Live by the rally, die by the rally

Donald Trump loves his rallies. It seems like the only part of his limited schedule that he really enjoys, probably because he is the center of attention in a crowd of adoring fans, something that a narcissist like him craves. These occasions enable him to recycle well-worn material that he knows will draw a positive response from the crowd. His audience seems to be like Grateful Dead fans who are quite happy to hear the greatest hits over and over again. It enables him to forget for a while any bad news about his lack of accomplishments.
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Gay Republicans think Trump has been wonderful for the LGBTQ community

The Log Cabin Republicans, described as “the nation’s largest collective of LGBTQ conservatives”, has endorsed Donald Trump for 2020. The reasons it gives are risible.

The Log Cabin Republicans, the nation’s largest collective of LGBTQ conservatives, has officially endorsed the re-election of President Donald Trump — after its board of directors voted against endorsing him in 2016 — stating that Trump has advanced LGBTQ rights and helped the GOP move past “culture wars” during his tenure.

In a Washington Post Op-Ed published on Thursday evening, Robert Kabel, chairman of the group, and Jill Homan, its vice president, wrote that “for LGBTQ Republicans, watching the 2016 GOP convention before Donald Trump was like a dream fulfilled” and marked the beginning of Trump removing gay rights “as a wedge issue from the old Republican handbook” and “taking bold actions that benefit the LGBTQ community.”

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Neo-Nazis in the news again

Portland, Oregon is bracing for a rally on Saturday organized by far-right groups targeting Portland’s antifascist groups.

The protest has been promoted primarily by Floridian Joe Biggs, a member of the rightwing Proud Boys organization. Biggs is a combat veteran and a former employee of the conspiracy broadcaster Alex Jones’s Infowars network. He claims that up to 1,000 people from around the country will attend Saturday’s unpermitted event on the city’s waterfront.

In promoting the rally on social media, Biggs has brandished a Trump-themed baseball bat, appeared in videos wearing a T-shirt bearing the slogan “Training to Throw Communists Out of Helicopters” – a reference to the Chilean Pinochet regime’s methods for executing dissidents – and has taunted antifascists, saying “You’re not gonna feel safe when you go out in public” and “I’m gonna stomp your ass into the ground, Antifa”.
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The rally has also been heavily promoted in conservative media outlets along with its underlying message – the claim that anti-fascist groups, known as “antifa”, are domestic terrorists.

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Federal appeals court sides with common sense and decency and against Trump

You may recall my earlier post with a video of a Department of Justice lawyer Sarah Fabian trying to defend the awful conditions that detained migrant children were being kept in (such as being denied soap, toothpaste, toothbrushes, showers, beds, and cloth blankets in very cold rooms with the lights permanently on) to an openly incredulous panel of three justices in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
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Brexit shenanigans get weirder and weirder

As the October 31 deadline for crashing out of the EU looms, Boris Johnson tries to create a situation where he has total control over whether a no-deal Brexit occurs or not. He seems to think (or at least is saying so publicly even if he does not believe it) that the threat of a no-deal Brexit would be sufficient to force the EU to come back to the negotiating table with a deal that is more favorable to the UK. He argues that those in the UK who are opposed to a no-deal Brexit and trying to find ways to stop it are actually aiding the EU by enabling them to avoid having to negotiate with him. He has said that he is willing to prorogue (parliament-speak for suspend) parliament to pre-empt any moves to stop him.
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We need a nationwide teach-in on the First Amendment

The Hamptons is a very upscale region in New York state where the very wealthy live. Apparently residents who are supporters of Donald Trump are having to keep their allegiance a secret because their neighbors hate him.

President Trump’s Hamptons supporters have gone underground.
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“We are all in the closet,” said a boutique owner in Southampton who fears reprisals from his customers — most of them moneyed Democrats — if he speaks openly about his allegiance to Trump. “It’s like you have this disease and people want to run away from you.”

A builder based in Westhampton worried that his customers would boycott his services if he reveals his support of the president. “People have really strong opinions here and if you go around wearing a MAGA hat, you really need to fear physical violence,” he said, adding the anti-Trump aggression comes mostly from summer residents.
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“They’re all Democrats, so for us it’s a matter of survival,” said an art consultant who works in Sag Harbor. “We live in the land of the First Amendment, but if you want to stay in business out here, you have to keep your opinions to yourself. We are hitting a very dark and strange place as a country.”

What will it take people to realize that the First Amendment only guarantees that the government “shall make no law …abridging the freedom of speech”? In other words, the government cannot censor your speech (except under very limited conditions) and you are free to say that you adore Trump and to wear as many MAGA hats as you like, if that floats your boat. The First Amendment does not require other people to like you or approve of what you say or not criticize you or support your business.

How white nationalism went mainstream

Luke Darby has a good analysis of how white supremacy has gone mainstream in the US and led to the rise of mass murders by believers.

All of these shooters were obsessed with the “great replacement” conspiracy theory, sometimes referred to as “white genocide”. It’s the idea that shadowy elites – usually Jewish, almost always liberal – are orchestrating the destruction of white culture through demographic change. The theory goes that white culture will be eroded mainly through migration and birthrates: more people of color are arriving in majority white counties, the ones already there are having more and more babies, and birthrates are declining for the soon-to-be-oppressed white people.
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What Jeffrey Epstein’s death reveals about the shocking state of US jails

While there have been all manner of speculations about how Jeffrey Epstein may have met his death in jail, lawyer Ken White, who has been a federal prosecutor, says that those who think that “jailers could not possibly be so incompetent, cruel, or indifferent as to let such a high-profile prisoner commit suicide” do not realize that the truth may be less sensational but more disturbing, that this kind of death in US prisons is far more common than people think and is due to a culture of neglect, lack of staff, poor training, abuse, and sheer cruelty on the part of those who run these institutions.
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The phony binary choice of conspiracy versus journalistic independence

I mentioned in an earlier post how the media propaganda system works to tilt coverage in favor of candidates who will favor the interests of the oligarchy and against those who attack them. I used as an example the case of the New York Times reporter who was assigned to cover Bernie Sanders.

Now, the editor of the Washington Post Marty Baron has responded to the accusation by Bernie Sanders that this newspaper, owned by Jeff Bezos, one of the richest men in the world, may tend to be biased against politicians like him because he has lambasted the greed of the wealthy and their exploitation of workers and called for tax increases on them to fund programs that serve the less well-to-do.
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