Trump's Great Strength: He Know How to Connect to People, Unfortunately He Uses It to Leverage Racism

Again, I've always thought The Donald had an exceptionally high EQ , too bad he misuses it.

Read the Washington Post, What makes President Trump casually dismiss black pain? White rage., which states in part:

"The white resentment that unmasked itself during the Obama era, sparked by the tea party and Trump’s birther crusade, had been pretty obvious even before the predominantly white media devoted legions of stories to it over the past couple of years in a fit of 'Hillbilly Elegy' curiosity. It seemed apparent to people of color that this was the mysterious malady that caused people to support Trump; the press, in the manner of Christopher Columbus, would eventually discover it, too. Much less energy was devoted to, say, examining black anger about racial injustice and other issues. That’s partly why the president was able to get so many (mostly white) Americans to believe the fiction that kneeling athletes were Betsy Ross blasphemers. Those attitudes give Trump license to make targets of outspoken sports commentators and various members of Congress — especially if they’re women of color, his favorite opponents. The act of not believing black folks or performing confusion about our anger has social currency as well, since it makes it look as though we are all crying wolf. Even when we’re talking about a pregnant military widow, perhaps the most sympathetic character in the entire American story. . .

It is also the latest chapter in America’s long history of mistreating African American military veterans, alive or dead. As Peter C. Baker noted in November in the New Yorker, the Equal Justice Institute in Alabama released a report about lynching shortly after the election that indicated that 'no one was more at risk of experiencing violence and targeted racial terror than black veterans' of America’s wars in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Baker wrote that those veterans, returning home from fighting overseas, understandably felt more of an entitlement to equal treatment under the law, and the lynchings were intended to disabuse them of that notion.

Lynching was the most violent form of racial denigration in that era. But racial denigration, that act by which bigots strip any respectability or humanity away from black folks to reinforce their false racial hierarchy, has never gone away. And Trump has such a gift for it that he used it to win the White House. He was elected by a swell of bigotry, and so he serves his masters with aplomb. It may be the only consistent thing he does.

While he didn’t break out a noose for the Johnsons or Wilson, he did sic his dogs on them through his continued insistence that they are lying. Already, an Illinois man is being investigated for a Facebook post threatening to lynch Wilson. Knowing that his base either is racist or willing to vote in a man who would metastasize white supremacy, Trump felt secure putting a black Gold Star family in the crosshairs to escape accountability.

Asked toward the end of the interview Monday whether she had anything to say to the president, Myeshia Johnson said, 'No,' then paused a bit before adding, 'I don’t have nothing to say to him.' You should watch it in its entirety, if for no other reason than to see this moment. Her anger and hurt was palpable throughout the interview, but perhaps none more so than right then. You’ll see a woman who clearly can’t believe that she has to deal with this nonsense.

These are surely the worst days of her life. But rather than talking purely about her husband and any righteous rage she may have over the circumstances of his death, she has to talk about Trump and what he is doing to her. She may even be screaming inside over the fact that this maddening episode will always be a part of La David Johnson’s story. The president could’ve prevented that by trying to act like a human being for the five minutes it took to make that call, but alas.

While we don’t yet understand why La David Johnson was left behind to die, we understand why his family has been treated like trash. A fallen soldier’s family is being forced to make space for the president’s petty grievances in their time of bereavement, all because, even at an unconscious level, America accepts white anger. Even when viewed as wrong, it is at least tolerated more than the fury of black folks. This has been a long con by conservatives, dating back to before the birth of the Southern Strategy after Jim Crow, and it is paying out for them now.

The president knows that white resentment is a perfect fit for his pugnacious politics, so he can continue reflexively picking fights that wiser men ignore. He has cover from his acolytic base, who see the disrespect and hatred they have nurtured for so long exploding into presidential action. What appear to be confounding, unforced errors borne of his inherent cruelty are also chunks of red meat for his base. The satisfaction that Trump derives from feeding them clearly matters more to him than the outrage of a black war widow. If that’s disturbing, consider that it makes some political sense for him to behave like this. Whose fault is that?"

Trumps' Big CON: Even If He Is Not Racist, Trump Uses Racism, CONt. Part 3

UPDATE III:  "President Trump has spent the past few days excoriating NFL players for 'disrespecting' our country, our troops and the American flag. But not once, in his Friday night 'get that son of a b—- off the field' speech, or his tweets questioning the patriotism of Colin Kaepernick and other pro athletes for kneeling during the playing of the national anthem, has the president addressed the fact that as a candidate, he explicitly promised African American voters that under his administration, 'the law will be applied fairly, equally and without prejudice.'

Which is pretty much all that Kaepernick’s protest is about. . .

[During his campaign, Trump] made a series of explicit appeals to the black electorate, including his October “new deal for black America” speech in Charlotte, where he said:

    'I have heard and listened to the concerns raised by African American citizens about our justice system, and I promise that under a Trump administration the law will be applied fairly, equally and without prejudice. There will be only one set of rules — not a two-tiered system of justice.'

That is, exactly, the top-line demand of Kaepernick and, for that matter, Black Lives Matter. . .

To question the patriotism of athletes protesting to demand, in effect, that “the law will be applied fairly, equally and without prejudice” — the president’s own words — underscores just how hollow those words were.

Read the Washington Post, Trump promised black voters equal justice. That’s all Kaepernick wants.

UPDATE II:  This year Yom Kippur, with its "central themes are atonement and repentance" begins Friday, September 29 at sunset.

"In worship on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, and in contemplation during the surrounding days, Jews are expected to engage in heshbon ha-nefesh — taking stock of one’s soul. And atonement for sin is to be achieved through prayer, charitable giving and, most of all, the repentance called tshuva.

These concepts, of course, inform many other major religions. Islam asks its faithful to practice tawbah, meaning repentance or regret. Catholicism calls on its believers to regularly enter the confessional booth in the sacrament of reconciliation. In the secular world, South Africa’s post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission operated under the twin precepts of forgiveness and repentance.

As I mark the High Holy Days for the 61st time in my life, I recall one act of tshuva as the most profound. Far from being explicitly Jewish, it involved a Christian politician and a particular church. And it is certainly the most relevant to this moment in U.S. history.

On a Sunday morning in 1979, an unexpected guest rolled his wheelchair up the aisle of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Ala. During the city’s 1956 bus boycott, the catalyst for the modern civil rights movement, this pulpit had belonged to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. The man in the wheelchair had been King’s nemesis, the former governor and arch-segregationist George Wallace.

Other than an aide to help Wallace navigate the church sanctuary, a surprisingly small place for such a historical one, he brought no retainers and no reporters. Wallace’s pilgrimage was not a media event but the imperative of a troubled soul.

Nobody in Dexter Avenue’s pews that morning needed any reminder of Wallace’s deeds. A racial moderate early in his political career, he had remade himself into a flaming bigot to win the statehouse. In his inauguration speech in 1963, he infamously declared, 'Segregation now. Segregation tomorrow. Segregation forever.' He made divisive political theater out of confronting Kennedy administration officials trying to desegregate the University of Alabama. Perhaps most notoriously of all, Wallace deployed the state troopers who brutally beat the nonviolent freedom marchers in Selma on 'Bloody Sunday' of March 7, 1965.

Seven years later, running for president with the same demagogic style, Wallace fell victim to the turbulent times he helped to stir up. A would-be assassin shot him during a rally in Maryland, and Wallace was paralyzed and condemned to incessant pain.

Just as Judaic theology holds that self-affliction is the essential precursor to repentance — the reason Jews do not eat, drink, bathe or have sex on Yom Kippur — so Wallace was afflicted.

Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), who had been beaten unconscious on Bloody Sunday, wrote in a New York Times op-ed soon after [George] Wallace’s death in 1998: 'I had to forgive him, because to do otherwise — to hate him — would only perpetuate the evil system we sought to destroy. George Wallace should be remembered for his capacity to change. And we are better as a nation because of our capacity to forgive and to acknowledge that our political leaders are human and largely a reflection of the social currents in the river of history.'

Now, a generation later, there is no need to reiterate all the well-known and widely reported examples of our present political leaders stirring the cauldron of hatred for electoral advance. Nor is it necessary to call the names of those courtiers who have stood idly by amid the bigotry or made known their private misgivings only through self-serving leaks.

As Wallace recognized in his process of heshbon ha-nefesh, the past can never be changed or undone. A flawed human in search of a spark of morality can answer for it only with humbled, pained, hard-earned tshuva and with compassionate acts beyond the day of atonement. One of my personal prayers in these Days of Awe will be to live long enough to hear such repentance and witness such acts from the arsonists of our national conflagration."

Read the Washington Post, What today’s leaders should learn from George Wallace.

Which made me wonder, will The Donald ever atone and repent?

UPDATE:  "It is often difficult to determine if President Trump’s offenses against national unity and presidential dignity are motivated by ignorance or malice. His current crusade against sideline activism at professional football games features both.

[T]he end of slavery was hardly the end of oppression. We are a country where the reimposition of white supremacy following the Civil War involved not just segregation but also widespread violence. A country in which mass incarceration and heavy-handed police tactics now create a sense that some neighborhoods are occupied by a foreign force. A country in which wealth and opportunity remain, in significant part, segregated by race.

If white Americans can’t feel even a hint of this alienation and outrage, it is a fundamental failure of empathy and historical memory.

Trump seems ignorant of, or indifferent to, the unfolding drama of the civil rights movement — of President Abraham Lincoln’s firm hand signing the Emancipation Proclamation, of African American military heroism in defending the Union, of the stubborn courage displayed by protesters in the front of buses and at segregated lunch counters, of Bloody Sunday on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, repeated in many bloody versions. When the president looks at protesters, he cannot see what they are trying to be.

This ignorance is matched by malice. Trump must know that rallying his white base against young African American protesters is feeding racial tension and providing permission for bigotry. He is essentially accusing these athletes of disloyalty, just as he accused Mexicans of being rapists and Muslims of being threats. This is a pattern and habit of division by race, ethnicity and religion.

