Trump's Legacy: The Knives Are Out

And they're going for same-sex couples:

On Monday, Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill asked the Supreme Court to strip same-sex couples of their equal parenting rights. He did so at the request of the court, which is considering taking up his case. Hill implored the new conservative majority to rule that states may deny married same-sex couples the right to be recognized as parents of their own children. The case gives SCOTUS an opportunity to start chipping away at Obergefell v. Hodges by allowing states to withhold marital privileges from same-sex spouses. If the majority wants to begin eroding Obergefell, they will probably start here.

This, of course, has been the right's strategy since Roe v. Wade -- chip away, and keep chipping.

It looks as though the Court, or at least some of the justices, are interested in taking up the case, which does indicate an intent to begin demolishing Obergefell -- the central issue here has already been decided -- twice:

What’s strange about this case, Box v. Henderson, is that it poses a question the Supreme Court has already answered—twice. The plaintiffs are eight married lesbian couples in Indiana who used a sperm donor to conceive. When a married opposite-sex couple uses a sperm donor, Indiana recognizes the birth mother’s husband as the child’s parent. When a married same-sex couple does the same thing, however, the state refuses to list the birth mother’s wife as the child’s parent. In both instances, the second parent has no biological connection to the child; Indiana’s decision to extend parental rights to the nonbiological husbands of birth mothers, but not the wives of birth mothers, is sheer discrimination.

It's always possible that Roberts and Gorsuch will stand by stare decisis and vote with the liberal wing -- after all, as the article points out, Indiana's argument is garbage, relying exclusively on a "biological parent" argument that simple doesn't stand up to even mild scrutiny. Do read the whole article -- it's a solid grounding in this issue and a pointer toward what the right will be attempting now that they've got a bunch of fascists in the courts. With thanks to commenter solitasolano at Joe.My.God.

About Face, Forward March

On gay rights, at least, under a Biden admionistration:

As vice president in 2012, Joe Biden endeared himself to many LGBTQ Americans by endorsing same-sex marriage even before his boss, President Barack Obama.

Now, as president-elect, Biden is making sweeping promises to LGBTQ activists, proposing to carry out virtually every major proposal on their wish lists. Among them: Lifting the Trump administration’s near-total ban on military service for transgender people, barring federal contractors from anti-LGBTQ job discrimination, and creating high-level LGBTQ-rights positions at the State Department, the National Security Council and other federal agencies.

Basically, he'll do everything possible to reverse Trump's policies, which of corse came straight from Pence/Jeffress/Perkins/Graham, etc. There's a lot he can do unilaterally, like reversing the ban on transgender military service, since those thingsd were done by executive order. The article goes into some detail on ways and means and is worth reading.

(Via Joe.My.God.)

Of course, good "Christians" like Franklin Graham are sounding the warning:

LGBTQ activists within the Democratic Party are pushing their godless, secular agenda with a potential Biden Administration. If you don’t conform to their ideology, agree with their sinful beliefs, teach what they say is right, they want to close you down.

They will pressure and bully politicians to get their way. It is extremely dangerous if they are permitted to proceed unchecked.

It's called "projection", ladies and gentlemen -- substitute "evangelical 'Christians'" for "LGBTQ activists" and you have the right's strategy of the past several decades.

Freedom from Consequences

That seems to be what Supreme Court Jusice Samuel Alito is demanding here; this came under the broad heading of "religious freedom":

During his half-hour-long speech, Alito warned that not only is freedom of belief increasingly under threat, but freedom of expression is as well.

"One of the great challenges for the Supreme Court going forward will be to protect freedom of speech. Although that freedom is falling out of favor in some circles, we need to do whatever we can to prevent it from becoming a second-tier constitutional right,” he said.

The fallacy here is that somehow -- if, or course, you're the "right people", you should be able to say or do whatever you want without consequences. If you indluge in, for example, anti-gay bigotry, then expect to be labeled a bigot. Cloaking it in a belief in "traditional" marriage (one man and -- how many wives was that, King Solomon?) doesn't quite disguise the meaning: you can believe what you want. Where that freedom ends is when you claim the right to force others to cater to your beliefs.

And that's the second fallacy, which too many people seem ready to accept: forcing others to cater to your personal beliefs is somehow an inherent part of "religious freedom". Unfortunately for that argument, it's a given that all rights have limits. As for being called a bigot -- snowflake!

