Painfully White Guy Picks a Different Minority for Useless Job

No, it's not weird. It's exactly what the kind of racist who adopts black children to prove the superiority of white people does.

In 2015, African-Americans and women were "in," so he picked the unknown Jenean Hampton as his running mate.  Today, it's Hispanics, so he dumps Hampton and goes for another unknown with a Mexican-sounding name.


From the Herald:

Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin announced Friday afternoon that state Sen. Ralph Alvarado, R-Winchester, will be his lieutenant governor running mate as he seeks re-election in 2019, putting an end to speculation about his political plans.

When asked why he chose not to run again with Lt. Gov. Jenean Hampton, the Republican said “because I chose to run with Ralph Alvarado.”

Well, that explains it.

“This is somebody who moves with a sense of urgency that I think is needed as we look forward,” Bevin said of Alvarado. “He’s a guy who has relationships and strong ones with the very constituencies that are going to be imperative as we move forward.”

SNIP

Bevin described Hampton, who was the first black person elected to statewide office in Kentucky, as “a dear and personal friend,” but said Alvarado represents the American dream and aligns with what he would like to see “moving forward.”

Read more here: https://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article225085955.html#storylink=cpy

Oh, gag.

Hispanics constitute barely 1.5 percent of Kentucky's population, and that's only if you count the migrant workers Kentucky farmers pretend aren't undocumented.

Gov. I Got Mine Fuck You is playing to a national audience here.  He's gonna run for president as the repug who luuuuurrrrrvvves the blacks and the browns.

Let's see how far he gets against the likes of Kamala Harris.

Read more here: https://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article225085955.html#storylink=cpy

School Cops Tase 7-year-old; Betcha Can't Guess His Ethnicity

If the Trump-empowered stormtroopers can't deport the spics, they'll just torture 'em.

Think Progress:

Yosio Lopez, a 7-year-old student with special needs, was reportedly handcuffed and tasered by police while at school last Tuesday. According to CNN, police officers were called when Lopez, who suffers from both ADHD and another mood disorder, was banging his head against a wall in class. A trained aide is usually on hand for these incidents, but was not present during the incident. April Obin, Lopez’s mother, was called for assistance, but police intervened before she arrived. Officers restrained Lopez on a desk and cuffed his arms while the school’s principal choked him with her elbow, seemingly in an attempt to restrain him. He was later taken to a mental health facility, where he was kept for almost a week, without his mother’s permission.

SNIP

The next day, a Dallas ISD police officer body slammed 12-year-old Mariana Valdez at Piedmont G.L.O.B.A.L. Academy. Valdez was reportedly in a fight with another student at the time when the officer grabbed and slammed the child on the ground, in a moment caught on video. According to Valdez, he then pepper sprayed her.

Careful about tanning this summer; anyone darker than a paper bag is fair game now.

Darker Than a Paper Bag? Top Justice Official Thinks You're "Filth"

I honestly don't know why any repug these days is shying away from just screaming "NIGGER!" non-stop.

Charlie Pierce:

We're going to have to make a semi-regular daily feature on the doings of Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, presently the Attorney General and the only man in America who thinks Birth of a Nation was a documentary. On Tuesday, he visited the border and, by way of encouraging the law-enforcement types gathered there, according to Tiger Beat On The Potomac, these were his prepared remarks:

"Depravity and violence are their calling cards, including brutal machete attacks and beheadings," he said. "It is here, on this sliver of land, where we first take our stand against this filth."

Nobody I know is in favor of depravity and violence—at least outside the studios of Fox News, anyway—nor is anyone I know in favor of machete attacks and/or beheadings, although some of our staunch allies elsewhere are rather high on the latter. But when you've got the attorney general of the United States planning to refer to other human beings, no matter how criminal they are, as "filth," you've got the Department of Justice descending into the status of a Breitbart comment thread, and that is never good for anyone. When it came time for the speech, Sessions ultimately did not say "filth" out loud, but the Department of Justice doubled down on the word in a statement.

