So next Thursday Donald Trump is having one of his MAGA rallies in Tulsa. Tulsa? Isn’t that where in 1921 we had one of the greatest racist massacres in the nation’s history? Are you sure this is a good idea Steve Miller? Of course Steve Miller wouldn’t know a good idea if it bit his nuts off.
But good, bad or indifferent, it wouldn’t make any difference. Donald is missing his rallies. Without them he is fractious, nasty and ill mannered, and he’s driving everyone in the White House crazy. That’s where the now infamous upside down bible in front of the church photo op came from?
Yes, it’s time for Donald to get back out in front of a screaming, unmasked crowd of “good ole boys,” and bathe in the fetid glory of their mindless adoration.
And they better love him because they will be putting their lives on the line for him. Trump won’t be wearing a mask and any gutless coward that dons one will be run out of Tulsa on a rail.
So how will that work out? Probably we are going to see a hell of a Covid19 spike in Tulsa about two weeks after that rally, and yes, Trump’s people know that, and no they don’t care. And just to prove what cynical pricks they really are, they are issuing releases to be signed by all entering the arena absolving the Trump campaign and the arena from all responsibility for any injury OR ILLNESS, contracted by anyone at the rally.
So basically what Trump is saying is, “Come one, come all and worship at the alter of Trump and then die.”
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The movement to eliminate Confederate statuary and army base names is growing. I for one have never understood why we named anything after these traitors. They tried to overthrow this country’s government just so they could have free labor and mistreat human beings at will. That’s the textbook version of treason.
I am sure if the South had won the Civil War, we would be ass deep in statues of all their generals and plantation owners, but they didn’t, they lost. It has come to be public knowledge that Fort Bragg, one of our largest domestic army bases is named after a general who was not only a traitor but also an unbelievably incompetent one. You want to name one of your biggest bases after a fuckup how about George Custer? At least he wasn’t a traitor. But more to the point, how about Audie Murphy, the most decorated hero of WWII?
Of course Trump is against all this abandonment of Confederate praise. That’s because if he had been alive he would have been a Confederate, he would have fought for the side that was more interested in making money for the already rich than giving all people a livable life. Making human beings into slaves is right down Donald Trump’s alley. Given the chance to do it now, he would be in it up to his elbows.
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General Mark Milley man’d up in his graduation speech to the National Defense College and told the graduates that he had made a mistake. He apologized for that mistake and told everyone that the American military had no place in politics or in engaging with the civilian population in any political disagreement. In doing that he became a shinning example of what the fat Liar in the Oval Office should be but isn’t. Can anyone imagine Trump doing that, saying he had done anything wrong or apologizing for any of his disgusting criminal behavior? I think not.
Milley showed us what American military leadership should be, what we have always expected it to be and what we need it to ne in the future.
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Trump is getting killed in his approval ratings. He now has a 39% approval rating; the lowest of any President in recent history while his disapproval rating is 57%. But the big question has to be who are the 39% that still find something to approve of?
What kind of person can find anything even remotely acceptable about this disgusting degenerate or any of his nauseating actions? Even the Catholics are abandoning him and they put up with pedophile priests. He promised to make America great again but he forgot to say that in order to do that he had to destroy it first.
We all know that there is a huge segment of humanity that looks to its own good without consideration of whether or not doing that will help or hurt its fellow man. And yes, Trump is the hero of that segment of sub-humanity but it’s terrifying to think that they make up 39% of us. It’s enough to make one a pessimist.
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There’s another interesting statuary revolt that seems to be accompanying those of the Confederate removals. It’s a rather strong attack on Christopher Columbus, long credited with discovering the Americas. Full disclosure; I am of Italian/American heritage but truth be known I don’t really care much about what happens to Columbus statues and I’ve never been to a Columbus Day celebration. However, after doing some research I have come to the conclusion that Old Chris is getting a bum rap.
First of all, Chris may have been Italian but he worked under a Spanish flag. Ferdinand and Isabella, rulers of Spain paid him and sent him West.
Second, he didn’t discover America. Leif Erikson did that about three centuries before but he didn’t leave behind any continuing presence. Chris did.
Third, the notion that no one discovered anything because there were already people here is faulty. The fact is the Europeans didn’t know it was here so he discovered it for them.
The fact that there were indigenous people here only meant that the land was theirs by right of conquest. We know from archeological studies that the native Americans that Columbus found were not the original indigenous people that occupied the Americas but people who came here by means of an artic land-bridge that has since faded. They conquered and ruled the people who came before them who quite possibly conquered some people who came before them. That’s how the world works. That’s how it has always worked.
