Quote:WASHINGTON ― White nationalists tried repeatedly throughout the presidential campaign to sanitize their language to appeal to mainstream voters as they threw their efforts behind electing Donald Trump.
White nationalists who tried to play down their white nationalism won a victory this week as the president-elect not only chose Breitbart News executive Steve Bannon as his chief strategist ― a man who heads a website that regularly airs white nationalist viewpoints ― but many news outlets also are reluctant to use the specific label “white nationalist,” instead calling Bannon a “flame-throwing outsider” and a “nationalist media mogul.”
Of course, calling a person a “white nationalist” who hasn’t self-identified as one is somewhat fraught. In Bannon’s case, the website he runs peddles racist and misogynist conspiracy theories and is a go-to resource for white nationalists, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate groups. Whether or not Bannon personally holds white nationalist views, it’s indisputable that his website has perpetuated them.
As David Pilgrim, founder and curator of the Jim Crow Museum at Ferris State University in Michigan, said, it’s useful to look at an individual’s statements, associations and sentiments. “It becomes one of those ‘if it walks like a duck, looks like a duck and quacks like a duck’ kind of things,” he said.
The Trump campaign denies allegations that Bannon is a white nationalist or a part of the so-called alt-right, the movement’s latest preferred moniker. “Nothing could be further from the truth, and it’s irresponsible for anyone to even make such a baseless accusation,” said Jason Miller, communications director for Trump’s transition team, in a statement provided to The Huffington Post.
Bannon in July told Mother Jones: “We’re the platform for the alt-right” and that the site espoused a “nationalist” philosophy but argued that its attraction for racists was incidental.
It’s helpful first to parse the various terms that have been thrown around. “White supremacy” refers to a “full-fledged ideology” that asserts whites should have dominance over people of other races, according to the Anti-Defamation League.“White separatists” promote physical separation of races. A “white nationalist” emphasizes that countries or regions should be defined by a white racial identity. Other ideologies under the nationalist umbrella ― Neo-Nazi groups, for example ― openly praise Adolf Hitler. The founder of Aryan Nations, Richard Butler, wanted an all-white homeland in the Pacific Northwest.
But delving into the specifics of each of these subgroups can sometimes miss the point. “Very often it’s useful to call people what they are: racists or white supremacists,” said Mark Potok, senior fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Complicating these distinctions even further, white nationalist groups often use euphemisms to make their ideas appear less repugnant. Jared Taylor, publisher of American Renaissance, a website that regularly features racist screeds, says that he is not a white supremacist, a Nazi or a racist. “A ‘racist’... is always considered to be a moral inferior,” he wrote in an email. “I totally reject that view.”
Terms that Taylor and others who hold similar views prefer: “race realist” or “white advocate.” They may also refer to themselves as advocating for “Western civilization” or “European heritage,” or say they are merely combating white “dispossession” or the “administrative removal of Americans of European extraction.”
They also love the term “alt-right,” which SPLC defines as “a set of far-right ideologies, groups and individuals” who believe white identity is under attack. The term is merely “a relabeling of white nationalism for the digital age,” said Potok. “It’s a little more pitched to young people,” he said. (Millennials may be well aware that being seen as a racist is a bad thing, even if they embrace racist viewpoints.)
Breitbart has published a glowing guide to the alt-right, suggesting its members are different from “old-school racist skinheads” because they are “a much smarter group.” In a post earlier this year, a headline described political analyst Bill Kristol as a“renegade Jew.” Another article published last year, weeks after the mass shooting at a black church in South Carolina, celebrated the Confederate flag, a symbol embraced by racists.
“I am very frustrated by the normalization of these ideas and the notion that they are finding acceptability in mainstream discourse,” said Ted Shaw, a law professor at the University of North Carolina School of Law at Chapel Hill. He noted that it should be “terrifying” that the alt-right has found legitimacy in Bannon’s appointment to serve in the White House. Taylor strongly denies that Bannon is a white nationalist. But many self-identified individual white nationalists told The Huffington Post that they are excited that he was picked to serve on Trump’s team.
The Trump campaign has sought to distance Bannon from the website’s posts that traffic in white nationalism. “Here’s what folks need to know about Steve Bannon: He’s worked with people of all backgrounds and has embraced diversity throughout his career,” Miller said Thursday.
In response to a HuffPost inquiry, the Trump transition team also referred to a statement from Republican Jewish Coalition board member Bernie Marcus, who defended Bannon’s appointment and said the charges against him are false.
Earlier this week, Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway told the “Today” show that Bannon is “not as scary” as he has been portrayed and that the “charges are very unfair.”
Quote:Stephen Bannon was the main driver behind Breitbart becoming a white ethno-nationalist propaganda mill https://t.co/IyJ6ET2vaS
— SPLC (@splcenter) November 13, 2016
But anti-extremist groups, such as the SPLC and the Anti-Defamation League, disagree with the Trump camp’s characterization of Bannon. “[He] was the main driver behind Breitbart becoming a white ethno-nationalist propaganda mill,” SPLC said on Twitter this week. Breitbart News is “the premier website of the alt-right, a loose-knit group of white nationalists and unabashed anti-Semites and racists,” said ADL.