SNIP

What matters to Sessions is putting lots of "brown people" in cells. He doesn't care how many or where. Maybe it's through his idiotic revival of the "war" on drugs. Maybe it's through these E-Z-Bake cook'em-and-eat'em immigration courts he's establishing at the border. Doesn't matter. To Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, America means locking up "brown people." Period.

Nancy LeTourneau at Political Animal points out that Sessions has escalated the racist rhetoric from "illegal immigrants" to "criminal aliens" and writes:

What Sessions doesn’t want the American public to know is that the link between undocumented immigrants and violent crime is a myth. His lies are meant to fear-monger and provide cover for his racist policies.

SNIP

It would be disgraceful coming from any American — much less the Attorney General. Personally, I take this kind of thing as seriously as Sessions lying to Congress during his confirmation hearing. In a world that acknowledged equal justice for all, he would be out of a job for this speech alone.

Giving Every Racist Fuckhead a Badge

There used to be a joke that the only people qualified to be President of the United States are people who sincerely do not want the job.

Now we need to put that into effect for federal law enforcement, because job openings there are bringing out of the woodwork all the criminals, crazies and KKKers slavering for official permission to shoot darkies down in the street.

Digby:

The number of errors in both law and common sense among customs and border officials since Trump first implemented his ban does not bode well for an orderly or professional implementation. Now, according to Foreign Policy, the desperate need for thousands more agents has made it difficult to find people who can pass polygraph tests and background checks — so the administration wants to drop those requirements. What could possibly go wrong?

And the Roundups Begin

After Kristallnacht, this is the next step.  But it's just the "criminals" with parking tickets so don't worry.

 

Political Animal:

According to more recent reports, a blueprint has been put together for Trump’s immigration crackdown.

On Monday, Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly issued memos to senior officials at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that provide instructions for implementing two executive orders President Trump signed January 25, regarding immigration enforcement on the US/Mexico border and within the United States…

Under President Trump, the massive immigration enforcement “machine” of the US will now have nearly free rein to arrest, detain, and deport unauthorized immigrants wherever it finds them.

In addition to deputizing local law enforcement to arrest undocumented immigrants, the challenge is to figure out what to do with them. They’ve come up with two solutions. First of all, there is this deplorable plan:

It can take years after an immigrant is apprehended for that immigrant to get deported, because immigration courts are massively backlogged. The executive order signed by President Trump lays out a possible solution: sending people back “to the territory from which they came” while their cases are still pending in immigration court.

Basically, it’s a “deport first and ask questions later” strategy.

Secondly, the Trump administration is planning to detain a lot more people.

But given that America’s detention system for immigrants has been running at full capacity for some time now, where is the president going to put all of these people before deporting them?

In new jails, for starters. In the same executive order that called for the construction of a southern border wall, Trump instructed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to build out its sprawling network of immigration detention centers. Starting “immediately,” his order said, ICE should construct new facilities, lease space for immigrants alongside inmates in existing local jails, and sign new contracts—likely with private prison companies.

The initial targeting of people like DREAMers, victims of domestic violence and those who are cooperating with law enforcement sent a chilling message that is designed to quiet undocumented immigrants who might otherwise fight back against these efforts. That is why they will depend on those of us who are legal citizens to raise our voices in resistance before it’s too late.

Digby:

This is going to cost the taxpayers billions and will result in nothing positive for our country and untold misery for many people. But it will make bigots have an orgasm and that's what really matters in America these days. They will surely enjoy the sight of Latino families being torn apart. They hate them that much:

SNIP

By the way, immigration from Mexico is the lowest it's been in over 40 years. They're "solving" a "crisis" that doesn't exist, purely to give their bigoted followers a thrill up the leg.

The Resistance: Sign for Neighbors

Yeah, yeah, bleeding heart liberal blah blah blah.  It's Resistance.

