This is a video that you should watch, no matter whom you voted for.
When you watch it, think about Trump tweeting about Arnold Schwarzenegger’s ratings on “The Celebrity Apprentice.” Think about his tweets about Meryl Streep. Think about his many other tweets.
After you watch it, post your reaction here.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
OMG…he nailed it. Just what I’ve been thinking all along, but I’ve heard no one else mention mental illness.
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Really? Because I’ve heard it from every psych 101 student and everyone who’s ever heard of the DSM and, heck, half the mental health professionals in the country who really should know better than to be diagnosing someone via the media. Trump’s “mental health” has been a topic of discussion all over the place.
In any case, take a quick perusal of the comments on this video and you’ll see how convincing it is. People who already oppose Trump find the video convincing – surprise! People who support Trump don’t – surprise!
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Haven’t you said that you loathe Trump and that, in so many words, he’s not qualified to be president? My apologies if I got it totally wrong. At the least, I know you have a negative opinion of Trump.
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I have been commenting here and on other blogs, and in political articles, for the past year, on Trump’s mental problems. I have often remarked that he his wild lack of control are typical indications of loss his pre frontal lobes ability to censor his thoughts and verbal assaults, which is a prime sign of dementia. This is probably why he must lean on Jared, his family member, to keep him as focused as possible. If this is a family ‘secret’ as it was with Ronald Reagan, it makes it clear why Jared has been appointed to be his closest adviser.
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This bombshell news just came from AVAAZ….I read the 36 page report and it is the most egregious behavior possible with Trump and Putin colluding for years to get him elected, and with Manfort at the front man. Carl Bernstien vouches for this report.
AVAAZ says….
“The news is just breaking — Russia could be blackmailing Donald Trump.
We already knew Putin wanted Trump in the White House. Now it looks like the Russian government could have unprecedented control over Trump through “perverted” secret videos and financial clout!
This can’t happen. Senators McCain, Graham, and Collins could be the guardians of the Republic — if they’re willing to break with their party and help block Putin’s attempt to control the country. Let’s ask that they demand a full and independent inquiry, and protect our democracy before it’s too late!
Investigate Trump’s Russian blackmail bombshell — NOW
This is what we know: an intelligence memo just published by Buzzfeed, and corroborated on CNN by investigative legend Carl Bernstein, claims the Russian government has been collecting material on Trump for years, gathering videos of his romps with prostitutes in Moscow, and even direct contact between the Trump campaign and Kremlin surrogates!
John LeCarré would have a hard time coming up with a plot like this. And with the inauguration little more than a week away, we all deserve to know, immediately, how deep are the ties between the Russian leadership and Trump, or those close to him. Tax returns, meetings, business dealings and more. Subpoenas, now!
Much of the GOP will resist, but if courageous Republican lawmakers like John McCain, Linsdey Graham and Susan Collins step up now and demand an immediate independent inquiry — the momentum for truth, and a Senate majority, could break on our side.
Investigate Trump’s Russian blackmail bombshell — NOW”
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Trump Intelligence Allegations is the link. If this does not work, go to BuzzFeed.com to read the whole report.
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If you use only liberal sites and fact check sight you are being spoon-fed only what the left wants you to think. No education invoked.
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“If you use only liberal sites and fact check sight you are being spoon-fed only what the left wants you to think.”
You do realize there are numerous nonpartisan fact check sites.
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Speaking of mental health issues. Being self-diagnosed AIIDS* I cannot for the life of me figure out what AVAAZ stands for. Please explain.
TIA,
Duane
Acronym Identification Impaired Disorder Syndrome (to be in the DSMVI)
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Interesting clip. Most important thing I heard? His attitude to those who disagree with him. “You are not my enemy…” “I do not hate you…” “I just disagree with you…”
Some lessons good for this list! Not the way many here describe what they think of those who voted for trump.
I agree with the general content: trump never should have been the one on stage in a week or so. But then, i think the same about Hillary. I know YOUR thoughts – but to me, that does not make you stupid, ignorant, crazy, uneducated, unpatriotic, racist, bigot or any such thing: I just disagree with you. And yet, many on this list have used exactly those words!
Something tells me that many will only hear: Trump should be removed as soon as possible…
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Rudy,
weren’t you enthralled when the president-elect tweeted about Schwarzenegger’s performance on Celebrity Apprentice?
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I have better things to do with my time. I don’t twitter, use Facebook, Snapchat or instagram.
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Rudy,
I post and comment because it is my blog. You comment here 20-30 or more times daily. You comment mostly to disagree with everyone else. I don’t know what your problem is, but it seems you are here to argue, pick fights, sneer at others. And you call it balance. The purpose of the blog is to support a better education for all, not free markets, charters, vouchers, or rationing opportunity.
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And I am all for that.
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So David Duke, the KKK and the neo-Nazis are not racists? Who knew?
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????????!
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If they were from southern California, they might call themselves ethnicity-adjacent. (FYI, if you don’t know, there’s a real estate term for those who aren’t rich enough to live in Beverly Hills but want the cachet that comes with it, so surrounding community residents call their homes Beverly Hills-adjacent). One could say that Trump is human being-adjacent.
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Great comment, Greg.
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Rudy Schellekens
Can you admit Rudy that the actions and words of Donald Little Hands have been so far out of the norm., that anybody who voted for him should have their character challenged. Now we can raise a similar point about Hillary’s character and those that would vote for her but we can not say she was out of the norm.
Nor that given the choice and the possibility of electing a narcissist, demagogue ,serial liar, with fascist tendencies, who was also a misogynist, who not only committed unwanted assaults on adult women and bragged about it, but additionally was accused in Federal court by a Woman who as a 13 year old girl Claimed she was raped by Trump , was not only a logical unselfish choice but the only choice .
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I agree totally with the description. And those are factual. There is no need to ascribe non/factual things to the man.
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“. . . but we can not say she was out of the norm.”
She is certainly out of the norm in my way of thinking of “the norm”.
Is this “the norm”:
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False equivalence… nothing Hillary has said is revealing of the neurotic tendencies on display.
and, Yes, not only will we hear it…. it is a necessity, because he will undermine the office and our democracy.
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Look at the glee in her eyes:
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Wow, this has been my concern all along.
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I’m glad that Keith wasn’t doing his usual screaming, hyperventilating shtick, with steam coming out of his ears. KO was very soft spoken, reasonable and logical. I had the exact same experience as Keith as regards John Edwards; I initially supported Edwards until I found out that he was a despicable, lying sleaze bucket of the worst order. Fortunately, he did not have the billions, power and will of Trump. God only knows what Trump will do if we have a serious terrorist attack. Will he invade multiple countries a la Bush, drop nuclear bombs or worse? His stated policies and cabinet choices are enough to shatter your brain cells into a million pieces. What we already know about Trump is bad enough, but imagining what this unstable, unreliable person will do under pressure of the office of the POTUS is truly frightening.
