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Initech

(99,915 posts)
Wed Aug 16, 2017, 05:00 PM Aug 2017

Top 10 Conservative Idiots #3-10: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love Hitler Edition

Last edited Wed Aug 16, 2017, 11:53 PM - Edit history (1)


Top 10 Conservative Idiots #3-10: Dr. Strangeflub (Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love Hitler) Edition

Welcome back to the Top 10 Conservative Idiots! Switch to the Top 10 Conservative Idiots now and save 50% off the leading Top 10 providers! We are back everybody! This is going to be an unusually long edition so bare with us please! But first this is one of those tweets where someone says something so jaw-dropping, shockingly stupid that you can't help but make fun it:




So that happened. Hey Tim, if we evolved comedy, how come there are still lame comedians around? Thank you! I'm not including myself of course! Can we start by talking about music? I mean how did we miss the annual Gathering Of The Juggalos? This year the event was held in Oklahoma City. And the residents of Oklahoma City weren't having any of it. And just like everything involving the Insane Clown Posse, it was a total clusterfuck. This year included such activities as a wine mixer. Really. What kind of wine do you sip while listening to a song about shoving things up one's ass? I'd personally go with a fine Merlot! Or maybe a Pinot. Just to get you in the mood, you know! So what happened this year? Well there were 8 arrests and 11 paramedics calls! That's the most ever for a music festival. Like I said, if you attend the Gathering Of The Juggalos, you'll most likely get stabbed. I'm not saying you'll actually get stabbed, I'm implying that you will get stabbed at some point. So if you ever go or are thinking of going, just be prepared! But people were being arrested for numerous things you'd expect like drug possessions, alcohol intoxication, and my personal favorite - a large number of illegal fireworks! There were also rumors of a Juggalo flashing a cop his butthole. I want that one to be true, but it's fake news, unfortunately. Yeah so maybe you won't get stabbed but if you go to the Gathering Of The Juggalos, But you might walk away with fewer limbs, and a severe case of sun poisoning. Maybe they could get together with the organizers of the Fyre Festival. Ha, I kid, I kid. OK enough of the intro. We got a lot of conservative idiocy to cover this week. But first John Oliver is back and he gets the great Weird Al to help him serenade North Korea into *NOT* blowing us up:



Holy fucking hell. How do you make sense of what happened this weekend? You don’t. And we most certainly wont in any way, shape or form make fun of the lives lost in this clusterfuck. But we can make fun of it can’t we? The Alt Right is going to take up the first 2 slots this week. In the first slot we’re going to talk about what led up to the events in Charlottesville on Saturday. In the second slot is the main event that took place Saturday in Charlottesville. Taking slots 3 and 4 is of course President Trump. In the third slot is the fact that Trump gave a speech addressing the clusterfuck And that he refused to call out the white supremacists by name. In the number 4 slot is also Donald Trump (4). So we’re going to tell you about the President’s Council On Manufacturing and how that was affected by Trump’s comments, and well, it’s not good. In the number 5 slot is going to be the return of our new segment “Holy Shit”. Because the religious right is going all out in their quest to support an increasingly inevitable war against North Korea, among other atrocities this week. Taking the sixth seed it’s Google Vs. The Alt Right (6). So the Alt Right is making Google their asshole this week in the wake of the firing of programmer James Damore, and wait until you see what they have in store! In the number 7 slot is a new installment of “This Fucking Guy”. And this week’s “This Fucking Guy” is a member of the Trump administration who needs some very close watch – “Dr.” Sebastian Gorka. All I know is never trust a guy with a Ph.D who insists that you call him “doctor”. Because that’s an insult to actual people in the medical profession who are, you know, real doctors. At number 8 – we’ve got another installment of “How Is This Still A Thing”, and we’re going to ask – Blackwater: How Is This Still A Thing? In the number 9 (NEIN!!!!) slot we’ve got another installment of our always popular segment “People Are Dumb”, because well, there’s a lot of dumb people out there. And my motto is “embrace the dumb”. And we will end this week with the next leg of our World Tour 2017. This time around we’re going to the home of legalized marijuana and prostitution – The Netherlands! We’re just about done with Europe – we’ve got one final stop to make in Eastern Europe before we head to Africa. Plus we have some live music from a little band called… Blink 182. YAY!!!! Wait, they’re one of the biggest bands in the world! What are they doing on this crappy show? Well, I met Travis Barker at his Musink Festival in Costa Mesa, told him about the show, and he brought his friends Mark and Matt along with him! Enjoy! And as always don’t forget the key!


[font size="8"]The Alt Right
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Just… wow. How did we get here? Let’s do one of those things from the movies and retrace our steps as to how we got to this point. So the Gathering Of The Deplorables commenced on Saturday but not before the alt right did some pre-partying on Friday. Or as I like to call it "Dr. Strangeflub (Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love Hitler)". Thank you! And in this version, Slim Pickens rides the bomb to hell! Because you know you got to do some pre-rally racism to stir up the crowd, right? This is a really fucked up opening act for a really fucked up festival. Let’s show the tweet first!




Worst headlining festival ever by the way! For the sake of argument let’s call this “The Gathering Of The Deplorables”. Now it’s a lot like the Insane Clown Posse’s annual Gathering Of The Juggalos. Let’s explore the similarities between those groups. Both groups are mostly consistent of young, socially awkward people who are leaving the confines of their keyboards and getting out into the real world. Both groups are people who the members would never in real life acknowledge that they are a part of. Unless they want people to make fun of them, in which case they’re sociopaths. At both events, the only sponsors that they could find are Z grade products, like Faygo Cola, because a more popular vendor like Pepsi would never loan their name to such an atrocity. At both events, the attendees can pick out the posers pretty quickly. And at both events, you’ll most likely get stabbed. So what happened?

(CNN)Alt-right activists held torches and marched late Friday through the University of Virginia campus in Charlottesville.

Chanting "blood and soil" and "one people, one nation, end immigration," the group rallied around a statue of Thomas Jefferson before they clashed with counterprotesters, CNN affiliate WWBT reported.

The march came hours before a Saturday rally that police anticipate will attract as many as 2,000 to 6,000 people, in an event that could be the "largest hate-gathering of it's kind in decades in the United States," as described by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Before the group left the university's grounds when police arrived and ruled it unlawful assembly, outraged city and UVA officials condemned Friday's gathering.

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/12/us/charlottesville-white-nationalists-rally/index.html




OK ok ok… let’s get one thing straight here. They didn’t hold actual torches. They held TIKI brand torches. I mean if you’re really going to intimidate someone, use a Citronella torch! Don’t use TIKI brand crap! I don’t need endorsement money, I’m just a fan! But what happened after the pre-party was ruled unlawful assembly? There was this.

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (AP) — A car plowed into a crowd of people peacefully protesting a white nationalist rally Saturday in a Virginia college town, killing one person, hurting at least two dozen more and ratcheting up tension in an increasingly violent confrontation.

A helicopter crash that killed the pilot and a passenger later in the afternoon outside Charlottesville also was linked to the rally by State Police, though officials did not elaborate on how the crash was connected.

Read more: https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2017/08/12/hundreds-torch-bearing-protesters-parade-through-university-virginia-campus-ahead-white-nationalist-rally-saturday/yJkb6qUEPN6u8VEkEGDV9L/story.html




Yeah holy fuck! So this little gathering that Richard Spencer came up with is responsible for killing at least 3 people. It’s insane. I mean when even the Germans think you’ve fucked up, well, you’ve fucked up.

BERLIN: German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday slammed as "disgusting" the role of white supremacists in a violent protest in Virginia and an "evil attack" against counter-demonstrators that left one woman dead, her spokesman said.

In sharply worded remarks, Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert expressed shock at the weekend rally by Ku Klux Klan members and other white nationalists in Charlottesvillesupremacists.

"The scenes at the right-wing extremist march were absolutely repulsive - naked racism, anti-Semitism and hate in their most evil form were on display," he told reporters.

"Such images and chants are disgusting wherever they may be and they are diametrically opposed to the political goals of the chancellor and the entire German government."
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/World/2017/Aug-14/415981-merkel-condemns-disgusting-us-far-right-violence.ashx




This whole event needs a lot more neins! I mean come on let’s show some of the winners at this event. Like this guy:



Dude, you’re not threatening anybody you’re just a creep in a MAGA hat! And by the way let’s talk about the torches for a minute. So these guys showed up at a rally with torches. Not just any torches, TIKI brand torches!



You can seriously buy these at your local Home Depot for the low price of $4! Even the TIKI brand said they didn’t want to be a part of this!

Last weekend in Charlottesville, hundreds of people espousing white nationalist, neo-Nazi and Klux Klux Klan ideology marched in the dark through the University of Virginia campus spewing racist taunts while illuminating the night with tiki torches in hand.

