So, Trump is a racist alright.

[Belsnickel]

(07-29-2019, 12:44 PM)bfine32 Wrote: And I think those members of Congress classifying the comments as racist are doing themselves no favors; eventually it just becomes white noise (pun intended)

Honestly, I don't know anything about those comments. What you posted there I am seeing without any context, so I'm unaware of what it is you are referring to.

[*bfine32*]

(07-29-2019, 12:46 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: Honestly, I don't know anything about those comments. What you posted there I am seeing without any context, so I'm unaware of what it is you are referring to.

What!?!?!? Were you under a rock all weekend?

[Belsnickel]

(07-29-2019, 12:47 PM)bfine32 Wrote: What!?!?!? Were you under a rock all weekend?

I was fishing. I was on vacation all last week and as this weekend was the last two days of it I spent pretty much the entirety of both days on a lake, river, or wading a creek.

[*bfine32*]

(07-29-2019, 12:49 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: I was fishing. I was on vacation all last week and as this weekend was the last two days of it I spent pretty much the entirety of both days on a lake, river, or wading a creek.

I envy you.

[Belsnickel]

(07-29-2019, 12:53 PM)bfine32 Wrote: I envy you.

I'm not going to lie, I have significantly decreased my political news consumption. I already didn't watch much television (pretty close to none, really) but I also created a second social media account on most platforms that I use only for hunting, fishing, and conservation related stuff (also Scouting). No politics beyond the occasional discussion of policies of environmental concern. I haven't looked at my other, more political accounts, more than once a week for a couple of months, now. I get several emails with headlines from different outlets. If I want to read more, I do, but I don't for most things because it's just all bullshit these days.

So, I just fish, spend time outdoors, teach kids to enjoy fishing and the outdoors (I'm volunteering for Scouts, again), and avoid the worst of the reactionary news hitting us right now. I'm much happier for it.

[CJD]

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/07/26/rand-paul-maybe-ilhan-omar-would-appreciate-america-more-if-she-visited-somalia/

Quote:“I’ve met people who have come here from behind the Iron Curtain,”Paul said. “They got away from communism, they’re some of the best Americans we have, because they really appreciate how great our country is, and then I hear Representative Omar say America is a terrible place.”

“Well, she came here and we fed her, we clothed her, she got welfare, she got [schooling], she got healthcare, and then, lo and behold, she has the honor of actually winning a seat in Congress, and she says we’re a terrible country? I think that’s about as ungrateful as you can get,” continued the senator.

“And so — I’m willing to contribute to buy her a ticket to go visit Somalia,” he continued, “and I think she can look and maybe learn a little bit about the disaster that is Somalia — that has no capitalism, has no God-given rights guaranteed in a constitution, and has about seven different tribes that have been fighting each other for the last 40 years.”

“And then maybe after she’s visited Somalia for a while,” Paul added, “she might come back and appreciate America more.”

TDS claims another victim.

[hollodero]

(07-29-2019, 12:44 PM)bfine32 Wrote: And I think those members of Congress classifying the comments as racist are doing themselves no favors; eventually it just becomes white noise (pun intended)

I don't know. Some believe he is a racist, some will never believe that, and that's set anyway.
Taken for themselves, I don't consider the comments racist (just incredibly bad taste), but Chris Wallace from FOX, of all people, has a pretty good point he made towards Mulwaney. In the context of who Donald Trump is and the many comments he gave already, the assumption he slammed a black congressman and his black district this way might not be just coincidental.

Then Trump accused the left of calling everyone disagreeing a racist - and then called Cummings a racist. How comes one doesn't say "he does himself no favor"? With all his Baltimore comments too, why is that? Whether they're "falsely" labeled racist comments or not is such a tiny issue compared to the things Trump said. Perspective, I beg for perspective.

[GMDino]

(07-30-2019, 03:13 PM)hollodero Wrote: I don't know. Some believe he is a racist, some will never believe that, and that's set anyway.
Taken for themselves, I don't consider the comments racist (just incredibly bad taste), but Chris Wallace from FOX, of all people, has a pretty good point he made towards Mulwaney. In the context of who Donald Trump is and the many comments he gave already, the assumption he slammed a black congressman and his black district this way might not be just coincidental.

