OK, Millennial, It's Time To Register To Vote In Hitherto Unseen Numbers!

It turns out that launching memes against a different generation, like the young sprats did with 'OK, Boomer' last year, is vastly easier than putting your own generational house in order.  That includes tossing your hat into the ring and getting politically involved-  thereby demonstrating you have the spunk,  moxie and insight to go to the mat when it counts.  That time is now, as we face the most critical election (and political crisis)  in U.S. history.  The question on everyone's mind is: 'What are the youthful potential voters going to do about it?'  

Are they going to sit back, pout, and express dismay at the candidate choice (in Joe Biden) and not vote, or even register? Or will they come to their senses and grasp that their own lives and futures are as much on the line as the rest of ours? And hence, we simply cannot afford the luxury of demanding some nebulous emotional rapport with a candidate before one deigns to cast a ballot.  Especially if the only option to take down Trump is to verily put on our big boy pants and VOTE - for Biden!  The issue then is existential, and I'd wager, especially for the millennial and Gen Z contingent.

The issue of millennial 'bad breaks' and likely hard futures came up in Gerald Seib's recent column - 'Young Voters Catch Another Bad Break', WSJ, April 21, p. A4).  Seib noted how the young fell into a terrible bit of back luck with "the worst recession since the Great Depression"  - which prevented having any chance getting the jobs originally promised. Not to mention being "loaded with student debt because the system encouraged you to do that." 

All of which is true, as well as dashing any hopes of buying a car, buying a house or having children along the way.  Yep, that sucks, big time! But as I see it, the youngsters have two choices: 1) Throw themselves a big pity party on how life and terrible luck dealt them a lousy hand, or 2) Get up and start fighting for a better future. And btw, that must be one in which the monster Trump is gone, if you are to have any remote chance at all. 

Hence, we in the older generations issue the challenge:  'OK, Millennial!'  

So what is the main way to start fighting back, owning your pain but vowing to do better?  Well, it starts with registering to vote, and then actually going out to vote for the coming November 3 election.  And for Joe Biden, not the moral reprobate Trump! Here's a first clue: staying home is not an option and neither is voting a 3rd party candidate,  especially as Justin Amash has graciously bowed  out.

What is disturbing so far is the lack of evident younger generation energy and  participation in the primaries.  As I wrote in my March 11 post:

"The lack of interest of the Young also contributed to Bernie's demise as he himself put it last night

"Let me tell you the bad news, to be honest with you, young people vote at much lower rates than older people. That is the facts. I hope all of the old people vote, that’s great, but I want young people to vote at the same rates.”

So what happened to all the young voters, the Millennials and Gen Z's who were supposed to turn out?  Well, they clearly believed the effort wasn't worth their time or energy, or perhaps there were too many hurdles - such as obtaining the  right IDs to be able to vote.  But what most of us (older voters) don't want to hear now is any more whining from the young uns about their student debt, oldsters getting all the benefits,  having to move back in with mom and dad, and so on.  

 But  if you don't vote, don't participate, you don't get to complain - or say "OK, Boomer."

A highly disturbing observation of Seib's regarding potential  youthful voters is the following:

"Before the coronavirus hit, the shocks millennials already had endured had left them feeling 'somewhat detached from the political system' says Democratic pollster Celinda Lake".

By contrast, despite the fact that Boomers in the 1960s endured the shocks of three major political assassinations (JFK, Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr.) and the Vietnam War, we became more energized politically and registered to vote. 

Seib goes on (ibid.):

"Indeed, a report by the GQR  polling organization prepared early this year for NextGen America found that a majority of voters under the age of 35 were 'unenthusaistic' about voting in 2020.  Adding: 'A Basic dislike of politics keeps many from voting."

