This Bitch: Marsha Blackburn

Tennessee’s Senator, Marsha Blackburn, has been bragging lately about receiving an “award” for her work on behalf of international religious liberty. The oddly named 21Wilberforce, a self-described "Christian human rights organization dedicated to defending the universal rights of religion, belief, and conscience for all people" publishes a congressional scorecard and based Blackburn’s voting record 21Wilbeforce calls her a "Notable Leader."

Blackburn Tweeted the “honor”:

"Thank you @21Wilberforce for recognizing me with this award. It is extremely important to keep fighting for religious liberty around the globe."

This is the very same Marsha Blackburn who has a history of repeatedly stoking Islamophobia and has pushed to discriminate against Muslim people in the United States.

In December 2015, then-presidential candidate and soon-to-be twice-impeached, one-term loser demanded a "total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States” and Blackburn, the religious liberty honoree, back that stance.

After Thing 45 barred refugees from several mostly-Muslim countries in January 2017, Blackburn not only backed his "most responsible approach," but ran ads attacking her 2018 Democratic opponent for his opposition to the "immigration ban." She was listed as a speaker for a Southern Poverty Law Center-designated anti-Muslim extremist group and told a right-wing voter guide that "Islamic law" poses a threat to the nation and the U.S. Constitution. She also opposes teaching seventh graders about "the world of Islam" in Tennessee's public schools, calling it "indoctrination."

This is what passes for religious liberty in the GOP … I mean as long as you’re white and Christian.

This bitch.

The Funny Papers

Matt Wuerker, Michael de Adder, Kevin Siers, Adam Zyglis, Nick Anderson, Christopher Weyant, Bill Day, Clay Bennett, RJ Matson, Jack Ohman, Dave Whamond, Ted Littleford, Ed Hall, Marc Murphy, Darrin Bell

My Two Cents: _____ Attacked Jews In New York

There, I said.

Look, it’s like this … way back in 2016, _____ came down an escalator to announce he was running for president, and he started off by labeling Mexicans as drug dealers, rapists and murderers, invading our borders and taking our jobs. And then, as president, he went after those other brown people, Muslims, and wanted them banned from our country.

That’s hate;  that’s racism; that’s _____. But it gets worse, because his followers, all of whom hate the same people he does, and many more people, decided to get into the business of speaking out about “others,” meaning anyone who isn’t white and straight and Christian.

And we’ve seen a rise in hate crimes since _____ took office and that is no coincidence. When you stand as the leader of a country and denounce a group of people based, really, on the country of their skin, or the shithole countries they come from, you feed hate, and violence, and murder.

But then it’s not just the brown people, is it? This weekend we saw yet another anti-Semitic attack in New York, just one of dozens in the last few weeks. And why?

Simple, when you speak hate against a brown person, hate-filled people will go after brown people; a woman in Iowa is in jail because she ran down a young girl because that girl is Mexican. But you also feed the hate of people who hate the Jewish community, and we’ve seen a rise in anti-Semitism since_____ took office; and you also feed the hate of people who despise the LGBTQ+ community, and we’ve seen a rise in anti-LGBTQ+ crime since _____ took office; when you order children to be taken from their parents and held in cages, you feed the hate. And hate knows no color or race or gender or sexual orientation or ethnicity.

Hate just hates.

See, maybe he just wanted y’all to hate brown people, from south of the border, or the Middle East—well, not the brown Middle Easterners who give him money while they behead journalists, but he wanted y’all to hate.

And so every time there’s a shooting of mostly brown people in, oh, I don’t know, let’s say El Paso; and when there’s a shooting of a synagogue in Pittsburgh, for example; and when you have white people telling black people to get out of their parks, out of their dorm rooms, out of their hotel lobbies, out of their stores, you lay it at the feet of _____.

He fed the haters while running for office and then unchained them after he was elected.

So, yes, Donald J. _____ killed those people in New York this weekend, with the words he used to start his campaign. And let’s be clear, one day the hate will be directed at you, unless you do something about it.

Say Their Names: Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha, Deah Shaddy Barakat, Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha

Dr. Mohammad Abu-Salha testified this week before members of the House Judiciary Committee on hate crimes and the rise of white nationalism.

