Truckload

Via Wonkette:

Violence is Repugs' Only Response

They won. Rapey McLiarFace is on the Supreme Court, where he can force the nation into a Lords-n-Serfs economy and an only-rich-straight-white-men-are-human-and-have-rights society.

But constant attacks, death threats and violence is all they know. And domestic terrorism to prevent anyone from ever challenging any rich, white, straight, repug man again is what they do.



From NPR:

Christine Blasey Ford is still being harassed after leveling sexual assault allegations against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, her lawyers say.

"Justice Kavanaugh ascended to the Supreme Court, but the threats to Dr. Ford continue," said Ford's lawyers, Debra Katz, Lisa Banks and Michael Bromwich, in a statement to NPR.

Kavanaugh stridently denied the allegations about the assault and went on to win confirmation in the Senate. Ford is still working to get her life back on track, her lawyers say.

She has had to move four times, she wrote last month. She has had to pay for a private security detail. She hasn't been able to return to her job as a professor at Palo Alto University. A spokeswoman for the school did not respond to a question about whether there was a timeline for Ford to return.

Ford's accusation that Kavanaugh had assaulted her when the two were in high school — and Kavanaugh's emotional response — took place before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Sept. 27. Ford detailed the intimidation she was receiving then.

"My family and I have been the target of constant harassment and death threats," she told the committee.

"People have posted my personal information on the Internet. This has resulted in additional emails, calls, and threats. My family and I were forced to move out of our home. ... My family and I have been living in various secure locales, with guards."

Although the spotlight has receded, the danger has not, Ford's lawyers say, but she is not interested in trying to turn her story into something that could make the experience lucrative.

Your Angry Sarcasm of the Year

From Digby:

There's nothing to see here folks, nothing at all. The fact that members of the Democratic coalition are being violently threatened and killed by people with motivations that echo the grievances stoked by Trump and his cult is purely coincidence.

Anybody else hearing joking-not-joking recommendations that we just lock up all the white men now, as a precautionary measure? 

If four black men had murdered 15 white people, injured a dozen others including three cops and sent pipe bombs to 10 people, including two former presidents, in the space of two weeks, there would be massive nationwide roundups underway.

Maybe lock up just the trump-supporting white men.

Supreme Court Just Protecting White Supremacy

What have the conservatives on the Supreme Court unleashed with their stripping Muslims and non-white voters of their civil and human rights?  The same thing that always happens when the government winks at white/christian supremacy: anti-minority violence.

Think Progress:

Minersville School District v. Gobitis (1940) should have been an easy case.

Unlike many modern religious liberty cases, where religious conservatives demand the power to limit the rights of others, Gobitis involved two children who were expelled from a public school for refusing to say the Pledge of Allegiance. The two youths were Jehovah’s Witnesses, and they believed that “such a gesture of respect for the flag was forbidden by command of Scripture.”

As a matter of law, the Gobitis children should have prevailed. Generally, the First Amendment does not permit the government to force individuals to speak against their will. “If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation,” the Supreme Court later held in a similar case, “it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion, or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.”

And yet, Gobitis now stands as the paradigmatic example of how the Supreme Court can turn its back on a vulnerable group — and unleash the wolves of authoritarianism in the process.

A society committed to “ultimate values of civilization,” Justice Felix Frankfurter wrote, “may, in self-protection, utilize the educational process for inculcating those almost unconscious feelings which bind men together in a comprehending loyalty, whatever may be their lesser differences and difficulties.”

“National unity,” Frankfurter added, “is the basis of national security.”

The Gobitis decision was not a sweeping denial of the shared humanity of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It did not strip Witnesses of all their rights to seek protection from the law, or declare them to be enemies of American society. Yet it may as well have done so, because the public reaction to the decision was swift and harsh.

Gobitis came down in June of 1940. By the next September, according to the ACLU, more than a thousand Jehovah’s Witnesses were assaulted in 236 different incidents nationwide.

