~240 years of representative democracy, flushed down the big jacuzzi by Donald "Pitiful pathetic FAT UNATTRACTIVE celebutante LOSER and SAD little freeloader-in-thief-WANNABE" Trump
A sad, sad anniversary: 22 October marks the one-year anniversary of the passing of Dot Calm.
She is sorely missed by all who knew and love her. Rest in peace, Dot Calm! I miss you more each day. I love you!
-- your faithful shadow
Greetings, fellow Dot Calm Readers, Freedom Fighters, and Truth Crusaders!
And there you have it, boyz 'n' girlz...
Donald "Pitiful pathetic FAT UNATTRACTIVE celebutante LOSER and SAD little freeloader-in-thief-WANNABE" Trump has permanently shit the bed on becoming president. Every media outlet I check--even right-wing ones--proclaim his candidacy to be tits up because Donald "I know you are but what am I?" Trump refuses to concede the election if or hopefully when he loses.
Nobody is shocked except those living in FUX Noise or talk radio right-wing media bubbles, since Donald has had this trumper-tantrum before...not quite a month ago.
Some are calling for Donald to step down; others are calling for Republican party leadership to use any legal means to tell Donald Trump, "YOU'RE FIRED."
Although giving Donald his well-earned pink slip would give the Republican party some cover from which to try to rebuild and run a legitimate campaign in 2020, I think they shouldn't be allowed to have this abortion. This whole circus was their baby from the get-go, and they should be forced to carry it to term just to see what that feels like, ha.
But what really worries me isn't a Donald Trump presidency--I don't think that even the Republicans are willing to rig this election in favor of someone so opposed to the rule of law that we as a nation have observed since our founding. And I really don't think that there are enough tinfoil-hat-wearing Americans to push Donald Trump to victory without the election being rigged.
What worries me is the potential for bloodshed--in addition to that expressly incited by Donald Trump at his rallies.
Black, brown, immigrant, and disadvantaged voters already have enough trouble voting because, sure, Republicans have been rigging elections since at least 2000--maybe before. According to Greg Palast and other sources, Republicans and some Democrats have been jumping through their own assholes to knock potential progressive voters off the voting roles. One trick is to knock off the list everyone who has the same name (or just last name) as a convicted felon--so they use one felon to knock however many dozens of innocent voters off the rolls. Or they take out everyone with the same first and last names, even though their middle names are different. Yup, Republicans and some Democrats use cute little tricks like that to deny the vote to innocent Black, brown, immigrant, and disadvantaged Americans.
By the millions.
And the lucky ones left on the rolls have to deal with increasingly numerous and difficult hurdles to voting, including having to choose between buying groceries or medicine for the week or taking enough time off work to get to the DMV or wherever and get a picture ID...a picture ID that may cost not only the time taken off from work but also money in fees. This is nothing but a poll tax--a prohibitively high poll tax for too many Americans who spend nearly every waking hour working just to survive.
On top of that, Republicans have used our taxpayer dollars to close down one polling site after another, forcing voters to wait in line for 7 hours or more to vote. The kinder, gentler Republicans satisfy themselves with choosing hostile locations for the few remaining polls to ensure that Black and Latino voters face intimidation when they go to vote.
So, yes, Virginia, American elections are most definitely rigged...but not in the ways that the Republicans pretend is the case when they stop us from exercising our right to vote. It's all well documented on "Democracy Now!" if you care to look it up--forgive me for not linking to specific articles, but I'm still a widdle burned out from double-posting Wednesday, including live-blawgging the dEEbate.
But I digress.
So, here we are, looking at far fewer Black, brown, immigrant, and disadvantaged Americans being allowed to vote in the first place, and here comes Donald "I could not be a bigger asshole, believe me" Trump telling his rabid gun-toting conspiracy-theory-loving "other"-hating minions to go to their polling places and make sure the election isn't "stolen" from him.
And what exactly do you think these Trump adherents are going to do? How do you think they're interpreting teh Dumbald's manifesto to "protect" the election?
At the very least, they're going to get in people's faces and try--and very possibly succeed--to prevent them from exercising their Constitutional right to vote. At worst, they will shed innocent blood in the name of their rabid nationalism--at their fat bald orange idol's behest.
And that's not even considering what they might do on November 9th if teh Dumbald should deign to proclaim himself displeased with losing the election.
Friends, that's what I worry about--that's whom I worry about.
I worry about my Black, brown, immigrant, and disadvantaged brothers and sisters who have done no harm to anyone and who just want to fucking vote. I worry that they will be driven away at best or shot and killed at worst. I worry that they will be targeted in race riots and post-election riots by Trump's tinfoil-hat brigade in the name of misplaced patriotism.
I hope the National Guard is ready to deal with such a circus.
But am I shocked? No, I'm not even surprised. Republicans long ago decided that the Constitution is obsolete...passé...except as an excuse to do whatever the hell they wanted to do anyway. What they really want is a theocratic dictatorship--that much is clear to anyone watching and listening. But even they know that their twisted ideas are not popular with the American populace, so they resort to speaking in code. All Donald Trump has done is say out loud, in uncoded plain language, everything they've been thinking and working toward for the last thirty years.
So, no, it's no surprise.
But it is a worry. A people-will-die worry.
And if so much as a drop of innocent blood is shed during or after the election due to Donald Trump's exhortations, then I will work to see him prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Freedom of speech doesn't mean that you get to say whatever you want without consequence, and if what you say causes violence, then that violence is a consequence for which you are responsible.
And as if this is not enough, just consider all the damage already done by Donald Trump's feckless, reckless, ill-advised campaign to make America hate again. That's right--bullying has gone up in schools across the country, and Black, Latino, Muslim, and other children who look "different" from their white counterparts are suffering from distraction, depression, and stress--their grades are dropping. These innocent children's performance in school is suffering because of the stress from bullying--it-snot because they're "naturally stupid" because they have melanin in their skin or worship the "wrong" god the "wrong" way. I'm highlighting a Vox article below because, even if the wrinkled orange fucksicle were to crawl back under his rock tomorrow, we as a society will be suffering the effects of all his hateful isms for the next generation. The civility that has taken fifty years of blood, sweat, and tears to build has been obliterated in a little over a year by this monstrous LOSER.
