It’s November 26, 2018 and it’s time to
review five of the most outrageous, infuriating,
or just plain baffling things that have happened
lately.
It’s your Facepalm Five.
Let’s count ‘em down!
1.
Troops deployed to defend against migrant
caravan already coming home.
My fellow Americans, remember before the election
when the President of the United States deployed
active-duty military personnel to the southern
border to protect our nation from an invading
army of homeless refugees?
Never mind!
Last week the general in charge of the border
deployment told Politico that some of the
nearly 6,000 troops sent to the border before
the election are already headed home, and
they should all be home before Christmas.
Don’t get me wrong – I’m happy the troops
are being sent home.
They never should have been deployed in the
first place.
It was a cynical stunt and the fact that so
many aggressively pro-military Trump supporters
seem okay with it only speaks to how much
more important their racism and xenophobia
is to them.
The fact that the troops are being sent back
home now, just as the migrant caravan we were
all supposed to be so afraid of is reaching
the U.S./Mexico border, confirms what a useless
bit of political theater this deployment was.
According to Politico, most of the active
duty troops sent to the border were unarmed,
and were only included in the deployment at
all in order to satisfy a demand by Trump
that the border reinforcements include more
than the National Guard.
The general who spoke with Politico also confirmed
that the Trump administration had requested
armed active duty troops be deployed, a request
which the Pentagon rejected, explaining that
border patrol is a form of law enforcement,
and the military is not allowed to conduct
law enforcement operations within our borders.
It’s nice to know that the leaders of the
military know enough to follow the rules,
even when the civilian authorities who are
supposed to be in charge keeping asking them
to break those rules, isn’t it?
‘Cause that’s how this is supposed to
work – the forebearance of the military
preventing us from sliding into full-on authoritarianism,
while the president remains clueless and/or
indifferent to the laws and norms that define
and limit the role of the military, and the
legislature looks on impotently – right?
2.
Right-wingers are obsessed with Congressmember-elect
Ocasio-Cortez.
Speaking of the legislature, one of the most
high profile candidates swept into office
by the blue wave is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez,
who will represent New York’s 14th congressional
district beginning January 3.
Unfortunately, though not surprisingly, not
all the attention Ocasio-Cortez has attracted
has been positive.
Some of it has been downright creepy.
Week before last Eddie Scarry, a writer for
the Washington Examiner, tweeted a photo someone
took of Oscasio-Cortez from behind as she
walked down a hallway, with the caption “I’ll
tell you something: that jacket and coat don’t
look like a girl who struggles.”
I guess Ocasio-Cortez didn’t get the memo
that working class people are supposed to
dress down when they get elected to Congress,
to keep ‘em from mixing too easily with
the swells.
It’s not just her inappropriately nice wardrobe
that’s elicited reactions – her practice
of livestreaming on Instagram to answer questions,
talk about policy, and share her experiences
as she prepares to take office, has drawn
mockery from the likes of Sean Hannity and
Sarah Palin, who pounced on Ocasio-Cortez
when she mistakenly referred to the presidency,
the Senate and the House of Representatives
as “the three branches of government,”
a mistake she acknowledged as a slip of the
tongue due to her speaking extemporaneously,
and the sort of thing I would not be going
out of my way to give her shit about if I
were Sarah Palin, who couldn’t even answer
a question about what newspapers she reads,
but maybe that’s just me.
If I were Sarah Palin.
3.
Christian group demands “justice” for
missionary killed while trespassing on forbidden
island.
Last week authorities in India reported that
an American man, John Allen Chau, was killed
by the inhabitants of a remote island during
an apparent attempt to convert them to Christianity.
The island is North Sentinel Island, or at
least that’s what we call it.
It’s located in the Bay of Bengal, between
India and Myanmar.
We don’t know what the people who live there
call the island because contact with them
has been extremely limited.
The people of North Sentinel Island don’t
welcome outsiders, probably because of a visit
they received from Maurice Portman, a British
colonial official who landed on the island
in 1880 and abducted an elderly couple and
a group of children.
Most subsequent attempts to contact the North
Sentinel Islanders have been met with hostility,
and I don’t wonder why.
North Sentinel is one of the Andaman Islands,
and as such is considered – again, by those
of us who don’t live on North Sentinel Island
– to be under the authority of the government
of India.
Indian law forbids anyone from going within
five kilometers of the island.
John Allen Chau was aware of this prohibition,
and chose to go anyway, risking not only his
own life but also the lives of the North Sentinel
Islanders, who could die from exposure to
disease against which they have no natural
immunity.