Stop and consider. This is a sobering historical moment. America has a racial demagogue as president. We play hail to this chief. We stand when he enters the room. We continue to honor an office he so often dishonors. It is appropriate but increasingly difficult.

In this case, demagoguery is likely to be effective, in part because protesters have chosen their method poorly. The American flag is not the racist symbol of a racist country. It is the symbol of a country with ideals far superior to its practice.  . .

The president’s agenda of division is fully exposed. Faith in the Declaration, and in the genius of American institutions, remains the proper response. Under the flag that symbolizes them both." [Emphassis added.]

Read the Washington Post, America has a racial demagogue for a president.

"President Trump’s race-baiting attack on African American athletes is nothing new. During the civil rights movement, blacks in the South who dared to stand up for justice were often punished by being fired from their jobs. Trump is demanding that National Football League team owners act like the white segregationists of old.

It was gratifying to see the overwhelming rejection of Trump’s hideous rabble-rousing by NFL players, owners and fans. But let’s be clear: There is no reason, at this point, to give Trump the benefit of any doubt. We should assume Trump’s words and actions reflect what he truly believes. . .

Trump claimed in a Monday tweet that “the issue of kneeling has nothing to do with race,” but that is a lie. Kaepernick’s method of protest had everything to do with race, as its intent was to focus attention on racial injustice.

Trump was speaking to a virtually all-white audience in the Deep South. About 70 percent of players in the NFL are African American. Some political analysts put two and two together and concluded that Trump was playing to the racial anxieties and animosities of his base. . .

Trump’s intent, I assume, was to create a wedge issue, with patriots on one side — his side — and non-patriots on the other. He did not realize that so many people who might dispute Kaepernick’s position on police violence would nevertheless defend the players’ right to take a stand, or a knee. We have a president who does not understand our fundamental freedoms.

We also have a president who, if he’s not a white supremacist, does a convincing impression of one. . .

[R]ecall that Trump and his father were sued by President Richard Nixon’s Justice Department for illegally refusing to rent apartments to black prospective tenants. Recall that Trump continued to insist that the 'Central Park Five' — four black men and one Latino — were guilty of a brutal rape even after DNA evidence had conclusively proved their innocence. Recall that Trump led the 'birther' movement, ridiculously claiming that Barack Obama was not born in the United States. Recall Trump’s campaign appeal to black voters: 'You’re living in poverty, your schools are no good, you have no jobs, 58 percent of your youth is unemployed — what the hell do you have to lose?'

And recall his reaction to Charlottesville, where he discerned some 'very fine people' among the torch-wielding parade of Ku Klux Klan members and neo-Nazis.

I don’t believe this can all be political calculation. I believe Trump is telling us what he really thinks — and who he really is."

Read the Washington Post, If Trump’s not a white supremacist, he does a good impression.

Trump's Big CON: The American Taliban Senator?

UPDATE VI: Someone isn't happy, again.

Read CNN, Trump infuriated after backing Alabama loser.

UPDATE V:  "President Trump wants to talk about the NFL because other than that, there’s virtually no topic he can address without reminding his followers of the most dreadful week of his presidency. On Tuesday, Trump-backed Sen. Luther Strange (R-Ala.) lost the GOP Senate primary to a full-blown birther crackpot, former judge Roy Moore, who has been removed from the bench twice for disregarding the law. Moore was backed by fired Trump aide Stephen K. Bannon. The race was a runaway, suggesting that neither Trump’s (or Vice President Mike Pence’s) presence nor gobs of money can prop up normal Republicans in the maelstrom unleashed by the Trumpkins. The GOP is being entirely subsumed to the nationalist/nativist/protectionist shock troops whom Trump and Bannon have unleashed.

The party that once defended the rule of law now defends those who defy court rulings (Moore and Joe Arpaio, for example). You’ll likely see a slew of Bannon-backed GOP primary challengers who will dislodge or bruise Senate and House GOP incumbents. One can now envision circumstances in which the Democrats win majorities in both houses. Even if the Senate remains nominally in GOP hands, it seems that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s days as leader are numbered.

That was only the tip of an iceberg threatening to sink Trump’s presidency. . .

Perhaps a new center-right party can emerge. Maybe such a group can find common cause with center-left Democrats if their party goes over the edge as well. Increasingly, however, it seems hard to imagine that the GOP will rid itself anytime soon of Trump and the stench of Trumpism. More likely, Trump will rid himself of the GOP as we have known it, leaving the party of Lincoln in ruins."

Read the Washington Post, The worst day of the worst week for the GOP.

UPDATE IV:  "Roy Moore, the new GOP nominee for Senate in Alabama, defied a court order directing him to remove a tablet bearing the Ten Commandments from a state court building. He has said homosexuality is a 'crime against nature' that defies the laws 'of nature’s God' upon which (he claims) our nation is based, meaning homosexuality is illegal. He has opined that the 9/11 attacks might have represented punishment from God, adding that this wrath may be retribution for our legitimization of abortion and 'sodomy.' He appears to have described Asians as 'yellows' and Native Americans as 'reds.'

President Trump enthusiastically endorsed Roy Moore this morning, describing him as a 'great guy'."

Read the Washington Post, Trump just endorsed a lawless bigot in Alabama. Here’s how Democrats will run against him.

UPDATE III:  Read the Washington Post, Roy Moore’s win is bad for Alabama, and even worse for the GOP, written by “a political consultant and a veteran of the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush White Houses”, who wrote:

"As a proud Alabaman, I’m walking today with my shoulders slumped. Roy Moore is the Republican nominee to be the next U.S. senator from my state, and he is likely to be elected in December. Moore is bad for Alabama and worse for the GOP.

To liberals, having Moore in the Senate will be the gift that keeps on giving. He will be the mainstream media’s favorite Republican senator. They will count on Moore to embody every negative stereotype that a conservative from Alabama and an elected Republican can have. And based on what we know about Moore, he is unlikely to disappoint. Liberals couldn’t be happier. Finally, there is a truly anti-gay, anti-woman, anti-Muslim, anti-everything elected Republican for all the world to see.

Beyond believing that he is divinely guided, Moore doesn’t really have a governing point of view. At least not one that is applicable to this century. To suggest that Moore represents something Trumpian only confirms the worst things said about the president. The idea that Moore sees the world the way some cantankerous Republicans such as Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) do is an insult to Cruz. And to those who say that Moore’s election is somehow good for President Trump, well, I wonder exactly what they think Trump might gain from the presence of an ill-informed, failed demagogue in the GOP Senate caucus. Alabama specifically and Republicans everywhere will suffer as a result of Moore’s presence in Washington."

My response: "[W]hatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap."

Read also the Washington Post:

Moore wins Republican Senate primary, dealing blow to GOP establishment,

Luther who? Trump tweets backing the losing candidate in Alabama get deep-sixed,

Tuesday started as a bad day for Mitch McConnell. It only got worse.,

After Alabama, GOP anti-establishment wing declares all-out war in 2018,

Sen. Bob Corker’s retirement is notable for when it’s happening,

Roy Moore’s victory and Bob Corker’s retirement are fresh indicators of a Senate that’s coming apart, and

A short history of Roy Moore’s controversial interpretations of the Bible.

UPDATE II:  "The last few polls in the GOP Senate primary runoff show alt-right hero and ousted judge Roy Moore leading Sen. Luther Strange (R-Ala.), whom Trump campaigned for and endorsed, by double digits. The RealClearPolitics poll average shows Moore leading by more than 10 percentage points.

A loss for Strange would be a stunning rebuke to the president and to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), a sign that Trump has unleashed extreme, unhinged populist sentiments that not even he can contain.

While it remains unlikely that Democrats could win the seat in a general election, a Moore victory in and of itself would spell trouble for the GOP on multiple fronts."

Read the Washington Post, What happens if Roy Moore wins the Alabama runoff?

UPDATE:  "[W]hatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap."

And after years of fear, anger and hatred, there is Roy Moore.

"With the thunder and fire of an old-time revivalist, U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore rose before the assembled souls at the Redemption Baptist Church, a front-runner in the polls days out from an election that could rattle the rickety structures of the Republican Party.

'You think that God’s not angry that this land is a moral slum?' asked Moore, 70, reciting a rhyming poem he had written years earlier during a 50-minute address before several dozen believers. 'How much longer will it be before his judgment comes?'

Republican primary voters across the country have been trying since 2010 to elect angry, outsider candidates who promise to disrupt the ways of Washington. But no one in recent history has promised to be quite as disruptive as Moore, a former chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court who has twice been removed from the bench for defying judicial orders.

And few have divided the GOP as Moore’s candidacy has, producing a momentous power struggle over an election that is likely to turn out less than 20 percent of Alabama’s Republican voters but could nonetheless set the tone for the coming 2018 election battles.

In August, Moore won the first round of primary voting with 39 percent of the vote, and then won the endorsement of the third-place finisher weeks later. Now, with the election just five days away, Moore leads public polling averages with a nine-point edge over Sen. Luther Strange, the man appointed to replace Attorney General Jeff Sessions."

Read the Washington Post, Roy Moore disrupts Alabama Senate race — and prepares for new level of defiance in Washington.

Read also the Washington Post, ‘You’ve got to go’: How the GOP persuaded Trump to campaign in Alabama.

"Bomb-throwing Roy Moore is closing in on victory in the Alabama Senate race — and that's very bad news for the Senate GOP leader."

Read Politico, McConnell's mortal enemy might soon be in his caucus.

So, after whipping them into a frenzy for years (as former House Speaker John Boehner said), what goes around comes around! :)

Have the inmates taken over?  Today we find out!!

Trump's Big CON: He's Gotta Help His Supporters Hate, Hate, Hate, CONt.

UPDATE XIII: If you had any doubt, The Donald made it clear.

