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You've been Trumped!

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aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Mon 14 Aug , 2017 9:58 pm
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I don't think it's helpful to assume that the people who preferred Trump to Clinton were mostly Nazis. Nor do I think it's true. Sure, some were white nationalists or bullies who liked Trump's style. For the rest, I'll buy gullible, willfully blind, fed up with Washington bureaucrats, afraid of what Clinton might do... oh, lots of reasons. Probably in combinations of reasons as individual as the person. Doesn't much matter - for the moment we have to deal with the consequences.

But Trump's acts certainly make it look like he thinks the white nationalists are his real constituents. And I think you were right to warn of Trump's presidency as an opportunity for evil to rise. He finally made a very belated denunciation of Nazis, the KKK and white supremacists. Someone noted that it was with all the enthusiasm of a student forced to read aloud in detention. And he insisted on prefacing it by talking about how well the economy is doing.

Trump also said this:
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing- ... ws-racists
Quote:
President Trump’s former ethics chief on Monday blasted him for considering pardoning controversial Sheriff Joe Arpaio,... who violated a federal order to stop racially profiling Latinos in his Arizona county.

Trump told Fox News over the weekend that he was “seriously considering” pardoning Arpaio.
“He has done a lot in the fight against illegal immigration. He’s a great American patriot, and I hate to see what has happened to him,” Trump said.
Might as well say that federal laws no longer apply, as long as you do something Trump personally likes.


The alt-right movement has immediately planned more events, and explicitly refers to Charlottesville:
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing- ... y-at-texas
Quote:
White supremacist Richard Spencer is hosting a "White Lives Matter Rally" at Texas A&M University next month. Spencer will be headlining the rally on the College Station campus, set to take place exactly one month after Saturday's violent white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., The Texas Tribune reported Sunday.

Preston Wiginton, another prominent white supremacist, is organizing the event. He sent out a press release Saturday with the banner headline “TODAY CHARLOTTESVILLE TOMORROW TEXAS A&M.”

I don't know anything about this group, but their timing seems very suspicious:
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing- ... t-virginia
Quote:
A Confederate heritage group has requested to hold a rally at a Confederate statue in Richmond, Va., next month. The Americans for Richmond Monument Preservation have requested permission from the state of Virginia to hold an event at a monument of Robert E. Lee on Sept. 16, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported.

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Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


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Frelga
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Mon 14 Aug , 2017 10:07 pm
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I thought Spencer got arrested this Saturday?

No, not everyone who voted for Trump is a Nazi. But my conclusion is still that the Nazi base (we can stop mincing words now that they brought out swastika flags, right?) is what pushed Trump to win the Republican primary.

Although anyone who voted for Trump in the general election had to at least have been OK with minorities targeted by the right-wing groups being collateral damage, or else they weren't paying attention.

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aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Mon 14 Aug , 2017 10:14 pm
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People like Spencer never stay in jail for long. They incite their followers and make them do most of the dirty work, while keeping their own hands (technically) as clean as possible.

And yes, I think we can use the term Nazis for the ones yelling about Jews during their torchlight parade through the UVA campus, even if they didn't wave a swastika.

_________________

Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


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aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Tue 15 Aug , 2017 1:44 am
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http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity ... mp-website
Quote:
The Department of Justice has requested information on visitors to a website used to organize protests against President Trump, the Los Angeles-based Dreamhost said in a blog post published on Monday.

Dreamhost, a web hosting provider, said that it has been working with the Department of Justice for several months on the request, which believes goes too far under the Constitution.

Trump goes back to New York City for the first time since becoming president:
http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... turns-home
Quote:
Protesters took to the streets outside of Trump Tower on Monday as President Trump is returning to New York City.