Until then, the fire-tipped poles were mostly associated with backyard barbecue ambiance, kitschy Polynesian luaus and mosquito-repellent. Now, tiki torches are among the growing list of products and logos being used by white nationalists.

Corporations, in a bid to protect their brands and images, have been quick to denounce the groups. Even so, the groups using the products as well and brand logos in whatever way they want.

“TIKI Brand is not associated in any way with the events that took place in Charlottesville and are deeply saddened and disappointed,” the company wrote Saturday on its Facebook page. “We do not support their message or the use of our products in this way.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/08/14/from-tiki-torches-to-hockey-charlottesville-stirs-brands-to-denounce-their-white-supremacist-patrons/?utm_term=.2d7db8b0d51d




I mean come on seriously, you bought torches? Do you know how stupid you look? It’s the equivalent of when you’re at a concert and people whip out their cell phones and turn on the flashlight instead of using a lighter? But I love what John Oliver said in regards to Charlottesville:

John Oliver has launched a typically blistering attack on US President Donald Trump over his failure to single out a group of neo-Nazis and white nationalists who staged a violent rally in Charlottesville, Virginia over the weekend.

Violent clashes between white nationalists and anti-fascist protestors broke out, and one woman died after a car drove into a group of counter-demonstrators.

People were seen carrying torches, waving Nazi flags and performing the Nazi salute at the march which took place on Friday 11 August.

Oliver opened his Last Week Tonight programme on Sunday evening by addressing the events, including Trump's poorly-received response and his refusal to denounce the white nationalists.
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/charlottesville-nazis-john-oliver-donald-trump-racism-rally-protests-riots-a7891916.html





[font size="8"]The Alt Right
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So now we got to talk about the exact point when the shit hit the fan at the rally. Some say it was when the guy plowed his Dodge Challenger into a crowd of protestors, killing one, and injuring nearly 20 people. Or you could say it was when the police helicopter crashed just outside of Charlottesville while trying to police the area. I say it’s all of the above. Or it could be Trump’s insane press conference yesterday when he added more fuel to the fire by blaming the “alt left”.

President Donald Trump on Tuesday adamantly defended his response to the deadly white nationalist rally in Virginia at a chaotic news conference, backing again into the blame of "both sides" that put him into bipartisan hot water.

Bickering with reporters, some of whom he called "fake news," Trump defended the protest that led to the violence and contended that some of the individuals carrying torches at the white nationalist rally did not have bad intentions.

"You had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists and the press has treated them absolutely unfairly," Trump said at Trump Tower in New York.
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/15/trump-not-all-of-those-people-at-virginia-rally-were-white-supremacists.html




Yeah Captain America is a member of the Alt Left. And you know who else And then the reaction from the right wing certainly isn’t helping things. I give you Dinesh D’Souza.

“Trump has never said — not even implied — that he wants to see legal immigration be more white,” D’Souza said on Monday’s “Fox and Friends.” On the other side of the aisle, if you think of Hitler — Hitler wasn’t even talking about immigrants. The Jews in Germany were German citizens. And so, for Hitler, the distinction was inside of Germany, between what he considered to be the superior Nordics and the inferior Jews, and so there’s simply no valid analogy here between Trump and Hitler on this racial point at all.” D’Souza went on to claim that ethnic nationalism was “a left-wing idea,” ignoring that race was a big deal in America long before the current partisan division between Democrats and Republicans even existed.

D’Souza butchering history isn’t exactly new. But hours before neo-Nazis rallied around a Confederate monument and began a violent attack on protesters, the author of a book that claimed liberals were actually responsible for the Nazis tried to whitewash a Confederate general whose family owned slaves.
http://www.salon.com/2017/08/14/dinesh-dsouza-defends-donald-trump-not-as-bad-as-hitler/




Oh sure, Dinesh! Keep telling yourself that! Trump’s not as bad as Hitler! There’s lots of things you could say are not as bad as Hitler. Smelly farts are not as bad as Hitler! This cup of coffee I’m drinking is not as bad as Hitler! My Uber ride to the club was not as bad as Hitler! The management of the comedy club where we’re at right now is not as bad as Hitler! Thank you! And then there’s David Duke who *DEFINITELY* isn’t helping things!

There was a storm of negative reaction to President Trump's news conference Tuesday in which he said both the white supremacists and counter-protesters were responsible for the violence that broke out in Charlottesville, Va., Saturday.

One voice spoke out loudly in defense of the president's remarks: Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke.

"Thank you President Trump for your honesty & courage to tell the truth about #Charlottesville & condemn the leftist terrorists in BLM/Antifa," Duke tweeted after the news conference.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2017/08/15/david-duke-reaction-trump-news-conference/570517001/




There’s far more to this thing than we thought. The aftermath of what happened is coming out very quickly. I mean you have people who are outing the racists on Twitter.

White nationalists who appeared at the deadly demonstrations in Charlottesville are being outed on social media — with at least one being fired from his job after his name and picture was posted online.

Cole White, of California, was axed from his restaurant position in Berkeley on Sunday just hours after being publicly identified by a Twitter account known as “Yes, You’re Racist.”

The page has been putting “Unite the Right” protesters on blast following their violent, hate-fueled rallies in Charlottesville, Virginia, on Friday night and Saturday.

“If you recognize any of the Nazis marching in #Charlottesville, send me their names/profiles and I’ll make them famous,” the user wrote to its more than 180,000 followers.
http://nypost.com/2017/08/13/white-nationalists-are-being-ousted-on-twitter-and-one-lost-his-job/




Yeah I’m calling bullshit on this one. How did a 20 year old hot dog employee from Berkeley get the money to fly from Berkeley to Charlottesville? I mean if you’ve got even a studio apartment in Berkeley, you’re not flying to Virginia. I checked Kayak. A flight from Oakland to Richmond, Virginia costs $529 and a 3 night hotel stay in Charlottesville would easily cost $175 a night and that’s not even including the cost of renting a car! I know when I was 20 I did *NOT* have that kind of money to travel! And how does one even get that kind of time off? That angle hasn’t even been explored yet! “Yeah sir, I’m going to Virginia to attend Unite The Right!”. So how else did the shit hit the fan? Did you know that the FBI had warnings about this for weeks?

The FBI and Department of Homeland Security in May warned of the likelihood that white supremacist groups would “continue to pose a threat of lethal violence over the next year,” months before violence erupted Saturday at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

In an unclassified joint intelligence bulletin obtained by Foreign Policy, titled “White Supremacist Extremism Poses Persistent Threat Of Lethal Violence,” the FBI and DHS reviewed “lethal and potentially lethal incidents” of violence committed by white supremacists from 2000–2016.

The FBI and DHS concluded that violence in 2017 would likely “continue to be spontaneous and involve targets of opportunity,” but did not rule out the possibility of “plot-derived mass-casualty violence.” They projected that such violence would “derive from the capabilities of lone offenders or small cells, rather than the resources of larger groups, due to the decentralized and often disorganized status of the WSE movement.”
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/fbi-dhs-warned-of-persistent-threat-white-supremacist-violence




And then this might be my favorite part of this whole thing – if that’s possible – is that the president of the UVA Campus Republicans actually played the “I’m not racist but…” card. You don’t get to play that, that’s my fucking job!!!

"The president of Washington State University’s chapter of the College Republicans says that he’s being unfairly maligned after he was photographed participating in the white supremacist demonstrations in Charlottesville, VA over the weekend.

KREM Channel 2’s Amanda Roley spoke to James Allsup after his photo was identified in the #GoodNightAltRight Twitter campaign, which circulated photos of the white supremacists — including neo-Nazi groups, the Ku Klux Klan and “truckloads of skinheads” — who converged on Charlottesville purportedly to protest the removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee from a municipal park.

The “Unite the Right” march quickly turned into a melee that ended with the death of a 32-year-old anti-fascist protester and the injury of at least 19 others after a 20-year-old neo-Nazi rammed his car into a group of counter-demonstrators."
http://www.rawstory.com/2017/08/college-republicans-president-spotted-in-charlottesville-they-have-no-proof-that-im-a-racist/?comments=disqus




No Cartman, calm down. No race war. At least not yet. That is the wet dream of right wing conspiracy theorists, Infowars fans, and the alt right, after all. Alex Jones loves the idea. But this might be the most evil and despicable thing that came out of the rally, but thank god at least Go Daddy stepped up!

