Election 2020

[Bicycle Bill]

I think he's referring to the 'Blofeld' character from the '007' franchise, stroking his cat.
Or possibly Dr. Evil and 'Mr. Bigglesworth', the parody version of Blofeld and the cat from the 'Austin Powers' movies.
Which means, in either case, he's considering you an evil genius.  Congratulations, RT, you're moving up in the world!

-"BB"-

[Lord Jim]

Though I would not vote for any of the four "Squad" members for hall monitor, it goes without saying (or at least it should be able to) that Trump's racist bull horn "go back where you came from" comments rank at or near the top on the list of the most disgusting and disgraceful things he has said as President...

(And man oh man, that's saying something, given the multitude of disgusting and disgraceful things one could pick from...)

That having been said, this assertion by Jim Wrong in reference to AOC is well, ridiculous:

the moral fortitude to take on Trump toe-to-toe without regard for themselves or their political future.

That's courage.

Whatever else one thinks of her, the amount of moral and/or political courage required to speak out strongly against Trump when you represent a district that voted 77%- 20% for Hillary Clinton ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York% ... l_district ) is precisely zero...

The assertion reminds me of when Obama was being lauded for his "courage" in opposing the Iraq war from the outset...

(Given the overwhelmingly Liberal Chicago district he represented in the Illinois state senate at the time, it would have taken far more courage for him to come out in favor of the war...)

Here's some real political courage:

Here are the 4 Republicans who voted to condemn Trump's racist tweets

Washington (CNN)The House voted 240-187 on Tuesday night to officially condemn racist language from President Donald Trump in a motion that was supported by four House Republicans.

Trump on Sunday directed a series of tweets at Democratic Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Illhan Omar and Ayanna Pressley, saying the four congresswomen of color should "go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came."

Ahead of Tuesday's resolution, different members of Congress, including some Republican lawmakers, criticized the President's rhetoric and condemned it as racist, but Trump has stood by the attacks, saying, "I don't have a Racist bone in my body!"

While Tuesday's vote largely fell along party lines -- 235 Democrats voted "Yea" and 187 Republicans voted "Nay" -- four Republicans and one independent voted in favor of the resolution.

Alongside Rep. Justin Amash, who left the Republican Party earlier this month, the four GOP House members who voted for Tuesday's resolution are listed below.

Rep. Will Hurd (TX-23)
Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (PA-01)
Rep. Fred Upton (MI-06)
Rep. Susan Brooks (IN-05)

https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/16/politics ... index.html

Genuine political courage is in appallingly short supply these days, (witness the fact that only four GOP members were able to summon up the will to exhibit it in this vote; shame on the rest of them) but it ought to be acknowledged when it is found...

[BoSoxGal]

How fucking low have we sunk that THAT is considered political courage?!

[Lord Jim]

Pretty fucking low...

And I've since learned that two of the four are retiring...

It was not always thus:

"America represents something universal in the human spirit. I received a letter not long ago from a man who said, ‘You can go to Japan to live, but you cannot become Japanese. You can go to France to live and not become a Frenchman. You can go to live in Germany or Turkey, and you won’t become a German or a Turk.’ But then he added, ‘Anybody from any corner of the world can come to America to live and become an American’ …

This I believe is one of the most important sources of America’s greatness. We lead the world because unique among nations, we draw our people, our strength, from every country and every corner of the world … Thanks to each wave of new arrivals to this land of opportunity, we’re a nation forever young, forever bursting with energy and new ideas, and always on the cutting edge; always leading the world to the next frontier …"

And yet many of the political cowards who have refused to denounce Trump's blatant racism claim to revere Mr. Reagan...

They aren't fit to polish his saddle...



Contrast those words with the ones of the man these feckless yellow bellies have chosen to throw in with:

"Why do we want all these people from 'shithole countries' coming here?"

"The system is full. We can't take you anymore.
Whether it is asylum or anything you want, illegal immigration,
we can't take you anymore.
Our country is full. Our area is full. The sector is full.
We can't take you anymore. Sorry, can't happen.
So turn around, that's the way it is."

“Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came. Then come back and show us how it is done. These places need your help badly, you can’t leave fast enough,”

[ex-khobar Andy]

I'm not disagreeing with your basic point, LJ, which is that P45 is a turd beyond all measure and all comparison.

