Last Call For That's Real White Of You, Con't

I'm tired of hearing excuses for Trump voters, guys.

I'm tired of having to find reasons to get along with people in positions of power who say things like this.

When Louisiana Judge Mike Erwin noticed a man share his seat with a black woman in crowded Baton Rouge, La., establishment Sammy’s Grill on Feb. 3, he allegedly spewed, “You should have made her get her fat nigger ass up.”

Kaneitra Johnson, a resident of Baton Rouge, shared her traumatic experience in a public Facebook post that has been shared 183 times to date. She went into even further detail with the Rouge Collection, stating:

“I’m halfway on the seat and the Lyft driver is on the other half of the seat,” Johnson said. “Then he asked for his jacket. All of a sudden I hear this older man behind me tell the Lyft driver, ‘You never give up your seat for a n*gger.’”
...
As Johnson and the driver sat side by side, the older man continues, “You should have made her get her fat n*gger a** up.” 

Johnson says that it was only after police arrived on the scene that she learned the racist white man in question was Judge Mike Erwin of Louisiana’s 19th Judicial District Court, which covers East Baton Rouge.

Guess the price of his meal was causing economic anxiety, right?

I'm tired of this, guys.  I'm tired of people asking me to forgive Trump voters and racist-ass white people in general, I'm tired of people asking me to continue to enable them through sympathy or empathy, when they have none for me or anyone who looks like me.  At this point the direct result of enabling them is a regime dedicated to disenfranchising me for the rest of my natural life.

I'm not exactly too concerned with the root cause.  Either by malice or by ignorance, the truly malicious are now in full control of this country again.  I'm fighting for my basic civil rights now.  I don't care how we got there anymore.  As a black man in a blood red state I'm only interested in survival and resistance.

Everything else takes a back seat.  Especially when these guys are local.

Amanda Lee says she is building an army and Ohio plays a key role in her plans.

As the national imperial commander for the Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, Lee predicted last week that 2017 will bring a resurgence of her group's activity - public rallies, widespread pamphlet distribution, greater recruitment efforts - and a push in several targeted states, including Ohio. 

"We have people all over Ohio already. There is a large membership of Loyal White Knights there," she said in a phone interview during a dinner break from her job in North Carolina. "When things start going wrong, it's time for us to start retaliating. It's time for us to get active." 

Lee said she couldn't provide membership numbers despite the fact that members of her branch of the KKK pay monthly dues - $10 a person or $15 a couple - and that it calls itself the largest KKK faction in the United States. The Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit organization that tracks what it calls hate and extremist groups and combats discrimination through education and litigation, has acknowledged the Loyal White Knights has a significant Ohio presence. 

The Alabama-based law center said in its most-recent report that 34 such hate groups operate in Ohio, dividing them into categories, including KKK, black separatist, white nationalist, racist/skinhead, neo-Nazi and anti-LGBT. The center maps where the groups are based, including Ohio organizations such as the neo-Nazi National Socialist Movement in Cleveland, the Nation of Islam in Columbus and the Supreme White Alliance in Cincinnati. 

Rick Zwayer, the director of Ohio Homeland Security, said it falls to every federal, state and local law enforcement officer to monitor extremist groups and to keep an eye out for those who might want to do harm to others.

An increasing amount of organizing happens online, however, including for the world's most-visited white supremacist website, the Daily Stormer, which is run by central Ohio native Andrew Anglin. Anglin's specific whereabouts are unknown these days but, at least until recently, donations to his website were directed to a Worthington business address associated with his father.

Especially when the new regime is happily announcing that they will drop the focus on these groups now so that they can grow and thrive again.

Do not ask me to understand them again.

The Abortion War's Front Line Is Now Ohio

Ohio is no longer a swing state by any means.  It's a blood-red Midwestern state with 11.7 million people in it, the 7th largest in the country by population.  And it's the new front line in the War or Women as the state's GOP super-majority in both chambers of the state legislature, "moderate" GOP Gov. John Kasich, the Trump regime are all focusing on groups like Ohio Right To Life as the next test run vehicle to effectively end abortion.

Ohio Right to Life has unveiled sweeping initiatives for the two-year legislative session, six measures the organization's leaders say would build on a series of recent successes and continue its strategy of chipping away at abortion rights while working toward a complete ban. 

The latest push follows passage in December of a law banning abortions after 20 weeks, the most recent of 18 abortion restrictions enacted since Kasich took office in 2011. Others from past Right to Life priority lists include banning public hospitals from providing non-therapeutic abortions and requiring abortion clinics to have transfer agreements with a local hospital. 

The centerpiece of its agenda for this two-year session is proposed legislation to outlaw a commonly used second-trimester abortion procedure, dilation and evacuation, which accounted for about 3,000 of the nearly 21,000 abortions performed in Ohio in 2015, according to the state Health Department. 

"The No. 1 issue, which is part of our national strategy, is a dismemberment ban," said Michael Gonidakis, president of Ohio Right to Life. "We would be the eighth state to enact one." 

Calling the procedure "barbaric" and "inhumane," Gonidakis said the proposal would have an exception only to save the mother's life. The ban would apply only to women seeking to terminate their pregnancy and not impact those who may require the procedure following a miscarriage. 