And you wonder why I'm pissed...and you wonder why I call him the worst names I can possibly think of...and you wonder why I drink.
The children are our future, and Donald John Trump has just set us all back by a generation--and he hasn't even been defeated at the polls yet.
Can you imagine what damage he'd do if he actually got into the White House?
Don't forget to read Dot Calm's shadow's favorite independent sources of news and information:
Daily Kos
AlterNet
Peas, friends. Take care of yourselves for me. Trust me--you're worth it! And have a goddamned Fireball, will you? It's been one hell of a week, and I for one could use a drink.
- Dot Calm's shadow
Consider the preemptive Blogger phuqued-up phormatting disclaimer to be in effect. Grrr.
-- Dot Calm's shadow
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Vox: "All the black and brown people have to leave": Trump's scary impact on how kids think
Children have picked up on all the racist rhetoric.
Next he wanted to know, “What is a slave?” and, “Where are we gonna go?”
Hill was taken aback, and well aware of the wide-eyed interest Phoenix’s questions attracted from neighboring tables. She asked him where he’d heard these things. His answer: from another child at his local YMCA day camp.
“I was very interested in talking to the parents of this child. I was wondering whether they were supporting Trump or were they against him. ... I would literally stake the mother out at drop-off in the morning, but I kept missing her,” Hill, who is black, told Vox.
Camp staffers dismissed Hill’s concerns. Meanwhile, Phoenix cried every day when he was dropped off. So Hill pulled him out of the program and continued to reassure him of his safety.
“I told him we’re not going anywhere, we’re going to live here,” she said. “I just reaffirmed this is home and we’re not going anywhere, Trump is not going to deport us. He is not going to become president.”
Given Phoenix’s age, Hill chose not to delve into the Republican candidate’s expressed positions, correct the demographic breakdown of whom exactly he suggested should be prohibited from immigrating, or parse the differences between deportation and slavery, which had been lost somewhere in the other camper’s interpretation.
After all, she intentionally hadn’t yet exposed her son to the idea of racial difference or bigotry at all, up until that point. Deliberate about controlling the flow of information to him, she rarely even allows him to see anything other than children’s programming on television. “It was just hard for me to even think about explaining what slavery was to him,” she said. “His grandmother is white, his auntie is white. ... We have all different colors in our family, and I wasn’t really ready to open that topic up in him.”
Phoenix is no longer scared, she said, but the episode “just stole a piece of his innocence.”
He isn’t alone.
If Trump wins the election, first lady Michelle Obama said In her now-famous speechabout his leaked comments bragging about grabbing women’s genitals, “We're telling all our kids that bigotry and bullying are perfectly acceptable in the leader of their country.”
Yet many children have already received that message loud and clear. They haven’t been protected from Trump’s attacks on racial and religious groups in anywhere near the same way as much as they have from his X-rated “hot mic” remarks.
Trump’s most infamous assertions about race, religion, and identity — that many Mexican immigrants are rapists and “bad people,” that a judge was incapable of doing his job because of his ethnicity, that Muslims are a danger to America, that “the blacks” (a phrasing that linguists say serves to identify African-Americans as “other”) live in a virtual hellscape with nothing to lose and no standing to critique his platform — were all made publicly.
These messages, though, have not been softened, omitted or redacted by the media for the protection of young ears in the same way his so-called “locker room talk” about women has. And kids like Phoenix aren’t waiting to see what happens on November 8 before they absorb these views, repeat them, and integrate them into the set of perspectives that combine to make up how they see themselves and others. Many, according to a recent survey of teachers’ perceptions of their students, are using them as fodder for bullying. Others are anxious and scared as a result of the taunts and the real-life threats to their families.
Nobody — not even those who study the development of racial attitudes in kids or the impact of racial trauma — can say with certainty what the long-term effects of this unprecedented dose of high-profile animosity will be on the young people who are steeped in it.
Marginalized kids are terrified and saddened
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This spring, Teaching Tolerance, the Southern Poverty Law Center’s education arm, took an informal poll of educators to gauge how this campaign had affected schools so far.
Maureen Costello, the director of Teaching Tolerance, said the organization’s interest in the election’s effect on school-age kids was piqued by news reports about high school sporting events where chants of “Trump, Trump, Trump” and “Build a wall” were used against predominantly Latino teams.
“We wondered, is this the tip of an iceberg? Is there something beneath this?” she said.
The organization sent queries to the teachers who subscribed to its weekly newsletter. “We weren’t trying to be scientific. We were trying to find out, ‘Is there anything going on?’ I compare it to the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] asking doctors to report if there are measles outbreaks,” Costello said.
The organization’s conclusion from the thousands of comments it received: Yes, something is going on. More than two-thirds of teachers reported that students — mainly immigrants, children of immigrants, and Muslims — had expressed concerns or fears about what might happen to them or their families after the election:
Teachers used words like “hurt” and “dejected” to describe the impact on their charges. The ideas and language coming from the presidential candidates are bad enough, but many students — Muslim, Hispanic and African-American — are far more upset by the number of people, including classmates and even teachers, who seem to agree with Trump. They are struggling with the belief that “everyone hates them.”
There were reports of tears shed in classrooms from second grade to high school. Concerns about being “sent back” transcended immigration status, as in Phoenix’s case, to affect African-American kids:
African-American students aren’t exempt from the fears. Many teachers reported an increase in use of the n-word as a slur, even among very young children. And black children are burdened with a particularly awful fear that has been reported from teachers in many states — that they will “be deported to Africa” or that slavery will be reinstated. As an Oklahoma elementary teacher explains, “My kids are terrified of Trump becoming [p]resident. They believe he can/will deport them — and NONE of them are Hispanic. They are all African American.
