Yes, It Is Trump's Fault

This Saturday, August 3 2019, there was a massacre at a Walmart in El Paso Texas. Twenty people were killed and 26 injured. The shooter was a 21 year old white male from Allen Texas, a suburb of Dallas. The shooter deliberately targeted Hispanics and said so on a "manifesto" he posted.

I would go to the particular Walmart with my mother. She would fill her prescriptions at the pharmacy before she passed away in 2014.

These shootings have become more frequent since Donald Trump became President. According to Susan Miller at USA Today there have 250 mass shootings this year in 215 days. Trump himself keeps riling up racism and xenophobia while opposing any attempt at gun control. Trump not only has blood on his hands, he's got it all over himself.

Selling Hate

Herman Cain's proposal to stop illegal immigration by building an electrified fence along the US southern border shows what has gone wrong with the GOP. I don't believe that Cain is a stupid person, if only because you must have some degree of intelligence to build a successful business. So it must be a ploy to pander to the bigots who have taken over the GOP especially the so-called Tea Partiers.

It seems that xenophobia and stupidity have become fused into a toxic mixture. These people have become so wrapped up in hatred that they don't even think about what they're saying. Do they even think about what building an electric border fence would cost? Furthermore, they don't understand that since America lives off imports, that you can't have the movement of goods without the movement of people. The only thing that would make the Tea Partiers really happy would be for them to crawl into a hole and die.

There They Go Again

The recent furor over the performance of Reggie Brown at the Repub Leaderhip Conference is only interesting for what it shows about the Repub mindset. Brown's inept and unfunny attempts to impesonate President Obama, was apparently a big hit with the delegates but not with the organizers, who cut Brown's performance short.

First of all I want to say that I'm not a fan of "political correctness" but I'm not a fan of what has come to be known as "political incorrectness" i.e. that there is something brave about being gratuitously offensive (Howard Stern, Don Imus etc.)
The point though is that the GOP is still trying to pull a "Willie Horton;" pandering to racial bias while trying to claim that they are not themselves racist.
How long are we going to let them get away with it?

Bristol Palin: A Portrait in Hypocrisy

Bristol Palin, America's favorite unwed mother, is about to hit the speaking circuit. Her message:
"Regardless of what I did personally, abstinence is the only 100% way you can prevent pregnancy." No kidding! In the meantime the sperm donor involved, a high school drop out by the name of Levi Johnston, posed for Playgirl. So much for traditional family values!

If Bristol Palin had black skin or a Spanish surname, she wouldn't be lionized by the media in this fashion. She certainly wouldn't be getting paid $30,000 per appearance. Let us remember that for the past three decades we've been suggested to a barrage of right-wing propaganda about the dangers of "illegitimacy" which rightist opinion makers blame for everything from street crime to the federal deficit. The stereotype of irresponsible, oversexed behavior among minority groups somehow seems acceptable when whites engage in the same behavior. The racism of the right keeps coming out in the most embarrassing ways.

Arizona The New Mississippi

The racists who run Arizona, including Governor Jan Brewer and the so-called Superintendent of Education Tom Horne, have approved a new measure that bans the schools from teaching "ethnic solidarity." But of course Brewer and Horne and their ilk are themselves are pandering to "ethnic solidarity:" that of whites against hispanics.

Brewer's other "accomplishments" include repealing Arizona's domestic partners act and eliminating the children's healthcare program, which left 310,000 children without healthcare.
If Brewer had any human decency she would admit that she is an incompetent politician and not even bother to run for office. But like all other sleazy race baiting politicians, from George Wallace to Pete Wilson, she panders to racial hatred just to keep herself in power. It does matter who its directed against--it could be African-americans in the past, Hispanics today, some other group of people tomorrow-- it is bigotry pure and simple.