Sep 10 2020

The Department Of Homeland Security Should Be Abolished

For one thing- “Homeland”. Sound a little Nazi to you?

For another thing Unindicted Co-conspirator Bottomless Pinocchio has turned the parts of it he can into his personal Schutzstaffel and the rest of it just doesn’t work at all. Corruption is pervasive.

Give the constituent Agencies back to the Cabinet Department they came from and ditch either ICE or CBP, you don’t need two Agencies that do the same damn thing. Also get rid of that “100 miles from an International Port of Entry” (any medium sized Airport near you) crap. TSA should hit the road with their Security Theater too.

You are thousands of times more likely to die of Corona than you are in a terrorist attack. Well, unless you count our Alt-Right Domestic Terrorists.

Official claims pressure to alter Homeland Security intel
By BEN FOX, Associated Press
September 9, 2020

A Department of Homeland Security official said in a whistleblower complaint released Wednesday that he was pressured by more senior officials to suppress facts in intelligence reports that President Donald Trump might find objectionable, including information about Russian interference in the election and the rising threat posed by white supremacists.

The official, Brian Murphy, alleged that senior DHS officials also pressed him to alter reports so they would reflect administration policy goals and that he was demoted for refusing to go along with the changes and for filing confidential internal complaints about the conduct.
…
Rep. Adam Schiff, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, released the complaint, which he said contained “grave and disturbing” allegations. He said Murphy has been asked to give a deposition to Congress as part of an investigation into intelligence collection by DHS related to its response to protests in Portland, Oregon, and elsewhere.

“We will get to the bottom of this, expose any and all misconduct or corruption to the American people, and put a stop to the politicization of intelligence,” the California Democrat said.

A Homeland Security spokesman, Alexei Woltornist, said the department generally does not comment on referrals to the inspector general but denied Murphy’s allegations. “DHS looks forward to the results of any resulting investigation and we expect it will conclude that no retaliatory action was taken against Mr. Murphy,” he said.

The complaint came the same day that acting Secretary Chad Wolf, who has been nominated by Trump to lead the agency, gave a “state of the Homeland” speech in which he said DHS is working to thwart election interference from any foreign power and all threats regardless of ideology.

“DHS stands in absolute opposition to any form of violent extremism whether by white supremacist extremists or anarchist extremists,” Wolf said. “We will continue our daily efforts to combat all forms of domestic terror.”

Murphy said in his complaint that he was directed by Ken Cuccinelli, the acting deputy DHS secretary, to modify a section of a report to make the threat posed by white supremacists less severe. He was told to play up the threat posed by left-wing groups to echo administration talking points around civil unrest following the protests over the killing of George Floyd.

Murphy said he refused to alter the report because doing so would “constitute an abuse of authority and improper administration of an intelligence program.” He was then taken off the project.

He said he made a number of reports on Russian disinformation efforts to senior DHS and administration officials between March 2018 and March 2020. The details are classified and not included in the whistle-blower complaint.

Then, in July, Wolf told him to hold back any reports on Russian election interference because they “made the president look bad,” according to the complaint. He also said Wolf told him to report on interference by China and Iran, instead of Russia, and those instructions came from White House national security adviser Robert O’Brien. Murphy said he objected and was excluded from future meetings on the subject.
…
Murphy said that, after he was removed from working on a DHS intelligence report, a draft was leaked to the media in which Russia’s interference was placed on an equal footing as activities by Iran and China in a way that was “misleading and inconsistent with the actual intelligence,” the complaint said.

Murphy came to DHS in March 2018 from the FBI, where his career included being assigned to the New York field office on Sept. 11, 2001. In his complaint, he alleged that efforts to manipulate the intelligence he oversaw started under former Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen.

He said Nielsen and her deputies pressed him to vastly overstate the number of migrants apprehended at the southwest border who have confirmed links to any terrorist organization. That occurred as the Trump administration was rolling out tougher measures against illegal immigration. Murphy said he declined to confirm an inflated figure, saying to do so would be not only improper but illegal. The secretary nonetheless provided the incorrect figure to Congress.

Cuccinelli, he said, pressed him to change reports on conditions in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras as the administration was seeking to halt a surge of people seeking asylum from Central America at the U.S.-Mexico border.