Then Trump accused the left of calling everyone disagreeing a racist - and then called Cummings a racist. How comes one doesn't say "he does himself no favor"? With all his Baltimore comments too, why is that? Whether they're "falsely" labeled racist comments or not is such a tiny issue compared to the things Trump said. Perspective, I beg for perspective.

You cannot expect perspective from people (universal) who constantly defend Trump while claiming they do so only to help the Democrats. 

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(07-29-2019, 12:23 PM)bfine32 Wrote: So is this Racist!?

No, it's not.  Trying to equate it to the other comments he made rather dilutes the accusation.  His comments about Cummings were rude and uncalled for but there is literally nothing racist about them.

[CJD]

(07-30-2019, 03:40 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: No, it's not.  Trying to equate it to the other comments he made rather dilutes the accusation.  His comments about Cummings were rude and uncalled for but there is literally nothing racist about them.

I think racist is too strong a word for those particular tweets. But I think Trump is intentionally making some connotative links with his choice of words.

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/07/29/trump-baltimore-infest-tweet-cummings-racist-227485

[GMDino]

https://www.chron.com/news/article/National-Cathedral-condemns-Trump-s-racialized-14270548.php

Quote:WASHINGTON (AP) — In unusually forceful language, the leadership of the Washington National Cathedral condemned what it called the "racialized rhetoric" of President Donald Trump and directly compared him to 1950s anti-Communist demagogue Sen. Joseph McCarthy.



The statement, released Tuesday, isn't so much an appeal for Trump to retract or soften his statements as a call for the nation as a whole to reject them.


It asks: "After two years of President Trump's words and actions, when will Americans have enough?"


The criticism comes after a particularly inflammatory month for Trump. He has publicly told four outspoken congresswomen of color--three of whom were born in the U.S.--to "go back" where they came from. He also feuded with Rev. Al Sharpton, Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland and called the city of Baltimore a "rodent-infested mess."

The statement, issued in the name of three of the cathedral's top leaders — Revs. Mariann Budde, Randolph Hollerith and Kelly Douglas — makes multiple direct references to the Communist witch-hunts of the 1950s led by McCarthy.



It accuses Trump of deliberately fanning racial divisions for political gain in the same way that McCarthy used fears of Communist infiltration.


"When such violent dehumanizing words come from the President of the United States, they are a clarion call and give cover to white supremacists," it states. "We have come to accept a level of insult and abuse in political discourse that violates each person's sacred identity as a child of God."

The cathedral belongs to the Episcopal Church and is designated by Congress as a non-denominational National House of Prayer. It has been the site of four state funerals for deceased presidents — most recently George H.W. Bush in 2018.

It has a history of liberal political stances and has condemned Trump's ban on transgender members of the U.S. military and the policy of separating immigrant families at America's southern border.

[GMDino]

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/07/baltimore-ben-carson-trump/595207/

Quote:Ben Carson’s Appearance in Baltimore Didn’t Go as Planned
The housing secretary didn’t offer Trump the sort of full-throated defense that the president might have expected.


BALTIMORE—Everyone was in place. TV camera crews had set up their tripods early this morning on a scraggly patch of grass facing a boarded-up rowhouse. Ben Carson, the secretary of housing and urban development, would be arriving any minute for a news conference that his agency had quickly arranged in a blighted pocket of West Baltimore represented by Democratic Representative Elijah Cummings.

Each weekday evening, get an overview of the day’s biggest news, along with fascinating ideas, images, and voices.
Email Address (required)

Sign Up

For days, President Donald Trump has been tweeting about Cummings, casting him as the overlord of rat-infested neighborhoods unfit for human habitation. It wasn’t clear ahead of time what Carson would say or why he had shown up. But the photo op didn’t seem to go as planned. If Trump had been hoping that Carson would reinforce his message that Cummings is a villain and West Baltimore a slum, the HUD chief didn’t deliver. Nor did he offer the sort of full-throated defense Trump might have expected.


