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The Era of Dog Whistles Is Now Over

by KatherineUbc Posted on December 9, 2015

Mother Jones

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Steve Benen makes a useful point today about Donald Trump’s brass-balled religious bigotry:

Jeb Bush told MSNBC’s Chuck Todd yesterday that the Trump campaign is relying on “dog-whistle proposals to prey on people’s fears.” That’s half-right — Trump is clearly preying on people’s fears, but these aren’t “dog-whistle proposals”; they’re the exact opposite. The whole point of dog-whistle politics is subtlety and coded language. Trump’s racism, however, is explicit and overt. “So what? They’re Muslim” is less of a dog whistle and more of a bullhorn.

Even Jesse Helms felt it necessary to talk about the “bloc vote”—wink wink, nudge nudge. In other contexts, candidates will use phrases familiar to evangelicals, or terms of art specific to deep knowledge of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or academese with a very specific meaning only to those in the know. Trump isn’t bothering with any of that. He thinks Muslims are all potential terrorists and he’s saying it just as loudly and as clearly as he can.

And guess what? It turns out that maybe you don’t need dog whistles after all. Republicans don’t need them because their base turns out to be pretty tolerant of outright bigotry. Democrats don’t need them because Republicans will just make up dog whistles of their own if they miss the meaning of the real ones (Agenda 21, hockey stick, etc.).

We should all hail our new era of two-fisted politics. Finally, we can just say all the stuff we’ve been holding back for so long. Doesn’t that sound great?

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The Era of Dog Whistles Is Now Over

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Jeb Bush’s Tax Plan Will…Um…Oh, Who Cares, Really?

by LawrencP32 Posted on December 9, 2015

Mother Jones

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In 2012 the Tax Policy Center scored most of the Republican tax plans, but this year they’ve sat on the sidelines. I suppose this is partly because the plans generally don’t have enough detail to be seriously evaluated, and partly because they got tired of wasting time on tax plans that are meant more as affinity statements than as actual financial documents. I mean, what’s the point of a bunch of guys with PhDs playing the role of pro wrestling referee in a tired game of “can you top this?”

For some reason, though, they’ve gone ahead and evaluated Jeb Bush’s tax plan. Their results are the usual ones from the party of fiscal prudence: Bush’s plan would increase the national debt from 78 percent of GDP to 106 percent within ten years; it would increase the federal deficit by about a trillion dollars; and it would benefit the rich far more than the poor. In other words, it’s the same as every other Republican tax plan. A few of the details change a bit from candidate to candidate, as do the specific numbers, but that’s about all

So does this matter? I go back and forth on this. Dylan Matthews says it does because the other campaigns haven’t provided enough detail for TPC to complete an analysis of their plans:

In the worst case, in which TPC never gets the details it needs for Rubio and Trump’s plans (or Ted Cruz’s very different plan), the Bush analysis becomes hugely valuable. It gives us a glimpse of what Rubio and Trump’s TPC scores would look like. It indicates that the plans are likely to be very, very expensive, with benefits concentrated at the top.

I don’t buy this. Everyone who’s not a paid shill for the Republican Party already knows it. The only difference is that reporters now have a well-respected analysis they can use to badger the Bush campaign, but they don’t have one for the others. So Bush will get more heat and the others will benefit from being smart enough not to cooperate with TPC.

Beyond that, does anyone care about these plans anymore? They’ve gotten so ridiculous that it’s hard to believe that even the candidates still take them seriously, let alone anyone else. They’re basically just a highly ritualized way of indicating that candidates subscribe to the approved catechism. The message is “I hate taxes, especially on the wealthy,” and the details are unimportant. As long as your tax cut is sufficiently large, you’re in.

TPC says they’d like to evaluate other tax plans, but I’d suggest they not bother. It’s a kabuki show long past its prime, and they must have better things to spend their time on.

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Jeb Bush’s Tax Plan Will…Um…Oh, Who Cares, Really?

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Republicans All Seem to Like Obama’s Strategy to Defeat ISIS

by OuidaLindstrom Posted on December 8, 2015

Mother Jones

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Do any of the Republican candidates have a plan for defeating ISIS? As near as I can tell, most of them have offered up variations on this:

Bomb ISIS, just like Obama, but better.
Use Iraqi ground troops, just like Obama, but better.
Put together a coalition of local allies, just like Obama, but better.

Am I missing anything? Aside from being more bellicose (the sand will glow, we’ll bomb the shit out of them, etc.), all of the candidates are saying that Obama’s strategy is basically sound, but they’d tweak it a bit here and there. They’d stop worrying about civilian deaths so they could drop more bombs. They’d somehow train Iraqi forces better than the Army is doing right now. And they’d put together a real coalition, though it’s never really clear what they mean by that or how they’d accomplish it.

Anything else?

