Right Wing Views: Women? Ick.

we-read-breitbart-so-you-dont-have-to-750x

Some nice staffers at The Advocate are reading Breitbart and other fascist publications, so we don’t have to feel all filthy clicking on those sites, but can still know what’s happening. It’s still a very nauseous trip, reading the excerpts, so be warned.

In the current political climate — well, in any political climate — it’s good to know who your adversaries are and what they’re saying. For this reason, we’re initiating a weekly roundup of the highlights and lowlights from Breitbart and other right-wing news and opinion websites.

Our inaugural entry (in more ways than one) takes note of these sites’ coverage and commentary regarding the ban on entry to the U.S. from citizens of seven countries, the Women’s Marches, and Donald Trump’s swearing-in as president.

[…]

Breitbart featured several other defenses of  the Trump order, including a column by failed vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin. She denounces “hysteria” over the order and says calling it a ban amounted to “fake news,” then concludes, “Trump’s executive action is a step in the right direction towards welcoming safe, loving, law-abiding, hardworking, patriotic people into our nation that was built on the backs of safe, loving, law-abiding, hardworking, patriotic people willing to assimilate into America’s exceptional melting pot.”

I, I…uh, oh fuck. For the life of me, I cannot figure out, at all, why anyone gives this person space to say anything. It’s nothing but word salad with shit dressing. uStates is a melting pot (not in the least exceptional) because of immigration. (After the genocide of those who were here first, natch.) FFS. All manner of safe, loving, law-abiding, hardworking people have been denied entry and re-entry into the Fascist States of America. What. An. Idiot.

The previous weekend was marked by Women’s March on Washington and sister marches all over the world. In case you think sexism isn’t alive and well, consider what the far-right sites had to say about the actions:

“Just another random protest march by the usual ragbag of leftist suspects, far too many of them blue hair, their whale-like physiques and terrifying camel-toes the size of the Grand Canyon.”

This isn’t from the comments section, folks. This sentence, grammatical problems and all, is from Breitbart contributor James Dellingpole. And wait, there’s more — after sharing his tweet saying men would probably have to fetch their own beers the night after the march, he writes:

“Very few of these shrieking munters — save the token celebrities — will ever find themselves in a position where they are able to fetch a man’s beer from his fridge because first they would have to find a man willing to share the same space with them.”

According to Urban Dictionary, “munter” is British slang for an ugly woman. Dellingpole finishes:

“Still, when all is said and done I think we owe those women who took to the streets across the world in their various pod groups a massive favour. They have reminded us what a Hillary presidency would have looked like every single day for at least four years. And they have swept away any reservations we may have had about the absolute necessity of having voted for Donald Trump.”

Ah yes, women, quelle horreur! Echoes from Euripides’ Hippolyta strike:

Go to hell! I’ll never have my fill of hating

Women, not if I’m said to talk without ceasing,

For women are also unceasingly wicked.

Either someone should teach them to be sensible,

Or let me trample them underfoot.

How little things change, literally, over centuries, when it comes to conservative authoritarians. In 195 bce, Cato the Elder declared:

If every married man had been concerned to ensure that his own wife looked up to him and respected his rightful position as her husband, we should not have half this trouble with women en masse. Instead, women have become so powerful that our independence has been lost in our own homes and is now being trampled and stamped underfoot in public. We have failed to retrain them as individuals, and now they have combined to reduce us to our present panic…It made me blush to push my way through a positive regiment of women a few minutes ago in order to get here. My respect for the position and modesty of them as individuals – a respect which I do not feel for them as a mob – prevented my doing anything as consul which would suggest the use of force. Otherwise I should have said to them, ‘What do you mean by rushing out in public in this unprecedented fashion, blocking the streets and shouting out to men who are not your husbands? Could you not have asked your questions at home, and have asked them of your husbands?

[…]

Woman is a violent and uncontrolled animal, and it is not good giving her the reins and expecting her not to kick over the traces. No, you have got to keep the reins firmly in your own hands…Suppose you allow them to acquire or to extort one right after another, and in the end to achieve complete equality with men, do you think that you will find them bearable? Nonsense. Once they have achieved equality, they will be your masters. – Livy, The Early History of Rome, translated by Aubrey de Sélin-court, Penguin Classics, 2002.

