Really? How much effort does it take to figure out that Trump’s racist campaign ad is racist?

NBC said on Monday that it would no longer air an immigration-themed advertisement approved by President Trump that CNN had refused to run after deeming it “racist.”

“After further review we recognize the insensitive nature of the ad and have decided to cease airing it across our properties as soon as possible,” NBC Universal said in a statement.

After further review – come on. That might pass if the people who approved the ad were all newly arrived from a distant planet, but otherwise, no.

But then of course NBC is the network that landed us with this monster in the first … Read the rest

Voter intimidation straight from the president of the US.

Law Enforcement has been strongly notified to watch closely for any ILLEGAL VOTING which may take place in Tuesday’s Election (or Early Voting). Anyone caught will be subject to the Maximum Criminal Penalties allowed by law. Thank you!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 5, 2018

… Read the rest

Erm, what?

One billboard outside St Louis, Missouri:

A billboard on Interstate 170 near St. Charles Rock Road is catching drivers’ attention.

A large electronic billboard that features President Donald Trump with the bible verse, “The word became flesh”, can be seen along the southbound lanes of the highway.

Yes but which word?

 … Read the rest

Aw yeah, we’re a model for governments around the world that like to kill their people if they get too protesty.

The Nigerian Army, part of a military criticized for rampant human rights abuses, on Friday used the words of President Trump to justify its fatal shootings of rock-throwing protesters.

Soldiers fired this Monday on a march of about 1,000 Islamic Shiite activists who had blocked traffic on the outskirts of the capital, Abuja. Videos that circulated on social media showed several protesters hurling rocks at heavily armed soldiers who then shot fleeing demonstrators in the back.

If Trump can they can, yeah?

Human rights activists and many Nigerians were outraged at the military’s response, which echoed a similar confrontation

Of course they have.

Gun-carrying civilian groups and border vigilantes have heard a call to arms in President Trump’s warnings about threats to American security posed by caravans of Central American migrants moving through Mexico. They’re packing coolers and tents, oiling rifles and tuning up aerial drones, with plans to form caravans of their own and trail American troops to the border.

Fantastic. Just what we need – Nazi-like paramilitary groups flooding the scene. Kristalnacht here we come!

The Texas Minutemen, according to McGauley, have 100 volunteers en route to the Rio Grande who want to help stop the migrants, with more likely on the way.

“I can’t put a number on it,” McGauley said. “My phone’s been

A puzzler:

One of the leading lights in British black theatre was wrestling with the question of what makes a person black last night — after it emerged that he has previously described himself as white.

Anthony Ekundayo Lennon has benefited from taxpayer support to aid his development as a black, Asian and minority ethnic (Bame) leader in the arts. But last week some black thespians expressed disquiet that an apparently white man had taken a black person’s place on a Bame scheme.

Lennon was named last year as one of four “theatre practitioners of colour” who had been awarded a paid two-year residential traineeship as part of an Arts Council England-funded programme. Recently he was an assistant director

Queen Melania’s PR person is furious about reporting on the queen’s lavish way of spending our money.

First lady Melania Trump racked up an astonishing $95,000 tab at a Cairo hotel at the end of her African goodwill tour last month, according to federal records.

That was more than the taxpayer bill for President Donald Trump for a two-day stay with his entourage in Scotland after a visit this summer to England, noted Quartz, which was the first to report the first lady’s Cairo tab.

The first lady’s spokeswoman, Stephanie Grisham, was furious that the initial report — later picked up by The Hill — said Melania Trump spent the night at the Semiramis Intercontinental Cairo. In

Freedom From Religion Foundation:

Washington State Rep. Matt Shea recently released a video admitting that he distributed an openly violent screed titled “Biblical Basis for War.” The Freedom From Religion Foundation condemns the document as dangerous and staggeringly hypocritical.

The “Biblical Basis for War” begins with a list of “4 Ways to know its [sic] time to fight,” all of which amount to an unjustified belief that God is on one’s side. Sections such as “Organizational Structure for War” leave no doubt that this is meant to be a guide to literal, not figurative, war.