According to the report, even children who did not face, or did not believe they faced, direct threats as a result of Trump’s policies, perceived the same pattern as the white supremacists who support Trump: that the candidate’s vision for a return to a “great’ version of America was dismissive of people of color. A teacher at a predominantly black school in Ferguson, Missouri, told Teaching Tolerance, “We do not have the language and hate of any candidates repeated at the high school where I teach. … However, I do hear students wonder if they are being let in on what all white people truly think and feel.”
The nonprofit called the results “the Trump effect.” The findings resonate with teachers who didn’t participate in the survey, too.
Brian Moss, who teaches eighth grade at a Northern California middle school where he estimates 80 percent of students are Latino, told Vox, “In really looking at Trump’s policies specifically, and looking at the reforms he’s suggesting, I’ve witnessed kids in discussions expressing concerns, if not downright fear.”
He’s teaching an entire unit on the election, as he puts it, “covering the debate and using news sources to objectively present policies from each candidate.” So Moss can’t avoid Trump’s positions, like his proposed ban on Muslim immigration (which evolved into“extreme vetting”), his insistence that he’ll deport “millions,” and his promise to end birthright citizenship.
Moss can’t, in good conscience, give his students the kindergarten-level “He won’t win, and our family isn’t going anywhere” speech that Hill gave Phoenix, either. They’re old enough to know that much of what Trump has proposed could affect their families, and they know he’s not guaranteed to lose — it’s part of their curriculum to understand this. So Moss tries to balance reassurance with honesty.
“A lot of students have undocumented parents or are undocumented themselves, so it’s very understandable that they would feel these ways,” he said. “I do try to suggest to them that there’s no immediate threat and there’s not going to be people knocking on doors necessarily, even if he does win. But I also, to some degree, think they might need to be a bit afraid. There needs to be awareness, and if fear comes with that, it seems justified.”
Some kids have broadened and weaponized Trump’s rhetoric
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Moss says he hasn’t observed kids attacking or antagonizing each other based on views and policies Trump has expressed. That could be because Latino students are the dominant population at his school, or because his classroom has a clearly stated nondiscrimination policy. “At the beginning of the year, I generally do a big piece on diversity and respect,” he said. “Almost the only way to get thrown out of my classroom is to attack someone based on ethnicity gender preference or identity. Generally, students are highly respectful of that.”
Not all students adhere to such boundaries. According to the Teaching Tolerance report, while some kids are afraid, others feel empowered to bully each other, in particular with the anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant sentiments that have had so much airtime during the presidential campaign.
“Students seem emboldened to make bigoted and inflammatory statements about minorities, immigrants, the poor, etc.,” a high school teacher in Michigan wrote in response to the survey.
There are reports of students repeating and exaggerating Trump’s positions, to the point of advocating for violence:
Teachers in New Hampshire — where the first primary was held — reported some of the greatest increases in disturbing behavior. One high school teacher from Westmoreland wrote, “A lot of students think we should kill any and all people we do not agree with. They also think that all Muslims are the same and are a threat to our country and way of life. They believe all Muslims want to kill us.
Bullies have targeted Muslim students and those who they confuse with Muslims with particular aggressions:
Muslim students — along with the Sikh and Hindu students who are mistaken for Muslims — have endured heightened levels of abuse. According to reports from around the nation, Muslim students regularly endure being called ISIS, terrorist or bomber. These opinions are expressed boldly and often.
Students target classmates of Mexican descent for taunts and threats about immigration. And, as in the case of Phoenix’s day camp friend, kids aren’t particularly detail-oriented about this bullying, and expand it to cover children of many different backgrounds:
Teachers in every state reported hostile language aimed at immigrants, mainly Mexicans. A Wisconsin middle school teacher told us, “Openly racist statements towards Mexican students have increased. Mexican students are worried.” A middle school teacher in Anaheim, California, reported, “Kids tell other kids that soon they will be deported.” Regardless of their ethnic background or even their immigration or citizenship status, targeted students are taunted with talk of a wall or threats of forcible removal.Neither are the slurs limited to schools with immigrant populations. “At the all-white school where I teach, ‘dirty Mexican’ has become a common insult,” a Wisconsin middle school educator said. “Before election season it was never heard.”
Costello points out that this climate can impact kids of all ethnicities — even those who aren’t directly attacked. “Teachers have said it’s not just the marginalized kids who are being hurt,” she said. “Their white or Christian friends and allies feel for them and want to stand up for them. “
Kids haven’t ever been naive as adults like to think they are when it comes to racism
Joe Feagin, a professor of sociology at Texas A&M University who focuses on racial and ethnic studies and the co-author of The First R: How Children Learn Race and Racism, told Vox that the Teaching Tolerance survey’s findings are a reminder that school-age kids are much more aware of race and racism than adults often like to believe.
In fact, he says his research demonstrates that children as young as 2 to 5 years old understand and reinforce racial hierarchy. It’s actually quite common for kids to be each other’s first teachers when it comes to bigotry and stereotypes.
“Much of the literature suggests that children learn racism from parents, relatives, and media,” Feagin said. “The other big source of learning is that children learn from other children. One child comes to school, has discovered the n-word and what it means; by the end of the day, that knowledges has spread across the school. It’s quite possible for [kids in] child care to learn racial thinking from other children.”
His conclusions come in part from a study of a multiracial daycare center in the 1990s, — notably, before the advent of social media and the accompanying additional access to information.
Thanks to kids’ increased exposure to news and information today, he says it’s truer than ever that “It’s impossible for even anti-racist parents to hide this from their children.”
Feagin suggests parents should admit to themselves that their children will encounter racist views from the media and their peers — and the current political climate has simply emphasized the things kids have always encountered and communicated to each other. “Once you start doing that, when these racist incidents do happen in your child’s life, you can use these as teaching moments, teaching events,” he said.
