Thursday, August 31, 2017

Harvey hypocrisy.

Watching the VP's photo op and his "I feel your pain" stop today in Texas made me sick to my stomach. (I swear he said Donald trump in every sentence.) Here is a man who doesn't believe in climate change, is part of an administration that reversed regulations to protect infrastructure against flooding, and more importantly, he spoke out against giving aid to the people of New Orleans after a similarly brutal storm hit them.

And yet, there he was today, pitching in long enough for the cameras to snap up some pics, hugging a few chosen people to show that he cares, and playing hype man to his boss who will head to Houston at the end of this week.  It's all, of course, a big joke. And no one believes that trump (or Pence for that matter) gives a crap about those people in Texas. It's Donald trump, he is incapable of feeling anything for another human being.

At least he has pledged a million dollars, although that too might be iffy. I will believe that he is parting with that million when I see him actually giving the check to a worthy cause. I suspect that a year from now, we will al be wondering what happened to the check. It will stay in the place that all of Donald's empty promises and pledges went: His mind.  

Finally, it seems that Sheriff David Clarke, who was the second worst sheriff in America, has resigned. I suspect that if he didn't he would be forced out one way or another. He is lucky he is not leaving office in handcuffs, given that an inmate actually died of thirst in his jail.

But he should be fine, he is, after all, a friend of the president, a man who seems to have a penchant for law enforcement officials who abuse the office and the law that they are sworn to uphold. I am sure that the president will find something for him to do.  

Besides, the president could use a new African American friend, since HIS other African American has turned on him.

Pic from www.10tv.com
   

Wednesday, August 30, 2017

OPEN THREAD WEDNESDAY.

TWEET ME It's open thread Wednesday, but I need your thoughts on a few things:

1. Is the president of the United States capable of empathizing with another human being?

2. Was Donald and his wife really plugging their own merchandise when they were supposed to be offering comfort and leadership to the people hurt by Hurricane Harvey?   

3. Is Ted Cruz such a disgusting human being that we actually like Chris Christie more than we do him?

4. Should LaDawn Jones be worried down in Georgia?

5. And finally, do you think this cartoon from Politico is insensitive?

Holla.  

Tuesday, August 29, 2017

Trump fails his "consoler-in chief" moment.

Image result for trump hurricane harvey images   * “Thank you everybody. What a crowd! What a turnout!”

That was the president of the United States talking to the people of South Texas. He had come to see the storm damage (illegal  immigrant former fashion model wife in tow) first hand and offer comfort and assurance to a distressed part of our country.

Sadly, he did no such thing. Rather, he basked in the size of the crowd in  a typical vainglorious fashion that we have come to expect from trump. I mean I knew that the man was obsessed with crowd sizes, but you would think that just for once he would let up on his fixation with crowd sizes and focus on the victims and the people feeling real pain. 

We know, of course, that he cannot do that, and this is why we see no real empathy coming from the man, no matter how hard he tries  to play the role. That is not who he is. 

And so, once again, we will hear from the clueless media about how presidential he looked for a moment, and  maybe, just maybe, he is finally "turning the corner". The bar is low for this man that Peggy Noonan actually said that he had a good press conference yesterday because he seemed "stable". Think about that for a minute: Just being "stable" means that you are being presidential. Anyway, it has already started.  Some in the press are already declaring that trump will d do a great job because he is more comfortable with domestic issues and he is great at rebuilding things. Get ready for it, because it's coming.

Finally, I have always had issues with republicans in the South, and now I see why.

Check out the latest poll with republicans in Louisiana about Hurricane Katrina.

 "A large number of Louisiana Republicans think President Barack Obama is to blame for the federal government’s poor response to Hurricane Katrina, according to a new Public Policy Polling survey released Wednesday — despite the fact that the storm occurred three years before he took office.
The Democratic-leaning polling firm, which provided its results to Talking Points Memo, found that 29 percent of Louisiana Republicans said Obama was responsible for the Katrina response. Twenty-eight percent put the blame on President George W. Bush, whose administration did in fact oversee the federal response to Katrina. Nearly half (44 percent) of the Louisiana Republicans polled didn’t know who to blame." [Source]
What's that saying? "The stupid is really strong with some people."
*Pic from usatoday.com
 
 










  





 

Monday, August 28, 2017

Man- made threats and natural disasters.

