The Georgia Republican running against Stacy Abrams for Governor is also the keeper of the votes. Talk about a conflict of interest.
But even with that in mind, enough Georgians turned out to the polls on November 6th and kept Stacy Abrams close enough to be awarded a do-over in December, December 4th to be exact.
This is one time you can truly say, you can’t keep a good man woman down!
I’ve criticized Fox News over the years and I’m sure there will be more opportunities to criticize them in the very near future. You can bet on it. But when the network show some decency – and that happens as often as there are blue moons – I will support their decency.
Enter support for Fox News’ decency – now that’s a phrase you will not hear often.
As the midterm elections quickly approach, Donald Trump and his herd of Republican sheep are desperate. So desperate they are, that Trump and his clan are running racist ads against Democrats hoping to scare up some votes their way. Most networks have refused to air the ad, but hearing that Fox News is one of these networks… well… good move Fox!
According to Brian Stelter, CNN’s host of Reliable Sources, Fox’s ad sales president has pulled the racist ad off both Fox News Channel and Fox Business Network.
Rules? We don’t need no stinkin’ rules.
Political rules?
My choice in the New Jersey Senate race is either the incumbent, Democrat Bob Menendez, or the Republican challenger, Bob Hugin.
Senator Menendez was charged with all sorts of nasty political-insider-corruption-fraud-bad-bad-things, when through the process, and it all resulted in a mistrial. Meanwhile, he’s been an effective Senator and has been a terrific friend to teachers and public education in general. He’s also fought hard to get the current administration in Washington to commit some money to rebuild the transportation infrastructure in New Jersey, which has been in terrible shape for years.
Bob Hugin is a businessman and a Republican. If he wins, whatever centrism that exists in his agenda will be swallowed Jonah-like by Mitch McConnell and the ultra-right-wing Know-Nothings who currently run the Senate. And that’s not to mention that he will be obligated to support the most odious, malodorous politician in, well, ever, that being the president of the country who never met a fact he could ignore or turn into a falsehood.
Politics has always attracted people with, shall we say, malleable ethics, but under President Trump, the rules are gone. He has no moral standing, and neither does the Republican Party that supports him while he attempts to trash the constitution and make a mockery of the inclusive values that we’ve tried to practice as a nation. He has nothing but fear and the now-scary title of Commander-In-Chief, which means that he can order soldiers to the border to possibly shoot women and children if they make the mistake of…throwing a rock.
At this point, it is imperative that we as a country put the brakes on Republican one-party rule, as the Republicans did to Democrats in 2010. The House presents the best opportunity for that, because I think the Senate will remain Republican, which has to make the right very happy since they can continue to pack the courts with young judges who think that meaningful constitutional interpretation means living in 1789. In fact, I think the main Republican strategy since the beginning for October is to save the Senate, which explains the president’s continued screeds against immigrants and the media, even when he should be taking a more measured tone in the aftermath of pipe bombs and antisemitic attacks.
And don’t forget that the only meaningful legislation the Republicans have passed is a giant, whopping tax break for the wealthy that has exploded the deficit so completely, it makes the Reagan deficit seem like a rounding error.
Make sure you vote on Tuesday, and in the interests of returning some balance to the country, please vote Democratic. Just think of what two more years of Republican rule will mean for this country.
For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest
“I can’t imagine him being in any level of government,” she told The Star on Monday.
Emily is referring to her father, Steve West. A Republican candidate for the Missouri General Assembly. The daughter of the Republican also said that her father is a racist and homophobic, and is known to be anti-Semitic.
“A lot of his views are just very out there,” Emily West said. “He’s made multiple comments that are racist and homophobic and how he doesn’t like the Jews.”
Even the Missouri Republican party issued a statement denouncing Steve West for all his “shocking and vile comments.” The party also distance itself from their candidate, implying that he is not decent, and saying his comments do not represent their belief.
The statement also states that “West’s abhorrent rhetoric has absolutely no place in the Missouri Republican Party or anywhere. We wholeheartedly condemn his comments.”
But Emily was shocked with she drove through the district her father is running for and saw huge amount of support her openly “racist” and “homophobic” father is getting.
“I think it’s just insane that people are putting out his signs,” she said. “You see his signs everywhere. I don’t understand how people can put out his signs knowing the comments that he’s made.”
Emily said her dad’s views have isolated him from the rest of the family. But apparently he is the exact candidate some Republicans in Missouri want in their Government.