You may not have heard about it, but his testimony, describing the autopsy reports for his murdered daughters and son-in-law, left some members of the committee covering their mouths and in tears:

"I must be one of a few physicians, if not the only one, who read his own children's murder autopsy reports and details. They are seared into my memory."

The February 10, 2015 murders of 21-year-old Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha, her 23-year-old husband Deah Shaddy Barakat, and 19-year-old sister Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, shocked the Chapel Hill, North Carolina community where they had lived.

The Department of Justice investigated the deaths as a hate crime, but the suspect Craig Hicks, a neighbor, was ultimately charged with three counts of first-degree murder.

"Bullets macerated Yusor's and Razan's brains. Deah took many bullets to his arms and chest before he fell down to the ground. After that, the murderer saw that he was still breathing and shot him again in the mouth. … The last time we saw them in their coffins, Yusor's forehead was bulging and her hazel eyes had turned grey and lifeless. What was once Razan's warm and smiling face filled with life was now a lifeless stone cold and deadly pale."

Dr. Abu-Salha recalled an officer trying to comfort him at the scene of the murder:

"(The) officer whispered: 'They didn't suffer, it was swift, one shot to the back of the head.' His statement did not make it more bearable; nothing did."

Abu-Salha described the six weeks between the marriage of his daughter and son-in-law and their murders as "the happiest days of our lives... followed by one of the most painful days, filled with the greatest heartache we have ever experienced." His daughters were committed to volunteering at a dental clinic for Syrian refugees, and for a program that fed the homeless, among others:

"My wife and I raised them to be Muslim-Americans, proud of their country and their community. As Muslim as apple pie ... I'm sorry, as American as apple pie. That can be Muslim, too."

Then he added that it was their Muslim identity that got his daughters killed. Yusor had complained to her father about their "condescending" neighbor, Hicks, who "told her he hated how she looked and dressed."

"I am afraid for our country. In 2016 the FBI recorded a 67% increase in anti-Muslim hate crimes, and just weeks ago a young man in Indiana was shot in the back of the head by a man shouting anti-Muslim slurs."

During questioning, Abu-Salha recounted some of the hateful online messages he saw after his children's deaths … a tweet that said, "three down, 1.6 billion to go." … another that praised the murderer, "Greg [sic] Hicks should be given the Medal of Honor and released from custody." 

In his testimony, Abu-Salha urged the U.S. government to take similar action to stem hate speech online in the wake of his family’s tragedy and of the Christchurch shooting:

"We miss our children so much. At times the pain is just as sharp now as when they died. I ask you, I truly plead to you, not to let another American family go through this because our government would not act to protect all Americans.”

Our government does not act to protect all Americans; our president speaks hate of Muslims, and Mexicans, calling them terrorists and rapists. But the terrorist who took Yusor, Deah and Razan from their family was white, American, homegrown, and fed by hate from the top.

"Hate violence against members of my community cannot be ignored any longer. For far too long our public officials have turned a blind eye to the extremist violence that is killing our children – that killed my children. In 2012, a white supremacist murdered six and injured four at a Sikh gurdwara in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. In 2015, a white nationalist filled with racial hatred entered the predominantly African American Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, killing nine individuals. In 2018, a white nationalist burst into the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and shouted anti-Semitic slurs, killing 11 worshippers. How much longer will we allow this to continue?"

As Dr. Abu-Salha said at the end of his testimony:

"Please remember them, Yusor, Deah and Razan. They are my children and they are gone."

And if I have anything to say about it, they will not be forgotten. We cannot continue to live in a country that hates, that listens to hate speech from our so-called president, that allows hate speech to be spread online.

Oh yeah, I’m all for Free Speech, and Hate Speech is Free, but there should be consequences.

And we need to enact Hate Crimes laws because Yusor, Deah and Razan weren’t slaughtered for their cars, their wallets, their jewelry; they were meticulously gunned down in their own homes because they are, were, Muslim.

That is Hate.

CBS News

Tuesday Thought #2

Steve King ... Racist ... White Supremacist ... Congressman

Iowa’s Republican Congressman Steve King is a racist, a homophobe, a transphobe; he’s anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant; he’s every kind of bigot you’ve ever heard of, and probably a few you haven’t.

