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Trump Timeline ... Trumpocalypse
- Thread starter CdnGuy
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Let’s stipulate that Trump is not another Hitler. Nevertheless, there’s something disturbingly resonant about this observation from a German citizen who lived through Nazism and who realized, only in hindsight, that he hadn’t noticed its slowly tightening grip: “To live in this process is absolutely not to be able to notice it. One no more saw it developing day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing.”
That jibes with the views of Ruth Ben-Ghiat, an American history professor who studies totalitarianism. One year ago, she warned that when a so-called “strong man” gains power in a democracy, “the climate shifts little by little. A few big gestures of aggression, and then things settle down. Then the cycle repeats, until one day the tipping point is reached and you find your democracy has been transformed into an autocracy. We’re at serious risk of this happening in America.”
True that. Because early this week, while we’ve been going to work and and paying our bills and seeing our friends and binging TV and saying “how ’bout those royals” and basically living our lives, we may well have reached and passed the tipping point.
Yeah I know, we’re a lot more durable than the Weimar Republic. John Cassidy says in The New Yorker that we’re “a stoutly built ocean liner with a maniac at the helm,” potentially strong enough to survive the maniac, but now he believes, as I do, that “it feels as though an important threshold has been crossed.”
That’s what happens, lest anyone hasn’t noticed, when a president under federal criminal investigation takes the unprecedented step of attacking the integrity of federal investigators — sowing public distrust of an independent Justice Department — and “hereby” demanding, with apparent success, that law enforcement share information about its far-flung investigation of a president’s potentially illegal links to foreign money and foreign powers.
TAKING A KNEE
https://claytoonz.com/2018/05/24/taking-a-knee/
After the NFL released their ruling Wednesday that they are banning kneeling during the American national anthem and will fine anyone who does so, Vice President and chief kisser of the orange rumpus, Mike Pence tweeted, “Today’s decision by the @NFL is a win for the fans, a win for @POTUS, and a win for America. Americans can once again come together around what unites us – our flag, our military, and our National Anthem. Thank you NFL.”
What Mike Pence reveals with that tweet is that it was never about the fans, our military, or our nation. It’s all about Trump.
Quarterback Colin Kaepernick started the silent protest to draw attention to police brutality and other social injustice against African-Americans. A few players joined him over time, and after Donald Trump used the issue to divide America further, even more players, white and black, took part.
Trump used the issue to attack black athletes and throw red meat to his base of racist supporters under the pretense that not standing was dishonoring veterans. That’s rich coming from a man who said a POW was not a war hero (I like people who aren’t captured), insulted Gold Star Families, and was himself a draft dodger.
Pence used the issue to stage a photo-op and even flew across the country pull it off.
None of the critics have actually listened to what the protest has been about, instead pretending it’s something else. Screaming a lie about disrespecting the military is easier and more politically beneficial than confronting the reality that we have a social and legal system that discriminates against black Americans.
The National Football League was wise years ago when they prevented Trump from becoming a team owner. The “Buffalo Trumps” has a horrible ring to it anyway. The league should have exercised that same wisdom and refused to listen and pander to Trump.
The league is allowing players to stay in the locker rooms during the anthem, but will fine teams of any players on the field who refuse to stand. The teams can then punish the players any way they choose. Sure, the players are employees, but can an employer force employees to pledge loyalty? Expect a legal challenge.
The NFL uses patriotism as a marketing tool and even takes money from the Department of Defense to stage tributes in taxpayer-owned stadiums, in cities where they receive huge tax breaks.
The anger directed at the players is based entirely on race, not patriotism. You don’t see the same outrage from Republicans toward Trump for his disrespect of the troops. They don’t ask him to apologize and to be accountable for the attacks he’s waged. These are the same people complaining about “safe spaces” on college campuses.
It’s funny how people are told they can protest as long as they do it peacefully, then told to do it silently, and now they’re being told to do it where nobody can see them. Basically the rule from Republicans is, don’t protest while black.
One solution the NFL didn’t take advantage of was, leave it alone. An atmosphere where you allow people to express themselves is stronger than one of forced compliance. Since the NFL failed, the players should practice a new protest.
I suggest they go on the field during the anthem and stand. While standing, they should put their fist in the air and give the black power salute like Tommie Smith and John Carlos did in the 1968 Olympics. The new policy doesn’t prohibit a raised fist while standing. Then, we’ll hear from the critics what their problem really is about black athletes making a point.
Standing up for what your beliefs is honorable. Kissing Trump’s ass is a disgrace. Pandering to a wannabe authoritarian is unAmerican.
https://claytoonz.com/2018/05/24/taking-a-knee/
After the NFL released their ruling Wednesday that they are banning kneeling during the American national anthem and will fine anyone who does so, Vice President and chief kisser of the orange rumpus, Mike Pence tweeted, “Today’s decision by the @NFL is a win for the fans, a win for @POTUS, and a win for America. Americans can once again come together around what unites us – our flag, our military, and our National Anthem. Thank you NFL.”