After Bannon’s appointment, progressive commentatorscriticized some news organizations for using euphemisms to describe him. They argued that not explicitly referring to him as a “white nationalist” ignored or downplayed Bannon’s role in promoting extremist rhetoric.
Conservative media organizations also defended Bannon, calling him a “brilliant strategist” and “a patriot.” They said the allegations that he promotes white nationalism are “smears” and “slander,” and claimed Breitbart’s publications should not be linked to Bannon because that content is merely “designed to attract audiences.”
But Cheryl Harris, a UCLA law professor who focuses on civil rights and race, said, “These debates obfuscate the issue with respect to Bannon, which is whether Bannon self-consciously and explicitly created a platform for white nationalism to flourish, and it seems that he did, proudly and by his own admission.
“There is also a great danger of normalization as Trump takes state power. Many will be reluctant to call out the president for racism, either in his tactics or his policy.”
Jim Crow Museum founder Pilgrim said he has “no doubt” that as time goes on, alt-right adherents will be seen as promoting white nationalism, even if they’re not dressed up like neo-Nazis or wearing Klan hoods. “We’ve allowed someone, and I’m not sure whom,” to restrict the use of the term “white supremacist” “to only the guy in the racist uniform.”
CORRECTION: A previous version of this article said Breitbart’s confederate flag article was published after a church shooting in North Carolina. The shooting was in South Carolina. Also on HuffPost
Quote:We've seen the make-shift "fake news" list created by a leftist feminist professor. Well, another fake news list has been revealed and this one holds a lot more water.
This list contains the culprits who told us that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and lied us into multiple bogus wars. These are the news sources that told us "if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor." They told us that Hillary Clinton had a 98% of winning the election. They tell us in a never-ending loop that "The economy is in great shape!"
This is the real Fake News List (and it's sourced):
That is a Very Accurate list, Huff Post is Disgusting, They mislead and lie about everything that's connected to the right.
The NYT is another one that is appalling.
If it wasn't for AM radio there won't be any other way to hear both sides or at least, A Different Version Of The Truth!
When I was young the reporters and the networks used to pride themselves on investigative reporting. (at least they said so) Now they just make stuff up as directed by whoever has the money and the power to form a narrative for them. Their slanted Views they call news is so transparent it really is disgusting IMO
Quote:Back in August, the Clintons purchased a beautiful white home in Chappaqua, NY, right next door to their current vacation home that they've owned since 1999. Bill and Hillary dropped $1.16 million on the three-bedroom, three-bathroom home filled with cozy features. While some were suspecting they purchased the house for Secret Service agents to live in if the Clintons returned to Washington, D.C., we think it's an ideal spot for Chelsea and her kids, Charlotte and Aidan, to hang out over the Summer. The cul-de-sac home sits on top of 1.5 acres and has a spacious backyard filled with a large pool, beautiful trees, and a lot of space for entertaining. Bill and Hill's master suite has two spacious walk-in closets, a renovated bathroom, and doors that open to the patio. Keep reading to see all the photos of the beautiful Westchester home. 41441549,42642620,42670465
Watchlist as suspect.. may not be Think of the words white privilege and its definition
If this is, which my instincts say no, It is the high art form
the basis
says nothing negative
Uses truth with no hooks
however does point out economic issue it us designed for a specific audience
Quote:We've seen the make-shift "fake news" list created by a leftist feminist professor. Well, another fake news list has been revealed and this one holds a lot more water.
This list contains the culprits who told us that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and lied us into multiple bogus wars. These are the news sources that told us "if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor." They told us that Hillary Clinton had a 98% of winning the election. They tell us in a never-ending loop that "The economy is in great shape!"
This is the real Fake News List (and it's sourced):
Thank you keeping reviewing this thread as it keeps growing..
Been busy with RL and writting my story
Of note a large part of these post come from the Huff
It is very sickening and these reporters are a disgrace to the profession
(11-20-2016, 08:51 AM)727Sky Wrote: When I was young the reporters and the networks used to pride themselves on investigative reporting. (at least they said so) Now they just make stuff up as directed by whoever has the money and the power to form a narrative for them. Their slanted Views they call news is so transparent it really is disgusting IMO
I know..I was listening to the radio earlier and heard the stories from the the Univision people..
I was shocked at the biased and them trying to hide it...
I am glad I do not play a game of when I hear it is -insert issue- children..The poor innocent children
11-20-2016, 12:54 PM (This post was last modified: 11-20-2016, 01:59 PM by BIAD.)
It's an eye-opener, to say the least!
I would be really interested in finding out how and why they create a particular
narrative. Is it merely an act of someone believing that if they tow a certain line
then their salary will continue...? Or is it that they have more sinister means?
Hell...! They might even believe the sh*t they report!!
........................
Here's a helluva thing... Diane Sawyer, reportedly a Journalist: 'Lila Diane Sawyer (born December 22, 1945) is an American television journalist. Previously, Sawyer has been the anchor of ABC News's nightly flagship program ABC World News, a co-anchor of ABC News's morning news program Good Morning America and Primetime newsmagazine...'
'...The "List of The World's 100 Most Powerful Women" in Forbes magazine reported that, between June 2005 and June 2008, Sawyer made approximately $12 million, solely from entertainment income...' Wikipedia:
How the hell can you be someone that's supposed to be in-touch with reality-based news
with that kind of cash?!!