In 2002, as an Iowa state representative, King filed a bill requiring schools to teach that the United States “is the unchallenged greatest nation in the world and that it has derived its strength from … Christianity, free enterprise capitalism and Western civilization.” Western Civilization is a King code word for white people. He also sponsored a law to make English the official language of Iowa.

In 2005, in the US Congress, King introduced the English Language Unity Act, a bill to make English the official language of the United States, while suing the Iowa Secretary of State for posting voting information in Spanish, Laotian, Bosnian and Vietnamese.

King has called the deaths of Americans at the hands of undocumented immigrants “a slow-motion Holocaust” and claimed, without fact, that 25 Americans die daily because of undocumented immigrants.  He demonstrated a model of a 12-foot concrete border wall topped with electrified wire; both of these ideas became the rallying cry of _____ in 2016.

He has spoken, on the House floor, of ways police officers can spot undocumented immigrants by their clothing, their shoes, their speech. He opposed the Affordable Care Act’s mandate to cover contraception because he thought it would lead to the death of “civilization,” i.e. white folks.

On a 2012 panel at the Conservative Political Action Conference with Peter Brimelow, a white nationalist,  King said multiculturalism was a “tool for the Left to subdivide a culture and civilization into our own little ethnic enclaves and pit us against each other.”

In 2013, King came out against legal status for Dreamers because, “for everyone who’s a valedictorian, there’s another 100 out there that weigh 130 pounds and they’ve got calves the size of cantaloupes because they’re hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert. Those people would be legalized with the same act.” That seemed to set the stage for _____’s “some of them, I’m sure, are good people” remarks.

In 2015, King invited far-right, anti-Islam Dutch politician Geert Wilders to DC; Wilders has called Islam “not a religion,” said the Quran was “worse than Mein Kampf,” and called for the closing of mosques. In 2017, King Tweeted his endorsement of Wilders in Dutch elections:

“Wilders understands that culture and demographics are our destiny. We can’t restore our civilization with somebody else’s babies.”

Later, defending that Tweet, King said:“We’re watching as Western civilization is shrinking in the face of the massive, epic migration that is pouring into Europe. That’s the core of that tweet. They’re importing a different culture, a different civilization — and that culture and civilization, the imported one, rejects the host culture. And so they are supplanting Western civilization with Middle Eastern civilization and I say, and Geert Wilders says, Western civilization is a superior civilization — it is the first world.”

In 2016, at the Republican national Convention, where _____won the nomination, King claimed that nonwhite groups haven’t contributed as much as whites to civilization:

“This whole business does get a little tired. I would ask you to go back through history and figure out where are these contributions that have been made by these other categories of people you are talking about. Where did any other subgroup of people contribute more to civilization?”

On the heels of that lunacy, King told the Washington Post a few days later:

“The idea of multiculturalism, that every culture is equal—that’s not objectively true … We’ve been fed that information for the past 25 years, and we’re not going to become a greater nation if we continue to do that.”

In October, King met Marine Le Pen, the leader of France’s far-right party; he was the first elected American official to do so. He also met with leaders of the far-right Freedom Party, founded in 1950 by former Nazis, including Heinz-Christian Strache and Norbert Hofer.

Steve King recommended people read “The Camp of the Saints,” a racist 1973 novel about an invasion of Europe by nonwhite immigrants, and Tweets his agreement with Viktor Orban, Hungary’s authoritarian leader that “mixing cultures will not lead to a higher quality of life but a lower one.”

In 2018, he said he did not want Somali Muslims working in meatpacking plants in Iowa because he didn’t “want people doing my pork that won’t eat it, let alone hope I go to hell for eating pork chops.” He was then asked by a Huffington Post reporter if he is a white nationalist or white supremacist, and he said:

“I don’t answer those questions. I say to people that use those kind of allegations: Use those words a million times, because you’re reducing the value of them every time, and many of the people that use those words and make those allegations and ask those questions can’t even define the words they’re using.”

linked to the far-right Freedom PartyKing also endorsed Toronto mayoral candidate, Faith Goldy, who had recited the Fourteen Words, or 14/88, a Neo-Nazi slogan:

“We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.”