This is well nigh unbelievable to most Boomers, many of whom actually participated as "Freedom Riders" in the mid-60s:  going by rental bus into Klan-infested areas of Mississippi and Alabama to register black voters at great risk to themselves.   So to now learn that a major segment of the young voting block is "turned off" and "unenthusiastic" just doesn't cut it. It reeks of weakness or at least lack of any resilience.   In the more generous latter case, it echoes what I wrote in my November post 'OK, Boomer', quoting college psychologist Linda Bips:

"Many of today’s students lack resilience and at the first sign of difficulty are unable to summon strategies to cope. The hardship can be a failing grade on a test, a cut from the team, or a romantic  breakup. At the first sign of trouble many become unable to function and persevere. Often they even anticipate difficulties and their anxiety alone paralyzes them."

For his part, Seib recognizes that if the young demographic could awaken from their stupor and inertia (or lack of resilience) they could well be a force to be reckoned with, as he writes:

"If they do show to vote, it's clear they will be a force for the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate, former Vice President Joe Biden."

Pointing out that in a WSJ- NBC poll the young voters favored Biden over Trump by a "whopping 23 point margin". 

But that only translates into power if the votes are actually cast. Mere responses to polls don't count.   Millennials  now have a chance to show us Boomers they are much more than mere mouth, chutzpah and catchy memes. Also, that they have the resilience and pluck to stand up and be counted as genuine citizens as opposed to whiners, wimps and losers.  Besides, a generation seeking to change its fortunes - say reducing mounting student loan debt and having government work for you not against you - means voting. Not staying on the sidelines because you "dislike" politics.   As Democratic Pollster Celinda Lake told Seib:

"You can't see a big role for government if you don't take part in picking the government."

And as I wrote in my November, 'Ok, Boomer' post:

"Want to convince me you've "flipped the script"?  Then put down the cell phones and project your power in the real world. "

Projecting power now in this real world, means getting to the polls on Nov. 3rd (or using mail in ballots if that choice is available) and  playing a role in getting rid of Trump. Because if that doesn't happen, the pain and shocks Millennials experience now will be like a day at the beach compared to what will be in your future - hell, all our futures.

Sitting this election out is not an option. Voting for the Democratic candidate offers the chance to show the younger generations have finally become adults.

See Also:

2020 Elections | Donald Trump

Mission Imperative: Come November, Trump Must Go

by Michael Winship | May 13, 2020 - 5:50am | permalink

Excerpt:

"There must be one mission above all, one goal supreme: Vote this monster out of the White House. And along with him, tow to the nearest dump the clown car of malefactors who gave him license to cripple our republic.

Donald Trump’s defeat and the defeat of those in Congress who have enabled him with nary a word of protest are Priorities Number 1 through 100. Focus. Don’t be diverted by ideological hairsplitting and intraparty squabbling. Drive this creature and his army of creeps, leeches and miscreants back to the wet market from which they came."

Ivanka Needs To Slap Down 'Daddy Doh-Turd" And Tell Him To STFU!

This fucking liar needs to be flushed down the toilet himself for the last time.


"Democracies cannot function without reason and respect for truth, which is why totalitarian movements seek to obliterate both."-  Jennifer Rubin, 'Trump's Tampa Circus Proves You Can't Reason With His Base.'

"They asked my daughter Ivanks whether or not the media is the enemy of the people. She correctly said no. It is the FAKE  NEWS which is a larger percentage of the media, which is the enemy of the people."  - Trump tweet yesterday

It has now reached perilous and parlous proportions. That is, Traitor Donnie Doh-turd's disgusting lies as well as his refusal to cooperate with his intelligence agencies in defending the coming midterm elections against further Russkie interference.  But then we know this POS is a pal of Putin and the Russian GRU and would like nothing better than for them to steal another election, i.e. keeping all branches of government in the paws of his enablers and GOP quislings.

Trump ramped up his attacks on the media again last night, criticizing the press as “fake, fake, disgusting news” and describing journalists in attendance as “horrible, horrendous people”, despite UN experts warning earlier in the day that his actions were putting journalists at risk.