(CNN)The Daily Stormer, a white supremacist and neo-Nazi website, needs to find another domain name provider after GoDaddy gave it the boot following a derogatory story about the woman killed at the Charlottesville, Virginia, rally.
The site, which calls itself "The World's Most Genocidal Republican Website," registered its name with GoDaddy -- but GoDaddy doesn't host the Daily Stormer's content.
Nevertheless, the company said it wants nothing to do with the site following a piece on Heather Heyer. Heyer died after a car rammed a crowd of counter-protesters gathered to oppose a "Unite the Right" rally of white nationalist and other right-wing groups.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/14/us/godaddy-daily-stormer-website-trnd/index.html




Oh and then if you need any proof that *THEY’RE* the snowflakes, one of the assholes identified in the rally says he doesn’t plan to return to Nevada at this time:

RENO — A student at the University of Nevada, Reno said things are "spiraling out of control" since he was identified as a participant in a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., over the weekend.

Peter Cvjetanovic, 20, a history and political science major, was identified by the Twitter account @yesyoureracist after his photo was taken holding a torch with what appears to be an angry expression on his face.

“I have received death threats,” said Cvjetanovic, who plans to report to the Reno Police Department at least five instances that he feels are legitimate threats. He said the threats have been violent and graphic.

He added he is not telling anyone his plans to return to Nevada for fear he may be attacked.
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10141843707


But… the Nazis aren’t done! They’re coming back for more in Boston:

Mayor Martin J. Walsh is exploring legal and tactical options for shutting down or containing Saturday’s planned conservative rally on Boston Common after the violence in Virginia — which included some of the same speakers listed for Boston’s event.

Walsh’s office said no one representing the Boston Free Speech Rally had pulled permits as of yesterday for the event, though flyers are already circulating for a five-hour protest that kicks off at noon Saturday.

“I don’t want them here, we don’t need them here, there’s no reason to be here,” Walsh said yesterday.




And thirds with Texas A&M! They’re going on a Deplorable Tour 2017 – coming soon to a city near you! Tickets on sale now!

COLLEGE STATION, Texas (AP) — Texas A&M University has criticized the views of a white nationalist who is planning a “white lives matter” rally on campus next month.

A&M spokeswoman Amy Smith told The Battalion student newspaper that Preston Wiginton’s rhetoric is “counter to the core values of Texas A&M.”

Smith said in an earlier statement to The Dallas Morning News that the university didn’t invite any white nationalists, but that it can’t stop them from coming. She says anyone can reserve space on the public university’s campus.
https://apnews.com/568a8c90362b4c9eacbe2762137d84cc





[font size="8"]Donald Trump
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So now that we know how we got here, what kind of leadership would you expect from a guy who emboldened the racists during his campaign? They literally plunged the country into anarchy on Saturday with both sides going “LET’S FIGURE THIS OUT!!!!”. Of course the racists were blaming this on the liberals like we saw with Dinesh D’Souza, but what did our esteemed president think? Let’s roll the tape!



*Trump voice* ON MANY SIDES!!! Sigh… I just… I cant even… I don’t… how… what… this guy is our president??? During a time of crisis he acts like he’s on the fucking campaign trail? Well the criticism has been fast:

Donald Trump has faced bipartisan criticism after failing to explicitly condemn the role of white supremacists in clashes with counter-protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, that culminated in a car running into a crowd, killing at least one person.

The president said he condemned “hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides” on Saturday. He then repeated the phrase “on many sides” for emphasis. A White House spokesperson later amplified the president’s remarks, telling the Guardian: “The president was condemning hatred, bigotry and violence from all sources and all sides. There was violence between protesters and counter-protesters today.”

But there was strong reaction to Trump’s refusal to denounce far-right extremists who had marched through the streets carrying flaming torches, screaming racial epithets and setting upon their opponents.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/aug/12/charlottesville-protest-trump-condemns-violence-many-sides




Yeah yeah wrong. But what else is Trump wrong about this? You know he attempted to right the wrong by not denouncing his base – the racists and sexists who make up the “Unite The Right” crowd. But guess who *LOVED* his remarks? I… I’ve seriously run out of fucks to give at this point.

“The hate and division must stop. And must stop right now,” Trump said Saturday. “We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides. On many sides. It’s been going on for a long time in our country.”

He did not say which “sides” he was referring to, or whose hatred and bigotry he was condemning.

Less than a half-hour after Trump’s live remarks, the Daily Stormer had declared the president’s words as a signal of tacit support for their side:

Trump comments were good. He didn’t attack us. He just said the nation should come together. Nothing specific against us.

Read more: http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/one-group-loved-trump%E2%80%99s-remarks-about-charlottesville-white-supremacists/ar-AApZH0c?li=BBnb7Kz




You know you can’t denounce the division in this country when you’re the cause of most of it, Trump. And considering how young most of the attendees were of the TIKI torch parade, apparently cookies is really all it takes to get people to join the dark side.

CNN is reporting that President Trump insisted that he speak about the growing economy before remarks on Charlottesville, Va., in which for the first time since last weekend's violence he called out white supremacist groups for their actions.

"We are told by our White House team — and this is as telling as it gets — the president insisted on putting those economic remarks at the top of his statement before he got to the events in Charlottesville, before he got to his denunciation of the KKK and other hate groups," host John King reported on CNN's "Inside Politics."

"That was the president's call," King added.

Trump talked about his administration's economic efforts for more than a minute before turning to remarks on the weekend violence in Charlottesville during a five-minute on-camera event at the White House.
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/346490-cnn-trump-insisted-on-putting-economic-remarks-at-top-of




So what happens when Trump attempts to right a wrong? Well, he gets even more wrong! It’s like a perpetual shit machine – he lies and then attempts to correct those lies with even more lies!

Finally. Finally. President Trump has spoken out, but his silence over the past two days says more than his words today.
America was hit by a terrorist attack. We have seen Nazis marching in our streets in torchlight parades with the infamous salute and the swastika abundantly presented. We have seen the kind of hatred that has torn this country apart in the past praised and encouraged. Mr. Trump has faced withering criticism for his failure to denounce Nazis and Klansmen, even from many in his own party. Viewed in this light, his statement today had the feeling of political defensiveness not moral clarity.

Where was the passion to fight homegrown terrorism? Where was the determination to root out hatred and prejudice? Where was the heartfelt assurances that all Americans have the right to live in a peaceful and tolerant nation?

We have heard the glee with which the President has called immigrants rapists and murders. We have seen him smile broadly as he denounces the press as enemies of America. We have seen his eyes sparkle as he dismisses our inner cities as depraved wastelands. I didn't see any of that conviction in his words today.
https://www.facebook.com/theDanRather/posts/10159171895865716




I mean come on, Trump, the least you can do is call them out by name, and mean it. Even one of the racists’ dads is speaking out against his own son:

One father of a marcher in Charlottesville, Virginia over the weekend is denouncing his own son after the young man was seen on national news spouting hate.

In a letter to Fargo, North Dakota’s Inforum, father Pearce Tefft wrote that his family wasn’t sure where his son Peter picked up his racist beliefs.

“I, along with all of his siblings and his entire family, wish to loudly repudiate my son’s vile, hateful, and racist rhetoric and actions,” Tefft wrote, clarifying that he certainly didn’t learn such values at home.

“I have shared my home and hearth with friends and acquaintances of every race, gender, and creed. I have taught all of my children that all men and women are created equal. That we must love each other all the same,” he continued. However, he acknowledged, that Peter chose another path.

The family has remained largely silent, but Tefft said these recent events pushed them over the edge. Remaining silent, he believed, would be a mistake.
http://www.rawstory.com/2017/08/you-will-have-to-shovel-our-bodies-into-the-oven-too-father-of-charlottesville-neo-nazi-disowns-him/





[font size="8"]Donald Trump
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So we’ve been trying to pinpoint the exact moment when the shit hit the fan in Charlottesville, and don’t be surprised if this isn’t going away any time soon. And we pointed out that the shit hit the fan when white supremacists came out and said they loved Trump’s initial speech. Well, yesterday’s press conference was a total clusterfuck.

WASHINGTON — President Trump reverted Tuesday to blaming both sides for the deadly violence in Charlottesville, Va., and at one point questioned whether the movement to pull down Confederate statues would lead to the desecration of memorials to George Washington.

Abandoning his precisely chosen and carefully delivered condemnations of the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis from a day earlier, the president furiously stuck by his initial reaction to the unrest in Charlottesville. He drew the very moral equivalency for which a bipartisan chorus, and his own advisers, had already criticized him.

“I think there is blame on both sides,” the president said in a combative exchange with reporters at Trump Tower in Manhattan. “You had a group on one side that was bad. You had a group on the other side that was also very violent. Nobody wants to say that. I’ll say it right now.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/15/us/politics/trump-press-conference-charlottesville.html




And there’s one aspect of the Trump administration that we have yet to cover – it’s called the President’s Council On Manufacturing. And the controversy was started when this happened on Monday:

The CEOs of athletic wear manufacturer Under Armour, computer chip maker Intel and pharmaceutical company Merck resigned Monday from the White House's American Manufacturing Council — with the Merck withdrawal drawing a quick and angry Twitter outburst from President Donald Trump.

Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier cited the president's failure to explicitly rebuke the white nationalists who marched in Charlottesville, Virginia, over the weekend. He wrote on Twitter Monday that "America's leaders must honor our fundamental values by clearly rejecting expressions of hatred, bigotry and group supremacy, which runs counter to the American ideal that all people are created equal."

Frazier is one of the few African-Americans to head a Fortune 500 company.
https://www.dailysabah.com/americas/2017/08/14/ceos-of-intel-merck-under-armour-resign-from-trumps-job-council




And he’s not the only one. Then this happened:

Three chief executives from top American companies resigned from a presidential business council on Monday following President Trump’s tepid initial response to a violent weekend in Charlottesville, Va.

Brian Krzanich, C.E.O. of Intel — one of the most important global manufacturers of computer chips — announced his departure from President Trump’s advisory council on manufacturing in a late-night blog post on Monday.

The decision followed similar moves from Kenneth C. Frazier, the chief executive of drugmaker Merck, who was the first executive to leave the advisory group on Monday, and Kevin Plank, the founder and chief executive of athletic apparel maker Under Armour, who also announced his decision on Monday evening.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/14/business/merck-ceo-trump-charlottesville.html




So if you’re keeping score at home – that’s now 3 CEOs who have left the President’s Council On Manufacturing. Intel, Under Armour, and Merck. But there’s more!

The head of the AFL-CIO has stepped down from the White House's manufacturing council after President Trump doubled down on his position that violence in Charlottesville was perpetrated by many sides at a press conference Tuesday.

Richard Trumka said in a statement posted on Twitter that he "cannot sit on a council for a President who tolerates bigotry and domestic terrorism," and called Tuesday's remarks "the last straw."

The statement was jointly issued by Thea Lee, an economist who previously served as deputy chief of staff at the AFL-CIO. She also resigned from the council.
http://money.cnn.com/2017/08/15/news/richard-trumka-afl-cio-trump-charlottesville/index.html




That’s four now! Even the head of the AFL-CIO is pissed at Trump! And we all know what a history Trump has with organized labor! How many more are still left? Anyone want to take a guess?

President Donald Trump said in a tweet Wednesday that he is disbanding his two business councils.

The move came after the manufacturing council lost seven members: three of whom left on Monday, two on Tuesday, and two on Wednesday amid fallout from his handling of the white-supremacist protests in Charlottesville, Virginia, over the weekend.

"Rather than putting pressure on the businesspeople of the Manufacturing Council & Strategy & Policy Forum, I am ending both. Thank you all!" Trump said in the tweet.

After the tweet, Johnson & Johnson's CEO and United Technologies CEO both announced their resignations from the council.
http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-manufacturing-council-whos-still-in-2017-8




So when you’re Trump, and you’ve been defeated like this, what do you do? Do you get more CEOs to fill those positions? Nah, that is something that you know a real leader would do! Instead, Trump decides to do this:

After four members of his American Manufacturing Council resigned earlier this week, President Donald Trump explained away the actions as ones made out of "embarrassment" over the issue of outsourcing.

"Some of the folks that will leave, they're leaving out of embarrassment because they make their products outside [of the United States,]" Trump said Tuesday as he fielded questions following scheduled remarks on his infrastructure plans.

This week, the CEOs of Merck, Intel, Under Armour and the president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing all announced their departures from the advisory panel in the wake of Trump's response to the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, Saturday.

Two more leaders, Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO labor union, and Thea Lee, the AFL-CIO's former deputy chief of staff, announced their resignations following Trump's comments, which assigned "blame" to protesters on "both sides" last weekend.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/merck-ceo-resigns-trumps-manufacturing-council-citing-presidents/story?id=49205186


And to *FURTHER* keep digging that hole, what does he do? He attacks the world’s largest online retailer!

President Trump renewed his attack on Amazon Wednesday, tweeting that the e-commerce giant is "doing great damage to tax paying retailers" and removing jobs in cities.

Amazon, which employs about 180,000 in the U.S. and has plans to finish hiring 100,000 more full and part-time jobs by mid-2018, couldn't be reached for comment.

Trump's blistering tweet, his first of the day, was issued hours after The Washington Post -- the newspaper owned by Amazon chairman Jeff Bezos -- ran an editorial with the headline, "Mr. Trump gives comfort to racists."
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2017/08/16/trump-criticizes-amazon-great-damage-retailers/571856001/





[font size="8"]Holy Shit
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It’s time once again for our new segment:



Yes, holy shit. The religious right has been cranking the batshit up way past 11 this week. Of course Charlottesville has been dominating the news this week, and first up – while Alex Jones claims to be a man of god, his explanation for what went down in Virginia this week is anything but Christian!

“I’ve been to this events,” said Mr Jones, host of the The Alex Jones Show. “They were just Jewish actors. Nothing against Jews in general, but they are leftists Jews that want to create this clash and they go dress up as Nazis.”

He added: “I have footage in Austin - we’re going to find it somewhere here at the office - where it literally looks like cast of “Seinfeld” or like Howard Stern in a Nazi outfit.

“They all look like Howard Stern. They almost got like little curly hair down, and they’re just up there heiling Hitler. You can tell they are totally uncomfortable, they are totally scared, and it’s all just meant to create the clash.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/charlottesville-latest-alex-jones-white-supremacist-protesters-jewish-actors-virginia-a7894351.html




Hey Alex! Sprechen sie dick! I love that movie. And then if that’s not enough, then behind door #2 there’s Scott Lively who offers this very un-Christian like response to Charlottesville:

Extremist anti-LGBTQ activist Scott Lively weighed in today on the violence surrounding the white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia last weekend, suggesting that it had all been instigated by “the same network of Bush, Clinton and Obama deep-state intelligence agents, politicians and street activists that’s been working since the election to remove President Trump.”

As Lively sees it, the goal of this “network of one-world statists” is to use left-wing groups to “inflame the right” and incite conflict in order to create “a global socialist government.”

In making his case, Lively bizarrely asserts that the multiple allegations of sexual assault against Bill Cosby are part of this effort, as is the existence of the notoriously anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church, which he suspects is really a left-wing group that was created simply to “hurt the pro-family movement.”

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/scott-lively-says-the-bill-cosby-incident-is-directly-related-to-violence-in-charlottesville/




Really? Westboro is a left wing group? Bill Cosby is involved somehow? I want whatever brand of Covfefe he happens to be smoking! Man these people are paranoid, aren’t they? Well, Steve Strang isn’t helping!

Over the weekend, Charisma publisher Steve Strang posted a podcast conversation with Ray Moore, a South Carolina Republican who ran for lieutenant governor in 2014 on a platform of replacing public schools with an education system run by “churches, families, and private associations.” The two discussed what they described as a demonic “deep state” that is undercutting President Trump and the Constitution.

The “deep state” terminology has become popular among right-wing Trump supporters to describe leakers from within the White House, executive agencies or intelligence community who provide the media with information the Trump administration would rather keep secret.

In their interview, Moore described the deep state as “the hard left, the globalists, and those who are not friendly to traditional and Christian values that are sort of embedded in the layer of the government down from the senior level. These are the civil service people, some are political appointees, the media, and they work in the government.”
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/steve-strang-and-ray-moore-ask-god-to-protect-trump-from-demonic-deep-state/




And speaking of not helping, one thing that conservative Christian fundamentalists hate with a fiery passion is education. Why? They’re dare not allowed to speak about God on publicly owned campuses. You know we have this weird thing in America it’s called “Separation of church and state”! And we should probably keep it that way!

On his radio program today, extremist anti-LGBTQ pastor Kevin Swanson and his co-host Bill Jack declared that “sexualized public schools that violate God’s law with high levels of flagrancy” should be burned to the ground.

Swanson and Jack were outraged by the fact that Washington state public schools teach students about gender identity issues, with Swanson at one point connecting this issue to a rape allegation against an employee at the state’s Department of Fish and Wildlife.

“Rape is also against God’s law and I guess it must be against state law; I’m not getting why, though,” Swanson said. “Why in the world is a sexual crime against the law in the state of Washington if the other forms of crimes are not against the law in the state of Washington? See, this is confusing to me.”

After Swanson fumed that “the worst possible abominations are accepted in the state of Washington” and that the public schools are “whorehouses,” Jack declared that “we need to burn ’em down.”
www.rightwingwatch.org/post/kevin-swanson-and-co-host-say-schools-that-violate-gods-law-should-be-burned-down/




You know do these people really believe what they say? I really wonder sometimes. And then there’s of course our favorite “This Fucking Guy”, Dave Daubenmire. Why do we listen to this asshole’s opinions? Can anyone tell me? And why is every single video of this guy in front of a stadium? Dude, you’re not a coach. Give it up.

