It depends on WHICH law, now, doesn't it?

Just when you think the Trump Administration surely can sink no lower, some kakistocrat in the executive branch looks at you, smirks and says "Hold my Zyklon B."

Today in Berlin-am-Potomac, there was the daily White House press briefing with Obergruppenlügner Sarah Huckabee Sanders, and the subject of children being forcibly wrested from their asylum-seeking parents at the Mexican border came up.

It went something like this.

During one exchange, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said to CNN reporter Jim Acosta, a frequent sparring partner, “I know it's hard for you to understand even short sentences.”

Acosta had asked Sanders about Attorney General Jeff Sessions's attempt, earlier in the day, to use the Bible to justify the Trump administration's immigration policies, which include splitting up families that arrive at U.S. borders seeking asylum.

“I would cite you to the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13 to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained them for the purpose of order,” Sessions said in Fort Wayne, Ind.

Other biblical passages, including some written by Paul, have been cited by advocates of softer immigration policies. In Romans 12, for example, Paul wrote: “Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality. ... Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position.”

“Where in the Bible does it say that it's moral to take children away from their mothers?” Acosta asked.

“I'm not aware of the attorney general's comments or what he would be referencing,” Sanders replied. “I can say that it is very biblical to enforce the law.”

Sanders and Acosta went back and forth until Sanders insulted Acosta's comprehension skills. On a telecast of the briefing, another reporter could be heard scolding Sanders for a “cheap shot.”

Sanders then falsely asserted that the Trump administration is separating children from their parents “because it's the law, and that's what the law states.” In fact, separation is not required by law but is a Trump administration practice that White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly calls a “tough deterrent.”

Sanders gave the next question to CBS's Paula Reid, who performed an on-the-spot fact-check.

Unmoved, Sanders continued to insist, falsely, that the Trump administration is simply doing what the law mandates. When Reid asked whether the administration will “take responsibility for its policy change,” Sanders replied, “It's not a policy change to enforce the law.”

OH . . . and this is what the United States' Catholic bishops think of the Trump Administration's "biblical" immigration policies:

Leading U.S. Catholic bishops on Wednesday escalated their criticism of the Trump administration’s immigration policies, calling new asylum-limiting rules “immoral” and rhetorically comparing the crackdown to abortion by saying it is a “a right-to-life” issue.

One bishop from the U.S.-Mexico border region reportedly suggested “canonical penalties” — which could refer to withholding the sacrament of Communion — for Catholics involved in implementing the Trump policies.

The comments came as the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops — the organizing body of bishops — gathered for a biannual meeting in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. The topics of migration and asylum have long been a focus for the U.S. church; more than 50 percent of U.S. Catholics under the age of 30 are Latinos.

The statements, including by the conference’s president, Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, archbishop of Galveston-Houston, came two days after Attorney General Jeff Sessions ruled that fear of domestic violence or gang violence aren’t clear grounds for seeking asylum in the United States. Sessions said asylum claims have expanded too broadly.

But the bishops said the ruling this week came on top of other Trump White House moves that they oppose. Those include ending a program that protected from deportation the “dreamers,” young undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children, and reducing significantly the number of refugees allowed into the United States.

“At its core, asylum is an instrument to preserve the right to life. The Attorney General’s recent decision elicits deep concern because it potentially strips asylum from many women who lack adequate protection. These vulnerable women will now face return to the extreme dangers of domestic violence in their home country. This decision negates decades of precedents that have provided protection to women fleeing domestic violence,” said a statement Wednesday by DiNardo in his capacity as USCCB president. 

(snip)

According to the Religion News Service, Tucson Bishop Edward Weisenburger raised the possibility of implementing canonical penalties for Catholics “who are involved in this,” referring to children being separated from their families at the border. Canonical penalties can range from denial of sacraments to excommunication, though Weisenburger did not specify what he intended beyond referring to sanctions that already exist for “life issues,” RNS reported.

“Canonical penalties are there in place to heal,” Weisenburger said. “And therefore, for the salvation of these people’s souls, maybe it’s time for us to look at canonical penalties.”

Efforts to reach Weisenburger for details were not immediately successful late Wednesday.