........................
Crikey! You don't have to look far to see the corruption these named Journalists are up to!
George Stephanopoulos. 'Stephanopoulos donated $25,000 in 2012, 2013, and 2014, a total of $75,000, to the Clinton Foundation, but did not disclose the donations to ABC News, his employer, or to his viewers.
Stephanopoulos failed to reveal the donations even on April 26, 2015, while interviewing Peter Schweizer, the author of Clinton Cash, a book which alleges that donations to the Foundation influenced some of Hillary Clinton's actions as Secretary of State. After exposure of the donations by Politico on May 14, 2015, Stephanopoulos apologized and admitted he should have disclosed the donations to ABC News and its viewers...' Wikipedia:
Quote:Trump voters sure are sensitive lately. They’re upset that the cast of the hit play Hamilton made a statement to Vice-President-elect Mike Pence, and that the audience booed him. They’re displeased that their vote is costing them relationships with family and friends. And for some reason not entirely clear to me, they’re unhappy with Starbucks and decided to demonstrate as much by … buying lots of coffee at Starbucks.
Trump demands apology from Hamilton cast after Mike Pence booed
Read more [/url] The same people who wear shirts that read “fuck your feelings” and rail against “political correctness” seem to believe that there should be no social consequences for their vote. I keep hearing calls for empathy and healing, civility and polite discourse. As if supporting a man who would fill his administration with white nationalists and misogynists is something to simply agree to disagree on.
Absolutely not. You don’t get to vote for a person who brags about sexual assault and expect that the women in your life will just shrug their shoulders. You don’t get to play the victim when people unfriend you on Facebook, as if being disliked for supporting a bigot is somehow worse than the suffering that marginalized people will endure under Trump. And you certainly do not get to enjoy a performance by people of color and those in the LGBT community without remark or protest when you enact policies and stoke hatred that put those very people’s lives in danger.
Being socially ostracized for supporting Trump is not an infringement of your rights, it’s a reasonable response by those of us who are disgusted, anxious, and afraid. I was recently accused by a writer of “vote shaming” – but there’s nothing wrong with being made to feel ashamed for doing something shameful.
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FacebookTwitterPinterest Why America elected Trump I suppose I should not be surprised by this reaction; people are taking cues from Trump himself, a man who feels so entitled to universal adoration that he whines about protests being “unfair”. Indeed, after Pence’s uncomfortable evening at Hamilton, Trump tweeted that the quite respectful statement from the cast was “harassment”. This from a man who has mocked a disabled reporter, encouraged violence at his rallies, and spent a lifetime denigrating women. Grief comes in five stages. But when it comes to Trump, I can’t get past anger
Hadley Freeman
Read more The president-elect even wrote that the theater should be a “safe” place. Apparently “safe space” is politically correct nonsense when women don’t want to get raped at college, but vitally important when a powerful man who advocates conversion therapy wants to enjoy a Broadway musical.
Since Trump won the election, hate crimes are [url=http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2016/11/12/post-election-spate-hate-crimes-worse-than-post-911-experts-say/93681294/]being reported at a rate higher than right after 9/11. Just a few blocks from my home in Brooklyn, a woman was punched in the face by a Trump supporter and a swastika was drawn in a nearby children’s park. We have a president-elect who just settled a class-action fraud case for $25m. But yes, by all means, let’s talk more about your hurt feelings and “civility”.
Whether it’s Pence at a play or your Trump-voting uncle at Thanksgiving, there are people right now who should be made to feel uncomfortable. In a time when there is so much to protest, so much work to do, the booing is necessary – shame on us if we ever stop.
But here is why.. Beside the list from earlier our dear friend here forgot the internet NEVER forgets
Quote:Wikileaks has released a new batch of leaked emails and who else should be implicated in it than everyone’s least favorite Feminist, Jessica Valenti.
These email exchanges took place during the democratic primaries, when Hillary Clinton was still battling Bernie Sanders. Hillary, or at least her campaign team, decided to hire Feminist writers to write “anti-woman” articles about Senator Sanders. In January of this year, Bernie Sanders did an interview with Rachel Maddow, where he allegedly called Planned Parenthood “part of the “establishment”
His exact words were:
“We’re taking on not only Wall Street and the economic establishment, we’re taking on the political establishment. So I have friends and supporters in the Human Rights Fund [sic], in Planned Parenthood. But you know what, Hillary Clinton has been around there for a very, very long time and some of these groups are part of the establishment.”
It was with the phrase “part of the establishment”, that the Hillary campaign decided to base their allegations of misogyny on. “Reaching out to surrogates, including non-political surrogates, to tweet in response to Bernie’s comments (so far our list is Shonda Rhimes, Ricky Martin, and Julianne Moore)” wrote one campaign staff to the other.
“I think Sanders has handed us a rare and significant gift with his comments. Per our tracking, there have been 11,000 tweets on this (you can’t track Facebook chatter easily because the vast majority of accounts are private) just since late last night, and the pace is actually picking up.”
Another staffer replied.
