Contemptor

Trump’s Call For Poll Monitoring Needs Far More Media Attention

Becky Sarwate1 Comment

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“The Trump campaign is literally ready to do battle all the way through November 8 in the name of “Making America Great [White] Again.” As NPR’s Pam Fessler reported earlier this month, Trump Calls On Supporters To Monitor Polling Places On Election Day. Two rhetorical questions:

  1. What do you suppose is the dominant demographic makeup of these poll patrollers?
  2. Who do you think they’re looking to screen during an exercise of constitutional rights?

Trump has already planted the seed that the only way he loses in certain states (specifically Pennsylvania) is if “cheating” occurs. If this were fiction, it might be hilarious that Trump’s new campaign chief, the upstanding citizen known as Steve Bannon, is himself the suspect of voter fraud. But I’m not laughing. Because as Fessler correctly observes, ‘Most election experts dismiss Trump’s claims that people can vote five, 10 or 15 times at the polls. Not only is it almost impossible to do. There are very few proven cases of in-person voter fraud.'”

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The Hypocritic Oath: Trump Campaign Can’t Stop Insulting Voter Intelligence

Becky SarwateLeave a comment

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“Not only is Trump an outrageous purveyor of hate, he’s also a ginormous hypocrite. While spewing racist rhetoric from every corner of his campaign, he has the unmitigated gall to label Hillary Clinton a “bigot.” Just what kind of fools does Trump’s team take American voters to be?

Don’t answer before considering the other ridiculous attempts the worst candidate in history made this week to pull the wool over our collective eyes.”

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White Male Privilege’s Biggest Threat: Strong American Women

Becky SarwateLeave a comment

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“A damned inspiring couple of weeks. And all this lady winning took place against a political backdrop where Hillary Clinton is on track to be elected the first female president in American history. In many ways it’s never been a more exciting and hopeful time to be a woman in this country. Our gender is literally everywhere smashing through barriers, teaching little girls of all skin tones that the limits of possibility are drawn only by one’s hard work and determination.

But if summer 2016 has been a celebratory feast for gifted, focused American women in sports and politics, our male counterparts have struggled. The ugly excesses of white male privilege have been on a world tour. It’s been one embarrassing, frightening and disappointing moment after another for the reproducers of the patriarchal ideology – consciously or otherwise. Here’s a brief rundown of this season’s competitive exercises in white male disgust…”

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GOP In Headlights: This Week In The Trump Campaign

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“I was a big soap opera fan as a kid growing up in the 1980s. Give me a hot super couple romance or a realistically impossible natural disaster and I was all in. Santa Barbara, General Hospital and All My Children – while other youths were catching up on cartoons, I was transfixed by Luke and Laura’s magnificent, on-location wedding.

Watching Donald Trump’s campaign unfold is an experience quite like the televised daytime dramas that kept me hooked well into the early 2000s. Except that there’s no decompression after closing one’s laptop or turning off the TV. There are real consequences besides the sort of anxiety-ridden fugue state that is a burden of all those endeavoring to follow the fire. Party affiliation is inconsequential. If one is a passionate liberal, the prospect of Trumpism in the White House and its associated wrecking ball effect on America as we know it is one kind of panic attack. And for conservatives (whatever that means these days), the specter of electoral annihilation and party irrelevance has many pundits and politicians reaching for the Xanax.”

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Mayor Rahm Emanuel Stubbornly Remains in Office, Still Destroying Chicago

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“When the Mayor deems Gang Threats Against Police ‘Absolutely Unacceptable,’ he’s perfectly right of course. But the mob vengeance mentality against the CPD did not germinate in a vacuum. What he calls “a continuing dialogue on police reform,” is necessary because Emanuel’s office has a persistent problem – routine evidence of black citizens losing their lives to police officers under circumstances questionable at best.

At this point we’re stuck with Rahm until early 2019. Consideration of a recall bill has been stalled since January, and the Mayor has deflected numerous calls for his resignation. However, we are the same city that shut down a Trump rally, the town that rebuilt itself as a world-class destination after a devastating fire. We reversed the flow of the Chicago River. We are more than capable of coming together to remove the cancer in City Hall. So let’s do it. #FireRahm”

Read the full post at Contemptor.