Cato’s speech failed, and the Oppian laws were overturned in 195 bce. This was the first recorded protest movement ever organized by women. It’s now 2017 ce, and we have not yet achieved equality, and still find ourselves needing to protest in the streets, much to the displeasure of misogynists everywhere, who still carry the attitude and mores of Cato the Elder.

There were more right wing comments on the Womens’ March:

“Commentators on MSNBC bragged about the crowd size of the women’s marches but, as a fellow female, I couldn’t help noticing the size of some of the marchers. There is a big difference between crowd numbers and crowd size.” — Townhall columnist Susan Stamper Brown

“Never have so many hotness-challenged crones so vehemently rejected being grabbed while simultaneously being at so little risk of it.” — Townhall columnist Kurt Schlicter

And conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’s Infowars site, which is one that really brings the crazy, approvingly posted a video of a conservative activist called Big Joe confronting a participant in the Women’s March in Los Angeles. “Planned Parenthood is a racist system,” he says. “Margaret Sanger [Planned Parenthood’s founder] thought very little of black people. She thought they were ignorant and shouldn’t exist and shouldn’t reproduce. … You want to be against racists? You should be against Planned Parenthood.” (Editor’s note: The assertion that Sanger and her organization were/are racist is a bald-faced lie, but many on the right believe it.)

Some things never change. The full article is at The Advocate.

Arkansas Act 45.

Danny Johnston/AP Photo.

Danny Johnston/AP Photo.

A new Arkansas law bans one of the safest and most common abortion procedures and allows family members to block an abortion by suing the abortion provider.

Arkansas Act 45, signed by Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson last Thursday, bans dilation and evacuation abortions, the most common abortion procedure during the second trimester of pregnancy. Rushed from filing to law in less than two months, the legislation effectively blocks abortions after 14 weeks by making the safest procedure a felony. The earliest current abortion bans block the procedure after 20 weeks.

With no exception for rape or incest, and a clause that allows a woman’s spouse or parent to sue an abortion provider, the law potentially allows the fetus’s father to sue even in cases of spousal rape or incest, abortion rights activists say. The law could go into effect as early as spring.

Emphasis mine. Looks like Arkansas is going full court biblical, reducing women to mere things, at best, nothing more than chattel. Interestingly enough, the fuckwits in Arkansas are also crusading against Sharia law. Apparently, they are utterly immune from irony poisoning.

State Rep. Brandt Smith (R-Jonesboro) introduced HB 1041, which won approval Thursday from a House judiciary committee, to “American laws for American courts,” reported the Arkansas Times.

He claims the measure was not specifically aimed at Sharia law, although it’s similar to legislation introduced in other states based on the conspiracy theory that Islamic law is creeping into the American legal system.

Yes, you could say Islamic law is creeping in, it’s called American laws for American courts, laws which exist for no other reason than to oppress and grind people down into the dirt, stripping them of their human rights and autonomy. At least Islamic law makes exceptions for rape and incest for 120 days when it comes to abortion, which makes that law better than the “American” one in Arkansas. Getting back to the Arkansas law, they aren’t alone:

When not working in the legislature, Mayberry doubles as the president of Arkansas Right to Life, a subsidiary of the National Right to Life Committee. Introducing the bill before the Arkansas House in January, Mayberry announced that the text was “based on model legislation from National Right to Life that has been passed, or similar legislation has been passed in six states.”

Those six states are Alabama, Kansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Mississippi, and West Virginia. In all but the latter two, which passed their bills in spring 2016, legal challenges have temporarily blocked the laws from taking effect. As in the other states, the Arkansas legislation takes a hard line against dilation and evacuation procedures, making their use a Class D felony, punishable by a $10,000 fine or six years in prison.

[…]

But one particularly punishing element of Arkansas’s law has not been tested in court, even in Mississippi and West Virginia, where versions of the bans still stand, reproductive rights activists say.

A clause in the Arkansas law allows a woman’s spouse, parent or guardian, or health care provider to sue an abortion provider for civil damages or injunctive relief that could stop the abortion. And because Act 45 does not provide any exceptions for cases of rape or incest, the clause could allow the fetus’s father to sue an abortion provider even in cases of spousal rape or incest.

Full stories at The Daily Beast and Raw Story.

