July 24, 2016

NYT columnist Nicholas Kristof asks "Is Donald Trump a Racist?," looks for concrete evidence, and finds it.

Many people are just incanting Trump is a racist and expecting you to already know and be on the same page, but I'm not that kind of go-along-to-get-along person. (Ironically, the go-along-to-get-along person is, in a different context, amenable to racism and to following a demagogue and so forth, so I'm happy with my standing apart from the Trump-is-a-racist crowd.)

But Nicholas Kristof, in a short column, undertakes to assemble the evidence, looking at nearly half a century of Trump's very extensive activities in this world. Kristof concludes that Trump is, indeed, a racist, but what matters is the evidence. By presenting evidence, Kristof puts us in a position to judge for ourselves. He also exposes himself to our judgment if his assessment of the evidence is biased. How much evidence do you need before you see — as Kristof does — "a narrative arc, a consistent pattern" that can't be called anything "else... but racism"?

For that great length of time, there should be an awful lot to amount to a consistent pattern, so let's look at Kristof's evidence:

1. In 1973, when Trump was 27 and working with his father, the Nixon administration Justice Department sued the Trump organization for housing discrimination. The government used testers, and, as Kristof puts it: "Repeatedly, the black person was told that nothing was available, while the white tester was shown apartments for immediate rental." The lawsuit was settled, and: "Three years later, the government sued the Trumps again, for continuing to discriminate." Kristof doesn't say how that lawsuit was resolved, and he concedes that Trump "inherited" whatever the policy was. Kristof does not talk about whether there is evidence of discrimination after the mid-1970s, after Trump is out from under his father's dominance. And Kristof — I think quite unfairly — gives absolutely no attention to the absence of evidence.  If Donald Trump began in a business where excluding black people was the norm, and he ended that discrimination, avoiding even accusations, that should count as an achievement, and the failure to notice this is evidence of bias in Kristof.

2. Trump took out an ad in 1989, saying that the 5 teenagers who were convicted of raping and beating the "Central Park jogger" deserved the death penalty we should bring back the death penalty. You can read the ad here. It resonates with today's politics. ("What has happened to our City... What has happened to law and order...?") There's nothing racial in the text — other than a mention of the "families — White, Black, Hispanic and Asian" — who are suffering from the "muggers and murderers" who plague the city. But, Kristof tells us, the 5 who were convicted in the Central Park jogger case were "black and Latino." Kristof accuses Trump of "whipping up the crowds" in "a modern version of a lynching," but the young men were brought to trial and prosecuted, and the problem of law and order in New York was very real. Somebody raped that woman and left her naked, tortured, and in a coma. In those decades, New York was a scary place, and a person going into Central Park at night was considered a fool. I was a woman living in the city in those days. It was a very different place, where you were supposed to be smart and know that you were always in danger. Donald Trump spoke out about that. In later years, the men who were convicted — and who confessed — obtained their release because they did not match the DNA from the victim. This was a complex and important incident in which Trump played a role. Was that role racist? Decide for yourself. Is it part of a "consistent pattern" of racism? It's unlike everything else on this list. And by the way, does Trump get credit for vigilance about violence against women?

3. One former Trump casino worker, back in the 1980s, was quoted in The New Yorker saying: "When Donald and Ivana came to the casino, the bosses would order all the black people off the floor. … They put us all in the back." So, there's hearsay from one person about what was a practice purportedly involving many other persons. Has anyone ever produced the evidence that this was a real practice or tried to figure out who demanded the practice? Where are all the lawsuits about he mistreatment of black employees in the many establishments Trump's organization ran? You just have one man saying something back in the 80s! That's the absence of a pattern. 

4. There is a book written in 1991 that has a quote from Trump complaining about one black accountant and calling him lazy and then making a racial wisecrack: "And it’s probably not his fault, because laziness is a trait in blacks. It really is, I believe that. It’s not anything they can control." Trump denies saying that, but even if it's true, where's the pattern? He made one regrettable racial joke a quarter century ago! If you're proving a pattern, shouldn't you have at least 25 racist jokes? I'd say there's an amazing lack of material like this. Has Hillary ever, in her 7 decades of life, remarked, after criticizing an individual, that maybe he couldn't help it, because he belongs to a group that people think of as having a particular characteristic? Are we going to label "racist" anyone who's ever said one thing like that, even decades ago? We could all sign the "Everybody's a little bit racist" confession, but then what? Why are we losing our minds over Trump being racist?

5. Trump made a show of demanding to see Obama's birth certificate. Obama was running for President and needed to meet the constitutional requirement that he's a natural born citizen. Is that racist? Because Obama is black? Because the possible other country of birth is in Africa?

6. There's Trump's statement that people entering the country illegally from Mexico are "in many cases, criminals, drug dealers, rapists." Kristof concedes that "Latinos can be of any race," so "technically" it's "not so much racism as bigotry."

7. There's the call for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the country. Again, as Kristof concedes, that's not "technically" racism.

8. Trump didn't distance himself quickly and decisively enough from from the Ku Klux Klan in a television interview.

9. Trump retweeted some things: "a graphic suggesting that 81 percent of white murder victims are killed by blacks (the actual figure is about 15 percent)," "messages from white supremacists or Nazi sympathizers."

That's it. That's all the evidence Kristof put together — from an event-filled half century career — and which he reads as "a narrative arc, a consistent pattern." Judge for yourself.

189 comments:

tim in vermont said...

My daughter attended an 90+% black middle school. When Bush was running, it was widely believed among the students that Bush was going to get rid of "all of the black people working in the White House." So the casino thing sounds like an urban legend.


Did he mention that Trump raised a lot of hackles in Palm Beach by allowing Jews and Blacks into his club? That was certainly not the practice at the time.

But Althouse herself accused Trump of appealing to evangelicals through racism, so isn't she more the prosecutor here than the defense?

Steve said...

Trump bought a golf course and opened membership to black and Jewish golfers while the Clintons were still members of a segregated country club.

sane_voter said...

Ann, you double posted this.

MikeR said...

double post here?

Anonymous said...

Ok, so Trump's only a bigot.

traditionalguy said...

Surprise, surprise. Trump is abhorrent in the eyes of the NYT

Dude1394 said...

Very nice to see this Dr. Althouse. Although you do not declare it so, your highlighting of this article finds the evidence wanting. But I would have expected that.

Ann Althouse said...

Sorry about the double posting. Blogger software has started doing this lately.

I deleted the other post, which had one comment on it:

AReasonableMan said...

"The railroading of the five teenagers convicted of raping and beating the "Central Park jogger" was a disgraceful miscarriage of justice that was, at least in part, driven by racism. The Donald was certainly not the only one at fault but it was not one of his finest moments. To suggest, as Althouse does, that the coerced confessions somehow ameliorates this failure is a complete disgrace and suggests some bias on the part of Althouse."

Etienne said...

I replied too, but got an error. I thought maybe my reply was too racist...

HT said...

Is Donald Trump a racist? He's a sociopath, that's all I need to know.

No way will I vote for a return to Wallace-like days. Been there, done that. Have fun with your petty Yankee dictator, yall.

Jersey Fled said...

Pretty weak soup to be calling someone a racist.

But then again, to a liberal a racist is anyone they disagree with.

Ann Althouse said...

To respond to A Reasonable Man...

What I am saying is that there was a prosecution where evidence was presented under the rules of evidence and the confessions were admitted and evaluated by a jury that found them guilty. It's only because of later-developing DNA evidence that the result was changed.

Trump could only be reading the news of the time like everyone else. What was racist about his ad? And if there is an element of racism, from 30 years ago, how does it make up a pattern of racism?

We're being sticklers for evidence here, right?

Anonymous said...

It was a very different place, where you were supposed to be smart and know that you were always in danger.

Althouse, prepare for boycotts of your classes, you rape culture apologist. Women should not be blamed for doing stupid stuff and getting raped. Teach Men not to rape!!!

Sebastian said...

“the failure to notice this is evidence of bias in Kristof” “Failure to notice”? Evidence of bias in the NYT? Goodness gracious, what is the world coming to.

“And by the way, does Trump get credit for vigilance about violence against women?” Hey, we can all play this game. Fill in the blanks: does GOPer x get credit for progressive stance y? Or here’s a fun variation, perfect for mixed company: does Dem x get blamed for violation of progressive standard y?

“You just have one man saying something back in the 80s! That's the absence of a pattern.” So nice of you to notice – but faux indignation, right?

“He made one regrettable racial joke a quarter century ago! If you're proving a pattern, shouldn't you have at least 25 racist jokes?” Nuh-uh. Once a racist, always a racist. If you’re not a Dem (see game above). I mean, Mittens bullied someone in high school, and put a dog on the roof of his car. What more do you need to know about these GOP characters?

“Kristof concedes that "Latinos can be of any race," so "technically" it's "not so much racism as bigotry."” OK, sure, as long as they profess allegiance to la Raza.

sane_voter said...

Next week ole Nick K will tells us about the animal abuser Trump, when he left his cat outside one night and it went hungry, and when his goldfish died a lonely death and he flushed it down the toilet.

Bay Area Guy said...

Typical left smear. Scour the Internet to find a few glimpses, glimmers, nuggets, anecdotes, of a public man's entire life, find a few, wrap them up in a bow, present it to gullible NY Times readers with the stamp of racism.

On the other hand, the Democrat Senate Minority/Majority Leader in the 1980s was Sen. Robert Byrd - a former member of the KKK.

Nobody seemed to mind. Was Ted Kennedy a racist for supporting Byrd? Is Nick Kristoff a racist for not sufficiently condemning Byrd? Did the NY Times express any opposition to racist Robert Byrd?

sane_voter said...

Also I am sure there is someone from Trump's boarding school who will bring up a hazing incident from 50+ years ago.

David Begley said...

Lawyer and law professor Ann Althouse more or less uses the same rhetorical device as Chris Christie did in his speech but Althouse is more analytical.

Verdict: Not guilty.

And consider this. Nicky baby is one of the best the NYT has and that was the best he could do. Pathetic.

Yancey Ward said...

Yes, that column tells us more about Kristof than it does about Trump.

The racism card is becoming increasingly toothless.

Greg Hlatky said...

One Kristof column you won't be reading: looking for and finding concrete evidence to the question "Are the Clintons money-grubbing crooks?"

Laslo Spatula said...

Lamar Gonna Set You Straight....

What the Fuck is Wrong with you White People? You pat yourselves on the back all proud for calling other White People racist -- do you not realize that don't mean shit to me? You feel good now? Like you actually did something? You know how it affects me, a black man? It don't change MY Life one fucking bit. YOU ALL ARE RACIST. You're all like bitch ho's arguing about who is the skankiest...

