Branch Trumpvidians

[AmazonGrace]

10 hours ago, Cartmann99 said:

According to Trump nutter Mark Taylor, our living former presidents are in big trouble:

 

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/mark-taylor-two-ex-presidents-will-die-and-two-will-face-jail-time-as-divine-retribution-for-criticizing-trump/

 

 

Given that two former presidents are 93 and spent time in the hospital during the previous years predicting that they will die eventually may not seem like such a stretch but what would happen if they didn't criticize Trump? Would they live forever?

[GrumpyGran]

5 hours ago, Audrey2 said:

Mark Taylor, you are an obnoxious bit of cow patty that humanity accidentally stepped in.

Yes, I agree but I'm going to have to go with straight up crazy also. This man has done something very, very, very bad in his past. So bad that it sent him down a rabbit hole into a fantasy world of demons and monsters. Trying to create a different reality to excuse his sins(Hey, Josh Duggar!)

As to those results regarding support for Dumpy, is the percentage of voters identifying as one party or another based on asking at the time of the survey? I think a lot of people are moving their identity to the vague Independent. Allows moving in one direction or the other without recrimination and also prevents being targeted by Kobach.

[Curious]

Late to the politics party here on FJ, but I'm slowly catching up on threads.  I spend a lot of time thinking about this topic.  Why do people vote against self-interest.  It's not natural.  I really noticed it started in 2008 with Sarah Palin and her rhetoric.  It seems to have only grown since then.

I recently found a lovely group of women that were (are) amazingly welcoming, helpful and accepting.  When I was a little discouraged they welcomed me into their group like they had known me forever.  They are very encouraging and have been really nice to be around.

So imagine my surprise when I open twitter one day and see them retweeting horrible pro-trump type tweets about things like the confederate statues and other positions that are abhorrent.  I had to pick my jaw up off the floor.

Now I feel less excited about being part of the group and I have all but given up twitter because I never know when I will suddenly get a pro-trump retweet with a bunch of likes on it come across my feed.   Honestly, it's really fucking depressing.

How can such well-educated women who are smart, witty, talented and so welcoming be okay with 45? 

[fraurosena]

Well, I'm not a psychologist, and I don't play one on tv, but here's what I think.

These people were for some reason or other disenfranchised with Washington politics. It was always the same old, same old, and nothing ever seemed to change. There was this horrible recession happening for years and years and they were feeling the consequences of that. And nobody seemed to be doing anything about it. Then along comes this businessman, that they know from tv. His tv-personality has the image of a no-nonsense guy who knows how to make money, and lots of it. He's extremely successful and knows how to create jobs. They believe in this personality. When he says something, it must be true. Actually, they are quite similar to teenage fangirls who are sooooo in love with that singer whom they've never met, but he has such a good voice and his songs are so good, so they want to spend the rest of their lives with him. BT's are like that with the presidunce. Anything he says must be right and true. He gets their hopes up that things will change now. Remember how good he was in the Apprentice? He'll do that for the country too, just wait and see. And they follow along, start chanting the same rhetoric, liking and reposting anything on social media that fits in with what he says.

So they admire the image they have of who he is and what he can do.  And when reality and that image seem to clash, cognitive dissonance sets in. They mulishly refuse to believe that they were wrong to believe in the image, or that the real person is nothing like what they believe. And if for some reason a small doubt begins to niggle at the edge of their brains, it is quickly quashed by peer pressure and the need to fit in with the group.

Other that that, they can be perfectly nice people. Just like a fangirl can be the perfectly nice girl from next door. One day, those BT's will wake up to the truth. And just like a fangirl who falls out of love with that singer and feel ashamed for being so stupid as to fall for that idiot and his silly music, they will also feel shame and try to hide they ever fell for that half-assed businessman, who knew nothing about politics, thought only of enriching himself and his cronies, and was way too orange anyway.

[CTRLZero]

18 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

He gets their hopes up that things will change now. Remember how good he was in the Apprentice? He'll do that for the country too, just wait and see.

You are very perceptive.  For the majority of the folks who voted for Trump, I think this is true.  We were slowly but surely pulling the economy out of the mortgage crash and recession, but it wasn't fast (or flashy) enough to suit a lot of people who want to make money quickly, even at the risk of another economic implosion.  So that's one faction.

A good friend of ours, who we always thought was rational, explained that he voted for Trump based on the belief that although Trump was admittedly a political moron, he would surround himself with "good people" who would increase business income, reduce taxes, create jobs, etc.  Our friend can't even look us in the eye at this point.   So, with luck, there are more like him who are waking up and will start supporting good candidates, and not the harmful, "reality TV" sorts of representatives currently at the helm of our government.

As @Curious mentioned above, we should have been paying more attention when Sarah Palin appeared on the scene as McCain's running mate.  The crazy bubbled to the surface about then.

[formergothardite]

I think many of the people who voted for Trump also live in a privileged bubble where they don't have to worry about how he is racist and sexist. Trump didn't hide who he was. He started of with "Mexicans are rapist" and went down hill from there. The people who vote for Trump either believe like him or just didn't care who Trump hurt because they were pretty sure it wasn't going to be them. 

[candygirl200413]

This!! If POC working class people could see through this then why couldn't WWC? Because they were stuck in their privilege bubble and no matter how little money they might be making, they forever think they are truly better than POC WC.

[RosyDaisy]

Religion is also factor, especially here in the South. It's to the point people are brainwashed.

[VixenToast]

2 hours ago, CTRLZero said:

You are very perceptive.  For the majority of the folks who voted for Trump, I think this is true.  We were slowly but surely pulling the economy out of the mortgage crash and recession, but it wasn't fast (or flashy) enough to suit a lot of people who want to make money quickly, even at the risk of another economic implosion.  So that's one faction.