A Chilling Silence.

Police officers patrol at the pyramid outside the Louvre museum in Paris,Friday, Feb. 3, 2017. CREDIT: AP Photo/Thibault Camus.

Police officers patrol at the pyramid outside the Louvre museum in Paris,Friday, Feb. 3, 2017. CREDIT: AP Photo/Thibault Camus.

The Tiny Dictator Trump is busy tweeting about the horror and awfulness of an attempted attack, by knife, at the Louvre in Paris.

An attacker at France’s storied museum the Louvre was shot and seriously wounded Friday morning, and the incident elicited a predictable response (in tweet form no less) from our new Commander-in-Chief.

Donald J. Trump

✔ @realDonaldTrump

A new radical Islamic terrorist has just attacked in Louvre Museum in Paris. Tourists were locked down. France on edge again. GET SMART U.S.

All manner of anti-Muslim idiots have been busy tweeting their little heads off about this, also. What’s interesting is what they are studiously ignoring:

The Louvre attacker allegedly tried to attack security forces outside the museum with a knife. Though details are unclear, some French media reported the attacker yelled “Allahu Akbar”— “God is great” in Arabic — while rushing a soldier. It’s important to note that the attack resulted in a whopping zero deaths.

Rewinding to Monday, a mosque in Quebec, Canada was attacked and six worshipers were killed and others wounded. Trump’s response? Silence.

The attacker, 27-year-old Alexandre Bissonnette, “was known in the city’s activist circles as a right-wing troll who frequently took anti-foreigner and anti-feminist positions and stood up for U.S. President Donald Trump,” the Globe and Mail reported. “His online profile and school friendships revealed little interest in extremist politics until last March, when France’s far-right National Front Leader Marine Le Pen visited Quebec City, inspiring Mr. Bissonnette to vocal extreme online activism, according to people who clashed with him starting around this time.”

Also on Monday, White House Senior Counselor Kellyanne Conway made up an attack in Bowling Green, Kentucky to justify Trump’s recent Muslim ban.

A right-wing troll. Anti-feminist. Trumpoid. We certainly know plenty of people just like Mr. Bissonnette, we get to deal with them every day on the ‘net, and have been for years on end. All of the people busy howling about an attempt which failed are quickly turning their heads and whistling over the six people murdered in Quebec. This too, is a result of the normalisation, and it is a terrible, deliberate misdirection, one which blatantly points out that murdering “those” people is okay. In support of that, the alternative facts lady is busy making up big batches of bullshit to shovel down gullible throats.

Via Think Progress.

Heil Hitler, Heil Trump.

Texas high school students (Twitter / @louismccorgilee).

Texas high school students (Twitter / @louismccorgilee).

CYPRESS, Texas – Several controversial photos of students from Cypress Ranch High School are circulating on social media.

The pictures show a group of students, some with their hands in the air making what appears to be a Nazi salute.

In an email to KPRC Channel 2, a student who witnessed the incident but asked to remain anonymous said students were shouting “Heil Hitler” and “Heil Trump. The student also said it was at least 70 or so people and, “It was pretty terrifying.”

The photos were taken on Tuesday, picture day for the senior class. One photo was supposed to be serious, the second was supposed to be funny.

But no one is laughing about it now.

The email from the Cypress Ranch student went on to say, “Most people may think it was just kids just joking around but in the current political climate and the fact these kids are seniors in high school, it’s beyond unacceptable.”

I’m very weary of the “funny! joke!” bullshit. No, it’s not funny. No, it’s not a joke. There are people who can do such a thing right, like Mel Brooks, but this is plain old ugly nazism, performed by a bunch of young white men, about ready to launch themselves into the world at large. Not remotely funny.

From a letter written by the principal of the school:

“This letter is to make you aware of a situation that occurred on our campus today while our senior class was taking a large group panoramic picture. Several of our students made the poor choice of displaying inappropriate gestures during this time. Unfortunately, many of these images have been shared on social media. This is extremely disappointing as this is not an accurate representation of our student body.

“We are currently conducting an investigation and those implicated will be punished according to the Student Code of Conduct.

“We ask that you talk to your students regarding the posting and sharing of negative social media as this perpetuates a false image of Cy Ranch HS.

