In December 2016, Tom Petty talked with Rolling Stone about his then-upcoming 2017 tour, which just ended last week at the Hollywood Bowl here in Los Angeles: I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was thinking this might be the last big one. I have a granddaughter now I’d like to see as much as I can. I don’t want to spend my life on the road. Sad, as President Trump would say. Big life events can kill you . . . RIP Tom Petty Read more →
EppsNet Archive: Donald Trump
The Jemele Hills of the World
Donald Trump is a white supremacist who has largely surrounded himself w/ other white supremacists. — Jemele Hill (@jemelehill) September 11, 2017 Trump is the most ignorant, offensive president of my lifetime. His rise is a direct result of white supremacy. Period. — Jemele Hill (@jemelehill) September 11, 2017 He has surrounded himself with white supremacists — no they are not "alt right" — and you want me to believe he isn't a white supremacist? — Jemele Hill (@jemelehill) September 11, 2017 He is unqualified and unfit to be president. He is not a leader. And if he were not white, he never would have been elected — Jemele Hill (@jemelehill) September 12, 2017 That’s a great opinion. It’s intelligent, well thought out . . . haha no it’s insane. I hope ESPN gets this woman some professional help. Oh you don’t see the world the same way I do?… Read more →
An Insignificant Number of Confused, Poorly Organized Losers
News networks have been running a two-week-long (with no end in sight) infomercial on white supremacists and white nationalists and neo-Nazis as though they represent a powerful force that has to be reckoned with, a vast army of domestic terrorists, which they don’t. The most important thing to know about white supremacists and neo-Nazis is that there are actually not very many of them. The leading white supremacist organization is the Ku Klux Klan. How many members do you think the KKK currently has? Take a guess. Keep in mind we live in a country of more than 320 million people. Estimates of current KKK membership run between 5,000 and 8,000 members. Is that less than you thought? As for neo-Nazis, the New York Times ran an article a few years ago on the National Socialist Movement (NSM), which they identified as the largest neo-Nazi group in the country. Take… Read more →
Poll: Most Black Americans Don’t Want Confederate Statues Removed
NPR and PBS News Hour conducted a poll asking whether statues “honoring leaders of the Confederacy” should “remain as a historical symbol” or “be removed because they are offensive to some people.” Results by race: White: 65 percent of respondents said the statues should stay, 25 percent said they should be taken down and 8 percent were unsure. (I know these numbers don’t sum to 100 percent but I’m taking them directly from the link above.) Black: 44 percent stay, 40 percent remove, 11 percent unsure. (Same comment as previous.) Latino: 65 percent stay, 24 percent remove, 11 percent unsure. The media, which according to a Harvard University study are very biased against Donald Trump, have been flogging him with this issue for the past week and a half, the thinking being that anyone who doesn’t support the removal of Confederate statues is a white supremacist, in which case 75… Read more →
No Political Violence on the Left?
I’m still shaking my head on this one: Even left-wing stalwarts like The Atlantic know that the Post’s “no violence on the left” premise is bogus: Look how peaceful and non-violent everyone is in the Post photo. Contrast that with, for example, these protesters at Berkeley earlier this year: I’m drawn to Berkeley examples because our son went to Berkeley and still lives in the area, because I know some current Berkeley students, and because Berkeley, ironically, used to be synonymous with the Free Speech Movement. The photos above show the protesters who showed up to violently shut down a scheduled talk by Milo Yiannopoulos, but the same thing seems to happen whenever any university schedules a conservative speaker. Here are a couple more left-wing protests, in Chicago and Charlottesville: We could go on and on with this . . . we’ve all seen this before so I don’t know… Read more →
The Victimized Media
In the age of Trump, it’s acceptable for reporters to claim they “never wanted to be part of the story,” while waiting in a green room to go on TV and talk about themselves. — Washington Examiner Read more →
Great Moments in Socialized Medicine: Charlie Gard
If I’m understanding this correctly, socialized medicine really does mean that the government decides if you will live or die, and if your children will be allowed to live or die. I’m glad to see that the current president of the United States is not on board with the idea of a government being able to decide on the life or death of a baby, and to deny the parents of the baby the ability to counter that decree. If we can help little #CharlieGard, as per our friends in the U.K. and the Pope, we would be delighted to do so. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 3, 2017 This is a good reminder — since there are people who think that “single payer,” i.e., socialized medicine, i.e., the government runs the healthcare system, would be a good thing to have in the United States — that the government,… Read more →
They’re the Oppressors Now
The Washington Post has an update on Brian Talbert, a gay man denied entry to the Charlotte Pride Parade because he voted for Donald Trump: Talbert — a 47-year-old North Carolina native — said he was one of about 50 people who attended the first pride parade in Charlotte in 1994. He recalled that Christian demonstrators threw rocks and bottles at the marchers and that someone spit in his face. More than two decades later, he said, the discrimination continues — but this time it’s being directed at him by the gay community. Talbert said he feels betrayed because it shouldn’t matter who you vote for. “I want them to realize that they’re doing the exact same thing they say bigoted people are doing to them — they’re the oppressors now,” he said. “It’s disgusting, and every gay person in America should feel ashamed.” Read more →
One Thing I Can’t Tolerate is Intolerance: Gays for Trump Edition