A good friend of ours, who we always thought was rational, explained that he voted for Trump based on the belief that although Trump was admittedly a political moron, he would surround himself with "good people" who would increase business income, reduce taxes, create jobs, etc.  Our friend can't even look us in the eye at this point.   So, with luck, there are more like him who are waking up and will start supporting good candidates, and not the harmful, "reality TV" sorts of representatives currently at the helm of our government.

As @Curious mentioned above, we should have been paying more attention when Sarah Palin appeared on the scene as McCain's running mate.  The crazy bubbled to the surface about then.

We sooooo dodged a bullet with Palin.

Perhaps an interesting look into one Branch Trumpvidian I know.

I remember my uncle saying Palin was a good woman, intelligent, conservative, stood for good morals, etc. (trust me I brought up abstinence only education and Bristol) That was when my apolitical interview-voiced questioning skills became apparent. I wanted to understand how the other side was. I was raised bright BLUE (props to mom and dad) but wanted to know the other side. I'm too rational. I love him, he is my family. He explained him owning guns as rationally and as intelligently possible ("It's for hunting. But I have the right to fight against tyranny whether it's from the left or the right.") He is for LGBTQ rights, that's a non issue for my family as my aunt is a lesbian who is loved and accepted by our giant catholic family. He isn't religious, or I feel perhaps just socially religious. They don't even have a church they go to.

 Hell, after Obama was elected I was watching the 6 yr old and she said, "How can Obama rule over all the white people if he is black?" My mom and I looked at each other, appalled. I looked her in the eye and broke it down for her by saying Obama is actually BOTH black and white and that he should just right for being president for everyone. She totally regurgitated her Dad and his complaint, the right wing complaint, back in late '08 and early '09. But he is black!

I generally ignored his rants and raves since then and enjoyed playing with and babysitting my little cousins. Up until last year. After the election I put up a FB update saying that if I ever see anyone discriminating or showing hate to another person that I would step in and intervene because love still trumps hate and all that. My uncle's oldest son popped up on there laughing at me and calling me butt hurt. Then he tagged his cousin and they'd both started calling me names, like a government moocher. So I tagged my Aunt (the mom of one, the aunt of the other) asking her to stop this filth. (How could my family see me this way? That aunt, his own mother, showed me how to sign up for assistance when I found out I was pregnant at 20.) Then I tagged my other cousin, my bff one (dude, did I mention HUGE catholic family?). She helped defend me. Then my Uncle came on and became belligerent. BFF-Cuzzie implied the oldest son was a coward for hiding behind his cousin, then declined the "opportunity" to call my uncle and talk the matter over lol. She said she didn't feel like being yelled at. All the while I'm looking on in horror and finally tell them that this post was for peace and love and unity and that I was disappointed.

They haven't been exactly warm and friendly since. But they're still family, and I love them. Hell, only one that stays in touch the most is the not so little girl who asked the Obama question. Rufus, let her 15 yr old mind not be corrupted by her father and brothers, please let her open her eyes. Rufus bless!

He gave me one tidbit of advice that I have adhered to: NPR is he most unbiased news you'll get. (Ya know, except last year, when apparently EVERTHING had a left wing bias. Including Snopes and Politifacts.)

Fuck you, Donalmir Trutin, for tearing out pieces of my heart and stabbing me with them.

rant over. Just one BT story, personal and rambling, just the way I am. Been on my mind for a few weeks how sad it is.

[GreyhoundFan]

From Jennifer Rubin: "You can’t reason with some people"

Spoiler

We fully recognize the need to restore civil, respectful debate in the United States. Assaulting truth and bullying those with whom you disagree (especially those who defect from your tribe/party on grounds of principle) are ways of undermining democratic discourse. However, one does require two sides who are interested in civil, rational debate. Increasingly, we see evidence of a segment that is not only irrational, but proudly so.

CNN’s “New Day” captured the essence of this phenomenon in a focus group, the video of which has gone viral. A Trump voter panelist says: “If Jesus Christ gets down off the cross and told me Trump is with Russia, I would tell him, ‘Hold on a second. I need to check with the President if it’s true.’ ” One could point out that faith in a Great Leader is antithetical to democracy. One could point out that sacrificing one’s own judgment makes one a pawn, a stooge who enables erosion of our constitutional system. But all of that — by definition — would be lost on people who place Trump over their messiah. Try having a conversation about any policy topic — Russia, climate change, trade, immigration — and you’ll soon realize it’s futile.

Likewise, when aides, activists and staffers openly declare that a partisan vote is more important than a victim (or in the case of Roy Moore, lots of alleged victims), what’s the point of listening to them or giving them a platform? They’ve told you that truth, decency, facts and everything else take second place to the preservation of the cult/party/president. That’s Kellyanne Conway’s modus operandi now. She had this exchange on “Fox & Friends” (!) of all places:

After Conway spoke at length about the need to elect officials that are [copacetic] with a pro-growth, pro-tax-cut Republican agenda, co-host Brian Kilmeade asked: “So, vote for Roy Moore?”

Conway deflected by calling Doug Jones “an indoctrinate liberal,” leading Kilmeade to repeat his question.

“I’m telling you that we want the votes in the Senate to get this tax bill through,” Conway replied, before bringing up Sen. Al Franken’s allegations of sexual misconduct.

(Reminder: Conway said just last week, with regards to the Moore allegations, “that there is no Senate seat worth more than a child.”)