 

Kendra Peek of the Danville Advocate-Messenger:

All around Danville, colorful signs are popping up with the simple phrase, “No matter where you are from, we’re glad you’re our neighbor” in Arabic, English and Spanish.

“This message of welcome is universal,” Maggie Shapiro Haskett said.

Haskett had heard about the signs through a friend on Facebook. The signs started at Immanuel Mennonite Church in Harrisonburg, Va. Matthew Bucher, the pastor of the church, erected a large, hand-painted version of the sign at the church in response to rhetoric he’d heard coming out of the presidential election.

The three-color yard sign was created, and the PDF has been shared online, so others can order their own signs to be printed.

Haskett, disheartened by the current political tone, the Muslim ban and the travel ban, loved the signs. Inspired, she took to Facebook seeking out others who might want their own sign. She found a local printer willing to print at least 10 signs at $12 each.

“I posted it on Facebook and had 10 quickly. It spread like wildfire,” Haskett said.

She does orders of 10 at a time; so far, 50 signs have been made and sold. She is currently collecting more orders.

“People like it. … It’s an easy and public way to put kindness out there,” she said.

Kate Snyder, Haskett’s friend and coworker, saw the post, heard the story and ordered a sign.

“I like that the signs are not explicitly political,” Snyder said. “Welcoming people who have resettled here should cross all boundaries.”

“It’s a nice visual statement to say, ‘Everybody’s welcome here.’”

Snyder said she has used it as a conversation starter to talk to her children about the point of the signs, and about other languages and cultures, such as Syria.

Snyder said the credit locally goes to Haskett.

Haskett said she just hopes it makes a difference.

“I’m hopeful this will be a catalyst to find common ground,” she said.

Haskett, who is Jewish, has friends who are Muslim and expressed to her how they appreciate the signs and are excited about them. She said that her own lineage affected her in bringing the signs in.

“My grandparents came here fleeing persecution. That’s why I’m here. It feels important to my part of the community to stand up and extend the hand of welcome,” Haskett said.

“This message of welcome is universal,” Haskett said. “My hope is this is something we can all agree on — to be welcoming.”

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/state/article132652044.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/state/article132652044.html#storylink=cpy

Criminalizing Immigration is a Crime Against Humanity

Unless the ones doing the deporting are full-blooded Native Americans.

 

Criminalizing immigration has two purposes:  expanding White Supremacy and enriching the private prison industry.

So easy to round up brown citizens with the non-citizens, and even easier to falsely accuse all of them of crimes since they're deported or imprisoned without trial.

From The Nation:

The people Trump says he will target—those “bringing drugs,” “bringing crime,” who are “rapists,” as he put it in the speech that launched his campaign—sound terribly scary. The idea that there are millions of them is quickly seeping into our political discourse as though it were fact. In reality, any effort to deport 3 million “criminal” immigrants will first require branding law-abiding people as 
criminals—a process that’s been unfolding across presidential administrations stretching back to Bill Clinton’s, but that Trump plans to escalate massively.

SNIP

All told, Trump’s agenda will likely spur a massive
 expansion of the federal prison system. The ACLU estimates that Kate’s Law alone could require the Bureau of Prisons to open nine new facilities. The morning after the election, stock prices soared for two of the country’s largest private-prison companies, Corrections Corporation of America (which recently changed its name to CoreCivic) and the GEO Group. These companies manage both the prisons and the civil-detention facilities where the majority of immigrants are held. In March, Trump told a crowd at a town hall, “I do think we can do a lot of privatizations, and private prisons—it seems to work a lot better.”

Lie number 70 zillion.  Private prisons are so corrupt and overpriced that ...

In August, after the release of a critical report by the DOJ’s inspector general, the Justice Department ordered the Bureau of Prisons to begin closing down all of its private facilities. That process will now likely come to a screeching halt.

