Doofus of the week – May 20, 2018

Written By: - Date published: 8:30 am, May 20th, 2018 - 20 comments
Categories: doofus of the week, humour, internet, the praiseworthy and the pitiful, twitter, us politics, you couldn't make this shit up - Tags:

This week we have an international winner.

I was tempted to award the prize to various members of the National Party for their complete mischaracterisation of the budget.  But I realised early on that their efforts were not because they did not understand, rather it was an attempt to create a malignant view of the effects of the budget.

So I looked elsewhere and there is this story of an appalling Trump supporting lawyer (yes 99% of lawyers give the rest a bad name) who lost his rag because some people were speaking Spanish to each other in a New York restaurant.  Yes the good old USA, land of the free and home of the brave, has a citizen that thinks there should be no freedom of speech unless it is in English.  And who is clearly afraid of people of Mexican descent speaking their mother tongue.

Vox has the background:

For the past few weeks, national attention has focused heavily on issues of racial profiling after a number of high-profile incidents involving white people calling the police on people of color spread on social media.

Now a video of a man threatening to call Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Spanish-speaking employees in a New York restaurant has gone viral — and is creating some trouble for the man at the center of the video.

In the video, an unidentified man can be seen yelling at the employees of a Fresh Kitchen in Manhattan, berating them for speaking Spanish to customers.

“Your staff is speaking Spanish to customers when they should be speaking English,” he says to one employee in the video. “This is America.”

Reporter Shaun King took umbrage at what had happened.

https://twitter.com/ShaunKing/status/996725747711541249

The bigot was identified as Aaron Schlossberg, a New York attorney who has paradoxically touted his fluency in Spanish on his lawfirm’s website.

You know how this ends up.

A twitter pile on resulted.  He was identified and other questionable video about him was sourced.  Not only is this guy a Trump supporter, he is also has some rather intemperate views.

There is a petition to disbar him that has gained thousands of supporters.  He has had the lease for his law firm terminated.

A Gofundme page was set up to hire a mariachi band to play Spanish songs for Schlossberg and a big party was organised for outside of his apartment.  The fee was raised quickly but then waived by the band.

The party was organised by Luis Magaña, a Mexican American, and a Bernie supporter. His Facebook event page said “Assuming all Spanish speakers are undocumented is not only ignorant but a little sad. It’s also a little sad that Mr Schlossberg thinks all Hispanics are on Welfare. However, Hispanics are not sad people and we will gladly educate you on our culture and language by throwing a big fiesta.”

A huge crowd attended the party. Duck tacos were donated to the crowd by Jade Sixty, an Upper East Side Asian restaurant.

And of course there was twitter coverage of the event.

https://twitter.com/LAKauffman/status/997607641093410817

And everyone except Aaron had a really good time.

The band finished their set with the song “Viva America”. How perfect is that?

To the fair and diverse and progressive people of New York I salute you.

But Aaron you really are a doofus.

20 comments on “Doofus of the week – May 20, 2018 ”

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  1. Sacha 1
    20 May 2018 at 8:39 am

    What a great way to protest.

  2. dv 2
    20 May 2018 at 8:42 am

    And he reckons americans speak english!!

  3. David Mac 3
    20 May 2018 at 9:30 am

    Oh dear, I sort of feel sorry for the guy, his day started off with his foot in his mouth and ended up with Hannahs in there.

  4. One Anonymous Bloke 4
    20 May 2018 at 9:33 am

    ‘Counter-enlightenment convictions are surprisingly resilient’

    Steven Pinker.

    I wonder how resilient the doofus is feeling about now. Yay for smart phones.

    • mac1 4.1
      20 May 2018 at 9:55 am

      ‘Counter-enlightenment convictions are surprisingly resilient’.

      Or, more simply, you can lead a doofus to data but you can’t make him think.

      I wanted the idiot who was unwilling to be self-identified as the insulter of the PM in the House, but “gutless anonymous doofus” is a bit of a tongue-twister. So, good choice for DoW. Aaron’s awareness certainly didn’t increase the DoW average. They have a low bar for lawyers nowadays in the US, it seems.

  5. Duker 5
    20 May 2018 at 9:49 am

    The former Homeland Security head and now Trumps chief of staff , Kelly did a rant recently about ‘poor quality’ migrants who have poor previous education and dont speak english.
    Then people were able to look up his grandparents , especially ones who came from Ireland and Italy.
    Yup. Poor previous education and lack of english.

    • Morrissey 5.1
      20 May 2018 at 2:30 pm

      New Zealand politicians and their media parrots make similar comments about “low quality” immigrants.

  6. millsy 6
    20 May 2018 at 10:18 am

    150 years ago it was people who spoke Gaelic
    100 years ago it was people who spoke German
    75 years ago it was people who spoke Italian

    I dont think anyone should be suprised at this. The WASPs have wanted the USA for themselves for the past 300-odd years.

  7. Incognito 7
    20 May 2018 at 11:08 am

    That mariachi band is gonna be busy, I’m afraid.

  8. Muttonbird 8
    20 May 2018 at 11:31 am

    James will be along shortly tut-tutting about the crushing of Schlossberg’s right to free speech.

  10. One Anonymous Bloke 10
    20 May 2018 at 12:28 pm

    David Garrett has to be a strong contender for next week’s prize.

    …an invective-laden rant during which he attempted to support “tough on crime” arguments with inaccurate data.

  11. Morrissey 11
    20 May 2018 at 2:28 pm

    We see nothing wrong with Hispanics, especially the white ones. Certainly they should speak English, but at least Spanish is useful, unlike that boring savage language that the P.C. police are ramming down our throats.

    Sincerely,

    Dr. Don Brash
    John Ansell
    Sir Robert Jones
    Sir William Gallagher
    Dame Denise L’Estrange-Corbet
    Michael Hosking
    Dame Jenny Shipley
    Jamie Whyte
    Rodney Hide

  12. NZJester 12
    20 May 2018 at 8:52 pm

    That was not Aaron Schlossberg only time being recorded in public making an arse of himself.

    The racist New York lawyer is at it again! A new video has surfaced of him at an alt-right protest and it’s interesting to say the least. Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian, host of The Young Turks, break it down.

  13. Gosman 13
    21 May 2018 at 8:55 am

    There is an ugly side to this. His former associate at his law firm quit as a result of this. She posted on Twitter quite a reasonable post about how she could no long work for such a person. Some of the responses to her are quite scathing along the lines of she should have known the sort of person he was before and therefore her leaving is somehow less genuine. It highlights how this sort of thing can get out of hand and descend in to a mob justice mentality.

    https://twitter.com/CatherineLyster