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Edwards had me fooled too with his “man of the people” routine.
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He is not well and he would not be nearly as dangerous if Republicans would act responsibly and at least limit his power with reasonable cabinet choices. It is the cabinet that would have to declare him unfit and I don’t see a team of profiteering unfits doing anything to remove him.
A recent episode in which a Trump supporter was raving on a Delta flight compounds the terror I feel. When most alarmed, I envision a violent civil war.
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Too few Republicans today are moderate. The party is dominated by the extreme right wing, free market zealots and the Christian right. They can’t wait to take a wrecking ball to all things public so they are delighted with most of Trump’s cabinet choices.
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Or, has he democrats swung so far left … JFK as a democrat would be more like a republican today.
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My response is a quote from John Dewey. In “Freedom and Culture” in 1939, before the Internet and social media he wrote ominously: “The spread of literacy, the immense extension of the influence of the press in books, newspapers, periodicals, make the issue peculiarly urgent for a democracy. The very agencies that a century and a half ago were looked upon as those that were sure to advance the cause of democratic freedom, are those which now make it possible to create pseudo-public opinion and to undermine democracy from within.”
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Wow, amazing quote. Yet the progressive ed movement he spawned has enshrined ignorance in the citizenry. Because of him, his acolytes and the teachers they’ve trained don’t think transmitting knowledge is important (Dewey did think this, but his followers have dumbed-down his teachings).
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It’s not that teacher educators think knowledge unimportant, only there appears to be intermediating processes that make “transmitting” knowledge quite limited as a teaching strategy for a skill as complex as thinking critically.
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“that make “transmitting” knowledge quite limited as a teaching strategy for a skill as complex as thinking critically.
” But that’s the way Ponderosa thinks.
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At a routine visit to my doc last Spring, 2016, I told her that I couldn’t understand Trump’s speech b/c of all the nonsequitors. My doc told me that she wondered if he had early Alzheimer’s b/c his speech has such limited vocabulary which is an early sign. Then I wondered if that’s why he contradicts himself so often.
Anyway, whatever is unhealthy about him, he behaves like a lunatic who’s well beyond normalizing. America’s Kim Jong-Un. What the hell is the press doing? The emperor has no clothes.
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What the speaker does not get is that a GREAT number of Trumpistas, maybe even the majority, do think Trump is perfectly normal, that is, he speaks their own minds out loud, cheer him on and echo even worse in SM (social media), don’t have a problem with him, don’t see his moral turpitude, and will deny what’s in their face till the very end of days.
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As I said some time ago, Trump has a severe personality disorder – narcissistic most likely. But since doctors cannot diagnose without examining the patient, he has no such diagnosis. Having a personality disorder is not a mental disease like schizophrenia or depressive psychosis which can be treated with medication; it IS the person’s personality. A chief characteristic is the inability to learn from life, only to use the same strategies over and over. Therefore, Trump cannot change. We see this now clearly as he as not “pivoted” since his election. He has no idea, in the way you or I would, what it means to be POTUS; he only knows he “won”, but that will never fill the hole in him. He needs more “wins” and only the Congress and his cabinet stand between us and the disaster his voters have visited upon this nation.
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I did not realize that Keith Oberman is a psychiatrist. Dr Charles Krauthammer, FOX news commentator and psychiatrist, mentioned Trumps short comings during the primaries, yet the voters made their decision. It was nasty (DT was my personal 5th choice) but I do not think even Cruz could have defeated Clinton.
Oberman sites Trump sending a X-mas card greeting with just his photo on it and his many references to the campaign. Is that a problem? I know a few folks who send just photos of themselves…how about those Facebook selfies? Why don’t you go after President Obama who has been rerunning his own campaign for 8 years and blaming everyone but himself for the country’s problems. He also interjected himself into Clinton’s campaign after all, she was to continue HIS policies. He could not help “this most qualified person ever to run” so he has to blame Clinton, the Russians for the defeat. After all, his policies were wonderful and just not articulated well enough.
Trump has said things that contradict themselves like the election night reference to defeat and the Wisconsin rally…so what? He is around 69 cut him slack for either forgetting the details or wanting his followers to think more of him or perhaps it is part of his narcissistic ego. . Oberman, who I have seen do some spectacular stunts on TV and say some pretty nasty things was also one that viewers felt was “not all there”. He was fired.
So it has been suggested “that something bad will happen and he will have to be removed from office”…news flash–this is a representative democracy. He is not a stupid man and he is surrounded by some fantastic people. President Regan was nearly removed from office (read “Killing Regan” by O’Reilly) yet he will be remembered as a great man. Many presidents have had serious problems thrust upon them yet, they and we survived.
Certain leaders emerge during difficult times (especially War years) and then fade away as times change. Donald Trump is a pragmatist–not a conservative or a liberal. He see the problem and wants it fixed. He is concerned about all of us. He is not perfect…who is? He garnered more Black, Hispanic and Asian votes than McCain or Romney but had far fewer women votes. Is that because our sex just wanted a female president regardless of her actions, policies, ethics and morals? Sadly, I think that is true.
I am proud to say that I supported Trump and campaigned for him. Yes, many prayed for him and will continue to do so. I will give him the same chance that I did for President Obama. I believe that he has earned that right and deserves it.
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Keith is not acting as a psychiatrist. He’s pointing out what normal human beings would characterize as odd behavior–the kind of behavior that, if friends or family would exhibit, would cause great concern.
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Not in Greg’s family.
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“yet he will be remembered as a great man.”
Perhaps in your mind April.
Certainly not in mine.
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Merry Christmas from me and this tree, gotta love that.
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The U.S. has NEVER elected a President by popular vote and it never will. The UNITED STATES OF AMERICA is a REPUBLIC.
He makes me think of a slick used car salesman trying to convince me to buy a car I neither want or need.
Proof??? Saying something over and over does NOT make it valid.
Technology is difficult for some. An instantaneous gut reaction is new in the political arena. We are used to well calculated lies. Although the President-elect’s style is new and different that does not mean it is wrong necessarily.
Bottom line … the used car slime tunes me out. I don’t want anyone telling me what to think. Give me the information, let me investigate other sources, then let me make my own decision. It puts a lot of responsibility on me personally, but that is one of the freedoms this republic affords to me and the rest of the citizens.
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Linda, this may come as a surprise, but the person who wins the Electoral College usually wins the popular vote as well. Only twice in recent years did the winner of the popular vote lose the election: Gore in 2000 and Clinton in 2016.