Some activists noted that it was rare for bishops to even talk about spiritual penalties in a political context, aside from warnings from some bishops to politicians who support abortion rights. John Gehring, a former USCCB staffer who is now a progressive faith advocate at Faith in Public Life, tweeted that “it’s hard to overstate” the significance of Weisenburger’s remarks.

'Top of the world, Ma!' Or . . . spare us your white bleat

Steve King, the Nazi-lovin’ Iowa congressman. Again.

Donald Trump’s Amerika. Still.

Identity politics, culture warriors and vilification of those unlike ourselves. Always.
 
Much has been said over the last year and a half about the need to understand the beleaguered, alienated Americans demeaned by arrogant progressives, poor souls who have lashed out electorally, using the only weapon available to them. Thus, President Donald Trump.

Blow up a skyscraper with a jetliner, you’re the most notorious terrorist in history. Blow up a country with a fascistic orange imbecile, and we’re supposed to understand your goddamned pain. Gotcha.
 
Listen. I have pain. Oftentimes, I feel beleaguered, alienated and demeaned by arrogant virtue signalers who think I’m a “hater” by mere virtue of my religion. Identity politics is not just a knuckle-dragging, right-wing phenomenon mostly experienced in trailer parks, King's congressional district in Iowa and at Nuremberg for Dummies events featuring the president of the United States of Amerika . . . er, America.

Despite my beleaguered, alienated distress, I made the conscious choice not to take it out on the rest of the country. Neither did I take it out on minorities, refugees, gays, the poor or undocumented immigrants. That would have been profoundly wrong.

By November 2016, anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear knew exactly who and what Donald Trump was. He wasn’t shy about letting us know, and the press wasn’t exactly, shall we say . . . reticent.

We knew. We knew.

We knew that Trump acted like a nut and talked like a fascist. We knew he was reckless in word and in deed. We knew he was a liar. We knew he was a cheat. We knew he was a cad, a philanderer, a vulgarian and a misogynist. We knew he was a raging narcissist.



We knew he didn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground.

We also knew that, for all her myriad faults as a public servant and a politician, Hillary Clinton wasn’t an idiot, wasn’t a racist, wasn’t a fascist, wasn’t certifiable — and wasn’t in Vladimir Putin’s hip pocket.



A majority of voters held their noses and voted for Not the Fascist Buffoon, a.k.a., Hillary Clinton. They voted for not blowing up the United States, despite everything. They voted for not making things worse. They eschewed the hissy fit.



I was among that popular-vote majority. I don’t know a lot of things, but I knew President Donald John Trump would be an existential threat. Events thus far are proving me right.

Others, however, wanted to “shake things up.” Consider them shook.

Trump gets owned by Little Rocket Man

THOSE ENABLERS of that unfortunate electoral-vote majority shook up the lives of people who could just use a little affordable health care right now.

They shook up the lives of desperate migrants fleeing to a Trump-addled Amerika . . . er, America . . . because almost anything was better than being killed by Salvadoran or Honduran gangs, or being staggeringly poor for one day more, or looking at the future of one’s children and seeing nothing.

Now many get to look on as la Migra tear the little ones out of their arms at a detention center, and they get a glimpse of hell.

The Trumpkins shook up their own manufacturing jobs, too. Full-scale trade war with the entire world ought to work wonders for their economic prospects.



And, hey! Amazing how a just 80,000 or so proud “deplorables” in just the right spots on the electoral map could — Dare we dream? — shake up the entire global order. Well, it’s all shook up.

The Iranians perhaps are going to build the Bomb now, Little Rocket Man in North Korea is our best buddy (Yeah, right) just a few months after Trump was threatening to nuke him and his . . . and, oh, by the way, the Western alliance is in tatters, Canada is our enemy, and pretty much the whole rest of the world hates our guts. This all happened in the past month or so.

Cue Jerry Lee Lewis. There’s a whole lot of shakin’ goin’ on.

Yeah, you have a shitty job, the pencil-neck geeks are makin’ fun of you, and Barack Hussein Obama and the liberal establishment have capped your ass a couple of times with a long gun.



What to do . . . what to do?



“Made it, Ma! Top of the world!”


 
FASCIST AUTHORITARIANISM and racist identity politics: They’re the gifts that keep on taking. Taking your freedom, taking your dignity, taking a country’s prosperity, taking your idealism, taking your hope . . . taking your soul. And all you got was that stupid Make America Great Again trucker cap.