Read the Washington Post:

Trump puts a fine point on it: He sides with the alt-right in Charlottesville, which explained that to Trump, marchers "defending their 'heritage'" by chanting anti-Semitic and Nazi slogans (such as bigots, racist, white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and the Ku Klux Klan) are the moral equals of those "those protesting their racism, hatred and belief in the inferiority of African Americans, Jews and other minorities";

Trump’s rhetorical ricochet on Charlottesville highlights basic truths about the president, which noted that:

Trump "does not like to be told what to say. He will always find a way to pull the conversation back to himself. And he is preternaturally inclined to dance with the ones who brought him. . .

[Then he] turned to one of his favorite rhetorical tools, using casual language to strip away any definite blame, any clear moral stand, and instead send the message that nothing is certain, that everything is negotiable, that ethics are always situational. 'You can call it terrorism,' he said. 'You can call it murder. You can call it whatever you want.'";

Everyone working for Trump knows his Charlottesville response is an abomination, which stated that "the president adamantly defended his original statement that the fault lies with bigotry on 'many sides' and reiterated that 'there’s blame on both sides' for what happened. He said that the rallying white supremacists and Nazis had been treated 'unfairly' by the media, and that there 'were very fine people on both sides.'";

Trump just hit a new low, which explained that

Trump "after putting Nazis on the same moral plane as anti-Nazis, put the father of our country and the author of the Declaration of Independence on the same moral plane as two men who made war on America. Duke and white-nationalist leader Richard Spencer applauded Trump’s performance. . .

It’s more than words. The administration proposed eliminating the 'Countering Violent Extremism' program; officials argued that the effort should target only Islamist radicalization, not right-wing extremism. In June, the Trump administration canceled a grant to a group called Life After Hate, which rehabilitates neo-Nazis. 'At a time when this is the biggest threat in our country, to pull funding from the only organization in the United States helping people disengage from this is pretty suspect to me,' the group’s co-founder Christian Picciolini told me.

And now we have the spectacle of the president, in response to reporters’ questions, defending the character and motives of the neo-Nazi demonstrators in Charlottesville.

Trump, who has issued scores of tweets without benefit of accurate information, explained his initial unwillingness to single out the white supremacist who drove into a crowd of demonstrators: 'Before I make a statement, I like to know the facts.'

Trump, who has criticized others for failing to use the phrase 'radical Islamic terrorism,' declined to call the incident terrorism, dismissing the question as 'legal semantics.'

Asked about the culpability of the 'alt-right' in the Charlottesville attack, Trump replied: 'Okay, what about the alt-left that came charging them?'";

The nation can only weep, an editorial that stated:

"TUESDAY WAS a great day for David Duke and racists everywhere. The president of the United States all but declared that he has their backs.

When a white supremacist stands accused of running his car into a crowd of protesters, killing one and injuring 19, Americans of goodwill mourn and demand justice. When this is done in the context of a rally where swastikas are borne and racist and anti-Semitic epithets hurled, the only morally justifiable reaction is disgust. When the nation’s leader does not understand this, the nation can only weep. . .

That car in Charlottesville did not kill or wound just the 20 bodies it struck. It damaged the nation. Mr. Trump not only failed to help the country heal; he made the wound wider and deeper.";

President Trump must go, which argued:

"Donald Trump on Tuesday afternoon gave the most disgusting public performance in the history of the American presidency. Framed by the vulgar excess of the lobby of Trump Tower, the president of the United States shook loose the constraints of his more decent-minded advisers and, speaking from his heart, defended white supremacists and by extension, their credos of hatred. He equated with those thugs the courageous Americans who had gathered to stand up to the racism, anti-Semitism and doctrine of violence that won the cheers and Nazi salutes of the alt-right hordes to whom Trump felt such loyalty.

After several days in which Trump and his advisers wrestled with what should have been a straightforward task — condemning the instigators of the unrest that rocked Charlottesville, Va., this past weekend — Trump revealed the reason that finding those words was such a struggle. He, too, is an extremist.

No one who values the best of what the United States has stood for could watch without feeling revulsion, anger or heartbreak. . .

Every day Trump remains in office is a victory for the extremists. But in that same moment on Tuesday, Trump made it clear that to defeat the champions of hatred in the United States, he must go. That he also must go to preserve the United States’ standing in the world, to ensure the safety of our people and our way of life has also been made clear in the past week. It is now time that we follow his dangerous words with our own actions. It is why Heather Heyer was on that street in Charlottesville. We owe it to her and to ourselves to remove him from office as soon as the law permits. Trump himself has demonstrated the price of each day of delay."; and

What did you expect from Trump?, which pointed out:

"Plainly, the New York education system, Fordham University and Wharton School of Business have failed Trump, promoting him without ensuring that he possessed basic reasoning skills and a grasp of American history. But in these institutions’ defense, he is unteachable, we have learned. . .

Trump apologists have run out of excuses and credibility. He was at the time plainly the more objectionable of the two main party candidates; in refusing to recognize that they did the country great harm. They can make amends by denouncing him and withdrawing all support. In short, Trump’s embrace and verbal defense of neo-Nazis and white nationalists should be disqualifying from public service. All true patriots must do their utmost to get him out of the Oval Office as fast as possible."

Republicans, cut the outrage. It’s time to disown Trump., which suggested that:

Among other things, "Trump must be shunned and ostracized. He is not fit for polite company, let alone the presidency. He has demolished the rules of civilized behavior, and therefore should enjoy none of the ceremonial niceties that are extended to normal presidents.

Republicans’ words are insufficient and, at this point, insufferable. When we look back at this time, the only thing people will ask is: 'What did you do?' Republicans will need a better answer than 'I was outraged and gave tough quotes — on background.'

But hey, "source close to Stephen Bannon, the president’s chief strategist, said he was proud of the president’s performance Tuesday."

Read Bloomberg, Trump Drags GOP Onto Dangerous Ground, This Time Over Race.

(And don't forget Sebastian Gorka, another White House Trump aide, "who uses the platform to defend the embattled white man . . . [and] wore a medal from the Hungarian nationalist organization Vitezi Rend, a longtime anti-Semitic group that claimed Gorka as one of its own."

UPDATE XII:  Read the Washington Post, An ugly pattern is taking shape. Trump exaggerates certain threats. He plays down other ones., which states:

"Trump continually exaggerates the threat posed by immigration. . .

Trump appears to be reluctant to confront the far-right fringe threat — and the Russian threat to future elections."

The reasons are obvious.

But if you need a hint:

Read CNN, Trump has attacked just about everyone on Twitter. But not white supremacists.

Or read the Washington Post, I watched Trump all last year. His response to Charlottesville was no surprise., which notes that "[a] quiet wink at white supremacists followed by a belated condemnation fits the pattern he established in the campaign.

UPDATE XI:  Excerpts from WP, Trump acts like the president of the Red States of America:

"Compare Trump’s muted reaction to Charlottesville with his animated response last December to a similar incident in Columbus, another college town where an extremist plowed a car into a crowd of people. Abdul Razak Ali Artan, an Ohio State University student, drove a Honda sedan through a crowd outside a school building last November before emerging from the vehicle and slashing at people with a butcher knife. As president-elect, Trump flew to OSU to meet with survivors and praise the cop who shot the attacker. 'This is a great honor for me today,' Trump told reporters during the visit. 'We’re in a fantastic state that I love, Ohio.' One big difference: Artan was a Somali Muslim refugee. It's not even clear Trump has tried to call the mother of Charlottesville victim Heather Heyer. . .

In this context, Trump’s announcement that he is mulling a pardon for Joe Arpaio can be viewed as a strategic sop to mollify some of the most xenophobic elements of his nativist base. The president told Fox News in an interview published yesterday that he is 'seriously considering' a full pardon to the former Arizona sheriff, who was convicted last month of criminal contempt for ignoring a federal judge’s order that he stop racially profiling Hispanics.

'I might do it right away, maybe early this week. I am seriously thinking about it,' the president told Gregg Jarrett. He called Arpaio a “great American patriot” who has “done a lot in the fight against illegal immigration”: “Is there anyone in local law enforcement who has done more to crack down on illegal immigration than Sheriff Joe? … He doesn’t deserve to be treated this way.”

Arpaio, who remains a 'birther' and has insisted he has proof that Obama was not born in Hawaii, lost reelection last year. He was an early Trump endorser — going to Iowa for the announcement — and linked himself closely with the GOP nominee — speaking in prime time during the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. . .

In stark contrast to his caution after Charlottesville, it took Trump just 54 minutes to attack the chief executive of Merck by name on Monday morning after he resigned from the president’s manufacturing council. Kenneth C. Frazier, one of the few African American chief executives in the Fortune 500, touted the virtues of diversity in a statement. “I feel a responsibility to take a stand against intolerance and extremism,” he said. “America's leaders must honor our fundamental values by clearly rejecting expressions of hatred, bigotry and group supremacy, which run counter to the American ideal that all people are created equal.”

POTUS continued to use his social media bully pulpit to go after him last night . . .

Meanwhile, even after his speech yesterday, Trump still has not reacted publicly to a bomb that was detonated at a Minnesota mosque Aug. 5. Sebastian Gorka, a far-right nationalist on Trump’s National Security Council, defended his silence last week. 'There's a great rule: all initial reports are false,' Gorka said on MSNBC from the White House briefing room. 'You have to check them. You have to find out who the perpetrators are. … We've had a series of crimes committed — alleged hate crimes — by right-wing individuals in the last six months that turned out to actually have been propagated by the left. So let's wait and see.' (The governor of Minnesota had already declared the mosque attack as 'an act of terrorism' when Gorka said this.)

The president, of course, showed no such caution after attacks this spring in Paris and London. And don’t forget when he falsely described a casino robbery in Manila as a terrorist attack. Or his attacks on Mexican immigrants.