MORE DISCLAIMERS I will start this blog post by saying, once again, our thoughts are with the people of Houston.

There was some more important news today. None more important than the story of North Korea firing a missile over Japan. I guess all that "fire and fury" and bluster from Donald trump didn't  work. Sadly, North Korea is going to keep doing what North Korea does.

Also, today we learned more about trump's Russian connections . This story is also a big deal, and for those of you who have been trying to keep up, this is now eight months of drip drip drip with trump and his Russian pals.

We have now gone beyond the smoke phase. I can actually see the fire from here. My guess is that trump will not survive four years in office. The man just does not have the mental makeup to do what it takes to be the leader of the free world. And, if you are one of the suckers  people who voted for him , it's not too late to see the error of your ways.

Finally, now we know why trump announced the pardoning of the racist sheriff from Arizona on Friday,  as the news of Harvey was breaking: He thought the ratings would be higher during that time.

"A lot of people think it was the right thing to do," Trump said. "And, actually, in the middle of a hurricane, even though it was a Friday evening, I assumed the ratings would be far higher than they would be normally." [Source]

What's scary about all of this is that it's not even news anymore.

Hang in there Houston.


                                                                                                             

Sunday, August 27, 2017

Harvey wreaks havoc.

TWEET MEMy thoughts go out to the people of Houston, Texas and all of Harris County. My wife has quite a few family members there, so we are really trying to stay on top of what's happening.

I tweeted earlier that I see quite a few similarities to Hurricane Katrina, and the more I watch the news from Houston, the more I am reminded of that tragic event in the Big Easy twelve years ago.

The sad irony is that many of the people now living in Houston are transplants from New Orleans, who were forced to leave that city after the floods caused by Katrina.

Mr. trump said that he will be going to Southeast Texas next week, and I am quite sure that a lot of the people down there are wishing that he wouldn't. He is, after all, only going for a photo op. Let's face it, there is no one in America who can honestly say that he (trump) genuinely cares about the welfare of those people. If he did, he would not be tweeting about and promoting a book (written by that idiot sheriff from Wisconsin) in the middle of the event.

Finally, the stupidity of right-wingnuts knows no bounds. Tonight we want to put FOX VIEWS host, Tucker Carlson, in the stupid Hall of Fame for the following:

 “So have you a league that is 70% African-American. 70% of the players are black as compared to about 13% of the population so clearly, there is no racism in hiring. Here you have a guy who signed a contract in 2014 for like $126 million. Collected $39 million of that. Just on the basis of those facts alone, it’s hard to see how Colin Kaepernick, at 29, is a victim of racism. Tell me how he is.”
After Griggs pointed out that the league employs over 90 quarterbacks and Kaepernick was the 17th best one last year, Carlson once again brought up the ‘blacks are the majority in the league’ point:
“Now maybe the owners are making a poor decision in not picking up Colin Kaepernick. I’m not qualified to assess that and I doubt you are either. What makes you suspect it’s racial? Again, the league is 70% black. If anything, it seems like it might be able to use a little diversity. I mean, that’s not — I mean, how is that racism? I’m honestly confused.”

Griggs responded by pointing out that all but one of the 32 owners in the league are white before once again pointing to Kaepernick’s stats to makes the case that he should at the very least have an NFL job.
“Let me ask you a question: if the owners are racist, why are 70% of their employees black?” Carlson retorted. “I mean, wouldn’t they not want to hire black people if they are racist and pay them hundreds of millions of dollars?” [Source]
So following Carlson's logic those plantation owners who owned all those slaves weren't racist, either. And of course we all know that's not true.









  

Saturday, August 26, 2017

CAPTION SATURDAY.