And now for the real doozy: “Working with bloggers and columnists to write about this from a racial justice and reproductive rights perspective, including a few people who joined us on a call to talk about the “Bernie Backlash” that was unfolding even before his remarks last night—current list is Elianne Ramos, Jessica Valenti (who is writing a column on this as we speak), Jamil Smith, Sady Doyle, Aminatou Sow, Gabe Ortiz, and others”
In case you missed it, the campaign staff decided to collaborate with Jessica Valenti and other bloggers to brand his statements as anti-human rights.
We decided to take a look through Jessica Valenti’s list of published articles, and there it was. An article she published for The Guardian two days after the email exchanges took place, titled “Bernie sanders must deliver more than platitudes about abortion“.
In the article, she does exactly what her masters ask of her: accuse Sanders of not supporting women’s rights:
“While Hillary Clinton has centered her campaign on women’s rights, been vocal about overturning the Hyde Amendment and has brought up Republican efforts to defund Planned Parenthood in nearly every debate, Sanders has been much less proactive.” “[Bernie Sanders] called Planned Parenthood – an organization under constant attack that provides healthcare to low-income women – part of the “establishment”.
It’s a bad look for Sanders, and one that underestimates just how important reproductive rights are to voters.
So much for journalistic integrity.
So much for strong independent woman.
Quote:The central project of the liberal welfare state is to build a society based on a high-minded ethic of altruism rather than narrow self-interest. The whole point is to create a new kind of person whose humane commitments are driven by a more cosmopolitan sensibility beyond his parochial attachments to self, family, and clan.
But the opposite has happened: Protecting the welfare state from foreign moochers has become the single biggest stimulus for nativism in the West. That's true in America, Europe, and, most surprisingly, the paragon of compassion to America's north, Canada. The more the welfare state has tried to elbow self-interest out of our accepted understanding of a "just society," the more this self-interest has asserted itself — and in ever-more vexing ways.
In America, the notion that immigrants are a drain on social welfare programs is as popular as it is fallacious. Literally every credible study shows that compared to similarly situated natives, not only do fewer immigrants use welfare, but the average value of the benefits they receive is lower too, including for low-skilled immigrants (many of whom are undocumented). Indeed, the taxes and economic contributions of immigrants — including the low-skilled — dwarf what they consume in public services. This is partly because the 1996 welfare reform act barred immigrants from most means-tested benefits. But the bigger reason is that immigrants come to America for jobs, not welfare benefits. The labor force participation rate of foreign-born men in 2010 was 80.1 percent, a full 10 percentage points higher than that of native-born men. Furthermore, immigrants tend to gravitate to states with the lowest per capital welfare spending — maybe because they have more jobs. MORE PERSPECTIVES[img=100x0]http://api.theweek.com/sites/default/files/styles/tw_image_6_4/public/GettyImages-630879330_0.jpg?itok=vLgpEsUH&resize=180x120[/img]PAUL WALDMAN Republicans' cruel intentions [/url][img=100x0]http://api.theweek.com/sites/default/files/styles/tw_image_6_4/public/AP_110218043831.jpg?itok=quKjocI3&resize=180x120[/img]RYAN COOPER Ultra conservatives might just save Medicaid
Nonetheless, the mere fact that the welfare state exists and that immigrants may theoretically become a drain on it has been enough to trigger a bad case of us-versus-them in this Land of Immigrants. It has become the gateway argument that seduces people to a more general nativist suspicion of foreigners — which is why nativist outfits such as the Federation for Immigration Reform and quasi-nativist ones such as the Center for Immigration Studies constantly pump out studies about immigrant welfare use. One of President Trump's leaked executive order drafts [url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/02/02/trump-draft-executive-order-full-of-sound-and-fury-on-immigration-welfare-and-deportation/?utm_term=.da879e50795f]contemplated not only barring immigrants likely to use public assistance, but deporting those who do, perhaps even if no fraud is involved.
The situation is even worse in Europe, where nativist politicians have made even deeper inroads — and this despite the fact that many European countries need immigrants even more than America, thanks to their below-replacement fertility rates and aging populations.
Austria, Spain, and France — which have never been super-friendly to immigrants — are tightening up. And so are more open nations like Denmark and Sweden, which have introduced a complex set of measures to control their borders. The latest example of this anti-immigrant trend came last week in the Dutch elections, where the incumbent Prime Minister Mark Rutte defeated the ultra-restrictionist Geert Wilders — the Dutch Donald Trump — but only after promising to impose stiff restrictions on migrant benefits to stop alleged welfare tourism. Likewise, although Germany has been heroic in its commitment to absorbing refugees fleeing the war-ravaged Middle East, it is also seeking to expel EU citizens who remain jobless for six months out of fear that they are simply hanging around for welfare benefits — never mind that there is little evidence of mass welfare abuse. Sweden, which prides itself on its cradle-to-grave welfare social programs, is flirting with new restrictions on immigrant benefits — as is England.
But the nation that takes first prize in welfare-state protectiveness is the putative paragon of human kindness: Canada.
Canada cannot afford a full-blown case of nativism because it is underpopulated and aging fast — and thus admits more than twice as many immigrants as America, in terms of a percentage of its population. But to protect its "universal" health-care system from foreigners, Canada ruthlessly tips its entry standards toward the young and healthy.
