Wednesday Reads: Designed in the USA
Posted: June 13, 2018 Filed under: Canada, children, China, Congress, corruption, Diplomacy Nightmares, Discrimination against women, Donald Trump, Foreign Affairs, Fox News, France, Germany, Great Britain, Human Rights, ICE Immigration and Customs Enforcement, immigration, Injustice system, Kim Jung Un, morning reads, North Korea, open thread, Political and Editorial Cartoons, racism, Real Life Horror, Refugees, refugees from Central and South America, Republican politics, right wing hate grouups, Russia, the GOP, Trade, tRump crimes against humanity, U.S. Politics, US & Canada, Violence against women, Wednesday Hump Day Cartoons, white nationalists, Women's Rights | Tags: Rep. Pramila Jayapal 65 Comments
If anyone saw the Rep. Pramila Jayapal interview last night on Chris Hayes…you know the absolute terror and disgust that can make an actual pain in your chest.
If you have not seen this interview, stop what you are doing right now, and watch it.
Rep. Jayapal: Mothers didn’t even get to say bye to kids
It will be very difficult, and the word difficult is not used lightly…but work your way through it. Feel the bitter pain, that chokes up and taste foul in the back of your throat. For that is the essence of a hateful authoritarian dictatorship rule, and when Hannah Arendt spoke of the Banality of Evil….let me tell you, it starts here….
More from Rep. Jayapal:
The situation is only getting worse….
https://twitter.com/Green_Footballs/status/1006703532370690048
https://twitter.com/Green_Footballs/status/1006712714754838528
https://twitter.com/Shakestweetz/status/1006636622757101568
I don’t know what the fuck the United States is anymore, it sure as hell isn’t a democracy…it has moved on past the point of the “breakdown” period. I truly think we are now at the beginning of the Totalitarian Regime of Trump.
… Arendt notes that loneliness can become both the seedbed and the perilous consequence of the isolation effected by tyrannical regimes:
In isolation, man remains in contact with the world as the human artifice; only when the most elementary form of human creativity, which is the capacity to add something of one’s own to the common world, is destroyed, isolation becomes altogether unbearable… Isolation then becomes loneliness.
[…]
While isolation concerns only the political realm of life, loneliness concerns human life as a whole. Totalitarian government, like all tyrannies, certainly could not exist without destroying the public realm of life, that is, without destroying, by isolating men, their political capacities. But totalitarian domination as a form of government is new in that it is not content with this isolation and destroys private life as well. It bases itself on loneliness, on the experience of not belonging to the world at all, which is among the most radical and desperate experiences of man.
This is why our insistence on belonging, community, and human connection is one of the greatest acts of courage and resistance in the face of oppression…
And let’s not forget the fiasco with Canada and our other allies….the isolation that has been the cornerstone of tRump’s rule in office:
What perpetuates such tyrannical regimes, Arendt argues, is manipulation by isolation — something most effectively accomplished by the divisiveness of “us vs. them” narratives. She writes:
Terror can rule absolutely only over men who are isolated against each other… Therefore, one of the primary concerns of all tyrannical government is to bring this isolation about. Isolation may be the beginning of terror; it certainly is its most fertile ground; it always is its result. This isolation is, as it were, pretotalitarian; its hallmark is impotence insofar as power always comes from men acting together…; isolated men are powerless by definition.
tRump has aligned the US with ruthless dictators and powerful authoritarian governments…because that is what the US as become.
https://twitter.com/JimPethokoukis/status/1006500209269100544
Some updates on the North Korea Summit:
North Korea state media says Trump agreed to lift sanctions against North | Reuters
North Korean state media said on Wednesday U.S. President Donald Trump had agreed to lift sanctions against the North in addition to providing security guarantees in the summit with the North’s leader, Kim Jong Un, the previous day.
North Korea state media reporting Trump agreed to lift sanctions | TheHill
Both leaders signed an agreement committing the United States to unspecified “security guarantees” in exchange for denuclearization in the Korean Peninsula.
Trump reportedly offered to lift sanctions on the cash-strapped country in addition to those security guarantees, according to Reuters.
North Korea’s KCNA news agency cites Trump making the pledge to lift the economic barriers after saying the U.S. would end joint military exercises with South Korea.
Following the summit, Trump had indicated that sanctions would remainuntil North Korea began the denuclearization process saying of easing sanctions, “I hope it’s going to be soon. At a certain point, I actually look forward to taking them off.”
Reuters did not receive immediate comment from U.S. officials.
The Hill has also reached out to the White House for comment.