The good news: According to Feagin, research data on children shows that young children have a strong sense of social justice and unfairness and they see this unfairness whether parents point it out or not. Parents should take advantage of this, he said, and “use these instances to point out the unfairness of that language and how it hurts people.”
Immigrant children may be most at risk for short-term harm
Teaching Tolerance’s report linked the racist, anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim rhetoric children have been exposed to during the Trump campaign to traditional bullying. The organization warned that there’s evidence the impact could be similar:
Stressed students have a harder time learning, and we saw many reports that anxiety was having an impact on grades and ability to concentrate. In Washington state, a teacher told us about a 10-year-old boy who can’t sleep at night because he is worried his immigrant parents will be sent away. A California art teacher described a fifth-grader who had begun having “full-blown panic attacks.” After fellow students in Washington state had repeatedly shouted slurs from their cars at one Muslim teenager, her teacher reported, the girl expressed suicidal thoughts.
Feagin said the impact of race- and religion-based bullying at school depends upon how the bullied kids’ families are able to counteract it. That may depend on how long their families have been in the United States and the coping mechanisms that exist in their culture as a result.
“African-American people have developed an antiracist counter-framing from 20 generations of dealing with white people,” Feagin said. “Families that can draw on this tradition might go through an incident and explain to a child that there are racist, mean people who think like this and say things that are false. But recent immigrants from say, the Middle East, might not have as much of that --- children might not have parents who have developed an antiracist counter-framing for how to deal with white racism.”
Latino families, according to this line of research, typically develop an “anti-racist counter-framing” — a way of using home culture to push back against the racist messages of the outside world — by the second or third generation in the United States.
As a result, when it comes to the impact of “the Trump effect,” Feagin said, “My guess just from my own 50 years of research is it’s going to be even tougher on immigrant children,” with more recent immigrants suffering the most.
This is unprecedented, so long-term effects are unclear
In Costello’s view, it’s hard to accurately predict the impact of “the Trump effect” because it’s such a new phenomenon. Kids’ level of access to this type of rhetoric may be unprecedented in American society.
“I think it is fairly new,” she said. “When you think about the civil rights movement, the leaders of that movement had to depend on outrage on almost creating conflict — there’s a reason there were protests in Birmingham, because Bill Connor could be counted on to bring out the dogs and the fire hoses — that got the attention of the rest of the country. Today the quantity of the information, the access to the information, is so much more widespread. It’s instant and ubiquitous.”
But social scientists have little doubt that there will be an impact — at a minimum, to the psyches of individual kids who’ve dealt with fears like those expressed by Phoenix and Moss’s students.
- Increased vigilance and suspicion
- Increased sensitivity to threat
- Increased psychological and physiological symptoms (including risks for depression and anxiety disorders, and disruption to child development and quality of emotional attachment in family and social relationship)
- Increased alcohol and drug usage
- Increased aggression
- Narrowing sense of time
“This campaign has been particularly difficult and stressful for many individuals,” Turner said in an email to Vox, pointing to the American Psychological Association’s survey on techniques for coping with election-related stress. “As you might expect, if adults are stressed and having a difficult time this stress is magnified among youth. Children often model behaviors and emotions expressed by their parents or important figures in their lives. So when adults are distressed or bothered by comments by Donald Trump, similar behaviors may be experienced by youth.”
“There is a significant amount of research on the negative impacts of microaggressions (subtle racism and discrimination) and overt racism on individuals psychological and physical health,” he continued. “When children are the recipients of racist rhetoric it can lead to anxiety, depression, and concentration difficulties that might hurt their academic performance. In the long-term, this could lead to psychological symptoms or even health risk such as high blood pressure.”
Turner suggested that adults consult a a toolkit by Boston College’s Institute for the Study of and Promotion for Race and Culture to help children cope with race-based stress that results from campaign rhetoric, saying, “It’s particularly important for caregivers and parents to develop a plan of how to address these incidents.”
How the “Trump effect” will shape the way the kids affected by it operate as they grow up is an open question— but it seems clear that it’s not dependent on what happens November 8. In other words, much of the damage has been done.
Costello suspects that the effects will persist even if Trump doesn’t win the presidency. “Let’s imagine a scenario where Trump loses, Hillary wins, and no politicians are calling for these things or using this kind of language,” she said. “It’s still out there. Once kids are afraid, you just can’t turn it off.”
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Headlines
New York Times: A 10th Woman Accuses Donald Trump of Inappropriate Touching
A word from FiveThirtyEight
Clinton Probably Finished Off Trump Last Night
Election Update: 'Likely Voters' Aren't Helping Trump Much
A word from Politico
Trump raises $9 million off debate night Facebook Live events
...Making an average of $70k/yr, the deplorables aren't as poor as they'd like us to think they are
Trump sides with Putin over U.S. intelligence
..."I AM NOT PUTIN'S PUPPET," whined Putin's puppet. R-I-I-I-I-I-G-H-T, Donnie!
A word from Vox
When Donald Trump says he may not concede, imagine what his voters are hearing
...They're hearing "kill Kill KILL...I wanna, I wanna see, I wanna see blood and gore and guts and veins in my teeth. Eat dead, burnt bodies. I mean kill, Kill, KILL, KILL!!!!!"
No, Donald Trump, abortions do not happen at 9 months pregnant
Trump is an abnormal candidate. But his lies about abortion are very normal.
Trump's rigged election talk is reaping what Republican leaders have sowed
Trump: We don't know that Russia is hacking the US election. Experts: Yes, we do.
Donald Trump and ISIS are pushing the same weird conspiracy theory
...namely that the U.S. is driving Baghdad's military decisions on the ground in Iraq. We're not.
I live in Baltimore. I assure you, Donald Trump, the inner city is not "living in hell."