...Video uploaded by an editor for Snapchat shows demonstrators chanting, “New York hates you” outside of the Fifth Avenue skyscraper the president called home prior to his inauguration

...Protesters display a giant inflatable rat in the likeness of President Trump ahead of his arrival at Trump Tower in New York City pic.twitter.com/farMQL48kk

_________________

Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


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aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Tue 15 Aug , 2017 12:53 pm
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This is who the U.S. president is listening to.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... ate-groups
Quote:
President Trump retweeted a far-right activist hours after calling out for the first time specific hate groups for their role in last weekend's violence in Charlottesville, Va. The president retweeted Jack Posobiec, who shared a story about shootings in Chicago and questioned where the "national media outrage" was.

...Posobiec, a supporter of Trump in the election, is known for promoting alt-right conspiracy theories. He has promoted the discredited assertion that the Democratic National Committee was behind the killing of former employee Seth Rich and pushed the false "pizzagate" allegations against the Hillary Clinton campaign that led to an armed man firing off rounds in a D.C. restaurant.
Yes, I do think there should be national outrage over the constant stream of gun-related deaths - though it's ironic that the far right uses these deaths when convenient, and simultaneously opposes any and all restrictions on gun ownership, studies on gun violence, etc.

But a president who follows and officially promotes a fringe lunatic trying to distract attention from a very disturbing group of people? Because, after all, we've been told that Trump's tweets represent official US policy. There is something very wrong with this picture.



btw, Texas has cancelled Spencer's speech. I wouldn't be surprised if Fox news runs an outraged story about colleges suppressing free speech again. Yes, exposing students to diverse opinions, even ones they think wrong, is a real issue - but does a college have to go as far as to invite a white supremacist who refuses to condemn the person who drove his car into the anti-fascist protesters at Charlottesville?
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... ct/536880/
Quote:
The white nationalist leaders who helped organize a protest in Charlottesville, Virginia two days ago that turned bloody gave a press conference in Virginia in which they refused to condemn the man suspected of driving his car into a crowd of protesters and dismissed President Trump’s statement disavowing white supremacists earlier that day.
Not surprisingly, they don't think Trump actually meant his condemnation of white supremacists.
Quote:
Spencer dismissed Trump’s statement as “kumbaya nonsense” and said he didn’t view it as a repudiation of his movement

...Speaking to me afterwards, Damigo agreed that he didn’t take Trump’s words as an unequivocal denouncement of their movement. “I don’t know exactly what he meant by that statement,” Damigo said. “People in his position, they’re not stupid, they make these very ambiguous statements with words that are very loaded and hard to interpret.”
One of Spencer's sick statements:
Quote:
Spencer blamed the authorities for what happened in Charlottesville, saying the city’s mayor and governor of Virginia have “blood on their hands” for not policing the situation properly. The alt-right, he said, is “nonviolent;” he waxed nostalgic while speaking about the hundreds of white nationalists marching through Charlottesville with torches on Friday night, calling the event “really beautiful.”

_________________

Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


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aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Tue 15 Aug , 2017 3:03 pm
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One of the themes that has sprung up after Charlottesville is that the media is making a big deal of nothing. But it turns out that the FBI and DHS warned Trump about the extremists months ago:

h[url]ttps://foreignpolicy.com/2017/08/14/fbi-and-dhs-warned-of-growing-threat-from-white-supremacists-months-ago/[/url]
Quote:
The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security in May warned that white supremacist groups had already carried out more attacks than any other domestic extremist group over the past 16 years and were likely to carry out more attacks over the next year, according to an intelligence bulletin obtained by Foreign Policy.

...The FBI... has already concluded that white supremacists, including neo-Nazi supporters and members of the Ku Klux Klan, are in fact responsible for the lion’s share of violent attacks among domestic extremist groups. White supremacists “were responsible for 49 homicides in 26 attacks from 2000 to 2016 … more than any other domestic extremist movement,” reads the joint intelligence bulletin.
Quote:
The bulletin’s numbers appear to correspond with outside estimates. An independent database compiled by the Investigative Fund at the Nation Institute found that between 2008 and 2016, far-right plots and attacks outnumbered Islamist incidents by almost 2 to 1.