At that time the Anti-Defamation League demanded House Speaker Paul Ryan censure of King for endorsing Goldy, but nothing is done.

And finally, all this leads to 2019, when, in another interview, King says:

“White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization — how did that language become offensive? Why did I sit in classes teaching me about the merits of our history and our civilization?”

And that, and only that spurred Congress, now with a Democratic majority, to censure Steve King; that, and only that, spurred House Republican leaders to strip Steve King of all his committee assignments, including the powerful Judiciary and Agriculture Committees, and keep him from serving on any committee in this Congress.

Still, with all he’s said and done over the last decade, it took  many top GOP leaders several days before denouncing King's comments, although not his political beliefs or policies. But many House Democrats are acting to rebuke and censure white nationalist, white supremacist, racist Steve King.

Congressman Bobby Rush, the Democrat from Illinois, and a top member of the Congressional Black Caucus, said:

"He has become too comfortable with proudly insulting, disrespecting, and denigrating people of color. As with any animal that is rabid, Steve King should be set aside and isolated.”

And now it appears King is trying to walk back ten years of Hate Speech; he took the floor of the House to say he denounced the "evil ideologies" of white nationalism and white supremacism and called his poor choice of words a "rookie mistake."

Ten years? He’s been saying these things, publicly, for over ten years. But what I find most troubling about the GOP is that, if you go back and listen to some of the things King has said and done over the last decade, you’ll find many of his actions, many of his words, were lifted up and spread anew by _____ as he ran for office, and yet not one Republican denounced him for those words; not one Republican demanded he not be president; they stood by his said and refused to comment when he said Mexicans are drug dealers and rapists and murderers, though some are good people; they stood by and said nothing when he said of the riots in Charlottesville, that there are good people on both sides of that cause.

The GOP can remove King from committee after committee and rebuke him or censure him all they want, but the cancer in that party, that huge seed of racism, is still growing in the White House and they are doing nothing about it. 

Think about this: when asked about King and his racist views the so-called President of the United States said he hadn't heard anything about it. He didn't have an opinion on whether King should be censured, or if he should resign because, as he's often said, "some of them are fine people."

So, it’s up to We The People … get rid of the racist cancer in Congress and then remove it from the White House.

NCRM: Democrats

NCRM: Republicans

NYT

Domestic Terrorists Blame _____ For Their Crime

Lawyers for Patrick Stein, Curtis Allen, and Gavin Wright, three members of a Kansas militia group who were convicted of an anti-Muslim hate crime, actually argued in court that their clients should be granted leniency because their violence was incited by … you knew it … _____ and his Hate Speech.

The three men reportedly planned to bomb an apartment building in Kansas that housed a mosque and a large population of Muslim Somali refugees shortly before the 2016 election but were arrested before they could carry out the attack.

And so now their lawyers are asking for leniency using _____’s own words:

“The court cannot ignore the circumstances of one of the most rhetorically mold-breaking, violent, awful, hateful and contentious presidential elections in modern history, driven in large measure by the rhetorical China shop bull who is now our president.”

The lawyers argued that _____’s “rough-and-tumble verbal pummeling” in the 2016 presidential campaign “heightened the rhetorical stakes for people of all political persuasions.” And they cited recent polls showing a surge in anti-Muslim violence since _____’s election as an excuse for why these anti-Muslim asshats don’t deserve a life sentence.

Huh; so the lawyers for a trio of terrorists are arguing that they should be granted leniency in sentencing because the so-called president is an anti-Muslim ass.

I don’t know; I mean, I’ve heard those same words come out of that man’s mouth and yet not once have I opted to kill a Muslim or bomb a mosque, so maybe it wasn’t _____’s words that made you a terrorist maybe it is because they are terrorists who became emboldened by a terrorist in the White House to plan this attack. I mean, if we wanna blame _____ for all the hate in the world, then why aren’t we all haters?

Oh, because many of us don’t hate, and when we hear him speak his Hate Speech, we disgusted and revolted and speak out against it; we don’t follow along like idiotic little sheep.

Best thing to do would be to lock Patrick Stein, Curtis Allen, and Gavin Wright for life, then lose the key, and then each and every one of us who is sickened by this, work our asses off to stop it, and stop _____, and stop every single person who supports him.