Finally, Trump’s botched response to Charlottesville should be viewed as another consequence of electing the first president in American history with no prior governing experience. 'Say what you will about politicians as a group, but it is striking how all of them, from Bernie Sanders to Ted Cruz, knew the right thing to say in response to Charlottesville,' writes Daniel W. Drezner, a professor of international politics at Tufts University. 'Running for office repeatedly tends to hone one’s rhetorical instincts. At a minimum, most professional politicians learn the do’s and don’ts of political rhetoric. Trump’s political education has different roots. He has learned the art of political rhetoric from three sources: reality television, Twitter and ‘the shows.’ His miscues this past week can be traced to the pathologies inherent in each of these arenas.' . .


'The president is confident that his lazy musings are equal to history. They are not,' [Michael Gerson, a speechwriter for George W. Bush, wrote in a column this weekend. 'Trump could offer no context for this latest conflict. No inspiring ideals from the author of the Declaration of Independence, who called Charlottesville home. No healing words from the president who was killed by a white supremacist. By his flat, foolish utterance, Trump proved once again that he has no place in the company of these leaders.'"

UPDATE X:  Want to understand what hate can do to victim and perpetrator,

Read the Washington Post, Three years ago, the Islamic State massacred Yazidis in Iraq. Why?, which noted that:

 "A recurrent theme in my conversations with Yazidis and testimonies of female survivors is that not only foreign fighters but also local Iraqis and Syrians, both men and women, were actively involved in their rape and enslavement. In the words of a survivor, 'They did not attack us because of their ideology, but to simply have the opportunity to rape us.'

While some Sunnis from the Sinjar area tried to protect their Yazidi neighbors, many others, including godfathers of Yazidi boys who were supposed to act as their protectors, participated in the enslavement of women and the robbing of the Yazidis and looting of their properties resulting in revenge attacks after the defeat of the Islamic State."

Then read also the Washington Post, Trump’s lasting legacy is to embolden an entirely new generation of racists.

UPDATE IX:  "Republicans need to acknowledge an uncomfortable truth: Their party supported and still supports Trump, who feeds the monster of white resentment and who focuses their anger, fear and frustration on minorities.

The memes that immigrants are “stealing our jobs”; Christianity is a persecuted religion in the United States; Mexican immigrants are “murderers”; and millions of illegal immigrants voted in the election have given white nationalists rhetorical cover to propound their even more extreme racist views. Bannon and company have introduced in the Oval Office the “blood and soil” definition of nationalism, the suggestion that the media is the enemy of the people and a nonstop attack on the truth. They refused to abandon a presidential candidate who attacked a federal court judge on the basis of race, for heaven’s sake."

Read the Washington Post, Don’t argue with Pelosi on this one, Republicans.

Pelosi called Trump out, saying:

"'If the President is sincere about rejecting white supremacists, he should remove all doubt by firing Steve Bannon and the other alt-right white supremacist sympathizers in the White House.'"

UPDATE VIII:  "There should be no real difficulty in condemning Nazis, white supremacists and the Ku Klux Klan. They are, for God’s sake, Nazis and white supremacists. This should not require moral courage. This is obvious. This is the moral equivalent of the text you type to prove you’re not a robot. . .

'It’s been going on for a long time in our country,' Trump said on Saturday. 'Not Donald Trump, not Barack Obama, this has been going on for a long, long time. It has no place in America.'

If only. If only it had no place here. If only these statues had sprung up out of the earth on their own.

What did they think the mob was doing, gathered with torches?

Of course they gathered with torches, because the only liberty they have lost is the liberty to gather with torches and decide whose house to visit with terror. . .

Here we are in the year of our lord 2017 and the president of the United States lacks the moral courage to condemn Nazis and white supremacists. And they are not even making it difficult. They are saluting like Nazis and waving Nazi flags and chanting like Nazis and spewing hatred like Nazis. Maya Angelou was not wrong. When someone tells you who they are, believe them. Especially if what that person is telling you is 'I am a Nazi.'

Barely, after two days, he has managed to mumble that their ideology has (should have) no place in our society. Silence sells hats, I guess.

[But for Trump, ] there is nothing more pathological than the desire to be liked by everyone all the time. If you are continually attracting Nazis and white supremacists, you shouldn’t say, 'WOW, everyone LIKES ME! Great!' you should ask yourself, 'Where in my life have I gone seriously wrong?'"

Read the Washington Post, Donald Trump’s despicable words.

UPDATE VII: The Donald panders to and leverages racism. So he bears responsibility for the resulting violence.

"When does racism drive people to commit violence?

'The most likely predictor of that is exposure to a kind of ideology,' [Eric Knowles, a psychology professor at New York University who studies prejudice and politics] said. Most if not all people carry implicit biases and unexamined prejudices, he said, and some may harbor feelings of fear or resentment that they don’t express in public.

'But when people come into contact with an organized ideology that valorizes or glorifies an intergroup struggle like a race struggle — that scaffolds from people’s everyday prejudices into something altogether more violent,' he said."

Read the Washington Post, Why are people still racist? What science says about America’s race problem.

UPDATE VI:  The Donald isn't racist, he just likes to retweet racist rhetoric.

Read the Washington Post, Trump retweets right-wing provocateur known for pushing false conspiracy theories.

UPDATE V:  "Trump’s reaction Saturday to the Charlottesville hate-fest is an example of what I find so troubling. I never thought a president of the United States would hedge his bets when it came to denouncing racists and anti-Semites. There is abundant boilerplate for these incidents, whole attics of cliches, but Trump could utter not a one. Instead, he pushed out some mush about an “egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides.”

On Monday, the president toughened up. 'Racism is evil,' Trump said, no doubt at the urging of his aides. He denounced 'the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans.' Nice try, but three days late and many dollars short. The stain of the original statement cannot be removed. It is the authentic Trump — the genuine embodiment of a president who has both identified a rage in part of the American electorate and validated it.

America has had these moments before. The reign of Sen. Joseph McCarthy comes to mind. He was a lying opportunist who exploited a Red Scare to ruin lives and careers. But for all his villainy, he was just a senator and, in due course, the Senate took care of its own. It censured McCarthy.

Trump, however, is vastly more powerful. His tweets dominate the news cycle. His claim that 3 million to 5 million illegal immigrants voted for Hillary Clinton and deprived him of a popular-vote victory has seeped into the Republican electorate. The Post last week reported that about half of Republicans would support postponing the 2020 presidential election until the problem is fixed.

That the problem cannot be fixed because it does not exist is almost beside the point. More important is the blatant disregard for both the Constitution and tradition. We hold presidential elections every four years. Always have. The president’s term is set by the Constitution. Look it up.

Simultaneous with the delegitimization of the electoral process has been a subversion of truth. It has been reduced to just another thing — something like an alternative to the 'alternative facts' of Kellyanne Conway’s invention. Trump’s incessant attacks on the press have taken a toll. The so-called mainstream media has for years been a GOP whipping boy, but now it is not merely in opposition, it is also corrupt. 'They’re lying, they’re cheating, they’re stealing,' Trump said during a rally in October in Grand Junction, Colo. 'They’re doing everything, these people right back here.' He was pointing to the press section. . .

Beliefs that used to be found only on the fringe of the far right have entered the Republican mainstream. The furious and unbalanced hatred of Clinton, the conviction that the election was almost stolen — all this and more have been given such legitimacy by Trump that neo-Nazis can march in Thomas Jefferson’s home town, confident that they have Trump’s support. They were wrong. They only had his indifference."

Read the Washington Post, Trump’s America is not mine.

UPDATE IV:  "After two days, blistering criticism from his own party and tougher anti-white-nationalist statements from the company that makes Tiki torches and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, President Trump dragged himself to the podium for a statement that specifically condemned white nationalists, neo-Nazis and other racists. He had to begin with some self-congratulations on the economy — because his accomplishments are what he really cares about. . .

He read from a teleprompter. Speaking from his heart would have been impossible, given his obvious lack of passion and willful blindness over the past couple of days. He did not mention the 'alt-right,' nor did he announce he is firing Stephen K. Bannon, who once bragged he gave the alt-right a platform at Breitbart. He did not announce any specific policy measures. He did not apologize for his moral obtuseness. This was the weakest statement he could have gotten away with, 48 hours too late. Why did it have to come to this?

The white nationalists in Charlottesville did not hide their intentions. They were there to revel in the Trump presidency, which explicitly told them it was time to 'take their country back.' Former KKK grand wizard David Duke left no confusion as to his followers’ admiration for the president:

His invocation of the president’s name and campaign rhetoric makes the president’s equivocation all the more appalling — and revealing. Whereas any normal president or politician would renounce support from neo-Nazis and white nationalists, Trump — until forced to do so — would not criticize them, let alone refuse to accept their support. . .

Not to have rejected immediately the support or to tell the neo-Nazis they misunderstood his message shocks even the most jaded Trump critics and puts President Trump in a category of one — American politicians who gladly accept support from white nationalists, neo-Nazis and the alt-right (white nationalists with intellectual pretensions).

One might conclude from Trump’s foot-dragging and obsession with stoking racial tensions (e.g. his vote fraud commission, his crusade against legal and illegal immigrants, etc.) that, despite his apologists’ protestations, his campaign message was aimed at white resentment. Trump continues to tell those who want to 'take back their country' that 'their' country is being overrun by foreigners, non-Christians, non-whites. The majority of his followers had a more benign, non-racial interpretation (take the country back from liberals, elites, urbanites, etc.), but it surely hit home and brought out from the shadows Duke and his ilk. . .

Trump’s dance with the racists is therefore inseparable from his agenda. A nativist, populist president without the support of the most extreme defenders of Christian white America would be an impossibility."

Read the Washington Post, Why Trump had to be badgered to condemn neo-Nazis.

UPDATE III:  "Before he became a presidential candidate in 2016, the Manhattan builder spent the previous five years championing the racist birther lie that Obama was not born in the United States and, therefore, in the White House illegally. Then, on June 16, 2015, Trump set the tone for his presidential campaign when he said, 'They’re rapists' when talking about immigrants from Mexico during the announcement of his candidacy. And it has been all downhill from there with a candidacy that allowed right-wing hate to feel safe quarter and a presidency that lets it grow by pretending it’s not there.