_________________

Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


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aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Tue 15 Aug , 2017 6:18 pm
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Trump is loosening standards on infrastructure projects built on floodplains. This is something that will affect the U.S. for many years to come:
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-enviro ... ding-order
Quote:
President Trump is set to repeal an Obama-era order requiring tougher new building standards for government-funded infrastructure projects in flood-prone areas, including those at risk of rising sea levels brought on by climate change.

..Floodplain officials generally supported Obama’s order when he signed it in 2015. The order specifically outlines three ways for agencies to site, design and build flood-resilient infrastructure projects. One provision requires most public projects be built at least 2 feet above the 100-year flood elevation, with critical buildings like hospitals and evacuation centers built 3 feet above that level.

Unlike his slow response to Charlottesville, Trump is quick to criticize the CEOs leaving his manufacturing council:
http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... bs-council
Quote:
The president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing has resigned from President Trump's American Manufacturing Council, making him the fifth business leader to do so. “I’m resigning from the Manufacturing Jobs Initiative because it's the right thing for me to do,” Scott Paul tweeted Tuesday.

...Paul is joining Kenneth Frazier, the CEO of major pharmaceutical company Merck; Kevin Plank, the CEO of Under Armour; and Brian Krzanich, the CEO of Intel, who all resigned from the president’s council Monday.

...“For every CEO that drops out of the Manufacturing Council, I have many to take their place. Grandstanders should not have gone on. JOBS!” Trump tweeted, moments before Paul announced his decision.

_________________

Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


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Frelga
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Tue 15 Aug , 2017 7:34 pm
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QOTD: "Bannon allies still pissed @Scaramucci: "we should have been talking health care but all we could talk about is Bannon blowing himself"

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aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Tue 15 Aug , 2017 9:09 pm
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Pruitt seems to be busy while all the attention is on Trump.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-enviro ... wer-plants
Quote:
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) intends to rewrite limits on toxic waste from power plants, the agency said in a court filing this week.

...The agency said this week that it would rewrite the limits on pollution from bottom ash, scrubbers and coal gasification plants, signaling a new deregulatory push for the fossil fuel sector.

Oh and Trump is back to saying that "both sides" are to blame for the violence in Charlottesville again. Guess his minders couldn't control his message for long. Really, how hard is it to say that Nazis are evil?
http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... ottesville
Quote:
Trump conducted an impromptu press conference at Trump Tower that was meant to focus on infrastructure, but he faced a barrage of questions from reporters about why he did not immediately condemn racist protesters and the KKK by name.

In his initial remarks this weekend, Trump condemned violence “on many sides,” ... On Tuesday, Trump doubled down, saying there is “blame on both sides.”

“What about the alt-left that came charging at the — as you say, the alt-right?” Trump asked. “Do they have any semblance of guilt? What about the fact they came charging with clubs in their hands, swinging clubs? Do they have any problem? I think they do. As far as I am concerned, that was a horrible, horrible day.”
This all seems reminiscent of Erdogan after his thugs badly beat U.S. protesters. I don't think Trump ever condemned that either.

_________________

Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


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Frelga
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Tue 15 Aug , 2017 9:48 pm
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So that press conference....

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aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Wed 16 Aug , 2017 12:34 am
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And the reactions!

http://thehill.com/homenews/media/34669 ... s-ive-ever
Quote:
Fox News's Kat Timpf slammed President Trump on Tuesday for his "disgusting" press conference in which he again blamed "both sides" for the violence that occurred in Charlottesville, Va., over the weekend, stepping back from his direct condemnation of white supremacist groups a day earlier. "It was one of the biggest messes I’ve ever seen. I can’t believe it happened," said Timpf, a co-host of “The Fox News Specialists.”

“It is honestly crazy for me to have to comment on this right now because I’m still in the phase where I am wondering if it was actually real life — what I just watched."