No worry at all about the fact they have a large group of nazis in their school. No, this is all about image. Dammit, nazi boys, we told you, be discreet! This is a disgusting response, to say the least. What’s the punishment going to be, a course in proper nazi etiquette? Going by the Raw Story article, there were teachers present, but not one of them said a word, or told the nazis to knock it off. So normalised already that fully fledged adults turn their heads away from nazi youth. Great sign, ennit?

Via Click2Houston and Raw Story.

In the same vein, white supremacy was on view at a basketball game:

Video has surfaced from the controversial Dover and Jefferson basketball game on Friday during which members of the Jefferson crowd shouted racial remarks at an African-American player on the Dover team and “Build the wall” during their pre-game warm-ups.

The incident came to light Monday when Jefferson Superintendent Patrick Tierney apologized after students “allegedly made racist and/or offensive statements directed at the Dover athletes” during Friday’s game. Dover Superintendent Robert Becker issued a statement hours later in which he identified two of those statements, saying Dover students chanted “ashy knees” at a player, as well as, “Build the wall.”

Video obtained by NJ Advance Media shows several instances of members of the Jefferson crowd shouting “ashy knees” when an African-American player steps up to the free throw line for several foul shots. Occasionally, one area would shout “ashy,” and the other area would follow with “knees.”

The theme for the night was American pride, and several people in the video were dressed in clothes featuring the American flag — and one member of the crowd waved a full-sized American flag. Earlier chants combined with the flags, upset some Dover parents.

Michael Moore, a parent of a Dover High School basketball player, told NJ Advance Media he believed the Jefferson crowd’s intent was to disparage Dover — a town with a significant Hispanic and African-American population.

“Their intent was disrespect,” he said. “Not to promote the country as a whole.”
Moore, who was in attendance at the game, said he placed the blame on the adults in the Jefferson group as they “allowed this and put this together.”

If you click on over to the full article, you’ll see the incredibly flimsy, bullshit excuses provided by adults for their little nazis in training. Disgust isn’t strong enough. There’s also video at the link.

How Much In Common?

A member of the Ku Klux Klan who says his name is Gary Munker poses for a photo during an interview with AFP in Hampton Bays, New York on November 22, 2016 (AFP Photo/William EDWARDS).

A member of the Ku Klux Klan who says his name is Gary Munker poses for a photo during an interview with AFP in Hampton Bays, New York on November 22, 2016 (AFP Photo/William EDWARDS).

If you support Trump and/or his “policies”, you might want to check just how much you have in common with the KKK. Obviously, open white supremacist scum love him to pieces, but there are a lot of people who aren’t white supremacist scum who voted for our tiny dictator, and you really should be aware of the company you keep.

Ending illegal immigration, building a border wall and preventing terrorists from coming into the U.S. are a handful of the points on Klu Klux Klan leader Will Quigg’s checklist for “making America great again.” And Quigg, who says the nation was “founded to be free, white and Christian,” feels confident that President Donald Trump’s promises to grow the economy and prevent “illegal aliens” from coming into the U.S. are aligned with the KKK’s visions for America.

Quigg, a Grand Dragon and King Keagle of the Loyal White Knights’ West Coast chapter, isn’t the only KKK member excited by the prospects of a Trump administration. As a high ranking member of an infamous white supremacist organization, Quigg said he sees everyday how the rhetoric of Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan is resonating with people who want to join or who have recently been recruited by the Klan.

“We’ve seen a rise in [Klan] membership in the last two years, well, ever since Trump put in his dollar to get into the race. And especially every time he would say something that was not socially acceptable on a mainstream level,” Quigg told International Business Times in a phone interview.

If you think things like ethnic cleansing, genocide, putting people into ovens, and so on are not good things, perhaps it’s time to have a think about your viewpoints. And, if you tell yourself bullshit lies like this:

These days, people join the Klan not because they are racist or supremacists, but because they want to help other white people, he said.

You need to stop lying to yourself and face up to the fact that yes, you are a racist and white supremacist.

Full story here.

Black History Month, a la Trump.

Jesus Fucking Crispy Christ onna Stick.  I can’t even, I just can’t. It’s all about Donny, he’s just so gosh darn great, and black people love him to pieces, oh my yes!

Pardon me while I puke. You can read all about it here and here.

