Ruining the brand

Jan 19th, 2017 1:26 pm | By

The Times addresses the question of why Putin wanted Trump; what’s in it for him?

Brendan Nyhan, a professor of government at Dartmouth and a contributor to The Upshot, made the case succinctly:

Trump has flouted the norms of American elections and governance at every turn, including calling for the jailing of an opposing candidate, encouraging violence against protesters, endorsing the torture of prisoners, suggesting he might not respect the results of the election, falsely claiming that millions of illegal votes were cast, failing to resolve unprecedented conflicts of interest or to even disclose his tax returns, and attacking a federal judge based on his ethnicity (and that’s of course a highly incomplete list). I can’t directly assess the IC report, but it’s fair to say that the liberal democratic order is being disrupted both in the U.S. and around the world.

Putin doesn’t like the liberal democratic order, because it’s not his kind of order. He’d rather have a kind of order that favors authoritarian strongmen like him. Breaking the legs of the liberal democratic order helps with that.

Norman Ornstein, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, sent me his thoughts:

One, the Russians have known for a long time that Trump was susceptible to flattery, especially from major authority figures. Two, he had a significant following in the US as a mega-celebrity. Three, if he got engaged in politics, it would be divisive — a good early example being his birther efforts. Four, he would perplex, frustrate and divide Republican establishment figures, most of whom were hostile to Russia, but a divided major party serves to disrupt the democracy. I doubt they thought he would win, but he would encourage or exacerbate divisions in the society, challenge many fundamental norms over his own narcissistic sociopathic views of himself and his entitlements, and break a lot of crockery without a second’s misgiving. His victories, with the GOP nomination and the election were unexpected icing on the cake.

It’s a tiny bit reassuring that even someone at the AEI can see that.

Another scholar put it as a matter of weakening “the West’s desirability, credibility and moral authority.” It’s an effective way of doing that, for sure. I’ve lost a huge amount of trust in our desirability, credibility and moral authority since last July. I still have no desire to move to Pakistan or Somalia, but the gap is closing. That’s no good. Pakistan and Somalia need to get better; we don’t need to get worse.

David Leege, a professor emeritus of political science at Notre Dame, wrote me:

Trump was a willing but unwitting accomplice because he loved the flattery, saw it only as a business opportunity, and had so little understanding of international relations to recognize how affairs of state could be caught up in it.

Along similar lines, Sandy Maisel, a political scientist at Colby, argued that Trump’s

ego is such that he never asked, nor does he ask yet, what playing into the Russians needs and desires meant for our system. An unwitting — ego-driven — tool of Putin’s goal to undermine faith in our system and in the Clinton candidacy.

Gary Jacobson, a political scientist at the University of California, San Diego, was outspoken in his response to my question asking why the Russians favored Trump:

His shameless mendacity, narcissism, authoritarian instincts, inability to tolerate opposition or criticism, hostility to formal institutions and the media, vast ignorance of foreign and domestic issues, indifference to constitutional restraints and eagerness to whip up and exploit xenophobia and (barely disguised) racism. We might add his affection for authoritarian leaders and other tough guys. Have I left anything out? Probably. All of these characteristics lead him to say things and propose actions antithetical to democratic norms and standards.

Trump is so terrible it’s difficult to give an exhaustive account of his terribleness.

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Freedom shouldn’t have to be stealthy

Jan 19th, 2017 12:18 pm | By

I know some Ex-Muslims who are not impressed by the idea that wearing hijab is a good way to stand up for religious freedom, contrary to what People magazine suggests.

Actress Kathy Najimy Wants People to Wear Headscarves on Inauguration Day in Support of Religious Freedom

I get why she thinks that’s a good idea, but she’s still wrong. Hijab is a religious “obligation” imposed on women and women only. That’s not any kind of freedom.

One group, led by actress Kathy Najimy, is encouraging people to support “our about-to-be-disenfranchised Muslim sisters” by wearing headscarves on Inauguration Day.

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Scarves — with the support of the Muslim Women’s PAC — is putting out a nationwide call for people to don headscarves in the style of an hijab.

But then what of My Stealthy Freedom? Those women take their hijab off in support of women’s freedom. Putting one on is a slap in the face to them, and to all the women who would like to ditch theirs but can’t, because of social and religious pressure including outright violence.

Najimy emphasizes that the purpose of this movement is to support religious freedom.

“We by no means are endorsing or aligning with ANY religious doctrine,” she says. “Simply stand for freedom. It’s easy, creates solidarity and puts some hope into the hearts of Americans who feel unjustly threatened.”

But they are endorsing a particular religious doctrine, whatever she says. They can’t help it. If people put on big ol’ crosses they would be endorsing a particular religious doctrine, whether they intended to or not.