The photo op was off the rails before it even began. Carson’s team would soon find out that the Morning Star Baptist Church of Christ owns the property where the secretary was to stand. Gregory Evans, 71, is a member of the church, and this morning, he was near the entrance, minding who was coming and going while children took part in a Bible-school session inside. He walked over and told Carson’s entourage that they hadn’t asked for approval to use the land—and needed to leave. Could they just stay and hold their news conference if no one had a problem with that? one of the housing department aides asked. Evans was emphatic: No. That settled it. Carson’s advance team, the TV camera crews, the print reporters, and I all packed up and replanted ourselves about 30 yards away.

“Why did someone come onto church property without permission?” Evans asked us, as he shooed us away. “This community needs some support on all kinds of issues—on dilapidated housing and everything else. All of a sudden you’re going to show up on our property and not even ask permission to be here?”




A few minutes later, Carson arrived. He had invited Cummings to join him, but the congressman declined. Cummings’s office said the invitation came last night and he couldn’t rearrange his schedule.


Carson had been briefed on the kerfuffle with the church and was none too happy, using it to make a broader point about vanishing civility. “It’s a church!” he said. “They say, ‘Get off my property.’ A church! … This is the level to which we have sunk as a society.”


Read: When the president lashes out


Carson spoke for about 20 minutes, making a statement about how he had watched Baltimore’s uneven progress while working as a neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins Hospital and then taking a few questions. He’s in an uncomfortable spot from which there is no easy escape. 
He’s the lone African American Cabinet secretary serving a president whose attacks on people of color are now commonplace. And implicitly, the president’s demonization of Cummings is an attack on Carson’s agency: HUD. Carson said at the news conference that $16 billion in federal money has flowed to Baltimore in the past year alone. Without providing evidence, Trump has said that funds have been “stolen.” Even if that were true, isn’t it his administration’s job to properly account for the money and ensure that it was properly spent? (Carson, asked about Trump’s claims of theft, said he has put rigorous “financial controls” in place.)

As a Cabinet secretary, Carson would likely lose his job if he were to slight Trump in a way that offends his vanity. That’s happened before—just ask the former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. However, in his remarks today, Carson separated himself from his boss in some fundamental respects. Though he didn’t directly impugn Trump’s behavior, it seemed at times as if he were talking to the president himself.


Carson said that Americans need to “realize that we’re not each other’s enemies and that we have a job to do here.” That doesn’t sound much like Trump, who seems less focused on wooing political adversaries than forcing their unconditional surrender. Or their exile: Tweeting about the four freshman congresswomen of color known as “the squad” earlier this month, Trump wrote, “Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime-infested places from which they came.”

I asked Carson whether Cummings is largely responsible for poverty in his district. “I’m not one who likes to sit around and point fingers at people,” he said. “I like to come up with real solutions.” Trump is someone who does point fingers. In a tweet last week, he wrote: “So sad that Elijah Cummings has been able to do so little for the people of Baltimore.” The final question came from a reporter who asked whether Trump’s remarks about Cummings were racist. Carson walked away silently, got into a waiting SUV, and drove off.

Afterward, I went into the church to talk some more with Evans. He was behind a desk, a copy of The Baltimore Sun spread in front of him.
He bristled at Carson’s suggestion that the church was at fault. He said the institution is an altruistic force in a neighborhood that sorely lacks investment. It runs food and clothing drives, he said, along with programs to help people get high-school diplomas and wean them from drug dependence. “We’ve done everything we can in this church,” he said. “But some things have to have support from government, not just the congregation.”

[GMDino]

http://richmondfreepress.com/news/2019/aug/09/trump-seeks-roll-back-federal-fair-housing-provisi/

Quote:Trump seeks to roll back federal Fair Housing provision

The Trump administration is working to dilute the federal Fair Housing Act in an effort to make it more difficult to bring housing discrimination lawsuits, according to housing advocates.



But conservative groups, who support the proposed changes, claim the proposed rules would curtail frivolous lawsuits.


A draft of the Department of Housing and Urban Development rule, would eliminate “disparate impact” regulations. Under the concept of disparate impact, actions can amount to discrimination if they have an uneven effect, even if that was not the intent.