"Nasty woman" becomes the feminist rallying cry Hillary Clinton needed
Clinton supporters leaned into Trump's "nasty woman" insult and turned it into a compliment
Trump interrupted Clinton 37 times. Clinton interrupted Trump 9 times
What 20,000 pages of hacked WikiLeaks emails teach us about Hillary Clinton
...The truth is that there's nothing cray-cray, nothing earth-shattering in there. A lot of unfortunate-but-normal crap, but Hillary is clearly not the demon incarnate that Alex Jones
3 winners and 2 losers from the final 2016 presidential debate
Good times, bad times: #TrumpBookReport's hilariously simplified reading list
....This is a HOOT!!
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Mailbag
From Faithful America--Top Catholic bishop, silent on Trump, now attacks Democrats
Dear Faithful America member,
The president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has had little to say about this election. He even kept quiet when Donald Trump called Pope Francis "disgraceful" and accused him of being a "pawn" of the Mexican government.
But Archbishop Joseph Kurtz just broke his silence to issue a statement insinuating that Democrats "have sought to interfere in the internal life of the church for short-term political gain."
Kurtz is echoing the latest bizarre conspiracy theory from the Trump campaign, which alleges that John Podesta, a Clinton campaign official and lifelong Catholic, is somehow orchestrating a campaign to undermine the Catholic church - all because of a leaked email in which Podesta mentions that he helped start a Catholic social-justice organization more than a decade ago.
Every four years, conservative Catholic bishops look for opportunities to make trouble for the Democratic candidate while leaving the Republican alone. Now that the Republican candidate is this dangerous, it's time to drop the double standard.
Tell U.S. bishops: Break your silence about Trump's campaign of hate
Thanks!
- Michael
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From Change.org--Kansas cop kills autistics dead
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We goofed – this e-mail went out during last night’s Presidential Debate. Most of us were engrossed watching the Trump Train-wreck, so we’re sending it out again. As always, thank you for your consideration and your support. – AMG.
Wouldn’t it be nice if there were a PAC for progressives like you and me? Actually, there is. It’s called Blue America PAC, and it deserves your support >>
We live in an age of PACs, for better or for worse. Scratch that – for worse, or for even worse than worse.
You
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You
can give your hard-earned cash to the Democratic Party, but then the
party will turn out and waste that money by spending it against
progressive candidates like, for instance . . . me.
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So, if your goal is to help elect progressive candidates, whom can you trust?
You can trust Blue America PAC. Take it from me, you can trust Blue America PAC.
Howie Klein runs Blue America PAC. He knows the candidates across America better than anyone else I’ve ever known.
I spend plenty of time with national Democratic leaders. Howie Klein knows the candidates better than they do.
I spend all-too-much time with national political operatives. Howie Klein knows the candidates better than they do.
And
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There
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Blue America PAC is that PAC. A PAC for you and me..
Courage,
Rep. Alan Grayson
CONTRIBUTE
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The latest emails disclosed by Wikileaks clearly shows why we must keep building our progressive movement -- to be prepared to confront the new administration, whoever wins this terribly flawed election.
Now is the time to ask, what lessons can we learn from these recent Wikileaks?
First, these latest emails, which
involve John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, reveal the
incestuous relationships between establishment politicians, the
mainstream corporate media, Wall Street, and big business interests.
None of this should come as a surprise. We saw these same corrupt conflicts of interest in my recent campaign against Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
Progress
For All, our progressive grassroots action group, is committed to
uncovering these corrupt relationships and reforming politics. But we
rely 100% on small donations from ordinary folks. Please contribute $38 or whatever you can to help us organize against the corrupt political-corporate nexus.
In her well-paid speeches to Wall
Street firms, Hillary Clinton praised the banksters who created the 2008
financial collapse and then profited so hugely from the government
bailouts. She also expressed pride in supporting the worldwide spread
of hydraulic fracturing (fracking), while at the same time she was
publicly speaking out about the growing dangers of climate change.
There’s been a tendency among some
progressives to remain silent about the latest Wikileaks dump, no doubt
out of fear of being accused of helping to elect Donald Trump. However,
if we don’t discuss these troubling emails now, they will surely be
swept under the rug after November 8th.
Moreover, the recent Wikileaks show the responsibility of the Democratic establishment for the rise of Donald Trump.
Even before the presidential campaign got started, the Clinton camp was
plotting how to get their friends in the mainstream media, including at
MSNBC, to saturate Trump with television coverage to help boost his
campaign – all because they knew Trump would be the one person who could
blow up the Republican Party and who Hillary could defeat in a general
election.
Finally, these Wikileaks also show how
the Obama campaign plotted with leading Wall Street supporters in
October 2008 - even before he was first elected president - to staff his
administration with the same Wall Street villains who helped to
collapse the U.S. economy and global financial system. Again, this did
not come as a surprise to me. Although I was a big supporter of Barack
Obama throughout his 2008 campaign, I publicly broke with him just days
after his election when he announced the appointments of Timothy
Geithner as Treasury Secretary and Larry Summers as head of his National
Economic Council. As a law professor and activist, I was well aware of
the roles that both Summers and Geithner had played in deregulating
Wall Street, abolishing the Glass-Steagall firewalls that had protected
banking from speculation, and allowing the growth of complex financial
derivatives. Together, these “reforms” had transformed our banking
system into a global casino, while undermining the foundations of our
democracy.
Likewise, we must be ready to confront and oppose shady appointments when made by the next president – most likely Hillary Clinton, according to the most recent polls.
While others may be try to curry favor
with the new administration and be overly complacent during the
dangerous “honeymoon” period, we know better. Please support the work of Progress For All to help us lead the charge against such appointments.
You can count on us to always resist the corrupt establishment and to
look out first and foremost for the interests of ordinary Americans.
Thank you and please spread the word
that Progress For All needs the grassroots support of small donations to
build our progressive movement.
In solidarity,
Tim Canova
Chair, Progress For All
CONTRIBUTE
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| #NoDAPL: Native Americans and our Constitution are under assault | |
| The petition to North Dakota Gov. Jack Dalrymple and the U.S. Department of Justice reads:
"Journalism and activism are not crimes. Ensure that journalists can exercise their constitutional rights to do their jobs without fear of government intimidation or prosecution. Uphold the rights of Native Americans and their allies to peacefully resist the Dakota Access pipeline without threat of violence."