Trump, the man who is oh so quick to thunder against radical Islamic terrorism, always gets cramps in his Twitter thumbs, loses his voice or suffers amnesia when white nationalists are involved. Like that time David Duke, former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, endorsed him in February 2016, 'I know nothing about David Duke,' Trump told CNN’s Jake Tapper. 'I know nothing about white supremacists.'

'This represents a turning point for the people of this country. We are determined to take our country back,' Duke said after he slithered his way into Charlottesville on Saturday. 'We are going to fulfill the promises of Donald Trump. That’s what we believed in. That’s why we voted for Donald Trump, because he said he’s going to take our country back.'

Trump doesn’t have the moral clarity needed to immediately denounce Duke and his “take our country back” white supremacy. Trump doesn’t have the moral authority needed to make such commanding words stick. He ceded that moral high ground ages ago. And Trump has neither the interest nor the care to turn his words into deeds that heal the nation, especially with white nationalists like Stephen K. Bannon, Stephen Miller and Sebastian Gorka just steps away from the Oval Office. Especially when he is pursuing immigration, justice and voting rights policies that further the goals of white nationalists."

Read the Washington Post, Trump’s horrible and predictable response to white supremacy in Charlottesville.

UPDATE II:  Foolishly, some people thought of Nazis as "'crazy people, stupid fanatics. Unfortunately it was not so. They knew they were not strong enough to conquer a unified country, so they split Germany into small groups. They used prejudice as a practical weapon to cripple the nation.'"

Read the Washington Post, After Charlottesville violence, World War II anti-fascist propaganda video finds a new audience.

UPDATE:  "Why does Trump resist condemning white supremacy? The most obvious answer is that he’s encouraging the racism of some of his supporters, after a campaign that derived initial energy from his racist birther conspiracy theories and in many ways was framed around the narrative that white identity and white America are under siege. White nationalism is now alive and well in the White House; we are reaping the inevitable consequences. . .

[But an additional reason is that] Trump’s resistance appears rooted in part in an instinctual sense that so doing would constitute some form of capitulation. In his remarks, Trump repeated the phrase 'on many sides' in a pointed tone, as if to signal that he will not be bullied by any objection to his false equivalence or any pressure to single out anti-black racism. . .

The message that Trump surely received — one he surely continues to believe — is that there is no reason for him to capitulate to politically correct demands that he explicitly condemn racism towards any minorities. But this raises a profound problem. It is likely that Trump views this whole affair as being all about him — that is, as all about whether he will surrender to his foes. He seems incapable of grasping that amid such crises, his office carries with it certain very grave responsibilities to the American people. . .

Trump clearly recognizes no obligation to the broader public of any kind as a function of the office entrusted to him. This isn’t just racism. It’s also his megalomaniacal inability to envision that his role might require duties above and beyond his desire to deepen his bond with certain supporters (which of course is all about him) or the fact that he doesn’t want to be seen surrendering in some vague sense.

And this could have continuing consequences.  The Times reports that white nationalist and neo-Nazi groups are only emboldened by the weekend’s events, and predict that their movement is growing — which means we may see more of this going forward. Brian Beutler argues that Trump’s refusal to call them out by name may well reflect an active desire to empower these groups and, more broadly, to realize their vision. "

Read the Washington Post, Why is Trump reluctant to condemn white terrorism? It’s his racism — and his megalomania.

While fear, anger, and hatred has been a great Republi-CON campaign strategy for many years, it is, of course, a terrible governing philosophy.

And it has proven to lead to violence.

Read the Washington Post:

White House confronts backlash over Trump’s remarks on Charlottesville,

One group loved Trump’s remarks about Charlottesville: White supremacists,

‘Look at the campaign he ran’: Charlottesville mayor is becoming one of Trump’s strongest critics,

After Charlottesville: End the denial about Trump, which noted:

"It should not have taken President Trump’s disgraceful refusal to condemn white supremacy, bigotry and Nazism to make clear to all who he is and which dark impulses he is willing to exploit to maintain his hold on power. . .

There are not, as Trump insisted Saturday, “many sides” to questions that were settled long ago: Racism, anti-Semitism, discrimination and white supremacy are unequivocally wrong.

A president who cannot bring himself to say this immediately and unequivocally squanders any claim to moral leadership. . .

For make no mistake: No matter how accurate it is to say that neo-Nazis and Klansmen represent a repugnant fringe, the fact that our president has consistently and successfully exploited white racial resentment cannot help but be taken by citizens of color as a sign of racism’s stubborn durability.

The backlash to racial progress is an old American story, from the end of Reconstruction forward. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s words from 1967 speak to us still: “Loose and easy language about equality, resonant resolutions about brotherhood fall pleasantly on the ear, but for the Negro, there is a credibility gap he cannot overlook. He remembers that with each modest advance the white population promptly raises the argument that the Negro has come far enough. Each step forward accents an ever-present tendency to backlash.” This is what we saw this weekend.

The battles over Confederate monuments, in Charlottesville and elsewhere, reflect our difficulty in acknowledging that these memorials are less historical markers than political statements. Many were erected explicitly in support of Jim Crow and implicitly to deny the truth that the Southern cause in the Civil War was built around a defense of slavery. Taking them down is an acknowledgment of what history teaches, not an eradication of the past." 

Trump fires back after the CEO of Merck resigned from his manufacturing council,

Raise your hand if you are pretending to be surprised.

 Read also Trump's Big CON: He's Gotta Help His Supporters Hate, Hate, Hate.

Trump's Big CON: He's Gotta Help His Supporters Hate, Hate, Hate, Arpaio Edition

UPDATE:  "In his effort to create a reputation as 'America’s toughest sheriff,' Arpaio made blatant and illegal racial profiling the hallmark of his two decades in office. A 2011 Justice Department investigation found systemic and widespread discriminatory practices in the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO), covering both their interactions with the public and their operation of county jails. Not only were Latinos in the jurisdiction profiled, harassed, detained, and abused in myriad ways, but Arpaio also used the tools of his office to go after those who criticized him. . .

So that’s the person Donald Trump is considering making the first recipient of a pardon in his presidency: someone with a long history of racist actions and racist policies, who was finally convicted of a crime he proudly owned up to. Should anyone be surprised?"

Read the Washington Post, Trump’s first pardon: An authoritarian racist who thinks he’s above the law?

Read also the Washington Post, Trump considers pardoning Joe Arpaio, and gives racists a reassuring wink, which states:

[A]fter deploying first delay and then false equivalence, Trump finally did denounce the racists and white supremacists who chanted his name in Charlottesville last weekend. It then took him only a few hours to give those same racists and white supremacists a nod and a reassuring wink. How else should we interpret a possible pardon for the sheriff who ran the most racist department the DOJ has ever investigated?

Don’t fret, alt-righters. Trump still has your back.

He's gotta help his supporters hate, hate, hate.

And one of his earliest supporters promoted racist birther conspiracies.

Read the Washington Post, Trump says he’s considering pardon for Joe Arpaio.

The Donald is Putin's Puppet

UPDATE XVII:  Now obstruction of justice and coverup.

Read the Washington Post, White House adviser asked FBI to dispute Russia reports.

It's déjà vu Nixon all over again!

And like Nixon, Trump doesn't like it.

Read the Washington Post, The big news is not the FBI leaks. It’s what’s in the leaks.

UPDATE XVI:  "The Trump-Russia file, which concerns fundamental questions of national security, is far more deserving of close scrutiny by Congress, the media, law enforcement, and the public than any of the White House’s many other alleged misdeeds. And the Flynn phone calls are only the beginning, not the end, of the scandal in question."

Read Foreign Policy, Donald Trump’s Russia Scandal Is Just Getting Started.

UPDATE XV: Read the Washington Post, Why Flynn was undone by a phone call, which notes:

"The call may not necessarily be the smoking gun, the ultimate 'proof' that there was a quid pro quo: 'You help us with the election, we help you by lifting sanctions.' But it sure looks like it could be.

That explains why Flynn lied about the call to the vice president, and to the press. That explains why — although he has known about this issue for many weeks — the president did not fire Flynn earlier. That also explains why the president has expressed regret about the leak of the transcript of the call but not about the fact that Flynn made the call in the first place. That also explains why Flynn resigned."

UPDATE XIV:  "President Trump's national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn . . . had discussed U.S. sanctions against Russia with Moscow's ambassador in Washington prior to Trump's inauguration. Flynn, according to intelligence sources, likely signaled that the question of sanctions would be revisited by a more friendly Trump administration.

The discussions suggest a worrying level of collusion between a key figure in the new administration and the Kremlin. . .

Flynn's dealings with Russia aside, there are even deeper ties that connect the current administration to the Kremlin.

First, there surely is more to come on the extent of Russian involvement in last year's election, with law enforcement agencies in the United States increasingly certain that Moscow actively worked to help Trump win. The Russian establishment, including close Putin allies, publicly basked in Trump's victory. Now, some Pentagon officials say they have 'assumed that the Kremlin has ears' inside the White House ever since Trump's inauguration, according to controversial former counterintelligence official John Schindler.

Beyond the intrigues of spies, though, there's also a clear ideological affinity."

Read the Washington Post, Beyond Flynn, other ties bind the White House to the Kremlin. 

UPDATE XIII: Read CNN, Intel chiefs presented Trump with claims of Russian efforts to compromise him.

Read also The New York Times, Trump Briefed on Claim That Russia Had Secrets on Him.

BTW, this story has more corroboration than Republi-CON pizzagate or the birther scam.

UPDATE XII:  The Donald is ever the consummate con man.

Read the Washington Post, Trump alleges delay in his briefing on ‘so-called’ Russian hacking; U.S. official says there wasn’t one.

UPDATE XI:  The Donald's ode to Putin:



Listen to the lyrics, or read them here. This song foretells The Donald's relationship with Putin.