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It’s a numbers game. One third of the registered voters did not vote in the last election. Of the 2/3 that did vote, a little over 2 percent then decided the winner. So when looked at oit from that perspective, no recent president has won with 51 % of registered voters…
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Rudy, that’s a pointless comment. Voting rates are lowest among the poor and minorities, those likeliest to vote Democrat. Republican legislatures have passed laws to limit or suppress votes among these groups.
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Democrats always imply the Republicans are the rich party, but if you have ever read the richest members of each political party … the money is with the Democrats. Check the rolls for the House and Senate. What you need to watch out for are the members whose assets increase the longer they are elected. Elizabeth Warren made her big bucks during the housing market crash. Harry Reid however was more shady and it could still come back to bite him.
Democrats originated the KKK. Republicans pushed to eliminate slavery. Democrats push the lie that showing ID in order to vote keeps people from voting. Wrong again… It makes election results more honest. People are less able to scam the system if they have to show ID. The ID is the same ID that you must show in order to apply for any public assistance, rent an apartment, get an account to have power,water etc. It is not complicated … pick up a phone to call one of the many groups that have made it their community service to assist.
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Back in the 50s, people were making the same arguments as you make when liberals pointed out that Blacks couldn’t vote in the South.
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The Electoral College is the election threshold to be elected. Usually the popular electoral votes agree, but that is irrelevant. Five times in the history of this country the Electoral College (the only one that counts) was the only determining fact in the election.
That is the law, so why beat a dead horse. Hillary was been beaten before, by Obama in the 2008 primary election. There is always a winner and a looser. Your choice on how to handle the outcome remains … keep complaining and further divide the country, or join everyone else and cautiously/optimistically unite. That is the same decision that must be made after every election.
Unless I miss my guess, we will see a return to the Founding Fathers Federalist attitudes. Smaller government, less regulation at the federal level. States will have more control by comparison.
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Linda, unless I miss my guess, we will see an era of corruption that will make the Robber Barons look like pikers. Ethics rules will disappear, along with nepotism laws and conflict of interest laws.
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We have been experiencing an era of unethical conduct, lawlessness, corruption and division I never expected to see in my lifetime. Trump was elected to reverse that trend. The “isms” have been running amuk and it is time to reign them in.
There are legal remedies in the event there is a departure from the smaller government, less regulations federally, land ower taxes. Government will become more localized, just as the Founding Fathers intended. President-elect Trump knows he has the eyes of the nation on his every move. Only if he performs well will he be elected for a second term. Shortly we will have term limits … via the Constitutional Amendment introduced by Senator Ted Cruz. Cruz did not author it alone, but I do not remember at the moment who worked with him.
This administration will NOT be business as usual in D.C. The establishment, rino’s, swamp will no longer exist.
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Linda G., you make the “founding fathers” sound like one big happy family which was far from true. The battle between a strong federal government and states rights went on for decades and is obviously still going on today. In fact, an argument can be made for the Constitution being viewed as a living document in the very different ways the different factions viewed the role of the federal government vs. the states. How could there be such evident disagreement among the “founding fathers” if the Constitution was to be viewed as a rigid document?
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The argument about a living document started in the 1920’s. At the same time the country started being brainwashed against the Federalist government.
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Linda,
Exactly right! The Constitution was referred to as a living document when the court applied its principles to the Times we live in, rather than treating it as an unchanging document written in stone. This is like the discussion of the Bible, when fundamentalists say that the Bible can’t be interpreted but must be taken literally, word for word.
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It doesn’t matter when the difference in opinion was given a label. It does matter that the conflict is NOT something that began in 1920.
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People like Linda Giffin twist history to their own ends and that is the sort of faux patriotism they want taught in our schools.
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“The “isms” have been running amuk and it is time to reign them in.”
Couldn’t agree more, especially Christianism.
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Thank you, Linda. The founders wanted presidents to be elected by states and not cities. I come from a “Blue state” but only because Seattle and Olympia want it that way. East of the Cascades we are quite conservative. Our state Senate is R and the House is D by one vote. Trump made 2 appearances in our state (in Seattle and Spokane) to excite voters. No one from the Republican party has ever done that before. He was welcomed with great enthusiasm. Our problem was getting folks out to vote.
Had this state had % voting and delegation of electors by congressional districts like Maine–Trump would have split the electors. Four of the 7 national Democratic electors who turned against Hillary came from Washington and we only have 12 votes.
Washington like California grants drivers licenses to illegals..in spite of what county auditors say, I just do not believe that the huge cities scrutinize voter registration as well as smaller communities do. Stealing social security numbers is not too difficult either and that is all that is needed besides an address. Do not tell me that those hiding out do not put their name on such documents for fear of being found out…without punishment anyone well indoctrinated into the Progressive immigrant lingo will vote illegally. However, Trump carried more Latinos, Asians and African Americans than Romney—they were fearful of the repercussions of admitting it to their peers. They still are afraid to speak out, as are many Conservatives. I see it in my own church where 6-7 people dominate the conversation while many times more than that stay silent. “The Silent majority” is a perfect title.
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Here is the article I wrote for LA Progressive last May, 2016, on Trump as Ignoramus. I have links to Paul Krugman and to our own insightful commenter, Arthur Camins, about his condition and about how we teach our students about all this. Also, there is a link to Trump’s close friendship with his butler whose views are the most vicious anti Semitic, anti people of color, anti Obama, posted online. You might have to find this at LA Progressive or by googling this article to get to the links.
Trump as Ignoramus and His Many Followers
By Ellen Lubic
Nobel Prize winning Economist, Paul Krugman wrote about Donald Trump recently, expressing the view of most educated people from the Right, Left, or Middle of the political spectrum. Paul Krugman puts the matter directly: “Donald Trump is an ignoramus”.
University educator Arthur Camins article says that perhaps the Trump candidacy has come about due to the fact that schools fail at teaching Citizenship Development. As an educator of public policy and an educational researcher of many decades, I agree. A great failure of public education is the sparse teaching and learning about citizenship and what it means to live in a nation of laws.
The operant question seems to be, why are there so many Americans who are willing to support Trump, who seems to be a distorted and uninformed clown, a showman and greed merchant, and who seems proud of his ignorance and is so egocentric that he does not even want to learn?
This group of voters presents a frightening prospect for our society. For example, Mother Jones magazine’s David Corn reported Anthony Senecal, who served as Trump’s butler for 17 years before becoming the real estate mogul’s in-house “historian” at Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach, Florida, has been taking to Facebook to rant about how the current president should be hanged. “Looks like that sleezey (sic) bastard zero (O) is trying to out maneuver Congress again, if the truth be known this prick needs to be hung for treason!!!” Senecal declared on his Facebook page on April 21, 2015.