Add your name:
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From Daily Kos--Volunteer to STOP TRUMP, reprinted from 17 October
Hundreds of volunteers from around the country contacted thousands of voters in crucial swing states like Ohio and Nevada to talk about what was at stake in this election and encourage them to vote!
These conversations are how we're going to defeat Trump and the Republican party's messages of racism, misogyny and hate. We couldn't do it without the incredible dedication of readers like you.
There are just 22 days left of this election. Our friends at MoveOn have volunteer shifts available all week, Monday - Friday: 5 p.m. ET - 11 p.m. ET. You can make calls from home or wherever you are comfortable. Training and support are provided.
Can't wait to volunteer? GREAT! Click here to sign up for your volunteer shift.
Can't make calls but still want to help? Click here to chip in $3 to the Daily Kos Get Out The Vote Fund.
Keep fighting,
Monique Teal, Daily Kos
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From Change.org--Repeal exemptions for religious daycares from child abuse laws
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Justice for Port Drivers Campaign via ActionNetwork.org--Tell Michael Kors to stop wage theft
We wrote you last week to ask you to send a strong message to Michael Kors, that Mr. Kors end wage theft in his supply chain, specifically at my company: Intermodal Bridge Transport.
We still haven’t heard from Mr. Kors, so it’s time we step things up a bit.
Download your selfie sign and post your picture to Instagram, Twitter or Facebook, using the hashtag #WatchHungerStop & @MichaelKors -- or share my picture on facebook.
By taking a picture, you are letting @MichaelKors know that you won’t tolerate wage theft. It hurts our families and our communities; we all deserve better.
Please join my coworkers and I in sending a clear message -- To Michael Kors: #WatchHungerStop by enforcing your Code of Conduct on trucking companies, to ensure port drivers can afford to feed their families.
In solidarity and struggle,
Eddie Ossoy
Port Truck Driver
Internmodal Bridge Transport
P.S. You can download your selfie sign here. Take a photo with it and post to Instagram or Facebook with the hashtag, #WatchHungerStop. My family and I thank you for your support!
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From SumOfUs--Bayer and Sygenta knew they were killing bees
For years, Bayer and Syngenta executives have been claiming that their pesticides are safe for bees.
But newly uncovered internal documents reveal that they knew the truth all along and suppressed their own scientific studies showing the harm that neonicotinoid pesticides do to bees.
It's never been more clear that these corporate polluters can't be trusted, and we're demanding that these bee-killing pesticides be taken off the market now.
Will you chip in $1?
Yes, I'll chip in $1 to help stop Bayer and Syngenta's bee-killing pesticides.
These documents directly contradict claims that these companies have been making publicly claiming that none of the studies they've ever conducted have shown harm to bees.
Bayer and Syngenta's studies found that the neonics they use seriously harm bee colonies when used in high doses. Significant effects were not found when lower doses were used -- but critics say that this is a not a realistic scenario. Bees in real environments are regularly exposed to a mixture of many different chemicals.
We'd never know these studies existed if not for a Freedom of Information Act request in the U.S. by Greenpeace, and scientists are expressing outrage that these companies would keep such important research hidden from the public.
And these new revelations come at a critical time, as nations like France and the U.K. are currently debating whether to continue bans on bee-killing pesticides, and in the U.S. the industry is requesting approval for new bee-killers from environmental regulators.
Your donation will allow us to really ramp up our campaign to expose this corporate deception and save the bees. We're looking to build public outrage and awareness of this scandal, using the media and even mobilizing the corporations' shareholders. We also want to commission our own studies to find out where bee-killing neonics are sneaking into our veggies, grains, and herbs, to let consumers know and then to convince grocery stores to take these products off store shelves. But we can only do this with your support.
Will you chip in $1 to help save the bees?
Thanks for all that you do,
Paul and the team at SumOfUs
More information:
Pesticide manufacturers’ own tests reveal serious harm to honeybees, The Guardian, 22 Sep 2016
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From AlterNet--Special report on America's public schools
Greetings,
Over the
last two decades, a major struggle over control of public schools in
America has put our children’s education at risk. Several dozen
billionaires, through a powerful infrastructure they established, are
attempting to privatize as many K-12 schools as they can—6,700, at last
count. There has been plenty of resistance, and the battle continues.
AlterNet.org has covered the school privatization story in great detail. Over time, AlterNet’s
parent organization, the Independent Media Institute (IMI), became
alarmed at what we were seeing through this coverage, and have responded
with a report titled, Who Controls Our Schools? The Privatization of American Public Education. Click here to access the report on your computer, phone, tablet, or e-reader.
School
privatization has too often resulted in self-dealing, corruption,
thousands of failed schools, and attempts, often successful, to dislodge
and usurp local school boards—often community beacons of local
democracy. Many boards have been replaced with a corporate model of
school control, with virtually no transparency.
Some good
things have happened as well, of course. Not all charter schools are
bad. There are parent-organized and community-run charter schools doing
great things in many locales—but they are increasingly few and far
between. At this point, more than 40% of all charter schools are part of
national and regional chains, often with no roots in the community.
We are
sending you this report because we want to share what we now know about
this important, but too little discussed, topic. You might say, “But I’m
not interested in public schools”—which is understandable. But we
believe that privatizing public schools so that the super-wealthy can
profit and impose their ideologies is anti-democratic to its core. This
is an issue that affects us all.
Our
report draws on extensive research, investigative reporting, and
industry publications to show what is happening in our communities and
explain why school privatization has taken hold in some cities.
Please, if you could give the report a read, we would appreciate it. And we would love to know what you think; send comments to comments@alternet.org. If you have friends or colleagues who might be interested, please forward them a copy, too.
I hope you enjoy it.
