Lynna is your curator. I don’t think this thread will run dry for a long time.

(Previous thread)

I remember Jimmy Carter’s failed attempt to rescue hostages in Iran. It was a disaster from start to finish.

With the Iran Hostage Crisis stretching into its sixth month and all diplomatic appeals to the Iranian government ending in failure, President Jimmy Carter ordered the military mission as a last ditch attempt to save the hostages. During the operation, three of eight helicopters failed, crippling the crucial airborne plans. The mission was then canceled at the staging area in Iran, but during the withdrawal one of the retreating helicopters collided with one of six C-130 transport planes, killing eight soldiers and injuring five. The next day, a somber Jimmy Carter gave a press conference in which he took full responsibility for the tragedy. The hostages were not released for another 270 days.

Note that Carter took responsibility for the failure, because that was the kind of guy he is. The screw-up in the rescue mission is one of multiple factors that contributed to his defeat by Ronald Reagan.

Compare and contrast with Trump’s recent gung-ho attack on terrorists (maybe) in Yemen.

As it turned out, almost everything that could go wrong did. And on Wednesday, Mr. Trump flew to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware to be present as the body of the American commando killed in the raid was returned home, the first military death on the new commander in chief’s watch.

The death of Chief Petty Officer William Owens came after a chain of mishaps and misjudgments that plunged the elite commandos into a ferocious 50-minute firefight that also left three others wounded and a $75 million aircraft deliberately destroyed. There are allegations — which the Pentagon acknowledged on Wednesday night are most likely correct — that the mission also killed several civilians, including some children. The dead include, by the account of Al Qaeda’s branch in Yemen, the 8-year-old daughter of Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born Qaeda leader who was killed in a targeted drone strike in 2011.

Did Trump take responsibility for the failure? Of course not. That’s not the kind of guy he is.

Mr. Trump on Sunday hailed his first counterterrorism operation as a success, claiming the commandos captured important intelligence that will assist the U.S. in preventing terrorism against its citizens and people around the world. A statement by the military’s Central Command on Wednesday night that acknowledged the likelihood of civilian casualties also said that the recovered materials had provided some initial information helpful to counterterrorism analysts. The statement did not provide details.

Carter paid a political price for his blunder. Trump won’t — he’s already spinning it into a victory.

At least Carter’s mistake didn’t murder any little girls.

I don’t get it. Now Trump is antagonizing Australia.

It should have been one of the most congenial calls for the new commander in chief — a conversation with the leader of Australia, one of America’s staunchest allies, at the end of a triumphant week.

Instead, President Trump blasted Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull over a refu­gee agreement and boasted about the magnitude of his electoral college win, according to senior U.S. officials briefed on the Saturday exchange. Then, 25 minutes into what was expected to be an hour-long call, Trump abruptly ended it.

At one point Trump informed Turnbull that he had spoken with four other world leaders that day — including Russian President Vladi­mir Putin — and that “This was the worst call by far.”

Another thing I don’t get: “triumphant week”. Who is having a triumphant week? Trump? Because all I see is a floundering asshole lashing out everywhere he can in the face of his unpopularity.

This lunatic and his administration are destabilizing our relationships with the rest of the world, and picking fights with our friends, acting like a belligerent drunk.

“Triumphant”. Fuck.

It’s madness. Trump blustered at president Enrique Pena Nieto of Mexico.

The phone call between the leaders was intended to patch things up between the new president and his ally. The two have had a series of public spats over Trump’s determination to have Mexico pay for the planned border wall, something Mexico steadfastly refuses to agree to.

You have a bunch of bad hombres down there, Trump told Pena Nieto, according to the excerpt seen by the AP. You aren’t doing enough to stop them. I think your military is scared. Our military isn’t, so I just might send them down to take care of it.

No, Mexico isn’t going to pay for your stupid, ineffective, idiotic wall. They’re not as dumb as Trump voters. Trump is basically asking Mexico to pay for his ridiculous campaign promises that demonized their entire country.

Trump is threatening to use our military in an invasion of Mexico to extort billions of dollars out of them. How is this not criminal? Why aren’t officials of both parties sending representatives to drag this guy out of the oval office and begin impeachment proceedings right now?

He’s also threatening to begin a trade war with Mexico, imposing a 20% tax on imports. This action would be catastrophic for the economy of both countries; even if it did us no harm, does he think devastating the economy of Mexico would reduce illegal immigration? Does he seriously believe that wrecking Mexico, as we did to Iraq, would be advantageous to us? Is he so delusional that he could possibly believe invading Mexico would improve support for Republicans by Hispanic Americans?

