The Abbie Hoffman of the Right: Donald Trump

SNIP

The members of the educated class saw this past weekend’s N.F.L. fracas as a fight over racism. They felt mobilized and unified in that fight and full of righteous energy. Members of the working class saw the fracas as a fight about American identity. They saw Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin try to dissuade Alejandro Villanueva, a three-time combat veteran, from celebrating the flag he risked his life for. Members of this class also felt mobilized, unified and full of righteous energy.

I don’t know which planet is bigger, or which would win an election, but that frankly doesn’t matter. All that matters is that Trump is shredding the culture and ending the dominance of the meritocratic establishment.

He continually goes after racial matters in part because he’s a bigot but also in part because multiculturalism is the theology of the educated class and it’s the leverage point he can most effectively use to isolate the educated class from everyone else.

He is so destructive because his enemies help him. He ramps up the aggression. His enemies ramp it up more, to preserve their own dignity. But the ensuing cultural violence only serves Trump’s long-term destructive purpose. America is seeing nearly as much cultural conflict as it did in the late 1960s. It’s quite possible that after four years of this Trump will have effectively destroyed the prevailing culture. The reign of the meritocratic establishment will be just as over as the reign of the Protestant establishment now is.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/26/opinion/abbie-hoffman-donald-trump.html?rref=collection%2Fcolumn%2Fdavid-brooks&action=click&contentCollection=opinion®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=collection&_r=0

Roy Moore versus Doug Jones: Alabama Senate race will be 'ugly, exciting'

Former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore's victory in Tuesday's GOP runoff all but solidifies the inevitable: He's the next U.S. Senator from Alabama.

That's the conventional thinking in Alabama, where a Democrat hasn't won a statewide election since 2008, and hasn't won a U.S. Senate race since 1992.

But typical political beliefs, observers note, could be out the window for the next 2-1/2 months as the national attention shifts toward a Dec. 12 general election pitting two opponents with striking differences in personality and biography.

"I expect a real donnybrook in the general election," said Quin Hillyer, a conservative writer based in Mobile. "It could get ugly, and it could get exciting."

http://www.al.com/news/mobile/index.ssf/2017/09/next_up_moore_v_jones_in_alaba.html

Dallas sportscaster calls Trump out.

The idea of Mark Zuckerberg running for president

was always sort of scary.

But now it’s really scary, given what we’ve discovered about the power of his little invention to warp democracy.

snip

Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s C.O.O., apologized for this on Wednesday and promised to fix the ad-buying tools, noting, “We never intended or anticipated this functionality being used this way — and that is on us.”

snip

The Sandberg admission was also game, set and match for Elon Musk, who has been sounding the alarm for years about the danger of Silicon Valley’s creations and A.I. mind children getting out of control and hurting humanity. His pleas for safeguards and regulations have been mocked as “hysterical” and “pretty irresponsible” by Zuckerberg.

Zuckerberg, whose project last year was building a Jarvis-style A.I. butler for his home, likes to paint himself as an optimist and Musk as a doomsday prophet. But Sandberg’s comment shows that Musk is right: The digerati at Facebook and Google are either being naïve or cynical and greedy in thinking that it’s enough just to have a vague code of conduct that says “Don’t be evil,” as Google does.

As Musk told me when he sat for a Vanity Fair piece: “It’s great when the emperor is Marcus Aurelius. It’s not so great when the emperor is Caligula.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/23/opinion/sunday/facebook-zuckerberg-dowd.html?_r=0

Wanda Sykes sez

Dear NFL players, please go to Puerto Rico and kneel to trick @realDonaldTrump into focusing on what the fuck he should be focusing on.

https://twitter.com/iamwandasykes/status/912457573722292225

simulating a new Korean War, and the scenarios are sobering

This is the way a nuclear war begins.

Simulations of a war on the Korean peninsula usually start with a relatively minor incident at the demilitarized zone between South Korea and its hostile northern neighbor, or a provocation that develops into a conventional war and then escalates.

President Trump’s threatening posture toward North Korea — most recently exhibited at the United Nations, where he warned that the U.S. could “totally destroy” the country — has prompted military strategists to examine what would actually happen if a war broke out.

The scenarios are a sobering corrective to the notion that North Korea’s nuclear capacity could be taken out in a single strike, or that the regime would prove as fragile as that of Saddam Hussein in Iraq or Moammar Kadafi in Libya.

http://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-korean-war-20170925-story.html

Fed judge dismisses lawsuit by wedding videographers who sued to refuse same-sex customers

Court rebuffs couple's religious argument for refusing gay customers.


A St. Cloud couple will not be able to refuse wedding videography services for same-sex couples after a federal judge on Wednesday dismissed their lawsuit challenging Minnesota’s human rights laws.

In a 63-page ruling, Chief U.S. District Judge John Tunheim wrote that a provision of the Minnesota Human Rights Act (MHRA) prohibiting discrimination by businesses was not unconstitutional. Tunheim rejected the couple’s argument that the law amounted to “a state effort to stamp out expression opposing same-sex marriage.”

Carl and Angel Larsen sued the state’s commissioner of human rights and attorney general in December in an pre-emptive effort to avoid penalties for turning away same-sex customers.

The Larsens, who use their Telescope Media Group to promote their Christian beliefs, want to go into the wedding film business, but serve only heterosexual couples.

http://www.startribune.com/federal-judge-dismisses-lawsuit-by-minn-wedding-videographers-who-sued-to-refuse-same-sex-customers/446237143/

U.S. bombers fly off North Korea's coast in show of force

Source: REUTERS

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Air Force B-1B Lancer bombers escorted by fighter jets flew in international airspace over waters east of North Korea on Saturday in a show of force the Pentagon said demonstrated the range of military options available to President Donald Trump.

“This is the farthest north of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) any U.S. fighter or bomber aircraft have flown off North Korea’s coast in the 21st century, underscoring the seriousness with which we take (North Korea‘s) reckless behavior,” said Pentagon spokeswoman Dana White.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-missiles-pentagon/u-s-bombers-fly-off-north-koreas-coast-in-show-of-force-idUSKCN1BY0UY?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=Social

NFL Players Association exec dir: "We no longer can afford to stick to sports"

We will never back down. We no longer can afford to stick to sports.

https://twitter.com/DeSmithNFLPA/status/911545084528746496

Speak English? YOU FIRST!

Almost 20 Words/Expressions You Need to Humanely Euthanize Now.

https://twitter.com/BettyBowers/status/911245771495870464