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Donkey Feed, Sept. 2nd, 2018

August 27, 2020September 2, 2018 by Michael Bryan

By Michael Bryan

Welcome back to your Feed for the Weekend! Slip off your shoes and strap on the feedbag! It’s time for some Feed…

First, a cool tool: From the New York Times interactive this cool tool shows you the effect of climate change in your lifetime by plotting the increase in the number of days above 90 Fahrenheit per year over your lifespan. Here’s mine:

Now, a bit of video: almost 3000 people died as a result of the Puerto Rican hurricane disaster, but few seem to care, and certainly no one in the Federal government has done much about it to the shame of the Trump Administration.

Next, a bit more video about the propaganda technique of “firehosing” and why it can be effective despite obviously consisting of lies (this reminding you of anyone?):

Next, some graphical grimness: A surprising proportion of worldwide gun deaths happen here in the United States, and a rather surprising portion are suicides.

And some graphical sadness that is nonetheless beautiful: a fantastic drone photo of Senator McCain’s coffin lying in state in the U.S. Capitol building:

Now, just click on Continue Reading and enjoy the rest of the feed…

Coming Together, Fighting On and Turning Arizona Blue

August 27, 2020August 30, 2018 by David Gordon

With the Arizona Supreme Court’s decision to knock the Invest in Ed and Outlaw Dirty Money initiatives off the November ballot, the stakes in the election became much higher. Progressive and Centrist Democrats need to unite with Independents and disaffected Republicans on a forward-looking program that votes out the reactionary zealots in the Party of the KKK-endorsed candidate starting with the Governor, all the Republican state officeholders, and Republican legislators.

They do not even hide their contempt for democracy, clean elections, or people that are not white. It is time to rally and turn out in November and launch an Arizona Blue Wave.

Donald Trump abandons his ‘deplorables,’ pretends to distance himself from the Birther Movement

September 21, 2020September 16, 2016 by AZ BlueMeanie

Donald Trump is the “King of the Birthers.” In April of 2011: “Self-proclaimed birther Donald Trump is now so doubtful of President Obama’s birthplace that he’s sent a team of his own investigators to Hawaii in hopes of getting to the bottom of the issue.” Trump sends investigators to Hawaii to look into Obama. Trump excitedly proclaimed My investigators in Hawaii can’t believe what they are finding. Trump’s “team of investigators” to this day has never produced anything.

Trump’s investigation ran parallel to Crazy Uncle Joe Arpaio’s and Mike Zullo’s “cold case posse” investigation into President Obama’s birth certificate. Sheriff Joe Arpaio tasks ‘Cold Case Posse’ to investigate Obama’s birth certificate. Arpaio has not made many statements about the investigation since his last news conference on the issue in 2012. But five years later he is still milking this right-wing conspiracy theory. Arpaio says MCSO still investigating Obama (August 18, 2016).

This pair of asshats has never produced any evidence in support of their wild conspiracy theory.

Back in July, the New York Times published a report, Inside the Six Weeks Donald Trump Was a Nonstop ‘Birther’:

In the birther movement, Mr. Trump recognized an opportunity to connect with the electorate over an issue many considered taboo: the discomfort, in some quarters of American society, with the election of the nation’s first black president. He harnessed it for political gain, beginning his connection with the largely white Republican base that, in his 2016 campaign, helped clinch his party’s nomination.

About Last Night . . . Fact Check

August 27, 2020July 22, 2016 by AZ BlueMeanie

Early in his speech last night, Donald Trump challenged the fact checkers:

It is finally time for a straightforward assessment of the state of our nation.

I will present the facts plainly and honestly.

We cannot afford to be so politically correct anymore.

So if you want to hear the corporate spin, the carefully crafted lies, and the media myths — the Democrats are holding their convention next week.

But here, at our convention, there will be no lies. We will honor the American people with the truth, and nothing else.

You all knew that this was a lie before the words had even finished crossing his lips. It was followed by numerous more lies, distortions, manipulations of data and cherry-picking of data that the fact checkers have been having a field day with today. There are far too many to reproduce here, so I am providing links below.

RNC Convention day four: A demagogue takes the stage and declares ‘It’s midnight in America’

August 27, 2020July 22, 2016 by AZ BlueMeanie

The Republican Party’s Ronald Reagan idolatry worship died last night.

32 years after the 1984 Reagan reelection campaign gave us the hopeful imagery of a sun rising on “morning in America,” the new leader of the GOP, Donald Trump, says the sun has set, replacing Reagan’s imagery with a dark dystopian vision of “midnight in America.” In acceptance speech, Trump’s America is a dark and desperate place. And his sycophant convention delegates cheered him.

Perhaps the Republican Party officially died last night as well.

As Tom Toles of the Washington Post says, The GOP is now a personality cult built around a man who doesn’t have one.

A careful analysis of Donald Trump’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad, too long speech reveals some truths about the man. Trump is an ego-maniacal sociopath who projects himself as a “strongman” and sees himself as a tin-pot dictator of a banana republic, unburdened by a Congress and the courts in a democratic system of co-equal branches of government. America would be Trump’s banana republic.