Solicitor General Francis Biddle warned that “self-constituted bands of mob patrioteers are roaming about the country, setting upon these people, beating them, driving them out of their homes.”

A lawyer who belonged to the faith lamented that hundreds of his fellow Witnesses were “beaten, kidnapped, tarred and feathered, throttled in castor oil, tied together an chased through the streets, castrated, maimed, hanged, shot, and otherwise consigned to mayhem.”

In one of these incidents, which is recounted in historian Shawn Francis Peters’ book Judging Jehovah’s Witnesses: Religious Persecution and the Dawn of the Rights Revolution, Witnesses in a small Pennsylvania town were harassed, arrested on frivolous charges, set upon by mobs of fifty men or more, beaten, kicked, and dragged through the streets, then held and questioned by police for hours before they could seek medical treatment for their injuries.

In another incident, which took place just days after the Gobitis decision, vigilantes burned a Jehovah’s Witnesses’ place of worship in Maine, then rioted for days.

SNIP

One again, in other words, a Supreme Court decision making a relatively narrow incursion on minority rights fostered a much larger attack on those rights. State lawmakers’ reaction to Crawford was neither as violent as the aftermath of Gobitis and Brown II nor as transparently lawless. But Crawford may provide the biggest warning of all about what could happen in the immediate aftermath of the Muslim Ban decision.

The story of Gobitis was a story of authoritarian elements within the general populace viewing a Supreme Court decision as a license to lash out at a disfavored minority group. The story of Crawford, by contrast, is the story of anti-democratic elements who wield the official power of the government deciding to push the envelope after the Supreme Court signaled that they were likely to get away with it.

Trump v. Hawaii is a case about an authoritarian, anti-democratic president. And it is a case about a racist, who does not feel bound by the Constitution, and who likes to lash out at vulnerable immigrants.

There’s no telling what he may do if the Supreme Court emboldens him further.

Of Course They're Raping the 4-Year-Old Girls; That's the Point

 It's a terror tactic and a war crime, and it's exactly what repugs want.

 

Down with Tyranny:

UPDATE: Who's Taking Care Of The Kidnapped Kids?

Guys like Deputy Sheriff Jose Nunez, a 10-year veteran of the Bexar County Sheriff's Department. According to the Dallas Morning News Nunez (not Devin Nunes this time) sexually assaulted a 4-year-old girl and threatened the victim's mother into staying quiet about the assaults.

Sheriff Javier Salazar said the girl had been assaulted multiple times over the course of several months. The mother is an undocumented immigrants and Nunez said she'd be deported if she told anyone.

Campaign of Terror

Digby:

But that isn't the only horror being inflicted on immigrants in this country.Donald Trump, Jeff Sessions and the rest of the deplorable GOP are terrorizing the Latino community in order to rid this nation of --- Latinos. They are doing everything in their power to scare them into taking their families and leaving the country by going after mothers and babies, teen-agers brought by their parents and even legal residents who had a brush with the law decades ago.. I suspect they would prefer that Hispanic Americans follow:

SNIP

You can't beat the irony of ICE deporting someone who committed domestic violence 20 years ago in the same week that the ttorney general unilaterally ruled that women cannot seek asylum in the country if they are fleeing domestic violence. 

This is a campaign of terror being waged by the government against a specific community in the United States. There's no other way to describe it.

Gov. I Got Mine Fuck You Will Strip Health Care from 500,000 Kentuckians

How DARE those disabled poors not show proper gratitude to King Matt for forcing them to work in the salt mines for no pay?  BURN THEM!

TPM:

Attorneys for Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin (R) will tell a federal court this Friday that that the governor plans to take his ball and go home if he can’t get his way on Medicaid work requirements, premiums, and other restrictions. Bevin, who campaigned on ending the Medicaid expansion but backed down from that threat once elected, is now arguing that he will scrap the state’s Medicaid expansion if the controversial new rules are struck down by federal courts.