Image result for trump arpaio rally  images*

I need a caption for this pic.

*Pic from politico.com

Friday, August 25, 2017

A big news night.

 What a night.

First, my thoughts are with the folks in South Texas and Louisiana, as  hurricane Harvey barrels towards them.

This will be Mr. trump's first test with a natural disaster and I suspect that it will not go well. He is a man, after all, who does not believe that global warming or climate change is a thing. Already his White House is declaring that the states will be the main actors in this disaster and they must not depend on the federal government.

We will see.

Second, the president pardoned a known racist and a convicted criminal tonight, a man who blew off the Constitution and has no respect for the law.

But we shouldn't be surprised, trump promised that he would do it, and the fact that the man happens to be a racist just made it easier for him.

"In a two-paragraph statement, the White House said that Mr. Arpaio gave “years of admirable service to our nation” and called him a “worthy candidate for a presidential pardon.”

OK, if you believe that denying human beings their basic human rights and dignity is cool, go ahead and knock yourself out.  

Think about this, trump pardons this clown on the very weekend that a category 4 hurricane might do mass damage and cost the loss of life to quite a few Americans. This is a time when we should be focusing on the people of this part of the country, and not making news by pardoning a racist criminal.

Finally, trump claims that he fired another known racist today (the man claims that he resigned) and  a lot of people are wondering what took them so long. I am wondering why he didn't wait a few more weeks to do it since he already waited so long. Why do it now?  

I am guessing that the pardon of Arpaio and the firing of Gorka kind of go hand in hand. He couldn't just fire Gorka and not throw a bone to his racist base, and he did just that tonight by pardoning Joe Arpaio.

Wait, did I say finally? There is more. North Korea fired three more missiles today , and there is more news on the Russian probe.

Have a nice weekend.

*Pic from politico.com










  

Thursday, August 24, 2017

Open Thread Thursday.

 MORE DISCLAIMERSIt's open thread Thursday folks, and I need your thoughts on a few things.

For instance, if trump and Mitch are really on the outs, does that mean Mitch will stop covering for him with this Russia probe? 

Did the Wisconsin Voter-ID law really help to make trump president?

Why are right-wingnuts so easily duped by fake news?

And anything else that's on your mind.

Wednesday, August 23, 2017

Well that didn't take long.

Image result for campaign trump phoenix father judges hate  I saw some reruns of trump's rally in Phoenix last night. So much for trying to unify the country.

The man literally told the crowd that we are losing our culture and that he would rather build a wall to keep the Mexicans out than to keep our government running. To top it off, he even hinted that he might pardon the racist sheriff, Joe Arpaio.  

trump was unhinged and out of control, and at one point I honestly thought that he would start waiting for a laugh track after he completed every sentence. His new chief of staff, poor man, has to be wondering how he got himself into this mess.

trump, once again, made himself out to be the victim, and he flat out lied about what he said after the happenings in Charlottesville. In case you are keeping track that's 1,001 lies to the American people since taking office.  That, my friends, is a lot of lies. Even for a politician seeking political office.
Imagine that, a woman died in the protest, and trump is still running around whining about what transpired like he is the true victim.

But even worse than the lies andred meat he was throwing to his (half-full) auditorium of "deplorables",  was the shameful way he calle the rancid d out the two senators from the state that he was standing in. It was bad enough calling out Jeff Flake, but calling out the other senator who is battling cancer ---and who some consider a war hero--- was beyond the pale. It fired up his crowd so much that one of his sick deplorables was calling for the death of the man.

Hillary Clinton leaked portions of her new book today, and in it she called trump a "creep" that made her skin "crawl".

Yo Hillary, welcome to the club.                                                                                                 

Tuesday, August 22, 2017

Night off.

MORE DISCLAIMERS Off tonight field hands, and no I am not in Arizona at the trump rally.



                                                        

Monday, August 21, 2017

Eclipse fever.

