There were other immigrants who came here in the bottom of slave ships, worked even longer, even harder for less. But they too had a dream that one day their sons, daughters, grandsons, granddaughters, great-grandsons, great-granddaughters, might pursue prosperity and happiness in this land.

Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Dr. Ben Carson weighs in on slavery. Immigrants.

The 25th Amendment

Just one excerpt from today’s Trump press conference, presented without editing and straight up from the Times of New York transcript of the event:

QUESTION: (inaudible) …for those who believe that there is something to it, is there anything that you have learned over the last few weeks that you might be able to reveal that might ease their concerns that this isn’t fake news? And second…

TRUMP: …I think they don’t believe it. I don’t think the public – that’s why the Rasmussen poll just has me through the roof. I don’t think they believe it. Well, I guess one of the reasons I’m here today is to tell you the whole Russian thing, that’s a ruse. That’s a ruse. And by the way, it would be great if we could get along with Russia, just so you understand that.

“Now tomorrow, you’ll say “Donald Trump wants to get along with Russia, this is terrible.” It’s not terrible. It’s good. We had Hillary Clinton try and do a reset. We had Hillary Clinton give Russia 20 percent of the uranium in our country. You know what uranium is, right? This thing called nuclear weapons like lots of things are done with uranium including some bad things.

"Nobody talks about that. I didn’t do anything for Russia. I’ve done nothing for Russia. Hillary Clinton gave them 20 percent of our uranium. Hillary Clinton did a reset, remember? With the stupid plastic button that made us all look like a bunch of jerks. Here, take a look. He looked at her like, what the hell is she doing with that cheap plastic button?

"Hillary Clinton – that was the reset, remember it said reset? Now if I do that, oh, I’m a bad guy. If we could get along with Russia, that’s a positive thing. We have a very talented man, Rex Tillerson, who’s going to be meeting with them shortly and I told him. I said “I know politically it’s probably not good for me.” The greatest thing I could do is shoot that ship that’s 30 miles off shore right out of the water.

"Everyone in this country’s going to say “oh, it’s so great.” That’s not great. That’s not great. I would love to be able to get along with Russia. Now, you’ve had a lot of presidents that haven’t taken that tack. Look where we are now. Look where we are now. So, if I can – now, I love to negotiate things, I do it really well, and all that stuff. But – but it’s possible I won’t be able to get along with Putin.

"Maybe it is. But I want to just tell you, the false reporting by the media, by you people, the false, horrible, fake reporting makes it much harder to make a deal with Russia. And probably Putin said “you know.” He’s sitting behind his desk and he’s saying “you know, I see what’s going on in the United States, I follow it closely. It’s going to be impossible for President Trump to ever get along with Russia because of all the pressure he’s got with this fake story.” OK?

"And that’s a shame because if we could get along with Russia – and by the way, China and Japan and everyone. If we could get along, it would be a positive thing, not a negative thing.

The GOP’s class warfare has backfired.

southpol:

“I have voted Republican my entire life,” he says. “I don’t want to vote for Harry Reid. But I don’t want to be told I’m lazy, and I’m dumb, and I’m living high on the hog, collecting [unemployment insurance] because I want to.”

(via ryking)

Wow. Color me shocked. The article is at least as worth-your-read for containing this opening paragraph:

Sometime this spring, Republicans turned against unemployment. In Nevada, Sharron Angle ®, the candidate facing incumbent Sen. Harry Reid (D), told local reporters, “You can make more money on unemployment than you can going down and getting one of those jobs that is an honest job.” (Untrue.) Angle also called the unemployed “spoiled.”

Emphasis added to point out that it’s just not that hard to take a point of view. Especially a sensible and informative one: what Angle said was demonstrably false. Period. No “opinions differ” or, even worse, simply print what she said and “leave it there.”

More please.

The GOP’s class warfare has backfired.

Now it can be told. The story about [McChrystal] voting for Obama is not contrived. He is a political liberal. He is a social liberal. He banned Fox News from the television sets in his headquarters. Yes, really.

Marc Ambinder. What?
Wait, WHAT?

If I’m going to die, I’m ready. But I’m going out playing ‘Sophisticated Lady.’

Charles Mingus, in response to a bomb threat at a 1972 Yale University concert.
He continued to play, and “coming from inside [the otherwise evacuated hall] was the sound of Mingus intently playing Ellington’s dreamy thirties hit […] going on and on and getting hotter. In the street, Ellington stood in the waiting crowd just beyond the theatre’s open doors, smiling.”
Wow.

I have enough faith in my fellow creatures in [the United States] to believe that when they have got over the delirium of the television, when they realize that their new homes that they have been put into are mortgaged to the hilt, when they realize that the moneylender has been elevated to the highest position in the land, when they realize that the refinements for which they should look are not there, that it is a vulgar society of which no decent person could be proud, when they realize all those things, when the years go by and they see the challenge of modern society not being met by the [Republicans] who can consolidate their political powers only on the basis of national mediocrity, who are unable to exploit the resources of their scientists because they are prevented by the greed of their capitalism from doing so, when they realize that the flower of our youth goes abroad today because they are not being given opportunities of using their skill and their knowledge properly at home, when they realize that all the tides of history are flowing in our direction, that we are not beaten, that we represent the future: then, when we say it and mean it, then we shall lead our people to where they deserve to be led!

Aneurin Bevan [lightly edited to contextualize], to the British Labour Party in 1959, following their general election defeat. Wow.