You know that talk people have with a battered woman about her abusive boyfriend? You know the one. The one where she’s gets her back up and begins defending her tormentor?
What is it she always says? Does it sound a little something like this?
“We know the truth. He’s not Hitler. He wants to help America. He wants to unite people. They think he doesn’t, but he does.” — Melania Trump, in an interview with Du Jour.
Sorry, but I gotta call bullshit.
When your wife is reduced to insisting that you’re not Hitler, it’s time for her to get a protective order and move the fuck out.
It’s too late for the GOP, but the rest of us still have time.
OK, he’s not Hitler, what the hell, yes he is. All that’s missing is the funny little mustache and the goose step walk.
Hillary is Hitler in drag!
Is it too much to ask that people go read a history book? There are hundreds, if not thousands of very good books on the third reich, but you could start with the Richard Evans trilogy.
Trump is NOT Hitler. And all such comparisons, whether Trump or others, with Hitler and the Nazi’s actually diminish Third Reich crimes.
God I get sick of these comparisons.
.
Have to agree, Hitler had a strategy he even wrote it out from prison, then followed through until he crushed his opponents under his heals.
t-Rump is an opportunist who saw the rising discontent in the GOP and decided to use it in a hostile take over.
He has no plan for Jan 20, 2017, nor the organization of loyal lieutenants to carry out his non-plan.
And the
reichstager I mean congress certainly ain’t gonna role over and hand somebody most of them fought from achieving the white house any more powers than the constitution allows him.No t-Rump ain’t Hitler, he’s too buffoonish and incompetent to try that act.
It IS a shame that he is all that stands between us and TPP.
He’s more like Huey Long without redeeming qualities.
He’s not Hitler. But he might well be Mussolini. Condoning physical violence, suppressing reporters, overdone “patriotic” displays, promises to improve the economy for ordinary people with policies that enrich the wealthy – it’s all there.
This.
Trump isn’t like Hitler. He’s like Mussolini. A Strongman.
He’s not Hitler. But he is a sick fuck. And his appeal is primarily racist/sexist/bigoted. Much of the media won’t admit it. They’ll twist this way and that to try to make him seem legitimate. But he’s a narcissistic opportunist. I don’t know if he believes a word of what he says but he’s clearly dangerous.
Strong voting for Trump and Sanders is a people’s revolt against the old parties, US Congress and what is seen as the Washington establishment. If HRC was a sound presidential candidate and as good as Bill says, she would lead a misfit like Trump bij double digits in the polls …. guess what, she is not!
The DNC and its chairwoman Debbie Wasserman is a farce. In states there is voter suppression similar as seen during the November elections. That’s not democracy, it’s tyranny.
HRC backers are already whining the Sanders voters may not vote at all or support their candidate. Never blame the voter, when all votes ARE counted in a democracy, the voter is always right.
The American people will vote for their candidate according to their beliefs …. influenced by money spend on PR, ads and the debates. Make America Great again reverberates …. and it’s fun as even Budweiser joined the America campaign. Cheers!
Are elections won by the issues? Democrats tend to believe it’s so, reality is different.
Saw a poll yesterday that her lead over Trump has slipped from 5% to 3%. There is still hope to defeat the democracy killing TPP.
As the Atlantic version of the US-sponsored corporate takeover of the world is concerned, the TTIP may go down in flames in Europe where opposition is highly organized and effective. 3.5 million Europeans have signed a petition to stop it: https://stop-ttip.org.
And 150, 000 Netherlanders have signed a petition to hold a referendum rejecting the deal. Though a no-vote would not be binding, it would almost certainly contribute to the deal’s rejection. 300, 000 signatures are needed to start the actual referendum, which will almost certainly be reached, and the requirement that 30% of the voting age population votes shouldn’t be a problem: the no-vote is sure to be massive.
We don’t need any old Trump-man to do get us out of the soup.
Do you think Hillary cares about what the Netherlands voters do? Given the money she has taken, can she care?
Life is not good (or even long) for politicians that take millions in bribes then renege.