“Mr. Cuccinelli expressed frustration with the intelligence reports, and he accused unknown ‘deep state intelligence analysts’ of compiling the intelligence information to undermine President Donald J. Trump’s policy objectives with respect to asylum,” he said in the complaint.

Murphy said that over the summer he was instructed by Wolf and Cuccinelli to alter assessments on protests to make sure “they matched up” with Trump’s statements on the involvement of antifa and anarchists in the demonstrations in Portland and elsewhere. He said he told them he would only report accurate information.

Shortly thereafter, Wolf reassigned him to the management division. That followed media reports that Murphy’s unit collected information on journalists covering the DHS response to the protests. Murphy said the reports were incorrect and Wolf agreed but said it would be “politically good” to move him while the acting secretary hoped to be nominated to the secretary post by Trump.

Sep 10 2020

Pondering the Pundits

Pondering the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news media and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Pondering the Pundits”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Karen Tumulty: What Bob Woodward’s book tells us about Trump

It is hardly surprising when President Trump says something that turns out not to be true.

What has not always been clear, however, is what drives him to lie so constantly. Is it because he’s ignorant? Or because he is deluded? Or simply that he is malevolent? The possibilities are not necessarily exclusive of one another.

Now, thanks to The Post’s Bob Woodward, we have learned the answer with regard to what history is likely to rank as perhaps the most consequential of all the falsehoods that Trump has uttered.  [..]

The consequences of Trump’s refusal to be straight with the country, we now know, have been tragic.

Rather than taking cautionary measures that could have spared immeasurable suffering, such as assuring that adequate testing was available, the president denied what he knew was true. Or, as he so memorably put it at a news conference in March: “I don’t take responsibility at all.”

In that case, however, Trump was telling us something fundamental about himself. Those six words are both the most fitting epitaph for his presidency, and the central reason that Americans should put an end to it when they go to the polls in November.

Amanda Marcotte: Trump’s claim he didn’t want “panic” is laughable — he wants it focused on imaginary threats

Trump doesn’t want “panic” over 190,000 dead — but he’s begging voters to panic over antifa invading “the suburbs”

On Wednesday morning, veteran journalist Bob Woodward released audio recordings of two damning interviews with Donald Trump, conducted in the weeks before the coronavirus pandemic swept the U.S. In those conversations, the president revealed that he was knowingly lying to the public about the dangers of COVID-19.

“I wanted to always play it down,” Trump told Woodward on March 19, when the transmission rate was still low and there was a real chance of containing the virus — but only by telling the truth about the risks so the public would take the problem seriously.  [..]

“I don’t want to create panic, as you say,” Trump claimed at a White House event Wednesday afternoon, adding that he lied to the public in order to “show confidence.”

This is transparent BS. The reality is that people needed to “panic” over the coronavirus, or at least to become seriously concerned and alarmed. All that means, in this context, is taking the virus seriously and following public health recommendations to keep from transmitting it. Trump’s desire to delude the public was rooted in a total lack of concern for anyone but himself and his desire to gaslight his way to re-election.

But also, the truth is that Trump loves it when people panic — but only over imaginary threats he’s conjured up to distract them from the economic collapse and a pandemic that may kill close to 250,000 people by Election Day.

Jesse Wegman: The Electoral College Will Destroy America

And no, New York and California would not dominate a popular vote.

Last week, Nate Silver, the polling analyst, tweeted a chart illustrating the chances that Joe Biden would become president if he wins the most votes in November.

The “if” is probably unnecessary. It’s hard to find anyone who disputes that Mr. Biden will win the most votes. This isn’t a liberal’s fantasy. In a recent panel discussion among four veteran Republican campaign managers, one acknowledged, “We’re going to lose the popular vote.” Another responded, “Oh, that’s a given.” The real question is will Mr. Biden win enough more votes than President Trump to overcome this year’s bias in the Electoral College. [..]

The Electoral College as it functions today is the most glaring reminder of many that our democracy is not fair, not equal and not representative. No other advanced democracy in the world uses anything like it, and for good reason. The election, as Mr. Trump would say — though not for the right reasons — is rigged.