At some point, some segment of Trump’s voters became so intellectually or morally corrupt as to become cultist. Hillary Clinton called them “deplorables” — and then took a beating for casting millions of Americans as racist. It’s time, I would suggest, to accept an unpleasant reality — there are some Americans who are not operating in good faith and are unreachable by logic or appeals to decency. How many of President Trump’s supporters fall into that category? We don’t know. But one comes to the conclusion that a good deal of the jaw-dropping spin that comes from Trump, his press secretary, his aides and the Fox News sycophants is designed to give this group of cultists something — anything to say — when confronted with reality. It need not be true, rational, decent or consistent. It’s filler for them to use, akin to putting their fingers in their ears and humming, when confronted by reality-based Americans or real news. We shouldn’t be surprised that Trump’s base has not abandoned him; people who look to him rather than their religious messiah are not going to change their minds based on real-world events.

What do we do about such folk? Well, first we shouldn’t assume that all Trump supporters are beyond reason. Continuing to make factual, honest arguments may over time wean some voters (who have not already abandoned Trump) off their Trump addiction. However, it’s also time to remember that democracy requires in most cases a majority, not unanimity. It behooves the rest of the electorate to continue to discuss and debate rationally and civilly and to turn out in sufficient numbers as to dwarf the cultist vote.

Awareness of the irrational part of the electorate does not diminish the value of democracy; it rather requires that people of good will who retain rationality become that much more active in the democratic process. Sometimes you just have to win the vote and then the argument.

 

[47of74]

42 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

From Jennifer Rubin: "You can’t reason with some people"

  Hide contents

We fully recognize the need to restore civil, respectful debate in the United States. Assaulting truth and bullying those with whom you disagree (especially those who defect from your tribe/party on grounds of principle) are ways of undermining democratic discourse. However, one does require two sides who are interested in civil, rational debate. Increasingly, we see evidence of a segment that is not only irrational, but proudly so.

CNN’s “New Day” captured the essence of this phenomenon in a focus group, the video of which has gone viral. A Trump voter panelist says: “If Jesus Christ gets down off the cross and told me Trump is with Russia, I would tell him, ‘Hold on a second. I need to check with the President if it’s true.’ ” One could point out that faith in a Great Leader is antithetical to democracy. One could point out that sacrificing one’s own judgment makes one a pawn, a stooge who enables erosion of our constitutional system. But all of that — by definition — would be lost on people who place Trump over their messiah. Try having a conversation about any policy topic — Russia, climate change, trade, immigration — and you’ll soon realize it’s futile.

Likewise, when aides, activists and staffers openly declare that a partisan vote is more important than a victim (or in the case of Roy Moore, lots of alleged victims), what’s the point of listening to them or giving them a platform? They’ve told you that truth, decency, facts and everything else take second place to the preservation of the cult/party/president. That’s Kellyanne Conway’s modus operandi now. She had this exchange on “Fox & Friends” (!) of all places:

After Conway spoke at length about the need to elect officials that are [copacetic] with a pro-growth, pro-tax-cut Republican agenda, co-host Brian Kilmeade asked: “So, vote for Roy Moore?”

Conway deflected by calling Doug Jones “an indoctrinate liberal,” leading Kilmeade to repeat his question.

“I’m telling you that we want the votes in the Senate to get this tax bill through,” Conway replied, before bringing up Sen. Al Franken’s allegations of sexual misconduct.

(Reminder: Conway said just last week, with regards to the Moore allegations, “that there is no Senate seat worth more than a child.”)

At some point, some segment of Trump’s voters became so intellectually or morally corrupt as to become cultist. Hillary Clinton called them “deplorables” — and then took a beating for casting millions of Americans as racist. It’s time, I would suggest, to accept an unpleasant reality — there are some Americans who are not operating in good faith and are unreachable by logic or appeals to decency. How many of President Trump’s supporters fall into that category? We don’t know. But one comes to the conclusion that a good deal of the jaw-dropping spin that comes from Trump, his press secretary, his aides and the Fox News sycophants is designed to give this group of cultists something — anything to say — when confronted with reality. It need not be true, rational, decent or consistent. It’s filler for them to use, akin to putting their fingers in their ears and humming, when confronted by reality-based Americans or real news. We shouldn’t be surprised that Trump’s base has not abandoned him; people who look to him rather than their religious messiah are not going to change their minds based on real-world events.

What do we do about such folk? Well, first we shouldn’t assume that all Trump supporters are beyond reason. Continuing to make factual, honest arguments may over time wean some voters (who have not already abandoned Trump) off their Trump addiction. However, it’s also time to remember that democracy requires in most cases a majority, not unanimity. It behooves the rest of the electorate to continue to discuss and debate rationally and civilly and to turn out in sufficient numbers as to dwarf the cultist vote.

Awareness of the irrational part of the electorate does not diminish the value of democracy; it rather requires that people of good will who retain rationality become that much more active in the democratic process. Sometimes you just have to win the vote and then the argument.

 

And these are the people every corporate Democrat and right wingers think we're supposed to kiss the asses of.  Fornicate them.  No, really.  Fornicate them.  I'm not going to kiss Branch Trumpvidian ass, especially when they act like this.

[Howl]

On 11/9/2017 at 12:27 PM, GrumpyGran said:

I think a lot of people are moving their identity to the vague Independent.

Bingo!  This has happened in my extended family, because various life-long Republicans were and continue to be disgusted by Trump's lack of common decency.  Trump insulting McCain sent at least one of them over the edge.  This is a very good thing, because as an Independent, you have to "look at both sides now"  (thanks, Joni Mitchell!) of each policy and candidate and figure out what they agree with.  The Republican party they supported in the past is just gone. 