Well, Trump voter, if you had any sense right now, you’d be feeling like a Trump Organization contractor after the bankruptcy hearing.

So, let’s talk about “identity politics” for a second.

What’s your “identity”? White? Christian? Conservative? ‘Merkun?
 
Not “one of them”?

None of us, you know, are just any one thing. For me, being American is somewhere down the line of my identities -- somewhere behind human, child of God, husband, Catholic and smartass. "My country, right or wrong" doesn't cut it with me.

Just like "Mein reich, richtig oder falsch" was less than persuasive among the Allies when Germans used it as a justification for doing Adolf Hitler's bidding. There are consequences when your country is wrong, and you are not immune when you acquiesce to evil — because "my country.”

Do not, Brother Trumpkin, ask me to understand you or sympathize with your plight as you stand proudly with your evil boy in the White House, telling me it’s all good and justified just because you were pissed off at the world. America’s prisons are filled with misunderstood, pissed-off souls who got psychic relief by robbing a Quickie Mart or blowing somebody’s brains out.

I’m with Esquire’s Charles P. Pierce — I don’t effing want to hear it. Because two wrongs, etc., and so on.

It might be important to understand why half of Americans initially supported Donald Trump, but we have no need to understand why people support this administration now, as it inflicts evil upon evil both here and abroad, upon both nations and vulnerable individuals.

We didn't need, in the heat of battle, to understand the Nazis' desire to be Nazi. We needed to understand how best to stop the damned Nazis.

We didn't need to understand the complex dynamics of racism and white supremacy to unleash all legal and societal hell against Jim Crow.

In the 1940s, denazification could begin only after we kicked the Nazis' asses and turned Germany into ruins.

The only thing Trumpkins need to hear from the world now, as the horrors of their boy Trump mount, is "You must have had your reasons for voting abject evil into the White House, and we can talk about that. Later. But there is no justification in heaven or on earth for supporting what Trump is turning America into. None. And you will be stopped."

Some 'very fine people' in Charlottesville, Va.

 
LIKE I SAID, I’m a Catholic. Not a liberal Catholic, not a conservative Catholic . . . a Catholic. Period. Paragraph.

As a Catholic, I believe in the concept of divine judgment. For that matter, so did non-Catholic Abraham Lincoln, who thought the Civil War was God’s divine judgment against slavery and the country that tolerated it for so long.



Me, I think we have it coming today for any number of reasons. The continuing scourge of racial injustice would be just one. My particular concept of divine judgment, however, is that God gives sinful people, countries and societies just enough rope to hang themselves.

I figure about now, America is swinging like the pendulum on a cuckoo clock. It won’t get better from here. Not for a good while.

We, in our blind arrogance, just can’t see that yet. But we will soon enough, and “the least of these” whom we abuse — in the name of Trump and “Well, we were pissed off” — will be avenged. Alas, Trump will not save our sorry selves.

Place not your faith in golden calves . . . or orange asses. For "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."

It's dangerous to have courage in an age of cowards

Click to enlarge

 
Trumpism is an apocalypse, an unveiling and a revelation in the original Greek sense of the word.

What previously was hidden from many now is visible to all -- and the choice we face as Americans is crystal clear.

"Which side are you on, boys? Which side are you on?"

One of the vanishingly few pluses to this apocalypse is the revelation of true backbone, conviction and integrity among some Republicans and conservatives who previously were just seen as partisan warriors in the right-wing tribe. Michael Gerson is among this number.
 

'When the king is a liar, truth becomes treason.'

HE'S BEEN anti-Trump from the start, has been clear about why he's opposed Donald Trump and has, on principled grounds, cast himself out of his tribe because his tribe has shown itself to be massively intellectually and morally corrupt. And in this age where tribalism is all -- and you don't have to look far to see this; you're on social media, after all -- it is no small thing to stand alone, reviled to some extent by all sides.

If this all goes even more sideways than it already has, folks like Gerson will be among the first to be rounded up and thrown into the gulag. Remember that as you read this.

No, there is no bottom for right-wingers to hit

Let's just call this staggeringly odious and misleading Internet ad what it is.

It's the right-wing crazy machine's "Where the white women at!?" moment. There's no other explanation for using that artwork of Barack Obama, and using it in the manner of Cleavon Little meets Snidely Whiplash.