The main problem with the Electoral College today is not, as both its supporters and detractors believe, the disproportionate power it gives smaller states. Those states do get a boost from their two Senate-based electoral votes, but that benefit pales in comparison to the real culprit: statewide winner-take-all laws. Under these laws, which states adopted to gain political advantage in the nation’s early years, even though it was never raised by the framers — states award all their electors to the candidate with the most popular votes in their state. The effect is to erase all the voters in that state who didn’t vote for the top candidate.

Michelle Goldberg: Trump’s Deliberate Coronavirus Deception

Bob Woodward’s tapes tell us something new about how the president lies.

Recordings, real or rumored, have been a leitmotif of the Trump era. [..]

Trump recordings loom so large because they offer the prospect of breaking through his alternative reality, of nailing down this most slippery and mendacious of presidents, of showing everyone who he really is. But even those that materialize are often quickly forgotten, as Trump’s approval rating stays low but stubbornly stable and one scandal is eclipsed by another. Our politics suffers no shortage of incontrovertible proof of Trump’s venality. What it lacks is accountability.

It’s possible, maybe even likely, that the famed journalist Bob Woodward’s utterly damning tapes of Trump discussing the coronavirus will fall into this same nothing-matters cycle. But decent people with public platforms should try to make sure that doesn’t happen.

t’s not just that these tapes reveal the president lying about the pandemic that has ravaged America on his watch. What’s shocking — even after more than three and a half numbing years — is the deliberate, willful nature of the lies. Unlike most Trump tapes, Woodward’s actually tell us something new about the president, rather than just confirming what we think we already know.

Michelle Cottle: Even Big Pharma Is Turning On Trump

The president is the Coronavirus vaccine’s worst hype man.  

President Trump has become so shameless about subverting the public interest to his political self-interest that Big Pharma — not generally regarded as the most civic-minded of entities — is now scrambling to control the damage.

On Tuesday, nine drug companies issued a joint pledge that when it came to releasing a vaccine for the coronavirus, they would “stand with science” and “make the safety and well-being of vaccinated individuals our top priority.” They vowed to follow the guidance of the appropriate regulators and to make decisions based on “large, high quality clinical studies,” as is standard protocol. [..]

As P.R. strategies go, it may seem odd for drugmakers to offer unsolicited assurances that they will not cut corners on safety. This feels a little bit like a server at Olive Garden greeting customers with a promise not to spit in their iced tea. Why even raise the possibility?

Such is the extent to which Mr. Trump has politicized and undermined public faith in everything — especially his own administration.

Sep 10 2020

It’s actually a good thing.

So Corona Aid Lite (the Beer Trademark Police will probably come after me for that) failed Cloture 52 – 47 with Rand Paul as a Republican defector (“It”s too good for them!”) and Democrats unanimously opposed.

It’s a lesson in Minority Rights for one thing, in the majority rule House it would have passed with a 5 vote margin. Be careful what you wish for when you talk about ending the Filibuster. Court Packing on the other hand…

Moscow Mitch’s proposal was incredibly bad for any number of reasons and parsimonious too, a mere $300 Billion. No aid for States that might be forced to cut critical services (Fire Departments, Teachers, Hospitals). Unemployment assistance cut in half and not retroactive. No Stimulus Check.

But they did remember to include Unlimited Liability Protection for Corporations that force you to clean Cesspools of Pus if you get sick. “No one could have imagined.”

Democrats block slimmed-down GOP coronavirus relief bill as hopes fade for any more congressional support
By Erica Werner, Seung Min Kim and Tony Romm, Washington Post
September 10, 2020

Democrats blocked a pared-down GOP coronavirus relief bill in a bitterly disputed Senate vote Thursday, leaving the two parties without a clear path forward to approve new economic stimulus before the November elections.

The vote was 52-47, far short of the 60 votes that would have been needed for the measure to advance. Democrats were united in opposing the legislation; all Republicans voted in favor except Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.).

For Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), wrangling a majority of the Senate behind the legislation constituted a measure of success, after months when Senate Republicans have been hopelessly divided. But next steps — if any — toward the kind of bipartisan deal that would be needed to actually pass a bill to provide new benefits to the public were unclear.

Negotiations between congressional Democrats and administration officials that collapsed in August have not restarted.