It's a fairlly revealing article, in one respect, at least: in the age of Trump, the masks are coming off.

Via Joe.My.God.

Today in Trump's America: A Quick Survey (Update)

There's just so much.

First, from the top attorney for Trump's re-election campaign, the Gospel according to your favorite theocrat (pick one -- they'ar all over the place in this regime):

The notion that the United States observes a separation of church and state is a lie, according to President Donald Trump’s senior campaign legal adviser.

“The left is going to tell you there’s this separation of church and state, and that’s just nowhere in the Constitution, nowhere in American law,” Jenna Ellis declared Monday evening during a Zoom event hosted by Asian Pacific Americans for Trump. “That’s nothing that our founding principles ever, uh, derived whatsoever.”

There's more at the link. Via Joe.My.God., who also has some of Ellis' past statements about gay people, just in case you were wondering.

Next up, Trump's Pentagon, which claims that American citizens are the "adversaries":

A new mandatory Pentagon training course aimed at preventing leaks refers to protesters and journalists as "adversaries" in a fictional scenario designed toteach Defense Department personnel how to better protect sensitive information.

The new course was recently launched as part of Defense Secretary Mark Esper's effort to improve "operational security," or OPSEC, and clamp down on leaks. The training materials are public and include a video message from Esper, as well as a July 20 memo outlining his concerns about operational security and directing all DoD personnel — military, civilian and on-site contractors — to take the course within the next 60 days.

The DoD spokesman gives a nice rationale for use of the term, but it still reveals a mindset that's pretty dismal.

Again, vie Joe.My.God.

And from Glorious Leader himself, a little racism to wash it down:

...Your housing prices will go up based on the market, and crime will go down. I have rescinded the Obama-Biden AFFH Rule. Enjoy!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 29, 2020

There's more. I may update this one.

Update: Trump doesn't think he has to abide by Supreme Court decisions:

President Donald Trump though acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf (photo) will sidestep a Supreme Court ruling and move to drastically limit access to and limit the protections of the Obama-era program known as DACA.

The administration believes DACA, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, is still illegal, NBC News reports. Acting Secretary Wolf on Tuesday announced he will not accept any new applicants to the program that protects undocumented immigrants who were brought into the country as children.

Nice elections you have there -- be a shame if anything happened to them:

The Trump administration is planning to keep federal agents in Portland, Oregon, through at least mid-October, according to an internal email obtained by CNN.

Portland has been the site of ongoing protests for more than 50 days that have turned violent, sparking outrage among local officials who have faulted the federal presence for aggravating the situation on the ground.
But as protests persist, Customs and Border Protection -- part of the Department of Homeland Security -- is laying the groundwork for continued presence in the city on a rotational basis to relieve those agents who have been in Portland and who may be deployed in the near future.

At least mid-October? Like, into early November? And if it looks like it's working in Portland ("working" being a matter of viewpoint), why not try it in other cities?

Karen of the Week

This one is almost beyond belief. From TMZ:

A radio host in New Hampshire went on a vile, racist tirade against a group of workers doing their job, because they dared to speak Spanish.

It's almost unbelievable ... Dianna Ploss saw the workers who were doing landscaping in downtown Nashua, and she just went nuts, screaming, "It's America. Speak English!"

Her ignorance is breathtaking ... she assumes they're working for the State of New Hampshire, as if that would justify her comments. For the record, there's no law in New Hampshire that we found prohibiting people from speaking languages other than English.

They correct her, saying they are a private company, but she's not deterred, hurling insults and making ridiculous demands.

An African-American man who happened to witness her tirade comes by and confronts her, and she barks back, "Because he's a black man. He's gonna protect the brown man from this white woman." Afterward, she posted on her Facebook page, "I'm not backing down."

There you have it -- all the arrogance and self-importance of right-wing so-called "Americans". I suppose it never occurred to her that it's none of her business what language people are speaking among themselves. And don't ignore the overt racism.

She wouldn't last two minutes in my neighborhood, where there's a taqueria on every corner, a corner store that advertises "Productos Latinos", even an apothecary that offers "Los remedios de la abuela". Oh, and there's an Eritrian restaurant a couple blocks down the street. And at the intersection where I change buses, you can hear Spanish, Russian, at least one Indian language, a couple of African languages, Arabic, Vietnamese, and who knows what else.

And somehow, we all get along fine. But then, we're a bunch of liberals here.