Particularly when Obama hasn't been president for a year and a half now.

Boris Badenov . . . president's FSB handler

It's something worthy of Boris Badenov . . .  or a Washington dark-money advocacy group with ties to the Koch brothers.

The spectacle of Republicans resorting to Obama-baiting -- still -- to thwart an effort to continue regulating a utility like, well, a utility just beggars belief. Or it would have beggared belief a decade ago. You know, before the Great "The President's a What???" Freakout.

And now that Donald Trump is president, I'll believe anything. Except, of course, a single word that comes out of his mouth.

IN AN AMERICA lost somewhere on the wrong side of a pee-colored looking glass, the old Jim Crow political tactic of n***** baiting has become the postmodern coin of the realm for Republicans. That's fair enough. After all, they've been looking more like Klansmen every God-forsaken day in this deviant and dysfunctional Age of Trump.

Thus, we have the right resorting to this "Where the white women at!?" demonizing of a man who's no longer running things -- all in the name of letting Corporate America screw consumers and potential economic rivals as much as possible.

No doubt, this is another GOP "freedom" moment.

And, as Janis Joplin told us all 47 years ago, "Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose."

Back to the future with President Stupid

Well, ladies and germs, it would appear that President Stupid is about to get us all into a real, honest-to-God trade war of the Smoot-Hawley variety.

Those never end well.

I fear the chill'uns are about to get a lesson on what it was like when their grandparents -- folks my age -- were teenagers and college students. The cool stuff you really wanted was really expensive, and you seriously had to save up for it.

In 1980, I was working about 20 hours a week at minimum wage -- then $3 an hour. Today, that would work out to $9.22. And being a total gear head, I really wanted a cool new stereo receiver.

To get one, I had to save for months. The Yamaha receiver I bought cost just shy of $400, or around $1,100 in 2018 dollars. That was serious money then, and it's even more serious today, as wages haven't come close to keeping pace with inflation the past four decades.

Later, I decided I wanted a color TV, a nice one, for my bedroom.  So I got a "Sony of my owny," to borrow the phraseology of the era's advertisements for the brand. It was a 12-inch Trinitron color set with push-button tuning. I also could tell you the model, but that would just bore you and out me as a total anorak, which is a particularly geeky way to say "nerd."

My Sony cost a mere $369.95 ($1,086.25 today).

GOOD LUCK doing that now as a student making minimum wage at a part-time job. For one thing . . . your wages have been depressed.

For another thing, your depressed wages in 2018 go toward lots of stuff we didn't have in the late 1970s and early 1980s -- like monthly cellphone bills.

And monthly cable-TV bills to watch programs and sporting events that were on free, over-the-air TV in 1980.

And then there's Hulu and Netflix and Amazon Prime Video so you can watch the popular shows that aren't on cable.

Oh, yeah. There's your monthly broadband-Internet bill, too.

Then there's college tuition. In 1979, my old man shelled out $295 in tuition and fees for me to attend Louisiana State University full time for the fall semester ($995.29 in 2018, about a $2,000-a-semester discount over one of today's "reasonably priced" state universities). Back then, state legislatures tended to think public universities were, well . . . public.

By the standards of today's Republican Party, we all were pinko-communist, socialist radicals living in a thoroughly collectivized country . . . and we liked it. We particularly liked not being bankrupted by student-loan debt which, of course, can't be erased by bankruptcy.

And I saw Bruce Springsteen in 1980 for the princely sum of $8 a ticket ($23.30 today). The Who cost $12. I had great seats.

Sucks to be you, kids. There's a reason so many of you live with Mom and Dad till you're 30. 

SUCKS TO BE us old farts, too. When prices go through the roof, the economy craters and our 401(k) retirement accounts come to naught, we'll probably die at age 80 . . . shivering in an unheated hovel, eating cat food and wallowing in our own shit.

On the bright side, maybe Donald Trump will just get us nuked instead, and we'll never know what hit us.

. . . and Trump knows 'em all

From The Washington Post:

President Trump grew frustrated with lawmakers Thursday in the Oval Office when they discussed protecting immigrants from Haiti, El Salvador and African countries as part of a bipartisan immigration deal, according to several people briefed on the meeting.

“Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?” Trump said, according to these people, referring to countries mentioned by the lawmakers.