You all try to get one over each other by calling Racism, like us Blacks should be thankful or something. You know what? Leave me the Fuck out of it. I don't give a fuck about Global Warming. I don't give a fuck about transsexuals. I don't give a fuck about white women earning less than white men. Go ahead and argue THAT shit amongst yourselves, and just stay out of the Black Man's way...

You think you got Problems? Fuck You.

I am Laslo.

HT said...

Whole lotta forest-missing going on.

mockturtle said...

Another feeble attempt by the NYT to influence public opinion.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

The racism card is becoming increasingly toothless.

This is correct. When practically everything is either racist or somehow offensive to the SJW crowd, then nothing is racism. Bringing a Devil's Food Cake to work is racist. Asking someone where they are from is somehow racist. Common words and phrases are racist or offensive. Speaking about papers in the office disappearing into a black hole = racist. Peanut butter and jelly sandwich lunches are deemed racist. On the other hand....oooops that is a bad thing to say now too because maybe someone somewhere may not have two hands.

Geez. It just goes on and on to the point when you hear the racism card being slammed onto the table...you just go...ho hum....whatever.

The danger is that real racism which does exist, will be overlooked because we are all so numb and tired of the false claims.

Fernandinande said...

Shiny new version of a witchfinder.

pm317 said...

Laslo's Lamar has it right.

Gahrie said...

Get back to me when there is an accusation that Trump said of a major Black candidate:

"A few years ago, this guy would have been getting us coffee,



YoungHegelian said...

Trump can never match Hillary's tender reach across the ethnic, racial, & religious divide, what with phrases of healing such as fucking Jew bastard.

Gahrie said...

This attempt by Kristof is sad for several reasons. One of the saddest things is that a so called journalist is doing second rate hit pieces against a candidate for president. However, what is sadder is that this type of behavior is still effective with the Democratic base. It is all about getting the Democratic base angry and scared at White men, and describing the republicans as the party of White men. That is why the Left spends so much time and effort in de-legitimizing any minority who is a Conservative, or rejects the message of fear and hate.

Anonymous said...

When Trump says Muslims should be made to register with the government it's only bigotry, maybe a little Islamaphobia too.

Tommy Duncan said...

A desperate attempt to damage Trump as Hillary sinks. If you are willing to dig deeply and torture the facts vigorously you can always manufacture an accusation. Once you have an accusation the left wingers can quote it endlessly.

“A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.”

― Mark Twain

Michael said...

"A narrative arc." Pretty funny. The employment of a literary cliche in support of a thin thesis. So perfect. So utterly perfect.

Chuck said...

I don't understand why anyone would waste their time debating a New York Times take on Donald Trump. It's like debating Trump with Rachel Maddow or Lawrence O'Donnell. Your chances of making any headway are <0%.

Why not address the complaints of the holdout Republicans who Trump must obtain in order to have any chance in November?

The first job of any candidate is to ask for votes. The second job of a candidate is to ask potential supporters what he must do, to get those votes.

We all know that the Trumpkins will support The Donald even if he shoots somebody in the middle of Fifth Avenue. They won't turn their backs on him no matter what. So what Trump should be doing is appealing to all of the Republicans whose votes he never got in the primaries. Remember; there has never been a Republican nominee in modern history who got more primary votes... cast against him.

HT said...

Get back to me when there is an accusation that Trump said of a major Black candidate:

"A few years ago, this guy would have been getting us coffee,
______________________________________________

That was at best a paraphrase, not a direct quotation. Verifying that has been difficult. I have no doubt, however, that Clinton has not always been wise or politic in his statements and feelings about African Americans. Indeed, I sense a certain sense of entitlement not to be challenged by them, in his demeanor including the tarmac incident. But that is just my sense of things which is neither here nor there. But that is not the totality of him as a person, and neither is anything impolitic Trump said about the central park 5 representative of who he is as a person. That is why I think these discussions - and most posts here about Trump - are totally missing the forest for the trees.

So, like I said, have fun with your Yankee dictator.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Althouse said ...
In later years, the men who were convicted — and who confessed — obtained their release because they did not match the DNA from the victim.


These are weasel words. It was a coerced confession and they obtained their release because they were innocent of this assault/rape. The truly terrible thing here is that the false indictments/convictions took the public pressure off the NYC police to find the actual perpetrator. He went on to rape and assault four other women and kill one of them. Those rapes, assaults and the murder were avoidable with a more professional and less emotional approach to this case.

Ann Althouse said...

"I replied too, but got an error. I thought maybe my reply was too racist..."

You must have got caught at the point I was choosing to delete the duplicate, or I would have saved yours too. Please repost if you can.

Gahrie said...

When Trump says Muslims should be made to register with the government it's only bigotry, maybe a little Islamaphobia too.

What the fuck is irrational about being scared of Muslims today? The irrational ones are the ones on the Left insisting that Islam is a religion of peace willing to co-exist with anyone else.

Do you want to wear a Burkha? Show me one Islamic country you would be willing to move to......

Bruce Hayden said...

Dems are getting desperate here. A big nothing burger. With the many thousands of people working for him over the years, and some money get be racist? Pretty silly standard. Dems are worried because they need black turnout to compensate for all the whites they lost. And calling your opponent racist worked for Obama, so why shouldn't it work for Crooked Hillary. Except she isn't half Black.

Kristof should be more interested at whether Crooked Hillary is the racist instead. After all, she is the one who will be representing the racist party. The party that has been oppressing blacks for two centuries. Founded by slave owners, it backed slavery for its first half century, followed by a century of Jim Crow, lynchings, and the KKK, and then a half century of Black family breakup and increasing violent crime rate thanks to the party's subsidization of and glorification of single parenting. The Republican Party freed the slaves, and has a long history of color blindness. Far, far, more Dem Klan members than were ever Republican ones. My guess is that we are talking 99% Dems since the founding of the organization.

So, we know that the Clintons belonged to a whites only country club when Trump opened his one up in Florida. But how did she treat the heavily Black White House staff when she lived there? By all accounts, horribly, just like she treated all the rest of the "help" there horribly, ranging from the Secret Service to the maids changing her bedding. Did she put on a Christmas party for the staff there, like The Bush First Ladies did? Or know their names and stuff about their families? How many of them who were there 16 years ago are going to vote for her to return? They know that they will be treated much better by the Trumps. Probably not Bush level nice, but still much nicer. We know that Crooked Hillary is a sexist from the disparate pay her female employees. How about Black employees? Does she have 20% or so?

Gahrie said...

So, like I said, have fun with your Yankee dictator.

You mean Hillary?

shiloh said...

On the bright side for Trump, being a racist is the least of his problems ie he was never gonna get the minority vote regardless.

The much bigger problem, Republicans and more importantly Rep politicians think er know he's a frickin' train wreck!

>

Everything has to do with the bottom line w/Trump ie if he lets Blacks rent apts. property values may go down. Whites may move out, etc. so not racism per se, rather greed!

It 's strictly business!

Anonymous said...

The real reason American Jews won't be voting for Trump

pm317 said...

If Laslo's Lamar was Al Sharpton, he would be singing a different tune.

Ipso Fatso said...

Ann, here is another way to judge Kristof's credibility: Would he ever write a similar column about Hillary Clinton, or for that matter any Democrat and hold them to the same standards that he does Trump? My guess is (I don't have access to Kristof's columns and I suspect you don't either)that he would not which means he is without credibility.

Bob Boyd said...

Is Hillary Clinton a Crook?
Assemble the evidence, Mr. Kristoff. Is there a narrative arc? A consistent pattern?

Anonymous said...

Gahrie, be scared of Muslims all you want to, makes no difference to me. Registering Americans who practice a certain religion however is unconstitutional and repugnant.

Alan said...

With all due respect to the eminent and redoubtable Prof Dr Althouse, the fact that nobody else seems to be talking about this this morning suggests that it is, in fact, very thin gruel composed of lots of innuendo embedded in almost no context. The fact that for the first time in several generations we have a candidate who is an actual doer, a builder as opposed to a classical mealy mouthed politician, is going to drive the NYT nuts. Prepare for many more broadsides.

Wince said...

Oh, and there's the time Trump categorized minorities as "Super-predators".

And the time his Justice Dept blocked an Iranian American immigration judge from hearing the cases of Iranian immigrants.

YoungHegelian said...

@Heide,

Your Ha'aretz article is behind a paywall, so it's tough to read it.

But, I can imagine what Yoffie says, because it's pretty much what Yoffie always says.

It's interesting that while Reform, Conservative, & secular Jews always seem to see the latest Republican presidential candidate as just itching to start up the pogroms again, somehow their Orthodox brethren just don't seem to see it that way.

I wonder why that is, that the people who are the most visibly & separately Jewish, seem not to share in that fear of all things Republican.

Hagar said...

It is rude to ask strangers where they are from, but there are not many people who can refrain from asking me that as soon as they hear my accent. Sometimes I just tell them "far north Texas."

It is even ruder to hear my accent and asking me if I came from Sweden. Or Germany, or Switzerland, or Holland, all countries that Americans seem to have difficulty distinguishing from Norway.

And I sometimes get asked to get things down from the top shelf in the supermarket without anyone mistaking me for a store employee. The last time by a little very black lady, who obviously had things on her mind to tell the management about putting the things she wanted up that high, but she thanked me very graciously.

Bruce Hayden said...

I think that the Klan thing is one of the most egregious things in the continuing saga of trying to tar leaders of the party that freed the slaves and fought the organization for a century with their racism. Which party had a former Klan leader as an exalted leader in the Senate until just recently? Was Sen Bob "Sheets" Byrd received gracefully in the Clinton White House, or refused entry because of his former racism? The future Dem Senate President Pro Tem? We all know the answer. But the other part of this is that for all intensive purposes, the organization is mostly defunct. No one cares about them except Dem operatives like Kristof trying to tar Republicans with their own racism. If the NBP and Klan were to meet today, who do you think would walk away? Just aren't enough Klan members left to matter, even after nearly eight years of President Obama.

Gahrie said...

Gahrie, be scared of Muslims all you want to, makes no difference to me. Registering Americans who practice a certain religion however is unconstitutional and repugnant.

I don't think we should register them, but I don't see any difference between registering Muslims and registering gun owners, something I'm sure you believe in.

Islam is not just a religion and cannot be treated as such. Islam is a political ideology that demands that its adherents follow its dictates both on religious issues and secular issues. Islam explicitly rejects the separation of church and state, and is incompatible with western Civilization. The goals and tactics of Islam are no different than Communism...world domination and subjugation.