This ambulatory human virus appeared in Wilkes-Barre, in Pennsylvania, nominally to support a Republican candidate for the Senate, but in fact that was merely a cover for further media attacks. The POS  predictably spent more than 15 minutes listing a series of grievances with the press, inducing angry chanting from his  crowd of mindless zombies towards the assembled media.  This, of course, echoed the same crowd reactions as occurred two nights before in Tampa, with the QAnon zombies showing their cards (errrr....goofy 'Q' signs)  - but no brains or consciousness.  At that rally, the gathered misfits screamed epithets at CNN's Jim Acosta, see  e.g. 

Trump Tampa rally: CNN's Jim Acosta harassed, Trump approves - 

Trump's meltdown covered a range of topics including his meeting 2016

 election "victory",  his meeting with Kim Jong-un, his meeting with Putin,  and

 finally his meeting with the Queen in July.  Of course, each of those merited criticism, something this asshole would know if he possessed any sense of reality. For example, despite boasting about his meet with Kim in June, we now know the N. Korean dictator had graduated to building bigger and better ICBMs, according to intel reports. As for his meet with Putin, we already know how he bent over for the former KGB master and even agreed to have American citizens sent over to Russia to be interrogated as well as asserting Putin made "powerful arguments" against any Russian interference in the 2016 election.  As for the Queen,  media outlets noted how the imp kept her waiting for more than 20 minutes, then arriving without any apology. But what do you expect from a low class maggot? 

 Despite that, this ambulatory excrement blurted:

“They can make anything bad. Because they are the fake, fake, disgusting news,”

The insult prompted wild applause, as did his series of other denunciations of the press. All these continued despite widely shared videos showing the crowd at a Trump rally in Florida on Tuesday using aggressive language and gestures towards the CNN correspondent Jim Acosta. Acosta himself later rightly warned that the continued demagoguery from this traitor - who should have been hung by now - could lead to open violence. I even went further, and told Janice it could lead to civil war. Again, because we already know from history that two segments of a populace cannot live in comity if they accept widely divergent versions of reality.

Trump claimed after he returned to DC from the Singapore "summit" with Kim:

“I just stopped missiles from being launched every two seconds,” 

 Not realizing Kim Jong -un was having him on, and likely even as they were clapping each other's backs Kim's new ICBMs were being prepared. Probably with new re-entry capable warheads with longer range.  Proof?  Barely a week later Pompeo went back to reinforce the "agreement" but Kim wasn't there. He was in a potato field - looking at a new crop - hundreds of miles away. Neither Trump nor Pompeo seem to grasp that when the North Koreans use the term "denuclearization" they mean for both sides, not just theirs.

Trump then boasted about Kim and cohort sending back the remains of fallen U.S. troops from the Korean War. He blabbered to the crowd of geniuses assembled in Wilkes-Barre:

 "And baby, I got the hostages back. And you know what, honey, they’re not testing any more nuclear.’”

His dummies seemed not to know those "hostages" were the unlabeled remains of some hundreds of troops, and there is no inkling whatsoever of who they are, which are which. The N. Koreans included one dog tag for ID.  The remains, parts of bones, teeth, etc. will now have to be examined using DNA tools and that may take years. Some "hostages"!

As for "not testing any more nuclear"  it appears the N. Koreans are also constructing new sites, and could also be expanding the old ones. Most are subterranean anyway so - without actual onsite inspections-  no one would be the wiser regarding which test sites are operational and which aren't.

Given his detachment from truth and reality is it any wonder this illegitimate misfit finds it hard to deal with justified criticism and negativity?

So the LIAR and FAKE is none other than Trump himself, who the WaPo has now documented as telling nearly 4,900 lies since he assumed office.

Daughter Ivanka yesterday even foursquare came out against her old man's bullshit. Earlier in the day UN experts had warned that Trump’s rhetoric could “increase the risk of journalists being targeted with violence”, while his daughter, Ivanka Trump, said that, unlike her father, she does “not consider the media the enemy of the people”.

In response, because Daddy Dumpster hates truth as well as opposition, he tweeted the drivel at the top of the post. In other words, he totally contradicted his daughter, saying she does believe the media, mainstream news, is the "enemy of the people".   The reason, as NY Times columnist Charles Blow put it two days ago, is that there is no such thing as fake news. If any accounts of events are fake, then they aren't news, full stop. 