..."It shouldn’t be some kind of bold statement to say, 'Yes, a gathering full of white supremacist Nazis doesn’t have good people in it.' Those are all bad people, period. And the fact that that is controversial, makes me — I don’t know if I should laugh or — I have too much eye makeup on to start crying right now. It is disgusting," Timpf said.
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/346 ... p-comments
Quote:
Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo tweeted in defense of President Trump's controversial comments on Tuesday, saying that he fought back against critics with an "excellent" press conference at Trump Tower.
http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... le-remarks
Quote:
Frustrated Republicans lashed out at President Trump for saying “there is blame on both sides” after violent protests staged by white nationalists over the weekend in Charlottesville, Va.

http://thehill.com/homenews/news/346719 ... lusiveness
Quote:
The Republican National Committee is standing behind President Trump amid backlash from his Tuesday statement on the violence in Charlottesville, Va., RNC spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany said.McEnany wrote in a tweet that the party supports what she called the president's "message of love and inclusiveness," insisting Trump's remarks on Tuesday marked a strong rebuke of hate.
And the AFL-CIO president, who was still debating about whether to stay on Trump's manufacturing council, couldn't take Trump's latest and resigned.
http://thehill.com/policy/finance/34669 ... sory-board
Quote:
"President Trump’s remarks today repudiate his forced remarks yesterday about the KKK and neo-Nazis," AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said in a statement. He announced that both he and AFL-CIO leader Thea Lee would step down from Trump's Manufacturing Advisory Board.
And, of course, David Duke, head of the KKK, is happy and praised Trump.
http://thehill.com/homenews/news/346675 ... ottesville
Quote:
Duke thanked Trump for his "honesty & courage" in a tweet.

Thank you President Trump for your honesty & courage to tell the truth about #Charlottesville & condemn the leftist terrorists in BLM/Antifa https://t.co/tTESdV4LP0

_________________

Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


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aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Wed 16 Aug , 2017 3:58 pm
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http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing- ... tionalists
Quote:
Direct descendents of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee are denouncing the white nationalist and neo-Nazi groups that stoked violence in Charlottesville, Va., during protests opposing the removal of a statue of Lee.

.. "At the end of the Civil War, [General Lee] implored the nation to come together to heal our wounds and to move forward to become a more unified nation," the statement reads. "He never would have tolerated the hateful words and violent actions of white supremacists, the KKK, or Neo Nazis."

... Lee told Newsweek that it would make "good sense" to move Confederate statues and monuments like the one in Charlottesville to museums, which would allow them to be put in historical context.
From The Atlantic,
Quote:
Why the Charlottesville Marchers Were Obsessed With Jews
Anti-Semitic logic fueled the violence over the weekend, no matter what the president says.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... le/536928/
Quote:
The demonstration was suffused with anti-black racism, but also with anti-Semitism. Marchers displayed swastikas on banners and shouted slogans like “blood and soil,” a phrase drawn from Nazi ideology. “This city is run by Jewish communists and criminal niggers,” one demonstrator told Vice News’ Elspeth Reeve during their march. As Jews prayed at a local synagogue, Congregation Beth Israel, men dressed in fatigues carrying semi-automatic rifles stood across the street, according to the temple’s president. Nazi websites posted a call to burn their building. As a precautionary measure, congregants had removed their Torah scrolls and exited through the back of the building when they were done praying.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... ts/537039/
Quote:
Hard-right activists say they’re “energized” by the president’s Tuesday press conference, at which he said there were “some very fine people” among the Charlottesville protesters.
What The Atlantic euphemistically calls "hard right activists" are KKK members, white supremacists and lunatic fringe bloggers. I'm not going to quote those disgusting people, but you can read the article if you want to hear their glee.


GOP members of Congress rebuke Trump, but the Atlantic thinks it's nothing but window dressing:
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... le/537033/
Quote:
Yet in a ritual that has repeated itself many times over during Trump’s first seven months in office, it was Republicans who felt the pressure to separate themselves from his latest diatribe.