 

Quote

Jennifer Rubin wrote: "But one comes to the conclusion that a good deal of the jaw-dropping spin that comes from Trump, his press secretary, his aides and the Fox News sycophants is designed to give this group of cultists something — anything to say — when confronted with reality. It need not be true, rational, decent or consistent. It’s filler for them to use, akin to putting their fingers in their ears and humming, when confronted by reality-based Americans or real news." 

I've been saying this from the day Kellyanne Conway opened her mouth.  It simply did not matter that she and those referenced above made no sense to anyone else -- there was always a very specific purpose: to weaponize talking points for Trump deplorables. Sadly, it's been a brutally effective strategy. 

[GrumpyGran]

1 hour ago, Howl said:

I've been saying this from the day Kellyanne Conway opened her mouth. 

She serves a purpose for them. Not only does the shiite that comes out of her mouth give them something to say, incomprehensible as it is, but she is a "woman". This is her value. Even though she trashed Dumpy while she was working for Cruz, Dumpy, a man who values loyalty above all else, allows her because she fills a slot. "Look, we value woman, we have this woman speaking for us." Her audience is Dumpy's deluded female fans. If you notice, we rarely see them together because I don't think she's a favorite of his.

As for the convenient Independent identity, I do hope that some who are claiming it now are doing so because they are attempting to re-define their views. But it is the political version of free agency in sports. No one's going to hit you too hard with discussion and insult because you're a potential win for their side.

[Cleopatra7]

On 11/11/2017 at 2:43 PM, candygirl200413 said:

This!! If POC working class people could see through this then why couldn't WWC? Because they were stuck in their privilege bubble and no matter how little money they might be making, they forever think they are truly better than POC WC.

The bottom line is that a lot of Trump supporters don’t care if his policies hurt them as long as they hurt POC more. Such people would rather go without something like single-payer healthcare for themselves than have a program that benefits blacks or Hispanics. The media likes to dance around this issue by talking about “economic anxiety,” but the average Trump voter was a small business owner making upwards of $100K a year. Furthermore, Trump won majorities of all white voters, including the college educated and women. Perhaps some Trump voters thought he could work an economic miracle and bring the country back to the way it was in 1955, but a lot of them are motivated by racism. POC have always been thrown under the bus to satisfy the “economic anxieties” of whites.

[AmericanRose]

You really can't reason with them. My mother is convinced that Dearborn, MI is under Sharia law....

[Smoochie]

Well, she might just have a point, for all the crying the right did about President Obama and then Hilary bringing in Sharia law, although it's nothing they believed in, the right is actually closer to it.

With the way this current administration is going, it's not such a far stretch ...  to a degree, many of the conservative/christian right's  beliefs do fall into Sharia law territory.  The lying in order to protect themselves or their beliefs, the way they view women as property,  with the Roy Moore case it's okay dating / marrying children, their unequivocal non-forgiving stance to other religions, beliefs, fake news claims = blasphemy ... it's quite laughable and ironic when you actually look at it!

[GreyhoundFan]

This article chapped my hide: "Elitists, crybabies and junky degrees: A Trump supporter explains rising conservative anger at American universities."

Spoiler

COCHISE, Arizona

Frank Antenori shot the head off a rattlesnake at his back door last summer — a deadeye pistol blast from 20 feet. No college professor taught him that. The U.S. Army trained him, as a marksman and a medic, on the “two-way rifle range” of Afghanistan and Iraq.

Useful skills. Smart return on taxpayers’ investment. Not like the waste he sees at too many colleges and universities, where he says liberal professors teach “ridiculous” classes and indoctrinate students “who hang out and protest all day long and cry on our dime.”

“Why does a kid go to a major university these days?” said Antenori, 51, a former Green Beret who served in the Arizona state legislature. “A lot of Republicans would say they go there to get brainwashed and learn how to become activists and basically go out in the world and cause trouble.”

Antenori is part of an increasingly vocal campaign to transform higher education in America. Though U.S. universities are envied around the world, he and other conservatives want to reduce the flow of government cash to what they see as elitist, politically correct institutions that often fail to provide practical skills for the job market.

To the alarm of many educators, nearly every state has cut funding to public colleges and universities since the 2008 financial crisis. Adjusted for inflation, states spent $5.7 billion less on public higher education last year than in 2008, even though they were educating more than 800,000 additional students, according to the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association.

In Arizona, which has had a Republican governor and legislature since 2009, lawmakers have cut spending for higher education by 54 percent since 2008; the state now spends $3,500 less per year on every student, according to the progressive Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Tuition has soared, forcing students to shoulder more of the cost of their degrees.

Meanwhile, public schools in Arizona and across the nation are welcoming private donors, including the conservative Koch brothers. In nearly every state, the Charles Koch Foundation funds generally conservative-leaning scholars and programs in politics, economics, law and other subjects. John Hardin, the foundation’s director of university relations, said its giving has tripled from about $14 million in 2011 to $44 million in 2015 as the foundation aims to “diversify the conversation” on campus.

People across the ideological spectrum are worried about the cost of college, skyrocketing debt from student loans and rising inequality in access to quality degrees. Educators fear the drop in government spending is making schools harder to afford for low- and middle-income students.

State lawmakers blame the cuts on falling tax revenue during the recession; rising costs of other obligations, especially Medicaid and prisons; and the need to balance their budgets. But even as prosperity has returned to many states, there is a growing partisan divide over how much to spend on higher education. Education advocates worry that conservative disdain threatens to undermine universities.

