Normalizing Crimes Against Humanity

These people are not bumbling goofs to laugh at.  They're not political incompetents in need of adult supervision.  They're not even anti-government idiots determined to burn the house down around themselves.

They are war criminals, turning their sick fantasies into atrocities.

Scott Lemieux concludes by quoting Paul Krugman:

No, the real crisis is an upsurge in hatred — unreasoning hatred that bears no relationship to anything the victims have done. And anyone making excuses for that hatred — who tries, for example, to turn it into a “both sides” story — is, in effect, an apologist for crimes against humanity.

The 50-Year-Old Reason to Fight

Undercover Blue at Hullabaloo:

If I may, check out this thread from Will Bunch on why we do what we do.

I'm Bunch's age, I watched it too, and I'm here for the same reason.

Cowardly Bevin Terrified of Icky, Scary Transpeople

If we're going to start discriminating on the basis of gender identity, then let's start with cis, hetero white men.

And top of the list to be fired will be Gov. If You Don't Have a Penis That You're Proud Of, Drop Dead.

Think Progress:

A group of sixteen states has filed a brief calling on the Supreme Court to rule that it’s legal to fire people for being transgender.

SNIP
 
The states represented in the suit include Nebraska, Alabama, Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming, as well as Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin (R), Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R), and Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant (R). Utah and Maine have state laws protecting against anti-LGBTQ employment discrimination, but none of the rest do.

There has already been significant backlash against the brief.

Kentucky Attorney General Andy Beshear (D), who refused to sign the brief on behalf of the state, called Bevin’s decision to sign on “surprising” given that Kentucky state employees do enjoy protections against anti-LGBTQ discrimination, thanks to an executive order that Bevin has not rescinded. The Fairness Campaign, Kentucky’s state LGBTQ group, has also decried Bevin’s decision.

 Shut up, Andy: you'll give the motherfucker ideas.

A Real Memorial to Jim Crow

In tiny Russellville, Kentucky, where 110 years ago four African-American men were lynched by a cheering mob.  Today, a gut-wrenching exhibit ensures they are not forgotten.

From Wes Swietek at the Bowling Green Daily News:

"It was as easy to raise a (lynch) mob in Logan County in those days as to drop a hat ... ."

That was the observation of Bowling Green lawyer John Rhodes in 1944. Rhodes was looking back three decades on the power of mob violence he saw firsthand as one of the lawyers in a 1908 shooting case in Russellville involving an African-American named Rufus Browder.

Extraordinary steps were taken to protect Browder from lynch mobs — including having a jailer hide him overnight in a cemetery — but four other African-American men were not so fortunate.

 They were hanged one by one from a cedar tree on a small rise in Russellville on the morning of Aug. 1, 1908, in a lynching case that would go on to have national repercussions, but remain largely forgotten for a century. An effort is now underway, however, to erect a historic marker for the quadruple murder and other racial killings in the county.

Read more here: https://www.kentucky.com/news/local/article217361810.html#storylink=cpy

 SNIP

Logan County is also unusual in that it houses a powerful memorial to the legacy of lynchings.
. . .
The West Kentucky African American Heritage Center in Russellville stretches across several buildings that chronicle the experiences of African-Americans in the region.

Perhaps the most powerful exhibit fills a small room. At the center is the work of folk artist Willie Rascoe — a small tree with nooses dangling from the branches. The surrounding exhibits tell the story of numerous Logan County lynchings, with an emphasis on the quadruple 1908 lynching.

Read more here: https://www.kentucky.com/news/local/article217361810.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: https://www.kentucky.com/news/local/article217361810.html#storylink=cpy

The New Confederacy

If even after the blatantly anti-constitutional decisions of the Gorsuch Supreme Court this June you still think elections don't matter, think again.

Scott LeMeiux at LGM:

This is a flatly neoconfederate Court, refusing to enforce the Reconstruction Amendments to stop racial discrimination but willing to use them to stop integration. 

 
One of the many things that’s at stake in presidential elections is whether the Constitution’s mist critical provisions will be meaningfully enforced. If you’re wondering when I’ll stop passionately arguing against people who see elections as fora for atomistic consumer expression, the answer is “never.”

And Brett Kavanagh is going to make it exponentially worse, and for generations to come.

VOTE on Nov. 6. Vote early, vote often.  Take your family, take your friends, take your neighbors, take your dogs.  Issue non-violent threats to every Democrat you know who is not planning to vote (i.e., no more sex for you, no more homegrown tomatoes, no more using the pool, no more sharing high-speed wifi - you get the idea.)

They're Coming After Public Education, Too

You really don't have to keep track of the millions of things that repugs hate and are systematically destroying; just ask, is this something that makes Americans smart and strong and independent and able to govern ourselves?  If the answer is yes, repugs hate it and are determined to end it.