Kentucky was the first state in the nation to win permission from the Trump administration to impose the new Medicaid rules, which are expected to throw nearly 100,000 Kentuckians off the program. With at least a dozen other states looking to adopt their own Medicaid work requirements, the outcome of the case could determine the future of the program not only in Kentucky but across the country.

Kentucky and the Trump administration are jointly fighting a lawsuit from a dozen-plus Kentucky residents who fear the work requirements and other hurdles will strip them of their Medicaid coverage. The plaintiffs are arguing, among other points, that the new rules do not further Congress’ original intent for Medicaid — to provide affordable health care to low-income people.

Kentucky’s waiver will allow the state, to deny coverage to any non-disabled adult who cannot prove they are working at least 20 hours per week. The state also will be able to charge low-income Medicaid recipients health care premiums, eliminate full coverage of dental care, vision services, and over-the-counter medications for many adults, end retroactive Medicaid coverage, and implement a six-month lockout period for people who fail to re-enroll in time or report a change in income.

SNIP

Cuello told TPM that their attorneys also plan to implore the judge not to endorse Bevin’s hostage-taking tactic, arguing that doing so would be “rewarding bad threats.”

“If you were to allow Kentucky to get away with this argument, you’d be saying that anytime someone can come up with a threat worse than the harm the plaintiff is identifying, they can strip away someone’s standing,” he explained. “That sends the message that any government official could avoid lawsuits by saying, ‘If you grant this challenge, we’ll do this other thing that’s even worse.'”

Isn't there a word for that kind of tactic? 

Molon Labe

I think the morons really imagine that the Orange Loser won't turn the 101st Airborne on their asses if they dare to deviate an inch from perfect worship of Dear Leader.

From Wonkette:

What Trump-Driven Terrorism?

I don't see any domestic terrorism. Especially not any domestic terrorism committed by white people.  And certainly not any domestic terrorism committed by white people emboldened by the Orange Loser's blatant racism to kill black kids

D.R. Tucker at Political Animal:

Maybe he thought blowing the kid away would make America great again.

In the midst of the media madness over Stormy and Syria, it’s easy to ignore seemingly minor stories that have major implications. One such story comes to us from Michigan, where an innocent 14-year-old was nearly killed due to what can only be described as Trumpian ideology:

The 14-year-old was walking to high school after sleeping late and missing the bus when he decided to ask a neighbor for directions.

It was a banal request, but it nearly got the student from Rochester Hills, Mich., killed Thursday.

The woman who opened the door after Brennan Walker, who is black, knocked on it started yelling at him. Then the woman’s husband grabbed a shotgun and fired it at him, Walker and police officials said.

Walker told WJBK-TV that “she was like, ‘Why are you trying to break into my house?’ I was trying to explain to her that I was trying to get directions to Rochester High. And she kept yelling at me. Then the guy came downstairs, and he grabbed the gun, I saw it and started to run. And that’s when I heard the gunshot.”

After sprinting away from the house, Brennan, who was not hit, hid and broke down in tears, the outlet reported.

“I’m kind of happy that, like, I didn’t become a statistic,” Brennan told the outlet, saying his mother had told him that black boys were at risk of being shot by others.

What would make the homeowner assume that a 14-year-old kid was a dangerous home invader? What would motivate the homeowner want to grab a shotgun and take this young man’s life?

 

Is it too far-fetched to conclude that the homeowner likely had the same thought process Donald Trump had back in 1989 (and afterwards), when he called for the execution of the individuals falsely accused of assault in Central Park?

Anyone who thinks progressives exaggerate when they say Trump has freed Americans to act on their prejudices needs to speak to young Brennan Walker. In one moment, this young man’s hopes and dreams could have been taken from him because of the assumption that he was a criminal–an assumption promoted by the man in the White House and his political and media allies.