Silencing Dissent.

Demonstrators holds banners and signs as they protest during a march in downtown Washington in opposition of President-elect Donald Trump, Sunday, Jan. 15, 2017. CREDIT: AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana.

Demonstrators holds banners and signs as they protest during a march in downtown Washington in opposition of President-elect Donald Trump, Sunday, Jan. 15, 2017. CREDIT: AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana.

As people critical of President Trump’s Muslim ban flocked to airports this weekend to show their support for immigrants and refugees, one major airport decided to crack down on protesters.

Denver International Airport (DIA) began enforcing a rule on Sunday that requires anyone interested in demonstrating to submit an application seven days in advance. The regulation was challenged by protesters, including one who recorded a video criticizing Denver Police Commander Tony Lopez for violating his First Amendment rights.

There’s more about the Denver situation at the link.

But the movement toward limiting protesters’ free speech rights is not confined to the terminals of DIA. In anticipation of an active protest movement during Trump’s administration, multiple Republican-controlled states are currently pushing for legislation that would discourage and even criminalize nonviolent, public demonstrations.

In Minnesota, a billpassed a Republican-controlled committee last week that would allow cities to sue protesters in order to collect money to pay police forces required at the demonstration. Lawmakers drafted the legislation in response to massive Black Lives Matter protests that erupted in the state after a police officer shot and killed Philando Castile.

This sounds very much like what happened here in nDakota and the water protectors. People will get bilked for money, and I’d put odds on that money being used the way it was here, to purchase military toys for cop shops. All the better to threaten you with, my dear. Being able to sue anyone who protests will have the very chilling effect of shutting down effective protests, because too many people will not be willing to face such a consequence; most people can’t afford to face such a consequence. Allowing a lawsuit against people for exercising their constitutional rights, does that sound like a democracy to you? Speaking of picking pockets…

And in Michigan, Republican lawmakers are attacking both unions and protesters by pushing legislation that would increase fines against picketers to $1,000 per person per day of a picket and $10,000 per day for an organization or union involved in the picket. The bill passed the state House of Representatives in December, but was set aside by the Senate.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking that will be an end to such legislation though, it won’t be.

Taking a different tactic, four other states are considering anti-protest laws that would target demonstrators who protest on the streets, according to The Intercept. The bills have all been introduced in the last few months as responses to high-profile protests by Black Lives Matter activists and opponents of the Dakota Access Pipeline that shut down highways.

The Intercept summarized the bills that Republican lawmakers have proposed in North Dakota, Minnesota, Washington, and Iowa:

In North Dakota, for instance, Republicans introduced a bill last week that would allow motorists to run over and kill any protester obstructing a highway as long as a driver does so accidentally. In Minnesota, a bill introduced by Republicans last week seeks to dramatically stiffen fines for freeway protests and would allow prosecutors to seek a full year of jail time for protesters blocking a highway. Republicans in Washington state have proposed a plan to reclassify as a felony civil disobedience protests that are deemed “economic terrorism” … And in Iowa a Republican lawmaker has pledged to introduce legislation to crack down on highway protests.

“This is a marked uptick in bills that would criminalize or penalize protected speech and protest, and every person should be alarmed at that trend,” she said, calling the bills unconstitutional. “We should also be alarmed by the attitude they betray, which is that when Americans get out into the streets and make their voices heard — recently, in record numbers — their elected representatives’ response is not to listen to those concerns but to attempt to silence and criminalize them.”

“That goes against the very fabric of our constitutional democracy, and legislators introducing these bills should be ashamed,” she added. “To try to silence those who are speaking up right now is a betrayal of American values.”

Yes, they should be ashamed, but they aren’t. That’s because there is no democracy anymore. Gone, vanished, set on fire and up in smoke. Silence people, quash dissent, order compliance. If you can’t see where we are headed, it’s because you refuse to see.

Full article at Think Progress. Mano Singham has a post up about the revival of an old quash favourite: COINTELPRO. Oh, such bad news.

“A Very, Very Strict Ban.”

A crowd welcomes passengers as they exit customs at Dulles International Airport in Virginia. CREDIT: Jack Jenkins/ThinkProgress.

A crowd welcomes passengers as they exit customs at Dulles International Airport in Virginia. CREDIT: Jack Jenkins/ThinkProgress.