Old people have a very hard time getting into the country. It is impossible for parents and grandparents of landed immigrants (the equivalent of green card holders) to rack up enough points on Canada's 100-point scale to become eligible for immigration on their own. They can theoretically apply under the family-reunification quota, but that is so tiny — between 5,000 (previous conservative government) to 10,000 (current liberal government) — that wait times can sometimes span eight years.
But Canada's real harshness is directed toward the disabled, against whom it has maintained a de facto ban for decades. It requires all prospective immigrants to submit to a physical and mental health exam — not merely to screen for communicable diseases as in America — but to rule out any expensive conditions that would "excessively strain" the national health system. Canada turns away refugees whose children suffer from ailments such as deafness. Mild intellectual disabilities in any family member can be a disqualifier. Canadian citizens have a hard time even bringing in a foreign spouse who has an expensive condition such as multiple sclerosis.
None of this is meant as a criticism. Maybe Canada doesn't have a choice, at least if it wants to avoid running too quickly out of "other people's money" — to use Margaret Thatcher's immortal definition of socialism — by admitting more people that it can cover at any given time. But the point is that instead of making Canada more open-minded and benevolent, its national health-care system has made it more self-protective.
In other words, if America and Europe are becoming more insular to guard their welfare states, Canada is becoming more exclusive. All of this flies in the face of using the welfare state to create a "just society" full of compassion and caring communities. Indeed, in their effort to use the welfare state as a vehicle to create a new spirit of cosmopolitan socialism, liberals have only fueled a resurgence of the mean-spirited tribalism that they'd wished to purge.
Far from making all of humanity hold hands and sweetly sing kumbaya in a newfound brotherhood, welfare statists have ironically produced new fissures and divisions for nativism to prey on.
IS an operation designed to defund taxpayers and flood coffers of elected officials
Nothing here but power stripping those that earn the money of there cash so others get it free
Welfare is designed to help those
1)in need
2) societies burdens of the injured
Does it work this way
No
It is also apparent the author has NOT been inside one of the walfare offices in the US or not enough
Majority were non- english speaking and were getting most of the benefits
To the point that a certain group is just about universally discriminated against from observation
Take a guess which color and sex
Quote: In this March 31, 2017, photo, President Donald Trump listens during a meeting with the National Association of Manufacturers in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington. Slim majorities of Americans favor independent investigations into Trump’s relationship with the Russian government and possible attempts by Russia to influence last year’s election according to a new poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
More
NEW YORK (AP) — Slim majorities of Americans favor independent investigations into President Donald Trump's relationship with the Russian government and possible attempts by Russia to influence last year's election.
That's according to a new poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
Amid questions swirling in Washington that have forced the resignation of one top Trump official and the scrutiny of several others, most Americans say they're at least somewhat concerned about the possibility that the Republican businessman's campaign had inappropriate contacts with the Russian government. Less than half say they're very concerned.
The results are sharply partisan. More than three-quarters of Democrats favor an independent investigation while only one-quarter of Republicans do.
Overall, 52 percent of Americans favor the probe, while 23 percent are opposed.
Why do they keep talking about candidate trump.. Didnt their polls say hillary won? Must be an alternate history post
I took a look at the information that your link commented from and as we've
all accepted, the mainstream media don't tell it the way it is.
From the website that Armonica_Templar's post got their statistics from...
'Deep partisan divides define Americans’ attitudes toward President Donald Trump’s possible ties with Russia, according to a new poll by The AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
Overall, 42 percent of Americans say Trump’s relationship with Russia is important to them, 19 percent say it is moderately important, and 37 percent say it is not important.
Nearly two thirds of Democrats say Trump’s relationship with Russia is important, while just a fifth of Republicans agree.
Just 36 percent of Americans are not concerned about the possibility that Trump or others involved with his campaign had inappropriate contacts with the Russian government during the 2016 presidential campaign.
However, Democrats are more than twice as likely as Republicans to be at least moderately concerned (85 percent vs. 35 percent).
About half of Americans say they want an independent investigation into whether the Trump campaign had inappropriate exchanges with Russians and whether the Russian government attempted to influence the outcome of the 2016 election.
Fewer (35 percent) support an independent investigation into Trump’s accusation that former President Barack Obama wiretapped his phones during the 2016 presidential campaign. Democrats are more likely than Republicans to support investigations into the Trump campaign’s contacts with the Russian government and whether the Russian government attempted to influence the election, while Republicans are more likely than Democrats to support investigations into Trump’s claim that Obama wiretapped his phones during the campaign.
More Americans say the intelligence community is handling Trump’s relationship with Russia fairly than say the same about how the media and parties in Congress are handling it.
The nationwide poll was conducted March 23-27, 2017, using the AmeriSpeak® Panel, the probability-based panel of NORC at the University of Chicago. Online and telephone interviews using landlines and cell phones were conducted with 1,110 adults. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 4 percentage points...' SOURCE:
Those figures imply an entirely different narrative from what Johnathan Lemire and Emily Swanson
seem to desire, in my view.
Quote:A Southern Baptist seminary professor on Tuesday posted a jaw-dropping photo on Twitter that has resurfaced questions for white evangelicals and their attitudes about race. The picture, posted by Barry McCarty, a professor of preaching and rhetoric at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Texas, appears to show five white professors dressed in hoodies, gold chains, bandannas and caps. Several of them are pictured posing with fingers pointed like guns and McCarty appears to be holding a gun in his hand. The words “Notorious S.O.P.” (School Of Preaching) are scrawled across the top.