For example, in a discrimination lawsuit, a plaintiff wouldn’t have to prove that a bank is refusing to make loans to people of color. The plaintiff merely would have to show that a company’s business practice has a discriminatory effect.


“It’s important because it allows us to really get at discrimination that’s not intentional,” said Nikitra Bailey, a lawyer with the nonprofit Center for Responsible Lending.


She said the Trump administration’s new rule would restrict the tool for fighting housing discrimination.


The change would strike a blow, she said, because “disparate impact” allows fair housing lawsuits to obtain remedies for large numbers of people “without having to demonstrate each individual action of discrimination.”


The proposal is expected to be released this month by the administration.


In one current case, a fair housing group is suing Bank of America, alleging that when the bank foreclosed on homes in recent years, it treated the vacant houses very differently in white neighborhoods than it did in minority neighborhoods.


The suit was filed by the National Fair Housing Alliance. Lisa Rice, the alliance’s president, said foreclosed properties in more than 70 communities across the country were examined. The communities had comparable levels of owner-occupied homes and other similarities.


“In the white communities that we looked at, the story was completely different,” she said. “The grass was mowed, the doors were secure, the windows were not broken, we didn’t see trash and debris.”


Bank of America denied the claims in the lawsuit.


“Our commitment to sustainable homeownership for low-to-moderate income and multicultural clients and communities has always been a hallmark of Bank of America,” Bank of America officials said in a statement.


In a disparate impact lawsuit, the plaintiff wouldn’t have to show that a company meant to discriminate. The company might have had the best of intentions but still have adopted a policy that has an unequal outcome with a discriminatory effect.


In 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the use of disparate impact while imposing some limitations. But many corporations and conservatives are pushing for change.


Roger Clegg, president of the Center for Equal Opportunity, a conservative think tank that focuses on civil rights issues, said the disparate impact cases often are unfair to defendants.


“You may have a landlord who says, ‘I’m not going to rent to people with a history of violent crime,’ ” said Mr. Clegg, who worked in the Justice Department during the administrations of Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. “The fact that that has a racially disproportionate result does not make it discrimination.”


He said the Trump administration’s new rule would provide clarity about the limits under the 2015 U.S. Supreme Court decision.


But Ms. Bailey said the proposed rule goes beyond that.

“It really makes it more difficult to bring disparate impact cases, and then it limits the damages for discrimination,” she said.
With African-American homeownership rates at their lowest level in 50 years, she said, the rule change could set up more roadblocks.

Other sources:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/02/us/politics/trump-housing-discrimination.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/ben-carsons-hud-dials-back-investigations-into-housing-discrimination/2018/12/21/65510cea-f743-11e8-863c-9e2f864d47e7_story.html

https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-administration-to-take-on-local-housing-barriers-11561483527

https://www.npr.org/2019/07/31/747006108/a-new-trump-rule-could-weaken-a-civil-rights-era-housing-discrimination-law

[Dill]

(08-09-2019, 12:15 PM)GMDino Wrote: http://richmondfreepress.com/news/2019/aug/09/trump-seeks-roll-back-federal-fair-housing-provisi/




Other sources:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/02/us/politics/trump-housing-discrimination.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/ben-carsons-hud-dials-back-investigations-into-housing-discrimination/2018/12/21/65510cea-f743-11e8-863c-9e2f864d47e7_story.html

https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-administration-to-take-on-local-housing-barriers-11561483527

https://www.npr.org/2019/07/31/747006108/a-new-trump-rule-could-weaken-a-civil-rights-era-housing-discrimination-law

Looks like Trump is reversing "reverse racism."

People were getting tired of civil rights anyway.

[hollodero]

(08-09-2019, 02:33 PM)Dill Wrote: Looks like Trump is reversing "reverse racism."

To that end, Trump now calls Hollywood racist. Racist on the highest level, to be precise. This must be the kind of "I'm racist? No, you're racist! Everyone else but me is racist!" reverse racism.