You don't have to believe me, just read the Koran, Hadith and Sura and listen to Islamic scholars. Western Civilization has been defending itself against Muslim aggression for nearly 1,500 years..the current terrorism is nothing new if you read history. Islamic immigration to the west is nothing less than a hostile invasion.

We can, and should ban Islamic immigration, and should deport any Muslim residents who support Sharia and who are not citizens.

Anonymous said...

YH,
Oh damn, sorry about that. Just don't call me a bitch again....

William said...

The Central Park Five are not the Scottsboro Boys. At about the same time and at about the same place that the jogger was being raped these youths were assaulting random strangers. It was neither racist nor unreasonable to assume that they might have participated in the rape. They were probably innocent of the rape, but they fell under suspicion because of their own misdeeds and not because of their race......I used to jog the drive in Central Park after dark on a regular basis. I had a sense of safety because joggers don't carry money, and there's not much point in mugging a penniles, half naked man. Despite that, I was assaulted on two separate occasions by groups of several black kids. I'm of robust size and the attack was half hearted so I suffered no harm. The assaults, nonetheless, were scary and enfuriating. I'm pretty sure that race was part of the motivation of my attackers. I'm also sure that if I complain too much about the attackers I will be accused of racism.....Life is instructive of many useful lessons, and the moral is not to look for a moral.

Anonymous said...

Gahrie, owning a gun isn't the same as practicing a religion, now is it? As for banning American Muslims who believe in Sharia, how will it be done? Some test?

Lewis Wetzel said...

Kristof never gets around to defining what he means by the word 'racist.' The closest he gets to defining the term is at the end:

Here we have a man who for more than four decades has been repeatedly associated with racial discrimination or bigoted comments about minorities, some of them made on television for all to see. While any one episode may be ambiguous, what emerges over more than four decades is a narrative arc, a consistent pattern — and I don’t see what else to call it but racism.

So racism is a 'narrative arc'?
This is witch-hunt territory.

Gahrie said...

Gahrie, owning a gun isn't the same as practicing a religion, now is it?

Why not?

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof

the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

HT said...

"I'm pretty sure that race was part of the motivation of my attackers."

"They were probably innocent of the rape, but they fell under suspicion because of their own misdeeds and not because of their race......"

Got it, thanks.

YoungHegelian said...

@Hagar,

It is rude to ask strangers where they are from, but there are not many people who can refrain from asking me that as soon as they hear my accent

Well, any country that produced the Vikings & lutefisk does have a lot to answer for, you gotta admit.

buwaya said...

If you want an argument for Trump, or against Clinton, you principled cpnservatives (extremely lazy and blind conservatives, and not a bit like conservatives used to be, back when they became so by doing their own homework), have a look at James Bessens article in the Harvard Business Review, if too dumb and lazy to have kept up.
This sort of thing is what, for instance, Peter Thiel has been on about for years.

n.n said...

Class diversity schemes actively deny individual dignity and were established as institutional policies to discriminate between people based on their race, sex, skin color, etc. for purposes of Democrat leverage. The class of liberals, progressives, and libertarians, too, who adopt the pro-choice religious/moral philosophy are sanctimonious hypocrites in principle and in practice. The New York Times should step back and look in the mirror. The have met the bigots, it is them.

Bruce Hayden said...

Crooked Hillary shill HeidiCruise (no profile) is at it again. Trump hasn't proposed registering American Muslims. Rather, he wants to stop their immigration until they can be vetted. And send back the ones we have here who haven't been. Big difference here, but apparently not big enough for you to notice. Muslim Syrian refugees are esp problematic right now, given the strength of ISIS there. But throughout the Middle East is worrisome. Esp with the terrorist groups there admitting that they are sending trained terrorists here (and to Europe) mixed in with actual refugees. The Obama Administration knows that trained Muslim terrorists are being lowed into this country by their policies, and don't care. You appear not to either.

Gahrie said...

As for banning American Muslims who believe in Sharia, how will it be done? Some test?

First of all, I never said you could ban American Muslims.....you have to throw them in jail instead. I support deporting non-American Muslims and banning the further immigration of Muslims.

As for their belief in Sharia...judge them by their words and actions.

gadfly said...

@HT said...
Is Donald Trump a racist? He's a sociopath, that's all I need to know.


Just another word for pathological liar, a condition that is readily attributable to narcissistic and solipsistic people.

Somebody that I have never heard of said: "Deceit is the linchpin of conscienceless behavior." If Trump has a conscience, he certainly has never displayed it.

Althouse asks: And by the way, does Trump get credit for vigilance about violence against women?
Not if the accusation made under oath by Ivana is true!

buwaya said...

Also, I wonder if there is sonething on Kristof in the DNC emails. Maybe in next weeks tranche.
The NYT probably takes its directives from a parallel system though.

Gahrie said...

If Trump has a conscience, he certainly has never displayed it.

Please show me once in their forty year careers, where either Clinton has ever shown any evidence that either of them have a conscience.

YoungHegelian said...

I also await Kristof's trenchant analysis of the influence of the racist New Black Panthers on the Black Lives Matter movement. Or, the black racism in Cone's Black Liberration Theology, since after all Pres. Obama sat there in the pew for 20 years at a Black Liberation church.

I mean, if we're going to dig deep to build "narrative arcs", then, by gumbers, let's build narrative arcs by the boatload!

policraticus said...

It seems to me that Trump is no more racist than most other rich, white men of his age and upbringing. He probably has hard wired prejudices that he works hard to overcome. I am sure he occasionally will give voice to opinions that could be understood as racist, either explicitly so or by inference. But I also think he is able to examine those statements and recognize that they are irrational and then set them aside. He is the vanilla of racism.

Of all the troubling, even frightening things about Donald Trump, the dual bete noirs of modern progressives, racism and homophobia, are the very least worrisome parts of his personality. In my opinion.

William said...

Jung Chan wrote a biography of Mao that was reviewed in the NYT Book Review by St. Nck. In her book, Jung extrapolated population figures and claimed that Mao's various famines and purges caused the deaths of seventy million Chinese. Ole Nick & Tuck said that such figures were a gross exaggeration. By his sober reckoning, Mao was only responsible for twenty million deaths. He didn't quite say that it was all worth it, but he noted that the women in China are more liberated than the women in Japan and that this was because of Mao's revolution.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

It's interesting that while Reform, Conservative, & secular Jews always seem to see the latest Republican presidential candidate as just itching to start up the pogroms again, somehow their Orthodox brethren just don't seem to see it that way.

And what was the breakdown of reform/conservative/secular/orthodox Jews who had the foresight to get their asses out of Europe way before 1936 and those who "somehow didn't seem to see it that way?"

Anonymous said...

Trump is even bigoted to Iowans.

“How stupid are the people of Iowa?”

shiloh said...

Trump Told Oprah in 1988 Interview: Ivana Does Exactly As I Tell Her

Oprah then asked her: “He's not a chauvinist, is he?”

“Oh, he's the worst,” she replied.


Thank goodness he let's Melania be totally independent !@#$%^&*

>

As others have mentioned the past couple mos. ~ This presidential campaign will be highly entertaining!

buwaya said...

And Sharia law has nothing much to do with the Muslim problem.
Many of the objectionable traits and behaviors there have nothing to do with codified religious law at all, if anything these are egregious violations of their law.
The problem, like the rapes, murders, and agressive harassment/exploitation such as Rotherham, is a matter of tribal culture, a deep hostility to people outside the tribe.

Dave in Tucson said...

Lefty journalist claims Republican candidate racist.

In related news, dog bites man. Maybe the real headline should be "In growing desperation to keep minority voters from breaking ranks, Democrat water carriers play race card yet again."

Hagar said...

Shorter HT:
Anything registered Democrats say or do can be excused.
Anything Republicans, registered or not, say or do, or are rumored to have said or done, is clear evidence of their inborn moral depravity.

Anonymous said...

Bruce Hayden,
I was a shill for Bernie, get it right. Now I'm a "I'll vote for Hillary because Trump sucks so badly" shill.

I know who you shill for.

gadfly said...

Bruce Hayden thinks it is important for Blogger commentators to display their profile, which generally is meaningless stuff, but he would have us all believe what he considers to be Donald's position on Muslims. But Bruce is wrong - Trump wants the make the registration of Muslims and the restrictions on allowing their immigration to become a part of his policies.

HT said...

“You mean Hillary? “

Funny. No. But about that side of the equation - former Southern governor, benefiting from marital ties to get back into the top executive position, am I the only one who sees the bobbing up of Wallace again??

Gahrie said...

And Sharia law has nothing much to do with the Muslim problem.

Oh yes it does...do you want to live under sharia? Most Muslims do, even the ones living in the West. It is already gaining power and influence in Europe.


The problem, like the rapes, murders, and agressive harassment/exploitation such as Rotherham, is a matter of tribal culture, a deep hostility to people outside the tribe.


I agree that tribalism is a major problem, and not one restricted to Muslims. One of the major problems with our immigration policies is that they actually encourage tribalism, and we have eradicated Americanization.

YoungHegelian said...

@R&B,

And what was the breakdown of reform/conservative/secular/orthodox Jews who had the foresight to get their asses out of Europe way before 1936 and those who "somehow didn't seem to see it that way?"

Two points:

1) The breakdown of the Jewish community into Reform, Conservative, & Orthodox is a post-war American phenomenon. It has no applicability to pre-war eastern European Judaism.

2) The Jews who got out had nothing to do with their level of piety, but if they were wealthy & lived in western Europe as opposed to eastern. Do you think that even if the entire Jewish population of Poland & Lithuania had seen what was coming, they could have just picked up & left? And, go where? Even the few Jews that left had trouble emigrating, unless they were illustrious in their fields. But, poor Pinchas from the shtetl? He & his were fucked. No one cared.

HT said...

"shorter ht"

What?? What does that mean?

I don't understand your comment. Also, I don't really believe Trump is a Republican. It's the only way he could get the nomination.

Anonymous said...

Yes, let's not forget the misogyny.

"“You’re disgusting.”

To put this into context, Donald Trump said this to the opposing lawyer during a court case when she asked for a medical break to pump breast milk for her three-month-old daughter."


Read more at http://www.marieclaire.co.uk/blogs/550112/donald-trump-quotes.html#eHSV1rTiO8E0M7VV.99
Read more at http://www.marieclaire.co.uk/blogs/550112/donald-trump-quotes.html#zYrJtTiwZRSEoT6Q.99

Left Bank of the Charles said...

It's proved by Trump standards (Low Energy Jeb, Lying Ted, and Crooked Hillary).

Gahrie said...

Yes, let's not forget the misogyny.