What Ivanka now needs to do is not just meekly say: "Where I disagree with my father he knows it."  But actively tell him not to twist her words, as he did with his tweet, i.e.

"Do not fucking change my words to suit your lies, Daddy Dickhead!"

A forceful response is important here given the level of pathological animus displayed in Tampa on Tuesday.  This had been such that Acosta later tweeted that he was “very worried that the hostility whipped up by Trump and some in conservative media will result in somebody getting hurt”.  The UN has also sent warnings of what will happen if Trump isn't stopped in his rampaging attacks on truth, which reminds many of how Hitler's own feverish attacks, on Jews, communists, the press - which worked up Germans in the 1930s.

See also:

Trump's Tampa circus proves you can't reason with his base

And:

Mayhem Is Our President

And:

Cody Fenwick

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Donald Trump

'Blood on the President’s Hands': Conservative Writer Warns That Trump Will Get Someone Killed

The Media Needs To Stop Conflating Presidents' Critiques Of Judiciary

It was annoying this morning to see CBS legal correspondent Jan Crawford yammering away on Trump's recent attacks on the judiciary and other presidents' criticisms,  including Obama. The problem is that Crawford made no distinction between attacking a ruling and attacking the character of the justices themselves. Let's also be mindful that Neil M. Gorsuch, Trump’s own nominee for the Supreme Court, condemned Trump's attacks on the judges as “demoralizing” and “disheartening.”

NY Times columnist Charles M. Blow put things in proper  perspective, referencing Obama's criticism of the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision vs. Trump's attack on Judge James Robart and yesterday the 9th Circuit Court hearing his Muslim ban case:

"That was his personal opinion — and the opinion of millions of Americans, many of whom were his supporters — and he had every right to voice it. Furthermore, he did so by confining his displeasure to the ruling itself and not impugning in any way the character or qualifications of the justices who rendered it."

Why was Crawford unable to distinguish Obama's ruling-centered critique from Trump's attack on James Robart's character ("The opinion of this so-called judge"  etc.) ?  Is it because she's lazy, or is it the chronic media tendency for conflating political incidents and lax reporting?  The issue is open for discussion, but another reason may well be an effort at normalizing a brazen bully who now has even gone so far as to misuse his bully pulpit to push an American company (Nordstrom) to give poor little Ivanka a break.  Nordstrom halted her line of clothes not out of any political pique - contrary to Trump's tweet about it (when does this guy work, anyway?)

They dropped her line because consumers - actually citizens - stopped buying it. Much of that could be traced to a boycott of all things Trump right after the election.

In any event, as Ari Melber (MSNBC legal expert) put it last night, Trump is treading on dangerous ground by insinuating himself into his daughter's business. Isn't he supposed to be divested from his family's  business?  Yes he is, and what this shows is 19 days after his proclamation he'd be disentangling himself from Trumpian businesses, he's as involved as ever.  Apart from the fact it is unseemly for a president to be hawking his daughter's business anyway.

But again, this lunatic has no sense, no judgement, no intelligence. He's a political fraud, also a business fraud  - masquerading as a president. He acts like he's running a grade Z corporation but is supposed to be running the country. Instead he watches cable TV for seven hours a day and tweets the rest of the time.

The guy is so lame, so out of it, his staff is "alarmed" by his behavior. Hence, the most recent leak that he awakened Michael Flynn (part of his national security team) at 3:00 a.m. to ask him a question about the dollar. See e.g.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/02/trump-call-to-mike-flynn/516087/

This raises serious questions of how this nut would handle a real crisis. My bet is, the citizens of this country - and his staff- would largely be on their own.

It is sad that a sociopathic goober who isn't fit to run a dog kennel is now in charge of our nation. It's a damned tragedy that he hasn't the first clue about how to go about it - other than watching TV and tweeting about every pissant thing that upsets him.

But neither Jan Crawford or any other media person is obliged to run interference for Trump, and that includes conflating his abhorrent and odious actions with the justified ones of other chief executives.