Religious Right activist “Coach” Dave Daubenmire spent a good portion of his “Pass The Salt Live” webcast this morning discussing the violence that occurred surrounding a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, over the weekend, which he claimed was staged in order to provoke a civil war.

Daubenmire repeatedly described the participants in the “Unite The Right” rally as “patriots” who are simply trying to defend Western civilization and asserted that opposition to their march came from “Christ-haters.”

“Please tell me you’re smart enough to understand this, that those were staged riots,” Daubenmire said. “Can I tell you why? Because somebody wants to stir up a mess … They are trying to drive us to civil war.”

Daubenmire insisted that the rally in Charlottesville was hijacked by right-wing and left-wing activists who had been paid to disrupt the event and “make this look like racism is out of control in America.”
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/dave-daubenmire-those-who-oppose-the-patriots-that-marched-in-charlottesville-are-god-haters/




Ah, I miss the God Warrior! Those were good times. Hey Dave… let me tell you something that you need to hear: RACISM ***IS*** OUT OF CONTROL IN AMERICA! Only it’s by your side! Not ours! Thank you! Let’s roll the tape on “Coach” (?) Dave’s nonsense:




But finally, in the world of batshit crazy religious fundamentalists, you can always count on Jim Bakker to bring the crazy extra hard.

“You’ve got people mocking the prophets because [the End Times are] not happening fast enough,” Shorey said, “and by God’s grace, it’s not happening fast enough so we have time to put our order in and get the food out of his warehouse before the government does.”

Bakker said that “all the things that these men have prophesied on our show have taken place” and that “the first horse of the Apocalypse” has already arrived on earth.

“Can you people not see that the spirit of the Antichrist is in the United States of America?” Bakker asked, incredulously. “This is not the America I grew up in. This is an America where you can’t even have the Ten Commandments in the park and we’ve all just let it go and I’ll tell you, judgment is coming.”
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/jim-bakker-can-you-people-not-see-that-the-spirit-of-the-antichrist-is-in-the-united-states-of-america/


Yes, Jim. Yes, we can. That’s it for this week in:




[font size="8"]Google Vs The Alt Right
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The alt right is dominating the news this week with Charlottesville. So remember last week how the alt right got their underwear in a wad when Google fired programmer James Damore for circulating a very harshly worded memo questioning the company’s diverse hiring practices? Well, they’re not done with Google yet. In fact the Alt Right is making Google their asshole this week. These people are quite certifiably insane.

Alt-right protests against Google’s allegedly anti-white-male diversity policies were already being planned before the white-supremacist violence in Charlottesville this last weekend. And organizers of the March on Google in (at last count) nine cities are trying to distinguish themselves from the motley gang of neo-Nazis, Kluxers, and open white supremacists who held the Unite the Right rally in Virginia. They issued a statement that closely tracks the evasive take on Charlottesville of you-know-who in the White House:

We, the organizers of the March on Google, join the President in condemning the actions in Charlottesville on August 12th. Despite many false rumors from those seeking to discredit us we are in no way associated with any group who organized there.


We condemn in the strongest possible terms any display of hatred and bigotry from any side. It has no place in America. No citizen should ever fear for their safety and security in our society.
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/08/alt-right-demonstrations-scheduled-for-9-cities-next-weekend.html


Really these guys think of diversity the same way Ron Burgundy does:



How are these people any different than the alt righters who marched in Charlottesville? Do the sexist alt righters distance themselves from the racist alt righters? Do they hold separate meetings with separate meeting minutes? How does this work? Oh wait – never mind! It’s FREEEEEEEEEEEEEE SPEEEEEEEEEEEEEEECH!!!!!1!

Alt-right protesters are planning a "March on Google" next week, following the tech giant's firing of an employee over his internal company memo discussing gender differences in the workforce.

Far-right internet activist Jack Posobiec and "a coalition of free speech activists around the United States" organized the march, according to the official #MarchOnGoogle site.

“We are going to raise awareness about Google’s one-sided bias and campaign against dissenting opinions and voices,” Posobiec told The Mercury News.

The marches will take place "anywhere Google has an office" including Austin, Boston, New York City, Mountain View, Calif., and Washington, D.C.
http://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/346151-alt-right-plans-free-speech-march-against-google




Gee, how did I guess that asshole Posobiec is involved? But the alt right is clearly intolerant of Google’s tolerance!

Some of the most prominent voices on the alt-right have found a new hero in James Damore, the fired Google employee who attributed the lack of women in tech to “biological” differences between genders.

Even as Damore appears to work with some of the movement’s leaders, he sought to distance himself from their efforts Monday.

Asked about his affiliation with the alt-right and their planned protest of Google, Damore told CNBC: “I support Google, and I really do want Google to improve, so I don’t support efforts to try to hurt Google directly. I think that Google’s culture really does need to change if it wants to do what’s best for both its employees and its users, though.”

Pressed again as to whether he’s involved in those plans, Damore merely replied: “No, not really.”
https://www.recode.net/2017/8/14/16145686/google-employee-james-damore-fired-alt-right-ties-cnbc




I like that one! But guess what? James Damore doesn’t support the alt right! Ha ha!

James Damore was fired from Google last week over his controversial 3,300 word essay on diversity. His memo put him in the good graces of the alt-right -- but he's now distancing himself from the movement.

"I do not support the alt-right," he told CNN Tech. "Just because someone supports me doesn't mean I support them."

Many alt-right personalities have expressed their support of Damore and his document, which criticized Google for its "politically correct monoculture" and critiqued its efforts to increase staff diversity. He had been photographed in his "Goolag" shirt by Peter Duke, a photographer who has been called the "Annie Leibovitz of the alt-right."
http://money.cnn.com/2017/08/15/technology/culture/james-damore-interview/index.html





[font size="8"]”Dr.” Sebastian Gorka
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It’s time for:



This week’s “This Fucking Guy” is a senior advisor of the White House – and a guy who really, really wants to emphasize the word “white” – “Dr.” Sebastian Gorka. You might be saying “who”? Because he’s really not that well known. Like Erik Prince, “Dr.” Sebastian Gorka prefers to remain in the shadows, you know, like Bane from the Dark Knight Rises. Only difference is Bane kicks ass and takes names, but I can’t really say that for anyone coming from this administration. So when what happened in Charlotte happened, guess what Gorka said?

Just days before a white supremacist rally resulted in the death of three people in Virginia, a White House adviser claimed that white supremacists were “not the problem” in America.

Sebastian Gorka, a deputy assistant to the president with a murky White House role and a controversial history, appeared on the Breitbart News Daily radio show to discuss the real threat to the US – radical Islamic terror.

“It’s this constant, ‘Oh, it’s the white man. It’s the white supremacists. That’s the problem.’ No, it isn’t, Maggie Haberman,” Mr Gorka said, referring to the prominent New York Times reporter.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/sebastian-gorka-charlottesville-white-supremacists-not-problem-white-house-adviser-breitbart-news-a7893156.html




So when what looks like an act of war happens thanks to white supremacists, this fucking guy is like “oh there’s no problems with white supremacists”. Well guess what? If you don’t have a problem with white supremacists, that means you are one! But there’s lots of demands right now to fire him along with Bannon in the wake of this week:

WASHINGTON

Religious and civil rights leaders called on President Donald Trump to fire White House advisors Steve Bannon and Sebastian Gorka, whose association with the white-supremacist “alt-right” movement have come under heightened scrutiny following Saturday’s violent racial clash in Charlottesville, Va.

“Supporters of white supremacists, violent extremism, racial bigotry and neo-Nazis should not serve in the White House or any level of government,” said Vanita Gupta, president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, during a telephone press briefing with reporters on Sunday.

Bannon, Trump’s chief strategist, is the former executive chairman of Breitbart News, a right-wing conservative news site that’s a favorite with white nationalists and the so-called “alt-right” movement of anti-semitic and white-power groups, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. Bannon also served as CEO of Trump’s presidential campaign.

Gorka, a deputy assistant to Trump, has ties to anti-Semitic, right-wing groups in Hungary.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/latest-news/article167025242.html#storylink=cpy




Yeah just let me close my laptop here… OK we’re good! In fact Charlottesville is not the first time this fucking guy has tried to pass off a terrorist attack as a setup. You know there was that bombing at a mosque in Minnesota a few weeks ago? Well, this fucking guy had this to say:

Three days after a bomb exploded at a mosque in suburban Minneapolis, a White House official told MSNBC that he isn't yet convinced the attack was not a "fake hate crime."

President Trump has not issued a statement — via Twitter or the White House press office — since the attack at Dar Al-Farooq Islamic Center took place.