The horror of what happened to young Brennan Walker cannot be overstated. This young man is psychologically wounded for life. He will never forget the morning he knocked on a door asking for help–just help–and barely avoided having a bullet in his chest.

These are the bitter wages of Trumpism. This is the natural consequence of a President effectively declaring that it is moral to be malevolent towards minorities. Thanks to Trumpism, it is no longer safe for American citizens to ask for directions when they’re lost…or walk home at night after a 13-hour shift…or even wait for friends at Starbucks.

I can’t help wondering what HUD Secretary Ben Carson–or, for that matter, Diamond and Silk–would say to young Brennan Walker, and what their rationale would be for continuing to support a President who obviously doesn’t believe Walker’s life matters. Then again, it’s probably reasonable to assume they’d use the same excuses right-wing commentator Walter E. Williams used nearly two decades ago when he attempted to downplay the dangers of racial profiling. Yet there’s no excuse for what happened to Brennan Walker.

At some point, Trump will go. Yet Trumpism will remain with us, a social malady that must be resisted with as much political and cultural force as possible–because, as a real President declared over fifty years ago:

These are the stakes. To make a world in which all of God’s children can live, or to go into the dark. We must either love each other, or we must die.

Home Schooling Creates Terrorists

The white male racist conservatard freakazoid gun nut kind.

Political Animal:

* The man responsible for the bombings in Austin, Texas was killed after detonating a bomb in his own car. Here’s what we know about him:

The oldest of four children, [Anthony] Conditt was homeschooled by his mother. BuzzFeed spoke to a 21-year-old woman named Cassia Schultz who said she “ran in the same conservative survivalist circles in high school as Conditt.” She mentioned that she and Conditt were a part of a social group for homeschooled kids called Righteous Invasion of Truth (RIOT).

“A lot of us were very into science; we would discuss chemicals and how to mix them and which ones were dangerous,” Schultz told BuzzFeed. “We were into weapons and stuff. A lot of us did role-playing, and RPG [role-playing games]; we’d have foam weapons and act out a battle.”

Conditt attended Austin Community College from 2010 to 2012, though he didn’t graduate. A series of blog posts he wrote for a U.S. government course at the college provide a glimpse of Conditt’s political views. The Austin American-Statesman reports that Conditt wrote about his opposition to gay marriage and abortion, and his support for the death penalty. He also advocated for the abolishment of sex-offender registries.

Another christian Terrorist Shooting

Oh, wait: he's black and shot white people. Obviously not domestic terrorism.

Think Progress:

While the motives for Samson’s alleged involvement in the shooting remain unknown, far-right figures and outlets have been eager to play up the racial angle, noting that Samson is African American and he targeted a predominately white church. Multiple conspiratorial Twitter accounts have further claimed that Samson is a Muslim, with one even incorrectly claiming he was a Muslim refugee, adding that “This is why we are grateful for EXTREME VETTING & thanks to @realDonaldTrump it got more extreme.”

But according to a Nashville police spokesperson, Samson recently attended church services, and was recognized by some of the parishioners in attendance. And according to his Facebook profile, Samson wasn’t shy about his religious beliefs – or the fact that he was a practicing Christian.

Most Christians, of course, disavow the type of violence Samson allegedly wrought. But Samson’s social media profile suggests he could be the latest in a string of professed Christians to target civilian populations in the United States.

For instance, in 2010, Samson wrote that he was “aiming at … becoming a preacher,” while multiple other status updates point to Samson’s affections for his Christian faith – with one noting that he’s a “church boy, that wants a church girl. As serious about God as I am, plain and simple.” Added Samson, “If youre [sic] not with God-then you’re not with me!”

Samson also had a raft of public interests pointing toward his faith, including having liked movies including The Passion of the Christ and Left Behind: The Movie. Other likes include groups ranging from “Jesus Christ” and “Resolved To Know Christ” to “I Love Jesus” and “Jesus the Savior.” Some of the other groups followed by Samson had more grammatically challenged names, including “Help put Jesus back in EVERYTHING!”, “JESUS IS LORD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! if you know this is true press like. ” and “Let’s join forces as Christians and start a Jesus Christ revival! Press like if Jesus is your Savior!!!”