McCarty posted later that the photo was part of a special send-off for one of their professors, Vern Charette, who raps on occasion. As reported by Nicola Menzie in Faithfully Magazine, Charette appears in a video rapping about Christian themes in which he addresses, “all my pimps, players, thugs and hustlers, all my boys that are in lockdown.” He wants them to know to that there’s “an answer” and that “his name is Jesus Christ.”
Officials from the seminary requested that the post be removed, and David Allen, one of the men in the picture and dean of SWBTS’s School of Preaching, tweeted an apology: “I apologize for a recent image I posted which was offensive. Context is immaterial. @swbts stance on race is clear as is mine.”
It’s odd for a preaching professor to suggest “context is immaterial,” because seminary professors usually teach their students that context is everything. The SWBTS “Mission, Vision, & Values” page states that their global “strategy includes the training of persons from every national, ethnic and cultural background for a variety of ministries.” But when it comes to understanding this particular photo, understanding a larger Southern Baptist and evangelical context is key.
What’s wrong with the photo? Whatever their intentions, the photo is problematic for at least three main reasons. First, as a comparison, consider why blackface is so offensive. Starting in the early 19th century, white actors would apply black makeup to their faces and exaggerate their lips in a caricature of African American looks. Then they performed racist tropes on stage for laughs. Blackface denigrates people of African descent. It says that skin color can make someone intellectually and culturally inferior, so it’s not a problem to imitate their appearance for the sake of amusement.
In a similar way, putting on clothes typically associated with racial and ethnic minorities communicates that a person’s culture has value only as entertainment. That’s why you can’t dismiss this photo as “just a joke.” It harks back to a history of dehumanization.
[Race is more than just black and white. This new podcast explores some of that middle ground.] Another problem with the picture includes how it appears the photo was carefully staged. Consider what probably happened before a camera even came out. These men took time to pick out certain clothes and put them on. They found a place with suitable background and lighting to take a picture. They chose poses. One of them even grabbed a gun. Then someone posted it on social media. This picture wasn’t randomly snapped in moment of poor judgment. These seminary professors had ample opportunity to consider potential offense. At no point in this elaborate set up did anyone veto the idea.
But the biggest problem doesn’t show up in the picture. The presence of any person of color would have reduced the chances of this photo ever happening. But a photo like this evolves in an environment that lacks meaningful interaction with people from other cultures, especially on the leadership level. The seminary’s website appears to picture all white men in an administrationand an entire preaching faculty. Even if a school has diversity in the student body, if the decision-makers all come from a similar racial and cultural background, then they will remain oblivious to their own racial blind spots.
Unfortunately, racial homogeneity is a shortcoming within white evangelicalism as a whole. Looking across evangelical denominations and nondenominational networks, leaders tend to come from similar backgrounds. They are predominantly educated, middle-class white men. Racial uniformity in the leadership means blunders like this photo will probably keep taking place.
An apology issued On Wednesday, the seminary’s president, Paige Patterson, issued a formal apology entitled “Racism IS a Tragic Sin.” He said, “As all members of the preaching faculty have acknowledged, this was a mistake, and one for which we deeply apologize. Sometimes, Anglo Americans do not recognize the degree that racism has crept into our lives.”
Patterson goes on to say, “Southwestern cannot make a moment of bad judgment disappear. But we can and will redouble our efforts to put an end to any form of racism on this campus and to return to a focus that is our priority — namely, getting the Gospel to every man and woman on the earth.”
His apology sounds biblical; For Christians, evangelism is certainly a critical priority. But he treats racism like a distraction from sharing the Gospel. When will white evangelicals realize, addressing racism is inherently a Gospel issue? Patterson also doesn’t provide any specific actions that would address the seminary’s deeper issues of racial awareness and diversity. Fixing this problem isn’t a matter of restating good intentions, it requires a restructuring of historic patterns of racism embedded in evangelical institutions.
[Grappling with its history of slavery, Georgetown gathers descendants for a day of repentance] A history of racial wrongs White evangelicals have a long and complicated history with race. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, white Baptists tried to sidestep the issue of whether their members could own slaves. In her article “Meddling with Emancipation,” historian Monica Najar explains that the 1793 Baptist General Committee voted that slavery was an issue for the state to decide, not churches.
In 1845, Baptists split over whether missionaries could own slaves. Southerners insisted that slave owning did not disqualify people for missionary service, and they separated from their northern counterparts to form the Southern Baptist Convention.
In 1995, the 150th anniversary of the denomination, leaders passed the “Resolution on Racial Reconciliation” which acknowledged their failings on slavery and civil rights. But the photo circulated this week reminds us that resolutions do not accomplish racial reconciliation.
As an African American, I look at that picture and wonder what these men are teaching in class. How are they compensating for the lack of racial and ethnic diversity among the faculty and staff? Are they responsive to the particular needs and concerns of minorities in their midst? How might their assumptions slip into their lectures, advising and preaching?
Where can the seminary go from here? In response to Allen’s apology tweet, Grammy Award-winning rapper Lecrae Moore, asked, “How do you all plan to grow from this?”