On MSNBC, Sebastian Gorka, a top national security adviser to the president, said the president won't speak out about the bombing until "local authorities provide their assessment." (Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton has called the bombing "a criminal act of terrorism." The local police handed the investigation to the FBI.)
https://www.buzzfeed.com/nidhiprakash/gorka-minneapolis-mosque-hate-crime?utm_term=.csDEQ0dPg#.tn69m8k7e




Yeah BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! Really, Gorka? You have to go there and blame “the left” for this? Why don’t you guys take a look in the fucking mirror? If there’s one thing the Trump administration is particularly horrible at, among other things, is analogies. You know like how I compare them to a fly on a horse’s ass. Thank you! Well, here’s what Gorka said when talking about one of the Trump administration’s favorite boogeymen – “radial Islam”!

White House national-security aide Sebastian Gorka offered an unusual analogy to defend Trump's preference for referring to attacks by Islamist extremists as "radical Islamic terrorism" during an interview on MSNBC Tuesday, comparing the debate over terms to medical diagnoses.

MSNBC Live co-host Ali Veshi noted during an interview with Gorka that recent terrorist attacks in the West have had "little or no material or operational" connection to ISIS and cited some who have argued such attacks won't go away even with the demise of that terrorist group.

Asked about the reasoning behind the White House tactic of referring to "radical Islamic terrorism" when describing such attacks, Gorka said it would "jettison the political correctness of the last eight years," referring to the Obama administration's avoidance of that term in such cases.
http://www.businessinsider.com/sebastian-gorka-treating-radical-islamic-terrorism-like-flu-instead-of-cancer-analogy-2017-8




Really? You have to make the cancer analogy? We could say that about white supremacists – they are a cancer! And they’re spreading like mad! In fact despite that “Dr.” Gorka insists people call him “doctor”, he actually had to be reminded that Rex Tillerson is fourth in line to the presidency!

Update: Gorka is now saying his comments have been misconstrued and that he was merely saying the media shouldn’t ask Tillerson questions about military matters. “I said for reporters to force our chief diplomat — the amazing Rex Tillerson — to give details of military options is nonsensical. He is the secretary of state. ... I was admonishing the journalist of the fake news-industrial complex ... who are demanding that he make the military case for action.”

For those worried that President Trump might get into nuclear war with North Korea, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson provided some solace Wednesday. “Americans should sleep well at night,” Tillerson said, tempering Trump’s promise to unleash “fire and fury” on North Korea if it continued to threaten the United States. Tillerson emphasized that no conflict was imminent.

But now another Trump administration voice is suggesting that we shouldn’t pay Tillerson much mind.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/08/10/more-drama-in-trumpland-gorka-publicly-shuns-tillersons-effort-to-scale-back-north-korea-red-line/?utm_term=.68e5d3921d5c




Yeah of course he’ll deny it! That’s part of the “take no responsibility” that this administration is known for! That’s Sebastian Gorka, this week’s:





[font size="8"]Blackwater
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Time once again to ask:



This week: Blackwater: How Is This Still A Thing? You might have noticed a strange company popping up in the news a lot lately. They’re called Academi. Well, Academi used to be known as XE Services, Inc. Wait, that name sounds familiar doesn’t it? Well, XE Services was formerly known as a company who was heavily investigated during the Bush administration called Blackwater. But you may be asking yourself “I thought Blackwater went under during the Bush administration!”. WRONG! They just cut off the bad part and respawned new, like a worm. And like a worm, they’re now getting stronger!

The White House has reviewed a proposal to outsource the job of training and assisting Afghan forces to private contractors, said Erik Prince, founder of the private security firm formerly called Blackwater.

In several recent op-eds, the Blackwater founder suggested “restructuring” America’s presence in Afghanistan by replacing US troops training and assisting Afghan security units with private contractors on a long-term basis.

Prince’s new security company, Frontier Services Group, will bid for the government contract should the Trump administration take up his Afghanistan proposal, he told C-SPAN on Friday.
https://www.rt.com/usa/399359-erik-prince-afghanistan-blackwater-strategy-contractors/




That’s right – Erik Prince is the brother in law of Trump’s secretary of education, Betsy DeVos. And did we say they’re getting stronger? Oh yes they are getting much stronger! In fact Prince has asked Trump to simply get rid of the military presence in Afghanistan.

One of the Iraq War’s most explosive criminal cases forced an uncomfortable debate about America’s reliance on private security firms in times of conflict. A decade later, that case is back in the spotlight as senior White House officials look to the founder of one such organization, Blackwater’s Erik Prince, for help extricating the U.S. military from its morass in Afghanistan.

As America’s longest war nears the start of its 17th year, and the Trump administration remains without a clear strategy, Prince has suggested that contractors could gradually supplant the 14,000 U.S. and NATO troops who remain in Afghanistan. Yet, for those opposed to the idea, the court case is a reminder of why such an approach seems so reckless and ill-advised.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2017/08/10/blackwaters-founder-wants-trump-to-outsource-the-afghanistan-war-why-thats-so-risky/?utm_term=.f46e7c9c937a




But with the present, Trump is so desperate for ideas on how to keep the conflict going in Afghanistan that he is actually turning to a guy who nearly stood trial for treason for help. Let’s go back a few years to see how Blackwater is still a thing. So they dissolved and became XE Services in 2009 after they were kicked out of Iraq. Then this happened!

At a covert forward operating base run by the US Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) in the Pakistani port city of Karachi, members of an elite division of Blackwater are at the center of a secret program in which they plan targeted assassinations of suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda operatives, "snatch and grabs" of high-value targets and other sensitive action inside and outside Pakistan, an investigation by The Nation has found. The Blackwater operatives also assist in gathering intelligence and help run a secret US military drone bombing campaign that runs parallel to the well-documented CIA predator strikes, according to a well-placed source within the US military intelligence apparatus.

The source, who has worked on covert US military programs for years, including in Afghanistan and Pakistan, has direct knowledge of Blackwater's involvement. He spoke to The Nation on condition of anonymity because the program is classified. The source said that the program is so "compartmentalized" that senior figures within the Obama administration and the US military chain of command may not be aware of its existence.
http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/sources-blackwaters-running-secret-wa




Yes, they fought a war in Pakistan so secret that the CIA didn’t know about it. Which is why the CIA hired them in 2010 to guard the US military bases set up in Afghanistan:

The CIA has hired Xe Services, the private security firm formerly known as Blackwater Worldwide, to guard its facilities in Afghanistan and elsewhere, according to an industry source.
The previously undisclosed CIA contract is worth about $100 million, said the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the deal, which is classified.
"It's for protective services . . . guard services, in multiple regions," the source said.
Two other security contractors, Triple Canopy and DynCorp International, put in losing bids for the CIA's business, the source said.
The revelation comes only a day after members of a federal commission investigating war-zone contractors blasted the State Department for granting Xe a new $120 million contract to guard U.S. consulates under construction in Afghanistan.
https://michaelmoore.com/words/latest-news/cia-hires-xe-formerly-blackwater-guard-facilities-afghanistan-elsewhere




Yeah really… WTF! Well here’s how they were able to get away with this – they weren’t called Blackwater or XE Services. Instead they were able to cleverly brand themselves as “US Training Centers”:

First it was Blackwater USA. Then it was Blackwater Worldwide. Now, it's "Xe" (pronounced "Zee&quot . The private military company has repeatedly tried to re-brand, after numerous controversies from the killing of civilians in Nisoor Square in Baghdad; to its no-bid contracts in Iraq, Afghanistan and New Orleans, post-Katrina; to its hiring troops with ties to repressive regimes, like that of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. The company says its latest name change is meant to reflect a new focus. Blackwater / Xe spokesperson Anne Tyrrell said, "We've taken the company to a place where it is no longer accurately described as Blackwater." Its subsidiaries also have new names: Blackwater Airships is now Guardian Flight Systems, Blackwater Target Systems is GSD Manufacturing, and Blackwater Lodge and Training Center is the U.S. Training Center. The company has also shed its famous (or infamous) bear-paw and crosshairs logo. The new head of Blackwater / Xe, Gary Jackson, told employees, "Xe will be a one-stop shopping source for world class services in the fields of security, stability, aviation, training and logistics," reports the Wall Street Journal.
http://www.prwatch.org/spin/2009/02/8214/mercenaries-previously-known-blackwater




So Blackwater didn’t call themselves a mercenary unit. They instead called themselves a “training center”. Even the Pentagon is furious at Blackwater and telling them to simply get the fuck out of Afghanistan:

Erik Prince made a windfall convincing the State Department, military and CIA to hire his mercenary firm, Blackwater. But this time, his plan to win Afghanistan through a new infusion of guns-for-hire has few customers.

At the Pentagon, according to a knowledgeable former senior official, opposition to Prince’s proposal—details of which were first reported by USA Today—for a “viceroy” to run Afghanistan through a paid army runs high.