The alleged shooter additionally liked only one book on Facebook: the Bible.

None of this means that Samson necessarily leaned on his Christian faith as justification for the mass shooting. There isn’t enough information about his motives to draw that conclusion.

However, the United States has seen a recent spate of domestic terror incidents specifically tied to fundamentalist Christianity, as well as the rise of white supremacist “Christian Identity” groups and individuals who, as ThinkProgress detailed in 2014, “spout scripture while engaging in horrifying acts of violence.”

The rise in violent acts committed by self-avowed Christians, ranging from plotting to bomb civil rights organizations in Oklahoma to plans to assassinate state officials in Washington to shooting sprees in Texas, has paralleled a broader spike in right-wing domestic terror incidents since the mid-2000s. As the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism recently found, some three-quarters of extremist-related murders from 2007-2016 were attributed to right-wing extremists – a rise, and a reality, to which the Trump administration has paid little heed.

Samson was not a white supremacist, and did not appear to be a member of any “Christian Identity” sect. But just like Roof’s church attack two years ago, Samson’s shooting further highlights the reality that what’s often called domestic terrorism is by no means confined to any specific ideology – nor, as we’ve seen, to any specific religion.

The danger is freakazoids with guns.  

I Will Never Vote For Any Candidate Who Seeks These Voters

And that goes triple for the idiot DINOs who think pandering to deplorables is the path to victory.

Charlie Pierce in a righteous fury, on those who applauded the Orange Loser's rant in Arizona:

I'd like to address myself to those people represented by the parenthetical notation (Applause) in the above transcript, those people who waited for hours in 105-degree heat so that they could have the G-spot of their irrationality properly stroked for them. You're all suckers. You're dim and you're ignorant and you can't even feel yourself sliding toward something that will surprise even you with its fundamental ugliness, something that everybody who can see past the veil of their emotions can see as plain as a church by daylight, to borrow a phrase from that Willie Shakespeare fella. The problem, of course, is that you, in your pathetic desire to be loved by a guy who wouldn't have 15 seconds for you on the street, are dragging the rest of us toward that end, too.

A guy basically went mad, right there on the stage in front of you, and you cheered and booed right on cue because you're sheep and because he directed his insanity at all the scapegoats that your favorite radio and TV personalities have been creating for you over the past three decades. Especially, I guess, people like me who practice the craft of journalism in a country that honors that craft in its most essential founding documents. The President of the United States came right up to the edge of inciting you to riot and you rode along with him. You're on his team, by god.

Are you good people? I keep hearing that you are, but let's go back to Tuesday night's transcripts and see what we find.

SNIP

Right there, in the passive-aggressive fashion of the true moral coward, he made a bobo out of a former POW who currently is undergoing treatment for what is likely a terminal brain cancer. And you chanted and cheered. Do good people chant and cheer a rhetorical assault on a dying man of respect and honor?

I have no more patience, and I had very little to start with. I don't care why you're anxious. I don't care for anybody's interpretation of why you voted for this abomination of a politician, and why you cheer him now, because any explanation not rooted in the nastier bits of basic human spleen is worthless. I don't want any politicians who seek to appeal to the more benign manifestations of your condition because there's no way to separate those from all the rest of the hate and fear and stupidity. (And, for my colleagues in the Vance-Arnade-Zito school of Trump Whispering, here's a hint: They hate you, too.) I don't care why you sat out in a roasting pan since 5 a.m. Tuesday morning to whistle and cheer and stomp your feet for a scared, dangerous little man who tells you that your every bloody fantasy about your enemies is the height of patriotism. You are now the declared adversaries of what I do for a living, and your idol is a danger to the country and so are you. Own it. Deal with it. And, for the love of god, and for the sake of the rest of us who live in this country, do better at being citizens.

