International Holocaust Day.

Good thing they sent Rex Tillerson. Trump would have likely commented that "bad things were done on many sides, on many sides."

In Poland, it is now illegal to mention that Poles helped the Germans kill off Polish Jews, or mention that death camps were in Poland.

This is also the anniversary of the Apollo 1 fire in 1967. NASA has not had much luck with flying spacecraft in January.

Welcome to Trump's Amerika

At least one Jewish congregation in Texas is holding its High Holy Days services in secret.

Hate crimes are up, in part due to a perception that the Trump administration is sympathetic to the nazis.

I know a lot of my co-religionists in this country are liberals, but if they don't know one end of a Glock from the other and how to competently use one, they are deluding themselves.

Trump's Slow Denunciation of the Nazis.

Condemning the Nazis should have been a no-brainer, given that "Nazis are bad" has been official policy since the 1930s, but not for Trump. Which was not surprising, given his history of racially-tinged attacks, alleged discrimination, and his trio of Nazi advisors.

And so, nearly three days after the Tiki-Torch Nazis did their first march and two days after a Nazi drove his car into a crowd of people, killing Heather Heyer, Trump read a prepared statement condemning the Nazis (presumably while his Chief of Staff stood offstage, with a loaded revolver in his hand). Trump never denounces the Nazis on his own; it always takes an uproar and then, a few days later, he reads remarks that someone prepared and that someone convinced him that he has to read. It's never by Trump's own impulse to be a good person, an impulse that arguably would be as foreign to Trump as speaking in Mongolian.

Remember, this is the guy who, after the Central Park Five were exonerated, still believes they were guilty. He has approved of slaughtering demonstrators. He's cut funding for combating Nazi groups in the U.S.

For it should be pretty clear that Trump, in hi heart-of-hearts, stands with the Nazis.

Yet When Muslims Do It, It's Called "Terrorism"

A car plowed into a crowd of people peacefully protesting a white nationalist rally Saturday in a Virginia college town, killing one person, sending at least 26 others to hospitals and ratcheting up tension in an increasingly violent confrontation.

And Trump can take his "many sides" shit and shove it up his and his neo-nazi staffers' asses. Is is the bitter fruit that Trump has sown with his embrace of the neo-nazis of the alt-right. The neo-nazis were very clear at the demonstrations that they believe that Trump is on their side and he has given them no reason to doubt that. When some act of terror or violence is committed by one of Trump's supporters, or people sympathetic to Trump, he is either silent or, when he does say something, it is his typical both-siderism bullshit.

Marco Rubio gets it:

Very important for the nation to hear @potus describe events in #Charlottesville for what they are, a terror attack by #whitesupremacists

— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) August 12, 2017

And, as to this, no fucking shit:

UPDATE: City Commonwealth Attorney says vehicle into crowd being handled as a homicide. @NBC29

— Henry Graff (@HenryGraff) August 12, 2017

But let's seem them handle it as terrorism, too.

Trump the OPSEC Imbecile

In an call with Philippine dictator Duterte, President (for now) Trump couldn't resist the impulse to brag about how he commands the best submarines in the world and where two of them were.

Of all of the operational secrets, the location of nuclear submarines is right at the top. Nobody is supposed to talk about where they are, not even in generalities. Now it is true that the President can do what he wants as far as that goes. But let's be clear about this: This wasn't Trump disclosing a secret for some diplomatic advantage, not at all. This was Trump the petulant man-child bragging about his shiny toys and how much better his toys are than anyone else's.

But hell, we all know that Trump is really jealous of Duterte. Duterte has ordered the extrajudicial killing of anyone involved in the drug trade and, given how those things go, it's probably a safe bet that some of the people he'll have killed will turn out to have been critics and political opponents.

There is little doubt that Trump and the Two Neo-Nazi Steves (Bannon and Miller) would very much like to send out their own death squads.

Trumpist Brown Shirts

Kyle Chapman, a California activist arrested earlier this month in a clash in Berkeley between anti-fascist protesters and pro-Trump demonstrators, announced this week he is forming the Fraternal Order of Alt Knights (cleverly called “FOAK).

History may not repeat itself, but it seems to have a rhythm.

Trump's On-Staff Alleged Neo-Nazi; and Fly the Fiendish Skies of United

First off, one of Trump's staff pukes seems to be very proud of his ties to a Hungarian neo-nazi group. Oh, they say they're not really a bunch of neo-nazis and they deny being a pack of collaborators during the war, but they were listed as being Nazi tools by our government.