 I looked out my office window in Center City, Philadelphia today, not to see the solar eclipse, but to see the hundreds of office workers and shoppers in downtown Philly looking up at the sky to catch a glimpse of it.

It was fascinating to me to see all those people looking up at the same time to catch a fleeting glimpse of.....something.  Let's remember that Philadelphia was not even one of the places in the path to catch the total eclipse, and yet, there they were. Eyes glued to the sky as if they were looking for the second coming.

All I kept thinking was that Americans really need a life.

You couldn't escape it today. It even led the evening news. One family drove hours to spend time with thousands and thousands of like minded people to sit in an open field in Oregon and take in the eclipse in all of its glorified darkness.  Some folks are even declaring that it was a message from God. (God didn't have to darken the sun to send us a message; he gave us Donald trump. Now that's a message of darkness if I ever saw one. )  

Honestly America, if you are so excited about seeing darkness in the middle of the day, you can move to Barrow, Alaska. They have 67 days of darkness from November to January, there. Think about how much fun that would be, and you won't even have to wear any of those silly things to protect your eyes like you do during an eclipse. 

"Field, you are such a killjoy."

I know, and I suppose this once in a lifetime thing is kind of cool from a scientific point of view. I mean if something is not going to happen in my life again it does give it some type of meaning. Or at least it should. But hell I can say that about a lot of things. I just watched the Phillies win a World Series. Now that was a big deal.  If the Eagles were to win the Super Bowl in my lifetime that would be huuge. And if I knew exactly when they were going to do it I suppose that I would prepare like all those people who were losing their minds all over the country today preparing for eclipse 217.

Anyway, it's over now. No more darkness when it should be daylight, or moon blocking out the sun. Now maybe things can go back to normal and folks (even here in Philly) can stop acting like 2 minutes of looking at the sun get blocked out by the moon is some kind of life changing event.

But wait, I said it's over now. Not quite. There is still some more darkness to come at 9 p.m. EST tonight. That's going to last a lot more than two minutes, though, and things will be dark but with a very orange hue.

 

Sunday, August 20, 2017

We all saw it coming.


Image result for confederate flag white nationalist images I now give you a terrific article from David Remnick.

The Field Negro education series continues.


"Early last November, just before Election Day, Barack Obama was driven through the crisp late-night gloom of the outskirts of Charlotte, as he barnstormed North Carolina on behalf of . He was in no measure serene or confident. The polls, the “analytics,” remained in Clinton’s favor, yet Obama, with the unique vantage point of being the first African-American President, had watched as, night after night, immense crowds cheered and hooted for a demagogue who had launched a business career with blacks-need-not-apply housing developments in Queens and a political career with a racist conspiracy theory known as birtherism. During his speech in Charlotte that night, Obama warned that no one really changes in the Presidency; rather, the office “magnifies” who you already are. So if you “accept the support of Klan sympathizers before you’re President, or you’re kind of slow in disowning it, saying, ‘Well, I don’t know,’ then that’s how you’ll be as President.”
 
Donald Trump’s ascent was hardly the first sign that Americans had not uniformly regarded Obama’s election as an inspiring chapter in the country’s fitful progress toward equality. Newt Gingrich, the former Speaker of the House, had branded him the “food-stamp President.” In the right-wing and white-nationalist media, Obama was, variously, a socialist, a Muslim, the Antichrist, a “liberal fascist,” who was assembling his own Hitler Youth. A high-speed train from Las Vegas to Anaheim that was part of the economic-stimulus package was a secret effort to connect the brothels of Nevada to the innocents at Disneyland. He was, by nature, suspect. “You just look at the body language, and there’s something going on,” Trump said, last summer. In the meantime, beginning on the day of Obama’s first inaugural, the Secret Service fielded an unprecedented number of threats against the President’s person.
 
 
And so, speeding toward yet another airport last November, Obama seemed like a weary man who harbored a burning seed of apprehension. “We’ve seen this coming,” he said. “Donald Trump is not an outlier; he is a culmination, a logical conclusion of the rhetoric and tactics of the Republican Party for the past ten, fifteen, twenty years. What surprised me was the degree to which those tactics and rhetoric completely jumped the rails.”
 