Our dictator ordered a ban, called it a ban. The ban was on Muslims, every country except those the dictator does business in, which was terribly convenient. People have been upset, and rightly so, there were many protests, still are, over the chaos and cruelty being inflicted on people. The thin-skinned tyrant now has his little cadre of hench people trying to spin it, in an attempt to expunge the word ban in favour of “extreme vetting”. Someone should point out that the switch doesn’t make the ban sound any less of a ban, or in any way, better. Use of the word extreme isn’t going to help. We already know that Trump is extremely unstable, and this latest round of idiocy and alternative facts is accomplishing nothing outside of emphasising the lies, bullshit and instability.

During his Tuesday press availability, Trump administration Press Secretary Sean Spicer insisted that the travel ban implemented by President Trump via executive order last Friday isn’t actually a ban at all.

“It can’t be a ban if you’re letting a million people in,” Spicer said, referring to the fact that Muslims who don’t hail from the seven Muslim-majority countries included in the ban can still travel to the U.S. “If 325,000 people from another country can come in, that is by nature not a ban… that is extreme vetting.”

Emphasis mine. This is open pandering to willful idiots, bigots, and nazis everywhere. And all the willful idiots, bigots, and nazis are swallowing this massive lie whole.

Spicer’s explanation prompted reporters to refer back a tweet posted by Trump on Monday morning in which he referred to his travel ban as a “ban.” Trump also referred to it as “a very, very strict ban” on Saturday.

In fact, in a White House press release distributed Sunday, Spicer himself referred to the ban as “a 90-day ban.”

But during Tuesday’s press availability, Spicer insisted that any confusion over whether or not Trump’s executive order constitutes a ban is the media’s fault.

“He’s using the words the media is using,” Spicer said of Trump’s tweet. “I think the words that are being used to describe it derive from what the media is calling this. [Trump] has been very clear that it is extreme vetting.”

Ah yes, it’s the media’s fault, natch. Thing is, no one in media could have reported on this at all until the Dictator and his gleeful goons implemented the ban, taking everyone, including half of those in government, by surprise. It was the implementation of a ban. It was called a ban. In action, it’s a ban. The executive order: ban. Ban, ban, ban, ban, ban. This is not the fault of media, it’s the result of a faulty brain and ginormous ego.

Likewise, because non-Muslims from the seven countries included in Trump’s travel ban are banned from entering the U.S. and because Muslims from other countries can still enter the country, Spicer and Trump supporters argue that Trump’s action doesn’t represent a “ban.”

The actual facts are as plain as the nose on your face, but those supporting Trump have not only swallowed this, they believe it, and are pushing this fancy all over the place. “It’s temporary, not a ban!” “It’s just vetting, to keep us safe!” and so on. These people are proud to be xenophobic assholes.

But Trump has been clear about his intentions all along. His December 2015 statement “calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on” is still on his website. And during a Fox News appearance on Saturday, Trump adviser Rudy Giuliani said that Trump’s executive order stemmed from a desire to ban Muslims, but to do so with the veneer of legality.

“So when [Trump] first announced it, he said, ‘Muslim ban.’ He called me up. He said, ‘Put a commission together. Show me the right way to do it legally,’” Giuliani said. “And what we did was, we focused on, instead of religion, danger — the areas of the world that create danger for us. Which is a factual basis, not a religious basis. Perfectly legal, perfectly sensible. And that’s what the ban is based on. It’s not based on religion. It’s based on places where there are substantial evidence that people are sending terrorists into our country.”

But Giuliani’s comment about “areas of the world that create danger” being the basis for the ban is belied by the facts. As the Wall Street Journal reports, of the 161 people charged with jihadist terrorism-related crimes or who died before being charged since 2001, only 11 were identified as being from the seven countries included in Trump’s executive order — Syria, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Yemen, Sudan, and Somalia.

The veneer of legality. Yeah. A spray on veneer, like a choking cloud of Aquanet. All this to catch nothing. There are terrorists here, but they aren’t at any airport. We have plenty of homegrown terrorists, and there’s a sadistic terrorist sitting in the highest office of the land.

Via Think Progress. This morning, I watched the advert Budweiser is going to air over the Superbowl (American Football), and if you think you need some insight into how Trumpoids think, along with their terrifying inability to think, head over and skim the comments.