“It’s sort of a dead-end street,” said Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.). “Very unfortunate, but it is what it is.”
…
The GOP bill that was defeated Thursday contained new money for small businesses, coronavirus testing and schools, and $300 weekly enhanced unemployment benefits to replace a $600 weekly benefit that expired July 31 for some 30 million jobless workers. The measure included roughly $650 billion in total spending, but it would repurpose roughly $350 billion in previously approved spending, bringing the tally of new funding to around $300 billion.

The measure did not include a second round of $1,200 stimulus checks for individual Americans, even though that’s something the White House supports. It also excluded any new money for cities and states, a top Democratic priority as municipal governments face the prospect of mass layoffs because of plunging tax revenue. And it contained some conservative priorities that Democrats dismissed as unacceptable “poison pills,” including liability protections for businesses and a tax credit aimed at helping students attend private schools.

One reason the talks in July stalled is because many Republican senators refused to rally around a $1 trillion bill McConnell had tried to advance, weakening the Kentucky Republican’s hand in talks. He instead deferred to the White House to try and broker a deal with Pelosi, but that didn’t advance even to a formal proposal. Before Thursday’s vote, it appeared that a large number of Senate Republicans were reluctant to spend any more money following Congress’s approval of an unprecedented $3 trillion in emergency aid this Spring. But McConnell kept working on a bill as a way to balance the needs of a half-dozen vulnerable GOP incumbents who were eager to vote on new aid for their constituents as they campaign for re-election.
…
Democrats contended that the Senate GOP legislation, written without any Democratic input, was designed to fail and intended only to give Republicans cover for inaction. Republicans argued Democrats were refusing to agree to any new relief because they didn’t want to help President Trump or bolster the fragile economic recovery ahead of the election.

“Working families have suffered and waited and wondered whether Washington Democrats really care more about hurting President Trump than helping them through this crisis,” McConnell said on the Senate floor ahead of the vote.

McConnell also expressed indignation about a comment made Wednesday by Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), who said that “Republicans are the enemy of the good” when asked whether Democrats had allowed the perfect to become the enemy of the good in coronavirus talks.

“The Americans we represent, however they vote, know that Republicans aren’t our enemies, and Democrats aren’t our enemies,” McConnell said. “The coronavirus is the enemy.”

In his own floor remarks, Schumer kept up his attacks on the GOP legislation and on McConnell, whom he has labeled the “Secretary of Cynicism.” Schumer noted that Republicans waited months to try to restart negotiations after House Democrats passed a sweeping $3.4 trillion bill in May that included generous new benefits for individuals and money for testing and vaccines.

“Republicans dithered and delayed. They pushed their chips in with President Trump’s lot and hoped the virus would miraculously disappear and everything would be all better,” Schumer said.

Schumer said the bill defeated Thursday was “a fairly transparent attempt to show the Republicans are doing something when, in fact, they want to do nothing in reality.”

Nevertheless both Pelosi and Schumer held out hopes that failure of the bill would be followed by a new round of bipartisan negotiations — despite absence of any signs that that is happening.

“I still have some hope once this bill is defeated, if past is prologue, there’s actually a significant chance that the public heat on many Republican senators as they go back home will have them come to their senses, and they’ll start negotiating with us in a serious way,” Schumer said.

Congress does need to take some action this month, to avert a government shutdown when agency-wide funding expires at the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30. Lawmakers are in talks on a short-term spending bill that would extend government spending at existing levels through the election, although they have not yet agreed on how long it will last.

In the absence of new bipartisan talks on a coronavirus relief bill, some senators and aides speculated this week that Congress will move quickly to pass the short-term “continuing resolution” and then adjourn so lawmakers can return home to campaign for re-election.

Sep 10 2020

Cartnoon

Seth, back in the Studio.

Interesting, not funny.

Sep 10 2020

The Breakfast Club (Everyday Kindness)

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:00am (ET) (or whenever we get around to it) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

This Day in History

Hungary lets East German refugees leave for West Germany; Louisiana U.S. Senator Huey Long fatally shot; Elias Howe gets sewing machine patent; ‘Gunsmoke’ premieres; Singer Jose Feliciano born.

Breakfast Tunes

Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac

The everyday kindness of the back roads more than makes up for the acts of greed in the headlines.

Charles Kuralt

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Sep 09 2020

Proving What We Already Know

So among the “Bombshells” competing for our attention is the revelation that he lied about Corona. Bob has it on tape.

