Juliajms

I mentioned it a few days ago, but yes, this is beyond an ugly thing to do to people. The people who came up with this should be ashamed of themselves. Of course they will act surprised when the reports of physical and sexual abuse of little ones come rolling in.

It's not shocking, I just find it pretty disappointing in many instances. Eugene was definitely one of them. I remember when I couldn't wait to talk about each episode, but I don't really feel that way anymore. But hey, I still watch.

Yes, I do think it's deflection. The sad thing is some people will believe it.

I have a couple of acquaintances with family that are pro Trump. It's causing a major rift. What some people don't get is that this isn't a difference of opinion about economics that people can just get over. It's some people basically telling other people they don't have a right to exist in this country. How do you just get over that? DHS considering separating mothers and children at the boarder. This is so disgusting to me. Don't these people remember what it's like to be a child and how devastating it can be to be separated from your mother? If this happens you just know that the reports of child abuse will be rolling in a few months later. http://thehill.com/latino/322246-dhs-considering-separating-families-at-border-report

I keep seeing people talk about how much empathy and compassion Trump showed tonight. I'll confess I couldn't watch, but I'll never believe he posses those traits. Not after everything we've seen from him. Maybe he can fake it for a few mins, so can many psychopaths.

Truly, I can't keep up. It seems like it changes constantly. I was just reading a NYT article about how ICE feels like the handcuffs are off and they can deport anyone they want now.

I read this article a few hours ago, but since then things have changed and we aren't deporting everyone. Try to keep up. Kidding. Seriously though, I feel like things are so unstable. He floats one idea, the press covers it, but before the ink is dry he's changed his mind. It's insane.

That's pretty sad. I lived so close to Plant City when I lived in Florida. I used to love buying flats of strawberries from roadside markets. Its just sad to think of all those parents and children living in fear. I see Trump is going to propose some kind of immigration compromise, so we'll see how horrible it is. I guess it can't be worse than mass round ups.

I saw that Alan Dershowitz accused Keith Ellison of antisemitism, but I'll be honest, I couldn't figure out if it was true or a smear. I think AD has an interesting mind, but I don't entirely trust him.

Same. For the most part I don't care what they think. I suppose I side eye the few that are Trump supporters. I certainly think celebrities have the same right to express their views as anyone, but I'm pretty turned off by celebrity culture overall. Fame and talent has allowed some people to get away with far too much for me not to be sickened by it on some level.

I agree Trump doesn't care. I think it's Bannon who cares about people being the right kind of white. Like I've said if you really look at the Syrian refugees a lot of them are white (some with light hair and eyes even), but they aren't Christian, so this administration doesn't care if they die. I also agree with @rhinohide that we can't just hope the Trump administrations total failure will automatically result in a resurgence for the Democrats. It's tempting, but I think it's critical to have a great candidate and solid ideas.

I've tried and in some ways I do, but when I see people getting shot like that guy in Kansas it gets harder and harder.

Me too. It's going to be really frustrating if the Democrats can't get it together for the next couple of election cycles.

I think this is really one of the major dilemmas the original recipe ACA faces. Without the mandate and the power (fine) to back it up some healthy people will just opt out. I don't blame them because when you are living hand to mouth like that you tend to live in the moment when it comes to finances. However that raises the prices for other people and makes the whole thing unworkable. I'm sure there are ways around that, but not ones a Republican congress will pass. I'm pretty skeptical that tax credits will help people who aren't already well into the middle class, but I'll wait to see what actually gets passed. I've never been more grateful to have employer based insurance, but at the same time most of us are one job loss away from needing the ACA to fall back on.

Jones’s presentation was repeatedly interrupted by comments about killing Muslims from Frank del Valle, a staunchly anticommunist Cuban immigrant, with little or no pushback from the others in the room. “Can we not kill them all?” Del Valle asked, about 15 minutes into the presentation, during a discussion about the differences between the Sunni and Shia sects of Islam. Since Trump was elected I've been worried that various groups would join the white supremacists in scapegoating Muslims, so this story is pretty horrifying to me. I guess we should just be thankful that 45 wasn't President during 9/11. W screwed a lot of things up, but I think he quelled the Muslim hate instead of leading the charge.

