Squatch Open Thread 07/11/2016

I am in a hurry to get this out as I have a meeting to go to.  Please, if you are an American citizen at home or abroad, please vote, and vote BLUE!

Short Takes

RobertReich.org — Even if he loses (and I believe he will), Donald Trump has done incalculable damage to America – eroding the trust and social cohesion the nation depends on.  

But he couldn’t have accomplished this without three sets of enablers. They must he held accountable, too.

The first enabler was the Republican Party.

For years the GOP has nurtured the xenophobia, racism, fact-free allegations, and wanton disregard for democratic institutions that Trump has fed on. 

Republican fear-mongering over immigrants predated Trump. It forced Marco Rubio to abandon his immigration legislation, and, in 2012, pushed Mitt Romney to ludicrously recommend “self-deportation.”

During this year’s Republican primaries, Ben Carson opined that no Muslim should be president of the United States, and Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz suggested Syrian refugees be divided into Christians and Muslims, with only the former allowed entry.

Trump’s racism is nothing new, either. Republicans have long played the race card – charging Democrats with coddling black “welfare queens” and being soft on black crime (remember “Willie Horton”).

Trump’s disdain of facts is also preceded by a long Republican tradition  – denying, for example, that carbon emissions cause climate change, and tax cuts increase budget deficits.

And Trump’s threats not to be bound by the outcome of the election are consistent with the GOP’s persistent threats to shut down the government over policy disagreements, and oft-repeated calls for nullification of Supreme Court decisions.

Click through for the other two enablers.  Nothing ever happens in a vacuum, and this is no exception.

Haaretz — America is a great country. Far from perfect, but great nonetheless, Other than Donald Trump and millions of Americans who have been bamboozled by the GOP into thinking otherwise, everyone knows America is great. The Chinese know it. The Russians know it. The Europeans know it. The Muslims know it. Even Israelis know it. ISIS certainly knows that America is great, which is why it’s hell bent on taking it down.
Some people think America used to be greater, but that’s debatable. It’s true that life may have become tougher economically, that America used to be able to dictate terms to the world and that all sorts of foreign countries have become uppity in recent years. But the past that so many Trump supporters seem to be pining for also included African Americans who knew their place, Hispanics who smiled when waiting on tables, women who stayed in the kitchen and gay people who lived in fear and darkness. A lot of people who want to make America great again only want to make white America great again.  …

The world takes a very dim view of Donald Trump. He arouses disbelief, ridicule and deep apprehension. If and when Trump was to become president, his election would cause many people around the world to reconsider whether America is still great or has simply gone off the rails forever.

As the Napster (Lona) would say 'A View from Afar'!  Americans need to see and understand how they are viewed globally.  Drumpf really messes things up for the US, and should he win, things will get worse.

MSN.com — John Shingara will be unhappy if Donald Trump doesn’t win, but he already knows how he’ll keep the movement alive.

He’ll go to McDonald’s.

Shingara, 67, is a member of the Oath Keepers, a right-wing militia group, and he has a plan for “civil disobedience.” If Trump loses the presidential election on Tuesday, he will drive into the drive-thru lane of a restaurant he thinks is employing an illegal immigrant.

“You park the car in the drive-thru lane and you lock the keys in it,” he explained outside Trump’s Friday rally in Hershey, Penn., where he was part of the stage-assembly crew. “You call 911 and say, ‘There’s an illegal working here, the McDonald’s owner should be arrested for hiring an illegal.’ People think there’s nothing they can do? There’s an example of what they can do.”

Click through for more Drumpfolyte actions should Drumpf lose, which I hope he does.  This is not 1776!

NY Times — Millions of Americans will cast their ballots on Tuesday under intense scrutiny both from vigilantes who fear the election will be rigged and from thousands of voting rights advocates who fear the tally will be distorted by intimidation and, perhaps, the suppression of a minority vote that may be crucial to the outcome.

On one side are groups like the Oath Keepers, one of dozens of right-wing and militia groups responding to Donald J. Trump’s warnings about a stolen election. The organization has issued a nationwide “call to action” to its members, urging them to go “incognito” to polling stations on Election Day to “hunt down” instances of fraud.

On the other side are more than 100 civic and legal groups, claiming at least 10,000 volunteers, and perhaps many more. They plan to deploy at polling places nationwide to watch for signs of voter intimidation and other roadblocks to voting. Election officials and observers say they are hoping for an orderly final day of voting, but they are girding for the possibility of fights, intimidation and, perhaps, worse.

Adding to the anxiety is fear of Election Day hacking, perhaps by foreign interests.

Don't be denied your constitutional right to vote.  If you are challenged at the voting polls, stand your ground.  Know your rights.

CNN — I didn't want to write this. I avoided making a decision as long as I could. I schlepped my absentee ballot all over the country for almost four weeks. I would periodically take it out of the envelope, look at it, shake my head in disgust, and put it back in my suitcase.

I had decided to write-in my mother as a symbolic protest vote against the Democratic and Republican nominees. I didn't want to vote for either of them.

I had hoped that a week before the election, Trump would be losing Florida by a large enough margin that my vote wouldn't matter. But darn it, my home state is too close to call. Florida could be the decisive state (again) as to who ultimately becomes the next president of the United States. I thought back to the 2000 election, which was decided by 537 votes in Florida. I thought about how I would feel if the same thing happened in 2016. I thought and I thought and I thought….

Then I cast my vote for Hillary Clinton. Let me rephrase that. I cast my vote against Donald Trump. I did it without joy or enthusiasm. I did it out of civic duty and love for our country.

Hat-tip to Cal at Care2.  Read the entire article because it is well worth the read.  Ir certainly puts things into perspective.

My Universe — Today, a little political humour from Daily Kos.

Making Amerikkka Hate Again

So, as I was mowing my lawn this morning, I noticed that one of our local intelligentsia had egged my car…I’m gonna take a wild ass guess here and say that my new Clinton and Murphy signs in the side windows might have had something to do with it.  So I added a back window sign:

DEMOCRAT:

CLEANING

UP REPUBLICAN

MESSES

SINCE 1968

DON'T BE COMPLACENT!

GET OUT THE VOTE!!

VOTE BLUE AL DOWN THE TICKET!!!

 

Posted to Care2 at http://www.care2.com/news/member/775377582/4020103