In the final analysis she will if president. When Europe rejects the TTIP she has no partner to agree with. See how Obama hurried his sweet ass to Britain to tell the Brits to stay in the EU or else. US power and wealth is based on maintaining these links but in the US it still hasn’t dawned that there are forces at play outside the country which affect it deeply.
Until she starts talking honestly about the distribution of wealth and why, for example, her daughter lives in a ten million dollar apartment while nearly all other people live in comparative huts, the Democratic Party will not be able to unite. She will talk about how many people of so many sexual proclivities can fit into one public rest room but she will not talk about the simple subject of money because her ideology does not allow it. Money is organic, like a tree, god given, and she has the dispensation, so suck it up and vote for Hillary Clinton. Bernie Sanders wants to talk about the money in the first place. They can not and will not find common ground because the plutocracy running the Democratic Party will not allow it. Even if she is forced to withdraw for reasons of health or the email clusterfuck she presided over or whatever the Democratic Party machine will smash Bernie Sanders to dust no matter what and find a ‘Biden’ to take her place. These people play for real and the Clintons take no hostages—no way.
A thoughtful discussion at GOS today that discusses the issues of governing being contested…
“…In late 2008 and early 2009, no one was a passionate neoliberal anymore. Keynesian demand management, big injections of public spending, and the tight direction of the banking system – all three were briefly back in vogue. But only briefly. For quite quickly, conservatives…found other explanations for the crisis, and told their electorates that it was the government spending that caused the crisis (and not, as in reality was the case, the other way round).
Two things then happened that frame the choices before us now. On the Democratic side of the aisle here in the United States, both a moderate and a more radical challenge to the earlier neoliberal orthodoxy began to crystalize. Hillary Clinton[3] and Bernie Sanders[4] may now personify those different challenges, but they are not their sole architects.
[…]
The three policy lists now in play are not the same. Their centers of gravity are different because the analyses underpinning them also differ.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/5/18/1527864/-Democratic-Primaries-in-the-Shadow-of-Neoliberalism
I would say the trade issue will be the best indicator of her intentions. If Obama manages to get TTIP/TTP passed in the lame duck session, then I expect Hillary will govern from Bill’s list. (If she is forced to pass them with Republican votes in her first term, she won’t have another, I suspect.)
” When Europe rejects the TTIP she has no partner to agree with”
China
I don’t get it.
Haha.
Do you think Trump cares about what the US voters want?
We definitely got to burn this country down to the ground in order to save it.
#Trump/Arpaio 2016
It’s tough to engage with his rhetoric. But I’d say that “the voter is always right” is wrong. Think civil rights. Most voted against it for a long time. Or they vote for policies against their own interests, a la What’s the Matter with Kansas.
What you are really saying, I think, (unless I miss the snark), is that folks are easily convinced by a slogan & pay no attention to issues. So I guess Bill Maher is right: the American public is just dumb.
What I’ll grant you is that Hillary is not a very good campaigner. And whatever campaigning she does it ignored or discounted by the Sanders folks who only want to hear what they want to hear.
What is it about our species, that women step in sometimes to defend the worst possible males? It’s like mercy, compassion, and protective nurturing all gone desperately wrong. It hurts to see this in our species, and I end up feeling EMO at age fifty.
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/05/17/478406817/french-labor-protests-tear-gas-in-paris-
truckers-block-highways
A “Socialist” government acts to end overtime pay.
the President expanded overtime pay yesterday
The French President? link?
No, the AMERICAN President.
Millions could get a raise under Obama administration’s new overtime rules
The salary threshold for workers to qualify for overtime pay will double to $47,476 by December 2016, but the new rule has faced opposition
ETA: “More than four million working Americans could get a bigger paycheck by the end of the year, thanks to a new overtime rule to be finalized by the US Department of Labor on Wednesday.
Previously, only salaried workers who earned below $23,660 were eligible for overtime pay. As of December 2016, that threshold will double and be set at $47,476 a year.”
About those overtime regs, from the article
What does that have to do with France lowering overtime premium from 50% to 10% ?
I don’t live in France, it was parenthetical and thought you’d enjoy good news
Would have been nice if Dems could have managed to address it a little sooner. Twelve yrs???