...However unified, the GOP oppobrium might not amount to much. Even those Republicans who did call out Trump suggested little remedy or punishment for a president who, again, has deviated wildly from the message many in the party’s establishment want to send to the country. The GOP legislative agenda is already sputtering, with the president showing little ability to steer it back on course. What Trump retains is the ability to shock if not surprise with his outbursts, and the Republicans, practiced now in the art of politely scolding their party’s leader, respond in increasingly predictable ways: He speaks, they criticize, and everyone waits a few days to do it once again.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... ct/537042/
Quote:
Every day, the White House communications office sends official talking points to Republican members of Congress. These communiqués help the GOP stay on the same page (and, in the Trump era, help the embattled president’s allies come up with arguments in his defense).

On Tuesday evening, a few hours after the president’s inflammatory press conference defending white nationalist protesters in Charlottesville, the office issued an “evening communications briefing,” which was passed along to me by a Republican congressional aide. It encourages members to echo the president’s line, contending that “both sides … acted inappropriately, and bear some responsibility.”

You can read the talking points in their entirety here.

Edit: In addition to the talking points - which include this gem "He has been a voice for unity and calm, encouraging the country to 'rediscover the bonds of love and loyalty that brings us together as Americans.' - this article also contains the transcript of the press conference.


Late night TV hosts once again abandon entertainment to speak seriously:
http://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/34 ... s-no-power
Quote:
.. [Jimmy Kimmel] then spoke directly to Trump supporters, saying that he understands that they wanted to vote for someone who is different and would shake things up in Washington. “But you’ve been trying to ignore it, because you don’t want to admit to these smug, annoying liberals that they were right,” he said to the Trump voters. “That’s the last thing you want to do. But the truth is, deep down inside, you know you made a mistake.”

He advised them not to “dig in like Chris Christie at a Hometown Buffet,” but instead to treat the president like “Star Wars” wallpaper in the kitchen: “All right, I got caught up, I was excited, I made a mistake. And now it needs to go.”

Last edited by aninkling on Wed 16 Aug , 2017 4:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.

_________________

Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


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aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Wed 16 Aug , 2017 4:28 pm
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Also related, The Atlantic's piece on the antifa movement:
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... fa/537048/
Quote:
In his Tuesday press conference, Donald Trump talked at length about what he called “the alt left.” ... “You had a group on the other side that was also very violent,” he declared. “Nobody wants to say that.”

I can say with great confidence that Trump’s final sentence is untrue. I can do so because the September issue of The Atlantic contains an essay of mine entitled “The Rise of the Violent Left,” which discusses the very phenomenon that Trump claims “nobody wants” to discuss. Trump is right that, in Charlottesville and beyond, the violence of some leftist activists constitutes a real problem. Where he’s wrong is in suggesting that it’s a problem in any way comparable to white supremacism.
He explains the origins of the antifa, a movement that "traces its roots to the militant leftists who in the 1920s and 1930s brawled with fascists on the streets of Germany, Italy, and Spain." and again became evident in the 1970s-1990s, when "anti-racist punks in Britain and Germany mobilized to defeat Neo-Nazi skinheads who were infiltrating the music scene."

He goes on to say "They have seen explosive growth in the Trump era for an obvious reason: There’s more open white supremacism to mobilize against," notes the reasons to be very concerned about the activities of the antifa, and goes on to state:
Quote:
So, yes, antifa is not a figment of the conservative imagination. It’s a moral problem that liberals need to confront. But saying it’s a problem is vastly different than implying, as Trump did, that it’s a problem equal to white supremacism. Using the phrase “alt-left” suggests a moral equivalence that simply doesn’t exist.
and concludes:
Quote:
If Donald Trump really wants to undermine antifa, he should do his best to stamp out the bigotry that antifa—counterproductively—mobilizes against.

_________________

Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


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Frelga
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Wed 16 Aug , 2017 5:42 pm
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While there are obvious legal and practical problems with meeting Nazi violence with violence, I see no moral problem at all. The collateral damage to property is a different matter, of course.