The work of Wm. Shirer from the early 1960s, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, rings alarms that resonate today when fellow citizens are rushing to the arms of this potential despot who could possibly create a nuclear holocaust with his hand on the red phone. This theme is the core message of Ionesco’s remarkable play, Rhinoceros, depicting those who rush to join the on schuss in Germany and throughout Europe before WW 2. Many people today feel safe to express their hate for others of different nationality, different religion, different skin color and Trump offers this permission to divide Americans and to incite violence.
Are all these American voters virulent bigots against immigrants, Jews, Muslims, the educated, teachers, and virtually most of those in the main stream in the US? Will they be rushing to turn in their neighbors who may be hauled away to 21st century gas chambers, and then steal all their land and all their worldly goods as happened under the Nazis?
Are they striving to somehow be seen as billionaire wannabe’s? Or are they poor and uneducated and easily taken in by a snake oil salesman who wants to “Make America Great Again?
Do these ‘know-nothings’ follow the lead of The Turner Diaries and want to only have a White Christian country, and be able to string up all other people of color and of other religions, from the light poles, as depicted in this hate-filled book?
This is the moment to figure out who is a Trump voter, and why. And what can we do as a community to fix it.
Is John Dewey somehow responsible for this frightening turn of events? Is it what has been taught, or not taught, in our public schools for the past 60 years that has created a society that is no longer a marketplace of ideas, but which has devolved into the march of the marionettes who will follow Trump to national, and possibly planetary, destruction?
Or is it more reasonable to look at the economics and culture of American society since the end of WW 2?
The stream of recent history, from the era of Bundles for Britain and Rosie the Riveter, to today, is strewn with an upsurge of the contemporary robber barons and their idolizing and idealizing Wall Street and the Free Market. The confluence of universal education and the union movement built the strongest Middle Class after WW 2 that history has ever known. And then there was a 180 degree turnabout with the rise of the Reagan Revolution. This eventually led to 2008 and the worldwide bank scams, bundling of credit default sways and collateral debt obligations which destroyed economies and broke the Middle Class.
From the banks that are ‘too big to fail’ (and can now take endless risks ‘on the public dole,’ as with using the publics’ cash in the form of the FDIC guaranteeing the banksters risks for their own rewards)…and all the redistribution of wealth going upward to the few in the 1%, to the rise of the entertainment industry with faux (Fox) News, this seems to be the downfall of the Middle Class. Add on, mass entertainment of 1) the pop music industry urging ‘do your own thing’ (from cop killing to rape), to 2) mass destruction and endless murder shown on films, cartoons, and television.
How mind bending and inculcating is it when tiny children sit and watch on iPads and TV screens and see and hear this devolution of an orderly respectful society of laws, and it its place, the heroes are tattooed and pierced gangster-types who beat and kill others for unleashed super powers?
And now in the 21st Century, the Billionaire class led by Eli Broad, the Waltons, Rupert Murdoch, Pete Peterson, Michael Milken, Michael Bloomberg, Bill Gates, and all their ilk, is fighting to do away with public education and to privatize all public schools for profit and to undermine universal free education and critical thinking, and instead create unquestioning cogs to fit their corporate needs, as they concurrently attempt to kill off the entire union movement. Keep ’em poor and dumb and manageable, seems to the goal.
This marriage of oligarchic profiteering, and keeping the populace ignorant by a managed media, is leading America into arms of Donald Trump and David Duke, and straight to fascism. This rush to make big bucks by devaluing a society of laws and universal free education, and glorifying of infotainment news, owned mainly by Murdoch, that skims facts with a quick rush to judgement about how the world works, has led too many to demand and to buy, keep, and use their guns, their automatic mass killing weapons, and to want easy answers to complex situations, to want only what pleases them, to a selfishness that shows up as freeway rage, as gang wars, as racist clashes, as mass murder, and finally, as voting for a Know Nothing like Donald Trump.
Is America finished as a democratic republic? Are we now to become a nation of roaming mobs intent on killing, beating, stealing from others who do not agree with us?
I see little connection to public school education, but rather a strong correlation to the overarching greed of the billionaire class which keeps insulated from it all as they instigate internecine warfare in America.
Ellen Lubic
Posted on May 17, 2016
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Looking at the truly crazed Trump appointments of mainly billionaires to run not only the US, but to run the world, looks like we were prescient. And the rise of the American Neo Nazis is in full swing in the US They (the Spencer followers) are marching in Montana this week, fully armed with AK47s, to shout that all Jewish businesses and all Jewish people be purged from their community. Is it their First Amendment right to do this HATE march? What comes next, Krystalnacht in Montana?
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First amendment gives the right of expression to all Americans, whether or not we agree with the utterances. I have an issue with people who burn the flag. I find it rude, I find it a mockery of what the flag stands for, a walking on the graves of those who have died in its service.
But the SCOTUS has decided that it is free speech.
As a believer, I have issues with same sex marriage and the entire alphabet in use currently to describe gender.Those who protect such relations can call me the ugliest names in the dictionary, and the First allows them to do so. But guess what? The moment I speak out against same sex marriage etc., I get accused of hate-speech!
My right to free speech gets trampled. I can get hauled into court for expressing my opinion on the subject in much friendlier and reasonable terms than used by defenders of such relationships.
The First Amendment is an interesting experience in a democracy…
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From World Jewish Congress….
“A notorious and self-professed neo-Nazi group has announced that it is planning to march in Whitefish, Montana next week carrying “high-powered rifles” in an action targeting “Jews, Jewish business, and everyone who supports either.
The march is set for January 16 to coincide with Martin Luther King Day.
America is a beacon of tolerance,it cannot let itself become a beacon of hatred.
The World Jewish Congress, American Section, has sent a letter to Montana Governor Steve Bullock demanding an immediate ban on the march. WJC President Ambassador Ronald S. Lauder has warned that the rally is “dangerous, life-threatening and puts all Americans at risk, adding “this rally crosses the line between freedom of expression and incitement to hatred.”
We must stop this rally from taking place. We must prevent a hate crime from happening before it even becomes a possibility. When we send the message that anti-Semitism is acceptable, it becomes acceptable. America is a beacon of tolerance — it cannot let itself become a beacon of hatred.
In Montana today, it is legal to openly carry a weapon. And the America of today has seen far too many mass and targeted shootings of innocent people, far too many expressions of violent bigotry and lethal hatred, to sit by quietly and debate the constitutional right of armed militants to march against the Jewish people. ‘Constitutional’ hate speech can far too easily turn into unspeakable atrocities. ”
WJC
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Neo-Nazis have marched through Skokie about every year – same purpose, same reasons…
Once again, the cost of free speech (Which piece I notice was not allowed by the moderator).
