Ugh. Maher.

Bill Maher soft-pedaled Mike Bloomberg’s racism last night. You know, this Bloomberg, who bragged about targeting minorities for selective policing.

Maher was addressing the tape of Bloomberg from 2015 that re-emerged this week, wherein the former mayor of New York City admitted—to a crowd of rich, white folks in Aspen—that his stop-and-frisk policy, which was unconstitutional, led to thousands of dubious marijuana arrests, and ruined many lives, was about targeting “minorities.”

“Ninety-five percent of your murders and murderers and murder victims fit one M.O. You can just take the description and Xerox it and pass it out to all the cops. They are male minorities 15 to 25…That’s true in New York, that’s true in virtually every city in America. And that’s where the real crime is. You’ve got to get the guns out of the hands of the people that are getting killed,” said Bloomberg.

He continued: “People say, ‘Oh my God, you are arresting kids for marijuana who are all minorities!’ Yes, that’s true. Why? Because we put all the cops in the minority neighborhoods. Yes, that’s true. Why’d we do it? Because that’s where all the crime is. And the way you should get the guns out of the kids’ hands is throw them against the wall and frisk them.”

Bloomberg is terrible. He’s the worst choice among the Democrats, and I say that as someone who detests Biden. I’m still going to vote Democrat if Biden is the nominee, but if it’s Bloomberg…I might not. Allowing Bloomberg to buy his way into the presidency is the end of the party and democracy in general in the US. It means we’re a total plutocracy, and that our representatives have willingly sold out. Besides, Bloomberg is a stone cold racist piece of shit.

Maher joked about that, and got booed.

“Bernie Sanders won Iowa and New Hampshire. He’s also leading in the national polls, which means we have a new frontrunner… Michael Bloomberg? What the fuck?” offered Maher, adding, “Well, Bloomberg must be the frontrunner because liberals are calling him a racist.”

When the audience began booing Maher’s joke castigating liberals for calling Bloomberg a racist, he sniped, “Keep booing—that’s how you lost the last election.”

He’s not the frontrunner, no matter how much the media and rich phonies like Maher get starry-eyed over him, and liberals are calling him racist because he said racist things. Why is Maher glossing over the blatant, outrageous things a rich man with power said? Those remarks are not a minor issue.

What’s interesting, though, is that Maher has lost his audience. Part of that is almost certainly that revealing accusation: “you lost the election.” Maher does not identify with his audience, and does not identify with those of us who are suffering with the election of Donald Trump. Maher’s got his, he’s feeling no pain, and his audience of centrist liberals can go fuck themselves.

Why does Maher still have a show? Why do you (that’s right, I don’t identify with people who watch him) continue to watch his crappy program and his smug face? When will he find himself unemployed, so he can more righteously complain about his cancellation?

“Silent Sam”? I think you mean “Shady Sam”

An interesting development in the Silent Sam saga. Silent Sam was a Confederate monument at the University of North Carolina that was toppled by protesters, which prompted the university to immediately and generously hand over $2½ million to a sleazy racist organization, the Sons of Confederate Veterans to lovingly care for the beloved statue of a racist traitor. It was weird. The SCV had scarcely declared their intent to sue when the university immediately handed over millions of dollars to this shakedown by a low-rent gang of nobodies.

Well, never mind. A judge just voided the whole arrangement.

A judge has overturned a contentious settlement that the University of North Carolina system reached with the Sons of Confederate Veterans over the Confederate monument known as Silent Sam.

The November 2019 agreement required the UNC system to give Silent Sam to the Sons of Confederate Veterans, along with $2.5 million for its preservation and display. It was announced within minutes of a lawsuit filed by the group.

There’s something going on at that university, and it’s not to be trusted. The board of governors apparently has so much power, and certain biases, that they can just cavalierly fling huge sums of money at a mob of Confederate rats who just ask for it.

After the statue came down, it was put into storage. The university system’s board of governors gave no indication about what they planned to do with the monument before a sudden announcement that the system had reached a deal with the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

As NPR reported in December, “The university system insisted it was settling a lawsuit, but court records show the board of governors’ chairman agreed to the deal before a lawsuit existed.” Baddour signed off on the deal just seven minutes after the lawsuit was filed.

The UNC system’s Board of Governors never held a public meeting to discuss options for what to do with the statue.

UNC is a state and federally funded institution that needs to have its money management policies closely scrutinized. No matter what side of this decision you favor, there is something seriously wrong with how the board decides to spend money.

Another abuse of power

Yet again, the Republicans demonstrate their fondness for voter suppression. They’ve scheduled a Trump rally for the day of the New Hampshire primary, with the explicit goal of screwing up traffic to hinder voters.