But your man Reagan was wrong and also had a head for alternative truth. Japan, for example, does have a perfectly rational path to citizenship for anyone who wants it and meets (according to Wikipedia) five criteria:

1. Continuous residence in Japan for 5 years
2. At least 20 years old and otherwise legally competent
3. History of good behavior generally, and no past history of seditious behavior
4. Sufficient capital or skills, either personally or within family, to support oneself in Japan
5. Stateless or willing to renounce foreign citizenship and swear allegiance to Japan

I have rather lazily not looked up the references or gone beyond Wikipedia.

[MajGenl.Meade]

And he was wrong about France, Germany, Turkey too . . .

[Lord Jim]

You did see the part where Mr. Reagan says he's quoting a letter he received, didn't you?



Also, I get the distinct impression that he's talking about more than just technically being able to become a citizen of the country, (If I somehow managed to become a Japanese citizen, I wonder how well I'd be accepted by ethnic Japanese as "Japanese") but maybe you didn't pick up on that...

[BoSoxGal]

You did see the part where Mr. Reagan says he's quoting a letter he received, didn't you?



Also, I get the distinct impression that he's talking about more than just technically being able to become a citizen of the country, (If I somehow managed to become a Japanese citizen, I wonder how well I'd be accepted by ethnic Japanese as "Japanese") but maybe you didn't pick up on that...

The obvious irony being that non-whites, and even some ethnicities considered white, have faced despicable prejudice here in America from the very beginning, from a wide segment of society.


America is a farce; the American Dream is a lie.

[ex-khobar Andy]

You did see the part where Mr. Reagan says he's quoting a letter he received, didn't you?



Also, I get the distinct impression that he's talking about more than just technically being able to become a citizen of the country, (If I somehow managed to become a Japanese citizen, I wonder how well I'd be accepted by ethnic Japanese as "Japanese") but maybe you didn't pick up on that...

My bad: I thought Reagan was quoting the letter approvingly. I missed the obvious sarcasm in his remarks. Silly me.

I don't know anyone who is non-native Japanese but has taken out Japanese citizenship. (I know one Englishman who has become French and he's fine with it as are, AFAIK, his neighbors.) I think that people like Naomi Osaka, with a Japanese mother and a Haitian father, are increasingly accepted in Japan. There is probably, just as in the US and UK and Canada, a sort of tribal "s/he's different" feeling about those of foreign background.

But this is all pedantry: I absolutely agree with your basic point, LJ.

[Lord Jim]

But this is all pedantry:

[Lord Jim]

My point, (just in case anybody missed it) was to compare and contrast Mr. Reagan's philosophy about immigration and it's value to the country, with Il Boobce's...

And to present this comparison in the context of yesterday's House vote, where 187 GOP Congressional representatives brought shame upon themselves and the party when they couldn't bring themselves to vote to condemn Trump's blatantly racist appeal advising four American citizens and members of Congress (three of whom were born in this country) to "go back where they came from"...

187 Congressional representatives who I am quite sure would, to a man or woman, swear up and down that they have nothing but deep respect and the highest regard for President Reagan...

But who have completely turned their backs on the principles and values he espoused, and who would no doubt be trying to drum him out of the party as a RINO if were still around today...

On many days since the vile Donald Trump received the GOP Presidential I have wrestled with the idea of whether or not I could continue to remain a Republican or have to become an Independent...

Yesterday after that vote, I had one of my toughest wrestling matches...

But I'm one very stubborn sumabitch, and I still refuse to driven off by the disgraceful behavior of a collection of Quislings and cowards who are far more interested in saving their own political hides than in Republican or Conservative principles, or even in the oaths they swore to uphold...

[ex-khobar Andy]

LJ I hope you remain a Republican. Of course you and they are wrong on so many issues, but I want you there for at least two major reasons.

Every change needs a nucleus, whether it's a grain of sand in an oyster which becomes a pearl, or it's a piece of dust which causes a chemical precipitation. There are (or were) plenty of Republicans with whom I could have a decent discussion, whom I knew to care about their fellow man as much as I did, and whose views helped me to form my own. George Will and even (much of the time) Charles Krauthammer are (were) exemplars. I don't have to think about their motives for believing as they do. If you and some like you remain Republicans, there's a chance for others to accrete around you and for ensuing decent political discourse and progress.