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Difference between public, government speech, and Diane’s living room. I expect you know this, and are being obtuse.
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Isn’t there something about not being allowed to incite violence? Doesn’t marching through the streets with high powered rifles threatening the Jewish citizenry constitute inciting violence?
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Unfortunately, this was foretold many years ago by media specialist Marshall McLuhan. His belief that the “medium is the message” means that we are shaped by the media we are seeped in. Literate societies are fostered by immersion in print (and we are now in the post literate age). The characteristics that go along with a literate society are planning for the long term, ability to think rationally and objectively, and a linear frame of mind. Since the advent of television and radio (and especially social media) we are devolving back into a pre-literate, acoustic society and the results are evident everywhere. For those who are interested in this turn of events, I highly recommend his book “Understanding Media.”
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“. . . that schools fail at teaching Citizenship Development. ‘
The ol blame the public schools meme rears it’s false head once more.
To think that schooling can overcome the overwhelming influence of the media (all forms) and the indoctrination of ignorance that occurs from the pulpits of supposed houses of worship belies all rational thought.
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Amazing statement. Is that along the lines that the college professors at all public colleges teach leftist philosophy, and push students into extreme leftist thinking?
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Not sure about that extreme leftist thinking and pushing leftist philosophy, Rudy. What is that “leftist philosophy”? Please explain. TIA, Duane
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The same as category as “…the indoctrination of ignorance that occurs from the pulpits of supposed houses of worship belies all rational thought…”
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Thanks, I see what you are driving at.
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Duane,
You asked for the Trump Christmas greeting. I googled and here is the image:
https://www.indy100.com/article/donald-trump-twitter-latest-united-states-president-elect-message-7495136
Notice the raised fist. What kind of Xmas greeting is that?
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Thanks for the link, Diane!
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You wrote: “A great failure of public education is the sparse teaching and learning about citizenship and what it means to live in a nation of laws.”
This is why I used my foreign language classes (Spanish, Latin, and Russian) to hip my high school kids to how governments work and are structured. Most graduate with little idea and the community wants a faux patriotism taught aka American Exceptionalism, but comparing the Soviet system (in the 80s), the caudillos of Lt-Am, and the rise of Caesar offered plenty of opportunity to make the contrasts.
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“This is why I used my foreign language classes (Spanish, Latin, and Russian) to hip my high school kids to how governments work and are structured.”
And I didn’t do that in my Spanish classes because it was my job to teach/help the students learn Spanish, although “cross-cultural comparisons are appropriate I never believed that I should teach anything but Spanish and those kind of “how governments work and are structured” are the realm of social studies classes.
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And this thinking ruins collaborative work in schools. Social Studies teachers used to thank me for showing students the relevance of what I was teaching them. How do you explain the 3rd world status of so many Spanish-speaking countries? How do you get beyond the crude stereotypes many of our kids carry about “Mesicans”? Could English teachers benefit from your showing your students how to construct sentences and paragraphs – maybe so carry-over? I would suggest you rethink this.
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I can tell you, pbarret, that I had to teach a lot of English grammar that the students had never heard of to be able to connect the various structures of the two languages.
What I am getting at is that what you have described as teaching government to the students really has nothing to do with teaching them the language. Totally separate curricula with each having it’s own pedagogical needs. It is the overreach of which you did as a teacher that is the problem. How did them learning about the governing structures of Rome, the Soviet system help the students learn the second language?
Now that is not to say that they didn’t learn something about those governing systems and that would be well and good but that is not my position as a Spanish teacher. It is that type of overreach that parents, rightly so, condemn as wrong for their children. “My child is in Spanish class, I don’t need his Spanish teacher to be teaching him Marxist claptrap. Teach Spanish for crissakes.” And I agree with that thought.
They learn to get beyond those crude stereotypes by focusing on the language and its attendant cultural aspects to see that learning a different language is just another means of human excellence.
Perhaps because I came into teaching at a later stage of life (39 years old) that I didn’t have that youthful ignorant “save the world” attitude that many young teachers have and that my little part was to help a student learn Spanish. Now were other things learned by the students along the way? Of course but that was through their doing, not mine, which makes for a fuller learning experience for the student. Again, I was paid to teach Spanish and that is what I focused on.
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Being multi-lingual, I can tell you that yes, there is a value in discussing more complicated things other than where I can buy cigarettes, apples and pop. Having to come up with ways to describe the more complicated issues, such as the election system in the U.S. forces language learners to dig deeper, think harder and, by golly, use words with more than 4 letters.
All depends, of course, on age of the students. Not necessarily grade level, though.
Growing up speaking Dutch, English was added in 6th grade, French in 7th and german in 8th. Not instead of, but added to! So by the time you graduate from high school, you were pretty fluent in 4 languages.
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Pop? Pop? You haven’t learned English well enough to realize the correct term is “soda”-LOL!
And you were lucky to have learned those languages so early. Amurikans don’t need no furren language for nuthin!
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School in Arkansas for 2 year, living in Iowa for 20 year. I understand that on the M-D line it is referred to as sodie-pop…
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You missed the best part of the Midwest then, Rudy. The Show Me State in between those two!
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Did not miss it! You drive through ALL of it between AR and IA! Apart from that, I have friends in strange places – including MO.
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Depends on what region of the country you hail. Not everyone drinks “soda.”
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I left Ohio in 1956 for AZ where everyone says soda and I still say pop.
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cx: from what region…
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I was just funnin with Rudy. But it does point to the complexity of learning a second, or in his case 5th or 6th (how cool is that?) language.
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It points to the complexity of learning one language! I don’t think we have to look any further than this blog to know how difficult it is to communicate even when we speak the same language!
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Quite astute, 2o2t!
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I entered teaching at 45. Knowing how to teach across the curriculum was a requirement of our profession (I guess you were asleep during that part of your teacher education). Rigidly separating ………. did you leave out literature, geography, history, grammar? You probably reject the ACTFL Standards even though you referenced them, and your quick jump to Marxism shows your prejudice toward teachers who “get out of their place.” Yes, some parents object to teachers straying from the subject but most of us know that teaching high schoolers requires feeding their fund of knowedge. And I have no problem with a Spanish teacher focusing entirely on teaching just the language, as many tprs teachers do; just don’t rain on my parade by labeling me a Marxist….. and let’s be honest, that’s what you were insinuating.
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Actually, I wasn’t inferring that you were/are a Marxist. Not at all, sorry it wasn’t clear that my facetiousness didn’t come through in that statement. Please reread it with the facetiousness intended.
I reject all standards related to the teaching and learning process. I accept valid curriculum goals and objectives but reject the “standards” meme. ACTFL is what it is and for me it was a set of guides, nothing more.