Trump then suggested that the United States should instead bring more people from countries such as Norway, whose prime minister he met with Wednesday. The president, according to a White House official, also suggested he would be open to more immigrants from Asian countries because he felt they help the United States economically.

In addition, the president singled out Haiti, telling lawmakers that immigrants from that country must be left out of any deal, these people said.

“Why do we need more Haitians?” Trump said, according to people familiar with the meeting. “Take them out.” 

IF SHITHOLE IS as shithole does, the United States might have become the biggest shithole of them all on Nov. 8, 2016.

Elections have consequences

Great.

Wack and Wacker are having a d***-measuring contest with thermonuclear weapons. Who knew that voting for a bat-shit crazy fascist might result in nuclear war?

One must wonder whether life, death and posterity still matter to Americans -- particularly those who voted in favor of Götterdämmerung in November 2016. If you are among those in this accursed land who still value life, love your children and hold out hope for posterity, this tweet is what it's all about.

God help us, every one.

Chief Sh*t for Brains strikes again

With a couple of intensive years in charm school, Il Douche (pronounced "DOO-shay") could possess enough tact and social graces to join the Ku Klux Klan.

This, America, is what we have elected president -- a deeply cruel, stupid, bigoted, tactless and mentally unstable fascist man-child. This is who represents the United States to the world . . . and who the United States comes to more closely resemble with each passing day he sullies the American presidency.

Donald Trump is a vile man and a worse president. If this is not what we are as a people -- yet -- it apparently is what the Mortal Minority would have us become.

From Politico:

President Donald Trump mocked Sen. Elizabeth Warren at an event Monday honoring Native American veterans, invoking his “Pocahontas” nickname for the Massachusetts Democrat as he talked about how long Native Americans have been in America.

Trump hosted Navajo code talkers, who were recruited into the U.S. Marine Corps to communicate in the Pacific region during World War II, at the White House.

“I just want to thank you because you’re very, very special people,” Trump said to the group. “You were here long before any of us were here — although we have a representative in Congress who they say was here a long time ago. They call her Pocahontas. But you know what? I like you. Because you are special.”

Trump — who spoke in front of a portrait of Andrew Jackson, the former president who signed the Indian Removal Act — did not mention Warren by name. But he frequently mocks her by calling her “Pocahontas,” a nickname he created during his 2016 presidential campaign. The derisive sobriquet pokes fun at Warren’s claim of Native American heritage when she was a law professor, which became a campaign issue during her 2012 Senate run.

REPENT, America. The end of us is nigh.

3C&T: Always first with products for today

Click for full-size version

From Vox:

Mueller’s team describes Papadopoulos as a “proactive cooperator.” That’s a big deal.

Here’s why: Mueller purposely sealed the indictment and kept the arrest secret so that others wouldn’t know Papadopoulos was working with his team — because the probe might be using Papadopoulos to obtain even more information on possible Trump-Russia collusion.

The Toronto Star’s Daniel Dale reports that when prosecutors consider someone to be a “proactive cooperator,” it could signal that that person was wearing a wire. And if that’s true, that means Papadopoulos might’ve talked to Trump campaign officials with a wire on. That’s still speculative, of course, but it could pose a serious problem for Trump if officials with secrets to keep unknowingly divulged information to a wired-up Papadopoulos.

Diary of a mad white president . . . or just another day in hell

Donald Trump is the devil. And the devil is lord in America.

Since its founding, the United States has been a country with a guardian angel sitting on one broad shoulder and a demon on the other. Sometimes, we listen to the angel.

Other times, we invade Mexico because we can . . . and to grab some land. We go to war in defense of slavery. We pal around with Mr. Jim Crow. We decide 58,000 dead American soldiers is an acceptable price for not losing face in Vietnam. The list goes on.

Tiny hands and all

Now, one could be excused for believing that Americans have decided to skip the middleman altogether and just install the devil as president. Donald Trump, to be fair, is not the devil. But he is a devil. The difference is only a matter of lowerarchy.

The devil presides over his people from an oval office in which there are no corners to hide. Like the real deal below, he wouldn't think of harming a hair on our chinny-chin-chin -- directly. That, he convinces us to do ourselves, to ourselves.