Elsewhere, United Airlines wanted four people to get off a flight because reasons. One refused, so they dragged him bodily off the airplane and may have used a stun gun on him, as well.

I'm kind of guessing that United's terms for selling a ticket doesn't include consenting to being violently assaulted by the airline's employees for not giving up a seat.

Trump Blames Jews for Vandalism of Jewish Cemeteries and Bomb Threats Against Jewish Community Centers

President Donald Trump confused many in a meeting Tuesday with state attorneys general when he suggested that recent threats made against the Jewish community might have been committed "to make others look bad" and that in terms of the threats, "the reverse can be true."If you're going to give voice to a charge such as that, Donnie Boy, you had better have rock-solid proof. Because it sure looks as though you're dog-whistling to the antisemitic elements in your base and letting them know that they can keep it up.

We Shall See If There's Any Action to Back This Up

"The anti-Semitic threats targeting our Jewish community and community centers are horrible and are painful and a very sad reminder of the work that still must be done to root out hate and prejudice and evil," Trump said. He did not outline what that might include.

That's nice. But given that his Chief Henchman harnessed the neo-nazis to help elect President* Trump (and his dog-whistles to the nazis), they think he's their guy and that his statements to the contrary are just eyewash, then this is an area where nice words are not going to cut it.

If Trump wants to show that he's not a friend of the neo-nazis, he's going to have to prove it.

Getting to Genocide

A post about how to get from a tolerant society to one that closes its eyes to state-sanctioned brutality.

I could clip a paragraph or two from it, but that would not really be fair. You should read the entire thing.

And then maybe you might understand why a lot of people are pushing back, now, and not heeding the exhortation of "Be reasonable and give Trump a chance."

Because we've heard this tune before, only with different musicians.

(German word of the day: Die Lügenführer- "Lying leader".)

Deplorables at Work

UNIVERSITY CITY [St. Louis, MO] • As many as 200 headstones at a Jewish cemetery were toppled over the weekend here in a case that is making national headlines.

Anita Feigenbaum, executive director of the Chesed Shel Emeth Cemetery, said officials will be cataloging the damage Tuesday and notifying relatives whose families are affected. A monument company will decide which headstones need to be replaced and which need to be reset, she said.

And this:

The FBI is investigating another wave of bomb threats to Jewish facilities in the US after 11 sites were evacuated on Monday.

The latest threats bring the number of incidents to 69 in 27 states in the past month, according to the JCC Association of North America.

(BadTux asks why nobody does this crap against white Protestants.)

An Offense Too Far

This:

The American Conservative Union has rescinded its invitation to Milo Yiannopoulos to speak at the group’s annual CPac conference, after footage emerged in which the rightwing provocateur discusses sex between “younger boys” and older men. ... He goes on to suggest that sex between “younger boys” and older men could be a “coming-of-age relationship … in which those older men help those younger boys discover who they are”.

And this:

“Due to the revelation of an offensive video in the past 24 hours condoning pedophilia, the American Conservative Union has decided to rescind the invitation,” said Matt Schlapp, chairman of the group which sponsors CPAC, in a statement Monday afternoon. The group called Yiannopoulos to “further address these disturbing comments,” but defended its original decision to invite him as a nod to “the free speech issue on college campuses.”

So, CPAC invited him to underscore their commitment to free speech, but then disinvited him because he was saying things that they didn't want to be associated with.

Turdlet can say things that are racist, homophobic, transphobic, antisemitic, neonazi, you name it, because freedom of speech. CPAC invited him because others have protested and rioted when he was spreading his slime. CPAC was trying to take what it saw as the moral high road in supporting free speech regardless of the contest of the speech.

Hard to be a bunch of free speech absolutists, CPAC, when you disinvite somebody because you found what they said to be repellent.

Putin's Poodle (and News You May Have Missed)

A story about the Brit reporter who has been in the forefront of dragging Trump's Russian ties into the light.

She was pretty surprised by this, as she's been a fierce critic of The Guardian's handling of the Snowden files.