Why Jews Would Have To Be Stupid Or Insane To Vote Republican

Jews would have to be crazy or stupid to vote for a party that embraces a maniac like this.

Joseph Epstein, in his WSJ op-ed, 'The Political Stupidity of the Jews Revisited', Mar, 14, p. A19) insults and slanders all Jews who have ever voted Democratic - but never Republican.  In his scurrilous words:

"The Jews have been in the pocket of the Democratic Party at least as far back as Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and though there are few Jews alive today who were old enough to have voted for FDR, are still in his pocket".

Adding:

"This despite the fact that we now know that FDR was not such a grand friend to the Jews for he did nothing to even stop or slow the Nazi genocide during World War II."

No mention at all that the key evidence, namely film smuggled out of Auschwitz and Sobibor, did not even emerge until 1943.  Even then, it fell into the hands of the  O.S.S. and Allen Dulles - who deemed it "Soviet propaganda" (according to the documentary 'The Holocaust Testaments'), and ensured it never saw the light of day. So FDR did not even see it to pass judgment, Dulles et al having filtered it out of his attention and scope for action, decision.

Epstein rambles on:

"The best face that can be put on this unwillingness to vote Republican is that Jewishness, if not Judaism, has at its center a hatred of injustice and a concomitant yearning for equality."

Which is absolutely true and what inspired a German Jew, Karl Marx, to write 'Das Kapital'  - exposing the sundry ways capitalism exploits the working classes in every nation.  And barely fifty years later Marx was vindicated as Hitler earned the trust and backing of German big business to further his agenda - including exploitation of Jewish labor as slaves for the Nazi armaments factories, while collecting hair, skin (for chairs), gold fillings in teeth, after gassings.. As Ian Kershaw notes (Hitler Nemesis, p. xxxiii):

“Leaders of big business, .... for their part,  were grateful to Hitler for the destruction of the left-wing parties and trade unions. They were again ‘masters in the house’ in their dealings with their work force”

Note carefully: It wasn't Hitler destroying right wing parties but LEFT WING PARTIES and TRADE UNIONS! THIS is why the German capitalists, such as Krupp, Volkswagen, I.G. Farben (infamous for later manufacturing the Zyklon B gas used in the gas chambers) etc. threw their lot behind him and provided the political ballast, without which he could never have become 'Der Fuehrer'. This is why Jews are averse to voting for a party historically tied to injustice, despite Epstein's deficits in historical memory,

Epstein then adds further insult to his slander:

"All this presumably has been ingrained in Jews by their own long history as the scapegoats of tyrants. Being underdogs, the Jews ipso facto are themselves for underdogs The Republicans traditionally have been top dogs ."

Which again, is true. Given the Republicans are the party of Big Business, entailing corporate campaign largesse, corporate welfare and screwing over the little guy - while getting too many to expunge their own interests to vote for them - it is no wonder a decent Jew would be appalled at the prospect of voting GOP.

So Epstein castigates his own people, as "slaves" to Dems while not appreciating why. But further reason for Jewish aversion to GOP agendas might be associated with the fact that Nazi infiltrations have infected the GOP from as far back as 1952. All this is well documented  by Russ Bellant, in his book 'Old Nazis, The New Right and the Republican Party' ( South End Press, Boston, 1991, p. 77). Bellant painstakingly documented how Nazis, and former S.S. infiltrated the Republican Heritage Groups and Council from the time of Reagan's ascension in 1980. Actual letters are provided, written and received,  as well as how their agenda is spelled out. He also noted a key figure who had established connections many decades earlier, i.e.

"Philip Guarino helped establish the ethnic division of the GOP in 1952. He was vice-chair of the Republican Heritage Groups Council from 1971-75."

By April 8, 1980, Guarino "was a senior member of the Republican Party National Committee, which at the time was concentrating all its efforts on getting Ronald Reagan elected President."

