Last November the New York Times published a piece titled A Voice of Hate in America’s Heartland that focused on one particular member in Ohio of a white supremacist group and was widely blasted for humanizing neo-Nazis by allowing them to portray themselves as your typical guy next door who just happens to have views that you might disagree with. Here’s a sample.
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I like to keep the above quote by H. L. Mencken always in mind because it is a useful caution whenever one is weighing in on weighty issues on which one is not an expert. Like pretty much everyone else, I sometimes have a brainwave about some deep or complex problem (usually in a field that I am not that familiar with) in which a simple solution suddenly stares me in the face. I then wonder why no one else has thought of this ‘brilliant’ solution before and the usual answer is that people who do know a lot more about this topic are well aware of this proposed ‘solution’ and also know why it will not work.
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Trevor Noah asks the right question but the answer is obvious. These shows are not interested in informing the public but in pleasing their sponsors and getting ratings and they know that stupid people who reinforce ignorant views draw audiences, Donald Trump being the prime example. It is just a human version of David Letterman’s ‘stupid pet tricks’ segment on his former show.
When media color code the map of the US by which party wins a state or congressional district with red being for Republicans and blue for Democrats, they tend to do it by state (for statewide results as in the electoral college) or by district (for congressional seats). The resulting map tends to be largely blue on the east and west coasts with vast swathes of red in the middle, giving the impression that the country is dominated by Republicans. Conservatives like to use such maps to bolster their claim that the US is largely a right-wing conservative country.
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His latest episode on Patriot Act deals with the way that Donald Trump and the Republicans took an already bad deportations policy under Barack Obama and then made it much worse by being really cruel and heartless, that has now extended to even tear-gassing families at the border and has resulted in children choking.
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Here is a cute video of a martial arts instructor trying to teach a small child how to break a oard with her feet. (Go here if you cannot see the embedded video.)
(Via Jason Wesinberger)
Stan Collender is puzzled by something.
This story from today’s The Washington Post about President Trump’s complete lack of understanding about the federal budget is both fascinating and very scary.
It shows that, two years in to his presidency, Trump still doesn’t understand enough about the federal budget to make informed choices about what it will take to reduce the deficit as he said before the election he wants to do.
…It also demonstrates a complete failure by Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney and the rest of the Trump administration’s economic team. How is it possible that they have had so little influence with and impact on the president that, almost two years after he took the oath of office, he is so clueless?
Bernie Sanders keeps pushing the Democratic party towards a more progressive agenda. He has come out with a 10-point plan for the Democrats that, as he says, “reflects the needs of working Americans — centered on economic, political, social, racial and environmental justice.” He outlines them under the following headers:
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People who are against any form of gun control are fond of putting out the argument that when a gunman opens fire on random people, as is sadly all too common in the US, by the time police arrive it is too late and that in such situations an armed citizenry is better able to take on the shooter. The slogan ‘to stop a bad guy with a gun, you need a good guy with a gun’ is trotted out. Donald trump is a big fan of this doctrine and after every shooting, school, synagogue, church, whatever, he calls for more armed people to be present.
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The Republican party is entirely responsible for giving us Donald Trump. They may worry about what he is doing to their party but he used the nasty racist and xenophobic and misogynistic climate they created to ride to power. Now some of them are trying to dodge the blame. One of them is Republican pollster Frank Luntz who has been the person they went to to craft all their divisive messaging for the past two decades.
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