And I certainly am not a fan of the Krashen school of teaching a foreign language nor of the tprs wherein the teacher is an actor leading a bunch of parrots and the parrots will eventually learn the language and its structures, i.e., grammar. Can’t agree with those pedagogical philosophies. I believe in memorization to build vocabulary and grammar to be able to connect one’s native tongue with the second language. Quite quaint and old-fashioned actually.
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We couldn’t be further apart. Carry on.
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Entonces así sea ¿No?
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I am somewhere in the middle on this debate. I have to admit I didn’t pay much attention to my Spanish teachers’ feeble attempts to include history, geography, etc. beyond what was presented in the selections used for language learning. We were never tested on any of the contextual info; the focus was on learning the language. As a substitute teacher at the middle school level, I saw some excellent integration of a whole range of “subjects” into the Spanish curriculum with much more emphasis on understanding the culture and people. Obviously, they couldn’t cover it all. It’s like saying someone learning English can learn the culture of everyone who speaks English in their English language class. I don’t even know that! Australia is a foreign country about which I know very little despite our sharing a language. My point is you can say some really ignorant and even offensive things in correct Spanish (or English) if your background information is weak. I know immersion in a language in the particular country really is the best way to go, but it sure doesn’t hurt to learn something about the cultures of the people whose language you are learning.
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I think aussies would be insulted by the thought that we “share a common language…”
Went to school with one of them…
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You offer your students what you know and can present with enthusiasm. That could be food, geography, music, history, art….. and you present as much as you can in the language. And, to drive Duane crazy, I pointed out to my Russian students that we had missiles in Iran on the border with the U.S.S.R. to help them see the Soviets’ pov. To some, we must never ever try to see the pov of our “enemies” but meet them only with dumb incomprehension and blind hatred. I chose another route. I hated hearing students say that if unemployment was high in Mexico, they ought to get a job. I pointed out that they had found jobs….. here. 🙂 In retirement, my great joy in life is driving conservatives crazy.
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Gosh…. you nailed it. What a pleasure to read such intelligent conversation!
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Please clarify, Susan, whose comments you refer to as “intelligent conversation”…certainly not Rudy, April, and Linda Griffin.
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Because one disagrees with your take on things Ellen they should not be considered to have partaken in “intelligent conversation”?
I think not!!
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Below, is the way I introduced Diane’s Post at opedhttp://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/GQ-A-Message-for-Trump-Vo-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Insults_Trump-Idiot-in-chief_Trump-Presidency_Tweet-170110-453.html#comment639011
But, you will have to go to that link to see the image I used with it,. Below is also the comment I posted!
“Diane Ravitch was so impressed with this video, that she put it up on her blog, saying: “This is a video that you should watch, no matter whom you voted for. “When you watch it,” she suggests, “think about Trump tweeting about Arnold Schwarzenegger’s ratings on “The Celebrity Apprentice.” Think about his tweets about Meryl Streep.” What Diane is pointing out, is that our new president— instead of preparing for this difficult job –CHOOSES to tweet insults and lies no matter how irrelevant and unimportant the moment is! “There is something very wrong” about that man… as the video points out. This outstanding video joins Meryl Streep’ wonderful commentary, because it is NOT about politics, or even about TRUMP, but about the undeniable, observable reality that an unstable, seriously ignorant and abnormal man is about to ascend to our executive office.
My comment:
It was I who sent this video to Diane, who recognized what it meant. But, it was my 18 year old grandson, still in high school, who took it to the next level, when he asked WHAT CAN BE DONE?
Yes, TRUTH will always find its way out, and the TRUTH about this person, is in the observable reality… what we can see and hear when he speaks.
He cannot hide from who he is, even though his spin-doctors try to minimize his actions. All politicians lie… Yes! Many politicians break the rules! Yes!
But, this is the age of the VIDEO SCREEN, and it does not lie about the totality of the behavior on display.
This man is unfit to be in the oval office. There IS something seriously WRONG WITH THIS MAN.
I, FOR ONE. will NEVER FORGET– as Meryl Streep pointed out, his mimicking of that disabled person. Nor can I forget how he encouraged violence at his rallies, including a veiled message to kill Hillary.
I cannot forget, that he bragged about assaulting women and being able to walk in on them naked… BECAUSE HE CAN DO THAT — BY DINT OF BEING A CELEBRITY.
This was NOT in a locker room, but on a bus with a tv host who was interviewing him! SPIN AWAY —> we women know who he is, and so does every normal, good man who loves his sister, his daughter, his mother and knows what kind of a monster is in front of his eyes & ears!
Excuse me, BUT what PERMISSION WILL HE GIVE HIMSELF, when he is KING!
So, how do we legally send this man back to Mar a Largo, to play golf and tweet away his senior years.
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sorry here is the active link
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He makes absolute sense. Which might be a problem since some (not all) but some of the people who voted for Trump are not interested in making sense. And/or they are not interested in listening to people who make sense.
But, hey, it’s a good try. I liked it.
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And obviously, people who voted for Clinton do not listen to what makes sense. “Sense” depends on the ears of the receiver of the comments. Years ago, I was invited to become part of an Amway group. I would be rich in no time. And when rich, I could do anything I wanted with my time. made all the sense in the world to the guy trying to reel me in. But I had a family to feed, and was studying at night. I did not have time to “get rich quick.” Made all the sense in the world to me…
Sense… right
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Like!
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Chris Hedges today compares our current political situation to the Solzhenitsyn masterpiece, The Gulag Archipalego. It is an excellent comparison and suggest everyone read it. Here is the full article, When Fear Comes.
“When fear comes
The coming arrests mean that a wide range of Americans will experience the violations that poor people of color have long endured.”
By Chris Hedges –
January 10, 2017
| Op-Ed SOURCE Truthdig
“Alexander Solzhenitsyn in “The Gulag Archipelago,” his profound meditation on the nature of oppression and resistance in the Soviet gulags, tells the story of a man who was among prisoners being moved in the spring of 1947. The former front-line soldier, whose name is lost to history, suddenly disarmed and killed the two guards. He announced to his fellow prisoners that they were free.
“But the prisoners were overwhelmed with horror; no one followed his lead, and they all sat down right there and waited for a new convoy,” Solzhenitsyn writes. The prisoner attempted in vain to shame them. “And then he took up the rifles (thirty-two cartridges, ‘thirty-one for them!’) and left alone. He killed and wounded several pursuers and with his thirty-second cartridge he shot himself. The entire Archipelago might well have collapsed if all the former front-liners had behaved as he did.”
The more despotic a regime becomes, the more it creates a climate of fear that transforms into terror. At the same time, it invests tremendous energy and resources in censorship and propaganda to maintain the fiction of the just and free state.