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Let’s get us a buncha outsiders up in here

Jan 19th, 2017 11:09 am | By

Charles Pierce on the Betsy DeVos hearing. (Not really a hearing, more of a façade of a hearing.)

As nearly as I can tell, the nominees for the president-elect’s Cabinet fall into several different categories. There are the people you’d pretty much expect from any Republican administration. (James Mattis, Michael Flynn, Ryan Zinke). There are the people who understand the mission of their departments and have spent their lives undermining it. (Jeff Sessions as Attorney General, Rick Perry at Energy, Andrew Puzder at Labor). And there are the people who are fundamentally clueless about the general nature of public service. (Rex Tillerson at State.) On Tuesday night, DeVos demonstrated that she is that rarest of Trump administration fauna: Someone who fits capably into all three categories.

Cool. Standard (so hooray free market, to hell with losers) Republican, underminer, and clueless. There’s also the bribery aspect: can we count that as a fourth classification?

Her ignorance about the field she is nominated to be Secretary of which was particularly displayed when Al Franken questioned her:

Franken: I’m talking about the debate between proficiency in growth, what your thoughts on that?

DeVos: I was just asking the senator to clarify…

Franken: This is a subject that has been debated in the education community for years. I have advocated growth as the chairman, and every member of this committee knows, because with proficiency teachers ignore the kids of the top who are not going to fall below proficiency, and they ignore the kid at the bottom who they know will never get to proficiency. I have been an advocate for growth. But it surprises me that you don’t know this issue, and Mr. Chairman, I think this is a good reason for us to have more questions. This is a very important subject — education, our kids’ education. I think we are selling our kids short by not being able to have a debate on it.

As I may have mentioned, my father was a teacher and an administrator in the public high schools for over 35 years. He explained the essential difference between proficiency and growth to me 40 years ago. That a prospective Secretary of Education hadn’t the faintest idea what Franken was talking about should have been enough to make the committee adjourn itself in helpless laughter.

Or to Google yet again “emigration.”

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28 out of 690

Jan 19th, 2017 6:11 am | By

Jonathan Bernstein at Bloomberg:

Politico’s Michael Crowley has a nice piece explaining the missing National Security Council staffers, and the dangers that could cause if there’s an early crisis. Hundreds of briefing papers have been created by Obama’s NSC and sent to Team Trump, but the New York Times reports that no one knows if they’ve been reviewed.

Yet the NSC is ahead of the curve for this administration. Look at the big four departments. There’s no Trump appointee for any of the top State Department jobs below secretary nominee Rex Tillerson. No Trump appointee for any of the top Department of Defense jobs below retired general James Mattis. Treasury? Same story. Justice? It is one of two departments (along with, bizarrely, Commerce) where Trump has selected a deputy secretary. But no solicitor general, no one at civil rights, no one in the civil division, no one for the national security division.

And the same is true in department after department. Not to mention agencies without anyone at all nominated by the president-elect.

Overall, out of 690 positions requiring Senate confirmation tracked by the Washington Post and Partnership for Public Service, Trump has come up with only 28 people so far.

That’s alarming. It’s alarming if it’s incompetence and indifference, and it’s alarming if it’s all part of the cunning plan to destroy the state.

If I had to guess, however, I’d say that the failure to get his administration up and running on time isn’t a deliberate choice by Trump; he just has no idea what he’s doing, and hasn’t surrounded himself with people well-equipped to translate his impulses and his campaign commitments into a full-fledged government. This isn’t exactly a surprise. Recall that the Trump Organization has never had a large bureaucracy and that his campaign didn’t staff up the way campaigns normally do, so he doesn’t really have any relevant management experience. And, of course, he’s never demonstrated any significant knowledge in how the government actually works. The results are likely to be damaging to his presidency, and to the nation.

His presidency should be damaged. The nation? I’d rather not.

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It is never just locker room talk

Jan 18th, 2017 4:28 pm | By

Congressional Representative Luis Gutierrez on why he won’t be at the inauguration. Now there is a guy who knows how to talk, unlike President-elect Pussygrabber. The rep has something to say about the Pussygrabber.

My speech this morning on the Floor of the House about why I will not be at the inauguration ceremonies on Jan. 20 but will be marching with women at the Women’s March on Jan. 21. “We all heard the tape when Donald Trump was bragging – bragging! – about grabbing women by their private parts without their consent. It is something I can never un-hear. Bragging to that guy on TV that he would grab women below the belt as a way of hitting on them. Sorry. That is never OK. It is never just locker room talk. It is offensive and, if he ever actually did it, it is criminal….”