Our devil in Washington is not the persecutor we're all looking for -- or at least the one the alleged Christians among his minionish base have been expecting forever. Ol' Devil Trump is the subverter we never saw coming.

Check that. Trump is the subverter we damn well saw coming, but kept trying to pass off as something else entirely.

In our nation's capital and in Anytown, the subverter-in-chief bids his victims forward one by one to tell each how he must offer up his immortal soul this day. One of today's dead men walking was retired Gen. John F. Kelly, White House chief of staff and Gold Star father.

"General," sayeth our demonic majesty, "you gotta get me out of this." "This," as we all now know, is the matter of what the president said to the young widow of Army Sgt. La David T. Johnson. Johnson was one of four soldiers killed in an ambush while serving as advisers to troops fighting Islamic extremists in Niger.

Kelly's mission, should he choose to accept it -- and he did -- would be to somehow normalize the grossly ham-handed, insensitive thing Trump said to Myeshia Johnson about her KIA husband, whose name he couldn't be bothered to utter. Probably because he couldn't remember it.

Trump's idea of comforting the stricken is to tell an Army widow that her husband “knew what he signed up for . . . but when it happens it hurts anyway.”

Kelly's idea of selling that to the American people as perfectly normal is "Why, that's exactly what my buddy said to me when my boy got killed in Afghanistan!"

That's a paraphrase boiled down by me. Here is what he actually told the assembled White House press corps. In this extract, Kelly starts out by explaining Trump had a question for him:

And he said to me, what do I say?

I said to him, sir, there's nothing you can do to lighten the burden on these families. But let me tell you what I tell them. Let me tell you what my best friend, Joe Dunford, told me, because he was my casualty officer. He said, Kel, he was doing exactly what he wanted to do when he was killed. He knew what he was getting into by joining that 1 percent. He knew what the possibilities were, because we're at war.

And when he died — and the four cases we're talking about Niger, in my son's case, in Afghanistan — when he died, he was surrounded by the best men on this earth, his friends.

That's what the president tried to say to four families the other day.

I was stunned when I came to work yesterday morning and brokenhearted at what I saw a member of Congress doing, a member of Congress who listened in on a phone call from the president of the United States to a young wife, and in his way tried to express that opinion that he's a brave man, a fallen hero.

He knew what he was getting himself into, because he enlisted. There's no reason to enlist. He enlisted. And he was where he wanted to be, exactly where he wanted to be, with exactly the people he wanted to be with when his life was taken.

That was the message. That was the message that was transmitted.

It stuns me that a member of Congress would have listened in on that conversation, absolutely stuns me. And I thought at least that was sacred. You know, when I was a kid growing up, a lot of things were sacred in our country. Women were sacred, looked upon with great honor. That's obviously not the case anymore, as we see from recent cases. Life, the dignity of life was sacred. That's gone. Religion, that seems to be gone as well. Gold Star families, I think that left in the convention over the summer.

I just thought the selfless devotion that brings a man or woman to die on the battlefield, I just thought that that might be sacred.

And when I listened to this woman and what she was saying and what she was doing on TV, the only thing I could do to collect my thoughts was to go and walk among the finest men and women on this earth. And you can always find them, because they're in Arlington National Cemetery.

I DO NOT doubt that Kelly, the career military man, found comfort in his friend's words. I also do not doubt that Kelly's preferred script for these difficult conversations is entirely too complicated to be followed by "a fucking moron" with an emotional quotient measured in negative numbers.

So . . . here we are. Trump botched a script most people -- because common sense, sensitivity and basic human compassion -- would not follow when attempting to console a young war widow with two young children and a third on the way. Trump's words not only were heard by Mrs. Johnson, but by everyone in the funeral-home limousine as family and friends traveled to the airport to receive the body of Sgt. Johnson.

One of the family friends happened to be a member of Congress. Rep. Frederica S. Wilson (D-Fla.) had known the Johnson family for years. She also had been a mentor to Sgt. Johnson and his two brothers. She was his father's school principal years before.

And she was outraged by what she heard on speakerphone.

Too bad for her. The only unforgivable sin in the Church of Satan -- Trumpistan is to shine light on the sins of our father below.