... < chart >

In July, a Pew Research Center study found that 58 percent of Republicans and GOP-leaning independents believe colleges and universities have a negative effect “on the way things are going in the country,” up from 37 percent two years ago. Among Democrats, by contrast, 72 percent said they have a positive impact.

A Gallup poll in August found that a third of Republicans had confidence in universities, which they viewed as too liberal or political. Other studies show that overwhelming numbers of white working-class men do not believe a college degree is worth the cost.

A single year at many private universities costs more than the median U.S. household income of $59,000. Though most students receive financial aid, a four-year degree can cost more than a quarter-million dollars. Tuition at public universities has soared, too, and a degree can easily cost more than $100,000.

It’s not just the money: Dozens of the most prestigious schools reject more than 80 percent of applicants, and the admissions system often favors the wealthy and connected.

... < chart >

“The new upper class has nothing to do with money. It has to do with where you were educated,” said Arizona State University President Michael Crow, who is pushing to make quality degrees more accessible to lower-income students.

Antenori views former president Barack Obama, a Harvard-educated lawyer who taught at the University of Chicago Law School, as the embodiment of the liberal establishment. Antenori said liberal elites with fancy degrees who have been running Washington for so long have forgotten those who think differently.

“If you don’t do everything that their definition of society is, you’re somehow a knuckle-dragging Neanderthal cave man,” Antenori said.

Antenori was drawn to Trump, he said, because he was the “reverse of Obama,” an “anti-politically correct guy” whose attitude toward the status quo is “change it, fix it, get rid of it, crush it, slash it.”

Even though Trump boasts of his Ivy League degree from the University of Pennsylvania, Antenori said he “had a different air about him.” Unlike Obama, Trump has not emphasized the importance of Americans going to college.

During the campaign, Trump said many colleges “have gone crazy” and that young people were “choking on debt.” He criticized universities for getting “so much money from the government” while “raising their fees to the point that’s ridiculous.”

Hillary Clinton trounced Trump in the nation’s most educated counties, but Trump won white voters without a college degree by 37 points.

Though Trump has largely ignored higher education during his first year in office, his son Donald Trump Jr. recently excoriated universities during a speech in Texas, for which he was paid $100,000. On college campuses, he said, “Hate speech is anything that says America is a good country. That our founders were great people. That we need borders. Hate speech is anything faithful to the moral teachings of the Bible.”

Trump Jr. went on to say that many universities offer Americans a raw deal: “We’ll take $200,000 of your money; in exchange, we’ll train your children to hate our country. . . . We’ll make them unemployable by teaching them courses in zombie studies, underwater basket weaving and, my personal favorite, tree climbing.”

Antenori, who served as a delegate for Trump at the 2016 National Republican Convention, loves that kind of talk.

Finally, he said, people in power understand how he feels.

Antenori was born in Scranton, Pa., and dreamed of playing football at Pennsylvania State University. But he started partying and his grades slipped in his senior year of high school. His father balked at paying for college.

“I’m not paying for C’s,” Antenori recalled his father saying. “You want to go? You pay for it.”

So at 17, he joined the Army, which promised him $20,000 toward college if he enlisted for three years. He stayed on, joined the Green Berets and became a medic. He didn’t get around to college until he was 32.

Still on active duty, he enrolled in a pre-med program at Campbell University in North Carolina, a Baptist school a few miles from Fort Bragg. He earned a bachelor’s degree taking classes four nights a week and on weekends.

After he retired from the Army in 2004, he moved to Tucson, where he works as a program manager for a major defense contractor. Earlier this year he completed an online MBA through Grand Canyon University, a for-profit Christian school in Phoenix.

“I got functional degrees that helped me move up in the corporate world,” he said, crunching through the parched grass on his 40-acre ranch in the southeastern Arizona desert. Compact and muscular, wearing a red T-shirt and dusty work boots, he speaks with jackhammer bluntness.

Antenori said many young people would be better off attending more affordable two-year community colleges that teach useful skills and turn out firefighters, electricians and others. Obama promoted that same idea, launching new efforts to boost community college and workplace training. But Antenori said he believes Obama pushed young people too hard toward four-year degrees.

“The establishment has created this thing that if you don’t go to college, you’re somehow not equal to someone else who did,” Antenori said, sitting with his wife, Lesley, at the dining room table in their modest one-story ranch house.

Antenori said when he was in high school in the 1980s, students were directed toward college or vocational training depending on their abilities.

“The mind-set now is that everybody is going to be a doctor,” he said. “Instead of telling a kid whose art sucks, ‘You’re a crappy artist,’ they say, ‘Go follow your dream.’ ”

The Antenoris did not steer their two sons, 23 and 22, toward college, and neither went. One helps at home on the ranch, and the other is enlisted in the Army.

Antenori is just as happy his sons aren’t hanging out with the “weirdos” he reads about on Campus Reform, a conservative website with a network of college reporters whose stated mission is to expose “liberal bias and abuse on America’s campuses.”

In a sign of the intensely partisan climate on campus, its recent headlines include: “Prof wants ‘body size’ added to diversity curricula,” “Students cover free speech wall with vulgar anti-Trump graffiti” and “College Dems leader resigns after declaring hatred of white men.”

The federal government spends $30 billion a year on Pell grants, which help lower-income students, including a large number of minorities, attend college. But studies show that half of Pell grant recipients drop out before earning a degree.

The overall college dropout rate is also high. Only 59 percent of students who start at four-year institutions graduate within six years, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. That leaves millions with debt but no degree.

More than 44 million Americans are paying off student loans, including a growing number of people over 60, according to the Federal Reserve. The average student loan debt of a 2016 college graduate was $37,000. At $1.4 trillion, U.S. student loan debt is now larger than credit card debt.