So we know that Columbus was a pretty good explorer; he did find something even if he didn’t find the Indies and that he was a lousy governor and politician who brought old world concepts of what you did with people you conquered to the new world.
He did leave a permanent mark, which Leif didn’t, but if someone wants to replace some of the Columbus statues with Erikson statues I don’t see anything wrong with that. Just so you don’t get it in your head that it’s in the same ballpark as pulling down the Confederate Generals.
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Ben Carson appeared on This Week the other day. For once he seemed to present a reasoned functional presence but that was only true until Stacy Abrams followed him and tore him a new one. It was a clear illumination of how fragile all the far right positions really are. It was a clear illustration of how impossible it is to defend Trump. We have an idiot in the White House who two weeks ago, tear gassed and shot rubber bullets at people so he could do a phony photo op across the park from the White House and is now planning to run out one of the dumbest moves in Presidential history when he will expose twenty thousand of his least intelligent followers to infection just because his ego needs a tweak.
We all understand that Trump is interested in nothing but that which appeals to him personally. That being said, there are people whose job it is to protect him from his own ego and stupidity surrounding him. We know he’s fired anyone with any moral structure or sense of honor but isn’t there anyone left who can say to this fool, “Mr. President, that’s a bad idea. It will be counter- productive to your best interests?”
I watched Trump mumble one of Steve Miller’s speeches at West Point on Saturday. Miller is a really despicable human who’s speeches fit Trump’s boring style, which as a result of his inability to read above a third grade level and his personal disbelief in anything that doesn’t make him money or get him votes, makes anything he says unacceptable to all but his least intelligent followers.
But why do those like Miller, who it appears the President still listens to, allow him to plan a rally for Tulsa the scene of a murderous attack on blacks.
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When Oklahoma Senator James Lankford was faced with the medical reasons not to bring 20,000 people together in the confines of an indoor space he failed to recognize any of them. He once again demonstrated his inability to grasp even the least complicated of concepts by talking around the problems and failing to recognize even the most obvious dangers. Does Lankford really understand that being a Trump apologist is no longer in his best interests or those of his constituency?
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It’s really hard to watch Trump with a straight face anymore. This week he announced that he had done more for black people than any other president except Lincoln and that what Lincoln had done was to be taken with grain of salt. I mean, is this guy still playing with a full deck? Then he has his campaign lackeys announce that they have sold 200,000 tickets to a rally in Tulsa and 300,000 to one in PA. Really? The venue in Tulsa holds 20,000. So does that mean that in typical Trump con man fashion he has sold 180,000 tickets to people who can’t get into the arena? Or is it just another Trumpish lie? This is the President of the United States and when he says anything, all we can do is laugh and shrug at the congenital liar that holds the highest office in the land. Actually there’s something else we can do. We can vote in November.
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There was a really good discussion between Corey Booker and Margret Brennan on Sunday on Face the Nation. Brennan asked a lot of pointed questions and Corey, who I like a lot, didn’t always have the answers. I think his reticence had a lot to do with the fact that he is trying to get a very significant bill passed on police controls and he doesn’t want to alienate any Republicans that he can get to come down on his side of the bill.
Very simply it’s a bill that must be passed if we are going to make any real progress on racial equality and just as simply, there is opposition to many aspects of the bill from both the White House and the Senate.
Corey understands that he will probably never get another moment like this, where the overwhelming majority of the citizens of this country are behind significant change and he doesn’t want to blow it but we, as a people, must understand that ultimately it is our responsibility to make this change happen. Just as we are marching in the streets now, we have to make our elected officials understand that if they do not respond to our will, we will retaliate in 5 months and they will go back to being shyster lawyers, plumbers or garbage men. The whole point of elections is to put people in legislatures all over the country that will respond to those who voted for them and will bend to the needs of those votes. All the polls tell us what the voter’s want. If we don’t currently have the legislators in office that will respond to those wants we must make them understand that as of November 6th we will damn sure have new legislators.
Pressure, that’s how government works under the Democratic system. The GOP has always known how to apply it. Now it’s the Democrats turn to learn from the Republicans. Forget fair-minded tactics. The name of the game is win at all costs because the Retrumplicans sure as hell won’t care about fair, only about winning, and if they manage to win again, you can kiss this country’s ass goodbye. By 2024 it will look no more like the United States you grew up in then does Brazil or China.