Bush’s executive order in 2004 took it from as many as 6M workers, including professionals like nurses.
(http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/23/us/controversial-overtime-rules-take-effect.html?_r=0)
Obama had to wait until the Republicans painted themselves into a Trump corner and could not muster the legitimacy to overturn it. That’s my guess on the White House’s self-story about this.
Wonder if this is intended to raise the recognition factor of Perez, too?
12 years? not even in office for 8 yet
nice moving the goal posts though, first it’s he didn’t do something then it’s why did it take so long
If you check, John Kerry made repeal part of his campaign. Then Dems forgot about it.
okay but Kerry lost right?
Yeah. But with inequality growing like Topsy, no one thinks of how they might assist the least of us? For eight yrs? When it only required a rule change?
rule changes take a lot of time,it’s not like signing a piece of paper and it’s done
Yes Yes! Time to get on the neoliberal train and advance the Queen! Bow down before her!
Yeah, really, it’s not like Donald Trump authorized a needless campaign of death and misery against international consensus to advance herrenvolk interest and make their country look tough and invincible.
That would be… uh… ’92-’00 Clinton and Gore.
Oh, wait, that doesn’t count because they only used bomb strikes and embargoes. Nevermind. False comparison.
This isn’t about those half a million Iraqi children killed by the economic sanctions, is it?
For goodness sake, Bill didn’t kill them on purpose. This was a Democratic president we’re talking about. He regretted each and every death. Regretted them deeply, I’m certain. But, you know, the presidency is a difficult job requiring many hard choices. When Madeline Albright was tricked into saying those deaths were “worth it”, she was only acknowledging (however indelicately) the reality of American foreign policy.
And besides, it was all so long ago. Who even cares any more what all the conflict was about? Shouldn’t we be focused on getting Bill’s wife elected so she can start doing good things for the American people?
Gee, BooMan talks about Donald Trump being compared to Hitler, and immediately it turns into a Hillary Clinton bash fest. Who’s acting like the political Nazi’s now??
That would be the people who wage war and install puppet governments, of course. Which will probably include Trump, truth be told; but then again, while the future status of his overseas rampages isn’t completely certain, that of liberal Democrats’ is already known.
Ugh. This election has brought out the worst in just about everyone. Liberal blogs I read are all fighting about Hillary and Bernie, Dems are all screaming about Trump, and everything else is up in the air.
This is going to be a banner year for “Holding My Nose and Voting”, I’m afraid. The onslaught of terrible, terrible political advertising is coming and I am just not ready for all the crap coming down the pike. Blog commenters who usually are tolerant of one another are sniping at each other and hyperbole abounds. It’s exhausting.
The bottom line is that we, as Democrats, keep our shit together. Trump as President is truly not an option. We cannot cannibalize ourselves in this election. The stakes are too high.
There is too much at stake here. Which is why I’m puzzled why Democratic partisans are telling me to support a candidate that:
A.) Is being plagued with scandal and investigation;
B.) Has in 2015-2016 shown no lasting ability to compete outside of demographic bases already amenable to Democrats;
C.) Whose plan for 2018 is to just stick her thumb up her ass, get the DNC to shake down people for more money, and then blame the Berniebros for low turnout;
C.) Has no plan, not even a politically idealized one, to put down the neoconfederates that we’re so frightened of;
D.) Champions a toxic mixture of clientelism, neoliberalism, and neoconservatism;
E.) Has negatives monotonically increasing with no sign of plateauing or reversing anytime soon?
The standard response I usually get to all of that is, even if it’s true, we should ignore all of that because this election is so goddamn important that it doesn’t matter how we win or what bridges we burn to get there — or will get burned after our victory?
My response to that is: are you planning on dying or emigrating within the next 4 years? Because, you know, we still have to win elections after that!!
I mean, do you think that herrenvolk revanchism is just going to go away after Hillary Clinton wins? Frankly, I think that the animating impulses are just going to be even stronger in 2020 after four more years of economic stagnation and gridlock. And the GOP will run a much more competent fascist than Trump in 2020, believe you me.
