Category: Trump effect

August 4, 2019

    Two in twenty four hours.  Three in less than a week. The accelerating pace and mind-numbing regularity of mass shootings in this country is terrifying.  On the same sultry summer day, both El Paso, TX and Dayton, OH, were the sites of mass shootings carried out by young white men.  While less is known about the body armor-clad Dayton terrorist, the El Paso gunman, who drove ten hours from Allen,TX, to carry out his crime, posted a racist manifesto, proudly declaring his intention to “quell the Hispanic invasion,” (Source:  “Minutes Before El Paso Killing, Hate-Filled Manifesto Appears Online,” by Tim Arango, Nicole Bogel Burroughs and Katie Benner, The New York Times,8/3/19).

     Given the unpredictability and increasing frequency of mass shootings, we could be forgiven for succumbing to the temptation to retreat from the world and curl up in despair.  Instead, we should react with defiant, clarifying and focused rage at the hydra-headed forces condemning us to this fate. Continue reading “American legacy”

August 2, 2019

       For two nights this week, we enjoyed a welcome respite from Trump’s relentless and corrosive hatred.  During two nights of the second Democratic Presidential debates, CNN’s “random” drawing put all of the candidates of color on the second night and isolated the progressive frontrunners (Sanders and Warren) from the moderate one (Biden).  CNN’s set up promised spectacle, rather than substance, with the neon lit podiums on stage at the Fox Theater and the candidates entering to Hans Zimmer-like fanfare (h/t Jon Lovett). The format was expressly designed to elicit internecine conflict, with Jake Tapper in bookish glasses asking the candidates to respond to criticism from another candidate sharing the stage. Continue reading “Wake up”

July 28, 2019

     It has become clearer than ever that Trump, faced with the escalating likelihood of impeachment, is pinning all of his hopes on fanning the flames of hatred.  A disgusting racist who has never been shy about expressing his contempt for Black people, Trump has decided that condemning those in Congress who criticize his policies or investigate his corruption in explicitly racist terms is a “winning” strategy.

      Yesterday’s target was House Oversight Chair, Congressman Elijah Cummings. Last week, Cummings excoriated acting DHS Secretary, Kevin McAleenan, for conditions at the border.  Rep. Cummings challenged McAleenan’s contention that DHS was doing its best, asking, “ What does that mean? When a child is sitting in their own feces, can’t take a shower?” (Source:  “Cummings tears into DHS chief for conditions at border facilities,” by Owen Daugherty, TheHill.com, 7/18/19).  Continue reading “The myth of the moderate voter”

July 25, 2019

     Yesterday, Robert Mueller finally testified on Capitol Hill, capping weeks of feverish, if misplaced anticipation.  Democrats either thought that their deft questioning would elicit a new bombshell, or that the mere act of seeing Mueller discussing the contents of his report for an extended time on television would magically translate into a national consensus that the corrupt buffoon in Putin’s pocket has no business in The White House.  Sadly, they had forgotten the overweening emphasis of our political commentators on style over substance. Although Mueller pointedly said that he had not exculpated Trump and all but called him an unindicted felon, his terse and halting delivery caused the pundit class to declare that “the optics were a disaster,” (Source: @ChuckTodd, Twitter, 7/24/19; 12:16 p.m.). Continue reading “Mueller Time?”

July 20, 2019

      This has been a truly depressing week.  We have witnessed the hatemonger in chief sink to new depths, whipping his knuckle dragging supporters into a racist, xenophobic frenzy to target Rep. Ilhan Omar with the vile chant, “Send her back!”  Not only did we witness the unprecedented sight of a sitting President urging that a U.S.citizen who is a sitting member of Congress be banished for criticizing him, but the fact that not one Republican member of Congress could bring themselves to do more than issue the most tepid criticism.  Trump toady, Lindsey Graham, urged the president to “aim higher,” before doubling down on his attacks on The Squad, calling them “communists,” (Source: “Graham declines to condemn racist Trump tweets and calls Democratic congresswomen ‘a bunch of communists,’” by Devan Cole, CNN.com, 7/15/19). Mitt Romney called Trump’s tweets “destructive, demeaning and disunifying,” but couldn’t bring himself to call them racist, (Source: “ ‘That’s all I’ve got’: Romney fails his own test on Trump’s racist tweets,” by Aaron Blake, The Washington Post, 7/16/19).  The rest of the Republican caucus bent over backwards to claim that the literal textbook definition of a racist comment was not racist. Continue reading “The definition of “racist””

July 15, 2019

     

     On Friday, there were 700 vigils around the country which peacefully, but forcefully, conveyed  the message that “Never again means never again,” and that the concentration camps holding migrant children and adults must be closed.  From Foley Square, NY to El Paso, TX; from Pittsburgh, PA, to Portland, Oregon, thousands of people came out to protest, (Source:  “Thousands Across the Country Attend Lights for Liberty Vigils,” by Stephanie Dube Dwilson, Heavy.com, 7/13/19).  Yet despite the scale and scope of the protests, neither The New York Times nor The Washington Post saw fit to include even a two paragraph article about the widespread evidence of Americans revulsion over the despicable human rights violations being perpetrated in our names.  Protests that featured a cross section of people of all races and faiths and that featured speakers such as House Judiciary Chair Jerrold Nadler were deemed insufficiently newsworthy and simply erased. Continue reading “Birthright”