By voting; by speaking up; by standing with our Muslim brothers and sisters because, and it's worth repeating, Muslims aren't terrorists ... terrorists are terrorists..

ShareBlueMedia

Matthew Whitaker Says Jews, Muslims and Atheists Cannot Be Judges

I thought when _____nominated Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III as Confederate Monument Attorney General, that was a low point, but I should have known that Fat Bastard could sink even lower into the swamp.

Yes, Matthew Whitaker, you boot-licking, ass-kissing, goose-stepping Deplorable, I’m looking at you.

Whitaker doesn’t like the Mueller investigation; he thinks it’s a rigged witch hunt—wonder where he got that phrase—and says he would never end it, he’d just cut the funding, so it would go away.

Luckily, the Democrats are in charge of the house and can fight him, and his master, on that, but … then there’s this:

In 2014, not so very long ago, Matthew Whitaker said that judges who do not have a New Testament “biblical view of justice,” should not serve on the federal bench and suggested that he would block the appointment of non-Christian judges if given the chance.

Yes, indeed, no Separation of Church and State for Matthew Whitaker; he also said atheists would be unfit to serve, as would …Holy Anti-Semite, Anti-Muslim Batman … Jewish and Muslim Americans.

In 2014, Whitaker was running for the Republican Senate nomination in Iowa and participated in a forum hosted by the religious-right Hate Group The Family Leader. The forum’s leader, Bob Vander Plaats, outlined the themes of the event in his opening remarks:

“We believe God has three institutions: It would be the church, the family, and government.”

The Republican nominees were then asked a series of questions about their religious values, including their views on federal judgeships. Whittaker's two competitors, Sam Clovis and Joni Ernst, said they would use faith-based criteria and make sure they acknowledged “natural law”—the belief that legal rights and morals were given to humans by God and were not derived from the rules of society.

But Whitaker, far more rightwingnut and dangerous, went further, saying that using natural law as a criterion for appointing federal judgeships did not go far enough:

“As someone that’s interacted with the federal judiciary a time or two, I will tell you that I have a unique perspective on federal judges. And while I agree that I want to understand their judicial philosophy and whether they understand natural law and natural rights and then the founding documents and how they fit together...I don’t think that gets us far enough because natural law oftentimes is used from the eye of the beholder," he continued. "What I’d like to see is things like their worldview … Are they people of faith? Do they have a biblical view of justice? I think that is very important.”

The moderator interrupted, asking:

“Levitical or New Testament?”

That’s a sly way of asking whether people of the Jewish faith should be banned from serving as federal judges.

“I’m a New Testament, and what I know is as long as they have that [New Testament] worldview that they’ll be a good judge.”

Funny, though, that these asshats who want to use their faith in government, while ignoring all other faiths, and non-faiths, in this country, seem to forget that the Founding Fathers made it pretty clear that religion be kept out of things because it muddles things up … especially in a country with more than one faith.

Whitaker, for now, is not talking about his hate-based philosophy, but I’m sure one day soon he’ll have to answer for it, and I cannot wait to see him try and squirm his way out of this when some of the Jewish-Americans, or Muslim-Americans or Atheists in Congress start asking question.

Newsweek

My Two Cents: _____ Fuels Hate and Violence

Rex Huppke is not a political columnist, and he’d be the first to tell you that. He does, however, write for the rather conservative-leaning Chicago Tribune to, as he puts it, provide “wry spin on today’s social trends, pop-culture misfires and political blowhards.” He writes often about _____, and will continue to do so, but wishes it wasn’t so:

“I write about this president often, and I’d like to write about him less, but I won’t, because he never stops behaving in a way that degrades our humanity. He never finds a bottom. And that’s not OK.”

And _____ sank to a new low last week in yet another speech where he described, in gruesome detail, a brutal attack on 16-year-old girl by immigrants whom he called “animals.” And, as in most _____ fear-mongering stories, there doesn’t seem to be any verification of the story; there is no innocent girl story in the press, and no band of marauding immigrant animals, either.