The document specifically contemplates overthrowing “tyranny,” but it quickly defines a “tyrant” as “someone who rules without God.” Thus, it appears to call for

Don’t forget: Trump is the choice of the working stiff, the coal miners and Walmart clerks, the single mothers and displaced factory workers.

Suuure he is.

In the final months of the Obama administration, Walmart was under pressure from federal officials to pay nearly $1 billion and accept a guilty plea to resolve a foreign bribery investigation.

Barclays faced demands that it pay nearly $7 billion to settle civil claims that it had sold toxic mortgage investments that helped fuel the 2008 financial crisis, and the Royal Bank of Scotland was ensnared in a criminal investigation over its role in the crisis.

They were saying no, we won’t – and along came Trump to say there there, you don’t … Read the rest

Everyday Screaming:

Houston mother’s drive to vote at the polls Thursday was interrupted by a man’s racist road rage rant about President Donald Trump deporting her “illegal cousins.”

Janet Sabriu recorded video showing the enraged stranger’s bigoted remarks directed at her while her 2-year-old daughter watched from the backseat. Sabriu, who has been a U.S. citizen and Houston resident for nine years, was on her way to early voting Thursday afternoon along Wirt Road when she crossed paths with the man identified on social media as Charles Geier. The man’s rant repeatedly refers to Sabriu as a “bitch” as he demands that she leave “his country.”

“You’re driving in two lanes, you stupid bitch.” Geier can be heard screaming

The military doesn’t share Trump’s pretend-panic about The CaRaVan.

Military planners anticipate that only a small percentage of Central American migrants traveling in the caravans President Trump characterizes as “an invasion” will reach the U.S. border, even as a force of more than 7,000 active-duty troops mobilizes to prevent them from entering the United States.

According to military planning documents, about 20 percent of the roughly 7,000 migrants traveling through Mexico are likely to complete the journey.

…

The assessment also indicates military planners are concerned about the presence of “unregulated armed militia” groups showing up at the border in areas where U.S. troops will operate.

As in, you know, random civilians showing up to play soldier, in a … Read the rest

The Times (the NY one) has a big piece by Janet Reitman on the way federal law enforcement has ignored the danger of racist groups for decades, and how that has (surprise!!) allowed them to flourish like the green bay tree.

White supremacists and other far-right extremists have killed far more people since Sept. 11, 2001, than any other category of domestic extremist. The Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism has reported that 71 percent of the extremist-related fatalities in the United States between 2008 and 2017 were committed by members of the far right or white-supremacist movements. Islamic extremists were responsible for just 26 percent.

(Sorry to interrupt but “Islamic extremists” are members of the far right, albeit a … Read the rest

Evil Monster Junior Twitter-complains that CNN refused to run Evil Monster Senior’s disgusting racist campaign ad. CNN explains why.

CNN has made it abundantly clear in its editorial coverage that this ad is racist. When presented with an opportunity to be paid to take a version of this ad, we declined. Those are the facts. 🍎

— CNN Communications (@CNNPR) November 3, 2018

… Read the rest

Make Murka Grate Again.

Incorporating Donald Trump’s border wall into a Halloween costume is questionable at best — especially if you’re an elementary school teacher.

That’s exactly what a group of staff members discovered at an elementary school in Middleton, Idaho.

Pictures, which were posted on the Middleton School District Facebook page but have since been deleted, showed the group dressed up as a wall with the phrase “Make America Great Again” on it. Another group in a second picture was dressed up with sombreros, carrying maracas and wearing fake black mustaches, which some parents called racist.

Not to mention dumb, ignorant, patronizing, clueless, so last century, mean, childish…

The district superintendent apologized.

Beth Almanza, an immigrant rights advocate

Originally a comment by latsot in Miscellany Room.

There’s a new £50 note being issued soon. One of those new plastic ones that spring clean out of your hand and away on the breeze if you try to fold them. Anyway, the Bank of England is accepting nominations for who should be featured on the note. It has to be a British scientist.

You know what’s going to happen here. The nominations are going to be Dawkins, Hawking, Cox (Cox has already nominated and argued for Hawking) with the more historically minded going for the likes of Crick, Darwin, of course (deserving but has already been on a note), Faraday, Halley, Higgs, Jenner, Dirac…. Well you get the idea. … Read the rest