SNIP

It was a deadening, numbing 77 minutes. (If there's one modern orator he most resembles, it's Fidel Castro.) The abiding feelings that I took away from this carnival of the Id were twofold: first, that this jefe manqué is on the verge of sending people infinitely better than he is to die in a war he doesn't understand, and second, and probably most important, this is a president* who is scared to death. He's frightened of the responsibilities of his office, of the mounting unpopularity of both himself and his policies, and of the hounds baying at the frontiers of his shady past and shadier present. He's terrified, and he should be. He's desperately shoring up the bubble that his ovine followers helped him build to insulate him from the truth and from empirical reality.

Think he's overreacting?  Here are some actual quotes from the crowd.

Those Terrible Anti-Nazis Forced An Innocent Nazi to Run Them Down And Kill Them

Yep, that's the word from our wonderful media and our perfect 45th president.  Because that's what "I condemn violence on both sides" really means.

There was violence on only one side, you disgusting piece of shit. The Nazi, the racist, homophobic, xenophobic, anti-American trump voter crashed his car directly into a crowd of unarmed people protesting against the Nazi demonstrators.

And the drooling moron those very Nazis love so much is blaming the victims.  One of whom is dead.

Say, should anyone in particular be condemned for this? Certainly: those on all sides who hate. Not the organizers of the “Unite the Right” rally or even the murderer who smashed at high speed into a crowd of people there to condemn hatred, because after all, as David Duke reminded his president earlier today, he owes a good part of his victory to them.

When I say they are out to kill us, I mean They. Are. Literally. Killing. Us. Now.

UPDATE:  Josh Marshall, as always, nails it:

Trump refuses to condemn these people because he recognizes them as supporters and he supports them. That’s the truth. Anything else is denial.

How can this even surprise us? His top advisor ran the publication that courted and popularized the beliefs and actions of these same people. It’s all out in the open. Don’t ask why he can’t condemn them. We know.

The calls are coming from inside the house.

Terrorist at Transy: White, Male, Conservative

No, the Orange Loser and Bevin aren't empowering right-wing terrorists at all.

Morgan Eads at the Herald:

A man has been arrested after a machete attack on Transylvania University’s campus that sent one woman to University of Kentucky Chandler Hospital. 

Mitchell W. Adkins, 19, of Cincinnati has been charged with first-degree and fourth-degree assault, and three counts of wanton endangerment, according to police. Adkins is a former Transy undergraduate student who withdrew in 2015, Transylvania spokeswoman Michele Gaither Sparks said.

The attacker walked into a coffee shop inside the Glenn Building on Friday morning, asked people their political affiliation, then went on the attack, one witness said. Adkins appears to have a history of publicly protesting what he considered the mistreatment of conservatives on college campuses.

To a repug student, Adkins said "you're safe."

Obviously a left-wing rioter in the pay of George Soros.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/local/crime/article147344794.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/local/crime/article147344794.html#storylink=cpy

 

 

Yes, trumpies are doing all the terrorism

The Justice Department tried to warn us almost a decade ago, but the repug apologists for right-wing terrorism screamed and cried and stamped their tiny feet until the grownups withdrew the report.

So ten years of ignoring the problem has only made it worse.

Wonkette:

The GAO scienced up some numbers and found that far-right wing extremists groups are responsible for over 70% of all terrorist incidents, and that’s left the rightwing think tank Cato Institute full of butthurt that Bubba may be more dangerous than Mohammed.

The Resistance: E. KY Wins First Round Against Nazis

So the vicious motherfuckers won't be staining our beautiful Jenny Wiley State Park. But they're still planning rallies and protests.  Eastern Kentucky is ready for them.


Bill Estep at the Herald:

White nationalist groups no longer plan to use a Kentucky State Park in Floyd County for a meeting and training event on April 28, easing concerns about potential confrontations there.

