BY BRIAN BEUTLER, PRIYANKA ARIBINDI

& CROOKED MEDIA

Thursday, August 8, 2019

—Elizabeth Warren being right again

IT'S THE WHITE SUPREMACY STUPID

Two Democratic presidential candidates—Elizabeth Warren and Beto O’Rourke—have declared that Donald Trump is a white supremacist. This has been clear for some time, but it’s still an important acknowledgement for Democratic candidates to make ahead of the election. 

What did they say? Both candidates’ comments came in response to questions from reporters. 

• O’Rourke said, “He is. He’s also made that very clear. He’s dehumanized or sought to dehumanize those who do not look like or pray like the majority here in this country.”

• Warren said, ““Yes. He has given aid and comfort to white supremacists. He’s done the wink and a nod. He has talked about white supremacists as fine people. He’s done everything he can to stir up racial conflict and hatred in this country.”

Why’d they say it? The obvious impetus is the fact that Trump-inspired white terrorists keep murdering people, most recently in O’Rourke’s home town of El Paso, TX. But the policy regime Trump has imposed on the country hasn’t changed, either. 

• The Trump administration just rounded up nearly 700 immigrants during raids at food processing plants in Mississippi, abandoning the immigrants’ children who returned home from school to find their parents missing.

• In June, the administration forced 41-year-old Jimmy Aldoud—an Iraqi Christian who was born in a Greek refugee camp and had lived in the United States since he was a toddler—on to a plane and dumped him in Baghdad, Iraq, a country he'd never even visited, where he was unable to obtain insulin for diabetes and died. 

• With white supremacist violence on the rise, Trump has rejected requests from officials to make combatting it a higher security priority.  

• Trump continues to separate migrant families at the southern border and detain them in camps indefinitely—and that’s just the worst aspect of his overall immigration policy, which is cruel by design.

It’s important to acknowledge Trump is a white supremacist, because he has turned his hatred into a program. It is fashionable for political journalists and commentators to view Trump’s policies and rhetoric—”caravans!” “shit-hole countries!” “invasion!”—through the lens of politics. It’s all about mobilizing his base, we’re told. We can’t see into his heart, we’re told. But these are not just cynical words and deeds that he’ll set aside if he wins himself a second term. It is the agenda on offer. The white supremacy is the thing itself.  

Climate change is putting the world’s food supply at risk, according to the United Nations. Earlier this week, the U.N. issued a warning about water shortages that will affect a full quarter of humanity. The same extreme-weather and climate-change effects threaten the global food supply, too.

According to environmental journalist Amanda Little, “the most climate-vulnerable foods include those that… [need] very specific conditions to grow well, like coffee, wine grapes, olives, cacao, berries, citrus and stone fruits—as well as those that are most water-intensive, like almonds, avocados, and the alfalfa and pasture that feed cattle.” 

The report warns that food shortages could increase immigration flows to North America and Europe, and that unless humans modify their diets, we won’t reach our goals to curb greenhouse-gas emissions, suggesting reduced meat consumption.

Pod Save America will be LIVE in Los Angeles at the Greek Theater on August 17 and this is your chance to watch the magic happen in person.

Aside from all there is to talk about, there will be performances by Maggie Rogers, Amanda Seales, Best Coast, and Jim James. Plus, all proceeds from the show will be donated to organizations at the forefront of the fight to protect the vote across America (vote.org, Election Protection, The National Redistricting Foundation, and Think Social Impact).

So to recap, you get to: Hang with Crooked crew, watch a fun show, hear great live music, AND protect democracy.

Get those tickets → crooked.com/thegreek

President Trump asked the Federal Reserve to take steps to weaken the U.S. dollar on Thursday, violating a tradition of presidents publicly supporting a strong dollar and the norm of presidents not interfering in monetary policy decisions for political gain. It's also a demand for the kind of currency manipulation his administration just accused China of engaging in. 

The top U.S. diplomat in Latin America, Kimberly Breier, has resigned from her post, reportedly over disputes with the Trump administration over its immigration policies in Guatemala. She’s the second high-profile diplomat to part ways with the administration this week alone.  

Trump has purged Deputy Director of National Intelligence Sue Gordon, so that he can place a crony in charge of the intelligence community when its current director, Dan Coats, steps down later this month.

Nearly 300 of the 680 people detained during ICE raids in Mississippi on Wednesday were released after being processed by Homeland Security. Thirty were released on “humanitarian grounds,” including single parents with minor children at home. According to an ICE spokesperson, agents asked everyone originally detained if they had children who were in school or childcare and needed to be picked up, and agents “made cell phones available,” but at no point was the state’s child protective services notified of these raids. 

Former acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe has sued the Justice Department and FBI for firing him over his “refusal to pledge partisan allegiance” to Trump. He has asked the court to nullify his firing, so that he can receive his full pension, but intends to remain retired. 

Andrew Yang became the ninth Democrat to qualify for the third Democratic primary debate. Our hopes for a single stage are thinning rapidly. 

Trump is “strongly considering” commuting former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich’s 14-year prison sentence, which he’s serving for trying to sell the Senate seat Barack Obama vacated after he won the presidency. Trump described the offense as minor, the kind of things “many” politicians have done, which is exactly what a president who uses his office for personal profit would say. Also, Trump likes to use his clemency powers on behalf of corrupt cronies, so that they and others will feel comfortable committing more crimes on his behalf. What a stand up guy.

Elizabeth Warren has announced a plan to create a public option for the internet, in order to ensure universal broadband access. Currently, 19 million people (six percent of all Americans) lack broadband access because of poor infrastructure and market failure, and a disproportionate number of these people live in rural areas. Now if only the internet could be less terrible...

Disney wants to remake Home Alone for its new streaming service and Macaulay Culkin has THOUGHTS. 

U.S. Soccer has hired lobbyists to argue that the women’s national team is not underpaid, because U.S. Soccer apparently thinks that’s a better use of its money than giving it to the women who won the World Cup last month and galvanized support for equal pay around the globe. Cool. Maybe now they can hire more lobbyists to argue that hiring lobbyists to argue the women's national team is not underpaid was not a completely stupid thing to do.

A photograph of Beyoncé from last year’s September issue of Vogue will enter the permanent collection of the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery. The image was captured by Tyler Mitchell, a then-23-year-old who became the first black photographer to shoot a cover in the magazine’s 126-year history. We wrote about the milestone around this time last year (#tbt to early What A Day), and it’s great to know the story didn’t end there.

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