I’ve always felt that Mexico was our friend, our trading partner, a valued part of our North American community. I cannot believe that we would rough them up with our military just because an incompetent tyrant here wants a symbolic victory for his dumbass supporters, but apparently that’s what the Republicans want to allow.

Sally Yates, the acting US attorney general, announced that she would not defend Trump’s criminal executive order banning travelers from some Muslim countries.

You will not be at all surprised to learn that she has been speedily fired and replaced.

You might, however, be very surprised at how petty and unprofessional the announcement from the White House was.

That sounds like it came straight from the raging, petulant sphincter of Mr Trump himself, doesn’t it? I’d sure like to see a recording of the tantrum he threw when Sally Yates demonstrated that she was a person of principle and integrity.

I hope she lands a better job soon.

The situation is outrageous — we have so many conflicts with our government right now, all thanks to the mob of ghastly Republicans that have abandoned all moral authority and are supporting our capitol’s resident incompetent thug. What can we do?

Here’s one easy solution: use the 5 calls service right now. Go to that site, enter your zip code, and it lists a collection of progressive liberal causes that are under assault right now, lists the phone numbers of your representatives, and prompts you through a quick phone call to register your position. It’s simple. My wife and I just sat down and fired off a bunch of phone messages to Klobuchar and Franken (and tried to get through to our representative, Collin Peterson, but his voice mail is clogged with calls).

You can do it. Do it. Do it NOOOOOW.

You don’t like phoning strangers? I don’t blame you. I have phone anxiety, too. Another thing you can do is donate to good causes — the ACLU is a great choice right now. Minnesotans: here’s a directory of racial equality resources. Donate to CAIR, or the ADL, or the Hmong Resource Center, the Native Vote Alliance of Minnesota. Or if you’d rather, here are some LGBTQ and allied organizations. Help ’em out if you can.

And don’t forget to stand up and march in protest when the opportunities come around.

Mine hasn’t been so great. I’ve mainly been watching my country collapse around me.

• Trump appointed a known racist and deadbeat dad, Steve Bannon, to the National Security Council. He is not qualified for the job at all.

• A major chunk of the senior management of the state department resigned.

• On Holocaust Remembrance Day, Trump issued a formal statement that somehow neglected to mention the Jewish people. Asked how, the administration made vague noises about “all lives matter” that anyone with half a brain can see right through.

  Asked about the White House explanation that the President didn’t want to exclude any of the other groups Nazis killed by specifically mentioning Jews, Greenblatt told CNN that the United Nations established International Holocaust Remembrance Day not only because of Holocaust denial but also because so many countries — Iran, Russia, Poland, and Hungary, for example — specifically refuse to acknowledge Hitler’s attempt to exterminate Jews, “opting instead to talk about generic suffering rather than recognizing this catastrophic incident for what is was: the intended genocide of the Jewish people.”
  Downplaying or disregarding the degree to which Jews were targeted for elimination during the Holocaust is a common theme of nationalist movements like those seen in Russia and Eastern Europe, Greenblatt said.

• Also on Holocaust Remembrance Day, he made an executive order that turned legal travelers and immigrants from 7 Muslim nations into criminals, and slammed the door shut in the face of refugees. Airports across the country erupted in protests.

• While protests against the anti-humanitarian edicts of the Trump regime raged, Ivanka Trump posts a glamor shot, just to show how disconnected their family is from reality.

  

  Hey, Marie, how was the cake at the party?

This is all going to end in a bloody revolution, isn’t it?

Maybe he was reincarnated as Donald Trump. Hey, Trump was born in 1946, while Streicher was executed in 1946. Coincidence? Or FATE?

Further the president said that the Secretary of Homeland Security will be publishing a weekly list of crimes committed by immigrants, and of the cities that refused to turn them in for deportation. The order doesn’t say whether the list would single out only undocumented immigrants, or all immigrants.

The article compares this list to one regularly published in Breitbart. Pfft. We know better. Breitbart is just the slimy descendant of Der Stürmer.

---

Oh, interesting. Here’s a map of the countries where he’s blocked immigration.

All those colored countries are mainly Muslim. The red ones are the bad Muslim countries; the yellow ones are the countries where Trump has business interests. No terrorists in Saudi Arabia, I guess, just money.

When are the impeachment proceedings beginning?