You mean the misogyny that Hillary showed when she attacked the victims of her husband's sexual assaults?

pm317 said...

@Hagar, if you don't open your mouth, you are pretty safe. Me not so much, from the get go. I manage it by not going to 'those' places in the first place.

boycat said...

Why not address the complaints of the holdout Republicans who Trump must obtain in order to have any chance in November?

Like lyin' Ted? He not only doesn't need them, they are in fact in the nature of barnacles on the hull and must be gotten rid of.

gadfly said...

@Gahrie said...
If Trump has a conscience, he certainly has never displayed it.

Please show me once in their forty year careers, where either Clinton has ever shown any evidence that either of them have a conscience.


I never said a word about the Clintons, because this thread is about Donald Trump. But I agree with your statement even if it is not pertinent here.

But you do indirectly raise a question that is applicable here. So if T-rump cares about proper social behavior, why did he give $100K to the Clinton Crime Family Foundation and why did he schmooze up to Bill and Hill by attending Chelsea's wedding?

Laslo Spatula said...

Lamar Gonna Set You Straight....

See what I was saying? You all are PATHETIC. The fucking subject was Racism and you all are arguing back-and-forth over who the REAL Racists are, rather than where the Racism IS. Fuck, now you're even talking about the Muslims more than the Racism against Blacks: you keep playing musical chairs shit with us, and us Blacks know we're never gonna get the chance to sit down...

I get it: you're done thinking about us. Sure, you'll toss our salad a bit now and then, but now it's all about the Muslims and the Gays and the Transsexuals and the White Women. THAT'S who you White People feel comfortable about helping now, and -- except for the Muslims -- the others are really just White People with White People Problems: like we don't notice that shit...

As for the Muslims: fuck them -- us Blacks were here first. They ain't going to be living by you and Sally and Lance in the suburbs, they all gonna get forced next to us in the Ghetto, because that's what you White People do, you keep your problems as far away from you as possible. Fuck, next thing you'll probably do is outlaw Pork Rinds in the hood so you don't offend the Muslims. THAT is the Shit White People Do. Listen, Whitey: keep your fucking White Hands off MY Pork Rinds, bitches...

You think you got Problems? Fuck You.

I am Laslo.

n.n said...

There was a recent rape-rape incident involving blacks, Hispanics, and a female transgender/homosexual that did not fit the narrative and was quietly reported. There was another serial rape-rapist committed by a black male transgender/homosexual that also did not fit the narrative and was quietly reported. There is evidence for a pattern of behavior that liberals and progressive are conflicted by their pro-choice religious/moral philosophy that creates an insurmountable obstacle to reconcile moral and natural imperatives, and requires them to concoct and project ever greater fantasies of widespread [class] diversity. It's for the leverage.

John henry said...

Laslo said


Go ahead and argue THAT shit amongst yourselves, and just stay out of the Black Man's way...

Amen to that. Look what the "help" the demmies, and many repos, have given blacks has done for them. It has fucked them into a deeper hole that they had been in since emancipation.

Moynihan recommended "benign neglect" back in the 60s or 70s. That was just a hoity toity way of saying what Laslo just said.

And stay out of everybody else's way while you are at it.

(But give pony tail girl her Audi. I get so said hearing about her troubles)

John Henry

pm317 said...

Laslo, so Lamar is not a Black Muslim?

Gahrie said...

But you do indirectly raise a question that is applicable here. So if T-rump cares about proper social behavior, why did he give $100K to the Clinton Crime Family Foundation and why did he schmooze up to Bill and Hill by attending Chelsea's wedding?

Because he was a businessman doing business in a nation in which the government, elected officials, and politicians have too much control of the economy, and are allowed to pick winners and losers.

Bad Lieutenant said...

HeideCruise said...
The real reason American Jews won't be voting for Trump
7/24/16, 10:43 AM

This American Jew is. Check your privilege or something, hater!

John henry said...

Blogger Bruce Hayden said...

Dems are worried because they need black turnout

Deray Mckesson is head of Black Lives Matter. I saw a clip of him a week or two ago saying, essentially, "A pox on both parties. Blacks should sit this election out". He had finally woken up to the fact that by supporting Demmies so overwhelmingly, they had effectively sold out. If you have already been guranteed someone's vote, you don't have to do anything for them or even talk to them.

I had seen another black man few weeks ago saying something similar.

What happens to the Demmies if blacks do not turn out? This is a group that they can't afford to lose ownership of.

John Henry

rhhardin said...

Racist means anything today. What you want do know is did he treat blacks other than as individuals when in possession of complete information.

Paul said...

I have no doubt sometime, somewhere, somehow, everyone had said or do SOMETHING that can be construed as racism.

But lying, thieving, stealing, conniving.... well Hillary takes the cake, year after year after year.

YoungHegelian said...

@pm317,

Laslo, so Lamar is not a Black Muslim?

Hey, if Jews eat bacon, then maybe Lamar gets an exception or two.

I, too, loves me some barbecue pork rinds, even if the Mrs swears it smells like a bag of fart.

Jupiter said...

"Are we going to label "racist" anyone who's ever said one thing like that, even decades ago?"

We are going to label as racist anyone who is inconvenient.

bbkingfish said...

If you are a Trump supporter, I doubt that Kristof's article will convince you of anything, and I am not saying that it should. Suppoters are far more likely to believe Trump's denials than Krstoff's charges, almost no matter what the specific charge or how rote the denial.

However, I must say that I don't get why making the case that Trump is a racist is even necessary to disqualify him from serious consideration for the presidency.

It is plain on the surface that neither Trump, nor the GOP, wants anything to do with anyone who isn't white. I have been calling them the WPP (White People's Party) for decades now. There only were 18 african-americans among the 2,600+ RNC convention delegates, and who knows how few hispanics, asians, or muslims. Such exhibitions of whiteness are routine for Republican gatherings.

The GOP has exactly the party they want. The delegates represent the GOP constituencies perfectly, and Trump is their ideal candidate. He was elected with a record primary vote, in fact. GOPers love him, and they love his children.

But I don't understand why anyone would argue that Trump is racist, or why anyone would want to apply aggressively legalistic standards to a claim (Kristof's)that is extraneous at best to the larger question at hand.

Journalists get paid to write columns. Bloggers make money through clicks. What we are seeing here is a perfect example of their symbiotic relationship, where a writer and a blogger stir up a lot of dust and get paid for it, while neither of them have anything interesting or worthwhile to say.

buwaya said...

To go further into a tangent -
Sharia is not compatible with nearly any other system of customs or laws, especially as it (in many interpretations) claims precedence and applicability outside its community. However, it is the rare Muslim country that actually implements Sharia as such. There are pernicious effects and influences in the laws of many Muslim countries, but only in Saudi is Sharia substantially in effect.
The problems in the West, and elsewhere among the neighbors of Muslims, are the result of cultural traits that underly the Muslim religion, even if they arent necessarily codified in it. There is nothing in Sharia that makes it socially acceptable to kidnap your neighbors for ransom, if using a vague religious justification. There is nothing in Sharia that excuses mass sexual assault of host-nations women, but in those tribes it is socially acceptable. There is nothing in Sharia that calls for honor killings, though it may be required by tribal mores.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

The breakdown of the Jewish community into Reform, Conservative, & Orthodox is a post-war American phenomenon. It has no applicability to pre-war eastern European Judaism.

BS.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reform_Judaism#History

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baruch_Spinoza#History_of_reception

You're only correct on one out of four.

The percentage of prewar German (or Western European) Jews were not orthodox by 1933 was substantial.

The Jews who got out had nothing to do with their level of piety, but if they were wealthy & lived in western Europe as opposed to eastern. Do you think that even if the entire Jewish population of Poland & Lithuania had seen what was coming, they could have just picked up & left? And, go where? Even the few Jews that left had trouble emigrating, unless they were illustrious in their fields. But, poor Pinchas from the shtetl? He & his were fucked. No one cared.

Interesting assertion. Do you have a reference? "Seeing something coming" might have a variable range of visibility. "Over 2,000,000 Jews landed between the late 19th century and 1924, when the Immigration Act of 1924 restricted immigration." That's a bit in advance of 1933. Too early to see something coming? I don't think so. And many more would have come soon after, obviously. Methinks YH might see some benefit to adding a viewing of Fiddler on the Roof to his Jewish education.

From the same Wiki: "The suburbs facilitated the formation of new centers, as Jewish school enrollment more than doubled between the end of World War II and the mid-1950s, while synagogue affiliation jumped from 20% in 1930 to 60% in 1960; the fastest growth came in Reform and, especially, Conservative congregations." 20% congregational affiliation sounds pretty secular to me.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Trump is put under the microscope where half-truths and ancient history are all manipulated, stretched and magnified to fit the narrative.


Hillary's WHOLE truths are ignored, shriveled down, ignored again and again, and ultimately swept under the rug.

Waiting for the hard hitting journalists like Kristof at the increasingly irrelevant and bogus NYTimes, to examine the truth about their gal, Hillary.

Jupiter said...

AReasonableMan said...

"The railroading of the five teenagers convicted of raping and beating the "Central Park jogger" was a disgraceful miscarriage of justice that was, at least in part, driven by racism."

Here is what the assholes had to say about their own innocence;

Antron McCray: “We charged her. We got her on the ground. Everybody started hitting her and stuff. She was on the ground. Everybody stompin’ and everything. Then we got, each—I grabbed one arm, some other kid grabbed one arm, and we grabbed her legs and stuff. Then we all took turns getting on her, getting on top of her.”

Kevin Richardson: “Raymond [Santana] had her arms, and Steve [Lopez] had her legs. He spread it out. And Antron [McCray] got on top, took her panties off.”

Raymond Santana: “He was smackin’ her, he was sayin’, ‘Shut up, bitch!’ Just smackin’ her…I was grabbin’ the lady’s tits.”

Kharey Wise: “This was my first rape.”

Jupiter said...

Notice that he didn't say "Shut up, *white* bitch". So, at least the filthy vermin who raped her and beat her almost to death weren't racists.

John henry said...

Blogger bbkingfish said...

It is plain on the surface that neither Trump, nor the GOP, wants anything to do with anyone who isn't white.

See my comment above about McKesson and blacks selling their souls and votes to the Demmies.

The demmies do not have to care about blacks. They own the votes no matter what they do. All they need to do is talk a big game abouthow much they care and they get 90% of the vote. There is no need to actually do anything.

We could argue your point about the GOP but let's say that it is true. GOP knows they are not going to get a significant portion of the black vote no matter what they do. Blacks have sold themselves to the Demmies.

So why worry about them?

Blacks have painted themselves into this corner. Only blacks can unpaint themselves out.