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Republicans All Seem to Like Obama’s Strategy to Defeat ISIS

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Friday Cat Blogging – 4 December 2015

by VeronaTheriot Posted on December 4, 2015

Mother Jones

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Last week, when Marian was preparing Thanksgiving goodies, she decided to go ahead and re-organize some stuff in the cupboards at the same time. Hilbert thought this was a fine idea and hopped up to help. His recommendation: just toss out the spices and recipes and leave a nice, cat-sized area for him. This way he can keep a close eye on all kitchen-related activities without constantly being shooed away. Smart cat.

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Friday Cat Blogging – 4 December 2015

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The Case For Donald Trump Being a Liar Is Overwhelming

by ReeceAlonzo Posted on November 25, 2015

Mother Jones

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I’ve gotten some pushback on my post about calling Donald Trump’s serial tall tales lying. The main objection is an obvious one: something is only a lie if you tell it knowingly. Trump tells lots of whoppers, but maybe he’s just misinformed. Or, in cases like the Jersey City Muslims, maybe he’s convinced himself that he really saw them cheering on 9/11. There’s no way to know for sure.

This is true: we can’t know for sure. But in Trump’s case we can be pretty damn sure. After all, this hasn’t happened once or twice or three times. It’s happened dozens of times on practically a daily basis. He doesn’t just tell these stories until somebody corrects him. He blithely keeps on telling them long after he must know they’re untrue. And while memory can fail, Trump has, by my count, told at least seven separate stories based on his own memory for which there is either (a) no evidence or (b) directly contradictory evidence.1 Some of them are for things that had happened only a few days or weeks before.

If you’re waiting for absolute, watertight, 100 percent proof of a knowing lie, you’ll probably never get it. But the case in favor of Trump being a serial liar is overwhelming—and in the fallen world in which we live, this is how adults have to make judgments about people. Given the evidence at hand, there’s simply no reasonable conclusion except one: Donald Trump is a serial liar.

1On my list of Trump fabrications, they are numbers 1, 6, 8, 13, 18, 19, and 26.

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The Case For Donald Trump Being a Liar Is Overwhelming

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Donald Trump Is a Pathological Liar. It’s Time to Stop Tiptoeing Around This.

by WalterHillen Posted on November 24, 2015

Mother Jones

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Let’s take a look at a few headlines about Donald Trump lately:

CNN: Does Donald Trump transcend the truth?

New York Times: Donald Trump’s shortcuts and salesmanlike stretches

ABC News: Donald Trump gaining strength despite questionable comments

The Atlantic: Donald Trump’s fact-free weekend

Washington Post: Donald Trump is leading an increasingly fact-free 2016 campaign

NBC News: Amid outcry, Trump continues campaign of controversy

BBC: Trump ‘wrong’ in claiming US Arabs cheered 9/11 attacks

CBS New York: Evidence supporting Trump’s claim of Jersey City Muslims cheering on 9/11 is hard to come by

Business Insider: Donald Trump declares massive victory on his widely disputed claim about 9/11

Los Angeles Times: When it comes to Syrian refugees and fighting Islamic State, Trump wings it

USA Today: Trump defends tweet with faulty crime stats as ‘a retweet’

Fox News: Trump tweet on black crime sets off firestorm

It’s way past time for this stuff. You can call Trump’s statements lies or fabrications or even falsehoods if you insist on being delicate about it. But you can’t call them questionable or controversial or salesmanlike or disputed or even faulty. The man is a serial, pathological liar. Isn’t it about time for the journalistic community to work up the courage to report this with clear eyes?

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Donald Trump Is a Pathological Liar. It’s Time to Stop Tiptoeing Around This.

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Donald Trump’s Hatemongering Moves on to African-Americans

by Sheena25Szik Posted on November 22, 2015

Mother Jones

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Having already played the hate card against Mexicans and Muslims—and getting crackerjack results—Donald Trump has apparently decided to move on to African-Americans. I don’t know what the “Crime Statistics Bureau” in San Francisco is, and I don’t think I want to know, but one of the most well-established facts about murder in the United States is that it’s pretty racially segregated. Whites kill whites, blacks kill blacks, etc. But today Trump decided to tweet the CSB graphic on the right, for no readily apparent reason. And wouldn’t you know it: it contains a wee racial error. It claims that most whites are killed by blacks, but in 2014, which is the latest full-year homicide data available from the FBI, 82 percent of whites were killed by other whites and only 15 percent were killed by blacks.

Trump’s tweeted graphic swaps the the numbers for the offender’s race—but only for white victims. For black victims, the numbers in the graphic are roughly correct. This makes it look like blacks kill everyone. And just in case these numbers are too subtle for you, it includes a stereotypical black thug to make sure you get the picture. Donald Trump has found his audience, and he knows what they want. So he’s giving it to them.

UPDATE: Come on, folks. This graphic is not “controversial” and it’s not “questionable.” It’s wrong. Period. The numbers for white victims are swapped in a grossly obvious way intended to make a racist point. FFS.

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Donald Trump’s Hatemongering Moves on to African-Americans

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How Good a Dealmaker Is Donald Trump, Anyway?

by HildredRMXD Posted on November 22, 2015

Mother Jones

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Here is Donald Trump on who he listens to regarding economic issues:

Honestly, I feel that I have such a vast feeling for it that I really—you know, Milton Friedman was good—but I don’t really listen to anybody. I just put it in and I have a feeling for, it’s almost common sense, it’s a business instinct.