[GMDino]

https://news.yahoo.com/heres-the-data-the-trump-administration-wouldnt-give-congress-on-white-supremacist-terrorism-235254627.html

Quote:Here's the data on white supremacist terrorism the Trump administration has been 'unable or unwilling' to give to Congress



WASHINGTON — Alleged white supremacists were responsible for all race-based domestic terrorism incidents in 2018, according to a government document distributed earlier this year to state, local and federal law enforcement.



The document, which has not been previously reported on, becomes public as the Trump administration’s Justice Department has been unable or unwilling to provide data to Congress on white supremacist domestic terrorism.


The data in this document, titled “Domestic Terrorism in 2018,” appears to be what Congress has been asking for — and didn’t get.


The document, dated April 15, 2019, shows 25 of the 46 individuals allegedly involved in 32 different domestic terrorism incidents were identified as white supremacists. It was prepared by New Jersey’s Office of Homeland Security Preparedness, one of the main arteries of information sharing, and sent throughout the DHS fusion center network as well as federal agencies, including the FBI.


“This map reflects 32 domestic terrorist attacks, disrupted plots, threats of violence, and weapons stockpiling by individuals with a radical political or social agenda who lack direction or influence from foreign terrorist organizations in 2018,” the document says.


The map and data was circulated throughout the Department of Justice and around the country in April just as members of the Senate pushed the DOJ to provide them with precise information about the number of white supremacists involved in domestic terrorism. While the document shows this information clearly had been compiled, some of the senators say the Justice Department would not give them the figures.

The DOJ did not respond to Yahoo News’ questions about why this data was not sent to Congress.


“I’m troubled by the lack of transparency, given that we haven’t received this critical information after several requests to the FBI and DOJ. They cannot and should not remain silent in the face of such a dangerous threat,” Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., wrote in an email, after being told about the data.


Booker is part of a group of senators on the Judiciary Committee who have raised concerns about how the Justice Department categorizes domestic terror incidents and expressed concerns that white supremacist violence is being downplayed.


An aide to Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., who is also on the Judiciary Committee, said it was “disappointing” to discover the Justice Department has information it has been “unable or unwilling” to provide to senators.


“This is disappointing but unfortunately not surprising. In April, the Justice Department and the FBI briefed Senate Judiciary Committee staff on domestic terrorism, nearly six months after Sen. Durbin’s office first requested the briefing,” the aide said. “At the briefing, the DOJ and the FBI were unable or unwilling to provide precise data on white supremacist terrorism, and neither agency has responded to our repeated follow-up questions since the briefing.”


After the briefing with officials from the Justice Department and FBI, Booker, Durbin and other Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee sent a letter to Attorney General William Barr and FBI Director Christopher Wray in May outlining their concerns about the categorization of domestic terrorism incidents.


“For the past decade, the FBI used 11 different categories for domestic terrorism, including a separate category for white supremacist incidents. The Administration is now using a classification system with only four categories, including ‘racially-motivated violent extremism,’” the letter said. “This new category inappropriately combines incidents involving white supremacists and so-called ‘Black identity extremists,’ a fabricated term based on a faulty assessment of a small number of isolated incidents.”


In the letter, the senators said they were “deeply concerned that this reclassification downplays the significance of the white supremacist threat.” They also indicated that they asked the FBI and DOJ officials involved in the briefing for information about white supremacist terrorism and were not provided with it.


“The briefers provided statistics on racially motivated violent extremism … but could not say how many involved white supremacist violence, other than to acknowledge they were ‘a majority’ of the incidents. If we do not understand the scope of the problem, we cannot effectively address it,” the letter said.


Wray testified during a Senate Judiciary Committee oversight hearing on July 23, and Booker asked him about the bureau’s categorization of domestic terrorist groups. A week later, Booker sent Wray a request for additional information for the record, including the number of attacks and fatalities that “have been attributed to white supremacists since 2000.”


“During your hearing, I asked you a number of questions regarding the number of violent attacks and fatalities categorized as domestic terrorism, and you were unable to provide that data,” Booker wrote to Wray. Booker’s office said Wray has not responded to his request.


The April 15 document is available online on the New Jersey state government’s website.