For example, free and equal public education.

 

Zandar:

By the way, destroying America's public education system and turning it into something only the 1% will be able to afford in the future is absolutely the goal of the GOP right now, and they're hard at work dismantling education as a right.

A Michigan judge ruled last week that children do not have a fundamental right to learn how to read and write. 

The ruling came in response to a lawsuit filed by Public Counsel, the nation’s largest public interest law firm, on behalf of Detroit students that sought to hold state authorities, including Gov. Rick Snyder (R), accountable for what plaintiffs alleged were systemic failures depriving children of their right to literacy, according to the Detroit Free Press. 

"I'm shocked," said Ivy Bailey, president of the Detroit Federation of Teachers, the newspaper reported. "The message that it sends is that education is not important. And it sends the message that we don't care if you're literate or not." 

The suit also sought fixes to crumbling schools that, among other measures, Detroit Public Schools Community District officials reportedly said would amount to more than $500 million.

After all, the future is going to need a lot of prisoners for private lockups.

Everybody who thinks the repugs running Kentucky state government don't already have plans in place to kill public education here, stand on your head.

Bevin Running for Re-Electio; Dems Delirious With Joy

In 2007, repug guv Ernie Fletcher ran for reelection after spending 3-1/2 years illegally firing the  state employees who in 2003 had handed him the first repug guv victory in 36 years.

That November, those state employees busted his ass and elected Democrat Steve Beshear in a landslide.

But Ernie Fletcher never accused Kentucky teachers of enabling the sexual molestation of children.  Ernie Fletcher never called state employees stupid for exposing the evil corruption of his pension DEform plans.  Ernie Fletcher never signed legislation stripping teachers and other state employees of state pensions.

Compared to the epic loss facing Gov. I Got Mine Fuck You next year, Ernie Fletcher is going to look like a winner.

From the Courier: 

Gov. Matt Bevin surprised a gathering of Kentucky Republicans on Saturday night and announced he will be seeking re-election as governor in 2019.

At the very end of his remarks as the final speaker at the GOP's Lincoln Day Dinner, Bevin said there was one matter he wanted to clear up.

“You bet I’m running again, you bet I'm running again, seriously," Bevin said.

The declaration was met with a standing ovation from the approximately 500 Republicans who packed the Hilton hotel in downtown Lexington for the dinner.

Just as Beshear's election in 2007 foreshadowed Barack Obama's victory in a year later, Kentucky's new Democratic governor (very likely another Beshear) in 2019 is going to foreshadow the epic 2020 electoral overthrow of Cheeto Twitler.

ohboyohboyohboy is this going to be good.

Aunt Lydia Not Welcome in This Lexington, Either

LOL Candy Barr thinking the HuckaBeast would help his campaign,

From the Herald:

Protesters came out in droves to voice their displeasure as the Republican Party of Kentucky prepared for its annual fundraiser in downtown Lexington Saturday night.

A chanting, sign-waving and, in some cases, Amy McGrath t-shirt-wearing crowd packed the sidewalk at Triangle Park for the Kentucky for Decency Rally, organized by the Kentucky chapter of the National Organization for Women and the Bluegrass Activist Alliance.

McKayla Weaver, who helped organize the event, said she had been asked if the rally was an anti-Republican event.

“I told them that it was an anti-deceit rally,” she said. “...What everybody here is hoping to get is transparency from their elected officials. Kentucky deserves better. I’m here because I love Kentucky. They’re here to make money for their campaigns.”

Read more here: https://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article217284270.html#storylink=cpy

Xian Protest

From Noah at Down with Tyranny:

Dem Compromisers Are Behind the Times

Stop listening to them, and stop supporting the candidates they push forward.  Doing so is an invitation to annihilation.

Erik Loomis at LGM:

When you are facing fascists, there is no room for compromise. But for Johnson–and for so many Clinton and Obama-era officials–this is not something that computes. For them, compromising with reasonable Republicans and shunning the left is always the right answer.

These are people are now behind the times. There is no room for old-school centrist Democrats in setting the policy agenda anymore. Lead, follow, or get out of the way. That doesn’t mean a primary challenge to Tammy Duckworth is in order or anything–she did her centrist party mission by dismissing AOC but she’s been a perfectly fine vote so far. She will learn in the next 5 years.

The only road ahead for the Democrats is as an anti-fascist party with a bold agenda that combines racial, economic, and gendered justice. For those who fret about that, understand that actual fascism is descending upon America, that the Supreme Court is in the first of a multi-year process that will likely repeal a century of progressive law, and that the future of democracy in this nation is in doubt. There is no room for mealy-mouthed DLC compromise any longer, if there ever really was. It makes about as much sense today as centrist politics did as the fascists took power in Europe.

