"Joy and pleasure are as real as pain and sorrow and one must learn what they have to teach. . . ." -- Sean Russell, from Gatherer of Clouds

"If you're not having fun, you're not doing it right." -- Helyn D. Goldenberg

"I love you and I'm not afraid." -- Evanescence, "My Last Breath"

“If I hear ‘not allowed’ much oftener,” said Sam, “I’m going to get angry.” -- J.R.R. Tolkien, from Lord of the Rings

Tuesday, August 06, 2019

Today's Must-Read(s)

Hullabaloo is the place to be this morning -- there's a whole series of posts that demand attention. Start with this one by Tom Sullivan on our history of racism, which Trump has made allowable:

Donald Trump did not say he personally condemned those sentiments and racist ideology, only that "the nation" should. He blamed the Internet and video games for the body count rather than the racism, bigotry, and white supremacy he cited moments earlier (and that the alleged El Paso shooter cited for his actions). Trump blamed mental illness for the slaughter and would not address the ready availability of weapons in the U.S. and its gun culture. As if to punctuate his own disconnect from victims, Trump managed in the end to misidentify the affected Ohio city as Toledo.

Then scroll down to this one by Digby; the bulk of it is a column by Ben Shapiro from 2010; the title should give you a hint of the thrust: "Obama's Race War":

That's just an excuse. The Obama administration is racist. They are using that racism to let black criminals off the hook, justify illegal immigration, hamstring law enforcement across the country, and push redistribution as a solution to supposed continuing discrimination against "people of color." The predictable result of this policy will resemble the results of the 1876 election: federal abdication on racial violence, state abdication on racial violence and local abdication on racial violence. The next race war will come not from racist whites, but from racist blacks and Hispanics who feel empowered to act on their racism by an administration that excuses all minority misbehavior.

Shapiro isn't much for predicting the future.

And, something positive -- Digby's post on Beto O'Rourke's comments on Trump's racism, and Trump's racism itself. Here's a sample:



And yes, this has everything to do with the rash of mass shootings this week. (One of this first things I saw this morning was that there was another one last night. Four dead, I believe.)


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