But _____ doesn’t care about facts; he cares about riling up his base; the anti-immigrant folks, the haters and the gun nuts. His choice of that fairy tale was to inspire hatred for anyone who is an immigrant in this country because, as we know after months of listening to ... and let this sink in ... the President of the United States spew hatred ... he needs to keep ‘us’—some of us—fearful, and maybe then they’ll ignore the ineptitude and corruption in his administration.

He wants to keep ‘us’ worried about ‘them’ so we don’t watch him. And the thing that I find most frightening is that, if you heard that story from a friend, your first question might be, “Where’d you hear that?” And your friend wouldn’t be able to answer because they made it up and so you’d probably walk away, shaking your head at the lunacy of your former pal. But not _____; as Huppke points out, his behavior is both “sadistic” and “intentionally dehumanizing.”

Again, worry about ‘them,’ and not about the fact that _____ can’t get anything done in DC—which is actually, in my mind, a good thing—that his White House is a clusterfuck of morons, and that, even with a GOP-controlled Congress, no one wants to help him out.

So he’ll spew hate to keep you on edge, to keep you on ‘his’ side against ‘them’ and all of his hate speech is meant to encourage the most base of ‘us’ to follow in his footsteps and deride, attack, or even threaten to murder, anyone who looks different.

Case in point ... Amber Hensley was caught on video threatening three Somali-American women with death.

Death; because they don’t look like the ‘us’ that fools like Amber Hensley have in her head.

The Somali-American women—Rowda Soyan, Sarah Hassan and Laleyla Hassan—were headed to a movie when Hensley approached them and started screaming; the women told Hensley they were recording her, and would give the video to the authorities. Hensley told them to “move their car” and then said this:

“Go home, go home. We’re going to kill all of you. We’re going to kill everyone one of you.”

After the video went viral, Hensley apologized, saying it was “not a Christian-like thing to do”:

“I would first like to apologize for the horrible things that I said ... It was not a Christian-like thing to do AT ALL and wish I could take it back, but I lost my cool and I can’t. I am terribly sorry. I just wish the whole video could be shown. And the things that were stated before she starts taping.”

Hensley then tries to excuse her actions by saying that the women had parked too close to her. Again she said:

“We’re going to kill everyone one of you.”

Hensley says because the women had parked too close to her car, she couldn’t get in; she says she asked them to move and they called her ‘fat’. She told them she was a Christian—right before she threatened to murder them all—and the women responded, “F**K Jesus.”

After making excuse after excuse for threatening to kill someone because ‘they’ don’t look like ‘us,’ Hensley admits there was no excuse for her behavior, and she “will take any form of punishment deemed fit.”

Hensley was fired from her job as a secretary at a Fargo accounting firm, Horab & Wentz:

“Horab & Wentz does not agree with or support the statements expressed by Amber Hensley in the recently posted video. She does not represent or reflect the views of Horab & Wentz. Ms. Hensley is no longer employed with Horab & Wentz effective immediately.”

For their part, Rowda Soyan, Sarah Hassan and Laleyla Hassan say they filmed the incident to show what happens to them every day, and when they tell Hensley they will show the video to the police, Hensley says:

“You think the police care?”

But maybe the police did care, because after the incident hit social media, Amber Hensley met with Leyla and Sarah Hassan at the Fargo Police Department to talk; Chief David Todd shared the story:

“The incident that happened at the Walmart parking lot ... shows we have some things to work on as a community and as individuals. The vast majority of us, if we look to the past of our grandparents, great grandparents or those before them—we identify with their heritage and have some pride in it.

...

We are all a little different and that is okay, in fact it’s good—if we strive to understand each other, accept each other and respect each other. If we do that, our diversity can make us stronger as a community.

Unfortunately, incidents like what happened this week ... can cause further division and set us back from progress we are trying to make as a community.

However, I want to put before you an example of what can be accomplished even though mistakes were made and unfortunate words were said. Amber Hensley, Sarah Hassan and Leyla Hassan have all expressed regret regarding their interaction and language with each other.

With an openness to reconciliation, these women have come together and talked through this incident and expressed their sincere regrets, apologies and most importantly, forgiveness to each other. This process has also allowed them to gain understanding and respect for each other.

Not everything is perfect in this resolution. We have some ugliness in our community that needs to be addressed and worked on [but] ... perhaps we can all take a lesson from what was an ugly unfortunate interaction and how even despite words being said that cannot be taken back, forgiveness and understanding can still be achieved.”