Meanwhile, the Feebies aren't going after Flynn for lying to them.
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Elsewhere, a man in Tennesee was convicted of planning to shoot up a mosque. His lawyer cried "entrapment" and said that his client was only planning to conduct surveillance and needed weapons because reasons.
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Trump's travels, his kid's travels and his wife living in NYC are on track to cost the government several times as much money in security costs than did Obama. But the same people who were whinging about Obama jetting off on his trips are largely silent, now. Judicial Watch may be the rare exception.
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There was quite a bit of "telephonic terrorism" against Jewish community centers last month. No doubt the Defenders of the Right will claim that the calls were "false flag operations", or some other bullshit. Antisemitism is also on the rise in the UK.
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China is a bit pissed off at Kim Jong-un's alleged whacking of his half-brother.

The Center of the Universe is Donald Trump, At Least in His Mind

Asked a question about Antisemitic elements in his campaign, Trump made it about how many electoral votes he got. And he's going to totally stop crime and other bad things.

(source)

"Stop crime"... right. So if you are the victim of any sort of crime whatsoever in the future, you can blame Trump for not stopping it.

Why Would Any Normal Human Being Think That This Was OK?

The Central Michigan University president says he is “deeply disappointed” about an anti-Semitic Valentine’s Day card that was produced during a campus Republican group meeting, then apparently given to a pair of students by a member of that group, which says it was an unsanctioned mistake.

The card was in a bag that was handed to the students Wednesday night by a member of the College Republicans at Central Michigan, which immediately apologized while distancing itself from the incident. The card, which the group called “very inappropriate,” shows Adolf Hitler alongside the words “my love 4 u burns like 6,000 jews,” according to Central Michigan Life, a student newspaper.

The college paper story on it.

The subtext of the college Republicans' response was that "this was supposed to be inside baseball, nobody else was supposed to know that we've neo-nazi members and we're sorry that you found out."

Trump Cribs From the Nazi Playbook

President* Trump plans to publish a weekly list of crimes committed by illegal immigrants in the Big Apple and all other sanctuary cities that do not cooperate with federal immigration authorities.

The list will inform citizens and others about “public safety threats associated with sanctuary” cities, according to an executive order Trump signed Wednesday.

“The [Homeland Security] Secretary shall utilize the Declined Detainer Outcome Report or its equivalent and, on a weekly basis, make public a comprehensive list of criminal actions committed by aliens and any jurisdiction that ignored or otherwise failed to honor any detainers with respect to such aliens,” the order said.

That's a page right out of Hitler's playbook. Which should not be much of a surprise, for the neo-nazis who are advising Trump would get their best ideas from their spiritual master.

And I guess we'll see what the cause of this fire was.

And So It Begins

More than two dozen Jewish community centers across the U.S. reported receiving false bomb threats on Wednesday. It's the second wave of bomb threats in two weeks: On Jan. 9, 16 community centers received threats in a single day.

Make no mistake: These neo-nazis who are doing this believe that they have the tacit backing of Donald Trump.

Trump can either squash these clowns like the vermin that they are or he owns it. A tepid "I disavow those people" is nothing more than a dog-whistle to them that He, Trump, approves.

If he doesn't squish them, this shit is only going to escalate.

"Every Jew a .22." was Meyer Kahane's slogan. He put it that way because it rhymed, "Member of the Tribe Get a .45" is kind of clunky. "Deal With Those Who Hate with a .38".... not bad, but not as catchy.

But I digress.

Time to cowboy up, people.

Trump Embraces a Chinese Intelligence Asset (and Well-Known War Criminal)

If you guessed Erik Prince, you're right.

And here's another bit of no-shock news: Prince has ties to the neo-nazis through Bannon.

Pity the Poor Neo-Nazis in Montana

They couldn't afford the permit fee for their march ($125).

Of course, like most aggrieved pro-police far-right conservatives, their remedy of choice is to go talk to the liberals at the ACLU.

(H/T)

The Short Title is "Racist"

From a profile of Steve Bannon:

Ms. Jones, the film colleague, said that in their years working together, Mr. Bannon occasionally talked about the genetic superiority of some people and once mused about the desirability of limiting the vote to property owners.

“I said, ‘That would exclude a lot of African-Americans,’” Ms. Jones recalled. “He said, ‘Maybe that’s not such a bad thing.’ I said, ‘But what about Wendy?’” referring to Mr. Bannon’s executive assistant. “He said, ‘She’s different. She’s family.’”

The Times may think that Bannon is "combative" and "a populist", and maybe those terms apply. But so do "bigot" and "racist".