In the immortal words of Jim Hightower, the only things in the middle of the road are yellow lines and dead armadillos

Fuck Civility

From Juanita Jean:

A Lot of Empty Space Voted for Cheetoh Twitler

Alan Cole‏Verified account @AlanMColeMore






This map is a brilliant data visualization. Here's a brief thread on why it's so much better than past efforts. https://xkcd.com/1939/

Kill the Electoral College.  Do it now.

It's Not Obama's Job Anymore

Part of me wants the Obamas to leave this trumpian hellhole of a country for a real Democracy before the slavering Maga hordes show up to drag Barack, Michelle and their daughters to a windowless cell in Guantanamo from which they will never emerge.  You know it's going to happen.

Dok Zoom at Wonkette:

Damn right we miss him. But now we're the ones who have to do the marching and building and believing. Let's just roll out that Molly Ivins quote we're so fond of, just to remind us that we've made it through some apocalyptic-looking messes before -- not because it was predestined, but because politics should be all about making our corner of the world work a little better:

So keep fightin' for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don't you forget to have fun doin' it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin' ass and celebratin' the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.

Stay fired up. Stay ready to go.

VOTE! November 6.  Bring your family,  bring your friends.  Bring your neighbors, bring your dogs.  It is both the easiest, quickest and most effective way to make real change, and the most important.

Give Beto ALL THE VOTES

I was in a public place listening to this and just broke down crying.  When have you ever heard a candidate talk so straight-forwardly, so honestly about such a controversial subject? Barack Obama on race, maybe.

This is a Democratic candidate in the red fuckingest state in the union, taking on the haters and beating them bloody with the power of his words and his liberal values.

Democratic candidates in red states have NO EXCUSE not to stop mealy-mouthing progressive values (I am talking to YOU, Amy McGrath) or even denying them in hope of winning over repug voters.  THIS is how you win as a liberal in a red state.

Watch. Cry.  And on Nov. 6, VOTE!

Bevin Loses on Medicaid Again

How many is that now? Four? 27? Doesn't matter, it's way more times than any other governor has lost in court.  Gov.  I Got Mine Fuck You is on track to be the losingest governor in Kentucky history, if not nationally.

From the Herald:

A federal judge in Frankfort on Monday dismissed Gov. Matt Bevin’s lawsuit against 16 Medicaid recipients in which he had hoped to defend his controversial changes, including co-pays and work requirements, to the state’s Medicaid program.

The lawsuit was the reverse of a suit the same 16 people successfully brought against Bevin’s Medicaid changes in a federal court in Washington, D.C. — a fact that U.S. District Judge Gregory Van Tatenhove noted in his dismissal order.

Bevin already chose to participate as a defendant in the Washington case, where a different judge ruled against him and the federal government in June, and he failed to show what injury the Frankfort court was supposed to redress, Van Tatenhove wrote.

“Not all disputes are capable of federal judicial review,” Van Tatenhove wrote. “Federal courts are limited in their jurisdiction, and they can only hear cases where the plaintiff can establish jurisdiction. Here, the commonwealth failed to do so.”

Read more here: https://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article217012085.html#storylink=cpy

Scoundrels and Hypocrites

Hate is what drives them.  Always has been, always will be.

vacuumslayer at LGM:

Trump won because Russia and Comey interfered in our election, yes. But the fact is that there were just enough supporters of Trump to give him that plausible “win.” People saw in Trump a chance to exact revenge on all the people they dislike–feminists, liberals, and people of color.

For Trump voters the chance to punish women for being sexual is dream come true; it’s their raison d’être. It’s why they get “teary-eyed” when they talk about abortion. They’re so excited about having a chance to exert control over women they dislike.

 

The evangelicals, meanwhile, are in a death cult. They would genuinely rather the world end than have to share the it with people who aren’t exactly like them.

The Trump coalition is  fine group of scoundrels and hypocrites.

Novermber 6: VOTE, goddammit!  Take your family, take your friends, take your neighbors, take your dogs.

They Are Homophones for a Reason *

Yes, every religious group has its child rapists.  There are child rapists even among atheists, who have no religion to hide behind.  And every religion denies, hides and protects its child rapists who are employees of the church. But none can compete with the ability of the catholic church to maintain an air of utter probity while doing so.

Via Brad Blog:


* Here.

Trial Runs for Fascism

By the time it's obvious, it's too late to prevent it.

Irish Times:

To grasp what is going on in the world right now, we need to reflect on two things. One is that we are in a phase of trial runs. The other is that what is being trialled is fascism – a word that should be used carefully but not shirked when it is so clearly on the horizon. Forget “post-fascist” – what we are living with is pre-fascism. 

It is easy to dismiss Donald Trump as an ignoramus, not least because he is. But he has an acute understanding of one thing: test marketing. He created himself in the gossip pages of the New York tabloids, where celebrity is manufactured by planting outrageous stories that you can later confirm or deny depending on how they go down. And he recreated himself in reality TV where the storylines can be adjusted according to the ratings. Put something out there, pull it back, adjust, go again.