Well, so much for acceptance and tolerance . . . The banned group is called Gays for Trump. Brian Talbert, a member of the group, said, “It was going to be fun. We wanted to be energetic. We wanted to show that we weren’t the racist, bigot, misogynistic . . . We wanted to show that we are Americans, love our country and our president. We wanted to be there to celebrate gay pride. Everything fell into place except being able to celebrate who I am.” Where that strategy fails is that showing Trump supporters are not anti-gay, racist, bigots, misogynists, etc., is not part of the mainstream gay agenda. Quite the opposite. The agenda is to keep that stereotype alive and keep those labels in play. “For a group of people to claim to want tolerance, acceptance, and give it to every single person you can imagine to give… Read more →
Big Losers
I saw this headline on an AP story today — Poor and disabled big losers in Trump budget. The story includes a photo of the budget (see below), so I think it’s safe to say that the AP writer didn’t read the entire thing before announcing who the “big losers” are. He’s just flogging his own agenda. (See also Harvard Study Says Media Are Very Biased Against Donald Trump) “Trump’s plan for the budget year beginning Oct. 1 makes deep cuts in safety net programs . . .” the story says. What’s the difference between a “cut” and a “deep cut”? The latter sounds mean and scary. Why not just say something factual like “10 percent cut” or “50 percent cut” and let readers put their own characterization on it? “Safety net programs” is also a loaded expression. “Trump’s budget would cut the food stamp program by $191 billion over… Read more →
Harvard Study Says Media Are Very Biased Against Donald Trump
According to a Harvard University study, the mainstream media are very biased against Donald Trump. Here’s a chart from the study, showing that the tone of some news outlets is negative in as many as 98% of reports: I’ve noticed that even our local news station is about 90-10 negative on Trump coverage. We have to look at the way the media handled Trump before he was elected. How many newspapers in the entire country endorsed Trump for president? I don’t think the number is zero but it has to be very close to zero. Some newspapers — The Washington Post and New York Times come to mind — were virulently anti-Trump on the editorial page, which bled over into the news coverage. Every news network except Fox was anti-Trump, the only positive news being that he was most definitely not going to be elected. Well, actually it was that… Read more →
Anything Bothering You?
“Anything new?” the dental hygienist asks. “Anything bothering you?” “Oh my god yes,” I reply. “The media coverage of Trump, for one thing.” “I meant with your teeth,” she says. “Oh my teeth are fine.” Read more →
Which Shirt Would You Be Afraid to Wear?
Putting your own politics aside, let’s say you have two T-shirts: one with a pro-Trump slogan like “Make America Great Again” and one with an anti-Trump slogan like “Not My President.” Which one would you be more afraid to wear in public? Or to put it another way: which shirt do you think would be more likely to draw the ire of violent sociopaths? Read more →
One Thing We Can All Agree Upon
I don’t know if the Trump inauguration was the most watched inauguration in history but I know it was watched by more people than the Hillary Clinton inauguration . . . Read more →
The Washington Post Owes Trump Opponents an Apology
Citing backlash, singer Jennifer Holliday pulls out of Trump inauguration concert — The Washington Post The Washington Post better check its facts because unlike Trump himself, his opponents are broad-minded, tolerant people . . . Read more →
That Was Then, This Is Now
That was then: Top Republicans must reject the ridiculous notion that a national election can be ‘rigged.’ — New York Times editorial, Oct. 18, 2016 This is now: [President-elect] Trump should be leading the call for a thorough investigation, since it would be the only way to remove this darkening cloud from his presidency. Failing to resolve the questions about Russia would feed suspicion among millions of Americans that a dominant theme of his candidacy turned out to be true: The election was indeed rigged. — New York Times editorial, Dec. 11, 2016 Read more →
When is Refusing to Accept Election Results Not a National Outrage?
It seemed like phony outrage at the time, when it was generally assumed that Trump would lose the election . . . wildly out of proportion to what he actually said. Now contesting the results is considered a principled strategy. What happened to the seamless transition of power? It all depends on which candidate in refusing to accept the results. Hypocrites! Read more →
Are You a Role Model for Today’s Youth?
The first question in tonight’s debate was “Are you a role model for today’s youth?” I suppose this was the leadoff question because we found out this week that Donald Trump said some bad things 11 years ago. I’ve been surprised by the amount of phony outrage about that given that Hillary Clinton’s husband set the bar for how crudely an American president can behave toward women. Or maybe JFK set the bar — he was a pimp and a degenerate but politicians were afforded a lot more privacy in those days so it’s hard to say for sure who was the bigger lout. As far as Clinton vs. Trump, we have actions vs. words. Big difference to me between saying (for example) “I’d like to fuck an intern with a cigar” and fucking an intern with a cigar. The spectacle of Hillary Clinton saying that a lack of reverence… Read more →
Jill Stein on Leaked DNC Emails
The leaked DNC emails are the smoking gun that the Democratic establishment was rigging the game against Bernie the whole time. Instead of running the process impartially and letting the voters decide, top Democratic officials were doing all they could to ensure a Clinton victory, including collusion with journalists to present a pro-Clinton, anti-Sanders narrative. You want to affirm a corrupt party that just dragged you across the coals? You expect your supporters, who have a vision and who voted for integrity, to follow you into this shithole? Is there no respect here for his campaign and for himself? Are they just going to pretend it didn’t happen? I think it would be very hard for a self-respecting Sanders supporter, in light of these revelations, to take the beating and humiliate themselves and disrespect themselves, to go into the campaign and support the predator who destroyed them. How is Hillary… Read more →
Flag Burner Lights Himself On Fire
It is unfortunate that Trump’s rhetoric prevents the GOP from recruiting these fine Americans . . . Protestor lit flag on fire, then lit himself on fire, catching others on fire. Flames extinguished by firefighters. No serious injuries. — Cleveland Police (@CLEpolice) July 20, 2016 Read more →