“The Pentagon is not interested in privatizing the war in Afghanistan,” the former official told The Daily Beast.

Several current and former Trump administration officials said that despite Prince’s recent reemergence on cable news—the venue of choice when attempting to persuade President Donald Trump—Prince has no significant internal support. That is, with one big exception: Steve Bannon, Trump’s chief strategist and an avowed bureaucratic enemy of the national security adviser, Army Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/pentagon-to-bannons-blackwater-buddy-erik-prince-gtfo


So the Pentagon doesn’t want them, the CIA doesn’t want them, anymore, and even Iraq doesn’t want them. And then with all the troubles that have surrounded this company, how are they still a thing? Even when you add this to the mix?

WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court on Friday threw out lengthy prison sentences for three former Blackwater Worldwide security contractors and ordered a new trial for a fourth involved in a deadly 2007 shooting in Baghdad that became a symbol of unchecked, freewheeling American power in Iraq.

The shooting killed or injured at least 31 civilians when contractors unleashed a torrent of machine-gun fire and launched grenades into a crowded downtown Baghdad traffic circle from their heavily armored trucks. An F.B.I. agent once called it the “My Lai massacre of Iraq.”

The ruling is a setback to the effort — which now stretches across three presidential administrations — to demand stiff consequences for the shooting in Baghdad’s Nisour Square. Along with the massacre by Marines of 24 Iraqi civilians at Haditha and the abuses of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison, it was among the war’s darkest moments and stained the reputation of the United States.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/04/world/middleeast/blackwater-contractors-iraq-sentences.html




So murder, political intrigue, favoritism, and shady business practices. That’s enough to make you ask – Blackwater:





[font size="8"]People Are Dumb
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Hit it!



So of course you know by now that people are people, and people are dumb. So who’s stupid this week? Well, you can always count on Wal-Mart, the Florida of department stores, to bring the stupid extra hard. You know in an era where mass shootings, terror attacks, and overall paranoia about idiots with guns in our society are at an all time high, is this really what we need right now?

Online outrage is being directed at Wal-Mart for a gun display at one of its stores, after a photo went viral on Wednesday of a sign that hung above it.

The photo shows a back-to-school banner that reads "Own the school year like a hero" situated above a glass case full of guns.

"What's seen in this photograph would never be acceptable in our stores," a Wal-Mart spokesperson told CNBC in a statement. "We regret this situation and are looking into how it could have happened."

Initial reports said the store was in Evansville, Indiana, but that has not been confirmed by Wal-Mart as of Thursday afternoon. The company had started its investigation midday Wednesday, after the photo began circulating.
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/10/wal-mart-back-to-school-signs-hung-above-guns-sparking-outrage.html


Can we show that?



Yeah BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! That is what you call an epic fail. What’s next for dumb? How about one of my favorite subgenres in dumb news – fast food rage? I love a good fast food rage story. But this guy… definitely needs his ass kicked. At least one less Trump voter is a good thing!

(ATTLEBORO, Mass.) — A Rhode Island man has been accused of knocking a 6-year-old girl out of his way when she tried to help him pick up tokens he dropped at a Chuck E. Cheese's in Massachusetts.

Police say 53-year-old Daniel Lafayette, of North Smithfield, told them the girl was trying to steal his tokens at the Attleboro entertainment center and restaurant.

Police say the mother of the girl told them she was trying to help Lafayette pick up the tokens when he kicked her on Saturday.
http://time.com/4892032/chuck-e-cheese-tokens-man-kicks-girl/




Let’s talk about some lighter news in the world of dumb. I know! How about counterfeiting? And extremely poor counterfeiting at that!

Authorities say a man who tried to deposit what he presented as a $1 million bill has been charged with drug possession in Iowa.

A criminal complaint says Sioux City police officers were called to a Northwest Bank branch Thursday to talk to a man who tried to deposit the bill into his account. The officers asked 33-year-old Dennis Strickland whether he had any more of the bills and that a baggie fell out when he emptied a pocket. The complaint says the baggie contained methamphetamine.

The U.S. Treasury Department says it has never produced a $1 million bill.
http://www.kcrg.com/content/news/1M-bill-deposit-attempt-leads-to-Iowa-mans-drug-arrest-439249823.html




What’s next? How about some stupid animals? Yeah there’s stupid people, there’s also stupid animals such as this bear in Colorado that got stuck in a car. By the way, I love the quote from the guy who witnessed it. Classic!

Durango resident Ron Cornelius awoke to find a Subaru SUV crashed at the bottom of the hill at the end of his driveway.

"Usually, I don't get up at 5 o'clock unless there is a bear driving a car down the street," he joked to the Durango Herald newspaper.

Two or three bears get stuck in cars each week in the area, officials say.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-40852915




Whoa whoa whoa… this is a problem in Colorado? WTF is going on that that many bears get stuck in cars each week? I want to know more!!! What next? Well why not Florida? Because well it’s Florida, and this story has everything!

A Freeport man who identified himself as 'Alice in Wonderland' to police caused over $100, 000 worth of damage to a Walmart liquor store construction site Saturday, according to police.

The Crestview Police Department (CPD) said 32-year-old Mathew Jones broke into a fenced-in construction site on Ferdon Boulevard South and allegedly commandeered a forklift.

He then started destroying the site at the under-construction liquor store of the Crestview Walmart, according to police.

Jones told police he was told to commit the offenses by a "hookah-smoking caterpillar," according to his arrest report.
http://weartv.com/news/local/police-man-destroys-liquor-store-construction-site-blames-hookah-smoking-caterpillar




Meth? Liquor? Blame it on imaginary insects? Strange name? Ooh, ooh!!! $100,000 in damages! BINGO!!!! What do I win? Staying in Florida there’s also this guy:

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — A Florida man has been sentenced to six years and five months in prison for accidentally shooting a gun while taking a selfie in a strip club restroom.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Tampa announced 34-year-old Rorn Sorn’s sentencing Monday. The Asian Pride Gang member pleaded guilty in April to possessing a firearm as a convicted felon.

Court documents say Sorn was at Club Lust in St. Petersburg in December when his gun discharged. The bullet went through the mirror and into the adjacent women’s restroom. No injuries were reported.
https://apnews.com/2bc213f6896c4d39827b955c7d36db2c?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=AP_Oddities




And then there’s also this couple from Florida who cooked with a *GAS* grill while driving and lit a cigarette:

Don't let Hank Hill hear this story. A husband and wife in Florida were injured on Sunday when they left a gas grill on before loading it into their Kia Sorrento, which later exploded after the woman lit a cigarette and sparked the fumes, according to the Orlando Police Department. That is not good propane safety.

WESH reports that police say the couple were leaving a barbecue at the Central Florida Fairgrounds in Orlando when the incident occurred. They neglected to turn off both the burners and the gas valve at the tank when they loaded it into the back of the Sorrento—why is a question that goes unanswered—leaving the grill burning and quickly filling the car with propane.
http://www.thedrive.com/news/13471/florida-couple-hauling-propane-grill-in-their-kia-light-cigarette-blow-up-car




Finally this week, we always have dumb criminals, and even the occasional stupid cop. But there’s one very underrepresented group out there of stupid people – the dumb attorney! And this one might be as stupid as it gets! This one in Ohio was caught money laundering, very poorly. And why? Well he’s got a very compelling reason!

A federal appeals court has upheld the money-laundering conviction of a Cleveland criminal defense lawyer who suggested a technique employed by fictional lawyer Saul Goodman on the television show Breaking Bad.

Following Goodman’s lead, lawyer Matthew King suggested setting up a sham corporation to launder drug proceeds, according to the Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. “This did not end well,” Judge Jeffrey Sutton wrote (PDF).