Poor people of color know intimately how these twin mechanisms of fear and false hope function as effective forms of social control in the internal colonies of the United States. They have also grasped, as the rest of us soon will, the fiction of American democracy.
Those who steadfastly defy the state will, if history is any guide, be decapitated one by one. A forlorn hope that the state will ignore us if we comply will cripple many who have already been condemned. “Universal innocence,” Solzhenitsyn writes, “also gave rise to the universal failure to act. Maybe they won’t take you? Maybe it will all blow over.”
“The majority sit quietly and dare to hope,” he writes. “Since you aren’t guilty, then how can they arrest you? It’s a mistake!
“Does hope lend strength or does it weaken a man?” Solzhenitsyn asks. “If the condemned man in every cell had ganged up on the executioners as they came in and choked them, wouldn’t this have ended the executions sooner than appeals to the All-Russian Central Executive Committee? When one is already on the edge of the grave, why not resist?”
“But wasn’t everything foredoomed anyway, from the moment of arrest?” he asks. “Yet all the arrested crawled along the path of hope on their knees, as if their legs had been amputated.”
Resisting despotism is often a lonely act. It is carried out by those endowed with what the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr calls “sublime madness.” Rebels will be persecuted, imprisoned or forced to become hunted outcasts, much as Chelsea Manning, Julian Assange and Edward Snowden are now. A public example will be made of anyone who defies the state. The punishment of those singled out for attack will be used to send a warning to all who are inclined to dissent.
“Before societies fall, just such a stratum of wise, thinking people emerges, people who are that and nothing more,” Solzhenitsyn writes of those who see what is coming. “And how they were laughed at! How they were mocked! As though they stuck in the craw of people whose deeds and actions were single-minded and narrow-minded. And the only nickname they were christened with was ‘rot.’ Because these people were a flower that bloomed too soon and breathed too delicate a fragrance. And so they were mowed down.”
“These people,” he goes on, “were particularly helpless in their personal lives; they could neither bend with the wind, nor pretend, nor get by; every word declared an opinion, a passion, a protest. And it was just such people the mowing machine cut down, just such people the chaff-cutter shredded.”
When I returned to the newsroom at The New York Times after being booed off a commencement stage in 2003 for denouncing the invasion of Iraq, reporters and editors lowered their heads or turned away when I was nearby. They did not want to be touched by the same career-killing contagion. They wanted to protect their status at the institution. Retreat into rabbit holes is the most common attempt at self-protection.
The right-wing cable shows were lynching me almost hourly. Soon I was given a written reprimand and public rebuke by the newspaper. I was a leper.
The machinery of the security and surveillance state, the use of special terrorism laws and the stripping of civil liberties become ubiquitous. The lofty rhetoric of liberty and the reality of the chains readied for the public creates magic realism. Reality and the language describing reality are soon antipodal. The pseudo-democracy is populated with pseudo-legislators, pseudo-courts, pseudo-journalists, pseudo-intellectuals and pseudo-citizens. Nothing is as it is presented.
Demagogues, Solzhenitsyn reminds us, are stunted and shallow people. “Unlimited power in the hands of limited people always leads to cruelty,” he writes.
“The overall life of society comes down to the fact that traitors were advanced and mediocrities triumphed, while everything that was best and most honest was trampled underfoot,” he observes. Ersatz intellectuals, surrogates “for those who had been destroyed, or dispersed,” took the place of real intellectuals.
“After all,” Solzhenitsyn writes, “we have gotten used to regarding as valor only valor in war (or the kind that’s needed for flying in outer space), the kind which jingle-jangles with medals. We have forgotten another concept of valor – civil valor. And that’s all our society needs, just that, just that, just that!”
This kind of valor, he knew as a combat veteran, requires a moral courage that is more difficult than the physical courage encountered on the battlefield.
“This unanimous quiet defiance of a power which never forgave, this obstinate, painfully protracted insubordination, was somehow more frightening than running and yelling as the bullets fly,” he says.
The coming arrests mean that a wide range of Americans will experience the violations that poor people of color have long endured. Self-interest alone should have generated sweeping protest, should have made the nation as a whole more conscious. We should have understood: Once rights become privileges that the state can revoke, they will eventually be taken away from everyone. Now those who had been spared will get a taste of what complicity in oppression means.
“The traditional image of arrest is also what happens afterward, when the poor victim has been taken away,” Solzhenitsyn writes. “It is an alien, brutal, and crushing force totally dominating the apartment for hours on end, a breaking, ripping one, pulling from the walls, emptying things from wardrobes and desks onto the floor, shaking, dumping out, and ripping apart – piling up mountains of litter on the floor – and the crunch of things being trampled beneath jackboots. And nothing is sacred in a search! During the arrest of locomotive engineer Inoshin, a tiny coffin stood in his room containing his newly dead child. The ‘jurists’ dumped the child’s body out of the coffin and searched it. They shake sick people out of their sickbeds, and they unwind bandages to search beneath them.”
“Resistance,” he writes, “should have begun right there, at the moment of the arrest itself. But it did not begin.” And so the mass arrests were easy.
And what at that point constitutes victory?
“From the moment you go to prison you must put your cozy past firmly behind you,” he writes. “At the very threshold, you must say to yourself: ‘My life is over, a little early to be sure, but there’s nothing to be done about it. I shall never return to freedom. I am condemned to die – now or a little later. But later on, in truth, it will be even harder, and so the sooner the better. I no longer have any property whatsoever. For me those I love have died, and for them I have died. From today on, my body is useless and alien to me. Only my spirit and my conscience remain precious and important to me.”
“Confronted by such a prisoner, the interrogation will tremble,” Solzhenitsyn writes. “Only the man who has renounced everything can win that victory.”
The last volume of Solzhenitsyn’s trilogy chronicles camp uprisings and revolts. These revolts were impossible to foresee.
“So many deep historians have written so many clever books and still they have not learned how to predict those mysterious conflagrations of the human spirit, to detect the mysterious springs of a social explosion, not even to explain them in retrospect,” Solzhenitsyn writes. “Sometimes you can stuff bundle after bundle of burning tow under the logs, and they will not take. Yet up above, a solitary little spark flies out of the chimney and the whole village is reduced to ashes.”
How do we prepare? Solzhenitsyn, after eight years in the gulag, answers this too.
“Do not pursue what is illusory – property and position; all is gained at the expense of your nerves decade after decade, and is confiscated in one fell night. Live with a steady superiority over life – don’t be afraid of misfortune, and do not yearn after happiness; it is, after all, all the same: the bitter doesn’t last forever, and the sweet never fills the cup to overflowing. It is enough if you don’t freeze in the cold and if thirst and hunger don’t claw at your insides. If your back isn’t broken, if your feet can walk, if both arms can bend, if both eyes can see, and if both ears can hear, then whom should you envy? And why? Our envy of others devours us most of all. Rub your eyes and purify your heart – and prize above all else in the world those who love you and who wish you well. Do not hurt them or scold them, and never part from any of them in anger; after all, you simply do not know: it might be your last act before your arrest, and that will be how you are imprinted in their memory!”