UPDATE X: In Europe in the 1930s "there was throughout [the land] a generalized crisis of legitimacy. Large numbers of people felt dispossessed, disenfranchised, disconnected from dominant social institutions. The political party system, and . . . government more generally, were regarded as corrupt and oligarchic. Such an environment was fertile ground for a ‘mob mentality,’ in which outsiders . . . could be scapegoated and a savior could be craved: 'The mob always will shout for 'the strong man,' the 'great leader.' For the mob hates the society from which it is excluded, as well as [government] where it is not represented.'

And a society suffused with resentment, according to Arendt, is ripe for manipulation by the propaganda of sensationalist demagogues: 'What convinces masses are not facts, and not even invented facts, but only the consistency of the system of which they are presumably part . . . Totalitarian propaganda thrives on this escape from reality into fiction . . . [and] can outrageously insult common sense only where common sense has lost its validity.' Cynicism. Contempt for truth. Appeal to the craving of the masses for simple stories of malevolent conspiracy."

Read the Washington Post, How Hannah Arendt’s classic work on totalitarianism illuminates today’s America.

Sounds a lot like America today.

UPDATE IX:  "Put his campaign rhetoric, tweets and appointments all together, and we’re getting a sense of U.S. foreign policy under Donald Trump. The president-elect has consistently signaled that he wants to be accommodating toward Russia and get tough on China. But that sees the world almost backward. China is, for the most part, comfortable with the U.S.-led international system. Russia is trying to upend it. . .

Keep in mind that China’s view of the world over the past two decades has been fundamentally benign, having grown to wealth and power in that period. Putin, by contrast, believes that the end of Soviet communism in 1989 was the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century” and that Russia has been humiliated ever since. His goal appears to be to overturn the U.S.-created international order, even if this means chaos.

The question is, why would an American president-elect help Moscow achieve that goal?"

Read the Washington Post, Vladimir Putin wants a new world order. Why would Donald Trump help him?

The answer: simply to get elected. Winning elections is the only thing  Republi-CONs care about, principle no longer matters.

Read also The New York Times, Is Donald Trump a Threat to Democracy?, which argues convincingly that The Donald show classic dictatorial tendencies. 

The more that this is analyzed, the scarier it get.

UPDATE VIII:  "Russia’s secret hacking against Democratic Party officials threatened the integrity of the U.S. political system. And President-elect Donald Trump shouldn’t have criticized the CIA after its analysts told Congress about the Kremlin’s efforts. Trump, unbelievably, seemed to be taking a potential adversary’s side against his own nation’s intelligence professionals. . .

[N]o doubt the Russians wanted to hurt Clinton and help Trump. In Russia’s eyes, he said, Clinton had sought to undermine President Vladimir Putin after the 2011 parliamentary elections and to foment 'color revolutions' in areas of Russian influence. Trump, by contrast, had lauded Putin, suggested lifting sanctions and belittled NATO."

Read the Washington Post, Trump is playing a risky spy game.

UPDATE VII: "Trump has repeatedly expressed a soft spot for an oppressive dictator, Vladimir Putin, who is challenging American interests at every turn. As a candidate, Trump publicly invited Russia to hack his opponent’s emails. Trump’s campaign manager, Paul Manafort, resigned amid reports that he had represented pro-Russian interests as a lobbyist. Trump’s choice for national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, seems to be a Russophile and has appeared on Russia’s propaganda network.

In 2008, Donald Trump Jr. admitted that “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets.” President-elect Trump has consistently refused to be fully transparent about his finances.

Before the presidential vote, the American intelligence community determined that the Russian government directed the illegal hacking of the Democratic National Committee and other political figures. Now the CIA, according to reporting in The Post, has shared with Congress its finding that Russia intervened with the intent of swinging the election toward Trump. And Trump — instead of expressing concern about an act of cyberwar — has essentially come to Russia’s defense and launched an ad hominem attack on the U.S. intelligence community. . .

[I]f the CIA interpretation is correct, this is not just one provocation among many. If Putin actually helped elect an American president more favorable to Russian interests, it is surely the largest intelligence coup since the cracking of the Enigma code during World War II. And it is arguably a bigger deal — more on par with, say, German intelligence helping elect Charles Lindbergh president."

Read the Washington Post, Trump’s dangerous diss of the CIA.

UPDATE VI: "Good Lord. We are about to inaugurate as president a man whose election, according to the CIA, was aided by a Russian intelligence operation. Try as we might, we cannot pretend this didn’t happen.

We can’t ignore outrageous interference by an adversarial foreign power because President-elect Donald Trump’s actions question his own legitimacy, or at least his fitness to hold the nation’s highest office, virtually every day. . .

Our president is supposed to be chosen in polling places across the United States — not behind the imposing walls of the Kremlin."

Read the Washington Post, Trump is assembling an anti-government. Did Russia help get him here?

UPDATE V:  "You would think the stunning news that the CIA had concluded Russia hacked the Democrats to help President-elect Donald Trump win the election, followed by Trump’s insulting dismissal of 17 intelligence agencies finding that Russia was responsible — which in turn was followed by news he intended to nominate as secretary of state an unqualified chief executive with exceptionally close ties to Vladimir Putin (and who opposed sanctions) — would have stirred outrage and deep concern among Republicans, who used to pride themselves on their national security chops. You would be wrong. . .

[W]hy are these Republicans so silent? I mean, this is a really big deal.

Read the Washington Post, Republicans need to get out from under their desks.

I can only image the outcry if Russia had hacked the Republi-CONs to get HRC elected. Is there any doubt there would be impeachment proceedings.

UPDATE IV:  "The flood of 'fake news' this election season got support from a sophisticated Russian propaganda campaign that created and spread misleading articles online with the goal of punishing Democrat Hillary Clinton, helping Republican Donald Trump and undermining faith in American democracy, say independent researchers who tracked the operation.

Russia’s increasingly sophisticated propaganda machinery — including thousands of botnets, teams of paid human “trolls,” and networks of websites and social-media accounts — echoed and amplified right-wing sites across the Internet as they portrayed Clinton as a criminal hiding potentially fatal health problems and preparing to hand control of the nation to a shadowy cabal of global financiers. The effort also sought to heighten the appearance of international tensions and promote fear of looming hostilities with nuclear-armed Russia. . .

Some players in this online echo chamber were knowingly part of the propaganda campaign, the researchers concluded, while others were 'useful idiots' — a term born of the Cold War to describe people or institutions that unknowingly assisted Soviet Union propaganda efforts.

The Russian campaign during this election season, researchers from both groups say, worked by harnessing the online world’s fascination with 'buzzy' content that is surprising and emotionally potent, and tracks with popular conspiracy theories about how secret forces dictate world events.

Some of these stories originated with RT and Sputnik, state-funded Russian information services that mimic the style and tone of independent news organizations yet sometimes include false and misleading stories in their reports, the researchers say. On other occasions, RT, Sputnik and other Russian sites used social-media accounts to amplify misleading stories already circulating online, causing news algorithms to identify them as 'trending' topics that sometimes prompted coverage from mainstream American news organizations."

Read the Washington Post, Russian propaganda effort helped spread 'fake news' during election, experts say.

Read also the Washington Post, Americans keep looking away from the election’s most alarming story.

UPDATE III:  "Former CIA director Michael Morell endorsed Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and blasted GOP rival Donald Trump, accusing him of becoming an unwitting agent of Russian President Vladimir Putin in an op-ed on Friday. . .

He noted that Putin is a trained intelligence officer, and he suggested that the Russian leader has been using Trump's personality for his own gain. In the primaries, Morell said, Putin 'played upon Mr. Trump's vulnerabilities' by complimenting him.

Among the traits Morell said would make Trump a 'danger' to national security: 'his obvious need for self-aggrandizement, his overreaction to perceived slights, his tendency to make decisions based on intuition, his refusal to change his views based on new information, his routine carelessness with the facts, his unwillingness to listen to others and his lack of respect for the rule of law.'"

Read the Washington Post, In endorsing Clinton, ex-CIA chief says Putin made Trump his 'unwitting agent'.

UPDATE II:  At the same time, his VP pick said "If it is Russia and they are interfering in our elections, I can assure you both parties and the United States government will ensure there are serious consequences."

Read the Washington Post, Pence: Consequences if Russia is interfering in U.S. election.

So while Pence understands the seriousness of the possibility that a foreign power is directly interfering in the U.S. presidential election, Trump is encouraging the interference.

Pence should withdrawal as Trump's VP.

UPDATE:  "Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on Wednesday said he hoped that Russia would hack into Hillary Clinton’s email server to find “missing” messages and release them to the public."

Read the Washington Post, Trump urges Russia to hack Clinton's emails and release them publicly.

Donald Trump is dangerously insane!

"Donald Trump never met a conspiracy theory he didn’t like — until now.

He has dabbled in, among other things, the notion that President Obama is a Muslim born in Kenya, that Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was murdered and that Ted Cruz’s father was involved in the JFK assassination.

But on one topic, Trump is conspicuously incurious: the suggestion that he is complicit in a plan by Vladimir Putin to influence the U.S. election."

Read the Washington Post, A Trump-style speculation on the GOP and Putin, which lists the many troubling connections between Putin and The Donald.

Countdown to Birther Fools Day 2016

UPDATE III:  It is just days before the election. What better time to release those 'universe-shattering' revelations.

It would guarantee a Trump election!

But don't hold your breath, it was all a CON job!!!



I triple dog-dare the Sheriff Joe’s Scooby Doo gang to prove me wrong.

UPDATE II:  We are fast approaching 1,000 days (December 26, 2016) since the First Birther Fool's Day.  The election is fast approaching, and Arpaio is being prosecuted for criminal contempt.

And still no 'universe-shattering' revelations.

When will the so-called Pastor admit he was lying? When will 'Gallups' gullibles' realized it was a con job?

UPDATE: To Gallups' gullibles:  Happy Birther Fool's Day 2016!

Another year, another Birther Fool's Day.