July 10, 2019

 

Since Saturday’s arrest of pedophile “billionaire,” Jeffrey Epstein, we have been learning both the depth of his depravity and the long list of his powerful enablers.  According to the indictment unsealed on Monday, Epstein, who counted both Donald Trump and Bill Clinton as friends, lured dozens of underage girls to his homes in New York and Florida and sexually abused them.  According to the indictment, Epstein “maintain[ed] ‘a steady supply of new victims to exploit by paying past victims to recruit new victims,’” (Source:  “Who is Jeffrey Epstein?” by Deanna Paul, The Washington Post, 7/8/19).

It is only thanks to the dogged investigative reporting of The Miami Herald’s indefatigable Julie K. Brown that this rock has been overturned to reveal the maggots beneath.  Julie K. Brown uncovered almost 100 victims of Epstein’s perversity and revealed that then U.S. Attorney, Alex Acosta, had negotiated a sweetheart plea deal that allowed Epstein, who was facing 45 years in prison, to plead to one count of soliciting a minor for prostitution and serve a mere 13 months in a county jail (Source:  “The Jeffrey Epstein Case Was Cold, Until A Miami Herald Reporter Got Accusers To Talk,” by Tiffany Hsu, The New York Times, 7/9/19).  What’s worse, Acosta concealed the fact that he was negotiating a non-prosecution agreement from Epstein’s victims, in contravention of the law (Source:  “Federal prosecutors broke law in Jeffrey Epstein case, judge rules,” by Julie K. Brown, The Miami Herald, 2/21/19). The only plausible explanation for  Acosta’s indefensible actions is that he was intimidated by the likes of Alan Dershowitz and Ken Starr or that he was compromised himself. Continue reading “To catch a predator”

July 3, 2019

     Kamala Harris’s vivisection of Joe Biden over his fond memories of collaborating with segregationists and his staunch opposition to busing has revived the debate over the long abandoned practice.  For years, it has been conventional wisdom that busing “didn’t work,” and was opposed by Black and white parents in equal measure. Revisionist history is responsible for sanitizing opposition to busing as something other than what it was— virulent white opposition to white children attending school with Black and Brown children.  As someone who was bused into a predominantly white elementary school in Flatbush, Brooklyn and greeted by jeering white parents calling us “n—ger,” I feel it’s long past time to correct the record.

     As historian Matthew Delmont painstakingly explains in The Atlantic, busing had “long been a feature of public education and …made the modern public school system possible,”. It was the destination [integrated schools] that white parents objected to, not the journey, (Source:  “There’s A Generational Shift in the Debate Over Busing,” by Matthew Delmont, The Atlantic, 7/1/19).   Continue reading “The dirty little secret of busing”

June 28, 2019

 

In its 5-4 decision yesterday in Rucho v. Common Cause, the conservative majority held that the Supreme Court had no ability to curtail extreme partisan gerrymandering.  Justice Roberts, writing for the majority, used anodyne, facially neutral language to mask a deliberate dereliction of duty.  The results driven opinion was crafted to allow Republicans the maximum flexibility to entrench minority rule.  According to Justice Roberts, it is impossible to come up with a standard for evaluating partisan gerrymandering that is “clear, manageable and politically neutral, [yet] limited and precise,” (Source:  “Opinion Analysis:  No role for courts in partisan gerrymandering,(Updated),” by Amy Howe, Scotusblog.com, 6/27/19). Continue reading “Fight the power!!”

June 23, 2019

     Earlier this week, Representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez was attacked by Chuck Todd and several Republicans when she called the facilities detaining migrants along the U.S. border “concentration camps.”  Her critics were weirdly focused on the factual distinctions between Nazi death camps and the unsanitary, crowded, freezing cages where our government is currently holding children, (Source:  “Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez ignited a firestorm after she spent 3 days calling US migrant detention centers ‘concentration camps,” by Eliza Relman, Businessinsider.com, 6/20/19).The semantic gymnastics were a bizarre attempt to distract us from the horror that is being perpetrated right here, right now, on our watch.

     The absurdity of their parsing was brought into sharp relief by the story that broke Friday about the actual conditions under which migrant children are currently being held in a facility in Clint, Texas.  Children as young as 7 or 8 are caring for infants that they don’t even know. “Toddlers without diapers are relieving themselves in their pants…. .[Detainees] have no access to toothbrushes, toothpaste or soap,” (Source:  “‘There Is a Stench’: No Soap and Overcrowding in Detention Centers for Migrant Children,” by Caitlin Dickerson, The New York Times, 6/21/19). Continue reading “It can happen here”