Ugh…
In other news, Steve King retweeted a Nazi: GOP lawmaker retweets prominent British neo-Nazi | TheHill
There seems to be a new Fox News/ tRump family connection in the “house” ….STASI: Fox should fire reporter Kimberly Guilfoyle, who can’t possibly stay neutral while dating a Trump kid – NY Daily News
And, tRump is keen on building a tRump Tower in North Korea:
North Korea ‘Could Have The Best Hotels’ On Its Beaches, Trump Raves To Kim | HuffPost
“They have great beaches,” Trump said at a news conference following the talks between the two leaders. “You see that whenever they’re exploding the canons into the ocean. I said look at that view. Wouldn’t that make a great condo beyond that?”
“You could have the best hotels in the world right there. Think of it from a real estate perspective,” Trump continued. “You have South Korea, you have China, and they own the land in the middle. How bad is that? Right? It’s great.”
Despite Trump’s grandiose suggestions, the U.S. State Department recommends against travel to North Korea. Federal authorities advise travelers to draft a will and “funeral wishes” before going.
I think that part about drafting a will and making funeral wishes is a dramatically different message to what the tRump admin is pushing.
Going back to the #Wherearethechildren and #FamiliesBelongTogether issue…
After the Chris Hayes interview, Rep. Jayapal posted this on her Twitter account:
Now the funnies…starting with this shit…no it ain’t no joke. This is fucking real:
Why Donald Trump showed Kim Jong-un a movie trailer at the North Korea summit – Axios
President Trump’s wooing of Kim Jong-un at the Singapore summit included the iPad showing (in English and Korean) of a “Destiny Pictures” movie trailer, made by the White House’s National Security Council, starring themselves saving the world.
Show lessJonathan Swan’s sources help illuminate Trump’s thinking:
- Trump thinks of his presidency in cinematic terms — with himself as star, producer, director, writer and critic. Now, backed by the resources of the United States government, he’s a studio, too.
- The president is very aware of his celebrity and how people view him.
- Kim is a young tyrant obsessed with pop culture.
- So by literally casting the two of them in a movie, Trump’s was celebritizing the summit, and aiming at Kim’s sweet spot.
The White House is very proud of the video: Vice President Pence showed it at yesterday’s weekly Senate Republican luncheon.
- Garrett Marquis, National Security Council spokesman: “The video was created by the NSC to help the President demonstrate the benefits of complete denuclearization, and a vision of a peaceful and prosperous Korean Peninsula.”
And if you want to see the video…just go to the White House facebook page..yeah, can you believe this shit?
06/13/2018 Cartoon by Nick Anderson
Exactly….yes to this one Nick Anderson!
06/13/2018 Cartoon by Nate Beeler
06/12/2018 Cartoon by Nate Beeler
06/12/2018 Cartoon by Signe Wilkinson
Uh, that one from Signe is spot on.
Nick Anderson cartoon: 06/12/2018 Cartoon by Nick Anderson
The Handshake: 06/13/2018 Cartoon by Adam Zyglis
Neighbors to the North: 06/12/2018 Cartoon by Adam Zyglis
G-7 Summit: 06/10/2018 Cartoon by Adam Zyglis
06/13/2018 Cartoon by Steve Artley
Bruce Plante Cartoon: Trump and Kim Jong Un meet: 06/13/2018 Cartoon by Bruce Plante
Clay Bennett editorial cartoon: 06/13/2018 Cartoon by Clay Bennett
06/13/2018 Cartoon by MStreeter
06/13/2018 Cartoon by Kevin Siers
06/12/2018 Cartoon by Joe Heller
06/12/2018 Cartoon by Gustavo Rodriguez
Allies of Evil: 06/13/2018 Cartoon by Jen Sorensen
Rudy: 06/13/2018 Cartoon by James Silk
The best deals: 06/13/2018 Cartoon by James Silk
06/12/2018 Cartoon by Matt Wuerker
U.S.-N.K. SUMMIT: 06/12/2018 Cartoon by Deb Milbrath
G7 2018: 06/11/2018 Cartoon by Deb Milbrath
Statue of Cruelty: 06/12/2018 Cartoon by Steve Greenberg
I think the kid should be younger in that cartoon…but that is only my opinion.
And that will about do it for me…
One more thing before we go:
See this?
It is from a water bottle I bought at Walmart…see what it says…”Designed in the USA.” What a fucking joke…
You know what else is funny…Walmart bicycles say they are assembled in the USA…you what to know what that means?
It means that some store employee puts the bike together in the back room, cute? Yeah, all the parts come from somewhere overseas…innit funny?
“Assembled in the USA.”
“Designed in the USA.”
The mutthafukkin joke is on us.
This is an open thread.
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