(My Lithuanian grandmother never did get a good handle on English; family get-togethers were always in Lithuanian; my generation never knew what the adults were saying, because none of us speak Lithuanian. Wonder how this Karen would have reacted to that.)

Oh, and according to an update at TMZ, she's been fired from her radio gig.

There's video at the link, which I can't embed. It's pretty appalling.

Via Joe.My.God., who has more background and a larger-format video.

Today in Disgusting People

I know, I know, but they've been crawling out from under their rocks for the last three years. This one is choice:

In times of national crisis and fast-spreading tragedy like the novel coronavirus pandemic, you can always count on the people who promote sociopathic political worldviews to reveal their awful, deeply inhuman natures for all the world to see—and they don’t come much more sociopathic than immigrant-hating Nativists.

Sure enough, the leaders and spokesmen of key Nativist hate groups—notably the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) and the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), both designated hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center—have taken the lead in opposing any release of immigrants currently held in detention centers around the United States despite the spread of COVID-19 in these facilities, as Michael Edison Hayden reports at Hatewatch.

Some of the statement coming from these racist groups sound reasonable, until you stop to think about them. This is just one example:

Another writer at CIS’s website, Andrew Arthur, argued: “Releasing ICE detainees takes them out of a facility where sanitary protections are readily available, testing is accessible, quarantine can be accomplished, and treatment is guaranteed. If that is not joining forces with the current pestilence, I am not sure what is. Detention is the best resistance to pestilence.”

This is pure horsepucky. It's well documented that the conditions at these facilities are appalling -- overcrowded, unsanitary, inadequate food, and practically non-existent medical care.

If these "nativists" want America reserved for the real Americans, they should all go back to Europe.

Read the whole thing, and also the article linked to at Hatewatch.

Footnote: I can't help but wonder how many of these people consider themselves good Christians. How many times does their Bible tell them to welcome the stranger?

Today in Disgusting People (Updated)

You may have heard that the Boys Scouts of America has filed for bankruptcy. Perennial hate-monger Tony Perkins, of course, is ready to fix blame. Via Joe.My.God.:

It’s one of the saddest, most predictable “I-told-you-so” moments of our generation. The Boy Scouts, where future moon walkers and presidents learned the virtues and value of leadership, has finally collapsed. Turns out, the decade of compromise hasn’t been kind to the Scouts, who turned in their moral compass seven years ago to chase the approval of critics it could never win. Now, deep into the BSA’s self-imposed identity crisis, the group is filing for bankruptcy — an unhappy ending we all warned was coming.

For those who knew the Scouts through their proud and honorable days, the demise has been slow and painful. But this is what comes of throwing up your hands on a century of conviction: irrelevance and, ultimately, insolvency. For 103 of its 110 years, the Boy Scouts were a pillar of principle — not that it was easy.

As most of us know, the fight to live out your beliefs in this world can be an exhausting one. The Scouts spent years in court just for the freedom to stick to their moral code. They won — but to the organization’s dismay — the battle didn’t end. Waves of LGBT activists kept coming. The pressure built and built until finally, in 2013, under the leadership of Rex Tillerson, headquarters gave into the lie that compromise would be their salvation. Seven years later, the irony is: there’s nothing left to save.

As Joe points out:

. . . today’s bankruptcy filing comes in response to thousands of lawsuits filed over alleged sexual abuse that happened long before openly LGBT persons were allowed to participate. In almost all of the cases, the alleged abuse took place decades ago in Boy Scout chapters operated by Christian churches.

There's a lot more information on that in the comments, which are worth reading.

Update: Here's a report on what's actually happening, without the moral posturing.

Here We Go Again

I normally don't bother to comment on Monica Cole and her "One Million Moms". If you're not familiar with them, it's another one of those hate groups -- an arm of American Family Association -- that calls for boycotts of anything and disturbs their delicate "Christian" values. This time, they've come out in favor of bullying:

Kellogg’s has supported the homosexual community for a long time, and now it is obvious they are going after our children. As part of an effort to say “we’re all in this together,” Kellogg’s has combined several of its popular cereals into one package to support an LGBTQ “anti-bullying” campaign called Spirit Day.

Kellogg’s calls it All Together Cereal, an exclusive, limited-time offer in which the cereal brand’s famous mascots are promoting their individual cereals packaged together in a purple box with rainbow colors. Purple is the designated color for Spirit Day, which is described by the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) as “the most visible anti-LGBTQ bullying campaign and united show of support for LGBTQ youth.”

