Today In: Ain't We Proud?!

[Deleted User 266]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_j9ogc1XMRo

[Shirley]

This really belongs in the "Dumbfuck In Charge" thread, because what Trump is doing is monumentally "dum":

https://twitter.com/ryanbeckwith/status ... 9987363845

...Many of Trump’s core supporters undoubtedly agree with his characterization of “the squad” of four progressive freshmen, and making them the face of the Democratic Party has potential benefits for the president and Republicans.

But too much of Trump’s rhetoric does something else that actually undermines his prospects — it inflames Democrats of all stripes, reminding them why they feel they must defeat the president next year.

In other words, Trump is a turnout machine for the Democrats, as well.

The timing of Trump’s attacks on New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her compatriots is more than a little odd.

The president once again injected himself into a hot-button debate about tolerance, diversity, race and exactly who or what is an American just as the Democratic divide during the presidential nominating process was starting to raise questions about whether party progressives and pragmatists would both support the eventual nominee.

Instead of withdrawing from the limelight so that former Vice President Joe Biden, and Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and Kamala Harris could fight it out over “Medicare for All,” decriminalizing illegal immigration, free college, reparations and the Green New Deal, the president put himself in the middle of everything, essentially changing the subject in a way that benefits Democrats.

Obviously, Trump craves the limelight and the attention, and he believes he must continue to feed red meat to his supporters. But doing so inevitably angers, energizes and mobilizes those voters who find him offensive, or worse.

As we saw during the 2018 midterms, Trump is in serious trouble when Democratic turnout among key constituencies — people of color, younger voters and progressives — is strong, and when swing voters — suburbanites and whites with a college degree — slide away from the GOP and to the Democrats.

[...]

[Shirley]

What is Aleppo?"

https://twitter.com/mattkatz00/status/1 ... 0005641218

[twocoach]

I would bet he has 20 moments of "I have never heard of that" every single day.

[Deleted User 266]

What is Aleppo?"

https://twitter.com/mattkatz00/status/1 ... 0005641218

TIME OUT!!!!

When was the meeting exactly? I ask because........

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa- ... SKCN1UB2QM

WTF is going on?

[twocoach]

So the US shot down an Iranian drone earlier. It allegedly came within 1000 yards of the USS boxer and ignored calls to stand down so the ship destroyed it using "electronic jamming".

What could go wrong with that?

[Deleted User 266]

Thankfully they were "released" about a half hour ago. Don't know details on the release just yet.

https://www.wbez.org/shows/wbez-news/oh ... 7b0419e913

[twocoach]

The kids are American citizens who are not charged with any crime. How is this not just kidnapping? WTF are we doing here?

This is seriously the type of nation people are proud of? This is some next level barbaric shit. They are US citizens having their basic rights as citizens boldly and shamelessly violated.

[RussianHawk]

So the US shot down an Iranian drone earlier. It allegedly came within 1000 yards of the USS boxer and ignored calls to stand down so the ship destroyed it using "electronic jamming".

What could go wrong with that?

Did someone really say they shot it down with electronic jamming??

[Geezer]

A US military official told CNN that members of the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit aboard the USS Boxer were operating counter-drone jamming equipment and downed the suspected Iranian aircraft.
US Marines from that unit are trained to use maneuverable, ground-based jamming systems "that can detect, identify and defeat drones with electronic attack," according to the Department of Defense. Those systems can be used while on land or aboard a ship like the USS Boxer.

[Shirley]

[Shirley]

Trump has become the voice of insecure white Americans

When the racist chant began Wednesday night — “Send her back! Send her back!” — President Trump paused to let the white-supremacist anger he had stoked wash over him. George Wallace would have been so proud.

That moment at a Trump campaign rally in North Carolina was the most chilling I’ve seen in American politics since the days of Wallace and the other die-hard segregationists. Egged on by the president of the United States, the crowd was calling for a duly elected member of Congress — Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), a black woman born in Somalia — to be banished from the country because Trump disapproves of her views.

This hideous display followed Trump’s weekend call for Omar and three other House Democrats, all of them women of color, to “go back” to the “totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.” All of this is an unmistakable echo of the racist taunts that used to be leveled at minority groups that had the temerity to demand civil rights and the gall to achieve political and economic success — go back to Africa, go back to Mexico, go back to China.

...Trump no longer pretends to be the voice of forgotten working-class Americans. He has become the voice of insecure white Americans, whom he encourages to resent foreigners, immigrants and uppity minorities. His border policy — separating babies from their mothers, putting children in cages — is the fulfillment of an ugly revenge fantasy. Cruelty isn’t an unfortunate byproduct of Trump’s crackdown on asylum seekers. It’s the whole point.

[...]

[twocoach]

And right on cue, a clerk at a convenience store got into an argument with some kids, two of whom are from Mexico, and told them "they need to go back to their own country".

The last 3 years have certainly led me to look upon my neighbors and community with new eyes. I really thought we were in a better place than we obviously are.

Turns out that some folks will always be looking for someone to put down so that they feel like they aren't at the bottom of the societal barrel.

[Shirley]

https://twitter.com/BettyBowers/status/ ... 5755043841

[seahawk]

https://twitter.com/BettyBowers/status/ ... 3408007168

[Shirley]

https://twitter.com/tedlieu/status/1155 ... Etfw">July