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“A public example will be made of anyone who defies the state. The punishment of those singled out for attack will be used to send a warning to all who are inclined to dissent.”
And that happens on a daily basis to those who challenge the education status quo state. It is not easy being the one teacher who is singled out, even when some of the other teachers come up to you in private telling you that you are right and thank you for standing up but they won’t stand up with you.
Tell me about it!
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Thanks for sharing that piece by Hedges, Ellen!
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And yet your man Obama used the IRS to go after conservative organizations. Obama just happened to be more secretive about his revenge. I have yet to see where Trump had done similar. He’s not even president yet.
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Avan,
Give Trump a chance. He isn’t yet president, and he is already muzzling the press.
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And yet, the Obama White House has been keeping the press at arms length more than previous presidents, has been more unkind to the press…
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I just came from hearing Robert Putnam speak and he urged us to look at our immense problems as purple in color, not just through red or blue lenses. How do we do this with outright lies from the Reds like Obama targeting conservative groups for discrimination by the IRS and telling businessmen that they did not build their businesses? You cannot deal with liars.
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Ben Affleck’s reaction to the Trump tweet on Streep
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This is my fave.
The Onion
@TheOnion
Court Rules Meryl Streep Unable To Be Tried By Jury As She Has No Peers http://trib.al/0TLXcsf
8:12 AM – 9 Jan 2017
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Funny!
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Absolutely, 100% spot on. I have read that the Republicans are just waiting for the moment to impeach him because Mike Pence is much more their creature. Speaking as someone from Indiana, Mike Pence is bad news, too.
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Trump hopefully will be removed from office but unfortunately Mike Pence isn’t much better. Pretty scary.
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From the Independent 11.21.16
“Bookmaker Ladbrokes has cut the odds on Donald Trump leaving office early due to impeachment or resignation amid mounting controversy about how he will manage his business interests after becoming America’s 45th President.”
“Ladbrokes opened the market at 3-1, cutting it to 5-2, and again to 9-4 in the wake of a flurry of bets on the back of a growing consensus among law professors that the controversial Republican is heading for trouble.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-impeach-impeached-odds-shorten-president-elect-hotels-constitution-republican-latest-a7430441.html
Wonder what the odds are now?
This article does not even take into account his obvious mental instability.
And 63 MILLION Americans thought he should have his hands on the most powerful nuclear arsenal in the world.
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It took me life experience, education and lots of personal reading to gain “psycho-dar” (like “gaydar”). We are not born with it. Apparently 63 million Americans have failed to acquire it.
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“psycho-dar” (like “gaydar”)
Please explain for those of us ignorant in the “dar” world.
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like radar
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Hopefully this will happen sooner than later.
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My father has been gradually suffering from dementia. A week ago, my mother said, “Something is not right.” After ten years, we have become the “experts” in noticing the small changes. He has been recommended for Hospice. My mother made the same comment about Trump. “Something is not right.” It’s starts out gradual but then…
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Your Dad, I hope, was “right” during most of his life. There’s no evidence that Trump was, emotionally, more than “human adjacent”…ever.
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I think the battle lines have been drawn. Keith isn’t going to reach the Trump supporters and vice-versa.
Looks like it’s just going to have to play itself out.
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To your last statement, gitapik: YEP!
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This is only one video in a series that Olbermann has done. It’s called the Resistance. I’ve watched several and Keith truly does nail it. While gitapik is probably correct about communication between the Trumpistas and Olbermann being unlikely, it’s important for those who have taken the “wait and see” or “give him a chance” attitudes to have things “spelled out to them.” If you know some who is straddling the fence, send them the following link:
http://video.gq.com/series/the-closer-with-keith-olbermann
After watching a few of these, I wish I could say that I was more at ease. But I’m not…
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Olberman, really?!
Said Bush urinated on the constitution, compared conservatives to Nazis, called Kenneth Starr Heinrich Himmler (a nazi), called Tea party members unstable (they cleaned up their litter!) and said Bush was more dangerous to liberty than his enemies…would that include evil Russia?
I can’t take this man seriously. Same as you feel about Trump.
http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/scott-whitlock/2011/01/24/worst-worst-look-back-keith-olbermanns-most-outrageous-quotes
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Fascinating that you selected Newsbusters.com, a website dedicated to “Exposing and Combating Liberal Media Bias” as a source authority in this instance. Just in case the rest of the readers here @Diane’s blog didn’t know, Newsbusters.com is an extension of Brent Bozell III’s hate group, the Media Research Center (MRC).
Journalist Brian Montopoli of Columbia Journalism Review in 2005 labeled the Media Research Center “just one part of a wider movement by the far right to demonize corporate media,” rather than “make the media better.” Additionally, Montpoli wrote that, “False equivalence is at the very root of MRC’s beliefs.”
Bozell appeared on Fox News and suggested U.S. President Barack Obama looks like a “skinny ghetto crackhead” on December 22, 2011, He was reacting to MSNBC’s Chris Matthews’ assertions that Newt Gingrich “looks like a car bomber” with “no media backlash.”
Is this really how it works?
“Exposing and Combating Liberal Media Bias”
“CNN is fake news”
Steve Bannon
“Draining the Swamp”
A nominee for the Secretary of State who received a state decoration of the Russian Federation to reward foreign nationals whose work, deeds and efforts were aimed at the betterment of relations with the Russian Federation; this after signing deals with the state-owned Russian oil company Rosneft, whose chief, Igor Sechin, is seen as Mad Vlad’s loyal lieutenant.
Wow…
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They are direct quotes from Olberman, whatever the website.
If you trust “corporate” media, good for you. I’ve seen too much fake news to believe them.
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https://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/us/cash-flowed-to-clinton-foundation-as-russians-pressed-for-control-of-uranium-company.html
Just sayin…
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Avan,
The Russians were covering their bases with both Clinton and Trump. Now Trump is Vlad’s best friend. We won’t know why until he releases his tax returns, which appears to be “never.” It seems the IRS will be auditing them until he is out of office.
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Mike Pence is a right winger who hopes to undo the social safety net and reverse our rights all the way back beyond the New Deal, doing so under the rule of law and via politics. Trump has a gun and is wildly firing it in every direction. Voters can decide if they like the results of Pence’s administration; under Trump, I’ll be OK because I speak Russian…. sorry about the rest of you.
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