SNIP

Sima Atri, an attorney with the Congress of Day Laborers who represents Diaz-Castro, argues that a single misdemeanor conviction for illegal entry shouldn’t turn her client into a deportable criminal under the current guidelines. “We argue, basically, that nothing has changed from before he was picked up by ICE and today,” Atri says. “He’s still a father who has lived here for years, and who has never been convicted of a crime.”

Lexington Police Recruit Class Missing Something ....

Thirteen white men, four black men and one white woman as far as I can tell from the photograph.  

 

 

 

Step it up, Lexington.  You needed nine more women and two Hispanics in that class.  But congrats on 22 percent African-Americans.

From the Herald:

Eighteen recruits graduated Thursday from the Lexington Police Training Academy.

The ceremony on the Bluegrass Community and Technical College’s Newtown Campus marked the end of 32 weeks in the academy.

The class increases the size of the police force to 546 sworn officers, police spokeswoman Brenna Angel said. Additionally, there are 12 recruits in the academy’s next class.

Whipping Out That Mexican Thing

OK, I admit my initial interpretation of "whipping out that Mexican thing" was ... not political, but this one from Mexican Judge Mexican Judge is perfect:

 

Totally Not Racist Trump Fans

TPM:

The New York Times posted a video Wednesday compiling outbursts and epithets from supporters at Donald Trump rallies, ranging from anti-immigrant slogans to Nazi victory chants.

"Crowds seldom express disapproval of the crude slogans and angry outbursts by Mr. Trump’s supporters," according to the Times report. "Indeed, these displays have become inextricably bound with the Trump show itself."

Watch the video — which includes profanity and an overgenerous variety of slurs — below:

Anybody see a full-blooded Native American in that crowd?  Me neither.  Shocked.

Racist Idiot KY "Prosecutor" Pretends to Know Law

First of all, you don't even have to have a high school diploma in this state to be an "assistant county attorney".  Pass the bar, yes.  High school diploma, no. They are not elected, but rather hired by the elected county attorney, most of whom hand out "assistant" jobs to their idiot nephews who can't get real jobs.

Secondly, "assistant county attorneys" hardly qualify for the title "prosecutor."  They handle misdemeanor cases in traffic court.  My dog could do a better job.

Because my dog is not a racist shit-head.

Being Hispanic in Oldham County, Kentucky is enough to be pulled over by a cop, according to one prosecutor. You can also be coerced into a plea deal if you have a certain last name.

Last July, Mauro Martinez was pulled over for speeding but he was not charged. Instead, he was cited for not having a license because he only had a Guatemalan ID at the time. During a court hearing about the citation, Assistant County Attorney Travis Combs pointed out that the defendant’s issue was that he was pulled over for being Hispanic. In a video recording of the hearing, prosecuting attorney John K. Carter says “that’s probable cause.”

After a video of the exchange was circulated by the Courier-Journal, Carter reversed course and said the speed at which Martinez was driving was probable cause. But the judge presiding over the case and Martinez’ defense attorney, Dawn Elliot, did not interpret Carter’s remarks that way.

SNIP

“Clearly he had an opportunity to clear that up on the record over 24 hours ago, but now there’s buzz about it,” Elliot said. “My reaction and the judge’s reaction speaks for itself. We certainly interpreted him talking about probable cause for my client’s ethnicity.”

Elliot believes Carter’s comment highlights a growing trend of racially profiling Hispanics in the county. She claims that prior to Martinez’ trial, she was informed by an assistant attorney that there is a special form for “people that have that type of last name” to plead guilty. If people without driver’s licenses are stopped, as Martinez was, officers encourage them to sign the form and agree to two years of unsupervised probation. If they are caught driving again without proper ID, they can be sentenced to jail for 90 days.

Elliot is calling for an investigation of the county's officers.  Oldham County, by the way, borders Louisville, which spurred some white flight a few years ago when it merged the city and county.  Looks like Oldham got its share of racist shitheads.

Texas Outright Killing Women, But Mostly Black and Brown Ones

They're just blacks and browns, after all.  Not like they are real humans. No big sacrifice.