Now, a missionary organization, the International
Christian Concern, has released a statement
accusing the North Sentinel Islanders of murder,
and demanding that those responsible for killing
Chau be brought to justice.
The ICC also attempted to tie the killing
of Chau in with other recent acts of violence
and persecution against Christians in India.
I want to emphasize that while North Sentinel
Island is legally considered to be a territory
of India, the North Sentinel Islanders are
not Indians in any meaningful sense of that
term – they are a separate, isolated group
of people.
The killing of John Allen Chau was not part
of a larger trend of anti-Christian persecution
in India, it had nothing to do with that,
and it was the fault of no one but Chau himself
and the people who helped him travel to North
Sentinel Island – who have been arrested,
by the way, and rightly so.
The North Sentinel Islanders have made it
abundantly clear that they want to be left
alone, and the government of India has made
it equally clear that it intends to protect
the autonomy and the privacy of the islanders,
which is exactly what it ought to do.
John Allen Chau had no right, legally or morally,
to approach that island.
The fact that he wanted to visit the island
to proselytize changes nothing – your desire
to promote your religion does not entitle
you to violate the privacy or endanger the
lives of other people.
Perhaps we should all remind ourselves of
the lives that have been lost, resources plundered,
and cultures destroyed over the last few centuries
by people who claimed the right to invade,
convert, and conquer indigenous peoples in
the name of “civilization” and Christianity.
4.
Founder of white nationalist gang quits, denies
being white nationalist.
Last week it was reported that the FBI has
classified the violent neo-Nazi gang the Proud
Boys as “an extremist group with ties to
white nationalism.”
The next day the founder and leader of the
Proud Boys, Gavin McInnes, announced that
he was quitting the gang, officially disassociating
himself from the Proud Boys “in all capacities,
forever.”
He added that he was doing so reluctantly,
because he believes it to be the greatest
fraternal organization in the world.
McInnes was apparently advised by his attorneys
that quitting the gang would be helpful in
obtaining lighter sentences for the six members
of the Proud Boys arrested for assaulting
protesters following a speech McInnes gave
in New York City in October.
McInnes also denied that the Proud Boys are
a gang, or an extremist group, or have ties
to white nationalists.
It’s not the first time McInnes has made
such a denial – denying the blatantly obvious
fact that they are a gang of violent white
nationalists is something members of the Proud
Boys have been doing since they were founded
two years ago.
Long before the FBI classified them as such,
the Southern Poverty Law Center identified
the Proud Boys as an extremist hate group
whose members are known to promote white nationalist
rhetoric and take part in events alongside
other hate groups such as the Ku Klux Klan.
McInnes himself has written for white nationalist
websites such as American Renaissance and
VDare, and has a history of making grossly
racist, misogynistic, xenophobic, Islamophobic,
and transphobic statements, and proudly exhibiting
many other varieties of bigotry and intolerance
as well.
In other words, whatever he chooses to call
himself, his words and actions demonstrate
that he’s a neo-Nazi scumbag, and he founded
a gang for other neo-Nazi scumbags.
That’s what the Proud Boys are, that’s
what they will remain whether McInnes is officially
a member or not.
Anyone who accepts McInnes at face value when
he says the Proud Boys aren’t extremists
and don’t have ties to white nationalists
is either a liar or a sucker.
And wouldn’t you know it, people in those
two categories account for all of the remaining
supporters of the man who is the subject of
the next segment!
Because it's now time for the segment devoted
to some of the other things Donald Trump has
done recently to disgrace the presidency and
embarrass and/or endanger the United States
and the world:
5.
The Further Misadventures of Lord Dampnut.
Please keep in mind as always: the following
is not a complete list.
He not only rejected the CIA’s conclusion
that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman
probably ordered the murder of journalist
Jamal Khashoggi, he lied about it, falsely
claiming that the CIA’s report did not conclude
that Mohammed order the murder, when, according
to the Washington Post, that’s precisely
what the CIA has concluded.
He also released a statement reaffirming the
U.S.’s relationship with Saudi Arabia, a
statement so poorly written that the humor
website McSweeney’s simply republished it
without changing a word.
Trump’s statement begins with the one-sentence
paragraph: “The world is a very dangerous
place!”, which reminds me of one of those
overeager forewords by my high school principal
that they would always publish near the front
of the yearbook.
