Tuesday, September 19, 2017
Is Trump a White Supremacist? - The New York Times
“Donald Trump is a white supremacist who has largely surrounded himself w/ other white supremacists.”
That was only one in a string a tweets on Sept. 11 by ESPN host Jemele Hill in which Hill goes on to say that Trump is “the most ignorant, offensive president of my lifetime,” that he hired and courted white supremacists, that “His rise is a direct result of white supremacy,” that “if he were not white, he never would have been elected.” Hill insinuates that the Republican Party “has done nothing but endorse/promote white supremacy.”
These tweets caused quite a stir. The White House perpetual lie-generator and press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, said that it was a fireable offense for ESPN. Sanders’s statement, of course, was not without its own controversy. As TheWrap reported:
“The Democratic Coalition, an anti-Trump Super PAC, has filed an ethics complaint against White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders with the Office of Government Ethics for her comments calling on ESPN host Jemele Hill to be fired.”
TheWrap continued:
“The group claims federal law prohibits government employees from influencing ‘a private entity’s employment … solely on the basis of partisan political affiliation.’”
Then on Friday, Trump himself weighed in, because obviously there are no more pressing matters that need his attention, oh like, say, North Korea continuing to launch missiles over Japan, for one.
Trump tweeted:
“ESPN is paying a really big price for its politics (and bad programming). People are dumping it in RECORD numbers. Apologize for untruth!”
This tweet, for me, changed the conversation. It moved the discussion from propriety and in-house rules of conduct by a brand, to a question of veracity. Was what Hill said untrue, as Trump’s tweet suggests, or is Trump in fact a white supremacist who has surrounded himself with white supremacists and whose party courted white supremacists?
Two of those points can be quickly put to rest. First, there is no question that Trump has hired someone who was at least a booster of white supremacists: Steve Bannon. In a sinister act of double signaling, Bannon was hired as the Trump campaign’s chief executive on the same day that Trump started his fake outreach to black voters in Milwaukee.
Also, while the Republican Party clearly stands for more than white supremacy and the promotion of that intellectually fallacious concept, the party has often turned a blind eye to the racists in its midst and done far too little to extricate them.
But then the question remains: Is Trump himself a white supremacist?
This question is almost unanswerable in the absolute, but there is mounting circumstantial evidence pointing in a most disquieting direction.
First, we must submit that Trump is not particularly discerning in the administration of his insults. As The New York Times’s Upshot pointed out in July, “Trump is on track to insult 650 people, places and things on Twitter by the end of his first term.” He is often reflexive with his derisions, attacking those who criticize or condemn him. Many of Trump’s lackeys laud his instinct to counterpunch. When Trump attacked MSNBC host Mika Brzezinski, Huckabee Sanders explained, “When the president gets hit, he’s going to hit back harder.”
They paint it as strength, although it is clearly weakness. It is a masking of fragility with aggression. And the traditionally marginalized — women, racial, religious and ethnic minorities — are treated to a particularly personal strain of Trump’s venom. In Trump’s eyes, Barack Obama wasn’t simply a bad president, he was illegitimate and inferior, a person who couldn’t possibly be as talented as the world thought he was. He questioned whether Obama had actually attended his prestigious colleges and insisted that Obama’s memoir was too well-written for him to have written it, that it must have been written by a white man.
Is Trump patriarchal and misogynistic? Definitely. But what of white supremacy?
It is clear that Trump is a hero among white supremacists: He panders to them, he is slow to condemn them and when that condemnation manifests, it is often forced and tepid. Trump never seems to be worried about offending anyone except Vladimir Putin and white supremacists.
What does that say about him? How can you take comfort among and make common cause with white supremacists and not assimilate to their sensibilities?
I say that it can’t be done. If you are not completely opposed to white supremacy, you are quietly supporting it. If you continue to draw equivalencies between white supremacists and the people who oppose them — as Trump did once again last week — you have crossed the racial Rubicon and moved beyond quiet support to vocal support. You have made an allegiance and dug a trench in the war of racial hostilities.
Hill may have pushed into the realm of hyperbole with a few of her statements — it was Twitter after all — but I judge the spirit of her assessment to be true.
Either Trump is himself a white supremacist or he is a fan and defender of white supremacists, and I quite honestly am unable to separate the two designations."
Is Trump a White Supremacist? - The New York Times: ""
(Via.)
Why Trump’s threat to ‘totally destroy’ North Korea is extraordinary — even for him - The Washington Post
"
resident Trump took to the floor of the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday and, in his maiden speech there, called the leader of North Korea “Rocket Man,” decried “loser terrorists” and said certain parts of the world are “in fact, going to hell.”
But Trump's perhaps oddly chosen colloquialisms masked what was a pretty astounding escalation of his rhetoric when it comes to North Korea. Just to be clear: The president of the United States threatened to wipe a country of 25 million people off the map.
“Now North Korea's reckless pursuit of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles threatens the entire world with unthinkable loss of human life,” Trump said. He later added: “The United States has great strength and patience, but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea. Rocket Man is on a suicide mission for himself.”
Trump's rhetoric on North Korea has been very tough before. He turned heads last month by threatening to unleash “fire and fury” if North Korea and its leader, Kim Jong Un, threatened the United States. But Trump's speech Tuesday ratcheted things up in two respects: saying the United States would also unleash a massive response on behalf of its allies, and threatening to “totally destroy” the country."