Demographic change is a’coming and will give us some breathing room, but it’s not happening that quickly. Moreover, the demographic change is being driven by youth voters — voters which 2012 Obama bled like crazy and which Hillary Clinton has shown no ability to motivate. I think that the Trumpists, short of massive economic relief, are going to be even stronger in 2020.
And the Democratic response to this bleak analysis is to stare at me like a pithed dog and bleat: “But the GOP and Trump is so evil that we HAVE TO WIN THIS CURRENT ELECTION.”
So… why should non-HRC supporters settle down about the suicide pact the pragmatists/centrists are trying to neg and guilt trip the rest of the party into?
Heh. The comparison to abused spouses should not stop at Trump supporters, should it?
Deathtongue (appropriate name),
We get it. You’re pissed. What do you suggest doing? Voting for Gary Johnson and spending the next four years high? C’mon. Isn’t it time to start shifting your thinking a little from complaining and bemoaning, and adding something constructive here?
It’s really too late to do anything, short of hoping that Hillary Clinton has an asshole heart attack before July.
I’m laying down these strong positions in the future so that when HRC liberals weep and snivel over the ashes she left the Democratic Party in come 2020, you’ll fucking remember that there’s a price to pay for mortgaging your future for immediate safety.
And I’m not just talking about this election. This shit goes waaaay back and will certainly extend into the future. The liberal/centrist establishment Democratic Party is only slightly less responsible for Trump than the Republican Party is. I’m willing to give Dukakis/Carter some plausible deniability, but when that wing of the party jettisoned social democracy under the excuse of ‘we need plutocratic money to fight racists’, they helped sew the seeds which allowed Trump. Or rather, Trump’s successor in four years.
Like, you know all of those Internet blogs (Silver, Atrios, Kos, etc.) that gained massive rep for their uncannily accurate predictions when CW had, as per usual, its head up its ass? People like me will be using the allegorical Goofuses to build a Democratic Party that’s much less impotent and incompetent. They will be unwittingly and inevitably serving as the clueless, drooling, mewling Megatron/Cobra Commander-style supervillains in our morality play of ‘why you should not listen to centrists, liberals, and/or incrementalists on pain of fascist uprising’. … well, assuming that climate change, plutocratic control of strong AI, and/or nuclear winter doesn’t destroy human civilization first.
You’re clearly passionate about your beliefs, as are many of us. You will vote your conscience this November and you’ll do your best to convince people to do the same. And so will the rest of us.
In times like this, where the environment is volatile, people are going to be more aggressive and more demanding of their candidates. There’s also going to be a lot of accusation and name-calling. We all have to sift through the rhetoric and bullshit and make our decisions as we see fit.
It’s going to be a bumpy ride.
“Herrenvolk revanchism”? Here’s an idea: Put down whatever manifesto you’re reading from, and maybe go out and experience the actual world.
One thing you might learn, if you’d been paying any attention for the last 24 years, is that Clinton “scandals” just about always are unsubstantiated, and finally refuted, affairs. Outside of Monica, I can’t think of one that’s borne up under scrutiny, and these are no different. All you are proving is that 24 years of baseless accusations work. And that makes you an easy mark for the GOP.
You would learn, as well, that working people tend not to talk about “-isms.” And they will tune you out the first time you mention one.
here’s a good list 🙂
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/all-the-terrible-things-hillary-clinton-has-done-in-one-big-list-20
16-02-04?mod=mw_share_facebook
Sorry if the word ‘herrenvolk’ confuses and frustrates you. Neoconfederate seems inapt, since Trump’s appeal is nationwide rather than Southern. Even fascist seems inaccurate, because even if fascism in of itself goes down in flames, the prime animating impulse of fascism (that is, herrenvolk revanchism) isn’t going away anytime soon unless things improve.
The establishment Dems are under the impression that if Trump goes down, the threat of fascism will go away or at least they’ll have four extra years of breathing room. T’aint necessarily so.