When one disses the devil, the sulfurous one has any number of acolytes who will try to snuff out the light as they snuff out their own self-respect. In the case of Wilson, the Church of Satan lowerarchy -- at least in my viewing of what it's trying to pull off here -- went full-bore for racist stereotyping with no hesitation at all.  Let's review:

It stuns me that a member of Congress would have listened in on that conversation, absolutely stuns me. And I thought at least that was sacred. You know, when I was a kid growing up, a lot of things were sacred in our country. Women were sacred, looked upon with great honor. That's obviously not the case anymore, as we see from recent cases. Life, the dignity of life was sacred. That's gone. Religion, that seems to be gone as well. Gold Star families, I think that left in the convention over the summer.

I just thought the selfless devotion that brings a man or woman to die on the battlefield, I just thought that that might be sacred. 

IT TAKES little effort to read between those lines. After all, the Trumpian base isn't that bright, and its attention span isn't that long. That said, the multitude of Trump's minions are outdistancing the there-are-none-so-blind White House press (who maybe need to get out more) on this one.

Briefly, the White House is sending the nearly unmistakable message that Frederica Wilson is just another crazy, angry black woman who's simply out to stir up shit and lay waste to every social norm precious to proper white Americans.

We're to see the congresswoman as some sort of malevolent Madea, out to throw a potful of hot grits in the face of the Great White Dope Hope, then cold-cock him with the empty pot. Right before she tears up Arlington National Cemetery via unlawful use of a front-end loader.

That's the message our government wants to send to alt-white America, which is the only one that matters to the devil.

Not so long ago, which seems like a lifetime ago, presidents didn't talk like this. Presidents didn't send staffers out to pull stunts like this. Richard Nixon, for God's sake, would not have been so brazen or so emotionally stunted -- and that's saying something.

 That's obviously not the case anymore, as we see from recent cases.

There are worse things than taking a knee

'Well, I guess he knew what he was getting into.'

-- Donald Trump
speaking to pregnant
widow of Green Beret

I am from south Louisiana. When I was growing up, there were certain colorful words you might have used to describe such a "man" as Donald Trump.

One who just said what he said to the pregnant widow of a Green Beret killed in combat in Niger.

"Goddamn son of a bitch" would be where the description began. The rest I must leave to your imagination.

The tragedy of my home state -- the tragedy of my country -- is that so few still have the moral imagination or the moral vocabulary to call a goddamn son of a bitch a "goddamn son of a bitch" when they see the goddamn son of a bitch.

Worse, we elected the goddamn son of a bitch president of the seemingly God-damned United States of America.

CBS News continues where I no longer can:

Sgt. La David Johnson

President Trump told the widow of one of the soldiers killed in Niger that he "knew what he was getting into," said U.S. Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-Miami), who said she was in the car during the phone call.

Myeshia Johnson was on her way to the airport to greet the remains of her husband, Army Sgt. La David Johnson, when she received the call from the commander-in-chief, CBS Miami reports.

"David was a young man from our community who gave his life for our country," Wilson told CBS Miami. "He's a hero. I was in the car when President Trump called. He never said the word hero. He said to the wife, 'Well, I guess he knew what he was getting into.' How insensitive can you be?"

*  *  *

CBS Miami reports that after it reached out to Wilson a second time, she repeated that the president told Myeshia that her husband knew what he was signing up for when he enlisted, adding "it still hurts." Wilson said Myeshia was livid and "cried forever" after Trump's call.

Johnson was killed Oct. 4th with three other soldiers in Niger. U.S. officials said they believe extremists linked to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) were responsible for the attack.

The U.S. and Niger forces in a joint patrol were leaving a meeting with tribal leaders and were in trucks. They were ambushed by 40-50 militants in vehicles and on motorcycles.

Land of the sucker, home of the coward

You know about Charlottesville. You know what President Trump said (or, rather, didn't say) about Charlottesville.

You probably have heard some Trump-addled right-wing ditwad blame the neo-Nazi riot in the Virginia college town on former President Barack Obama, or Black Lives Matter . . . or on any damned thing apart from the neo-Nazis and their chief enabler and encourager, Donald Trump.

You even might have heard some Trump-loving American fascists -- and make no mistake, to love Donald Trump and his agenda is to be an American fascist -- blame Heather Heyer, 32, for her own death in an act of neo-Nazi domestic terrorism. I have heard just that. Then again, I am originally from the fascist stronghold of Baton Rouge, La., and sometimes read the comments on local news stories there.  (I need to quit doing that.)