Peace,
Don Hazen
Executive Director
Independent Media Institute
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It looks like you got Paul Ryan's attention. And he's not happy.
The Speaker of the House forwarded the email Bernie sent to you to his entire fundraising list. You can see what he said below.
Paul Ryan really doesn't like that you donated more than $1.8 million in two days to take back the House and Senate (which
is an AMAZING feat, and something for which we are so grateful). He
even put in a big, red button when he forwarded Bernie's email that says
"HELP STOP SANDERS."
We've got their attention. Now let's show what we really can do.
Split a contribution between Bernie's thirteen candidates for
the House and Senate so we can take back Congress, make Bernie a
committee chairman in a Democratic Senate, and enact our progressive
agenda.
If you've saved payment info with ActBlue Express, your
contribution will be automatically evenly split between Deborah Ross,
Catherine Cortez Masto, Russ Feingold, Maggie Hassan, Katie McGinty,
Paul Clements, Chase Iron Eyes, Rick Nolan, Nanette Barragan, Zephyr
Teachout, Pramila Jayapal, Morgan Carroll, and Tom Nelson:
The incredible contributions you've made in the last two days are
completely changing the dynamics of these races for Congress. We are so
grateful, because your support means campaigns can train more
volunteers, talk to more voters, and turn out more people on Election
Day.
Paul Ryan knows the tremendous impact you're having, and he's scared. Let's keep it going.
In solidarity,
Team Bernie
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President Obama appointed Wall Street insiders who profited from Puerto Rico’s fiscal crisis to “solve” it.
Tell Puerto Rico's fiscal control board: Stand with Puerto Ricans, not Wall Street. Don't cut public services to pay vulture hedge funds! |
Investment risk firms are even reporting the board’s appointments as a “net positive for creditors”.1
That's because the vulture hedge
funds – that bought Puerto Rico's debt for pennies on the dollar – are
confident the board will back Wall Street's plan to cut public services
to pay the debt.
These vulture hedge funds want to pad their
profits by shutting down schools and hospitals, bankrupting public
pension funds, and slashing the minimum wage.2
With so many insiders on the board,
these vulture hedge funds could get exactly what they want – no matter
the cost to the island's 3.5 million American citizens.
We can’t let the same people who played a
part in manufacturing Puerto Rico’s debt crisis pressure the board into
selling Puerto Rico to Wall Street.
And with no accountability measures
in place, only grassroots pressure can stop these insiders from pushing
the board to go along with Wall Street's demands.
Tell the financial control board: Stand with Puerto Ricans, not Wall Street!
The membership of the fiscal control board is the Washington revolving door at its worst.
Two of the board's appointees, Carlos
García and José Ramón González, both once headed up the island’s debt
issuing agency, the Government Development Bank for Puerto Rico, that
decided to make the toxic Wall Street deals that led to the crisis.3,4
Later, both García and González were
presidents of Santander Securities, a hedge fund that was fined just
last year for selling risky Puerto Rican debt bonds.5
The sister of another appointee, Jose Carrión III,6 advises one of the vulture funds that bought more than $100 million worth of Puerto Rico’s debt in 2014.7 And now he's the chairman of this unaccountable board!
With so many conflicts of interest, it's no wonder Wall Street thinks it can win this fight.
And with their insiders controlling Puerto
Rico's purse strings, only we can make sure the control board doesn’t
sell Puerto Rico to Wall Street.Thanks for standing with us,
Kate Kizer
Campaigner
Rootstrikers
Sources:
1. Financial Times, “Washington appoints Puerto Rico debt oversight board,” September 1, 2016.
2. The Huffington Post, “Hedge Funds Want Puerto Rico To Fire Teachers To Pay Them Back,” Accessed July 29, 2015.
3. LittleSis.org, “Carlos M García – Relationships,” Accessed September 6, 2016.
4. LittleSis.org, “José Ramón González – Relationships,” Accessed September 6, 2016.
5. The New York Times, “Santander to Pay $6.4 Million in Puerto Rico Bond Settlement,” October 13, 2015.
6. LittleSis.org, “María Elena Carrión – Relationships,” Accessed September 6, 2016.
7. The Wall Street Journal, “Big Hedge Funds Roll Dice on Puerto Rico Debt,” April 9, 2014.
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| Tell the Fraternal Order of Police: Disavow Trump | |
| The petition to Chuck Canterbury, the national president of the Fraternal Order of Police reads:
“Rescind your endorsement of Donald Trump.”
Add your name:
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Last night Donald Trump defended Russian
espionage and trashed talked military and civilian intelligence agencies
sworn to protect us. But the real deal breaker was when Trump was
asked if he would accept the will of the voters on election day. He
said, "I will tell you at the time. I'll keep you in suspense."
Here's the truth: Donald Trump has dragged
the democratic process through the mud this entire election. One of the
great characteristics separating our nation from many others in the
world is a peaceful transfer or power after elections. Lose that, and we
lose our democracy.
Trump's comments are disqualifying. They are
more befitting of a third-world tyrant than a potential Commander in
Chief. Let's finish him off and a send a message that the way Trump has
disrespected our veterans, military family members, and our democracy is
a path to certain defeat.
Donald Trump has treated Gold Star family
members with total disrespect and disdain. He has lied about
contributions to veterans' charities. And he has promised to send our
troops back to the Middle East while putting forward a budget that would
cut their care when they return. VoteVets has led the fight against
Trump and your contribution towards our work will ensure his defeat on
Election Day.
All my best,
Jon Soltz
Iraq War Veteran and Chairman
VoteVets
Iraq War Veteran and Chairman
VoteVets
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| WOMEN'S HEALTH Policy Report |
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"We have 33,000 people a year who die from guns. I think we need
comprehensive background checks, need to close the online loophole,
close the gun show loophole." -- Hillary Clinton
Help us elect a gun sense champion to the White House and we'll match every dollar you give >> |
Within minutes, guns became a major issue at last night's debate --
and a major dividing line between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.