Recall Reagan also gave a nod to these vermin when he visited the grave site of a Waffen S.S. in Bitburg, W. Germany in 1985. The PR at the time was that it was "an accident", but don't buy it for a second!  The "ethnic division of the GOP" refers to Ukrainian and Latvian assistants and associates, or members of the extension group affiliated with the German Waffen S.S. which had helped carry out pogroms during WWII- usually butchering Jews and communists in their own nations. (Recall, Hitler often conflated the Jews with Marxists, communists based on the fact Karl Marx was a Jew.)

Let's also note Bellant's claims re: associations, groups - apart from establishing direct ties of former S.S. affiliates to the GOP, were also well substantiated in the Newsweek article ('The Right Wing Web', February 22, 1999, p.34).  The reason for reinforcing Bellant's book is that the putative basis for widespread former Nazi use and recruitment (including in our intelligence agencies, e.g. CIA) would have been laid bare....but it seemed evident to me even then that the GOP congress wished to cover its party tracks and all possible links to Nazi interests.

So tell me now: Can a political party which has knowingly harbored known Nazis - even allowing them to be integrated into its "Heritage" groups and RNC, be trusted by Jews who (from their heritage)  abhor injustice - not to mention Nazi affiliations? I think not, but you'd never realize that reading Epstein's hogswill.

Much of this, as well as CIA efforts to integrate Nazis into their formal structure is already known,  see e.g.

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Fascism/Bloodstone_B_CS.html

Readers can also find more information on the Nazi- CIA ties here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/27/us/in-cold-war-us-spy-agencies-used-1000-nazis.html

All the above and much more would have been fully revealed to Americans' eyes if all the documents had been released under the Nazi Wartime Disclosure Act, but it was shot down by GOP congress members in 1999 so never became law. According to an earlier Baltimore Sun article ('Government May Soon Open Files on Nazi War Criminals', Aug. 2, 1998, p. 20A):

"Under pressure from Congress, the Justice Department and other agencies may be forced to declassify tens of thousands of top-secret documents describing the U.S. intelligence community's dealings with Nazi war criminals in the Cold War years. Legislation to open most of those files has already passed the Senate and could come up for a vote in the House this week. Some historians suspect that the opened files could cause 'tremendous embarrassments' for the United States."

Less than one year later the GOP congress voted against passage, and that was it. No one has heard much about it since. Perhaps the GOP Neocons and their fellow travelers knew then, as they do now, they didn't want to let the "cat out of the bag" that they harbored Nazi DNA in their agendas.

As a litmus test, what would a prospective pro-GOP Jewish voter find at a typical Trump rally? Well, taking a cue from last night in a clip shown on MSNBC, one heard a Trump supporter yell at a bystander merely holding a sign: "Get your ass to Auschwitz!"  That had to be incendiary to any Jewish person within earshot and clearly a warning to avoid such a rally.

As for the violence at Trump's rallies, they are already legendary and nothing to be proud of, and as one Denver Post letter writer noted in today's paper, the single fault of Trump - not the protesters. Trump is the one who has continually encouraged violence in his feeble -minded lackeys (with his "Punch 'em in the face!" etc. exhortations)  as part of the "entertainment". As the letter writer put it:

"The civic virtue called tolerance does not require tolerating bigotry and intolerance, that is only craven acquiescence. Active opposition to intolerance is a vital part of the eternal vigilance that is the price of liberty."

Sadly, the pro-Nazi Germans forgot that lesson in 1932 and paid dearly as they watched passively while S.A. thugs beat up Jews, socialists, communists and trade union members at rallies. Fortunately, most Americans today - including Jews- have not fallen into that dark pit, i.e. by supporting Trump.

Contrary to Epstein's quisling-based foolishness, no respectable  Jew in his right mind would ever vote for these latter day Nazis, now or ever! Hell, no respectable American in his right mind would either!

As for Germans,, they appear at least to have learned the lessons of the past. According to an article in today's WSJ ('Merkel Stands By Migrant Strategy', p. A9):

"Generations of German voters - living in the shadow of the Nazi past - have overwhelmingly rejected right wing populists."

Maybe it's time Americans do as well, especially one in the person of Herr Donald Drumpf.

See also:
http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/thom-hartmann/66447/a-key-component-of-us-fascism-is-already-in-place