This was a bad week.
Saudi Arabia
Megyn Kelly
Pipe Bombs
Murder at a Pittsburgh synagogue
The Stock Market
We have these kinds of weeks occasionally and they serve to remind us that we have deep and serious problems both at home and in the world that require our thoughtful, serious, sober attention. The bigger problem, though, is that we do not have a thoughtful, serious, sober president who has the skills to lead us effectively through this rough patch. In fact, the president is in some ways is creating the atmosphere in which these events can flourish.
Please don’t misunderstand me: I’m not saying that President Trump is the cause of these terrible events. What I am saying is that he has a hand in setting the tone under which they can develop and grow.
It’s time to retire “politically correct” from our lexicon because all it does is give cover to those people who blame it for repressing free speech, when what they want to say are vile, hateful things to anyone they want, and it’s usually used by whites who don’t quite understand that what they might want to say shows that they have no sense of decorum or justice. Blackface is, and always has been, racist. So has dressing up like a cartoon of someone’s ethnic background.
The president has not helped with this because he ran on a firm rejection of respectful speech, using racial, ethnic and sexist slurs against anyone, even military personnel, members of congress, judges and foreign dignitaries who opposed him or questioned his questionable judgement. Is it any wonder that we have people like Megyn Kelly uttering spectacularly racist statements? Or that we have a company such as Google protecting male executives who committed heinous acts of sexism and harassment at work?
Which of course brings us to our latest example of violence and hate, American style. The president has said, repeatedly, that the media is the enemy of the people. It looks like some people have received that message loud and clear. And what’s worse is that after a few comforting words, the president went right back on the campaign rally trail and continued to vilify the media after more pipe bombs were discovered. The mainstream media is not the problem; continuing to blame and create scapegoats is the problem.
But what made this week even worse when the president referred to himself as a nationalist, and then taunted those who really understand what his brand of nationalism means.
It’s not inclusive.
It’s not positive.
It’s not helpful.
It creates victims.
And you’ll please excuse me for bringing up the past, but as Jewish American, I cannot ignore what historical nationalism has meant to my people. It’s been used to define us as not: not part of the country, not part of the group, not part of the culture, not part of society. That the president apologized for using nationalism as he does says to me that he understands, albeit in a limited way, what nationalism has meant to minorities and those people who have traditionally been excluded from the nation. At the same time, though, he has excused the actions and words of the very right wing hate groups that promote antisemitism, racism and xenophobia.
All you have to do is listen as he and his followers describe the women and children trying to make a better life for themselves in this country as an invasion force worthy of evoking a military response on our southern border to know that this is the language of hatred, fear and loathing. Presidents are role models and they have traditionally been careful about what they say. This president has discarded that, to the detriment of the nation.
At the same time, without investigating, he nurtured the theory that the Saudi government had little to do with the death of Jamil Khashoggi, even going so far as asking the Saudi Crown Prince if his government was involved. Trump took the Prince at his word. That word was a lie.
I have all but given up on the president changing his tone to one that includes all Americans and exhorts us to use our common wisdom, our vitality and our common sense to solve our problems. As long as he sees this country as one in which there are people for him and people against him, then he will continue to divide us.
It’s up to us to change that. Make sure you vote on November 6 for candidates that will form a bulwark against policies that will enrich the few, blame the other and venerate the narrow at the expense of the many.
For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest
When Trump says “our country,” the racists take those two words very seriously.
The video below shows a Hispanic woman on the receiving end of a Trump-loving-empowered-racist. And he’s not afraid to let everyone know this is his country and anyone he deems a foreigner, must leave.
I know it’s tough to be Saudi Prince Muhammed bin . After all, you’re only 33, which is not enough time to know…anything about how the world really works. You’re fabulously wealthy. You head a government with no opposition and you believe it derives its power from the consent of the governed God and your own assumption that only you and your family, although not your brothers and cousins are fit to rule the country.
You also must contemplate a future for which your country is ill-prepared: a future where oil and gas are in decline and the climate, including the E-Z Bake Oven you call your country, is warming past bake and into broil territory. You’ve done some prior planning in response to this and you’re encouraging wealthy business people and other countries to invest in your future so you can keep your mandate, your power, and the billions of dollars to which you’ve become accustomed.