John Henry

cubanbob said...

Rhythm and Balls said...
It's interesting that while Reform, Conservative, & secular Jews always seem to see the latest Republican presidential candidate as just itching to start up the pogroms again, somehow their Orthodox brethren just don't seem to see it that way.

And what was the breakdown of reform/conservative/secular/orthodox Jews who had the foresight to get their asses out of Europe way before 1936 and those who "somehow didn't seem to see it that way?"

7/24/16, 11:17 AM"

Sometimes you do make some intelligent comments and others off the top stupid. This being one of the more stupid ones. If every Jew in Europe in 1936 knew for a certainty what was coming where could they have gone? The UK? No.The US? FDR made sure that that was no. Canada? No. South America? No. Mandate Palestine? No. And that is assuming the USSR would let the Jews out (most of the Jews in Europe at the time lived either in Poland or the USSR). So your attempt at snark (the orthodox Jews vs the other Jews) just makes you look like a schmuck.

HT said...

Jupiter, what?

Rusty said...

AReasonableMan said...
Althouse said ...
In later years, the men who were convicted — and who confessed — obtained their release because they did not match the DNA from the victim.

These are weasel words. It was a coerced confession and they obtained their release because they were innocent of this assault/rape. The truly terrible thing here is that the false indictments/convictions took the public pressure off the NYC police to find the actual perpetrator. He went on to rape and assault four other women and kill one of them. Those rapes, assaults and the murder were avoidable with a more professional and less emotional approach to this case.

None of which, I'm sure you understand, Trump is responsible for.

cubanbob said...

As per the NYT being a racist is the worst possible thing, worse even than being a grifter, criminal and traitor. I'll take Kristoff's word that Trump is a racist when he also acknowledges that Hillary is a grifter, criminal and traitor. Besides when has being a racist or anti-Semite ever stopped Democrats for voting for them?

Fernandinande said...

I saw a video with a guy quoting "racist" statements made by either Billary or Trump and then asking people which of the two made the statements.

They all answered "Trump", but all the statements were made by Billary.

So I tried to find it again by googling [comedy political video "racist" "statements" "trump" "clinton"], and got these witchfinders:

No Joke: Seth Meyers Really Hates Donald Trump - The Daily Beast
Donald Trump's Racist Tweet Problem-The Daily ... - Comedy Central
The Comprehensive Guide To Trump's Most Outrageous Statements
Donald Trump is a racist - Salon
Hillary Clinton Calls Donald Trump a RACIST ... - The Political Insider
Trump video shows Comey refuting Clinton on classified emails | TheHill
The 15 most offensive things that have come out of Trump's mouth ...
etc...

buwaya said...

There were countries that would have let in Jews, had the Jews with access to places to flee to, understood that they were in danger. The Greek Jews for instance, or the Yugoslavs or Rumanians or Hungarians or Italians.
Turkey would have taken Jews, and did in fact take 30,000 or more; many more could have been evacuated there if hindsight were foresight. Who would have guessed, in 1939, that the Nazis cared about Greek Jews? So also Iran.
France, Belgium, the Netherlands took in a huge number of Jewish refugees before 1940. But the shocking events of May 1940 were unthinkable at the time. Everyone depended on the rock that was the French Army.
Little known fact - most German and Austrian Jews fled Germany before the holocaust. Only 20-25% remained to be killed. This makes sense, as at the time only those residents of these countries were feeling endangered. This explains nearly all about who fled and who hadnt.
After September 1939, and especially after May 1940, transport was unavailable and nearly all European borders were closed.

chuck said...

A guy's gotta do what a guy's gotta do. Kristof is just following orders...

Jupiter said...

Rusty said...
"In later years, the men who were convicted — and who confessed — obtained their release because they did not match the DNA from the victim.

These are weasel words. It was a coerced confession and they obtained their release because they were innocent of this assault/rape."

I expect that sort of brain-dead negative racism from ARM. ARM believes that no black or Hispanic person has ever committed a crime, and therefore any allegation of such crime must be false. But I am surprised to hear it from Rusty.


Here, educate yourself. Ann Coulter summarized the evidence here;

http://www.anncoulter.com/columns/2014-04-23.html

While it is true that the police did not catch everyone who participated in the rape and near-murder, the little fuckers they did catch were all guilty as Hell. And they got paid 40 million dollars for it.

YoungHegelian said...

@R&B,

That a group of 19th C German Jewish intellectuals think that Judaism needs to change does not mean that there are "adherents" to that belief in the synagogues. The homes of the Reform movement were Germany & the US. The German wing died for obvious reasons, leaving just the US branch. While there was the important 1869 conclave, the "birth" of American reform Judaism as an ecclesiastical as opposed to intellectual movement is generally the 1885 Pittsburgh declaration. Your link says as much, too.

To say of a non-observant 19th C European Jew that he was "Reform" or "Conservative" is to use anachronistic terms. He was just an "assimilated" Jew. From the article you linked to:

Apart from that, Reform had little to no influence in the rest of the continent. Radical lay societies sprang in Hungary during the 1848 Revolution but soon dispersed. Only in Germany, commented Steven M. Lowenstein, did the extinction of old Jewish community life lead to the creation of a new, positive religious ideology that advocated principled change.[47] In Western and Central Europe, personal observance disappeared, but the public was not interested in bridging the gap between themselves and the official faith. Secular education for clergy became mandated by mid-century, and yeshivas all closed due to lack of applicants, replaced by modern seminaries; the new academically-trained rabbinate, whether affirming basically traditional doctrines or liberal and influenced by Wissenschaft, was scarcely prone to anything beyond aesthetic modifications and de facto tolerance of the laity's apathy. Further to the east, among the unemancipated and unacculturated Jewish masses in Poland, Romania and Russia, the stimulants which gave rise either to Reform or modernist Orthodoxy were virtually unheard of.[43][48] The few rich and westernized Jews in cities like Odessa or Warsaw constructed modern synagogues where mild aesthetic reforms, like vernacular sermons or holding the wedding canopy indoors rather than under the sky, were introduced. Regarded as boldly innovative in their environs, these were long since considered trivial even by the most Orthodox in Germany, Bohemia or Moravia. In the east, the belated breakdown of old mores led not to the remodification of religion, but to the formulation of secular conceptions of Jewishness, especially nationalistic ones.

I'm aware of the history of Jewish immigration to the US. Pre-1920's immigration had nothing to do with escaping an impending Holocaust & much to do with fleeing grinding poverty & systemic discrimination in eastern Europe. European Jews, like the rest of us, couldn't see the future.

So, my points stand.

Bad Lieutenant said...

However, I must say that I don't get why making the case that Trump is a racist is even necessary to disqualify him from serious consideration for the presidency.

Then why do they? I guess because no more substantive arguments are effective.

...


R&B, please stop trying to argue the Jews thing. Please. You're doing it wrong. My parents left Russia in 1920, excuse me my great grand parents and my infant grandfather. They did not leave because Hitler's Germany was going to go to their hometown in the Pale and kill them... Which actually happened to those still in their town in 1941... But, they left because of the intensified repression against Jews that was typical of Russia and apotheosized under communism. Not because of Hitler, who at the time, effectively didn't exist.

Note that millions of Eastern Europeans groaning under the Soviet yoke welcomed the Wehrmacht as liberators, until of course the Einsatzgruppen came through doing their bit. But even my great-aunt said when I asked her straight up who was worse, Hitler or Stalin, she said she really couldn't choose. So all you pinks and comsymps hating on Hitler while regretting the lost promise of Lenin and Trotsky and Che and Mao really make me laugh, in between fits of vomiting.

Incidentally, fellow conservatives, that may be one reason why Jews are sympathetic to immigration. Of course back then there was no welfare state, and we regarded moochers with horror, but there is the argument that if where you are is unbearable, you need to be somewhere else. When your house is on fire, you may end up trespassing on someone else's lawn getting out. Then of course there was the whole sojourners in Egypt thing.

So immigration yes, welfare no. Without the welfare you wouldn't have so much gratuitous integration. And of course we had to pass all kind of checks. And anybody who wanted to come here and blow s*** up... Really?

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Jupiter said...
Here is what the assholes had to say about their own innocence


What aspect of the word 'coerced' do you not understand?

Here is District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau's view:

"A comparison of the statements reveals troubling discrepancies. ... The accounts given by the five defendants differed from one another on the specific details of virtually every major aspect of the crime—who initiated the attack, who knocked the victim down, who undressed her, who struck her, who held her, who raped her, what weapons were used in the course of the assault, and when in the sequence of events the attack took place. ... In many other respects the defendants' statements were not corroborated by, consistent with, or explanatory of objective, independent evidence. And some of what they said was simply contrary to established fact."

jg said...

Thank you for reading this so we didn't have to.

What a desperate, sad "narrative arc" they cling to.

Racism is real. Trump is not racist.

Greetings, freshly deployed paid Hillary trolls. How about that money laundering?

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

William said...
The Central Park Five are not the Scottsboro Boys.


It is instructive that they were only convicted of something that they did not do. But, why don't you reserve some of your anger for the incompetence of the police and DA? Because of their incompetence four other women were raped and assaulted and one was murdered.

James Pawlak said...

Being neither, I note the differences between the descendents of Blacks vs. Chinese, as racially identifiable persons coming into the USA. The later have achieved such academic success as has resulted in some universities discriminating against them lest those schools become largely Chinese-American enclaves AND are greatly under-represented among jail/prison inmates. The academic-and-standardized test scores for Black pupils/students are, very much, skewed towards the bottom of measurements. Black university students are too often admitted in spite of lower qualifications than Whites and appear to be the chief clients of those schools' "remedial education" programs for native born students. Blacks commit more crimes, more serious crimes and those more often than others---Providing a just and larger part of prison/jail populations.
The dame differences appear to hold as to the less identifiable students who come from Jewish traditions.
Now, are such differences "racial" or "cultural" or, as I maintain, the "racial" outcome of such "cultural differences" as tend to improve the survival of scholars over others.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

The rapist is to blame FOR THE RAPE - not the cops.

Jupiter said...

AReasonableMan said...

"Here is District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau's view:"

Yeah, I know, Morgenthau believes the little shitsacks were confused about whether or not they held her arms and legs while she was raped and beaten.

Let me ask you, ARM, have you recently held a woman's arms or legs while she was raped and beaten? Are you sure? Maybe you were really drunk and you blacked out or something? Think back over the last two or three times you went wilding in Central Park. Didn't you maybe rape someone? Ready to confess now?

chickelit said...

I don't get why NYT journalist are so butthurt about Trump. He's going to keep them busy for the next four years. Maybe they were looking forward to another easy four years covering the WH?