Secondly - well it's really just a subpart of the first reason but it bears repeating. My views have been honed and stretched and amended and even killed and resurrected over the years by argument, thought and discussion. I need (I'm being selfish here) thoughtful people who do not think as I do to help me formulate my own thoughts.

[Econoline]

• Republican support for Trump rises after racially charged tweets: Reuters/Ipsos poll
  
  NEW YORK (Reuters) - Support for U.S. President Donald Trump increased slightly among Republicans after he lashed out on Twitter over the weekend in a racially charged attack on four minority Democratic congresswomen, a Reuters/Ipsos public opinion poll shows.
  
  The national survey, conducted on Monday and Tuesday after Trump told the lawmakers they should “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came,” showed his net approval among members of his Republican Party rose by 5 percentage points to 72%, compared with a similar poll that ran last week.
  
  Trump, who is seeking re-election next year, has lost support, however, with Democrats and independents since the Sunday tweetstorm.
  
  Among independents, about three out of 10 said they approved of Trump, down from four out of 10 a week ago. His net approval - the percentage who approve minus the percentage who disapprove - dropped by 2 points among Democrats in the poll.
  
  Trump’s overall approval remained unchanged over the past week. According to the poll, 41% of the U.S. public said they approved of his performance in office, while 55% disapproved.
  
  The results showed strong Republican backing for Trump as the Democratic-led U.S. House of Representatives passed a symbolic resolution on Tuesday, largely along party lines, to condemn him for “racist comments” against the four Democratic lawmakers.
  
  All four U.S. representatives - Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan - are U.S. citizens. Three were born in the United States.
  
  The public response to Trump’s statements appeared to be a little better for him than in 2017, after the president said there were “very fine people” on both sides of a deadly white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
  
  In that instance, Trump’s net approval dropped by about 10 points a week after the Charlottesville rally.
  
  This time, while Democrats and some independents may see clear signs of racial intolerance woven throughout Trump’s tweets, Republicans are hearing a different message, said Vincent Hutchings, a political science and African-American studies professor at the University of Michigan.
  
  “To Republicans, Trump is simply saying: ‘Hey, if you don’t like America, you can leave,” Hutchings said. “That is not at all controversial. If you already support Trump, then it’s very easy to interpret his comments that way.”
  
  By criticizing liberal members of the House, Trump is “doing exactly what Republicans want him to do,” Hutchings said. “He’s taking on groups that they oppose.”
  
  The Reuters/Ipsos poll was conducted online in English and gathered responses from 1,113 adults, including 478 Democrats and 406 Republicans in the United States. It has a credibility interval, a measure of precision, of 3 percentage points for the entire group and 5 points for Democrats or Republicans.

Sorry, Jim, but I think we're allowed to stop trying to "win them over" now.

[Big RR]

I guess this is the part of his base who were criticizing him for not going far enough in standing up to the liberal fascists; it doesn't surprise me at all. I was glad to see the drop among independents, though.

[ex-khobar Andy]

While I was musing my response above, I was trying to think of columnists whom I liked to read, despite the fact that I often disagreed with them; and I came up with Will and Krauthammer. (Buckley was possibly another.) I was thinking - definitely not Cal Thomas - and it occurred to me that I hadn't read anything or see him on the box for a long time. Had he died and I missed it? I turned to Wikipedia. Still kicking but writing less. I did see this gem quoted:

We will get more of what we tolerate. Sexual behavior is an important cultural and moral issue. Mr. Obama won the election with just 52 percent of the popular vote and a margin of 7 percent over Sen. John McCain. This should not be seen as a mandate for him and his administration to make over America in a secular and liberal image. Neither should it be seen as an invitation to give blanket approval to homosexuality, considered by some to be against the best interests of the people who practice it as well as the nations that accept it.

I'm curious whether he regards Trump's margin of victory over HRC (a little less than 7%, IIRC) as a mandate for him to make over America as he has.