[. . . ]

TAKE ACTION: Kellogg’s needs to hear from you. Supporting the homosexual agenda verses [sic] remaining neutral in the cultural war is just bad business. If Christians cannot find corporate neutrality with Kellogg’s, then they will vote with their pocketbook and support companies that are neutral. Sign our petition now!

If course, "remaining neutral" in "Christian"-speak means taking their side in favor of the status quo.

And do note, as I indicated in the beginning, they're coming out against an anti-bullying effort.

Such lovely people.

Through the Looking Glass, Again

Now, we all know that Tony Perkins would rather lie than tell the truth about almost anything, but this is -- well, see for yourself -- this is where it gets really surreal:

Especially, as many of us would point out, based on the Left’s flat-out denial of real science about gender, creation, conception, and medical research. Unlike conservatives, the president’s opponents are so ideologically-driven that they’ll ignore decades of technology just to deny that an unborn baby is a human being — or that gender is defined by biology at birth.

Setting aside the fact that Perkins apparently doesn't know the difference between science and technology (no real surprise there), let's start with gender, since trans folk are Perkins' latest target, now that he's lost the battle on gay rights. Courtesy of commenter JustDucky, from the Cleveland Clinic:

“The brain and the body can go in different directions,” Dr. [Murat] Altinay says. “Gender is not only in our genitalia; there’s something in the brain that determines gender.”

“The male and female brain have structural differences,” he says. Men and women tend to have different volumes in certain areas of the brain.

“When we look at the transgender brain, we see that the brain resembles the gender that the person identifies as,” Dr. Altinay says. For example, a person who is born with a penis but ends up identifying as a female often actually has some of the structural characteristics of a “female” brain.

And the brain similarities aren’t only structural.

“We’re also finding some functional similarities between the transgender brain and its identified gender,” Dr. Altinay says.

In studies that use MRIs to take images of the brain as people perform tasks, the brain activity of transgender people tends to look like that of the gender they identify with.

So, Perkins and his ilk don't understand gender, which is something separate from biological sex.

As for creation, do we really want to go there? The most rudimentary research into earth's beginnings and the origin of living organisms with blow the Biblical account[s] (yes, there are a couple) of creation out of the water. And the scientific version is backed up by evidence. The Biblical version is based on what we can only call hearsay.

Conception? Who denies the science behind conception? (And what is the "science" behind conception, anyway?) Anyone? Bueller?

And the idea that an "unborn baby" is a human being, that's just Perkins playing word games -- is a blastula a human being, entitled to all the rights thereof? If Perkins thinks that's the case, perhaps he should undertake a care and feeding of one such. (Oh, and as for this concern for children, anyone recall how forcefully Perkins and his fellow-travelers have spoken out about the children in cages on the southern border? I thought not.) (And don't forget, this whole theme is the anti-abortion plank, which, certain "Christians" claim, is against God's will. Well, not always.

This whole denial of science shtick is pure projection, no more, no less. Well, with a helping of word salad.

But then, it's Tony Perkins.

Tweet du Jour

Campbell's strikes back:

With thanks to commenter Уильям at Joe.My.God.

Sadly, the "Customer Service" response was a fake, according to Snopes. Unfortunately, Snopes's response is on Facebook, which I refuse to participate in, so do follow the link to see the commercial (which, incidentally, is several years old).

Today's Must-Read: The Lower Depths, Part ? (Update)

Trump's mean, vindictive policy of separating families and putting the children in concentration camps continues, and the more reports I read, the worse it sounds. This one, from CNN via Digby, is more than horrifying:

A 14-year old told us she was taking care of a 4-year old who had been placed in her cell with no relatives. "I take her to the bathroom, give her my extra food if she is hungry, and tell people to leave her alone if they are bothering her," she said.

She was just one of the children we talked with last week as part of a team of lawyers and doctorsmonitoring conditions for children in US border facilities. We have been speaking out urgently, since then, about the devastating and abusive circumstances we've found. The Trump administration claims it needs even more detention facilities to address the issue, but policy makers and the public should not be fooled into believing this is the answer.

The situation we found is unacceptable. US Border Patrol is holding many children, including some who are much too young to take care of themselves, in jail-like border facilities for weeks at a time without contact with family members, regular access to showers, clean clothes, toothbrushes, or proper beds. Many are sick. Many, including children as young as 2 or 3, have been separated from adult caretakers without any provisions for their care besides the unrelated older children also being held in detention.