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aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Wed 16 Aug , 2017 7:10 pm
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But they're not just defending people from Nazi violence. They're also claiming the power to arbitrate what society will not allow people to say or do, even if it's legal, and using threats and violence to do so. For instance, as the author of that article notes:
Quote:
But for all of antifa’s supposed anti-authoritarianism, there’s something fundamentally authoritarian about its claim that its activists—who no one elected—can decide whose views are too odious to be publicly expressed. That kind of undemocratic, illegitimate power corrupts. It leads to what happened this April in Portland, Oregon, where antifa activists threatened to disrupt the city’s Rose Festival parade if people wearing “red maga hats” marched alongside the local Republican Party.
I think they were also the violent bunch who showed up during the Berkeley protests against Milo Yiannapoulos. They were not reacting to violence; they caused it. If they really wanted to "help" the student protesters, that was absolutely the wrong way to go about it.

(Btw, the accounts I've read of Charlottesville don't support Trump's statement that the antifa were equally culpable in that case. They all seem to suggest that the white supremacists and Nazis came prepared to fight, demean and intimidate, and the vast majority of the clashes were instigated by them. And of course, most of those protesting against the Nazis were not members of antifa, but peaceful protesters.)


More on the Justice Dept's warrant of the website that organizes anti-Trump protests.:
http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity ... gers-alarm
Quote:
There is no limitation on the government’s request for information,” said Raymond Aghaian, a lawyer who is representing DreamHost. “They essentially want every piece of information they can get, including the type of operation systems users were running on their system at the time they visited the website. This is a complete overreach.”

... At the end of July, the U.S. attorney’s office in D.C. filed a motion for an order to compel DreamHost to produce the records.


The ACLU and others are backing DreamHost and saying this request is highly questionable. So are some conservatives:
Quote:
Judge Andrew Napolitano said Tuesday on Fox News that there are “very serious constitutional problems” with the DOJ’s request. He said the department probably went to a superior court for the warrant request, rather than a federal judge, because “none of them would sign it.”“This search warrant that the government got has a lot of us scratching our heads. There is not criminal investigation, there is no evidence that the ID of these people is going to produce evidence of a crime, and these things are absolutely required before a search warrant can be granted.”

“Could you imagine if [former attorney general] Eric Holder did this to find out who the protesters against Barack Obama were?” he added later. “I dare say there would be a different reaction than what we are seeing today. … There should be an uproar over this.”

Will the last CEO out the door please turn out the lights? The eighth one has resigned over Trump's remarks on Charlottesville.
http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... ng-council
Quote:
The CEO of Campbell resigned from President Trump's manufacturing council on Wednesday, following the president's comments on the violent clashes in Charlottesville, Va.

Oop, never mind. Trump has forestalled the rest of the resignations by disbanding his advisory councils. I guess he got tired of hearing himself criticized.
http://thehill.com/policy/finance/34682 ... nds-report
Quote:
CNBC reported that Trump's Strategic and Policy Forum broke apart Wednesday, according to a member of the panel. As the news was breaking, Trump tweeted that he was ending the forum and a separate manufacturing council with corporate leaders.

"Rather than putting pressure on the businesspeople of the Manufacturing Council & Strategy & Policy Forum, I am ending both. Thank you all!" Trump wrote.

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Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


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yovargas
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Wed 16 Aug , 2017 10:47 pm
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Frelga wrote:
While there are obvious legal and practical problems with meeting Nazi violence with violence, I see no moral problem at all.
There is also, as has been pointed out elsewhere, the pragmatic question: is it actually effective at hindering the spread of racist ideology or does it create martyrs and sympathizers? Disgusting as it is, there are some defending the president's "bad on all sides" line, and that would be far harder to say if there weren't examples of non-self-defense violence on the left.

It has often been said by the left that our aggressively violent actions towards terrorists has created more terrorists. I don't see why the same logic wouldn't apply here.


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aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Thu 17 Aug , 2017 12:59 pm
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This is fairly extraordinary and shows the division Trump has sown with his "good people" among the white supremacists/KKK and other Charlottesville remarks. Has anyone ever heard of a mayor saying "we'd rather the president of our country not come here right now?"

http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... -his-rally
Quote:
The mayor of Phoenix, Arizona, issued a statement Wednesday night urging President Trump to delay his campaign rally in the city while "our nation is still healing" from the violence that took place in Charlottesville, Va.