Antenori said taxpayers should help pay only for degrees, such as those in engineering, medicine or law, that lead directly to jobs. If a student wants to study art or get a “junky” degree in “diversity studies or culture studies,” they should go to a private school, he said.

And he said dropouts who have received government aid should pay it back: “That would be awesome,” he said, flashing a big smile.

“You want to create someone who’s going to be a contributor, not a moocher,” Antenori said. “Go out and generate revenue; that’s what it’s all about.”

Steve Farley could not disagree more.

“This whole idea that government should be run more like a business is so profoundly morally flawed,” said Farley, a Democratic state senator who is running for governor and used to spar regularly with Antenori when the Republican served in the state legislature from 2009 to 2013.

“Government should be run like a family. We should be raising our children to be the best people they can be,” Farley said. “We should not be manufacturing them to be products to be consumed. That is a basic ethical and moral flaw in this whole argument, that everything’s got to have financial payback so we can reduce taxes for the Koch brothers.”

It was Politics and Pizza night at a community center in suburban Phoenix, and Farley was speaking to 100 people in folding chairs listening to Democratic candidates running in 2018. They cheered when Farley, in a crisp white dress shirt and a yellow tie, blasted Republican cuts to education funding.

“We choose to give our money away in corporate tax cuts and corporate sales tax loopholes,” said Farley, 54. “It’s my crusade to get rid of those loopholes and fund our public education system at every level.”

The views of many conservatives are being fanned by Trump, he said, including a vilification of universities that is “corrosive to our democracy and our society in general.”

“The whole liberal bastion idea is just absurd,” Farley said, noting the growing amount of money on campuses from conservative donors.

A graduate of Williams College, a highly selective private liberal arts school in Massachusetts, Farley is an artist and graphic designer who invented a process for turning photographs into images on ceramic tiles, which he sells across the country.

Farley said music and art are critical to education, invention and creativity “that can lift us from all these problems that we seem surrounded with these days.” He noted that Apple founder Steve Jobs credited a college calligraphy course with helping spark the design of the first Macintosh computer.

Farley worries that the withdrawal of public funds to colleges is widening the class divide. Public universities have long been the surest route to a degree for those who are not wealthy. But as tuition rises, they are beyond the reach of more people. A recent study by New America, a Washington think tank, found that since the 1990s there has been a sharp decrease in low-income students at the nation’s top public universities and a sharp rise in wealthy students.

Trump hit higher education hard in his first budget proposal, which called for sharp cuts to the federal work-study program, the National Institutes of Health and other programs that fund university research. The House recently approved a tax overhaul that would cut corporate rates while imposing a new tax on the endowments of many of the nation’s wealthiest universities and eliminating the deduction for student loan interest.

“Public education at every level is the only tool we’ve ever invented to effectively allow people to lift themselves from poverty,” said Farley, the son of two public school teachers. “In Arizona, one in four children live in poverty right now. If you take away that tool there is no hope for our future—none.”

Crow, the president of Arizona State University and one of the nation’s leading voices on higher education innovation, agrees that it is critical for universities to change because “the standard model is elitist.”

“The system is creating social disruption,” he said. “It is creating this dynamic where people are not connected” and parents think, “Oh, my kid can never get into one of those great universities.”

Crow is working with 11 other public university presidents to bring more low-income students to campus and increase graduation rates.

He said there is an indisputable return on investment for a college degree. College graduates earn more, pay more taxes and are less likely to need government assistance, he said.

“A lot is at stake,” he said. “Education is the single most important predictor of social mobility for the last hundred years; it drives the economy.”

But, he said, “There is fear and angst about the future. People are looking around and saying to universities, ‘What are you doing for me? You guys at the universities are building robots that are going to replace my job.’ ”

Jobs that require only a high school diploma are disappearing fast, he said: “The old way where a guy like my dad or my grandparents — really smart people, but not educated — could do almost anything is just not going to work anymore.”

When Crow arrived on campus in 2002, the state provided about half of ASU’s budget. That has since been slashed to 10 percent, he said. So Crow spends much of his time courting private donors and looking for ways to lower costs and connect his school to the changing workplace.

“If we don’t learn how to communicate better and work with the community,” Crow said, “there are going to be pitchforks and tar-and-feather buckets waiting outside the gates for us.”

Two years ago, Antenori moved out of Tucson to rural Cochise because he “couldn’t take the hippies anymore. They were raising my taxes for every stupid little thing, like bike paths and puppy palaces.”

He lived in a tightly packed subdivision, with a homeowner’s association that gave him grief because his pick-up truck was slightly too big for the driveway.

So now he and his family live in a low-tax patch of desert in the shadow of the Dragoon Mountains, in a county that voted for Trump. He can bow-hunt for deer on his own land, keeping one eye out for mountain lions.

“The only noise I hear is the damn coyotes howling at night,” he said, looking out over the mesquite trees under perfect blue skies. “My blood pressure has dropped 20 points since I moved here.”

He and his buddies often gather at Silver Saddle Steakhouse, a Tucson lunch spot frequented by sheriff’s deputies ordering $12 mesquite-grilled steaks. Antenori said “95 percent of the people I hang with” share his views.

A year after Trump’s election, Antenori gives the president “a B, maybe a B-plus.” He has been disappointed with Trump’s failure to repeal Obamacare but thrilled with his conservative judicial appointments.

And he loves that Trump’s White House is less “snobbish” and more welcoming to people like him. Antenori is tired, he said, of being condescended to for thinking universities should be more practical, not havens for “damn crybabies and spoiled brats.”