Rusty said...

HeideCruise said...
Gahrie, owning a gun isn't the same as practicing a religion, now is it? As for banning American Muslims who believe in Sharia, how will it be done? Some test?

Both are protected under the Bill of Rights.
So then. Rather than profile by religion, lets profile by behavior. And if there is any doubt refuse to let that person enter the country.
I don't think believing sharia is a problem. After all many of you progressives believe in a 15.00 dollar minimum wage. Practicing sharia is something else again. We can't allow that.

Fernandinande said...

[Yes, I realize Lamar is parody]

"Lamar" said...
Go ahead and argue THAT shit amongst yourselves,


Well, yeah. Who asked you to butt in?

and just stay out of the Black Man's way...

Nobody is in your way.

I get it: you're done thinking about us.

Obviously not. The US revolves around blacks and their problems:
- fail at schools: bad schools
- get arrested: bad police
- get sent to prison: bad courts
- black on black crime and murders: To refer to “black-on-black crime” not only defies common sense but grabs at baseless white racist science that removes blame for systemic deeds.

So, naughty white people, stop gettin' up all systemic 'n' shit.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Jupiter, there is no shortage of cases in which it is absolutely clear that false confessions were coerced. This is not a controversial issue. In this case even the DA concedes this. These were young, probably not that bright, poor kids who were terrified. How hard do you think it would be for a cop to get a false confession out them if they promised they could go free, which they did, following that confession?

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

AprilApple said...
The rapist is to blame FOR THE RAPE - not the cops.


The cops and DA are responsible for locking up the wrong people to take public pressure off their sorry asses when the actual rapist and future murderer went free.

Rusty said...

What I'm finding amusing is how worked up the left is getting over Trump who has never held public office and has no record of public corruption, but they are whole hertedly backing a brain damaged felon with questionable moralsand a hatred of women.
Keep in mind. Nobedy here has any illusions as to what Trump is. A self serving, over the top, serf promoting , narcissist. Who is despite all that is morally preferable to Hillary who, if you are honest with yourself, has absolutly nothing to reccoment her. Unless, of course, you preferr a known grifter, liar and crony capitalist cheat. Which says more about you.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Sometimes you do make some intelligent comments and others off the top stupid. This being one of the more stupid ones. If every Jew in Europe in 1936 knew for a certainty what was coming where could they have gone? The UK? No.The US? FDR made sure that that was no. Canada? No. South America? No. Mandate Palestine? No. And that is assuming the USSR would let the Jews out (most of the Jews in Europe at the time lived either in Poland or the USSR). So your attempt at snark (the orthodox Jews vs the other Jews) just makes you look like a schmuck.

Here's a comment that's off the top stupid. I know for a fact that nearly every single one of those countries (if not all of them) had restriction quotas by 1936. Remind you of anyone? Anyway, most of the Jews left behind were in Poland (3 million) and overwhelmingly orthodox, living "traditional", pre-emancipation lives. They were called (not sure if this is derogatory or not) Ostjuden.

The type of lifestyles that YH, unless I read him wrong, finds to be more endearing and somehow authentic. Too bad Europe's leaders never saw them that way.

Anonymous said...

The one recent immigrant I know had to recount her entire family history and it was matched against the stories her other family members related. They were also pressured that some of their statements were lies and threatened with return to the old country. In the end she looked too much like her parents to be denied immigration. She is a patriotic businesswoman today in a free society. Not possible where she came from. She believes in exporting freedom back to her own country where corruption is rampant. She is also about law and order. I wait to see if she will pull the lever for Trump. She is silent on the Syrian immigration question. I expect conflicted. Not wanting to deny people the freedoms she loves, but also worried if the immigration wave will take away her freedoms along with the rest.

buwaya said...

It doesnt really matter, truly, that the candidate is Clinton.
This all is just arguing about figureheads. We are all really dealing with an entire leadership structure, it amount almost to a social class. The Democrats could have a less compromised person out there as a figurehead (does anyone imagine that Clinton will be deciding much?) and the negative consequences would be the same.

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

""When Donald and Ivana came to the casino, the bosses would order all the black people off the floor. … They put us all in the back." So, there's hearsay from one person about what was a practice purportedly involving many other persons..."'

The person who claimed that is unassailably black, so that's proof.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

I'm aware of the history of Jewish immigration to the US. Pre-1920's immigration had nothing to do with escaping an impending Holocaust & much to do with fleeing grinding poverty & systemic discrimination in eastern Europe. European Jews, like the rest of us, couldn't see the future.

It had to do with escaping a lack of any decent future combined with a knowledge of the panoply of slightly less ambitious atrocities littering a two-millennia-long past. The Dreyfuss affair was enough for anyone to realize that a European future was bullshit, and a much more phony form of bullshit than whatever anyone else had. Emancipation and enlightenment led to nationalism (Zionism) and emigration as the only realistic answers, and the former two phenomena were as secularizing a pair of trends as one can find examples of in history. Zionism was largely secular for a reason. Anti-zionism was largely religious for a reason.

I'm Full of Soup said...

Following the Kristof methodology, we could prove Obama is gay, racist and a Muslim,

HT said...

I thought you already had.

mikee said...

So it has been written, so let it be done.

Now that it is settled that Trump is a racist, what reason is that to deny him the presidency? Seriously

Does anyone think he will do like Democrat Woodrow Wilson, and segregate all federal jobs? Or support eugenics on the basis of race, like Wilson?

Being a racist today essentially means one supports a colorblind government.
When that finally happens, and we aren't more than a decade away from that per Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, will the race mongers stop their whining?

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

R&B, please stop trying to argue the Jews thing.

I'm only responding to YH's apoplectic curiosity over the "Jewish Response to Trump" thing. Someone has to do it. I'm sure there's an explanation in there somewhere. Orthodox Jews don't prefer Trump to his rivals for his lifestyle and recitation of "2 Corinthians", that's for sure. Or for whatever reason the Evangelicals think he's so great.

Michael The Magnificent said...

Serious question: How deep and far back would you have to look into a true racist's background to find solid and frequent evidence of racism?

What Kristof finds seems like pretty weak tea to me.

Jupiter said...

AReasonableMan said...
"Jupiter, there is no shortage of cases in which it is absolutely clear that false confessions were coerced."

That may be so, but this isn't one of them.

"Contrary to media reports, there was hair, blood or semen on all five of the defendants."

I know, ARM, you didn't read what Coulter wrote, because you wouldn't believe it anyway. No black or Puerto Rican has ever raped a woman, and only a racist like myself would suppose otherwise.

Anonymous said...

I'm not seeing racism in Donald Trump.But today if BLM members approach a white businessman one would have to question the value of doing business with them based on their own words and actions? They would certainly be the worst possible renter one could ask for. One of the problems in the black community is that the honest people there bring the criminal relative with them when they rent. Housing laws are all based on the concept of being color blind. You just need good credit, good references, and a job to rent. The BLM renters are all based on the idea that rent should be free. If we as a society were really interested in equality in renting we would have to do these things.

1. Remove the felon checkbox.
2. Remove the dishonorable discharge discrimination checkbox that is life long.
3. Deny landlord the ability to use credit reports unless they are actually loaning money.
4. Allow landlords quick evictions of violent tenants and non paying tenants,
5. Deposits are mostly used for selective discrimination by landlords. Few use them wisely. Deposits should be banned on all rental contracts.
6. Leases should be done away with, they only benefits landlords. All these two year contacts, one year contracts do is create a debt burdened underclass that can't even keep up with fees and interest.
7. The other game landlords play is the tenant buys me new carpets, paints for me game that is stacked against the tenants.

Trump played under all those rules. I don't see where he did much different than any other landlord. And I do see where when faced with actual opposition he worked to find a solution that was amenable to him and to his tenants. The real assholes in all that work would be his rent control tenants that were wealthy and refused to give their rent controlled unit up to a poor tenant who deserved it more.

Make it about humanitarian capitalism and not socialism.

Lewis Wetzel said...

OpenID jdniner said...
. . .
1. Remove the felon checkbox.


Done!

"HUD Seeks to End Housing Discrimination Against Ex-Offenders"

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/hud-seeks-end-housing-discrimination-against-ex-offenders-n550471

"Ex-Offenders"? Isn't like calling a person an ex-adulterer the minute he or she leaves the hotel room?

OldManRick said...

It's funny how, despite years in the public eye, we never knew how racist, anti-Semite, and homophobic Donald Trump was until he started running against Hillary.

It's not like he integrated golf courses in Florida or anything else that Kristof chose to ignore. - http://netrightdaily.com/2016/03/trump-insisted-on-including-jews-and-blacks-at-palm-beach-golf-course-in-1990s/ http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB862335923489989500

And it's not like I can't find lots of stuff Hillary is supposed to have said with a simple google search of hillary clinton "jew bastard" or Dick Morris "all you people care about is money" . I could hope Kristof could learn to use google and do the other half of the equation to see who is worse.

I am really tired of the Democrats smear machine - they offer nothing but filth.

Lewis Wetzel said...

Under Kristof's rules of evidence, a person who bought or rented a home or an apartment in a segregated building fifty years ago (almost all of them) would be a racist, even if their name was "Martin Luther King Junior."

chuck said...

The Democrats are really stuck in a rut. I think legitimate criticisms of Trump would be that he is a huckster, a bullshitter, often an asshole, but I don't think there is any evidence that he is homophobic, racist, or mysogynist. Trump is an equal opportunity jerk when it comes to his defects.

chickelit said...

Wow! Chuck is warming to Trump!

cacimbo said...

To me racism is what I heard from Obama this morning on "Face The Nation." He said:

OBAMA: Well, you know, it's a great question.

In some ways, I'm able to see it through the eyes of my daughters. Now, obviously, they have got a unique circumstance, having grown up in the White House. So, they're in no way typical of black kids or Latino kids, or other ethnic minorities around the country.

Is Obama under the impression "typical whites" grow up in White House like environments??

Bilwick said...

Even if true, for me statism is always a worse sin that racism. Statism kills; racism, in and of itself, does not. All the dyed-in-the-wool racists I've known have been Archie Bunker types who eschew lynching, cross burnings, etc. Racism gets worse if and when it becomes coercive. Statism is by its nature coercive. Granted Trump is hardly a libertarian; but he is Murray Rothbard compared to the Alinskyite Witch running against him.

buwaya said...

R&B - that was an is an excellent argument for all Jews to go to Israel, and nowhere else. America today is not much better than France in 1900 - heck, France has had several Jewish Prime Ministers and Presidents, or those with Jewish ancestry. The US-not one yet.
And US hatred for Jews is growing intense - on the left. It seems its difficult for an overt Jew to show his face in some colleges, especially here in California.

buwaya said...