The naked, seething ressentiment of Clinton supporters never ceases to amaze me. I’m mostly just being rude and mean-spirited when I peddle this talking point, but you guys really want to refight the 90s, don’t you?
Just so you know: the reason why Clinton is doing so awful with many independents and nearly all Millenials right now has nothing to do with the VSP hobgoblins of 20 years ago.
The sooner you grasp that most of Clinton’s problems aren’t just the result of some mean
high school cheerleader cliqueRichard Mellon Scaife goonsRalph Reed toadiesRepublicans and Fox News goons, the sooner you’ll be able to craft an effective campaign. I mean, seriously, ‘America Is Already Great’? Trump is going to eat your candidate for breakfast.Trump’s already told us he didn’t marry her for her brains. But to think that we’d have a First Lady that is this shallow is just pathetic.
Trump doesn’t leave anyone time to catch their breath and it reminds me of the Star Wars quote, ‘who’s more the fool, the fool himself or those that follow him?’
More interested in Trump’s lack of reasoned policies than his teachings of how to be belligerent, speak like a child and bully anyone within reach.
A total fail in using the battered spouse syndrome to comment on Melania Trump’s defense of her husband. You’ve just cheapened and distorted an important formulation that has been vital to assisting women, men, and their children in stopping and preventing abuse. And for what purpose?
Everyday, men and women defend their spouses against allegations made by others. Probably would have to look long and hard to find one spouse of a politician that’s never done it. Very few would ever even fall in the category of Stockholm Syndrome.
Primary and key component of battered spouse syndrome is that the spouse has to have suffered real and tangible abuse and the abuse is on-going. Then they deny the existence of such abuse to others.
Neither you, me, nor Booman knows whether Melania Trump has been battered.
Sorry, make that neither you, Booman, nor I. I guess I need some coffee.
In any case, I feel pretty confident that nothing Booman wrote here is going to be introduced into a court of law as part of a strategy to weaken use of the battered-spouse defense.
You dislike Booman’s use of analogy. Fair enough, although again, none of us knows about the relationship between the Donald and his spouse, whether there has been abuse, and so on.
Because we don’t know isn’t fucking good enough when making totally baseless allegations. Your rationalization for Martin’s use of battered spouse syndrome to level a cheap shot against Melania and by extension Trump makes all the rightwing crap that been said about anyone okay.
If you wish to stand by that position, I’ll remind you every time I see you whining about any similar attack on anyone. Push it, and I could make a much better case as to a celebrity that exhibits stockholm syndrome than either of the Trumps do.
Donald Trump Promises To `Dismantle’ Wall Street Reform
BY BRYCE COVERT
MAY 18, 2016 10:27 AM
In an interview with Reuters published on Wednesday, presumptive Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said he will release an economic plan in two weeks that will undo nearly all of the financial reforms that went into effect in 2010.
“I would say it’ll be close to a dismantling of Dodd-Frank,” he said, naming the financial reform package. “Dodd-Frank is a very negative force, which has developed a very bad name.”
Trump’s comments are in stark contrast to his previous positioning of himself as a candidate who will be tough on the financial sector. Earlier this week, he criticized Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton for her ties to big banks, saying, “She’s totally controlled by Wall Street.” A longtime adviser has also promised that Trump will crack down on the industry, saying recently, “Who’s been tougher on bankers than Donald Trump?” And Trump has promised to go after “hedge fund guys” who he says are “getting away with murder.”
Yeah, but Hillary is s whore to Wall Street, she would do the same exact thing, there’s not a dime’s worth of difference between Clinton and Trump. She might even be Hitler, too. Inquiring minds want to know.
Well, at least we should put it out there, amiright?
.
Uh huh
Uh huh
………………..
Exploitative Financial Scheme That Fueled America’s Racist Housing Legacy Makes A Modern Comeback
BY ALAN PYKE
MAY 17, 2016 8:00 AM
Investigators in New York will probe the resurgence of a dangerous housing finance practice that was historically used to target low-income black families who dreamed of owning their own home, the state’s Department of Financial Services announced Monday.
Investigators have sent subpoenas to at least four separate companies that are helping drive a boom in a long-dormant alternative to a traditional mortgage, the Wall Street Journal reports.