I like that the women took the time to meet after and talk, and apologize, and work on how they interacted with one another; but, I will say this: if you don’t have a hate in you, if you are not racist, you would never say the things Amber Hensley said. She needs to work on that; she needs to understand that we are all different, but that doesn’t make any of us ‘less than.’

Still, good on Chief Todd for wanting to do the right thing, helping his community, all of his community, to better understand one another.

I wonder how he might have felt had he attended another speech by _____—see, a full circle post—where _____ appeared to endorse police brutality, and then suggested that he, and he alone, will save the Second Amendment, because it would be replaced if he were not President.

Let’s ignore the fact that our President is too ignorant of government to realize that he, or any other president, cannot simply erase any amendment o the Constitution, and focus on how he spreads hate and advocates violence:

"When you see these thugs being thrown into the back of a paddy wagon, you see them thrown in, rough, I said, 'Please don't be too nice,' like, when you guys put somebody in a car and you're protecting their head, you know, the way you put their hand over, like, don't hit their head and they've just killed somebody? Don't hit their head? I said, 'You can take the hand away, OK?'"

Yes; hate, and violence. The president was encouraging police officers to ignore department policies and local, state, and federal law. And then this:

"Your Second Amendment is safe. Wasn't looking so good for the Second Amendment was it, huh? If _____ doesn't win, your 2nd Amendment is gone."

Actually, I believe most police officers, and departments—and officers and departments from around the country have blasted ____ for his hate speech—would be happier to have _____ gone, on or before the next election.

Look, let me make this queer: I’ve been around a while; I’ve seen presidents come and go. Some I liked; some, not so much.

George w. Bush comes to mind, but even Bush never advocated violence from our police officers; he may have been, and how do I put this delicately, “intellectually challenged” but he didn’t use hate speech to pit ‘us’ against ‘them’ and then stand by and let it happen.

That’s on _____; and his base.

Chicago Tribune Declares War On “Sadistic” _____

Amber Hensley Hate Speech

_____ Encourages Police

GOP Congressman Wants US To Join Forces With ISIS ... Are We Really Surprised By That?

Gosh, just as more and more of us are understanding that _____ is an uninformed, ill-qualified, mentally defective bully, along comes another Republican to try and wrestle the crown from that nest of muskrat fur atop the president’s head.

And I’m looking at you, California GOP Congressman Dana Rohrabacher.

See, Dana recently praised the ISIS attack in Tehran as a “good thing” and then actually suggested that the United States work with the terrorist organization. Yup, a Republican wants America to join forces with a radical organization that beheads civilians, rapes and sells women, and burns people alive. Isn’t that fun?

“We have recently seen an attack on Iran, and the Iranian government, the mullahs, believe that Sunni forces have attacked them. This may signal a ratcheting up of certain commitments by the United States of America. As far as I’m concerned, I just want to make this point and see what you think, isn’t it a good thing for us to have the United States finally backing up Sunnis who will attack Hezbollah and the Shiite threat to us? Isn’t that a good thing?”

Yup, he wants a US-ISIS coalition because, as long as ISIS is attacking the “right” people, we oughta help, and that, ladies and gentleladies, is the GOP finally coming clean as a wannabe terrorist organization.

And yet, should we be surprised at the idea of Republicans as terrorists? This is the GOP, and their tribal mentality, that their agenda comes before the country ... party over people. And as long as a Republican sits in the White House, as long as the GOP controls the Congress, hooking up with terrorists is a “good thing”.

Any political group that holds this thought—that ISIS can become an ally if they do something to further the GOP anti-Muslim “ideology”—is a party that has no morals, no sense of right and wrong, and that party is the GOP.

That’s why they are dead-set to destroy health care for millions in order to give millionaires a tax break; that’s why they are out to destroy public lands, national parks, and Native American lands, for a few extra coins in their pockets; that’s why they shed crocodile tears at the amount of gun violence and dead Americans while cashing those NRA checks; that’s why they can cut off  funding programs for children’s health ...  for the poor ... for the elderly ... for veterans ... without so much as a second-thought.

That’s the GOP, and goddess help us all while they are in power.

Daily Kos