However, the chairman of the Traditionalist Worker Party, Matthew Heimbach, said the groups would instead hold the event on private property in the area.

The groups also still plan to showcase their ideas at a rally for “white working families” in downtown Pikeville on April 29.

Residents opposed to the groups’ ideology have planned a rally at the same time, a few blocks away, for people to “stand up for peace, diversity, and love and to stand AGAINST neo-Nazis,” according to the Facebook page for the event.

On another front, the advocacy group Kentuckians for the Commonwealth is providing education about the groups, including how to counter their message with a positive vision for the state.

SNIP

Floyd County Judge-Executive Ben Hale said he was glad the white nationalist groups won’t be meeting at the state park.

“These types of groups are not welcome by anybody in Floyd County,” Hale said. “I hope they don’t come east of the Mississippi.”

Only If We Call Gun Deaths Terrorist Attacks

Because that's the real danger Americans face.

 

Digby:

This from the president who hasn't mentioned, even once, the white supremacist who mowed down half a dozen people in a mosque in Quebec last week. But then the white supremacist is a big fan of Trump's so he figures he must be doing something right.

I'm just going to run this one more time:




It's nothing more than racist fearmongering. He's looking for a war against Muslims, here and abroad. And he'll be happy to start persecuting Mexicans and incarcerating millions more African Americans to keep "us" "safe."

Repugs Just Guaranteed an Oklahoma City Bombing in Your Town

There is literally nothing stopping right-wing violence now.  And make no mistake: this is entirely on repugs.  This is what they've all wanted for a very long time, and now that they've got the power they're going to do it.

Charlie Pierce:

This development on Wednesday is downright unnerving. From Reuters:

The program, "Countering Violent Extremism," or CVE, would be changed to "Countering Islamic Extremism" or "Countering Radical Islamic Extremism," the sources said, and would no longer target groups such as white supremacists who have also carried out bombings and shootings in the United States. Such a change would reflect Trump's election campaign rhetoric and criticism of former President Barack Obama for being weak in the fight against Islamic State and for refusing to use the phrase "radical Islam" in describing it. Islamic State has claimed responsibility for attacks on civilians in several countries.

Leave aside the fact that everyone who knows what they're talking about thinks this move is counterproductive in the fight against that which the president* believes he's at war. This is an unmistakable signal to the camo-wearing, gravity-knife wing of modern conservatism that it's less of a priority for federal law enforcement any more.

When the Murrah building exploded, killing 169 people, including 19 children, everybody yelled "Arabs!"  (That's what we called them, back in 1995.) I didn't. DC sure.  LA or Miami, why not. New York guaranteed.  But no "Arabs" back then knew from Oklahoma City.  Had to be anti-government wingnuts, I said.

And in 22 years, nothing's changed.  Except that now the new and far more heavily armed Timothy McVeighs have a get-out-of-jail-free card direct from the all-repug federal government.

Also, the House repugs just voted to let mentally ill people have guns.  FREEDUMB!

Keeping Us Safe From Arthitic Octogenarians

Digby on one of the many airport detainee horror stories:

This is just awful. And for no good reason, none. Our threat level from refugees and foreign visitors from these countries is minuscule compared to the threat from some sick person with an AR-15 coming in an mowing down little children in a grade school or people watching a midnight movie or workers in an office or any of the tens of thousands of shootings, purposeful and accidental, that happen every single year in this country.
Donald Trump wants to make that situation worse by letting loose a flood of weapons on the streets of America even as he detains 75 year old ladies from Iran. It is insane.
You tell me who's keeping us safe.

Year of Hatred, Rape, Genocide and War in Kentucky

Makes you wonder if any of these motherfuckers have actually read the thing.

I put the over/under on how soon some freakazoid is going to justify firebombing a mosque filled with worshippers or torturing a trans person to death by saying "It's the Year of the bible!" at Easter.

That's always been the freakazoid favorite time for massacring non-christians.