In response to questions from Yahoo News, an FBI spokesperson declined to comment on whether the information was given to the senators, but insisted the FBI was regularly working with relevant congressional committees.


“While we don’t comment on congressional engagement, we can assure you that the FBI routinely engages with our oversight authorities in Congress around requests for information and FBI operations,” the FBI spokesperson said.


The FBI declined to comment on the April 15 document, saying the bureau “is not going to comment on somebody else’s product.”


A Department of Justice spokesperson referred Yahoo News to congressional testimony Deputy Assistant Attorney General Brad Wiegmann gave before the House Homeland Security Committee in May for a description of “the department’s efforts in the domestic terrorism area in general.”


The document groups the 46 individuals allegedly involved in domestic terror incidents last year into three categories: “race-based extremists,” “anti-government extremists” and “single-issue extremists.” But the map also includes more detailed data within these categories and all 25 of the individuals classified as “race-based extremists” are identified as “white supremacists.”


The government’s classification of individuals under specific categories does not indicate they were necessarily convicted of crimes for extremist behavior, or that the actual charges against them included an extremist element. A Yahoo News review of the cases found that many were still pending, and we blurred out details identifying two individuals. (In one instance, the status of the case was unclear; in the other, the charges were dismissed.)


Some Democrats on the Judiciary Committee have argued that the Justice Department’s decision to reduce the number of categories, and using only “race-based extremists,” will make tracking white supremacists more difficult.


“The Trump administration’s irresponsible decision to stop tracking white supremacist incidents as a separate category of domestic terrorism obfuscates the extent of this threat,” Durbin’s aide said.


In his testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee last month, Wray, when pressed, said the “majority” of domestic terrorism cases last year involved white supremacists. However, he did not provide specific figures.


Booker said he was not surprised to learn the data shows that race-based attacks last year involved white supremacists. He cited a spate of recent high-profile incidents, including the Aug. 3 shooting in El Paso that left 22 people dead, as proof of the white supremacist threat.


“While white supremacy is not a new phenomenon in America, it’s incredibly troubling the way the movement has been emboldened and the administration’s efforts to obfuscate the data on these terrorist incidents simply defies logic,” Booker said.


In March, Durbin introduced the Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act in the wake of a shooting at a mosque in New Zealand. The bill called on the DOJ and on FBI offices that monitor, investigate and prosecute domestic terrorism to assess the “threat posed by white supremacists” and to “provide transparency through a public quantitative analysis of domestic terrorism-related assessments, investigations, incidents, arrests, indictments, prosecutions, convictions, and weapons recoveries.” Booker was among the co-sponsors of the bill.


According to Durbin’s aide, the ambiguity in the current classification system and the DOJ’s apparent reluctance to release data on white supremacist terrorism raises concerns about whether adequate resources are being devoted to the threat.


“This highlights the problem with not specifically tracking white supremacist attacks,” the aide said of the document. “If we do not understand the scope of this problem, we cannot effectively combat it.”

[BakertheBeast]

I heard on the news that Trump and Melanie sent their condolences to the shooting victims in Dayton and El Paso. Does anyone know if they sent their thoughts and prayers too like they did in all the other mass shootings?

[GMDino]

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-asian-accent-mock-south-korea-japan-870252/amp/?utm_source=fark&utm_medium=website&utm_content=link&ICID=ref_fark

[GMDino]

Racist, dumb, hates poor people, whatever.

Here's acting USCIS director Ken Cuccinelli saying on NPR this morning that the Statue of Liberty plaque should be changed to read, "give me your tired and your poor who can stand on their own two feet, and who will not become a public charge." pic.twitter.com/q8OoNn3k6r

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 13, 2019

[Belsnickel]

(08-13-2019, 03:12 PM)GMDino Wrote: Racist, dumb, hates poor people, whatever.

Here's acting USCIS director Ken Cuccinelli saying on NPR this morning that the Statue of Liberty plaque should be changed to read, "give me your tired and your poor who can stand on their own two feet, and who will not become a public charge." pic.twitter.com/q8OoNn3k6r

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 13, 2019

I'm so glad we rejected him as governor. I guess he is as scared of immigrants as he is of an exposed breast on Virtus.