 

The Truth in Stories.

CREDIT: AP Photo/Corey Perrine.

CREDIT: AP Photo/Corey Perrine.

Just one here, head over to Think Progress to see, in the faces of people, and in their own words, how families are being ruthlessly torn apart for no good reason.

Roozbeh Aliabadi, a former consultant and soon-to-be PhD student in international relations, told ThinkProgress that the order is keeping him from his wife, who lives in Iran.

Roozbeh said he met his wife there about a couple years ago. They had a legal marriage in Iran in June of last year, and decided to hold off on having a small ceremony with friends and family until his wife was able to come to the states.

Her application for permanent residency was approved on January 17, just three days before Trump’s inauguration, and they were informed that she needs an immigrant visa to enter the country. But since Trump’s order, it’s no longer clear that she will be able to come at all.

“We wanted to start our life together. She’s an architect, I was in consulting business, soon-to-be PhD student. We can’t do it,” he said. “I haven’t seen my wife for about seven months, and this, in a way, gives us two options. Number 1: I have to move out of the U.S. Or we have to get divorced. I don’t think the latter is an option.”

“If this continues, he’s not forbidding people to come over here. He’s essentially kicking out a lot of families from the U.S.,” said Roozbeh. “I’m very sad, very heartbroken by what he did.”

“I told my wife, Mr. Trump gave me another reason to love you more. This is definitely not going to change our relationship. It might make it physically more distant, but we’ll get through this as well.”

More at Think Progress.

And The Lie, the Big, Huge LIE.

In every major publication, you can read articles about the horrific chaos happening everywhere, of people in absolute fear and desperation, but of course, to our fucking LIAR in chief, everything is going just great, you betcha! Oh, and it’s not a muslim ban, it’s just a muslim ban.

Nonetheless, when reporters asked the new president how the new policies are being received, he said, “It’s not a Muslim ban, but we’re totally prepared. It’s working out very nicely. You see it at the airports, you see it all over. It’s working out very nicely and we’re gonna have a very, very strict ban and we’re going to have extreme vetting, which we should have had in this country for many years.”

Via Raw Story.

*Walks away in tears and disgust.*

Sunday Facepalm.

632914834-4630

Trump’s little nazi, Bannon, is everywhere. I’m surprised Trump isn’t trying to clone him. Now it’s Nazi NSA.

Meanwhile, Trump signed a presidential memo directing the Pentagon to submit a plan within 30 days to defeat the Islamic State, an effort to make good on his campaign promise to more aggressively confront Islamist terrorism than his predecessor did. … As he signed his directive at his desk in the Oval Office, Trump said, “I think it’s going to be very successful. That’s big stuff.”

Jesus Fuck. I still can’t believe we have a president who talks like a toddler.

Counseling Trump in the effort will be Stephen K. Bannon, the White House chief strategist whose influence inside the administration is expanding far beyond politics. In a separate presidential memo, Trump reorganized the National Security Council to, along with other changes, give Bannon a regular seat on the principals committee — the meetings of the most senior national security officials, including the secretaries of defense and state.

That memo also states that the director of national intelligence and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff will sit on the principals committee only when the issues to be discussed pertain to their “responsibilities and expertise.” In the previous two administrations, both were included as regular attendees.

The White House thinks the changes will make the NSC more adaptive to modern threats. Trump said the changes would bring “a lot of efficiency and, I think, a lot of additional safety.”

The changes affirm the ascent of Bannon, the former executive chairman of Breitbart, a conservative website that is popular with white nationalists, who has emerged as Trump’s political consigliere and the keeper of the president’s populist flame.

I think it’s fairly clear who the new president actually is, and it’s not Trump. Trump is an easily manipulable puppet. The Nazis are here and in charge.

Full story at Washington Post.

Think Progress is also covering this unprecedented  move, noting that even that asshole Bush jr never went so far, and in fact, went to considerable trouble to keep Rove away from any and all NSA meetings. Let that one sink in a little.

And don’t forget about Bannon:

Bannon has a history of anti-Semitic, misogynistic, and bigoted comments, and has openly disparaged Jews and minorities and has called women “dykes.” Both the Klu Klux Klan and the American Nazi Party cheered his appointment to the White House. Bannon also reportedly had a major role in crafting key parts of Trump’s Muslim ban, including the fact that the ban also applies to people with lawful permanent residence.