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In a speech in a beer hall in Dresden

Jan 18th, 2017 11:31 am | By

Let’s hear from some more Nazis. They’re speaking up. Philip Oltermann in Berlin reports in the Guardian:

A politician from the rightwing populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has broken with the country’s postwar political consensus by calling for a “180-degree turn” from the tradition of remembering and atoning for the Nazi era.

In a speech in a beer hall in Dresden, Björn Höcke, who leads the party in the eastern state of Thuringia, railed against Germany’s decade-long tradition of acknowledging the crimes of the National Socialist era, describing the Holocaust memorial in Berlin as a “monument of shame”.

“They wanted to cut off our roots and with the re-education that began in 1945, they nearly managed,” Höcke said. “Until now, our mental state continues to be that of a totally defeated people. We Germans are the only people in the world that have planted a monument of shame in the heart of their capital.”

So Germans should be taking pride in the Holocaust?

 

The Central Council of Jews in Germany condemned the speech. Its president, Josef Schuster, said: “With these antisemitic and highly misanthropic comments, the AfD is showing its true face. I would have never dared to imagine that it would be possible for a politician to say such things 70 years after the Shoah.”

The German vice chancellor, Sigmar Gabriel, said: “Björn Höcke despises the Germany I am proud of. Never, never ever must we allow the demagogy of a Björn Höcke to go unchallenged. Not as Germans, and
especially not as Social Democrats.”

Deutsche Welle has more:

Jewish groups have reacted with anger and shock after a local leader of the right-wing populist party Alternative for Germany (AfD) attacked Germany’s national Holocaust memorial and the country’s devotion to teaching its citizens about Nazi genocide.

“It is deeply outrageous and completely unacceptable to describe the Berlin Holocaust Memorial as Björn Höcke did as a ‘monument of shame,'” the president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Josef Schuster, said in a statement. “With these anti-Semitic and extremely misanthropic remarks, the AfD is showing its true face. I would not have believed that it was possible for a politician in Germany to say such things 70 years after the Shoah.”

Höcke is pretending that’s not what he said.

In a statement on Wednesday, Höcke said that he was merely criticizing the weight given to the shame of the Holocaust in Germany’s approach to its own history – and threatened to sue anyone misquoting him. But within the context of the speech, which can be viewed on YouTube, there is little doubt that Höcke was depicting the Holocaust monument and culture of remembrance negatively.

I think this is the YouTube:

The deputy chairman of the Social Democrats, Ralf Stegner, blasted Höcke on Twitter, writing: “Remembering the millions of Nazi victims isn’t weakness – weakness is stirring up hatred against helpless people as a way of elevating oneself.”

Green party co-chairwoman Simone Peter called for the AfD to “unambiguously distance” itself from Höcke. Green party MP and chairman of the German-Israeli parliamentary committee, Volker Beck, said that state authorities should more closely monitor the right wing of the AfD for neo-Nazi content.

“The strategy of carefully targeted violations of taboos continues,” Beck said in a statement. “Höcke is making the AfD into the parliamentary representatives of the NPD (Germany’s far-right party). It’s high time that his wing of the AfD is kept under observation by domestic intelligence agencies. The most recent statement by the chairman of the AfD in Thuringia show what sort of racist and anti-Semitic views are maintained by the AfD and its functionaries.”

“This is not just a run-of-the-mill provocation – this about our identity as Germans,” wrote Social Democratic Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel on Facebook. “Höcke’s speech particularly horrified me personally because my father was an unapologetic Nazi until the day he died.”

“Höcke speaks the language of the Nazi party,” concurred SPD secretary general Katarina Barley. Left Party member of parliament Diether Dehm and Left Party co-chairpersons Sahra Wagenknecht and Dietmar Bartsch officially reported Höcke to the police for “incitement of the people” – which is a crime in Germany.

They’re rising everywhere.

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And the winner is

Jan 18th, 2017 10:58 am | By

A big congratulations to 2016 for being the hottest year on record, beating out rival 2015, which beat rival 2014. Every year is a new record broken! Isn’t this exciting, folks?

In a powerful testament to the warming of the planet, two leading U.S. science agencies Wednesday jointly declared 2016 the hottest year on record, surpassing the previous record set just last year — which, itself, had topped a record set in 2014.

Average surface temperatures in 2016, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, were 0.07 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than 2015, and featured eight successive months (January through August) that were individually the warmest since the agency’s record began in 1880.

The average temperature across the world’s land and ocean surfaces was 58.69 Fahrenheit, or 1.69 degrees above the 20th century average of 57 degrees, NOAA declared. The agency also noted that the record for the global temperature has now successively been broken five times since the year 2000. The years 2005 and 2010 were also record warm years, according to the agency’s dataset.

Are they sure that’s not a hoax perpetrated by China? Maybe China has been running around putting electric blankets on everything?