We spoke with an 11-year-old caring for his toddler brother. Both were fending for themselves in a cell with dozens of other children. The little one was quiet with matted hair, a hacking cough, muddy pants and eyes that fluttered closed with fatigue. As we interviewed the two brothers, he fell asleep on two office chairs drawn together, probably the most comfortable bed he had used in weeks. They had been separated from an 18-year-old uncle and sent to the Clint Border Patrol Station. When we met them, they had been there three weeks and counting.

Read it, if you can stand it.

Update: And if people try to help, Border Patrol ignores them.

Today's Must-Read: "Christian Nation"

If this doesn't send a chill up your spine. . . .

Recently, a congressional staffer going about his business on the Hill encountered a couple of people who handed him a pamphlet with the scintillating title "Sexual Sin and the Aphrodisiac of Power." Sadly, this was not a post-#MeToo effort to discourage sexual harassment in the halls of Congress. Instead, the document implored "legislators, staff and lobbyists" to adopt a strict fundamentalist view of sexuality, which holds that there is no legitimate expression of sex — including masturbation — outside "the confines and commitment of a husband and a wife (a male and a female) in the bonds of matrimony."

Most urban dwellers, in Washington or elsewhere, have had these chance encounters with religious proselytizers trying to lure in the lost, lonely and emotionally vulnerable. But this was no random encounter with some true believer or doorbell-ringer. These folks were working for Capitol Ministries, a powerful right-wing group that is laser-focused on founder Ralph Drollinger's goal of recruiting public leaders and leaning on them to impose the group's far-right views on a public that overwhelmingly rejects them.


Furthermore, the group has been quite successful so far. As the pamphlet indicated, sponsors of the Capitol Ministries Bible Studies includes seven members of President Trump's Cabinet, the head of NASA, and Vice President Mike Pence. According to Peter Montgomery of People for the American Way, who has been monitoring Capitol Ministries for years now, the group has weekly Bible studies for House members and senators, as well as one for Cabinet officials.

"[Drollinger] uses this really rare and privileged access he has by doing things like a Bible study with members of the Cabinet to tell these powerful public officials that the Bible mandates right-wing economic, social and environmental policies," Montgomery told Salon.

This is what the "religious" right has been working toward for decades -- since Ronald Reagan, in his infinite wisdom, thought he could control the Moral Majority. And as an example as to how far these fanatics have corrupted the teachings of Christ, get this:

As Montgomery has carefully chronicled at Right Wing Watch, a blog for People for the American Way, this relationship between Drolllinger's teachings, right-wing ideology and Trump officials is visible in a number of policy choices. Drollinger is fiercely anti-immigration, claiming that God deliberately separated people at the Tower of Babel and, by implication, that they should stay that way. He opposes environmentalism as a "false religion." And, of course, he opposes same-sex marriage; and teaches that despite all the language in the Bible about caring for the poor and the vulnerable, programs that do so are illegitimate.

So if you were wondering about the origins of those rule changes that target the poor, immigrants, women, and sexual minorities -- minorities of all kinds, actually -- it's not just Trump's petty cruelty. It's the petty cruelty of the religious right.

Read the whole thing -- it focuses mostly on these "Christians'" attempts to control everyone else's sex lives (because, after all, they're obsessed with sex), but there's enough in there to indicate just how wide-ranging their agenda is.

Via Joe.My.God.

Irony du Jour

This one had me scratching my head:

A Colorado building owner who was recorded telling her tenant to find an “American person” to sublease her property instead of a Muslim father and son, now has to pay the men $675,000.

The men sued last year and the landlord agreed after she was threatened with a lawsuit for religious discrimination.

“It’s my community, it’s my neighborhood,” said Rashad Khan, co-owner of Curry & Kabob. “I have friends who live there. I lived down there since 2008.”

Khan and his father run their restaurant up in Boulder, CO.

and the punchline:

"American person,” Katina said. "American person I need. Good American person like you and me."

. . .

"These kind, type, they are very dangerous, extremely dangerous," Katina continued.

"American person" -- from someone who apparently can barely speak "American".