Google Goes Conservative.

Eric Schmidt, the chairman of Alphabet, Google’s parent company, arriving at Trump Tower in January to meet with Donald J. Trump. Mr. Trump’s team is wary of Mr. Schmidt, who has been allied with Democrats and advised the Obama White House. Credit Kevin Hagen for The New York Times.

Eric Schmidt, the chairman of Alphabet, Google’s parent company, arriving at Trump Tower in January to meet with Donald J. Trump. Mr. Trump’s team is wary of Mr. Schmidt, who has been allied with Democrats and advised the Obama White House. Credit Kevin Hagen for The New York Times.

WASHINGTON — Few companies have been as intimately tied to the Democratic Party in recent years as Google. So now that Donald J. Trump is president, the giant company, in Silicon Valley parlance, is having to pivot.

The shift was evident a day after Congress began its new session this month. That evening, about 70 lawmakers, a majority of them Republicans, were feted at the stately Smithsonian Arts and Industries Building, where they clinked champagne and bourbon glasses and posed for selfies with the 600 guests assembled in their honor.

The event’s main host was not from the Republican establishment. Instead, the party was primarily financed and anchored by Google.

“We’ve partnered with Google on events before, but nothing like this party,” said Alex Skatell, a founder of The Independent Journal Review, a news start-up with a right-leaning millennial audience, which also helped host the event. “I’ve never heard of an event as big.”

The event was emblematic of an about-face by Google. Over the last eight years, the company was closely associated with former President Barack Obama. Google employees overwhelmingly supported Mr. Obama’s presidential campaigns and some later took roles in his administration. Eric Schmidt, the chairman of Alphabet, Google’s parent company, advised the Obama White House. And last year, Google employees gave $1.3 million to Hillary Clinton’s campaign to succeed Mr. Obama, compared with $26,000 to the Trump campaign, according to federal filings.

Now, the tech giant is scrambling to forge ties with Mr. Trump’s new administration and to strengthen its relationship with a Republican-dominated Congress. Most important, Google is trying to change the perception that it is a Democratic stronghold.

So terribly reassuring to see everyone rush to suck up. CNN has the full story.

Costly, Wasteful, Harmful. Yeah, Trump.

Suspected undocumented immigrants are transferred out of the holding area after being processed at the Tucson Sector of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection headquarters CREDIT: AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, File.

Suspected undocumented immigrants are transferred out of the holding area after being processed at the Tucson Sector of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection headquarters CREDIT: AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, File.

Trump’s scarily close to insane fixation on immigration is going to be incredibly costly, and it should go without saying, highly harmful to all manner of peoples.

As part of a series of executive orders aimed at attacking immigrants and immigrant communities, President Donald Trump announced on Wednesday that going forward, his administration will order the mandatory detention of all those apprehended or arrested by immigration enforcement officials.

The U.S. already spends more on all immigration enforcement — nearly $20 billion a year — than on all other federal law enforcement combined, and currently detains more immigrants each day — more than 42,000 — than ever before. Summary removals and mandatory detention are at an all-time high. And the focus on removals has come at the cost of due process, placing vulnerable populations like asylum seekers at risk. The number of asylum seekers held in detention increased threefold from 2010 to 2014.

Making detention mandatory will only exacerbate these issues.

It will also be expensive. The mandatory detention of all immigrants apprehended or arrested will cost the U.S. an additional $902 million each year, for a total of $9 billion in new federal spending over the next decade.

[…]

And these estimates are by their nature conservative. They don’t take into account potentially lengthened stays in detention under this executive order, nor any costs to DHS for rapidly building or acquiring more detention facilities and bed space to meet new needs.

Let’s put that in perspective. For $9 billion, the U.S. could instead:

Ah, those would be good things though, and the rethuglicans are in charge of the asylum, so we definitely rule that out. No point at all in helping all people, and building a safe and stable society, with some thought to a social safety net. No, in our new fascist order, that sort of thing is bad. Spending all that money to simply no point outside of causing harm, that must be more of those really good business moves we keep hearing about. *eyeroll*

Full story here.