The difference is, in addition to being a
mediocre writer, my high school principal
was a kind and empathetic man who genuinely
cared about the welfare of his students and
faculty.
He painted classrooms, and covered for teachers
when substitutes weren’t available, and
always had time to listen if you had a problem.
He went to almost every school sporting event
even though he didn’t even like sports.
I wish my high school principal was president.
Anyway, in his statement Trump insists that
he does not condone the murder of Jamal Khashoggi,
then repeats the Saudi government’s claim
that Khashoggi was an enemy of the state,
and reminds us that both the King and the
Crown Prince “vigorously deny” any knowledge
of or involvement in the Khashoggi murder.
Well, okay then, I guess the entire international
intelligence community is just wrong, then,
huh?
I mean, hey, it’s plausible, because they’ve
been wrong before.
So they might be wrong now!
So since there is some miniscule chance they
might be wrong now, we really have no choice
but to distort or outright ignore their conclusions
– and hey, if that means the Saudi government
gets away with murder, it’s kinda worth
it, right?
Because of all the money they spent buying
weapons from us?
And the great deals they give us on oil?
Come on, murders are bad and all, I guess,
but let’s keep our priorities straight.
If we didn’t buy oil from Saudi Arabia,
where would we get it?
The same places we buy the other 89% of the
oil we import?
I mean, I guess, but what about the stimulus
to our economy as a result of that massive
deal Trump negotiated with the Saudis last
year, which is actually not nearly as significant
as Trump has made it out to be, and much of
which had already been agreed to under the
Obama administration, and if State Department
estimates of the number of new American jobs
that could be created as a result of Saudi
business are accurate, it would still only
be equivalent to a small fraction of the jobs
that could potentially be lost due to Trump’s
tariffs.
Oops, I got distracted, um, America First!
I’m sure glad we don’t condone the murder
of Jamal Khashoggi – aren’t you?
Oh, god, what else has he done lately?
The New York Times reported that Trump wanted
to order the Justice Department to prosecute
James Comey and Hillary Clinton but was talked
out of it by the White House counsel, who
explained that the President has no authority
to order prosecutions – that’s the sorta
thing they do in dictatorships!
The only thing stopping Trump from being a
dictator is the people who work for him who
tell him about the laws that say he can’t
be a dictator.
The day before Thanksgiving he tweeted “Brutal
and Extended Cold Blast could shatter ALL
RECORDS - Whatever happened to Global Warming?”
He’s got the same grasp of the basics of
climate change as your shit-for-brains Fox-News-watching
relatives!
He doesn’t know anything!
And you can’t teach him anything, because
he thinks he knows everything!
Is there more?
Of course there is, because I haven’t talked
about what he did on Thanksgiving yet!
What it was, was he got on a conference call
with several military officers stationed around
the world – Afghanistan, Kuwait, aboard
the USS Ronald Reagan in the South China Sea.
He asked the commander of troops in Afghanistan
what kind of things he was seeing on the ground
in terms of action against the enemy, which
is the sort of thing military commanders don’t
discuss in televised phone calls.
He tried, unsuccessfully, to get an officer
to agree with him that steam powered aircraft
catapults are better than electromagnetic
catapults.
He complained about international trade, whined
about how unfairly he felt he was being treated
by the courts, and tried to equate his attempts
to impose a brutal and racist border enforcement
policy to the military fighting terrorists
in Afghanistan.
He did this while on the phone with American
troops stantioned overseas, I remind you.
On Thanksgiving.
While he sat in a room at his Mar-a-Lago resort
in Florida.
After the call ended, Trump spoke to reporters
and repeated many of the same complaints and
lies I’ve already talked about.
At one point someone asked him what he was
thankful for, and he said, “for having made
a tremendous difference in this country,”
adding “I've made a tremendous difference
in the country.
This country is so much stronger now than
it was when I took office that you wouldn't
believe it.”
He’s right, I wouldn’t believe it – because
it’s not true.
It’s the pathetic, transparent, self-serving
lie of a pathetic, transparent, self-serving
man.
I was with my grandmother on Thanksgiving,
and we watched some of Trump’s call to the
troops when it was played on CNN, and when
that bit was over Granny turned to me with
this stupefied look on her face and said,
“How much longer does he have?”
And I said, “About two more years if he
finishes his term.”
And Granny’s eyes got wide, and she turned
to look out the window.
And I’ll just say to you the same thing
I said to her in that moment: I hope we make
it that long.
That’s five.
Speak out, act out, resist, look after each
other.