Note that the Deyfus affair prompted Herzl to suggest a Jewish homeland, not for all European Jews to go to America or Australia.

Guildofcannonballs said...

"... isn't she more the prosecutor here than the defense?"

No.

Owing us/me nothing, displays such as this post, and overall the blog in general, should be received gratefully.

I maintain Althouse is a great teacher, but almost moreso a great facilitator of discussion with higher-than-average opportunities for (or of as it were) epiphanous breakthroughs of inspiration; thus helping liberty to advance.

Lewis Wetzel said...

In Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning (https://www.amazon.com/Black-Earth-Holocaust-History-Warning/dp/1101903457), Yale historian Timothy Snyder says that one of the tensions between Brits, and their WW2 ally the exiled Polish government, was that before WW2 the polish government supported the Zionists in Palestine with military equipment and training. The pre-war Polish Jews wanted to leave Poland, and the Polish government wanted them to leave. This made it difficult for the two largest factions of the resistance in occupied Poland to work together.

JaimeRoberto said...

Here's how Wikipedia defines narrative arc: "A story arc is an extended or continuing storyline in episodic storytelling media such as television, comic books, comic strips, boardgames, video games, and films with each episode following a narrative arc. On a television program, for example, the story would unfold over many episodes."

In other words, it's fiction.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Jupiter, who you gonna believe, the DA or Anne Coulter? It was not just a miscarriage of justice, which would be bad enough, but it allowed a psychopath to continue on a rape and murder spree for several more years. It is impossible to justify the actions of the cops and DA in this case.

chuck said...

> Wow! Chuck is warming to Trump!

Chuck is not small c chuck. Please don't get us confused, I was here first...

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Jupiter said...
AReasonableMan said...
No black or Puerto Rican has ever raped a woman, and only a racist like myself would suppose otherwise.


Not sure if Matias Reyes is Puerto Rican but definitely hispanic. I have very little doubt that he is a rapist and murderer.

Guildofcannonballs said...

YH's link:

"Sarah Bunin Benor of Hebrew Union College –Jewish Institute of Religion offers a more blunt prediction: “When Orthodox Jews will be a bigger percent of the Jewish community, people’s thinking will have to shift,” she said. “Who we think of as typical Jews will have to change.”'

Does she mean think "for" or think "of"?

Shift or drift, in this age of The Nudge?

That water ain't boiling yet frog, don't you worry.

rcocean said...

1. Kristof is not some objective neutral observer - he a liberal democrat

2. Liberal Democrats always smear the Republican as a racist. Reagan was racist, Nixon was racist, Dole, Bush I and II, and Romney were racists. The last Republican who wasn't a racist? Abe lincoln. Oh, wait he was a racist too.
3. No charge of racism by a liberal Democrat should be taken seriously.

Trump has done well, because he doesn't play defense. He doesn't play the "wait, I'm not a racist, no one hates racism more then me, blah, blah". That's for losers. He counter attacks.

I think Hillary is a racist and an antisemitic. Prove me wrong.

Hagar said...

Define "Jew" and "Jewish."

Col. Nasser is said to have defined an Arab as a person who claims to be one and can speak Arabic, but it is not necessary to be so picky about the speaking part.

Jews seem to have this beat, since it is not even necessary to claim to be one; it is enough that someone else says you are one.

Mike Sylwester said...

A Reasonable Man at 10:39 AM

It was a coerced confession and they obtained their release because they were innocent of this assault/rape.

The public -- including Trump -- did not know that.

Accusing people of racism because they did not know that is just another example that Scientific Progressives just like to accuse people of racism. That's what they do.

Writ Small said...

I've never felt that racism was Trump's big problem. To me, his main defect is the endless personal-feud drama caused by his thin skin. But since Althouse brought up the subject, there is this bit from the Kristof piece:

In 1991, a book by John O’Donnell, who had been president of the Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City, quoted Trump as criticizing a black accountant and saying: “Black guys counting my money! I hate it. The only kind of people I want counting my money are short guys that wear yarmulkes every day. … I think that the guy is lazy. And it’s probably not his fault, because laziness is a trait in blacks. It really is, I believe that. It’s not anything they can control.”

What was Trump's response to O'Donnell's book?

Trump eventually denied making those comments. But in 1997 in a Playboy interview, he conceded “the stuff O’Donnell wrote about me is probably true.”

What does Althouse say in defense of Trump? She writes:

Trump denies saying that, but even if it's true, where's the pattern? He made one regrettable racial joke a quarter century ago! If you're proving a pattern, shouldn't you have at least 25 racist jokes?

Althouse describes Trump's statement as a "joke." The first part could reasonably be interpreted as such, but what about this: "And it’s probably not his fault, because laziness is a trait in blacks. It really is, I believe that." That's a "joke?" I fail to see the humor. And what is with Althouse's use of the softer "racial" rather then the more accurate "racist?"

Althouse wrote earlier: "He (Kristof) also exposes himself to our judgment if his assessment of the evidence is biased.

Indeed.

Guildofcannonballs said...

"She is a patriotic businesswoman today in a free society. Not possible where she came from."

After a trip to San Diego, I was told the bride immigrated from Slovakia, graduated with-no-peer-above-her from the best school in Massachusetts, as in its most respectable Institution of academics and technology, moved West, developed patents for a corporation, and retired very young with millions and more coming in.

My dad's surgeon was from Africa and the only child his age from his village who had the chance to become educated.

Thank God for the good so as to prevent only bad.

MaxedOutMama said...

I kind of agree with Chuck above. By trying to criticize Trump as sexist, racist, etc, for which there is far stronger rebuttal evidence than probative, the Dems are missing the opportunity to criticize the Donald where he is truly weak.

And the electorate probably would be far more influenced by focusing on character doubts than the racism stuff, which has been far overused and is losing its clout rapidly. The public has been strongly exposed to microaggressionhysteria; the result has been that this line of criticism no longer affects a large portion of the public unless strong evidence is produced.

Instead, the public is rather concerned about the constant banging of the divisive drums. I realize that Hillary! cannot herself bang on character, because that's just asking for it. But her media cronies can with impunity.

cubanbob said...

Rhythm and Balls said...
Sometimes you do make some intelligent comments and others off the top stupid. This being one of the more stupid ones. If every Jew in Europe in 1936 knew for a certainty what was coming where could they have gone? The UK? No.The US? FDR made sure that that was no. Canada? No. South America? No. Mandate Palestine? No. And that is assuming the USSR would let the Jews out (most of the Jews in Europe at the time lived either in Poland or the USSR). So your attempt at snark (the orthodox Jews vs the other Jews) just makes you look like a schmuck.

Here's a comment that's off the top stupid. I know for a fact that nearly every single one of those countries (if not all of them) had restriction quotas by 1936. Remind you of anyone? Anyway, most of the Jews left behind were in Poland (3 million) and overwhelmingly orthodox, living "traditional", pre-emancipation lives. They were called (not sure if this is derogatory or not) Ostjuden.

The type of lifestyles that YH, unless I read him wrong, finds to be more endearing and somehow authentic. Too bad Europe's leaders never saw them that way.

7/24/16, 1:40 PM"

You started off with stating that had the Jews been somehow more prescient they could have avoided in large part the holocaust. As I pointed out, they had nowhere to go even if they knew for an absolute certainty what was coming. As for reminding me, reminding me of whom? FDR? As for the Polish Jews, whether they were all secular lefty Jews in 1936 or all ultra-Orthodox it would have made no difference, they had nowhere to go. The Nazi's made no distinction on the religeouness of the Jews they killed. And neither do the Islamic terrorists. And as for your veiled reference, really? Jews were committing terrorist attacks in the countries they immigrated to, support those terrorists in the name of Judaism?

Guildofcannonballs said...

"Jupiter, who you gonna believe, the DA or Anne Coulter? It was not just a miscarriage of justice, which would be bad enough, but it allowed a psychopath to continue on a rape and murder spree for several more years. It is impossible to justify the actions of the cops and DA in this case."

The cops and DA didn't fabricate the clothes the rapist wore.

He did not build the roads, or make the water come out of the tap hence allowing the rapist to not dehydrate to death.

The rapist didn't put the victim at that location: you did that.

We all, did it.

Nobody, or department, can possibly do anything by themselves; the idea itself only tells of the demented mind that thought it and then chose to publicize it.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

You started off with stating that had the Jews been somehow more prescient they could have avoided in large part the holocaust. As I pointed out, they had nowhere to go even if they knew for an absolute certainty what was coming.

They did prior to 1926, though. You're right that no one was predicting Hitler, then. But the waves of immigrants from previous decades means that it's possible they could have all left for America - or wherever, prior to that. But not predicting Hitler doesn't mean that every Jew in Europe shouldn't have known by 1896 that no more "good news" for the Jews was coming to Europe. The Jews of Europe never really had very good news, and in a world changing in the ways that the Dreyfus Affair should have contrasted against, more of them might have read something into that that they didn't.

They say intelligence is linked in most animals to fear responses. I think that conclusion can be over-emphasized in humans. But if survival is a goal, it never pays to be over-vigilant against what's been going on for 1500 years and how modernity is making it worse, not better. You guys are always talking about arming yourselves and fearing the freest government on earth, and often using the history of Europe's Jews to underscore the point! Why shouldn't the Jews who left be compared to those who didn't leave in terms of deciding whether there was anything left that was good to expect of the continent in the wake of Dreyfus?

As for reminding me, reminding me of whom? FDR? As for the Polish Jews, whether they were all secular lefty Jews in 1936 or all ultra-Orthodox it would have made no difference, they had nowhere to go.

The point is who was left. It was the sheltered Polish Jews living traditional lives who made up the majority of those remaining. Probably for a few reasons, not least of which would have been less access to and interest in contemporary, secular affairs. Not knowing about what's going on in the world can be deadly.

The Nazi's made no distinction on the religeouness of the Jews they killed.

Not the point.

And neither do the Islamic terrorists. And as for your veiled reference, really? Jews were committing terrorist attacks in the countries they immigrated to, support those terrorists in the name of Judaism?

No, they're not. I never said they were. Your point is taken. Xenophobia's irrational but it's true that Jews don't follow a religion that tells them to kill and maim and spread fear in the hearts of the unbelievers ruling them so as to facilitate a religious hegemony as per what the Muslims do.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

....it never pays NOT to be over-vigilant.... not "it never pays to be over-vigilant". Typo.

Guildofcannonballs said...

"Trump has done well, because he doesn't play defense. He doesn't play the "wait, I'm not a racist, no one hates racism more then me, blah, blah". That's for losers. He counter attacks.

