Today Feels Like A Test

Ken AshfordCyberbullying, Immigration and Xenophobia, Rightwing Extremism/Violence, Trump & AdministrationLeave a Comment

I don’t know. Everything really is awful.

Matt Lauer, long-standing host of the Today Show, was abruptly fired last night, after execs at NBC received notice of a credible claim of sexual harassment.  This #MeToo reckoning, as I’ve said before, but it really is disappointing to see otherwise good people go down.  Perhaps even more disappointing is that the only segment of society that isn’t holding its icons in line are GOP politicians and their followers.

But NBC handled it in a way that Fox didn’t. Fox let O’Reilly settle a lawsuit for $32 million and then kept him on, despite repeated allegations. Which makes this video from only three months ago pretty ironic.

Not one to miss an opportunity to be a grade-A asshole, the president tweeted the following:

Pretty ironic since Trump engaged in pussy-grabbing himself. And speaking of “unsolved mysteries”, he’s STILL going around questioning Obama’s birth certificate.

But the Lauer posts from Trump were nothing compared to these retweets:

The first video (bottom) is captioned: “Muslim migrant beats up Dutch boy on crutches.”

The second post (middle) features a clip showing a Muslim man appearing to destroy a statue of the Virgin Mary.

The third and final tweet re-posted by the US President (top) claims to show a group of men killing a youngster and is titled: “Islamist mob pushes teenage boy off roof and beats him to death.”

Who is this Jayda Fransen that Trump retweeted?  A racist.

Fransen is the deputy leader of far right group Britain First, an anti-Islam, anti-immigration and nationalist political party. It is known for its anti-Islam political stunts, including “invading” mosques and launching “Christian patrols.”

The group has used social media to disseminate its message, posting anti-Islam and anti-immigrant propaganda on Twitter and videos of provocative stunts designed to antagonize Muslims on YouTube and Facebook.

She is on bail facing four charges of causing religiously aggravated harassment as part of a Kent Police investigation into the distribution of leaflets and the posting of online videos during a trial held at Canterbury Crown Court in May.

London-born Fransen was arrested earlier this month and flown to Belfast over an anti-terrorism speech made in Northern Ireland in the summer.

Fransen will also appear in court in Northern Ireland in December charged with using threatening and abusive language in connection with a speech she made at an anti-terrorism demonstration in Belfast on August 6.

Here’s an interesting observation:

No kidding. But the guy who tweeted this (Paul Watson) is editor-in-chief of the nutso far-right-wing Infowars! And even he has a problem with Trump’s islamophobic tweets.

Full statement from the Anti-Defamation League:

UPDATE: Speaking of Matt Lauer behaving badly…