Health Care For Some

The Trump regime has done it again: HHS has promulgated a new rule for "conscience protections" for "Christian" doctors, nurses, EMTs, what have you. And of course, Trump announced it at a National Day of Prayer event:

During a speech Thursday before faith leaders, President Trump announced a new rule allowing health providers, insurers and employers to refuse to provide or pay for services such as abortion, sterilization or assisted suicide that they say violate their religious or moral beliefs.

The 440-page rule is broad in scope, spelling out specific services that individuals and entities could refrain from providing or paying for based on their beliefs. It also emphasizes parents’ rights to refuse several specific types of care for their children.

Conservative groups welcomed what they call “conscience protections” for health care workers and others, while LGBTQ and women’s groups warned the rule would reduce services and potentially harm patients if providers refuse to deliver certain care, or treat gay and transgender people.

More red meat for the base,and probably just for show. It's already been challenged in court:

San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera on Thursday announced he had filed suit against the Trump administration's Department of Health and Human Services to invalidate a new federal rule that would allow health care staff to refuse to provide medical treatment to people, even in emergencies.

If allowed to take effect, the rule would reduce access to health care, particularly for women; LGBT people; and other medically and socially vulnerable populations, Herrera's office stated in a news release.

I'm sure others will sue as well.

I can't help but think of possible remedies for anyone faced with a refusal to provide medical care for reasons of "conscience" -- start with a complaint to the state licensing board, a civil rights suit under state laws, or, worst case scenario, should a patient die because refused care, a criminal complaint of homicide. But then, the damage is done.

Here's the rule, if you want to wade through it -- it's 440 pages, and apparently quite specific.

Footnote: According to one source, the rule also covers advance directives, so patients may receive life support, etc., even though they have explicitly directed that they not.

Via Joe.My.God. and various commenters.

Today in Trump's America: Genocide is Funny

There seems to be a lot of puzzlement over this tweet from the Tweeter in Chief:

Today Elizabeth Warren, sometimes referred to by me as Pocahontas, joined the race for President. Will she run as our first Native American presidential candidate, or has she decided that after 32 years, this is not playing so well anymore? See you on the campaign TRAIL, Liz!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 9, 2019

The puzzlement seems to stem from wondering whether Trump knows about the Trail of Tears. (It's sort of indicative that his apologists are relying on his fundamental ignorance about just about everything as an excuse.)

Of course he knows. And he thinks something like this is funny.

If you had any doubts about what a total loss Trump is as a human being -- well, what rock have you been hiding under?

(And note: any of his cultists who actually understand the reference probably think it's funny.)

Via Joe.My.God.

Late Notice

I just realized that yesterday was International Holocaust Memorial Day, and the 74th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. Here's a good post on it:

Given the moment in history we find ourselves, it is up to each of us to make sure that never again, whether it is spoken in regard to Jews or Muslims or other religious minorities or religious adherents that are in the minority in specific countries, or for members of ethnic minorities or members of ethnic groups that are in the minority of specific countries, or for those who are at risk because they’re LGBTQ or refugees or asylum seekers and/or asylees, actually means never again.

Considering the state we as a country find ourselves in right now, it's a good idea to think about the consequences.

Here's the most heart-breaking image:

My name is Werner Stein. The US turned me away at the border in 1939. I was murdered in Auschwitz #NeverAgain #RefugeesWelcome pic.twitter.com/sEb1v0pvOs

— St. Louis Manifest (@Stl_Manifest) January 28, 2019

I don't know -- maybe being taken away from his parents put in a cage would have been better. But then, neither is acceptable.

Today's Must Read: The "Pundits" Speak

There's a bit of a flap over comments Tom Brokaw made on, I assume, Chuck Todd's show that are -- well, "stupid" comes to mind. Here's the one that stuck out to me:

I also happen to believe that the Hispanics should work harder at assimilation. That's one of the things I've been saying for a long time. You know, they ought not to be just codified in their communities but make sure that all their kids are learning to speak English, and that they feel comfortable in the communities.

Point One: Every immigrant group in the history of this country has tended to settle in their own communities, at least for a generation to two. You're in this new place where everything is not what you're used to, so of course you try to live near people who have the same background.

Point Two: Their kids do learn to speak English, eventually. Sometimes right away. Family history has it that my father, whose parents immigrated before World War I and settled in a Lithuanian community in Southern Illinois, didn't learn to speak English until he started school. And he spoke flawless American Standard English.

