Pay no attention

Does anybody really know whose chair this is?

...to the man behind the curtain.  Please.

Speaking at a roundtable of pastors in Colorado Springs, Colorado, Vice Presidential candidate Michael] Pence said police officers are "the best of us" and the public should avoid focusing on talking about racism, which he called the "rhetoric of division."

"Donald Trump and I both believe that there's been far too much of this talk of institutional bias or racism in law enforcement," Pence said, according to the AP.

Or in society in general, amirite?

“There wasn’t any racism until [President Barack] Obama got elected,” she said. “Now . . . with the people with the guns and shooting up neighborhoods and not being responsible citizens, that’s a big change. And I think that’s the philosophy that Obama has perpetuated on America.”

Miller further blamed black people for any real or perceived oppression.

“If you’re black and you haven’t been successful in the last 50 years, it’s your own fault,” she argued. “When you look at the last 50 years, where are we and why? We have three generations of all still having unwed babies, kids that don’t go through high school. I mean, when do they take responsibility for how they live?”

That is the former Trump chair in Monaghan County, Ohio.  She resigned her position the day that interview was published.

I'm just not sure this is the day Pence needs to be talking about racism at all, especially with his boss renouncing his latest position on Obama's birth; or telling an African America audience that stop and frisk is especially good for them; or blaming drugs for the protests in Charlotte.  And that was just in the last 24 hours.

Ye gods!  Charlie Pierce is right; we have sailed off the edge of the known world.

It's not about race, because it's never about race.  It's only about how white people are unfairly accused of being racists.  That's all it's ever been about.

And because it's never about race, I have to ask:  does anybody understand why this is a race joke?

"We also honor Wynton Marsalis, who unfortunately, could not make it here today, and Morgan Freeman, who undoubtedly is off playing a black President again," the President quipped while awarding the National Medals of Arts and Humanities. "He never lets me have my moment."

Tim Huelskamp, soon to be a former member of Congress, thinks it is.  I guess because it was made by a black man, or something.   I dunno; maybe you had to be there to be offended.