Sunday, April 15, 2018

"Getting Crueler, Smaller, Uglier" — "And We're Being Led Into War by a Corrupt President"








The anti-Muslim rhetoric in virtually every state reflects the general coarsening of political speech in the anything-goes era of President Donald Trump, who’s lashed out at Mexicans, Muslims, African Americans, women, and other targets. Still, the jabs at Islam are set apart by their sheer ugliness as well as by companion efforts aimed at restricting Muslim civil liberties and immigration. Muslim groups worry that politicians' unchecked vilification of a religion followed by more than 3.3 million Americans opens the door for even bigger blows than the travel ban. 
"It has become an acceptable plank within the Republican Party to demonize Muslims," said Robert McCaw, government affairs director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, the nation’s largest Muslim advocacy group. 

The following are the start and finish of a very good Twitter thread by Fred Clark that I recommend to you — about how we've changed as a nation and what we're becoming:






A 14-year-old African-American boy stopped to ask for directions to school in a Detroit suburb but was shot at instead, according to prosecutors. 
Retired firefighter Jeffery Zeigler, 53, who is white, was arraigned on Friday "on assault with intent to murder and felony firearm" charges, according to the Oakland County Sheriff's Office.



We are making war in Syria. We are not "intervening." We are not engaging "pinpricks." We are not "sending a message" or, worse, "holding Assad responsible" for what he has done to his own people. (This latter bit seems to have been the banality of choice for Democratic politicians.) We are making war in Syria and we are killing Syrians, and perhaps Kurds and Russians, too. Not as many as Assad has killed, but we now have a body count in that country, too. This was kicking the hornet's nest. Again. Let us at least be honest about that as subsequent events unfold. 
And, of course, there's also the fact that we are being led at the moment by a corrupt and incompetent president* who has law-enforcement coming at him from all sides and who, only a week ago, was saying that he wasn't going to do what he just did. He then announced his intention to attack a day in advance.







Josh Marshall, "Choose Your Caption":

This photo from today captures a lot.

The photo of Michael Cohen by Yana Paskova of Getty Images is featured in Josh Marshall's article linked above.

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