 
For half a century, in fact, the leaders of the G.O.P. have fanned the lingering embers of racial resentment in the United States. Through shrewd political calculation and rhetoric, from Richard Nixon’s Republican Party” to the latest charges of voter fraud in majority-African-American districts, doing so has paid off at the ballot box. “There were no governing principles,” Obama said. “There was no one to say, ‘No, this is going too far, this isn’t what we stand for.’ ”
 
Last week, the world witnessed Obama’s successor in the White House, unbound and unhinged, acting more or less as Obama had predicted. In 2015, a week after Trump had declared his candidacy, he spoke in favor of removing the Confederate flag from South Carolina’s capitol: “Put it in the museum and let it go.” But, last week, abandoning the customary dog whistle of previous Republican culture warriors, President Trump made plain his indulgent sympathy for neo-Nazis, Klan members, and unaffiliated white supremacists, who marched with torches, assault rifles, clubs, and racist and anti-Semitic slogans through the streets of Charlottesville, Virginia. One participant even adopted an isis terror tactic, driving straight into a crowd of people peaceably demonstrating against the racists. Trump had declared an “America First” culture war in his Inaugural Address, and now—as his poll numbers dropped, as he lost again and again in the courts and in Congress, as the Mueller investigation delved into his miserable business history, as more and more aides leaked their dismay—he had cast his lot with the basest of his base. There were some “very fine people” among the white nationalists, he said, and their “culture” should not be threatened.
 
 
Who could have predicted it? Anyone, really. Two years ago, the Daily Stormer, the foremost neo-Nazi news site in the country, called on white men to “vote for the first time in our lives for the one man who actually represents our interests.” Trump never spurned this current of his support. He invited it, exploited it. With Stephen Bannon, white nationalism won prime real estate in the West Wing. Bannon wrote much of the inaugural speech, and was branded “The Great Manipulator” in a Time cover story that bruised the Presidential ego. But Bannon has been marginalized for months. Last Friday, in the wake of , Trump finally pushed him out. He is headed back to Breitbart News. But he was staff; his departure is hardly decisive. The culture of this White House was, and remains, Trump’s.
 
When Trump was elected, there were those who considered his history and insisted that this was a kind of national emergency, and that to normalize this Presidency was a dangerous illusion. At the same time, there were those who, in the spirit of patience and national comity, held that Trump was “our President,” and that “he must be given a chance.” Has he had enough of a chance yet? After his press conference in the lobby of Trump Tower last Tuesday, when he ignored the scripted attempts to regulate his impulses and revealed his true allegiances, there can be no doubt about who he is. This is the inescapable fact: on November 9th, the United States elected a dishonest, inept, unbalanced, and immoral human being as its President and Commander-in-Chief. Trump has daily proven unyielding to appeals of decency, unity, moderation, or fact. He is willing to imperil the civil peace and the social fabric of his country simply to satisfy his narcissism and to excite the worst inclinations of his core followers.
 
 
This latest outrage has disheartened Trump’s circle somewhat; business executives, generals and security officials, advisers, and even family members have semaphored their private despair. One of the more lasting images from Trump’s squalid appearance on Tuesday was that of his chief of staff, John Kelly, who stood listening to him with a hangdog look of shame. But Trump still retains the support of roughly a third of the country, and of the majority of the Republican electorate. The political figure Obama saw as a “logical conclusion of the rhetoric and tactics of the Republican Party” has not yet come unmoored from the Party’s base.
 
 
The most important resistance to Trump has to come from civil society, from institutions, and from individuals who, despite their differences, believe in constitutional norms and have a fundamental respect for the values of honesty, equality, and justice. The imperative is to find ways to counteract and diminish his malignant influence not only in the overtly political realm but also in the social and cultural one. To fail in that would allow the death rattle of an old racist order to take hold as a deafening revival." [Source]
 
*Pic from atlantablackstar.com