Fascism doesn’t arise suddenly in an existing democracy. It is not easy to get people to give up their ideas of freedom and civility. You have to do trial runs that, if they are done well, serve two purposes. They get people used to something they may initially recoil from; and they allow you to refine and calibrate. This is what is happening now and we would be fools not to see it.

One of the basic tools of fascism is the rigging of elections – we’ve seen that trialled in the election of Trump, in the Brexit referendum and (less successfully) in the French presidential elections. Another is the generation of tribal identities, the division of society into mutually exclusive polarities. Fascism does not need a majority – it typically comes to power with about 40 per cent support and then uses control and intimidation to consolidate that power. So it doesn’t matter if most people hate you, as long as your 40 per cent is fanatically committed. That’s been tested out too. And fascism of course needs a propaganda machine so effective that it creates for its followers a universe of “alternative facts” impervious to unwanted realities. Again, the testing for this is very far advanced.

 Read the whole thing.  

Then VOTE. Vote like your life depended on it. Because it does.

The Vote is Our Only Hope

Every time somebody says "impeachment" to you, ask them if they're going to vote Nov. 6. Tell them to vote early, vote often.  Take your family, take your friends, take your neighbors, take your dogs.

 

Everybody votes, or we're fucking done.

 

Political Animal:

George Packer documents how all of that is different from the days of Richard Nixon and Watergate.

The institutional clout that ended the Presidency of Richard Nixon no longer exists. The honest press, for all its success in exposing daily scandals, won’t persuade the unpersuadable or shame the shameless, while the dishonest press is Trump’s personal amplifier. The federal courts, including the Supreme Court, are rapidly becoming instruments of partisan advocacy, as reliably conservative as elected legislatures. It’s impossible to imagine the Roberts Court voting unanimously against the President, as the Burger Court, including five Republican appointees, did in forcing Nixon to turn over his tapes. (Brett Kavanaugh, Trump’s nominee to succeed Anthony Kennedy, has even suggested that the decision was wrong.) Congress has readily submitted to the President’s will, as if legislation and oversight were burdens to be relinquished. And, when the independent counsel finally releases his report, it will have only the potency that the guardians of the law and the Constitution give it.

That is why the title of Packard’s article is “All That’s Left is the Vote.” He opens by making a deeply disturbing, but perhaps accurate, prediction.

…three months from now, American democracy will be on the line. The midterm elections in November are the last remaining obstacle to President Trump’s consolidation of power.

Candy Barr Insults All 300,000 Kentucky Veterans

Public service is not military service, Candy, you chicken hawk piece of shit.

But Candy can't even do public service right, the way he supports the Chicken Hawk in Chief, Cadet Bone Spurs, who got five deferments from Vietnam and then compared his Studio 54 days of avoiding venereal disease while fucking everything that moved to combat experience in Vietnam.


From the Courier:

U.S. Rep. Andy Barr compared his political experience to the military service of his Democratic opponent, Amy McGrath, a 20-year Marine Corps fighter pilot who flew bombing missions against Al Queda and the Taliban. 

Barr, the Republican incumbent who is running for re-election in Kentucky's sixth district, made his comments in a New York Times report published Thursday. 

“We both served our country,” Barr told the New York Times. “I’ve served in a position where ideas matter. My opponent has served her country in the military, where execution matters.”

The comment immediately drew backlash from Democrats. 

Marisa McNee, a spokeswoman for Kentucky Democrats, said Barr's comments were "out of touch."

"Andy has obviously lost his mind and is out of touch if he thinks serving six years as a politician is comparable to military service,” McNee said in a statement. "It’s an insult to our current and retired military members to suggest that wearing a suit and dining with bank lobbyists in Congress is the same as putting your life on the line for your country.”

American Bridge, a progressive super PAC known for giving to Democratic candidates, called Barr's comments "outright shameful."

Candy was born in 1973.  He was 28 on Sept. 11, 2001.  He kept lawyering and polishing some important political knobs in Lexington and Frankfort.

Amy McGrath was born in 1975.  She was 26 and a Marine pilot on Sept. 11, 2001.

After the 9/11 attacks, McGrath, as one of the more junior WSOs, was one of the first to report to duty at the Marine Corps Air Station Miramar base before the closing of the gates due to DEFCON 3. She was paired with a senior pilot on the flight line waiting for the order to protect Los Angeles, San Diego, and the west coast to potentially shoot down one of the hijacked aircraft, an order that did not come to pass.^[2][17]

In classic repug fashion, Candy is attacking McGrath's strengths:  her military service and her proud support of progressive values.

Ya got nothin', Candy.  And you're gonna lose to a girl.