Heather Heyer

As the demented Nazi-apologist argument (such as it is) goes, Heyer is to blame for her own demise . . . because she was there. And for being a hateful "libtard" who had the gall to protest against white-supremacists who, after all, were exercising their First Amendment rights.

In the words of the American troll's favorite American antihero, "BAD!" Or was it "SAD!" ? I forget.

THIS BRINGS me to something Al Jazeera English dug from the depths of YouTube. I hesitate to bring Al Jazeera into this, because someone sees "Al Jazeera," thinks "MUSLIN TERRORISS!!!" and what's left of their brain freezes up. Anyway. . . .

What the cable-news outlet found and posted to social media was a clip from the 1947 reissue of Don't Be a Sucker, a 1943 anti-fascist propaganda film produced by the U.S. War Department. Cliff's Notes version: The film opens with a montage of all the ways one can be suckered, segues into a fascist stump speaker on the courthouse square in Anytown, U.S.A., then outlines the rise and fall (and toll) of Nazi rule in Germany.

The clip going around Facebook, et al, was supposed to be a history-based argument on the evils of fascism and white supremacy. And that it indeed is. But if you hunt down Don't Be a Sucker on the Internet -- a high-quality version is downloadable from the Internet Archive -- and watch the whole thing, much more becomes clear. Clear as someone caught in the high-wattage beam of a concentration-camp spotlight.

Cleaned-up a bit for 21st-century consumption, the fascist agitator's spiel in the public square is a remarkable facsimile of a Donald Trump campaign speech. The National Socialists' tactics to divide and conquer German society resemble something as contemporary, and Trumpian, as today's headlines. And our divided, faltering American society today is ripe for the conquering.



DONALD TRUMP knew that two years ago. American Nazis and other assorted white supremacists know it today. It is no accident that many of the racist rabble on parade in Virginia were chanting "Heil, Trump!" as they gave their stiff-armed Nazi salutes.

What the government of the United States warned its citizens about more than 70 years ago now is running the United States government. American voters who damn well ought to have known better -- been better -- put fascism in that high position.

Think about that, if you can stomach it.

Then think about what the hell you're going to do about it.

'Muslim!' is the new 'Squirrel!'

Dear Rep. Bacon:

Meanwhile, as the Trump Administration prepares to deport Iraqi Christians back to almost certain death in a country they've not seen in decades . . . crickets from Republicans seeking to distract attention from our very own "What fresh hell?" regime.

For God's sake, man! Every damn time an alert sounds on my laptop or iPhone, I wonder what fresh hell is breaking loose now from Mad King Donald or our dysfunctional, pathological government. Every damn time. It's usually a doozy, and it's usually happening SEVERAL TIMES A DAY.

Yet you're outraged about what the g**damned Palestinian Authority is doing as you don Ray Charles sunglasses and stick your fingers in your ears and hum the "Star-Spangled Banner" while contractors measure the Oval Office for padded rubber wallpaper? Really?

How damned stupid do you think we are? (Obviously, stupid enough to have elected Donald Trump and yourself.)

Yeah, I am just so zip-a-dee-doo-dah, orgasmically THRILLED that you intend to kick some Palestinian Authority ass as you inexplicably exhibit ZERO concern that your own House leadership is considering Flat Eartherism so it could have a shot at sailing the ship of state off the g**damned edge.

And I can't even begin to express how grateful this woebegone nation is that you're devoting precious minutes and hours to some *obviously* existentially important Palestinian baiting while North Korea fires off ICBM after ICBM, and President Donald J. Trump may be the most unequipped person on planet Earth to deal with a REAL Korean crisis, as opposed to your ordinary, everyday Korean crises.

Good grief, don't you people even LISTEN to yourselves anymore? Is it possible that y'all are really that non-self aware?

Nah, can't be. I think you're just that flippin' cynical.

God help us, because we sure as hell aren't capable of helping ourselves anymore.

Sincerely yours,

Hoping We Don't Get Nuked Before
I Can Vote for Your Opponent

Assume the position

Thank you @POTUS @realDonaldTrump for a powerful message at #CelebrateFreedom tonight! We thank God every day that you are our president! pic.twitter.com/Zzu9q25RH8

— Dr. Robert Jeffress (@robertjeffress) July 2, 2017