That Antenori guy sounds like a real prince (note sarcasm). And, it's rich that donnie dumbfornicate junior is railing against universities. I guess he has forgotten he went to an Ivy League school.

[GrumpyGran]

17 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

That Antenori guy sounds like a real prince (note sarcasm).

So after showing his true nature in adolescence, he becomes a medic in the Green Beret, gets a pre-med degree, something he says no one else should do unless they are going to follow through with it, then gets out of the service and gets a job as a government contractor? Doing what exactly? Then a MBA, lol, from an on-line religious school. Uh huh. So he's living on government retirement, after working as a government contractor, with government health insurance. Admittedly, he served his country but he needs to wake up and realize that he is the status quo. Oh, and he was a state legislator? Payed by the tax-payers. But he hates people who take government assistance. He's like many of the people I have come in contact with who are ex-military, especially those who go on to these contractor jobs. He takes advantage of all of it but wants to shut the door in everyone else's face. How does he look in the mirror every morning?

[47of74]

Trumpism Infects California’s Schools

Quote

According to surveys of 11-to-18-year-old students in the Greater Los Angeles, Sacramento Valley, San Diego, and San Francisco Bay areas in 2016, “Fifty-three percent of respondents report that students at school are made fun of, verbally insulted or abused for being Muslim.” A quarter of the respondents—the vast majority of which were students of color, mostly Arab or South Asian—said they had been victims of anti-Muslim cyberbullying, and “a shocking 57 percent of students view their peers making offensive comments about Islam and Muslims online.” A third of girls “reported having their Islamic head scarves tugged, pulled or being offensively touched,” an increase of 7 percent since 2014.

One of the most disturbing trends is an apparent backslide in the level of school engagement and the concomitant rise in isolation children feel as they become increasingly uncomfortable about displaying their identity. Fewer than 70 percent of respondents reported that they “feel welcome and respected in school,” down from more than 80 percent in 2014. A similar pattern of decline was seen in students’ saying that they “feel comfortable engaging in class discussions about Islam and Muslims.” More than a third say they simply do not participate in discussions on Muslims or Islam. This discomfort points to an underlying trend across American society in recent years: an atomization and fracturing of communities, in which demographic diversity expands, yet the divides of race, ethnicity, class and culture widen. The erosion of the relationship between Muslim students and their peers and educators is fraying the one environment in which diverse groups have a chance to interact in many regions.

The students interviewed for the study, which covers the period leading up to Trump’s election, expressed both anger and resignation. “They call me terrorist and when I get frustrated they say ‘you’re going to bomb us’ and laugh,’” said one student. Another got smeared with Trump’s classic combination of racial and xenophobic invective: “Last month a kid called me a terrorist. And another kid called my parents refugees. I was called the N word multiple times.” Discouraged or fearful about challenging the attacks, some students said they tried to ignore the abuse.

Adults are hardly immune to the toxic atmosphere stoked by Trump’s rhetoric. About four in ten respondents reported experiencing “offensive comments from school educators” in 2016, up from (the still shockingly high) rate of one in five two years prior. And even when not the direct target of teachers’ prejudice, negative attitudes toward Muslims have colored their responses to students’ struggles with racism.

You'd think adults in education settings would know better than to be Branch Trumpvidians in front of students at the least, but I fornicating guess not.

[LeftCoastLurker]

This is also an issue for Hispanic students. We live in a very left-leaning area of California and my children go to a VERY diverse high school. Even so, my children (who are not caucasian) see evidence of bigotry on a daily basis. That said, the bigotry is not always based on skin color or faith, but many times on a socioeconomic basis. They also see it less on a verbal basis, but more on an "exclusionary" basis where children who are seen as "different" just aren't included. 

Interestingly, my children who are Asian are NOT discriminated against. AND there are more members of the student body who do stand up for those who are being harassed than those who do the harassing.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Boo-freaking-hoo: "Nazi sympathizer profiled by the New York Times says he lost his job and — soon — his home"

Spoiler

Tony Hovater, the white nationalist and Nazi sympathizer featured in a controversial New York Times article this weekend, said he lost his job and would soon lose his home following a swift backlash over the article.

Hovater, a 29-year-old Ohio resident, told The Washington Post on Wednesday that he has been fired from his job and that he and his wife, Maria, are in the process of moving out of their home in New Carlisle, Ohio, for financial and safety reasons. They could no longer afford to pay the rent, he said, and somebody had published their home address online.

“It’s not for the best to stay in a place that is now public information,” he said, adding later: “We live alone. No one else is there to watch the house while I’m away.”

The lengthy Times profile that was published Saturday portrayed the daily and seemingly normal life of Hovater, whom writer Richard Fausset described as the “Nazi sympathizer next door” and a “committed foot soldier” of the far-right movement. The article also described Hovater as a “Seinfeld” fan whose “Midwestern manners would please anyone’s mother.”

Hovater said that he, his wife and his brother-in-law were fired Monday. All three worked at 571 Grill & Draft House, a small restaurant in New Carlisle.

The restaurant’s owners said in a statement Wednesday that they did not know of Hovater’s white nationalist views until the Times article was published. They said the article illustrated “some very disturbing images and thoughts” that they do not share.

The owners also said that they and their other employees have been bombarded with threatening and intimidating calls and social media messages since the article was published. That prompted Hovater to suggest to the owners to “release him from employment,” the statement said. They did so and also fired Hovater’s wife and brother-in-law shortly after.

“We felt it necessary to fully sever the relationship with them in hopes to protect our 20 other employees from the verbal and social media threats being made from individuals all over the country, and as far as Australia. We neither encourage nor support any forms of hate within our establishment,” the owners said.

