open thread. Otherwise it will be another 48 hours to get a proper post up here.
Police in France are asking the public for help in identifying a man they say was involved in the Nov. 13 assault on the national stadium in Saint-Denis, a northern suburb of Paris.
The few polls that have trickled out since the last Republican debate have shown somesoftening of support for the good doctor, but as long as Ben Carson is doing well in Iowa, thereâs no real reason to panic. Within the past month, Carson has opened up leads over Donald Trump as wide as 14 points in the state, while dancing around the national lead. The surest sign that Carsonâs fade might show some durability came Sunday morning with therelease of a CBS News poll that shows Carson not only falling well behind Trump in Iowa, but also now trailing Senator Ted Cruz:
Donald Trump has returned to the lead in Iowa while Ted Cruz has now surged past Ben Carson into second place. Carson has slipped from a first-place tie into third.
While Iowaâs Republicans generally feel Trump is ready to be commander-in-chief, Cruz scores even better on this measure, boosted by support from very conservative and Tea Party Iowans who feel he is ready to assume the post. Thatâs more than say so about Trump, Carson, Rubio and Jeb Bush.
Trump gets 30% in the new poll (up from 27% in October), Cruz gets 21% (up from just 12% last month), while Carsonâs support has slipped to 19% after tying Trump at 27% in the lastCBS/Yougov poll.
Look at the expressions on the faces of the host….as Trump telling them, “Maybe he should have been roughed up,” Trump said during a Sunday morning call-inappearance on “Fox & Friends.” “It was absolutely disgusting what he was doing.”
A CNN reporter captured video of the Saturday incident in which a protester was reportedlypunched and kicked after he was tackled to the ground by attendees or security at Trump’s rally. At least one onlooker yelled, “Don’t choke him! Don’t choke him!” according to The Washington Post.
Trump is heard in the video yelling, “Get him the hell out of here!”
All that above…wow…just wow….this has truly been a hellish weekend. And to see the shit these candidates are saying, makes me so ill. To know I had to stand up, against the GOP candidates positions, and lost a troubled friendship for good over it, it still is bothersome. Â But I feel a relief.
I can’t take the crazy talk from those bigoted/right-wing  politicians, blowhards, talk show/radio host and “religious” leaders…and it hurt to see someone I know who used to be so caring and considerate of all persons, totally become changed over the years, to the point where they out right tell me, no amount of cited sources/articles/commentary/direct quotes from right or left leaning news/media/etc could change their mind or make any difference to them.
Onward, because I am done with all that other stuff.
The Sky Dancing banner headline uses a snippet from a work by artist Tashi Mannox called 'Rainbow Study'. The work is described as a" study of typical Tibetan rainbow clouds, that feature in Thanka painting, temple decoration and silk brocades". dakinikat was immediately drawn to the image when trying to find stylized Tibetan Clouds to represent Sky Dancing. It is probably because Tashi's practice is similar to her own. His updated take on the clouds that fill the collection of traditional thankas is quite special.
You can find his work at his website by clicking on his logo below. He is also a calligraphy artist that uses important vajrayana syllables. We encourage you to visit his on line studio.
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