King was convicted of two counts of money laundering and one count of attempted money laundering. He was sentenced to 44 months in prison.
http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/6th_circuit_upholds_money_laundering_conviction_of_lawyer_who_suggested_bre/?utm_source=maestro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=weekly_email





That’s it this week for:





[font size="8"]World Tour Destination #10: The Netherlands
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Part of our mission statement here at the Top 10 Conservative Idiots is to show you that conservative idiocy isn’t just a problem with America. No, it’s a global problem that is stemming far and wide, and it’s not just America where conservative idiots ruin everything they touch. And if you’re thinking of moving out of the United States just because Donald J. Trump is our current president and our nation is turning to shit, you should know what it is you’re getting into should you decide that you want to leave the country. So if you want a recap of where we’ve been so far, in the last couple of weeks, we discovered that Norway is kind of racist, Sweden is very lax when it comes to cyber security, and Belgium is the latest victim of Brexit. Here’s the tour schedule:



[font size="6"]The Netherlands[/font]



Next up on our World Tour, we’re heading to the land of canals. It’s also the home of legalized prostitution and drugs. I’m of course talking about the Netherlands. When you think of the Netherlands you immediately think of Amsterdam, right? Well Amsterdam is home to Schipol Airport - AMS – one of the single largest airports in the entire world. It’s also home to such iconic places to visit as the Anne Frank Museum, which contains the house and the attic where Anne Frank and her family famously hid from the Nazis during WWII. It’s also the home of the Vincent Van Gogh Museum and such classic works of art as Starry Night:



And of course when you think of the Netherlands you immediately think of drugs. Because why wouldn’t you? The fact that the Netherlands has been the home of the anti-War on Drugs has been well documented in countless movies like Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay:



And if you want sports – they’ve got ‘em. Football, field hockey and of course golf are particularly popular in this country. Concerts? Amsterdam is home to tons of music festivals like Lowlands and Best Kept Secret. The Netherlands is also the home of such scenic cities as Utrecht, Maastrict, Rotterdam, and Tillburg. It’s also the home of the Hague – the home of the world’s only non partisan international court. Where we have yet to see a Bush or Trump stand trial. Now speaking of Anne Frank, the Anne Frank Center recently issued this warning about the United States and the rise of the alt right:

A human rights organization inspired by World War II diarist Anne Frank referenced the Holocaust Tuesday in an attempt to caution its followers about President Donald Trump.

The Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect, a New York City–based nonprofit that says it was founded by Anne's father in 1959, shared an image on Twitter of a bulleted list laying out what appeared to be similarities between Trump and Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. Among them were "the president creates his own media," "he endorses police brutality," and "he demonizes people who believe, look or love differently."

"Alarming parallels of history escalate," the center wrote.
http://www.newsweek.com/anne-frank-center-trump-germany-world-war-ii-647888




But what else is The Netherlands the home of? Well, it’s the home of a massive food contamination problem that’s spreading to neighboring countries like Belgium, Germany, and Luxembourg.

Europe’s latest food scandal has deepened as Belgium accused the Dutch authorities of failing to sound the alarm after discovering eggs were being contaminated with a harmful insecticide as early as November last year.

The Belgian agriculture minister, Denis Ducarme, told a parliamentary hearing that his officials had obtained an internal Dutch document that reported “the observation of the presence of fipronil in Dutch eggs at the end of November 2016”.

“When a country like the Netherlands, one of the world’s biggest exporters of eggs, does not pass on this kind of information, that is a real problem,” Ducarme said. The minister suggested the evidence had only come to him “by chance”, rather than through official channels.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/09/contaminated-eggs-netherlands-failed-to-sound-alarm-says-belgium


Was the guy at the helm like Homer Simpson when he just kept pressing the Y key on his keyboard?



Man I want to live in the Netherlands. Here in California we’re actually worried about the very real possibility of a North Korean nuclear strike. In the Netherlands? Eggs. But apparently this egg thing is very real and it’s deeply troubling across borders in the Netherlands.

The European Union nations have fallen into a diplomatic row after it was discovered that eggs contaminated with the banned insecticide may have been sold to the public, triggering health fears.

The Belgium Agriculture Minister Denis Ducharme said during a special parliamentary meeting to discuss the scandal the Dutch food agency NVWA had received notification the banned insecticide fipronil had been found in eggs in November 2016.

Mr Ducharme added that the delay in notifying other countries of the issue had been caused by the NVWA which repeatedly refused to share data in June over which farms had used delousing services from a Dutch company, which was now under investigation.
http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/839293/EU-Egg-fipronil-contamination-Belgium-Denis-Ducharme-Netherlands-health-crisis




At least Bugs Bunny is an effective general! But what else happens in the Netherlands? You know, in Europe’s Vegas, what happens in the Red Light District stays in the Red Light District, am I right? But this egg scandal is very serious and it goes back as far as last year:

BRUSSELS (REUTERS) - Belgian officials waited a month for information from Dutch counterparts after finding traces of an insecticide in eggs, Belgium’s farm minister said on Wednesday (Aug 9), adding that the Netherlands had known about contamination since last November.

Contamination with the insecticide fipronil has led retailers in several European countries to pull millions of eggs from supermarket shelves, as the scare over its potentially harmful consequences to humans spread.

Belgium’s food safety regulator has drawn criticism both at home and abroad after it said it was informed about a first case of fipronil contamination in Belgium in early June but only notified the European Commission in late July.
http://www.straitstimes.com/world/europe/netherlands-detected-insecticide-in-eggs-in-november-2016-belgian-minister




Oh come on Netherlands, we here in the United States are used to this kind of thing. We have thing called the Monsanto Corporation, who are also getting a lot of shit for this kind of thing! But food poisoning isn’t the only thing going in the Netherlands. It’s dominating the news right now and it should, but we always want to look at all aspects when we visit a particular country. You know one way the Netherlands is better than us? Here’s how they treat refugees.

In this Friday, July 7, 2017 photo, refugees and migrants play football at the former prison of Bijlmerbajes in Amsterdam, Netherlands. With crime declining in the Netherlands, the country is looking at new ways to fill its prisons. The government has let Belgium and Norway put prisoners in empty cells and following the huge flow of migrants into Europe, several Dutch prisons have been temporarily pressed into service as asylum-seeker centers. (AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen)
http://www.pantagraph.com/netherlands-cells-for-refugees-photo-gallery/image_dccc3c9a-f538-5e0f-809f-d39992f2cd78.html




Yes – you heard that correctly! Crime in the Netherlands is dropping so much that the country is having a hard time actually filling its’ prisons! They can borrow some of ours, and we’ve got a surplus! And by the way you want to see what an actual jail looks like in the Netherlands? Can we show that?



Holy crap! That’s nicer than a lot of apartments I’ve been in! That’s nicer than a lot of hotels I’ve stayed in,. and I’ve stayed in some dumps. But what else is going on in the Netherlands? Did you know the Netherlands is the home of the world’s largest bicycle parking garage? Not surprising!

In any other country, the opening of what will become the world’s largest bicycle parking garage – with space for 6,000 cycles initially, and another 6,500 by the end of next year – would be heralded as a great success. The 17,100 sq metre space under Utrecht’s central station will soon knock the current title-holder, under Kasai underground station in Tokyo, off its perch.

Yet such is the intensity of the Dutch love affair with the bike, authorities in the Netherlands are being accused of complacency, rather than praised for their foresight. The 12,500 places at Utrecht station are all very well, critics say, but with 43% of journeys under 7.5km (4.6 miles) being taken by cycle in Utrecht – creeping up from 40% five years ago – they simply aren’t enough, said Martijn van Es, spokesman for the Dutch cycling organisation Fietsersbond.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/07/worlds-biggest-bike-parking-garage-utrecht-netherlands




Oh and by the way – even a country that might be one of the best liberal countries to live in – isn’t immune from Trump.

Donald Trump's record of homophobia and transphobia continues to grow, with his appointment of a Republican extremist as amassador to the Netherlands.

The social views of long-serving Michigan congressman Pete Hoekstra will clearly clash with liberal Holland, which legalized same-sex marriage back in 2001. Hoekstra, which spent the first three years of his life in the Netherlands, is a far-right conservative of which Trump is a big fan. Hoekstra sponsored nine anti-LGBT bills while in office, according to the Washington Post.

Serving in Congress from 1993 to 2011, Hoekstra was a backer of the Defense of Marriage Act, and tried to make adoption harder for same-sex parents. He even refused to add an LGBT-specific nondiscrimination policy to his own congressional office.
https://www.advocate.com/politics/2017/7/30/far-right-homophobe-named-ambassador-netherlands




[font size="6"]The Verdict & Scorecard[/font]

The Netherlands is an awesome country. I’ve been there. But no country on earth right now is completely immune from conservative idiocy or the alt right. But the Netherlands might be one of the best countries we’ve visited so far.

Tourism: A
Culture: A
Political Spectrum: B-
Liberal Appeal: A+

Overall: A

[font size="6"]Next Week[/font]

Next week we’re doing it gothic style as we head to Eastern Europe for the final European destination on the first leg of our World Tour – the Czech Republic! Then it’s on to Africa, South America, and North America! Plus commemorating edition number 3-11, how about some live music from 311? Yay!


[font size="8"]And Now This:[/font]
[font size="8"]Blink 182[/font]

Ladies and gentlemen, my next guest is one of the biggest bands in the world right now and they have one of last year’s best albums which just got reissued with a deluxe version. I’m of course talking about Blink 182 and their excellent album “California”. Buy it or you’re no friend of this show. Playing their song “Kings Of The Weekend”, give it up for Blink 182!!!!





Yeah how about that? Wait, they want to stick around for one more? Sure!



Yeah how about that?

See you next week!
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