“The legislature is literally gambling with women’s lives,” Rodriguez DeFrates said. “It’s just infuriating.”

It's not gambling when dead women is the goal.

No, You Can't Tell By Looking

I'm surprised. Given the attitude of many non-Hispanics in my Kentucky county, where virtually all the scut work is done by Hispanics, from tobacco cutting to housecleaning, I'd have guessed it was more like two in three, or even three in four.

Amanda Peterson Beadle at Think Progress:

One In Three Americans Falsely Believe Most Latinos Are Undocumented 

More than 30 percent of non-Hispanics inaccurately think that a majority of Latinos in the U.S. are undocumented, according to a new poll from the National Hispanic Media Coalition (NHMC) and Latino Decisions about media portrayals of Latinos and immigrants. Only about 18 percent of the Latino population in the U.S. is undocumented, and 37 percent of U.S. Latinos are actually immigrants. In its report, the NHMC said media portrayals of Latinos and immigrants exacerbates “stereotypically negative opinions” about them. “It is producing attitudes among non-Latinos that contribute to hate speech and hate crimes,” said Alex Nogales, president and CEO of NHMC. The organization plans to share its results with the Federal Communications Commission and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration to push the agencies to study the impacts of hate speech in the media.

As I always say when this subject arises: Unless you are 100 percent Native American, you're here because of immigrants so shut the fuck up about "illegals."

How Repug Racism Could Backfire - on Democrats

One of the many self-destructive electoral mistakes Democratic candidates make is thinking every anti-republican vote is an automatic pro-Democratic vote. I have been bitching for years about the refusal of Democratic campaigns to even acknowledge the existence - much less try to get out the vote - of Democrats not inspired enough to get off their asses to vote.

This pretense that non-voting Democrats don't exist is particularly virulent and inexcusable when it comes to minorities. I wish I had a nickel for every time I've heard some variation of "it doesn't matter if we piss off the blacks - what are they going to do, vote republican?"

They're going to stay home, you fucking moron.

Now Democratic campaigns are repeating the same mistake with the Democratic Party's Hope for the Future: Hispanics.

Talking Points Memo:

A TPM reader from out West weighs in on one particular wrinkle to the Tancredo campaign: its potential indirect effects on Latinos:

I'm glad someone is analyzing the Tancredo campaign more deeply than just the superficial thought that Tancredo's entry into the race is good for the Dems either because TT will split the Republican vote and/or his presence in the race will mobilize Hispanic voters. In a state with a Latino population of 20% or more (as you point out) the dynamics of a Tancredo bid are actually quite toxic for Latinos in particular.

When someone like Tancredo is campaigning, Colorado Democrats literally believe that they don't need to do anything to court Hispanic voters other than to point to examples of the Crazy from Tancredo and his ilk. I have received e-mails from Dems that are nothing more than a forwarded crazy e-mail from some right winger, with a comment something like "I don't normally just forward e-mails from Republicans, but this one speaks for itself." When the race-baiting right is in full throat, Democrats feel free to move to the right on race issues involving Latinos, simply because they feel comfortable that the only argument they need to make to Latino voters is that the alternative is worse.

SNIP

The long-term political dynamic is that as the Democrats feel more and more free to move to the right on immigration to chase what they perceive as "centrist" voters, the growing Latino population feels more and more that neither party represents us. So, voter participation drops, and then the same lack of voter participation is cited by the Dems as a reason not to take a harder line against Latino race-baiting. Obama's 2010 campaign created a big jump in Latino voter participation in Colorado - up to 13% from what had been single digits - so far with no perceptible change in the Colorado Dem calculation that Tancredo-style craziness from the right actually gives Democrats an opportunity to tack even further right on Latino-identified issues like immigration and bilingual ed while offering nothing to Latinos other than the forwarded message that the other side are even bigger haters. So you are right to say the Tancredo campaign is unhealthy for the long-term health of political discourse in Colorado, and I thank you for it.

Read the whole thing.