[rubato]

I used to read William Rusher back in the '70s. I see he died in 2011. My favorite conservative writer is still Garry Wills. The best writer of the lot, for my money. He was a protegee of WF Buckley but left the fold over Buckley's defense of the white citizens councils. Buckley declared him an enemy and plotted to bring him down after he left.


yrs,
rubato

[Econoline]

I never really considered Garry Wills (as opposed to George Will) a "conservative"—though I guess you could say that his roots as an unapologetic, lifelong, worshiping Roman Catholic might automatically qualify him as such. (Maybe he really is the "kinder, gentler" sort of conservative that some people hallucinated about in the 2000 Presidential campaign?)

Funny story: years ago the Chicago Sun-Times used to run columns by both Will and Wills...and one day someone at the paper apparently mixed up the 2 names and ran both columns with the wrong bylines. I remember that day starting to read what was labeled as George Will's column (and had Will's photo next to his byline at the top) and thinking when I got about 2 sentences into it, "WHOA! Ol' George seems a lot more compassionate and a lot less mean today! I wonder what happened to suddenly change him?" After reading the rest, bewildered—and then turning the page and finding the real George Will column (labeled "by Garry Wills")—I realized what had probably happened...and sure enough, the following day the Sun-Times ran an apology for the error.

[rubato]

Garry Wills is that very rare animal, an intelligent conservative who is intellectually honest. Like Bertrand Russell he has written things to vex people on both sides.

yrs,
rubato

[Lord Jim]

Even by the low standards of Trump rallies, last night's hate-a-thon appears to have been a particularly depressing and ugly event...

Only Donald Trump could figure out a way to make me view a strident, left-wing Congresswoman, with whom I agree on pretty much nothing and who has in fact engaged in some very appalling anti-Semitic tropes (for which she has been justly criticized and condemned) as a sympathetic figure worthy of defending...

I saw former Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill on Morning Joe a little while ago suggest that Trump's reelection strategy seems to be hinged on somehow driving up the number of racists and xenophobes that will be motivated to turn out to vote to vote for him who haven't voted previously...

In other words, instead of trying to expand his support, he's focused on finding even more rocks for even more dirtbags to crawl out from under...

I think that probably accurately describes half of the strategy....

The other half is hoping that the Democrats will nominate someone who has embraced such overwhelmingly unpopular positions (like the 13% Solution and decriminalizing illegal immigration) that he can suppress turnout on the other side...

[Lord Jim]

Trump claims he disavows 'send her back' chant despite remaining silent and starting racist attacks

Washington (CNN)President Donald Trump claimed Thursday to be unhappy that his rally crowd broke out into chants of "send her back" as he denigrated a Democratic lawmaker he'd previously said should leave the US.

"I was not happy with it. I disagree with it. But again, I didn't say that, they did," Trump said at the White House a day after the rally, when a crowded arena in North Carolina began the thundering chant as he assailed Rep. Ilhan Omar, a freshman Minnesota Democrat.

Trump's apparent disavowal came after expressions of concern from Republicans and outright outrage from Democrats, who accused the President of stoking racist sentiments among his white working class base.

It's the latest in a multi-day controversy involving Trump and a foursome of first-term congresswomen of color, who Trump has repeatedly denigrated as he works to paint them as the face of the Democratic Party.

Speaking to reporters, Trump claimed to have attempted to stop the chant Wednesday night by resuming his speech, though he waited 12 seconds before speaking as the crowd loudly shouted the three words.

In the lull, Trump appeared to listen, letting the chant gain momentum, before resuming his speech, which continued with a litany of complaints against Omar and the other lawmakers.

Later in his remarks, Trump encouraged his audience to "tell them to leave" the US if they continue to criticize him.

"They are always telling us how to run it, how to do this. You know what? If they don't love it, tell them to leave it," Trump said.

In the Oval Office on Thursday, Trump said he "felt a little bit badly" about the chant and claimed the hall where he spoke was noisy and hectic. Still, he said he would "certainly try" to prevent such a chant from breaking out again.

"It was quite a chant," Trump said.

Though Trump claimed to reporters he disagreed with the feelings expressed by his supporters, though it was his own tweet from several days earlier that originally prompted calls for Omar, along with three other female lawmakers, to leave the country.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/18/politics ... index.html


This is such standard operating procedure for Trump...

First get the benefit with his racist followers for the blatantly racist display, and then try to half-way walk it back to try to avoid losing his nose holding supporters....

I absolutely guarantee that there will be no criticism of last night's despicable chant coming from Trump by tweet...