I almost invested in CCA, before I understood how bad private prisons are. My husband convinced me it's blood money and since then I've learned he couldn't have been more right. Not that my pittance makes any difference, but just for my own peace of mind I'm glad I never had any part in it. To think these people are making policy that will imprison more people and then making money from it is seriously sick. I'm not sure, but I do know that the legislature has come close to over turning his tax plan, so even some of the Republicans realize it's a complete disaster. Of course, Brownback vetoed it. Some people can never admit when they completely f*cked up.

The implosion of the Kansas economy continues, but I doubt the Republicans will take the warning. http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/02/sam-brownback-kansas-tax-cuts-donald-trump

Bill Maher on video defending sex between a 35 year old teacher and a 12 year old boy. "How can a woman rape a man?" http://thehill.com/homenews/media/320680-video-bill-maher-condoned-sex-between-35-year-old-woman-12-year-old-boy

The only thing that surprises me is that Betsy DeVos tried to stand against him.

^ I've wondered the same thing. I remembering hearing on one of the news shows that Trump can limit the number of refugees to 50,000 as has been announced and that we are basically at that number for the year anyway. I'm not sure what that means for the Syrians who were on track to come though. Hopefully they can get in. I think it's basically a myth the the majority of the American public has ever been welcoming to new comers. At the same time at least we do take a large number of people overall and there are a lot of good people who work hard to help people settle in. There are plenty of countries who won't take anyone, including Japan. Abe was quoted not that long ago saying something along the lines of 'We need to get our native population growing before we can take in other people'. Meanwhile their economy has been floundering for years in part because they have negative population growth. Pure madness and if Bannon has his way we'll be headed down the same path. http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/01/japan-rejected-99-percent-refugees-2015-160124070011926.html

I'm glad. No one should be giving him a platform, imo. If the last year has taught us anything it should be that giving these people a platform just spreads the hate. It's sad that people can be so easily influenced but the uptick in hate crimes makes it pretty obvious that's the case. The bad news is that in the case of Yiannopoulos, he's gotten enough attention that he's like a banned book. People will seek him out more now. As to the pedophilia comments, you'd think a gay man would know better than to validate the myth that homosexuals tend to go after children. Then again he's basically a whore. He'll say anything he thinks will bring money and attention.

Anti Muslim hate groups have tripled with Trump's rise. No surprise, but he really has unleashed so much ugliness in people. http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/02/anti-muslim-groups-america-tripled-alongside-trump

This is one facet of what I'm thinking. We're told that a lot of these people are older whites who are going to die off. I'm sure that's true to some degree, although people have been saying that since the 60's. At the same time, look at that whole Gamer Gate debacle. I'm sure a lot of the guys involved in that were Bernie Bros. They aren't old, uneducated people by any stretch, quite the opposite, but there is a deep streak of misogyny and racism in that group. I'm more wondering if government is going to go back to normal? Will our next president be a decent person or are we in for more of these people who just want to make a buck from the office. It feel like things are coming apart at the seems, but maybe it felt like that during the Nixon administration as well. I don't really know.

I wonder if once Trump is gone, if things will go back to normal? At first I was assuming that we just had to endure four years and then we'd get a normal president and life would go on as it always has. I'm still hoping for that, but I'm less sure. On another note 48 JCC's have been hit with bomb threats: http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/16/living/jcc-bomb-threats-anti-semitism/index.html And as we've talked about before Trump's own base benefits the most from the very anti poverty programs the Republicans are itching to kill. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/02/gop-base-poverty-snap-social-security/516861/?utm_source=atltw

^ Yep. One of the smartest things President Obama did was resist the pressure to get more involved in that conflict.