Critics argue the proposal would make it more difficult to obtain a second-term abortion. They note that the American Medical Association recognizes the procedure as among the safest ways to terminate pregnancy after 14 weeks, and it accounts for most second-term abortions. 

"Ohio Right to Life doesn't care about women's health," said Kellie Copeland, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio.

"There is not a single thing in their agenda that improves women's health; in fact, the new restrictions they are proposing will interfere with the doctor-patient relationship and prevent women from accessing the care that is best for themselves and their families. The goal of Ohio Right to Life is clear - to invoke shame and stigma against women who access abortion, and to punish the medical professionals that care for them."

Right to Life also is pushing bills that would: require burial or cremation of aborted fetuses; ban abortions based on diagnosis of Down syndrome; limit women's access to abortion-inducing pills; and prohibit the sale or receipt of compensation of any sort for fetal tissue or remains. In addition, the group is seeking additional tax funding for pregnancy centers across Ohio. It has received $500,000 in each of the past two years. 

The proposals, Gonidakis said, are part of an "incremental, transparent approach" toward outlawing abortions.

Texas was the prototype, but Ohio looks to be the finished product for an agenda that will effectively shutter the state's abortion providers and leave millions of women in the state with no safe options for an abortion procedure.

Burying women, doctors, clinics, nurses and hospitals under burdens until the procedure cannot legally be performed?  That's the plan.

Most likely it will work, especially once Neil Gorsuch is confirmed.  I just don't expect Democrats to even put up a fight at this point.  I don't know what it will take at this point.

Check that.  I do know what it will take, and that's voters throwing out the GOP across America.  But the odds of that happening when the Trump regime now stands to disenfranchise tens of millions of Democrats will grow slimmer by the day.

By 2018 it may not matter at all.

A Dark Sessions In American History

So Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, a man so racist that Reagan-era Republicans blocked him from the federal bench, is now Trump's AG.  The damage that Republicans have caused to the Voting Rights Act, civil rights in general, and immigration should be considered at this point to be irreparable.

Sessions will take that single-mindedness to the Justice Department, where he will likely be Trump’s most trusted and powerful cabinet secretary. As attorney general, he will oversee the country’s massively backlogged immigration court system, where judges decide which undocumented immigrants will face deportation. And he’s expected to make significant changes to the priorities of the department’s Civil Rights Division. Under Obama, the division investigated police departments that faced accusations of systemic racial bias. Under Sessions, those investigations will likely be a much lower priority.

Under Sessions, anyone who isn't a white, Christian Republican will be a "much lower priority".

Meanwhile, Sessions is being replaced in the Senate by state GOP AG Luther Strange.  Did I mention Strange was investigating Alabama GOP Gov. Robert Bentley, who just named Strange to the position?

According to Alabama law, the Governor of the state will name a temporary replacement before the seat is filled in a special election.

On such a day as the governor may direct, unless vacancy occurs between 2 and 4 months before the next regularly-scheduled general election, in which case it is held at that election. If vacancy occurs within 60 days of the next regularly-scheduled general election, a special election must be held on the first Tuesday after 60 days have elapsed since the vacancy occurred. 

The Governor has said he won’t order a special election held this year. 

Complicating matters somewhat is the state’s Governor, Republican Robert Bentley is currently in the middle of a personal scandal.

Bentley’s campaign finance report filed Tuesday shows the governor’s campaign paid more than $320,000 in legal bills in 2016. 

Bentley faced an impeachment push and an ethics complaint after he was accused of having an affair with his former political adviser. The governor has acknowledged personal mistakes, but maintained he did nothing legally wrong. 

What’s complicating matters greatly is Bentley’s reported top choice to replace Sessions, Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange, appears to be investigating the Governor.

Citing three Republicans close to the matter, Politico said Strange has plans to travel to Washington, D.C. this week to interview possible Senate office staffers.
…
Strange’s possible appointment is mired in controversy. Last year, he asked the House committee investigating Bentley’s relationship with former staffer Rebekah Caldwell Mason to suspend its proceedings while his office conducts “necessary related work.”
Strange has not confirmed if his office is investigating Bentley. 

If Strange becomes a Senator the Bentley would name his replacement as state Attorney General.

Strange will be named to the seat today.  And the swamp draining continues.  Sessions backs Trump early, gets his dream job as AG, Bentley sends Strange up as his replacement and kills the investigation against himself, and gets to name a replacement AG who of course will close the probe.

Because this is how America works in the Trump regime era.

StupidiNews!

• Schools and businesses from DC to New York to Boston are closed as a major snowstorm could put the Mid-Atlantic and New England states under more than a foot of snow.
• In a 52-47 vote, the Senate has confirmed Jeff Sessions as Trump's Attorney General, the vote was entirely along party lines save for Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, who voted with the GOP.
• Opening statements are expected today in the Nevada trial over the 2014 armed standoff at the Bundy Ranch, Cliven Bundy and five others face conspiracy, weapons, and assault charges.
• Sweden may actually have too much renewable energy online, the market for the country's green power investments has crashed hard over the last four months.
• The House Science Committee is taking aim at climate science and the EPA, with GOP Chairman Lamar Smith of Texas outright accusing NOAA scientists of manipulating data.