Hovater, meanwhile, said that after the restaurant began receiving calls Monday morning, he was told that he “probably” has “to get out of here.” Before the owners fired his brother-in-law, he said, they asked him if he has the same beliefs as Hovater.

“Businesses will do what they have to do to protect their businesses,” he said.

After Hovater was fired, his supporters launched a crowdfunding campaign through a website called Goyfundme.com to raise money for him and his wife.

“Tony was fired from his job for his political beliefs. His wife and family all fired all at once to avoid the political pressure,” Matt Parrott, who runs the site, said, adding that the “nationalist community” has rallied behind the Hovaters.

... < disgusting tweet >

The campaign has raised more than $8,000 as of Thursday morning.

According to the website, the Times article “resulted in a smear campaign” against Hovater and his wife. It claimed that “communists, antifa, and general basement-dwelling ne’er-do-wells set to work immediately, identifying their place of employment and harassing their management into terminating them.”

Goyfundme.com, which relies on bitcoin and credit and debit card payments, is an alternative crowdfunding site created earlier this year after mainstream fundraising sites like GoFundMe and PayPal removed campaigns and accounts associated with far-right ideologies. Parrott condemned “active censorship” and what he sees as the lack of net neutrality among the sites.

The crowdfunding site’s name is an alt-right play on GoFundMe.

As the Forward notes, “’Goy’…is a Hebrew word which literally means ‘nation’ but has taken on a pejorative connotation to refer to non-Jews. Perhaps less widely known is the fact that the online provocateurs of the ‘alt-right’ have taken up the word as their own — imagining shadowy Jewish forces who manipulate the ‘good goy’ to do their bidding.”

Hovater and Parrott are both co-founders of the Traditionalist Worker Party, one of the extreme right-wing groups that rallied in August in Charlottesville, where a car allegedly driven by a Nazi sympathizer plowed into a group of counterprotesters, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer.

The aftermath of the Charlottesville rally was the genesis of the Times profile on Hovater, national editor Marc Lacey said in a column responding to widespread criticism of the story. Many have accused the Times of normalizing a man who unabashedly supports Adolf Hitler.

“We described Mr. Hovater as a bigot, a Nazi sympathizer who posted images on Facebook of a Nazi-like America full of happy white people and swastikas everywhere,” Lacey wrote.

Later, he added that the Times regrets that the article offended so many.

“We recognize that people can disagree on how best to tell a disagreeable story,” Lacey wrote. “What we think is indisputable, though, is the need to shed more light, not less, on the most extreme corners of American life and the people who inhabit them. That’s what the story, however imperfectly, tried to do.”

... < tweet >

Fausset, the writer, also responded.

He wrote that he and his editors had hoped to understand why someone like Hovater, who’s “intelligent, socially adroit and raised middle class amid the relatively well-integrated environments of United States military bases,” drifted toward an extreme political ideology. Fausset acknowledged that his article, after multiple revisions and despite hours of conversation with Hovater, never really answered that question.

“Mr. Hovater was exceedingly candid to me — often shockingly so — but it seems as though his worldview was largely formed by the same recombinant stuff that influences our mainstream politics . . . But even if I had called Mr. Hovater yet again — even if we had discussed Blavatsky at length, the way we did his ideas about the Federal Reserve Bank — I’m not sure it would have answered the question.”

Hovater said he thought Fausset would “editorialize” the article, but he said it “was immensely fair.”

“A lot of people were confused with what he was trying to do with that story. He’s not trying to set out and spook people,” Hovater said. “He wrote the article, he wrote the story that was given, and it was an accurate portrayal of me.”

Hovater said he and his wife are now staying with a friend. He also said he still expects income from his contractual job as a welder.

 

[candygirl200413]

I just hate that they always have to use the sympathizer afterwards. He is a straight up Nazi, that's it.

[GrumpyGran]

9 hours ago, candygirl200413 said:

I just hate that they always have to use the sympathizer afterwards. He is a straight up Nazi, that's it.

Right. What Nazi is he sympathizing with? He's the Nazi! For a group of people who don't like political correctness they sure do get all touchy about being called exactly what they are.

[47of74]

Rev. O’Neal Dozier has quit the GOP over Fornicate Face.

Quote

The Rev. O’Neal Dozier, the outspoken and often controversial Broward pastor, is resigning from the Republican Party, citing what he said are President Donald Trump’s attitudes toward blacks, legitimizing of white supremacists and overall “ungodly character.”

“I believe Donald Trump is mentally ill. I believe he is unfit for the presidency. I know these are strong words. But I have studied the man. This type of behavior doesn’t come from sane people,” Dozier said in an interview in which he also said the president has demonstrated “racist tendencies.”

Dozier, who is best known for warnings about threats he sees from radical Islam, same-sex marriage and abortion, condemned Trump in an hour-long interview with the South Florida Sun Sentinel and in an opinion column he wrote for the South Florida Times, a weekly newspaper serving the African-American and Caribbean-American communities.

In November 2016, Dozier voted for Trump. In January, Dozier delivered the invocation at a Broward Republican Party meeting. Days after Trump’s inauguration, Dozier thanked God “for the election of President Donald J. Trump, who was elected by the forgotten men and women of America, who will make America great again.”

Too little, too late. 

[GrumpyGran]

1 hour ago, 47of74 said:

Rev. O’Neal Dozier has quit the GOP over Fornicate Face.

Too little, too late. 

If he brings his flock with him, I'll take it. Maybe he's learned a little bit about his own inability to correctly judge someone's character. We can only hope.