Paul Manafort wiretapped and threatened with indictment: reports Rachel Maddow reports breaking news from the New York Times about the aggressive nature of Special Counsel Mueller's raid of former Donald Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort's home, and news from CNN about communications intercepts of Manafort. - The Rachel Maddow Show on msnbc – Latest News & Video
Monday, September 18, 2017
US government wiretapped former Trump campaign chairman - CNNPolitics
The government snooping continued into early this year, including a period when Manafort was known to talk to President Donald Trump.
Some of the intelligence collected includes communications that sparked concerns among investigators that Manafort had encouraged the Russians to help with the campaign, according to three sources familiar with the investigation. Two of these sources, however, cautioned that the evidence is not conclusive."
US government wiretapped former Trump campaign chairman - CNNPolitics
The Shameful Embrace of Sean Spicer at the Emmys - The New York Times
"I’m an awards-show geek who usually spends the morning after the Emmys or Oscars nattering about who was unjustly robbed, who was unwisely dressed and whether it’s a felony in Hollywood to consume more than 300 calories a meal, because it sure looks that way.
But that’s not my banter or my mood today, because what I and anyone else who tuned in to Hollywood’s latest self-congratulatory orgy on Sunday saw wasn’t good fun. It was bad news — a ringing, stinging confirmation that fame truly is its own reward and celebrity really does trump everything and redeem everyone.
Object of ridicule or object of reverence: Is there a difference? Not if you’re a household name, not if you’re a proven agent of ratings and not if you’re likely to deliver more of them. Our commander in chief took that crude philosophy to heart and rode it all the way to the White House. Sean Spicer took a page from the president and then a bow on the Emmys stage.
Not exactly a bow, and there are Emmys production folks and television industry figures who are telling themselves that during his fleeting appearance at the ceremony, Spicer was being slyly demeaned, not sanitized.
What bunk. The message of his presence was not only that we can all laugh at his service and sycophancy in the Trump administration, but that he’s welcome to laugh with us…"
The Shameful Embrace of Sean Spicer at the Emmys - The New York Times:
Sunday, September 17, 2017
Asian-American DACA Holders Speak Out About Undocumented Status : NPR
"Dan Lee rarely talks about his status as a DACA recipient. Apart from having close family and friend confidants, the secret of being in the country illegally has weighed heavily on Lee ever since he learned he didn't have the proper paperwork in high school while applying for a job.
In an interview with NPR's Michel Martin, Lee remembers being 15 and thinking "What is the point of me doing anything if I'm not going to able to have a career or be able to, I guess, be 'normal'?"
Lee's parents brought him to the U.S. from South Korea in the hopes of giving him an American education. From what he can gather from his parents, they tried to pursue citizenship but ended up falling victim to an immigration scam.
Lee is part of about 20 percent of DACA recipients who came to the U.S. from Asia. South Koreans make up the majority of that demographic.
Because of DACA, Lee was able to get the documents needed to get a job and apply for school. Today he's a fourth-year political science student at American University in Washington D.C."
Asian-American DACA Holders Speak Out About Undocumented Status : NPR
Saturday, September 16, 2017
ESPN is letting the conservative trolls win.
" What’s more remarkable is that ESPN’s behavior has been just as dumb as the president’s. The Worldwide Leader’s mealy-mouthed reprimand of Hill and alleged attempt to persuade a black colleague to take her place on the air reveal the network doesn’t understand what it’s dealing with. There is no appeasing the likes of Travis and Trump, and ESPN needs to stop acting as if there are good arguments on both sides of this particular debate.
ESPN’s recent PR strategy calls to mind Homer Simpson’s plan to escape the inky depths of the Springfield Tar Pits: “First, I’ll just reach in and pull my legs out. Now, I’ll pull my arms out with my face.” Last month, Travis reported that ESPN had pulled an announcer named Robert Lee—no relation to the Confederate general—from his assignment to call a University of Virginia football game in the aftermath of the white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. In a memo explaining that decision, ESPN president John Skipper wrote that “there was a question as to whether—in these divisive times—Robert’s assignment might create a distraction, or even worse, expose him to social hectoring and trolling.”
ESPN is letting the conservative trolls win.
President Trump is killing me. Really. - The Washington Post
"President Trump is killing me.
No, really. He’s killing me.
I went for my annual physical last month, and, for the first time in my 49 years, I had to report that I’ve not been feeling well: fatigue, headaches, poor sleep, even some occasional chest pain. My doctor checked my blood pressure, which had always been normal before: alarmingly high!
What could this mean? I don’t smoke, I’m not obese and I swim most days. The doctor hooked me up to electrodes and ran an EKG; it was normal. He suggested I try an ultra-low-sodium diet, and I spent a few weeks living on unsalted rice cakes, undressed salads and unappealing entrees; the pressure dropped a few points, but not enough. We could pretty much rule out sleep apnea and other things that can cause a spike in blood pressure. My doctor had me take a calcium CT scan of my heart, which filled me with enough radiation to melt s’mores but turned up nothing terrible.
At this point, I arrived at a self-diagnosis: I was suffering from Trump Hypertensive Unexplained Disorder, or THUD. For almost five decades, I had been the picture of health, but eight months into Trump’s presidency, I was suddenly ailing. Trump is the only variable, I told my doctor. “He sure is variable,” my doc replied, endorsing the diagnosis.
President Trump is killing me. Really. - The Washington Post