Good for Bob. Cohen has tapes too, likewise Mary, also Lester Holt (not for nothing).

Two points. It won’t change a damn thing. The Racist Dominionists won’t care- he hates the right people. The second point is I can’t understand the amazement of the Villagers. This is old “News”, you reported it months ago. Are you as crippled in the Object Permanence department as he is?

Still, it’s what everyone is talking about today.

Trump says he knew coronavirus was ‘deadly’ and worse than the flu while intentionally misleading Americans
By
Robert Costa and Philip Rucker, Washington Post
September 9, 2020

President Trump’s head popped up during his top-secret intelligence briefing in the Oval Office on Jan. 28 when the discussion turned to the coronavirus outbreak in China.
…
Ten days later, Trump called Woodward and revealed that he thought the situation was far more dire than what he had been saying publicly.

“You just breathe the air and that’s how it’s passed,” Trump said in a Feb. 7 call. “And so that’s a very tricky one. That’s a very delicate one. It’s also more deadly than even your strenuous flu.”

“This is deadly stuff,” the president repeated for emphasis.

At that time, Trump was telling the nation that the virus was no worse than a seasonal flu, predicting it would soon disappear and insisting that the U.S. government had it totally under control. It would be several weeks before he would publicly acknowledge that the virus was no ordinary flu and that it could be transmitted through the air.

Trump admitted to Woodward on March 19 that he deliberately minimized the danger. “I wanted to always play it down,” the president said.
…
The book is based in part on 18 on-the-record interviews Woodward conducted with the president between December and July. Woodward writes that other quotes in the book were acquired through “deep background” conversations with people in which information is divulged and exchanges recounted without the people being named.

“Trump never did seem willing to fully mobilize the federal government and continually seemed to push problems off on the states,” Woodward writes. “There was no real management theory of the case or how to organize a massive enterprise to deal with one of the most complex emergencies the United States had ever faced.”

There’s other stuff too but that’s today’s topic.

I think it’s pretty funny and not at all coincidental that we’re seeing a lot of books.

Sep 09 2020

Pondering the Pundits

Pondering the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news media and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Pondering the Pundits”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Amanda Marcotte: Death Star blows itself up: Trump ran his campaign finances like his businesses — into the ground

It’s no surprise that Trump’s campaign is a giant grift. But will his donors keep pouring good money after bad?

The “Death Star”: At the beginning of this year, that’s what Donald Trump’s then-campaign manager, Brad Parscale, dubbed the billion-dollar fundraising operation at the heart of the Trump campaign.

The choice was a telling one, largely as a reminder that many Republicans in the Trump era are not only aware that they’re the bad guys, but are proud to align themselves with some of the notorious villains of pop culture history. But more than one commentator was also quick to point out that the Death Star isn’t just a symbol of evil, but of hubris, because it’s destroyed by the plucky heroes who may be outgunned but have the wit and courage to defeat the foolhardy tyrants of the Empire.  [..]

Life rarely plays out like a children’s sci-fi movie, but I am happy to say that the people who made Death Star jokes turned out to be right. The Trump campaign’s Death Star had its own version of the ray-shielded particle exhaust vent that allowed the Rebel Alliance to fly directly into its reactor core to blow up the entire apparatus: The greed and incompetence that defines Trump and everyone around him.

On Monday night, the New York Times published an article so satisfying that it felt almost pornographic, about how the Trump campaign has burned through most of that Death Star cash, with little to show for it — except, of course, when it comes to the bank accounts of the Trump family and their ancillary leeches.

Heather Digby Parton: Trump’s contempt for the military reveals his fatuous, bloated ego — and could finish him off

The president’s sadistic fantasy view of the world may finally be too much for those expected to obey his orders

You’d have to have been in a coma since last Thursday not to have heard about Jeffrey Goldberg’s big article for The Atlantic in which a number of anonymous former Trump administration figures reveal that the president has expressed total disdain for military service. The political world has talked of little else for the past five days, and all this chatter took place over a holiday weekend, when a lot of people who usually pay little attention to the news undoubtedly heard about it. [..]

On Monday, Trump held another of his campaign “briefings” at the White House in which he inexplicably added yet another insult to the litany:

I’m not saying the military’s in love with me — the soldiers are, the top people in the Pentagon probably aren’t because they want to do nothing but fight wars so that all of those wonderful companies that make the bombs and make the planes and make everything else stay happy.