Translation: Milton Friedman is the only conservative economist he can think of. And he probably wouldn’t listen to the guy if he were still alive anyway. Why mess with his killer instincts?

Which raises two questions. First: How good a developer is Donald Trump? Seriously. My sense is that he’s about a 5 on a scale of 1-10. He’s had some successes, he’s had some failures, and he seems to have found a decent—but hardly dazzling—niche in golf resorts. Overall, he started with a lot of money and has since grown his business at roughly the rate of the economy. Not bad, but nothing to crow about.

And second: why is it that we seem to have heard nothing about Trump from other developers? They’d have the best read on how good he really is, after all. If he were truly brilliant, I figure he would have been soliciting testimonials all over the place. I haven’t seen any. But if he’s a second-rater with a big mouth, I figure we would have heard that too. But I haven’t. I haven’t really heard anything. Do developers not like to talk smack about each other because they never know where their next deal might come from? Do they just generally shun publicity? Do they genuinely not know much about Trump because he doesn’t really do much business these days aside from golf courses, branding deals, and TV shows?

What’s the deal here? Trump must have a reputation within the New York developer community. So what is it?

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How Good a Dealmaker Is Donald Trump, Anyway?

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Jeb Bush Opposed to Manipulating People’s Fears Over Syrian Refugees

by CedricSolander Posted on November 20, 2015

Mother Jones

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Jeb Bush comments on Donald Trump’s plan to create a Muslim registry in the United States:

Trump’s solutions are “just wrong,” Jeb Bush said Friday….”It’s not a question of toughness. It’s manipulating people’s angst and their fears. That’s not strength. That’s weakness,” Bush said in an interview on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”

Good for Bush, though it’s a low bar to oppose a national registry for everyone of a specific religion. I don’t think Bush will be the only one to choke on that notion. Still, he was clear about his opposition, and clear about why it’s wrong.

It’s too bad he’s taken this long. He could have been a voice for sanity from the start and set himself apart from the crowd. At this point, though, it would just make him look tentative and indecisive. He lost a chance to do the right thing and possibly get a big payoff from it.

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Jeb Bush Opposed to Manipulating People’s Fears Over Syrian Refugees

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What Would You Pack for the Zombie Apocalypse?

by QWGAidawveu Posted on November 15, 2015

Mother Jones

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Photographer Allison Stewart has been documenting the contents of “bug-out bags,” the stuff their owners deem necessary to deal with various types of emergencies. The bags’ contents project what people fear—war, martial law, natural disaster—and how they intend to cope. For some buggers it’s as simple as pills and a bottle of tequila; for others, a carefully planned pack of food and supplies to last a few days. They range from off-the-shelf and Homeland Security kits to off-grid survivalist bags and pet emergency packs.

Max’s bag has clean clothes, a gun and ammo, first aid and hygiene supplies, spare glasses, a transistor radio, tools, and a survival manual.

The SNR bag ($59.99) includes some short-term basics for up to three people, including MREs, water, a transistor radio, a whistle, emergency ponchos and blankets, and tissues.

Curtis, who lives in earthquake country, packed a kit that included a portable water-filtering system; tools, lightsticks; and an orange plastic bag that functions as a shelter, a raincoat, or a “flag” to draw the attention of airborne rescue teams.

The cat Pet Pac ($90) contains, food, bowls, water, a collar with bells, a portable litter box and trowel, a pet first-aid kit, and toys.

Jane’s keeps her earthquake kit right by her door. It contains baby wipes, toothbrushes and dental floss, flashlights & batteries, and a transistor radio.

Jeff’s “go bag” includes a bulletproof vest and helmet, and a gas mask. It was intended to get him to his car, where he stored guns, knives, an axe, camping gear, water, and food. He also had off-grid property where he would bug out to when SHTF (shit hit the fan).

MM’s bag (not the author) includes various weapons and tools, shoes and socks, waterproof paper and pens, an extra phone, marijuana, a beer, and a cigar.

PB&J are an Atlanta couple whose bag includes maps, a trap for catching food and/or bait, a compass, a multi-tool and knife, tampons, bandages, fishing gear, and a first aid kit.

PB’s “bug in” kit consists solely of a conversion valve that allows a gas-powered generator to run on propane or natural gas instead.

Phil is a Civil War reenactor. His bag contains supplies a civilian in 1964 would carry to bug out. It includes hardtack and an apple for food, cooking gear, wool blankets, and lye soap.

Simon was given this Homeland Security-issue bag at at a disaster preparedness seminar in New York City in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. It includes safety goggles, duct tape, a whistle, MREs and water, and a first aid kit.

Sam’s bag includes food, walkie talkies and a radio for communication, playing cards, and wine—which Sam heard counteracts the effects of radiation poisoning.

Mike’s bag: Tequila and phenobarbital. ‘Nuff said.

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What Would You Pack for the Zombie Apocalypse?

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