On Friday, March 11, 2016, we learned that Pastor Gullible-Gallups got a cute little Special Deputy badge, then got to look at the binders, with dividers, and was told about the "international forensic analytical laboratory" report, which he can't disclose because he's now a "Special Deputy".

Really, is there anyone who still believes anything Arpaio, Zullo and Gullible-Gallups said?  Only fools!

Remember, how much time has past since the 2014 promised 'universe-shattering' revelations:


That sound you hear is the growing laughter at the Birther delusions.

Anyone who gave money to these bozos should sue!  (I think Zullo and Gullible-Gallups are stringing people along until the statute of limitations on fraud has expired.)

P.S.

Birther Fool's Day was first celebrated in 2014 on the first day after the month that the universe 'shattered', as promised by the "Sheriff Joe’s Scooby Doo gang" to 'Gallups' gullibles' on 'fellatio Friday' in mid-December 2013 (the 'universe-shattering' twist was being promoted elsewhere in late November).

It is no coincidence that Birther Fool's Day is April 1st.

Revolution 2016: I am a True Trump Believer and Supporter Now

Newest UPDATE: #14 (04/07/16)
(NOTE, in case you don't read to the end, I am no longer a Trump supporter.)

Also UPDATE 10 was amended (02/17/16).

IMPORTANT information on how to help The Donald: see UPDATE 11 below (Because of the importance of this notice, it is now a separate post, which I have updated)

WARNING, WARNING: read this disclaimer first:

DISCLAIMER:  By reading this you agree that this blog and all posts are governed by the laws of the State of Florida first, and the United State of America, where not in conflict with Florida. 

Venue for any lawsuit shall be Escambia County, LA (OK, legally it's FL, but practically it's Lower Alabama, believe me, I know). (In any case, file here.)

This blog is an expression of my First Amendment rights, et al., under the constitution and laws of the United State of America and the State of Florida. 

It's mostly opinions, but if I am factually wrong, please send me a certified letter.  If I agree, I will make any necessary factual correction(s). 

However, if you are just try to bully me because you don't like my opinion(s), sue me.  But good luck with that, I know a good lawyer (they claim he's crazy, ask around).

And don't waste your time -- I don't care if you agree with me -- so no bellyaching letters or comments. (That includes you, Pastor You-Know-Who.)

Otherwise, enjoy.

And if you find that you like what I have to say, check back frequently.  I think you'll find it worth your time.

I heard Glenn Beck on the radio this morning (02/27/16).  It must have been God's wish, really, because I never listen to 'Bonkers'.

But seriously, and I mean seriously, I am now a Trump supporter.

Just wanted to get this posted, but check back later as I explain why I will support and vote for Trump, and why you should too.


UPDATE:  Welcome to those of you who found this website through my new domain name Revolution16.US.

It wasn't my first choice, those were not available, but it will work -- by forwarding (no masking) to this blog post.

For those of you who are new to NoBullU.com, look around, it's pretty comprehensive and gives you an idea of who I am and what I believe.  You can navigate chronological and by label (subject).

Most posts are summaries of other material, and all posts are intended as opinion.


Of course, some posts and comments are intended to be jokes and/or satire.   (The links are to further information if you wish to pursue.)

Also, you might notice the formatting of this post is a bit different, chronologically the newest material is at the bottom.  Also, only my . . . [seems I got interrupted and nnow I can't remember what it was]

Check back later as I explain why I will support and vote for Trump, and why you should too.

UPDATE 2 (02/28/16):  Be patient, I haven't forgotten this post, more to follow as God, time and the wife allow.

If I remember, I'll indent every-other update, so it is easier to follow.

And forgive the grammar and spelling issues [see, I meant errors, it might have been spell check, curse you spell check, except when you are right], I talk better than I write.

I'll also list the next pending update. . .

Until I disappear.

Check to see if I'm at Gitmo.  (Check here, not there. If I'm there, leave me be, I might be working, you never know.)

Call Stephen, and ask for his help. But not old Stephen, he was one of them, distracting us with his truthiness. (Curse you too old Stephen.)

If I am dead, take up my cause. (NO GUNS please, more later.)

And check back later and frequently, share links to this post, boost my page count, and make me famous and rich.

Please help, and join me for Revolution16.US.

Donations welcome for my legal defense fund, or my widow(er) [as the case may be]. (Later maybe.)

BUT WE MUST NEVER GIVE UP!!

Veritas liberabit vos!!!

Enough now, time for supper.

Homework assignment:  listen to talk radio -- everything you need to know.

UPDATE 3:  Page count up, a bit.  Keep spreading the word, several big announcement coming -- when the time is right -- to explain Revolution16.US.

Regarding the GUNS, see the Washington Post, Authorities seal off Oregon refuge after leaders of occupation arrested. 1 killed in gunfire.

Don't give them an excuse -- keep your powder dry.

Yes, revolutions sometimes turn violent, but not for Revolution16.US.

NOT YET in any case.

So NO GUNS please, even more later.

UPDATE 4 (02/29/16):  So what started this post, I heard Glenn Beck on the radio this morning (02/27/16).

Bonkers, my term for Beck because he acts bonkers sometime times (or arguably most of the time), opined that Trump had made a big mistake taking on Roger Ailes, who, as owner of Chairman and CEO of Fox News and the Fox Television Stations Group, is the King of hysterical conservative media.

Bonkers clearly just didn't get it, Trump is not crazy, he is brilliant at manipulating and de-fanging his opponents, even those as powerful and Ailes.

And the added benefit of taking on Ailes was an excuse not to attend the Fox News hosted debates just before the Iowa caucuses, where Trump would have been the target of every other candidate and their surrogates in the press.

It was Trump-Brilliant (© NoBullU.com)!!!!

Today I heard on the radio that Clinton now says that if Trump is the GOP nominee, he will win the election. (I'm looking for a printed confirmation of said statement.)

So even Clinton now understands how Trump-Brilliant (© NoBullU.com) The Donald is.

Trump will win, if we help.

And I'm not saying this because Trump pays me to say it.

(Message to Trump: hire me, I can help in the transition. I understand and will worship you for Revolution16.US. And so will our children and grandchildren, I HOPE. (Note: revolution are great, except when they turn violent.)).

More later.

Still to come, why Trump. (Brief hint:  because no one else can take on the entrenched corrupt interest in our political system. Even the Rogue Diva knows this, ergo the endorsement.)

Remember, (forgive me if I repeat this frequently) he will need our help for Revolution16.US.

UPDATE 5:  If Trump is the nominee, only Clinton might beat him, and it's not lookin good for Hilary.

And in support of what I said in the last update regarding The Donald's Trump-Brilliant (© NoBullU.com) move, read the Washington Post, In Trump vacuum, Cruz emerges as top target at Iowa Republican debate.

Told ya so. [I like to gloat sometimes.]

The Donald is a master tactician.

Maybe we should read The Art of the Deal. [Sorry, it's Trump: The Art of the Deal. You could probably just read the Wikipedia summary. And if he is elected POTUS, get ready for the Trump Schools, the Trump Roads, etc., etc., etc. ]

Nobody is as great as Trump, just ask him. [And it may be true, the elections results will tell.]

UPDATE VI (02/01/16): Want to understand the Trump spectacle, listen to last weekend's This America Life, 578: I Thought I Knew You, starting at the 7:54 mark.

The segment is an interview with conservative radio host Tony Beam in South Carolina, host of the radio show Christian Worldview.  Tony “is completely baffled by the candidate his audience has decided to get behind this election season.”

The listeners are evangelical Christians, like Jean and Barry.

Jean supports Trump, likening him to Jehu, sent by God to punish the wicked (in 1st and 2nd Kings it was Jezebel, who "had allowed pagan temples to exist in the kingdom." 

Trump, like Jehu, is "a warrior against a corrupt culture."

Tony is "stunned" that after 10-20 years of hysterical talk radio, his listeners are "crazy".  He thinks that supporting a candidate like Trump is "not who we [evangelical Republicans] are."

Obviously Tony doesn't listen to much talk radio, where radio talk show host, with the help of party 'leaders', have whipped Republicans into a frenzy for years.

And now Tony, and the party, have lost control of Jean and Barry, who have 'gone in a different direction', responding to the dog whistle of fear, anger, and hatred.

Take a listen to what talk radio has wrought:

Near the end, did you hear the talk of guns, and potential violence. More later.

UPDATE 6 (02/02/16): Conspiratorial delusions, and talk of violence and the apocalypse are nothing new in evangelical circles and on talk radio.

Take Jade Helm 2015, complete with the option of a comet or asteroid impact. Or the Blue Moon 'prophesy'.

And it never matters that the prophesies never happen.  The End of the World Is Near, always and again, and again and . . .

It scares, and it sells. Who cares the harm done to society.

UPDATE 7 (02/06/16):  Pardon the break, I was trying to tell people how to get a FREE MATTRESS.  Back to the campaign.

Why Trump?  He's the only candidate who can bring true reform to D.C.

Hilary won't, she part of the political establishment.  (Sanders won't be nominated, he'd be destroyed in November by any Republican nominee. If Hillary falters, the Dems will nominate somebody else, like Biden, or even Romney, before they nominate Sanders.)

And as first noted in mid-January (and modified on an update), the likely Republican nominees are:  The Lying Canadian (© NoBullU.com), Bubble Boy (h/t to Christie), or Franken-Trump/Trumpenstein (© NoBullU.com).

Neither The Lying Canadian (© NoBullU.com) or Bubble Boy (h/t to Christie) alone could beat Hillary.

(I'm thinking they might join forces to knock off Franken-Trump/Trumpenstein (© NoBullU.com), but only after it become clear who the favorite is among the two.  (The favorite will claim the presidency, the other the VP slot or an important cabinet post.) If I had to predict, I say Rubio-Cruz near the end, very much like Bush-Cheney, one seemingly nice and sweet, the other the enforcer and real power in the White House.)

Only Franken-Trump/Trumpenstein can beat Hillary and bring reform to D.C.