Southwestern could certainly use this opportunity to dialogue about race and diversity, but I hope the seminary goes further. I hope it will commit to hiring professors and staff members from different racial and ethnic backgrounds. The professors could conduct an audit of their curriculum to see if they are assigning works by scholars of color. The seminary could review the places it goes to recruit students. The leadership could visit other seminaries with more diversity to learn how they could change their own campuses. Sit down with minority students and ask them if they are willing to speak honestly about their experiences at the seminary. Some pockets of the Southern Baptist Convention have prioritized racial diversity. Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C. has developed the Kingdom Diversity Initiative. Russell Moore, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberties Commission, has been outspoken about racial problems in the convention and has come under scrutiny for it.
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But diversity initiatives and attempts to talk about race haven’t resulted in broad, systemic change. The homogenous environment of predominantly white churches and organizations means people who have all the same cultural blind spots will still marginalize minorities. People are more than offended by pictures like these.
They are in pain.
In 2 Corinthians 7, the Apostle Paul rejoices that the church received his words of correction even though they were hard to hear. He writes, “As it is, I rejoice, not because you were grieved, but because you were grieved into repenting.”
While we don’t need to focus on embarrassing anyone in particular, something like this stirs a sense of godly grief. Let this photo and the consternation it caused lead to the kind of sorrow that produces lasting change.
Jemar Tisby writes about religion, race and culture as president of the Reformed African American Network, and he is the co-host of the “Pass the Mic” podcast. Follow him on Twitter @JemarTisby.
Quote:Fans of Sally Yates have taken to Twitter using the hashtag #SallyYatesIsAPatriot to demonstrate their support for the former acting attorney general before she testifies in front of a Senate subcommittee.
Ms Yates is expected to reveal that she warned the Trump administration of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn’s communications with the Russian ambassador almost a month before he resigned.
Quote:#SallyYatesIsAPatriot. She's also a woman of courage, valor and tenacity. Thank you for your service. We need to hear from you and others.
— Donna Brazile (@donnabrazile) May 8, 2017
White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and Press Secretary Mr Spicer both asserted that White House counsel investigated Ms Yates’ information and found nothing. Video not available for syndication
Jeff Sessions presses Sally Yates on her need for independence from the White House
On Twitter, President Donald Trump called on Congress to ask Ms Yates “if she knows how classified information got into the newspapers” – seemingly accusing her of leaking information after talking to the White House.
Quote:I would have to disagree with #SallyYatesIsAPatriot- she's actually wasting her time testifying. The Russia stuff is FAKE NEWS!
— Josh Hall (@JoshHallGOP) May 8, 2017
Several Twitter suggested that Mr Trump’s attacks on Ms Yates were attempts to undermine her credibility, while others said that they can't wait for her "to skewer" the president.
#SallyYatesIsAPatriot originated in late January, after Mr Trump fired Ms Yates when she refused to uphold his executive order imposing a travel and refugee ban on certain countries. Ms Yates was an Obama administration appointee who took on the role of acting attorney general until Congress confirmed Mr Trump’s pick, Jeff Sessions.
(05-10-2017, 04:01 AM)guohua Wrote: Sally Yates was and is an Obama Tool.
She refused to uphold an E/O from the POTUS, would she has if Obama issued an E/O? I don't think so!
She would not have..
I would not have fired her..
I would have found someone she stabbed in the back on her way up..
HAve them 'find' evidence of high treason and be willing to testify against her
Quote:In dramatic testimony Monday, Obama holdover Attorney General Sally Yates testified that she warned the incoming White House its newly installed national security adviser, Michael Flynn, was “compromised” by a lie and therefore a potential “blackmail target” of the Russians. President Trump can be forgiven for ignoring her warning. It was Yates who was blackmailing him.
It’s clear from recent revelations that President Obama and his holdovers had a morbid fear of Lt. Gen. Flynn, an anti-Islamic terror hawk, and were gunning for him early in the transition, long before rumors he was involved in any alleged Russian conspiracy.
Just two days after the election, Obama urged President-elect Trump not to rehire Flynn, whom he once fired from the Pentagon. Obama reportedly made it clear he didn’t like the man. (Flynn says his views on Islam put him at odds with the former president.)
Then in late December or early January, someone working under Obama’s own national security adviser, Susan Rice, unmasked routine NSA intercepts of the Russian ambassador. Was it to spy on Flynn, Rice’s replacement?
Just days after the inauguration, moreover, Yates used those same NSA transcripts to try to get Flynn fired, by warning the White House that he was “vulnerable” to Russian extortion.
Despite her warnings, Flynn remained in his position for 18 more days (a gap Democrats say is as scandalous as “the 18-minute gap in the Nixon tapes”). He was only forced to resign after somebody from the Obama administration illegally leaked the intercepts to The Washington Post and created a political embarrassment for President Trump.
Unlike the Obama officials who disclosed highly classified information, Flynn committed no crime.
Though he misinformed Vice President Mike Pence about the nature of his conversation with the Russian ambassador (the two did, in fact, discuss the sanctions Obama belatedly and conveniently slapped on Russia after the election), he did not make false statements to the FBI. And Flynn made no promises that the sanctions would be removed. The FBI declined to press charges.