What Mike Pence reveals with that tweet is that it was never about the fans, our military, or our nation. It’s all about Trump.
Quarterback Colin Kaepernick started the silent protest to draw attention to police brutality and other social injustice against African-Americans. A few players joined him over time, and after Donald Trump used the issue to divide America further, even more players, white and black, took part.
Trump used the issue to attack black athletes and throw red meat to his base of racist supporters under the pretense that not standing was dishonoring veterans. That’s rich coming from a man who said a POW was not a war hero (I like people who aren’t captured), insulted Gold Star Families, and was himself a draft dodger.
Pence used the issue to stage a photo-op and even flew across the country pull it off.
None of the critics have actually listened to what the protest has been about, instead pretending it’s something else. Screaming a lie about disrespecting the military is easier and more politically beneficial than confronting the reality that we have a social and legal system that discriminates against black Americans.
The National Football League was wise years ago when they prevented Trump from becoming a team owner. The “Buffalo Trumps” has a horrible ring to it anyway. The league should have exercised that same wisdom and refused to listen and pander to Trump.
The league is allowing players to stay in the locker rooms during the anthem, but will fine teams of any players on the field who refuse to stand. The teams can then punish the players any way they choose. Sure, the players are employees, but can an employer force employees to pledge loyalty? Expect a legal challenge.
The NFL uses patriotism as a marketing tool and even takes money from the Department of Defense to stage tributes in taxpayer-owned stadiums, in cities where they receive huge tax breaks.
The anger directed at the players is based entirely on race, not patriotism. You don’t see the same outrage from Republicans toward Trump for his disrespect of the troops. They don’t ask him to apologize and to be accountable for the attacks he’s waged. These are the same people complaining about “safe spaces” on college campuses.
It’s funny how people are told they can protest as long as they do it peacefully, then told to do it silently, and now they’re being told to do it where nobody can see them. Basically the rule from Republicans is, don’t protest while black.
One solution the NFL didn’t take advantage of was, leave it alone. An atmosphere where you allow people to express themselves is stronger than one of forced compliance. Since the NFL failed, the players should practice a new protest.
I suggest they go on the field during the anthem and stand. While standing, they should put their fist in the air and give the black power salute like Tommie Smith and John Carlos did in the 1968 Olympics. The new policy doesn’t prohibit a raised fist while standing. Then, we’ll hear from the critics what their problem really is about black athletes making a point.
Standing up for what your beliefs is honorable. Kissing Trump’s ass is a disgrace. Pandering to a wannabe authoritarian is unAmerican.
WASHINGTON — After the body of Jesse Lewis, age 6, was recovered from his classroom at Sandy Hook Elementary School, his father, Neil Heslin, cradled him for a final time. At the top of Jesse’s forehead was the gunshot wound that ended his life. “It meant a lot to be able to see him,” Mr. Heslin said in an interview. “When he was born, I was the first to see him, and I was the last one to hold him.”
Alex Jones, an online conspiracy theorist whose InfoWars website is viewed by millions, seized on this agonizing recollection to repeat the bizarre falsehood that the 2012 shooting that killed 20 first graders and six adults at the elementary school in Newtown, Conn., was an elaborate hoax invented by government-backed “gun grabbers.”
On his radio show, Mr. Jones said Mr. Heslin needed to clarify “because the coroner said no, the parents weren’t allowed to have touched the kids or have seen the kids.” He played a video in which the InfoWars “reporter” Owen Shroyer says of Mr. Heslin, “He’s claiming that he held his son and saw the bullet hole in his head.”
“That is not possible,” Mr. Shroyer said.
More than five years after one of the most horrific mass shootings in modern history, the families of Sandy Hook victims are still enduring daily threats and online abuse from people who believe bogus theories spread by Mr. Jones, whom President Trump has praised for his “amazing” reputation.
Now, for the first time, the families are confronting Mr. Jones in court.
In three separate lawsuits — the most recent was filed on Wednesday in Superior Court in Bridgeport, Conn. — the families of eight Sandy Hook victims as well as an F.B.I. agent who responded to the shooting seek damages for defamation. The families allege in one suit, filed by Koskoff, Koskoff & Bieder in Bridgeport, that Mr. Jones and his colleagues “persistently perpetuated a monstrous, unspeakable lie: that the Sandy Hook shooting was staged, and that the families who lost loved ones that day are actors who faked their relatives’ deaths.”
More broadly, the families are seeking society’s verdict on “post truth” culture in which widely disseminated lies damage lives and destroy reputations, yet those who spread them are seldom held accountable. The suit filed on Wednesday emphasizes Mr. Jones’s reach and connection to Mr. Trump. On his show last year, Mr. Jones called himself and his listeners “the operating system of Trump.” Later he said, “I’m making it safe for everybody else to speak out just like Trump’s doing, on a much bigger scale.”
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