I think Hillary is a racist and an antisemitic. Prove me wrong."

Hillary it/herself proves you wrong.

The Winners aka Ruling Class win by playing the shitgame you describe is for losers.

In effect, you perpetuate that which you claim to detest by not condemning the Satatanic ploy but those who fell victim to it: Republicans nearly, though not, all.

Guildofcannonballs said...

"Blogger Writ Small said...
I've never felt that racism was Trump's big problem. To me, his main defect is the endless personal-feud drama caused by his thin skin."

Absolutely.

Did you hear about, after the Comedy Central roast, Trump was associated with the suicides and early-death-accidents of everyone close to that production? Trump was too dumb too know this wasn't about roasting steaks to meatcrust. The idiot had no idea people would make jokes (although not in The Situation's presentation) about him. Just watch it and look at his thin skin decomposing.

God people are so stupid. Why can't everyone be as smart as us???

Guildofcannonballs said...

"... to me, his main defect is the endless personal-feud drama caused by his thin skin."

To others, both smart and stupid and happy and mad and rich and poor, it is the same.

Why?

Because Journolist.

It is the opposite of conspiracy as they openly hate. They just consider the objects of it worthy of judgement they would never consider to apply to themselves, real women or men or humans.

Totally not like Sarah Palin!

Guildofcannonballs said...

"....it never pays NOT to be over-vigilant.... not "it never pays to be over-vigilant". Typo."

A business must have costs to earn a dime (even if considering only time): there are fewer costs associated with saving a dime in many instances than making one, especially if contemplating conglomerates. In government cost saving is associated with lower clout.

If extreme vigilance always yielded payment no matter long term effects Keynes would have honestly said he will be dead before the bill is due so it doesn't matter to him that the collection methods will hurt people, even massively and horrifically.

He kinda said it, and it's easily inferred, but he never said he wants the world to burn.

chuck said...

@gcb: Satatanic?

Nonsense, that ship went down during an orgy in 1912 when it collided with a behemoth.

cubanbob said...

R & B

"As for reminding me, reminding me of whom? FDR? As for the Polish Jews, whether they were all secular lefty Jews in 1936 or all ultra-Orthodox it would have made no difference, they had nowhere to go.

The point is who was left. It was the sheltered Polish Jews living traditional lives who made up the majority of those remaining. Probably for a few reasons, not least of which would have been less access to and interest in contemporary, secular affairs. Not knowing about what's going on in the world can be deadly. "

Stop digging. Polish Jews were well aware of German anti-Semitism as well as Eastern European anti-Semitism. But prior to the holocaust the bulk of the violence against Jews in were done by Eastern Europeans so Hitler's rants were considered typical and not exceptional. German military doctors often treated Jews during their occupation of Poland in the First World War while Russian troops often raped and murdered those Jews. It would have been a stretch for the Jews of that time to believe that the sons of those Germans who saved them during the first war would come back to murder them.
You also presume that prior to 1924 America would have accepted several million more Jews? Or that South American countries would have done so?

"You guys are always talking about arming yourselves and fearing the freest government on earth, and often using the history of Europe's Jews to underscore the point! Why shouldn't the Jews who left be compared to those who didn't leave in terms of deciding whether there was anything left that was good to expect of the continent in the wake of Dreyfus? "

First thing repressive governments do is gun control, disarming the populace. By the way Eastern European governments at that time weren't so liberal in allowing Jews to arm and neither did the Jim Crow states make it easy for Blacks to arm themselves. You are using presentitis to judge those in the past.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

So bob's for leaving all Europe's Jews in Europe after 1924 and makes blanket statements about governments and control of a weapons technology that didn't exist prior to 500 years ago. What examples of "disarming" a population as an introduction to tyranny do you have prior to 1500?

If you're saying that all the mass murders of Jews in Europe and Islamic lands prior to 1900 should have left Jews feeling safe at the idea of staying there, that's funny. The genocide of the Armenians had already taken place by 1915. The Romans had done the same to the Dacians nearly 2000 years earlier. Expulsion is basically one step away from genocide, which defined the Jewish experience and brought them to a residence primarily in Europe in the first place.

Go tell a historian that Jews should have felt any reason to confide in their own safety in Europe following Dreyfus. That's funny, also. The whole world is going free and democratic, one group is told it should always lack those rights, and you figure they'd just learn to be safe in the expectation of becoming a well-kept ward of the state. As they were of the church beforehand. Poorly treated but surely no more prone to mass murder than they were before (which was often). Hilarious.

cubanbob said...

Go tell a historian that Jews should have felt any reason to confide in their own safety in Europe following Dreyfus. That's funny, also. The whole world is going free and democratic, one group is told it should always lack those rights, and you figure they'd just learn to be safe in the expectation of becoming a well-kept ward of the state. As they were of the church beforehand. Poorly treated but surely no more prone to mass murder than they were before (which was often). Hilarious."

What is not so funny is your assertion that all of those Jews could have just up and left in the 1920's and early 1930's to the welcoming arms of no country. As I asked you before, where could they have gone? Do you really think an America (1920's) where the KKK could have a 35,000 man march on DC and millions of members was going to allow millions of Jews in?

Laslo Spatula said...

Lamar Gonna Set You Straight....

When White People talk about Racism they always end up talking about the Jews.

Every. Fucking. Time.

You think you got Problems? Fuck You.

I am Laslo.

Bad Lieutenant said...

How hard do you think it would be for a cop to get a false confession out them if they promised they could go free, which they did, following that confession?

7/24/16, 1:32 PM

--ARM, in your heart, you know that people who are "that stupid" should be off the streets. It's okay, you don't have to admit it.

...

Poorly treated but surely no more prone to mass murder than they were before

R&B, this is exactly like Obama telling us that we can "absorb" terrorist attacks.

The Jews of the shtetl has been used to pogroms, razzia, what you will, for millennia, and figured future oppressions would be at that level; or even transfers and expulsions, which also occurred, could be faced when the time came.

How stupid, or at least lacking prescience, were they?

How stupid, or lacking prescience, are Obama and his yes-bots?

"Uncle Barney! What are you kvetching about? The Cossack only chopped off the tip of your little finger. You should have jumped the fence faster while you were saving those other Jews!"

"Little Estelle! Why are you complaining? You talked the Cossack out of sweeping you over his shoulder and carrying you off like a six-year-old sack of groats, so what's the harm? It's a good thing you speak such good Russian, he didn't know if you were lawful prey or not!"

BobC said...

Laslo,

Haven't you got it yet that nobody here cares what you think?

Real American said...

The only pattern is that of leftists like to call white people racist with little to no evidence. In fact, they had to invent things like disparate impact and microaggressions because there was so little actual racism among whites to complain about.

Guildofcannonballs said...

I stood to a crowd,
Indifferent to names,

No awards no matter,
Never shall they feel the same.

*But NOT graceless slavish as Gram sung.

Anonymous said...

Having had this discussion before at the dinner table, my experience is that people who say things progressives don't like are deemed racists by said progressives so long as they can find one example that can at least kinda/sorta be construed as being racist, no further examples or patterns required. It is the impossible demand for 100% purity in one's opponents with no forgiveness available, although the same standard is not applied to their own unless it becomes a problem.

In the example that springs to mind, the author in question was Chesterton, and the progressive in question dismissed him and his entire oeuvre because she had found one sentence in a piece of his fiction literature that struck her as a racist description of a black man.

grackle said...

Registering Americans who practice a certain religion however is unconstitutional and repugnant.

Below is an URL to the Country Reports on Human Rights Practices published by the State Department. Below that is an URL where the % of Muslims in each country can be found.

http://tinyurl.com/blvcm77

http://tinyurl.com/kgwmcoo

The challenge: Find those Muslim majority countries that have good or even basic human rights practices. We’ll all wait for your findings.

What’s repugnant to me is a President who thinks it’s OK for America to “absorb” terror attacks.

http://tinyurl.com/ngdybgl

There only were 18 african-americans among the 2,600+ RNC convention delegates, and who knows how few hispanics, asians, or muslims.

I don’t know about the other 14 but there were 4 of them(a woman and her sons) that seemed right at home.

http://tinyurl.com/hum2n2j

grackle said...

Oh, I almost forgot … enjoyed your satire, Laslo. Give it to’em often and hard.

Freeman Hunt said...

The evidence-wanting part of Kristof's brain was pretending to be logical that day.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Poorly treated but surely no more prone to mass murder than they were before

R&B, this is exactly like Obama telling us that we can "absorb" terrorist attacks.


I don't know what you mean. The comment was meant sarcastically.

Rusty said...

What is not so funny is your assertion that all of those Jews could have just up and left in the 1920's and early 1930's to the welcoming arms of no country.

An absurd assertion.

Bad Lieutenant said...

I think he means that the victims are to be blamed for neglecting an easy, low-risk method of saving their lives. Because you wouldn't meet obstacles every step of the way. (More Cossacks, for one. Boy, those Cossacks...)

R&B, it was more targeted at Obama than you. And at all these people who say 'but more people die from drowning in pails!'

My folks got out just in time, the US shut the door in the twenties.

DLS said...

(Buwaya Puti said:)
"If you want an argument for Trump..., have a look at James Bessens article in the Harvard Business Review, if too dumb and lazy to have kept up. "
I've been to the HBR site, and I'm too dumb to find this article. Can anyone provide link?

Birches said...

A little late to this discussion, but I am surprised no one mentioned Ivana as the reason why blacks had to stay away at Trump Towers. East Europeans are some of the most racist people I've met.

MacMacConnell said...

https://hbr.org/search?term=james+bessen

Lobbyists Are Behind the Rise in Corporate Profits
GLOBAL BUSINESS RESEARCH James Bessen

Sigivald said...

Kristof is an idiot and makes Trump sympathic, which is pretty difficult to manage.

(There's Trump's statement that people entering the country illegally from Mexico are "in many cases, criminals, drug dealers, rapists." Kristof concedes that "Latinos can be of any race," so "technically" it's "not so much racism as bigotry."

Well, the only factual problem there is the "many" - the implication that the proportion is really significant, which I don't think is defensible.

Because certainly some of those illegals are criminals, drug dealers, or rapists, no?)

Unknown said...

Some good points here. However, it seems a bit of a semantics game going on. Several instances at the very least show an example of despicable bigotry, if not racism, per se. How racist does a racist have to be to be racist? I agree that the Times article did not go as in depth with their investigation as needed to truly answer the question of whether or not Trump is "racist." However, I do not dismiss the statements that have come from his own mouth in the past year alone, as anything but bigotry. Good enough for me.