While the mortgage alternative is not inherently illegal, its shady legacy of exploitation has already prompted scrutiny from federal officials this spring.
The tactic is often called “contract for deed” home finance. Under this model, investors purchase homes, often at the minimal prices afforded by foreclosure sales, and then seek out potential “buyers” who do not qualify for a mortgage because they are too poor. They then market a contract to the would-be homeowner under which she agrees to pay a fixed monthly fee for decades, knowing she will not actually get the deed to the place until the contract is fully paid off.
Well, this definitely proves that Donald Trump is a modern Adolf Hitler. Arbeit macht frei and all that sort of stuff.
We call that “deed of contract” here in Texas. Rent-to-own applied to housing…
Of course that is attractive to our overlords.
May I remind you of Hillary Clinton’s defense of her spouse. If there was Stockholm Syndrome there at all, it was in regard to the press. In fact, it was Hillary who unleashed the term “vast right-wing conspiracy”. Interesting how that Village scorching adjusted their attitudes.
Now to the key issue in this. The key subject of debate over Trump as Hitler has to do with whether he is capable of the industrial organization of genocide.
Lost in this discussion is the reality that nuclear weapons are far more efficient than Zyklon-B, less industrial in character, and more military.
So the base question becomes “Is Donald J. Trump capable of murdering millions of people?” Melania Trump says that he is not. What would Eva Braun have said of Hitler with respect to that question in 1932?
Then you start stepping back to the totalitarian dictatorship over his own people.
Or just an authoritarian monarch.
Or the resurrection of Richard Milhous Nixon or Huey Long.
If I were moderating a debate, I think that one question I would ask the candidates is:
And force a serious answer. I am curious as to what the differences would be. That’s not a slam. I am curious as to the differences between someone with great experience inside the US government and someone whose ideas of government come from the fictional media.
I would also like to see a FOIA of Donald Trump’s CIA dossier, if there is indeed one. And maybe his FBI one as well. To my mind those are more relevant to the voters than his tax forms. Regardless of what they contain.
What international crimes would you commit in the name of the American people?
I LIKE that question very much.
Well Martin, how are you enjoying the Democratic Establishment shit storm you helped create? I remember when the DNC limited the debates to protect Hillary from exposure to the Bernie alternative in her Deep South political machine states; you said something like anyone who is complaining about the process is already losing. Now you say the same thing about Trump’s wife telling people he’s not Hitler.
I said before that we are lucky that Trump ended his competition allowing the Democrats to take another look at just how weak a candidate Hillary actually is before it’s too late. Now we have a vivid picture of Democratic officials changing the rules in Hillary’s favor requiring a solid line of brown shirt State Troopers to protect them from their own people while they pulled their stunt. Along with everything else, this kind of thing has now generated some interesting new voter terms.
The Democratic Establishment was warned from the very beginning that it was very dangerous for the Democratic Party to make a large portion of their base feel they were treated unfairly. Because not only did that happen, but in an arrogant manner no one thought was possible to a group much larger than anyone ever expected, a change in terms started to occur. At first it was the `protest’ vote to either not vote or vote Green. Instead of going for the `let others decide’ way of voting, I increasingly see a new term, the `revenge’ vote, going all the way to vote Republican. Don’t blame me for this, blame the DNC and the Democratic Establishment leadership.
With the polls already tightening to the point that Hillary is now in a statistical dead heat with Trump in national polls with Bernie still beating Trump in some cases by double digits something new has emerged.
The Democratic Party made a big mistake when they made Super Delegates of all Democratic office holders or aspiring office holders at the national and state levels. I don’t think it ever occurred to them that a Super Delegate vote for Hillary could damage their own personal political ambitions. I hear more and more people including those Hillary Super delegates in their `revenge’ vote strategy.
Now that these Democratic professionals have a bit more skin in the game, it will be interesting to see how this plays out when the left coast has had their say.
Bernie Sanders has won more individual votes than HRC, so it’s a total farce that Clinton has more pledged delegates.
#Trump/Arpaio 2016