The president relished the idea of dominating the stage in New Hampshire and stealing some of the media oxygen from the Democrats. Advisers hoped that Secret Service moves in downtown Manchester to secure the area for the president’s arrival would make it harder for Democratic candidates and their supporters to transverse the state’s largest city in the hours before the primary’s first votes are cast.

This is legal? And sweet Jesus but I’m tired of this president’s incessant bigotry rallies, which seem to alternate with his golfing weekends. When does he actually do the work we elect a president to do?

Who is more popular in their home country, Putin or Trump?

We’ve got less than half the information we need to figure that out. Here, for instance, is how people react to a Putin portrait in a Moscow elevator.

Now someone needs to do a similar stunt with a Trump portrait in a New York elevator. Well, maybe New York isn’t the best choice — it’ll get shredded. A Chicago elevator?

At least I think we can safely agree that they’re both polarizing figures.

Seriously, America? Laura Loomer in congress?

She’s running, and fundraising successfully. But this is Laura Loomer.

First, she’s not the least bit bashful about her efforts to stoke hate against Muslims.

In 2017, she bragged on Twitter about being a “#ProudIslamophobe,” as she called Muslims “savages,” calling for a ban on allowing Muslims into America “EVER AGAIN.” She has called Islam a “cancer,” and worse, she wrote that there’s “no such thing as a moderate Muslim. They’re ALL the same.” Loomer dangerously wants you to believe that a Muslim American like myself is no different than a person in ISIS.

Loomer, who once worked for the right-wing group Project Veritas, seems to especially despise immigrant Muslims, tweeting in 2017, “Someone needs to create a non-Islamic version of Uber or Lyft because I never want to support another Islamic immigrant driver.” That resulted in her being banned from Uber and Lyft for violating its community standards, which prompted Loomer to tweet, “Uber will literally hire an Islamic terrorist, but they will ban a conservative journalist for addressing legitimate safety concerns.”

In 2019, Loomer took to Instagram, where she made a video attacking Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) in vile terms, blaming all Muslims including Omar for 9/11, and adding, “Muslims should not even be allowed to seek positions of political office in this country.”

Beyond social media, in October 2018 Loomer praised and appeared with self-professed Canadian white nationalist Faith Goldy, who has claimed in the past that homosexuality facilitated the Holocaust and openly recited and defended the “14 word” mantra used by white supremacists. Loomer also trespassed on Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s property in January 2019 along with her colleague, Charlottesville Unite the Right marcher Antonio Foreman, to denounce her refusal to support Trump’s wall. While on Pelosi’s property, Loomer reportedly made racist comments about Latinos.

The article doesn’t even mention the time she handcuffed herself to a door at Twitter headquarters and peed herself. Or the time she crashed a Shakespeare play to yell about ISIS controlling CNN. She wants to declare Keith Ellison’s election invalid, because he got 50,000 votes from Muslims and another 50,000 by voter fraud.

The Florida GOP loves Loomer, which is just another sign that the entire goddamned party has been infected with a brain-eating virus, and that we’ve got to do more than topple Trump.

For those who think Trumpism ends with Trump, think again. Loomer, who is 26, and the others we saw march in Charlottesville in defense of white supremacy are part of a younger generation that will be with us long after Trump. The best and only antidote to driving Trumpism to the fringes of society where it belongs is winning big in November. Barring that, Trumpism will spread and infect our nation like a deadly cancer.

That settles what I’m doing tonight

My wife reminded me that tonight is the Democratic debate. I noted that tonight is also the premiere of the Birds of Prey. I had to think for a moment: crappy super hero movie that I’ll probably dislike, vs. the best show the Democrats have to offer?

Yeah, I’m going to the movies.

I trust my wife to fill me in on any substance offered in the debate. I think both choices are going to be fluff.

The only article about “electability” you need to read

Normally, my brain shuts down when some political pundit uses the word “electability” — I know what’s coming. That’s what media people say when they’re about to start babbling about who is in the lead in a horserace to avoid having to discuss the substance of their policies. Policy is hard, but regurgitating poll results is easy, and if there’s anything we know for certain it’s that the talking heads on the TV are mostly idiots. Maggie Koerth nails it, though, announcing that You’ll Never Know Which Candidate Is Electable.

Political scientists study electability, but electability ain’t no science. Instead, researchers say, it’s basically a layer of ex post facto rationalization that we slather over a stack of psychological biases, media influence and self-fulfilling poll prophecies. It’s not bullshit, exactly; some people really are more likely to be elected than others. But the reasons behind it, and the ability to make assumptions based on it, well …

“[Electability] is this vague, floppy concept,” said Nichole Bauer, a professor of political communication at Louisiana State University. “We don’t know who is electable until someone is elected.”

Please, could someone tell this to Chris Cilliza or Chuck Todd, just to name two among many who need to be punched in the face and sent back to school and told to learn something before they start trying to influence the electorate?