The University of Washington doesn’t seem to be dealing with their fascist conservative students very well. Last week, they had a peaceful weekend of protests that were marred by one disgraceful incident: one of those “alt-right”, neo-Nazi, young Republican Milo Yiannopoulos supporters shot someone. By all accounts, the man who was shot was an unarmed anti-racist organizer who was trying to de-escalate the conflicts; the shooter we know little about, except that he was pro-Milo, and he came to a non-violent rally carrying a pistol.

Stop right there. The man came armed to a peaceful protest and shot someone. He was identified — they have video and eyewitness testimony and, apparently, the gun — and picked up by the police…who then let him go. The prosecutors say they need more time to build a case against him. Unbelievable. I’m going to go out on a limb and make another prediction about the shooter: he’s white.

There’s more. The College Republicans at the University of Washington came out with a statement afterwards, deploring the incident. Not the shooting, oh no — that is only mentioned indirectly, with the implication that it’s the fault of the anti-fascists.

As we all reflect on the events of last night, it has become clear to us that hundreds if not thousands within the UW community disagree with yesterday’s tactics utilized by the ‘Seattle Antifa’ movement.

Wha…? It’s your fascist side that shot a man.

The protestors had little regard for the safety of the community they claim to be protecting,

The protesters were unarmed. It was your side that brought a gun.

and people ended up going home covered in paint and much worse for some, their own blood.

Yeah. Because you shot a man.

It was an abhorrent display of what Seattle has come to,

I agree. That the UWPD allowed a man to walk away after shooting someone is abhorrent.

and we at the UWCR are determined now more than ever to continue fighting against this pseudo-terrorism that guises itself as justice.

Right. By promoting real violent terrorism to defend injustice.

It continues in this vein, patting themselves on the back for their popularity and how beloved their fascist organization is in the community, and reversing reality to pretend to be the heroes here.

Antifa, Anarchists, violent political agitators, you have been seen by the public for what you really are.

I can’t get over this. Their side brought a gun and used it, and they get all indignant and accuse the victims of being “violent political agitators”?

We see you occupiying our libraries, inhibiting education, and frightening students who are by and large not even aware of what your motives are.

Uh, you know what frightens me? Cocky right-wing assholes strutting about campus with guns in their pockets. We know what our motives are, and we’re quite clear about them, to the point where even you named it: anti-fascism. No authority without responsibility and accountability. Equality and democracy. All the stuff you oppose.

You have been seen in our cities damaging property that does not belong to you, and inciting violence and disobedience towards the men and women who protect us (yourselves included).

They protect you; you can shoot someone, and the police will let you walk. That doesn’t sound like they’re protecting the people who get shot.

But wait, now comes the fun part. After all this posturing as the victims, they’re going to threaten.

You have been seen on national television clearly being the cause of increased division in our society, and it’s time your flame is put out. If you keep prodding the right you may be unpleasantly surprised what the outcome will be. Youve obviously learned nothing after Trump’s election.

Trump justifies everything! Including shooting people, apparently. Or worse.

This is the executive who just made an executive order outright banning the immigration of refugees from predominantly Muslim countries, Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen. He also “ordered that Christians and others from minority religions be granted priority over Muslims.”

This is what he wants.

That’s what you stand for, UWCR, and you’re proud of it. As an alumnus of the University of Washington, I stand against you, I despise you, and I consider you a corrupting poison in the community.

Meanwhile, over here on the left, we’ve got people wringing their hands over punching Nazis (fortunately, some of us still have the moral clarity to see that Nazis and other genocidal, racist cowards must be opposed).

Just remember this: your side shot an unarmed man, and then blamed him for it.

The UW has a fascism problem. And let’s not hide it: it’s name is the College Republicans.

We need more of this kind of truth-telling:

Donald Trump is a proven liar. He lies often and effortlessly. He lies about the profound and the trivial. He lies to avoid guilt and invite glory. He lies when his pride is injured and when his pomposity is challenged.

Indeed, one of the greatest threats Trump poses is that he corrupts and corrodes the absoluteness of truth, facts and science.

This is the straight talk you don’t usually get in our cautious, conservative, cozy-with-evil media: you get “euphemisms like “unsubstantiated,” or “unproven,” or “baseless.”” This has to stop.

We all have to adjust to this unprecedented assault on the truth and stand ready to vigilantly defend against it, because without truth, what’s left? Our president is a pathological liar. Say it. Write it. Never become inured to it. And dispense with the terms of art to describe it. A lie by any other name portends the same.

Our president is a LIAR. Say it loud.