After Cheeto Jesus’ inauguration, he announced with great fanfare two councils of CEOs all designed to Make America Great Again, whatever that means.  The two councils, the Manufacturing Council and the Strategy & Policy Forum, were supposedly organized to help shape policy to increase business and generate jobs for American workers.  In reality, though, they were simply figurehead in nature, designed to reward CEOs for supporting Trump.  In fact, to my knowledge the councils never actually met outside of the initial photo ops, and were just used to raise the profiles of its members.

All that puffery came crashing down the last few days after Trump’s catastrophic response to the violence in Charlottesville, defending neo-Nazis and racist white supremacists and attacking the media for simply asking questions.  In the face of this disaster, CEOs began bailing from the Manufacturing Council. Today, the Strategy & Policy Forum met in a conference call, and in the face of a crowd of CEOs ready to resign, they disbanded.  Later, through Twitler, Trump also disbanded the Manufacturing Council.  I guess he decided that the defections were simply too glaring to gloss over.

This development is not insignificant.  Think about it – Trump rode to the WH on the backs of bigots and the ignorant; but worse, he also rode on the shoulders of business executives who were so self interested in stuffing their wallets even more full that they allowed themselves to be used to elect a depraved carnival barker.  These very same executives are now fleeing like rats off a sinking ship.

Any reasonable educated American supports removing Confederate monuments that celebrate one of the darkest chapters in our history.  Only bigots support status quo because…you know, heritage; but in 2015, everything changed when the mass shooting at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston by a white supremacists shook the nation, and the monuments started coming down.  The riots in Charlottesville Virginia this weekend that resulted in the deaths of one counter-protestor and two state troopers were propagated by the announcement of the removal of the statute of Robert E. Lee in a city park.  You know, that statue was really important to our “heritage” and it’s just natural to just start beating and running over people with cars if someone wants to take it down, right?  Of course.

The backlash of this weekend’s  violence has been swift and loud.  White supremacist demonstrators are being outed by activists and some fired by their employers for being racist assholes.  Trump has once again been humiliated for being, you know, a racist asshole.  Frustrated human rights advocates have taken matters into their own hands, and today toppled a confederate statue in Durham North Carolina:

Among some of my circle of friends, though they would like to see monuments like this gone from our city parks and streets, they disagree that they should be toppled by activists.  I’ll admit I’m torn and wonder what others might think about this issue.  Before you answer, look at these images:

The first image was taken in Berlin after it fell to the allies in WWII.  Today, Berlin has been scrubbed clean of all Nazi monuments and even doing the Nazi salute is illegal.  The second image is the famous photo of Saddam’s statue glorifying himself being destroyed after US troops entered Bagdad. I don’t think anyone would disagree with either of these actions.  Why would destruction of monuments that glorify the oppressors of millions of human beings be treated any differently?

It’s not an easy question, and I have to say there was a certain satisfaction in watching that stature being pulled over on its head today by ordinary Americans.  Do you agree?

Yes?  No?

The University of Texas at Arlington (think Dallas, Fort Worth) was a little stunned to find that redneck white people still live in Texas.

These fliers were found on campus yesterday.

I dunno if America is a white nation but I do know for a certain damn joyful fact that Texas is not a white state.  Only 40% of Texans are classified as white and I suspect that some of them are lying just so they can attend Klan meetings.

How you can tell if someone who is brown has a birth certificate involves magic and alchemy way beyond my intelligence level.

They have a really scary website, where they smear their faces out instead of wearing a hood.  By the way, “blood and soil” has its origins in Nazi Germany.  Here’s the outline of what they call “The Texas Offensive.”

By the way, I make it a rule in life not to go places where I have to hide my face.  But then again, I am especially beautiful and I kinda suspect those guy are anything but.