As well, I happen to live in a neighborhood with a lot of immigrants from all sorts of places -- East Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, Indian, Pakistan, Russia, you name it. Not only do we all manage to get along with each other, but the kids are usually bilingual, even if the parents are not -- although I do notice that the parents all seem to have some command of English -- it's the only language we all have in common.

So now I'm wondering -- when did Brokaw lose his mind?

There's more, most of it worse. Read the whole thing -- it's short, and Digby has a couple of on the nose comments.

There Is No Bottom

Not for this regime. Now they're going after 4H Clubs:

The Trump administration pushed the national 4-H youth organization to withdraw a controversial policy welcoming LGBT members — a move that helped lead to the ouster of Iowa's top 4-H leader earlier this year, a Des Moines Register investigation found.

The international youth organization, with more than 6 million members, introduced the new guidance to ensure LGBT members felt protected by their local 4-H program. The document and their attempts to broaden membership in the LGBT community was a smaller part of a larger, multi-year effort to modernize the federally authorized group. . . .

Within days of the LGBT guidance's publication, Heidi Green, then-chief of staff for U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue, requested that it be rescinded, Sonny Ramaswamy, then-director of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, the federal department that administers 4-H, told the Register.

Afterward, a NIFA communications manager sent an "urgent" email to at least two states — Iowa and New York — urging the 4-H organizations there to remove the LGBT guidance from their websites, the Register found.

Via Joe.My.God. There's some feeling in the comments at Joe's post that this is the work of Mike Pence. It's possible, but in this so-called "administration" there are enough bigots, both in office and hanging around the edges, not to mention in the halls of Congress, that it's not even necessary for Pence to get involved -- after all, Sonny Perdue is no prize himself.

The article is worth reading -- it goes into detail about how this fits into the Trump regime's attacks on LGBT Americans, which, after all, has historically been one of the favored targets of dictator wannabes.

Somehow, I'm Not Surprised

I think the headline from this article says it all:

Most White Evangelicals Say Immigration, Increasing Racial Diversity Harms America

Read the whole thing. Then go vote.

Via Joe.My.God.

Today in Right-Wing Hypocrisy

From none other than the holotype of bigoted, hypocritical "Christian":

Sessions was speaking at the Boston Lawyers chapter of the Federalist Society when a man, later identified as United Methodist Pastor Will Green of Ballard Vale United Church in Andover, Mass., interrupted with quoted lines from the Bible.

“I was hungry and you did not feed me. I was a stranger and you did not welcome me. I was naked and you did not clothe me,” Green said. “Brother Jeff, as a fellow United Methodist I call upon you to repent, to care for those in need, to remember that when you do not care for others, you are wounding the body of Christ.”

The pastor was then escorted from the room. Another pastor, identified as Darrell Hamilton of First Baptist Church of Boston, also addressed Sessions and was escorted out.

That quote is from Matthew 25, and is my favorite to throw in the face of these anti-immigrant neo-fascists. But Sessions' response is priceless:

"I don't believe there's anything in my theology that says a secular nation-state cannot have lawful laws to control immigration in this country. That’s what we’re talking about," Sessions said. "It’s not immoral, not indecent and not unkind to state what your laws are and then set about to enforce them, in my view. I feel like that’s my responsibility and that’s what I intend to do.”

That's one of the smarmiest things I've heard from Sessions, who is also the type specimen of smarmy.

So, suddenly the U.S. is a "secular nation"; funny, I could swear that we're a "Christian" nation. And by the way, they're not enforcing the laws; they're making it up as they go along. Note: "the law" is as follows:

8 U.S. Code § 1158 - Asylum

(a) Authority to apply for asylum

(1) In general

Any alien who is physically present in the United States or who arrives in the United States (whether or not at a designated port of arrival and including an alien who is brought to the United States after having been interdicted in international or United States waters), irrespective of such alien’s status, may apply for asylum in accordance with this section or, where applicable, section 1225(b) of this title.

What Trump, et al. are trying to do is circumvent the law to keep their racist, isolationist base happy. That's all.

Footnote: Scrolling down through the Code section, I ran across this. Hide your irony meter:

(2) Exceptions

(A) In generalParagraph (1) shall not apply to an alien if the Attorney General determines that—

(i) the alien ordered, incited, assisted, or otherwise participated in the persecution of any person on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion;

Pity the Trump cultists aren't trying to emigrate. Oh, well, you can't have everything.

Via Joe.My.God.