And don't despair, The Lying Canadian (© NoBullU.com) only won Iowa because the state's demographics substantially favored him from the beginning, and then only by lying (which he does frequently to win elections) about Carson.

Remember Iowa is not that important in the final result -- the Iowa caucus winner is usually not the nominee, especially for the Republican party.

And Franken-Trump/Trumpenstein (© NoBullU.com) is a thrice-married, casino owning, foul-mouth, husband of an alleged former porn star. (Whether Melania Knauss-Trump was a porn star is very hard to confirm, I heard that Trump and friends work hard to remove material from the web, including by buying copyrights to the movies.) So a respectable second with no ground game real remarkable.

WE MUST NEVER GIVE UP!!

Trump is the best hope for D.C. reform.

UPDATE 8 (02/07/16): Another possible alliance might be the 2016 GOP candidates who were Republican governors + Rubio: that is Bush, Christie, and/or Kasich + Rubio, with Gilmore, Huckabee, Jindal, Pataki, Perry and/or Walker in some cabinet positions.

Such an alliance would be formidable, and put the Republican establishment candidates back on top, effectively defeating Trump and paying back Cruz, who is hated by almost everyone.

Such an alliance might also defeat Hillary.

UPDATE 9 (02/08/16): After the most recent GOP debate, Bubble Boy's bubble has popped, which is what happens when you heat a bubble, or poke it with a sharp object, in this case Christie.

Read the Washington Post, The governors exact their revenge on Marco Rubio.

And you must read this take down of The Lying Canadian (© NoBullU.com) at the Washington Post, Ted Cruz needs an intervention, which notes how despised Cruz is:

"If Cruz does not make it to the presidency, he will no doubt blame the “establishment.” But whether he recognizes it or not, his wife and political advisers surely understand that alumni, roommates, law clerks, former staffers in the George W. Bush campaign and White House (and the president himself), members of Congress and others who have known Cruz — lots and lots of people — consider him socially awkward, nasty, dishonest, a blatant apple-polisher and all-around creepy guy. You can write off a few of these critics as jealous of his success, or liberal antagonists, but all of them? There is something badly amiss here. Cruz, who so obviously lacks emotional intelligence, cannot recognize it, but those closest to him surely must see that something is awry. . .

Politics is about building alliances and trust, having your team’s back and refusing to grandstand to your side’s detriment. It’s also an additive exercise. Drawing bold lines is fine, but you lose unless you can bring people over to your side. Simply inveighing against others will not do it, nor will playing the persecuted victim. . .

[I]f all you have is ambition, the burning desire to climb over others, it becomes evident to voters and colleagues alike. You know the type — the guy always looking over your shoulder to scan for a more important person in the room to engage; the fellow convinced whatever job he has is not big enough for him; and the person so intellectually dishonest, he is willing to rewrite history, deny his own statements and look you in the eye to say “Black is white” and “Up is down.” (Even when apologizing to Dr. Ben Carson for his team spreading a rumor on caucus night that Carson was dropping out, Cruz felt compelled to lie, claiming CNN initially reported Carson was dropping out. CNN blasted back: “What Senator Cruz said tonight in the debate is categorically false. CNN never corrected its reporting because CNN never had anything to correct. The Cruz campaign’s actions the night of the Iowa caucuses had nothing to do with CNN’s reporting. The fact that Senator Cruz continues to knowingly mislead the voters about this is astonishing.”) These behaviors do not sit well with people, who soon catch on that you are using them for selfish ends. Superiors see you are an annoying kiss-up, and other see you as desperate or phony.

Cruz’s shortcomings make it hard to build a winning coalition — or to function in the Senate. The great irony is his ambition may be the biggest barrier to obtain what he thirsts for and has schemed so long to obtain."

If Franken-Trump/Trumpenstein (© NoBullU.com) wins big tonight, it is hard to see how he'll be stopped.

(It seems at this moment, as noted earlier, that only an alliance of the 2016 GOP candidates who were Republican governors + Rubio (maybe they will include Bubble Boy (h/t to Christie)) -- that is Bush, Christie, and/or Kasich + Rubio, with Gilmore, Huckabee, Jindal, Pataki, Perry and/or Walker in some cabinet positions -- might stop Franken-Trump/Trumpenstein (© NoBullU.com).

UPDATE 10:  (This update is now a separate, expanded post, focusing on the problem of corrupt crony capitalism and the need for fundamental and systemic change to D.C. (and elsewhere)).

New Hampshire proves it is Revolution16.US.

The anti-establishment candidates, Franken-Trump/Trumpenstein (© NoBullU.com) and that Socialist Guy, trounced the status quo.  It was especially "hard to imagine the New Hampshire primary going any worse for establishment Republicans."

Even if Hillary bounces back and wins the nomination, the voters who want real fundamental and systemic change won't vote for her. This also explains why the 2016 GOP candidates who were Republican governors can't win.

So who can bring fundamental and systemic change to D.C.  The only candidate who might is Franken-Trump/Trumpenstein (© NoBullU.com), he understand why Americans have had it.

On MSNBC's Morning Joe today The Donald "explained his — and Bernie Sanders’s — big wins in New Hampshire this way:

'We’re being ripped off by everybody. And I guess that’s the thing that Bernie Sanders and myself have in common. We know about the trade. But unfortunately he can’t do anything to fix it, whereas I will. I have the best people in the world. We’re losing hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars a year. And we will fix it. And we’ll make it good. And we’ll bring our jobs back. Bernie Sanders can’t even think in terms of that. The only thing he does know, and he’s right about, is that we’re being ripped off; he says that constantly; and I guess he and I are the only two that really say that.'" (That Socialist Guy gets it too, read his victory speech.)

You have to recognize and acknowledge a problem before change can occur.

UPDATE 11 (Because of the importance of this notice, it is now a separate post, which I have updated):

So what can you do to help bring fundamental and systemic change to D.C.

HELP The Donald win the nomination.

Everyone should check your status as a voter with your local election's office. You can also find contact information for your local election office here.

If you are already a properly registered voter and have chosen to affiliate with the Republican party, VOTE for The Donald.

If you are already a properly registered voter and live in a state with an open presidential primary, VOTE for The Donald.  Check with your local election's office, but according to Wikipedia, those states are:

Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts (open for ‘unenrolled’/unaffiliated voters only), Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, North Dakota, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, and Wisconsin

All others, register to vote as a member of, and/or change your party affiliation to, the Republican party, before the voter rolls close for the 2016 Presidential primary election.

In Florida, "Tuesday, February 16, 2016 is the last day to register to vote or change party affiliation for those who wish to cast a ballot in the March 15, 2016 Presidential Preference Primary Election."

Then VOTE for The Donald

Don't wait, JUST DO IT!

Check your status as a voter with your local election's office and VOTE!! (And again, you can also find contact information for your local election office here.)

DO IT NOW!!!

UPDATE 12 (02/12/16):  Want to better understand what millions of American workers have learned through personal experience, that the rigged economy is cheating the American middle class out of good paying American job, then watch 1,400 US workers learn their jobs are moving to Mexico.

This is just one example how of 'Republican party policies have failed Donald Trump’s voters'.

UPDATE 13:  Can The Donald reform D.C.?

The Donald has shown he is an alpha male.  He "appeals fairly broadly in South Carolina — many opponents of Trump I talked with in the state report having some relative who loves him. But there are lots of angry, rural white males at his rallies. They have reason to feel disadvantaged in our economy and overlooked in our politics. This is mixed here (as elsewhere) with baser motives. On racial matters, according to one senior South Carolina Republican, Trump is using 'not a dog whistle but a train whistle.' His Muslim immigration ban was announced in Charleston Harbor, aboard the USS Yorktown aircraft carrier. His questioning of Ted Cruz’s faith because 'not too many evangelicals come out of Cuba' was taken as an argument that Cruz is foreign, not one of us. And the Trump campaign’s willingness to associate with Jake Knotts — the former state senator who famously called Gov. Nikki Haley (R) a racial epithet — has been taken as a signal."

So, you might worry about that last part -- whether The Donald is a racist -- but I don't think he is.

He is a brilliant strategist and, whether he knows if or not, he practices the principles of Sun Tzu. (The Donald's book, The Art of the Deal (again that mistake, it's Trump: The Art of the Deal) is a modern but simplistic restatement of Sun Tzu's The Art of War.)

I don't know if The Donald has wrestled or practiced judo, but he is brilliant at using an opponents strengths and weakness to win.

And The Donald has brilliantly been using Republicans' fears, anger & hatred to win their votes.

Birtherism is just one example, The Donald is too smart to actually believe Birther delusions, The Donald is just playing along. Yet crowds are whipped into such a frenzy, they never realize what The Donald is doing.

A recent example, The Donald "threatened to sue Ted Cruz for 'not being a natural born citizen' if the Texas senator 'doesn't clean up his act'."  This is brilliant, he leverages Birther delusions to control Cruz and siphon off the votes of a few true-believer Birthers. 

I sometimes call The Donald Franken-Trump/Trumpenstein (© NoBullU.com) because the Republi-CONs have lost control by creating an environment, especially through hysterical talk radio, that allows The Donald to thrive.  It's too late to talk reason to Republi-CONs, so The Donald uses their fantasies and delusions to control them. 

Absolutely Trump-Brilliant (© NoBullU.com)!!!!

So, if The Donald can't reform D.C., who could.

The only concern I have is how long The Donald can keep up the con.

 Ergo, The Donald might need help to close the deal, aka win the nomination.

So Vote for The Donald.

UPDATE 14:  Lord knows we need reform in this country.  This blog explains why.

And I had great hope that The Donald could be a reformer.

But now I believe that The Donald is a narcissistic, egomaniacal,  religiously bigoted, misogynistic, racist, xenophobe. (Did I miss anything?)

He is our Hitler, and all good Americans have a duty to fight him and defeat him.

God will accept nothing less.

Join DontVoteHate.org.


NO MORE UPDATES:  I never got to explain: What could go wrong?  Are there dark clouds on the horizon?  More later.