According to a recent poll of the military, even before this latest flap, while it’s true that officers dislike him even more than enlisted personnel, the latter aren’t “in love” with him either:

Katrina vanden Heuvel: How the Biden campaign can turn Trump’s ‘strength’ into a weakness

Political strategist Karl Rove famously advised attacking an opponent’s strength and turning it into a weakness. Joe Biden should take note.

Polls find President Trump leading Biden in one area. It isn’t character, competence or the coronavirus. It’s the economy. [..]

The Biden campaign should be pounding the reality of Trump’s economy over and over again while talking about what Biden would do to create jobs and lift wages. Instead, the Democratic convention focused largely on Trump’s lack of character and empathy. Biden traveled last week to Pennsylvania, where the jobless rate is 13.7 percent, and, as Jane McAlevey reported in the Nation (where I am editorial director), he talked about looting and violence rather than about jobs.

The press has tracked Trump’s lies and distortions, reporting on tell-all books from the president’s relatives and former lawyer. Former administration figures detail Trump’s ignorance and insults. Others — including Obama — bemoan the threat Trump poses to democratic norms. But too many Americans still give Trump unwarranted credit for the economy.

Too many working people believe that while Trump is a cad, he is their cad, on their side. That’s his strength — and it’s where Democrats should focus. Bringing down Trump won’t take lies or exaggerations. Just lay out the truth and hammer it over and over to turn Trump’s “strength” into a weakness.

Jennifer Rubin: The latest dumb Republican talking point on covid-19

Short of money, back on the defense for disparaging the military, responsible for bollixing up the response to the pandemic that has killed 186,000 people and desperate to use racial unrest to its advantage, the Trump camp now throws out one mindless talking point after another. The latest: Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.) is going anti-vax on a covid-19 vaccine.

On its face, the claim is ludicrous. Sure enough, what she actually said was that she would not trust President Trump’s word on the readiness of a vaccine, which he promised — and then unpromised — would be ready by Election Day. Actually, she went further to say that “there’s very little that we can trust that … comes out of Donald Trump’s mouth.” Considering he has proffered more than 20,000 lies, she has a point, right? She is in good company, since a large percentage of voters do not trust Trump either.

What she did say is, “I would trust the word of public health experts and scientists, but not Donald Trump.” She further vouched for Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. [..]

Oh, so she did not disparage the vaccine. She disparaged Trump, who has proved his dishonesty, if not self-delusion, time and time again. So why do right-wing pols and pundits say such things? Defending Trump is impossible, so they resort to slamming the opposition even if they have to make up stuff.

Jean Guerrero: Trump’s re–election strategy is torn from white supremacist playbooks

Trump and Stephen Miller want to stoke panic about antiracist activists, even though white supremacists are the real threat to Americans

President Trump’s re-election strategy consists of convincing enough Americans that anyone who supports racial equality wants to destroy the US, while at the same time insisting that systemic racism is not real but rather a figment of the left’s imagination.

It’s a self-contradictory strategy only a cult leader could sustain, and it comes straight from the playbook of white supremacist propaganda, which Trump’s senior advisor and speechwriter Stephen Miller knows well, as I report in my book Hatemonger: Stephen Miller, Donald Trump and the White Nationalist Agenda.

One of the main recruiting tactics of white supremacists was popularized for the first time in the United States in Miller’s home state of California during the 90s. It’s the white genocide theory. Formerly articulated in terms of threats to the white race, the conspiracy theory is now frequently packaged in terms of threats to western heritage – to make it more palatable to average Americans who might be turned off by overt racism.

Sep 09 2020

We’ll be right back.

And now, some words from our sponsor.

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We don’t really have any sponsors, we’re privately funded.

Sep 09 2020

Cartnoon

Bananas. Potatoes. Grapes.

Sep 09 2020

The Breakfast Club (Battle Of Lake Travis)

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:00am (ET) (or whenever we get around to it) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

This Day in History

Inmates seize control of Attica prison in upstate New York; Mao Zedong, Communist China’s founding leader, dies; Elvis Presley first appears on TV’s Ed Sullivan Show; Soul singer Otis Redding born.

Breakfast Tunes

Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac

Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.

Leo Tolstoy

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