Hillary Clinton proved herself once again as a gun sense champion
capable of addressing the staggering toll of gun violence in America.
Meanwhile, Trump bragged about his NRA endorsement -- and said nothing
about how he will reduce gun violence. [1]
Trump also didn't mention how the NRA has shattered their own record
in election spending by pouring millions of dollars into supporting his
campaign. [2] We can't afford to let them win, and that's why
we're planning a massive response to take on the NRA and their
presidential puppet, Donald Trump. We're mobilizing volunteers and
calling voters in the states that matter most -- but only if supporters
like you step up now.
Right now, any contribution you make will be matched --
doubling our efforts to make sure Trump's NRA extremism never reaches
the Oval Office. Chip in to fuel our on-the-ground response in critical battleground states.
Guns were a central issue in this presidential debate because people
like you spoke up. Our movement came out in full force and made
guns the most-asked-about issue on Open Debates Coalition. Americans
deserve to know how our presidential candidates plan to address the
33,000 Americans who die every year from guns with tens of thousands of
more injured.
Well, last night, we got our answers. From Hillary Clinton, we heard
real policy solutions like expanding background checks and closing
dangerous online loopholes. From Donald Trump, we heard a lot about his
buddies over at the NRA -- but not one policy proposal.
The choice has never been clearer and the stakes have never been
higher. We've got less than three weeks to mobilize gun sense supporters
nation-wide and elect a gun sense champion to the White House. We need
to contact as many voters as we possibly can -- from phone-banking to
texting to knocking on doors -- if we want to win this election. And we can only do that if we have the resources.
Thanks so much,
Brina Milikowsky
Chief Strategy Officer
Everytown for Gun Safety
Chief Strategy Officer
Everytown for Gun Safety
1. "FACT CHECK: Trump And Clinton's Final Presidential Debate," NPR.org. October 19, 2016.
2. "The NRA Has Broken Its Record for Election Spending," Dan Friedman. The Trace, October 12, 2016.
2. "The NRA Has Broken Its Record for Election Spending," Dan Friedman. The Trace, October 12, 2016.
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From Economic Policy Institute--How discrimination reduces wages and how to fix it
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Democracy Now!
Friends, please click here and support "Democracy Now!" The bullshit with Amy Goodman's court charges have cost DN! money for travel and legal fees that were not in their budget--through no fault of their own. Please send them a buck o' five today--I've sent $30 to DN! and $10 for DKos's GOTV today in Dot Calm's memory. I wish I could do more, but I can't--please help!
-- Dot Calm's shadow
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Daily Kos
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This just makes me happy...!
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AlterNet
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Facebook God. Werd.
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Movies!
Keith Olbermann decodes Donald Trump. Damn, son--wish I'd seen this before the debate!
Keith Olbermann on why Donald Trump should withdraw--a very important video. If you watch nothing else today, WATCH THIS.
TYT: ARMED Trump supporter terrorists sit outside of a Democratic campaign office and stare inside for 12 hours in order to intimidate Democratic workers and voters
TYT: three right-wing terrorists, at least one of whom seems to be a Trump supporter and all of whom seem to be Christian (why else would they call themselves "crusaders"?), planned to blow up innocent Muslims but were caught and stopped by the FBI before they were able to harm anyone
So! Sleazy greasy perv Roger Ailes has abandoned sleazy greasy perv Donald LOSER Trump's campaign. Let Cenk from TYT fill you in on the details.
TYT: WikiLeaks confirms the cozy relationship between the Clinton campaign and the media via John Podesta's leaked e-mails. It's nothing we didn't already know; it surely happens with Republicans as well; and it's understandable given the current political and media climate, but this is absolutely not how our media should behave. We as a society MUST organize to take back our media day one after the election--while it might be nice to reinstitute the fairness doctrine, what we really need is objective, accurate reporting in our media. We Americans need our watchdog back. This is why I use independent media.
TYT: Ecuador deliberately cut off Julian Assange's Internet access. It's really just a slap on the wrist because it won't affect WikiLeaks's daily operation, but I'm glad they did it. Although I generally highly support WikiLeaks, Assange is on my shit list right now because he's only gone after Hillary, he's timed the leaks specifically to dick with the election, and he favors Donald Trump. If he had released this stuff during the primary or at least as soon as he'd gotten it, even if it was October, he'd have been golden in my book. Or if he'd gone after Donald Trump's tax returns and everything else that Donnie is hiding from us. In his desperation to damage Hillary, Assange has also bitten the bait from Russian sources, publishing red herrings along with genuine information. Assange has clearly taken sides, which means that he is no longer objective, no longer a whistleblower--he's made it personal. None of what Julian Assange is using WikiLeaks for right now has anything to do with real transparency. If it did, I'd be up in arms about his losing Internet access--we need real transparency right now, more than we ever have before. Julian Assange and WikiLeaks are NOT helping right now; unless or until they regain their objectivity and pursue full transparency for the Powers That Be, I will NOT support them. As it is, though, after Assange has been made to sit in the corner for his little time-out, I'm sure Ecuador will turn his Internet access back on--no harm, no foul.
TYT: Police van runs over innocent protesters at an anti-U.S. protest in the Philippines. Donald Trump would be proud.
Stephen Colbert gives his LIVE take on the debate...
...and hears from Nate Silver just how bad Donald Trump's night was (wow, I wasn't expecting to hear Beethoven in the intro!)
Randi Rhodes: welcome to the rape election (yeesh)--damn, son, this was posted on the 14th, so more accusers have come forward against Donald Trump since then!
Randi Rhodes: Hillary just won the election! Wonderful--Randi and her callers make great points!
'Til next time, check out these great channels:
...or, if you just want something mindless and fun, try Tested
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Oh, snap...!
...I need to bleach my brain right now...EWWW!
Oh, snap...!
...I need to bleach my brain right now...EWWW!
posted by Dot Calm @ 3:36 PM
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