Yates knew what the FBI knew when she raced over to the White House on Jan. 26 to warn Trump’s general counsel that Flynn was “compromised.” She also knew that the Obama administration had just weeks earlier renewed Flynn’s national security clearance at the highest levels. And that the intelligence community had “no evidence,” as Obama’s intelligence czar just reconfirmed, that Flynn “colluded” with Moscow.
Still, Yates insisted Flynn posed a threat to the government. Why? Because, she said, he failed to truthfully brief the vice president.
The implication was that unless Trump fired Flynn, he’d pay a price. So it was Yates, in a sense, who was blackmailing Trump.
“Why does it matter to the Justice Department if one White House official lies to another White House official?” White House Counsel Don McGahn reasonably asked Yates, when she rushed into his office with her hair on fire.
She explained that by lying to Pence, Flynn could be exposed to the Russians at any time and that might open him up to blackmail. The Kremlin, she added, likely had its own proof he lied to the vice president and could use it to maintain “leverage” over foreign-policy decisions as long as he remained in office.
Wait a minute.
That makes no sense: Any “leverage” the Russians may have had over Flynn vanished the moment Yates informed the White House he lied.
The only way he was vulnerable to blackmail at that point was if McGahn kept Flynn in the dark about what had been revealed to him and other White House officials. But McGahn, White House spokesman Sean Spicer and other top officials no doubt huddled with Flynn to get his side of the story as soon as Yates left. So any threat of extortion left with her.
No wonder the White House didn’t act on her warning.
Trump insiders also considered the source. Yates is an Obama loyalist with a liberal agenda.
Though the media portray Yates as a heroic whistleblower, who was a “career prosecutor” before Obama appointed her, she was hardly apolitical or impartial. In fact, she is a partisan Democrat who comes from a long line of Democrats. Her father and grandfather were both Democratic judges. Her great uncle was a former Democratic US senator and governor of Georgia. Her husband twice ran for Congress as a Democrat. And Federal Election Commisson records show her family has given tens of thousands of dollars to Hillary Clinton, Obama and the DNC.
What’s more, the Democratic Party reportedly is drafting Yates, who recently appeared at the Carter Center in Atlanta with former Attorney General Eric Holder, to run for governor of Georgia.
But her partisan colors were really exposed on Jan. 30, when she refused to enforce Trump’s temporary ban on immigrants from terror hotspots. In doing so, she overruled her own office of legal counsel, which concluded the executive order was lawfully and properly written. Yates may have hoped to maneuver Trump into firing Flynn. But in the end, she was the one Trump fired.
Make no mistake: Yates was no Paul Revere saving the nation from Russian moles. She was a partisan hack trying to save Obama’s liberal legacy.
Sperry is author of “Infiltration: How Muslim Spies and Subversives Have Penetrated Washington
The internet roundly mocked Donald Trump’s press secretary Sean Spicer after reports emerged of him hiding in bushes to avoid reporters.
However, it turns out that he wasn’t actually covered in undergrowth, and was merely hiding near them, according to the Washington Post.
Spicer had reportedly been trying to steer clear of a swarm of reporters who wanted answers after President Trump fired FBI Director James Comey. View photos
Sean Spicer was trying to avoid questions over the firing of FBI Director James Comey (Rex)
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View photos
Donald Trump has been accused of firing Comey after the FBI Director asked for more resources to investigate him (Rex)
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Rather than field question after question, the White House press secretary apparently shouted a statement to the media from his doorway before doing a vanishing act.
The Washington Post reported the scenario happening like this:
White House press secretary Sean Spicer wrapped up his brief interview with Fox Business from the White House grounds late Tuesday night and then disappeared into the shadows, huddling with his staff behind a tall hedge. To get back to his office, Spicer would have to pass a swarm of reporters wanting to know why President Trump suddenly decided to fire the FBI director.
After Spicer spent several minutes hidden in the bushes behind these sets, Janet Montesi, an executive assistant in the press office, emerged and told reporters that Spicer would answer some questions, as long as he was not filmed doing so.
And has since updated it to this:
After Spicer spent several minutes hidden in the darkness and among the bushes near these sets, Janet Montesi, an executive assistant in the press office, emerged and told reporters that Spicer would answer some questions, as long as he was not filmed doing so.
Distancing itself from “fake news”, the Washington Post stated at the bottom of the article: “EDITOR’S NOTE: This story has been updated to more precisely describe White House press secretary Sean Spicer’s location late Tuesday night in the minutes before he briefed reporters. Spicer huddled with his staff among bushes near television sets on the White House grounds, not “in the bushes,” as the story originally stated.”
MORE: Donald Trump mocks outrage at firing of FBI director James Comey MORE: Donald Trump accused of ‘witness intimidation’
By then, however, the image of Spicer hiding in bushes as the fallout form Mr Comey’s firing had already swept across social media.
Former FBI Director Comey apparently asked for more money and resources into the investigation of Russia’s alleged interference in the US election in 2016 just days before Trump fired him.
Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee that is carrying out its own investigation, said he believed the action amount to a “looming constitutional crisis”.
He added: ”The President of the United States has just fired the Director of the FBI who was carrying out an investigation into him.” Top pic: Rex
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