“It is my hope that more sound judgement prevails and that he delays his visit," Mayor Greg Stanton (D) said in a statement, also saying he is "disappointed" with the president.

_________________

Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


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aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Thu 17 Aug , 2017 4:32 pm
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An interview with Brennan Center fellow Michael German, a former FBI special agent and counterterrorism expert. He talks about how Trump, the police and the media are emboldening the white supremacists:
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... nt/537195/
Some snippets (much more in the article):
Trump:
Quote:
According to German, the president’s response to Charlottesville is the latest in a series of actions he has taken to side with, and endorse, the viewpoint of far-right ideological movements, and, in the process, push them into the American political mainstream.
The police:
Quote:
I think it’s incumbent on state, federal, and local authorities to do public examinations in the aftermath of Charlottesville to determine why was there such an aggressive response to nonviolent protests in places like Standing Rock while far-right protesters in Charlottesville adopted tactics that were threatening and confrontational and were treated with kid gloves.

... the fact that the police did not aggressively police the protest sends a message to these far-right groups that they will interpret as, “We’re allowed to and we’re authorized to act this way in the future.” So the next time they’re likely to bring more people and more dangerous weapons and push the limits even further.
The media:
Quote:
There are individuals associated with far-right movements who are trying very hard to bring attention to themselves as a way to legitimate and mainstream their ideas. That’s their goal, and it’s very disheartening to see the media putting microphones in front of these people... And in the end, it gives an enormous boost to the stature and reach of these people to give them media attention.

...I would encourage journalists to never interview anyone who says they are a leader of these movements, but instead to seek out and talk to researchers and academic experts who have studied far-right movements and ideologies, and talk to them to help contextualize, and explain what’s taking place.
Which pretty much means, I think, that we should also avoid these types of stories as readers, and cut off the demand.


Speaking of alt-right ties...
https://www.theatlantic.com/internation ... on/537189/
Quote:
At a time when Asia threatens to present the Trump administration with its first real foreign-policy crisis, the White House chief strategist Steve Bannon has said he plans to marginalize the Asia-related bureaus at the U.S. State and Defense Departments, which he views as insufficiently committed to a hard line on China.

“I’m changing out people at East Asian Defense; I’m getting hawks in,” Bannon told The American Prospect, a liberal magazine, in a candid interview. “I’m getting Susan Thornton [acting head of East Asian and Pacific Affairs] out at State.”
[/quote]

_________________

Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


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aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Fri 18 Aug , 2017 1:17 pm
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:)
http://thehill.com/homenews/347053-aclu ... h-firearms
Quote:
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) took a new stance on firearms Thursday, announcing a change in policy that it would not represent hate groups who demonstrate with firearms.
I so agree. If you want to spout your evil gibberish, you can do it - but not heavily armed to intimidate everyone.

Though why just hate groups? I don't think anyone who's participating in a protest - which is a potentially volatile situation - should be carrying guns and clubs. That's a mob, not a protest march. Personally, I wouldn't have even allowed the torches during the white supremacist march on the UVA campus. They could have carried flashlights like a normal person.

http://thehill.com/media/347052-fox-ceo ... ion-league
James Murdoch, the CEO of 21st Century Fox and son of conservative media magnate Rupert
Quote:
Murdoch, ripped President Trump's response to violence in Charlottesville, Va., last weekend, also pledging a $1 million donation to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).

..."I can’t even believe I have to write this: standing up to Nazis is essential; there are no good Nazis. Or Klansmen, or terrorists. Democrats, Republicans, and others must all agree on this, and it compromises nothing for them to do so."

Later in the email, Murdoch announced that he would be donating to the ADL, and encouraged his friends to do so as well.

_________________

Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


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Frelga
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Fri 18 Aug , 2017 1:46 pm
A green apple painted red
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I have mixed feelings about the ADL. I hope they do something good with this money.

I have mixed feelings about ACLU, too. They are lawful good, and that alignment can do as much damage as chaotic evil.

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GNU Terry Pratchett


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