Oh, and then there’s that devastating war you’ve pursued in Yemen. You know, the one that’s been labeled the worst humanitarian crisis on the planet. And you continue the fighting because…um…the Iranians are your worst enemy and they’re arming Houthi rebels in Yemen and you…um…see this as a gigantic threat to your well-being. M, there’s no end in sight mainly because the rest of the world doesn’t see what’s happening.
So the last thing you need now is for the world to focus on the torture, killing dismemberment of a journalist–a journalist!–who lives in Virginia and wrote scathing critiques of you and your government for the Washington Post. You thought that you could slip this one past the world. After all, what’s a journalist’s life worth in Putin/Trump/ land? Journalists write stuff that makes us all feel bad and besides, it’s not very patriotic to critique your country and your dictator-.
At least Donald Trump gets it. He called you and you lied to him about the Khashoggi case and he defended you on the principles of Western jurisprudence, which you don’t really give a darn hoot about. But the point is that he believed you. And with all of this representative democracy that threatens to break out here in Saudi Arabia, it’s nice to know that you can lie to the President of the United States and he will still be your friend.
Of course, buying a few hundred billion dollars of weapons that can be used against Houthi rebels in Yemen helps your relationship with Trump, but those other Republicans are heaving religious morals at you which really, really hurts.
What really hurts the most, though, is that the world doesn’t believe your excuses. You are being questioned. You are being exposed. You have little moral authority. And we didn’t even mention that 15 of the 19 September 11 hijackers were Saudi citizens, or that your father tolerated the extreme Wahhabism that has fueled the terrorist ideologies that are presently wreaking havoc in the world.
There is blood on your hands. And there isn’t enough water in the oceans to wash it off.
For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest
Yesterday, Pat Robertson went on his show and somehow managed to put money over the life of a human being. Today, CNN’s Van Jones had a thing or two to say about Robertson, the man who calls himself a Christian.
“That’s not how a minister should be talking about this. That’s literally the reverse of the gospels and teaching of Jesus Christ. To put literally material considerations over the dignity of a human soul is against Christianity.”
It’s the little things they do… or don’t do… that speaks volume.
In the pouring rain, Donald Trump sports a fancy umbrella, more than capable of sheltering his wife from mother nature. Offering her the umbrella would be the considerate thing to doto say the least, but no one ever accused Trump of being considerate.
‘Pat Robertson.’ In this case that’s all you have to say. ‘Pat Robertson.’
It’s now official. The televangelist is a right-wing nut-job and his love and support of Donald Trump undeniable.
In a recent show, Robertson tried to defend Trump’s lackadaisical approach to the Saudi’s apparent involvement in the murder of Washington Post Journalist, Jamal Khashoggi.
In his televised rant on The 700 Club, the so-called man of God stated that murdering one life should not have any effect on what Trump is trying to accomplish in US-Saudi relations.
“We’ve had so many people killed. We’ve had CIA people killed in Lebanon. People have been taken hostage over the years. I know it’s bad, but we’ve had all kinds of stuff, but you don’t blow up an international alliance over one person. I mean, I’m sorry.”
The so-called “man of God” has spoken!
Unbelievable!
And rightly so.
The event was supposed to focus on mental illness in the Black community, but in light of Kanye’s mindboggling display last week in the Oval office, Charlamagne pulled the plug on the get-together, saying a conversation with West at this moment “would not be productive.”
Mr. West was smeared by political commentators as a mentally ill “token Negro” performing a “minstrel show” for the president after he sat down in the Oval Office to discuss a range of issues, including criminal justice reform. The pro-Trump rapper, who has spoken publicly about his mental health issues, said during the meeting that he was severely sleep-deprived when he was misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder.
Mr. West’s talk with Charlamagne was supposed to tackle the issue of anxiety and how to overcome it “to reach the next level of success.”
“Normalizing being mentally healthy is a conversation that I really wanted to have with Kanye because he’s been so vocal about his own mental health struggles,” Charlamagne, author of “Shook One: Anxiety Playing Tricks on Me,” wrote in an Instagram post announcing the cancellation. “Unfortunately I think to have that conversation with him right now would not be productive and a total distraction from the point of the convo which is to eradicate the stigma of mental health especially in the black community.”
And she points to Donald Trump’s as the reason she is no longer a Republican.
Like much of America, former Republican Meagan Simonaire of Maryland, joined the majority of the country and decided to speak out against Trump’s “attacks” on minorities, women “and anyone who does not agree with him.”
If only the Republican weaklings in Congress could do the same.