The record comes just two days before Donald Trump, who has tweeted that global warming is a “hoax,” assumes the presidency and with it, control over the two science agencies that just announced these records.

The other is NASA.

Here’s a NASA figure showing that long term trend, now updated through 2016:


(NASA)

Quite a steep climb starting around 1980, isn’t it.

NASA further noted in its analysis that compared with the late 19th century, the planet has now warmed about 1.1 degrees Celsius, or 2 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s very significant because the global community has been striving to limit overall warming to considerably below a 2 degree Celsius rise, and even, if possible, to hold it to a 1.5 degree Celsius increase. That is now only about .4 degrees away, based on these figures.

“It is the second year in a row that the annual global temperature has been more than 1 Celsius degree warmer than the pre-industrial level, and shows that the world is moving ever closer to the warming threshold of 1.5 Celsius degrees, beyond which many scientists have concluded the impacts of climate change will be unacceptably dangerous,” said Bob Ward, who is director of policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, part of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Last year’s warmth was manifested across the planet, from the warm tropical ocean waters off the coast of northeastern Australia, where the Great Barrier Reef experienced its worst coral bleaching event on record and large scale coral death, to the Arctic, where sea ice hit regular monthly record lows and overall temperatures were also the warmest on record, at least from January through September of 2016.

I’m sure Trump has a plan to fix it.

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Donnie doing his hoamwerk

Jan 18th, 2017 10:22 am | By

Bahahahahahahaha Donnie from Queens tweets a candid shot of himself “writing” his inaugural address. Suuuuuuure he is. He’s totally writing it. You can tell by the casual expertise with which he tries to fold the pad in half while he’s writing on it.

 

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Watch out! It’s political correctness!

Jan 17th, 2017 5:49 pm | By

CFI Portland is throwing a Trumpesque event in ten days.

The New Campus Thought Police

Two brilliant and uncompromising thinkers, bestselling author Christina Hoff Sommers and Portland’s own Peter Boghossian, will share the stage on January 27th with political comedian and host Dave Rubin for a live “fireside chat” on the hot-button issues of speech, gender, and culture at PSU.

“The New Campus Thought Police” will be presented by both the Center for Inquiry in Portland, as well as Freethinkers. The event will feature honest and unfiltered conversation about the controversial subjects of free speech and political correctness on college campuses. This will include issues such as microaggressions, trigger warnings, safe spaces, cultural appropriation, victimhood culture, and more.

Yes, there are plenty of silly people on the left, as there always are. Yes, many of them get too worked up about things that aren’t all that important. No, the best people to talk about such things are not Christina Hoff Sommers and Peter Boghossian.

Also, don’t worries about college students demanding trigger warnings seem a little less urgent now as Donald “I hate political correctness” Trump slithers into the White House?

You know…CFI is a secular humanist organization. The humanist part is important. CFI is about values as well as epistemology – it’s never been one of those “pure” skeptical outfits that insist on keeping political and moral ideas out. This is not a good look for a secular humanist organization.

It’s happening, and I don’t think “no platforming” is a good idea except in truly extreme cases, but I think this is pretty sad.

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Trump’s defamatory assertions may catch up with him

Jan 17th, 2017 5:34 pm | By

Another reason to think Donald Trump is not a very nice man.

A former contestant on the reality show “The Apprentice” filed a defamation lawsuit Tuesday against President-elect Donald Trump over his response to her allegations that he groped her during a job interview in 2007.

Summer Zervos, a California restaurant owner who appeared on the show in 2006, accused Trump of aggressively kissing and grabbing her when she went to his bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel to discuss a possible job at the Trump Organization a year later.

In her suit, Zervos alleges that Trump defamed her when he denied her account of their interactions in the hotel room, accusing her and other women who made similar accusations of lying and fabricating their accounts. Zervos said she would drop her lawsuit, which was filed in New York, without seeking monetary damages if Trump would retract his claim that she lied and acknowledge his actions.

Sleazy enough yet?

Zervos held a news conference with her lawyer, Gloria Allred.

“Enough is enough,” Allred said. “Truth matters. Women matter, those who allege they were victims of sexual misconduct or sexual assault by Mr. Trump matter.”

Trump’s people denied it.

Eleven women spoke publicly before the election, accusing Trump of inappropriately touching or kissing them. They stepped forward after Trump denied ever touching a woman without her consent during a presidential debate in October.

“Have you ever done those things?” Trump was asked by CNN’s Anderson Cooper, regarding comments Trump made during a taping of “Access Hollywood” in 2005, when he bragged about groping and kissing women without their permission. “I will tell you: No, I have not,” Trump responded.

Was that credible? After listening to that tape? No.

During the campaign, Trump asserted that each of his accusers was lying and vowed to sue the women for making the claims.

“Total fabrication,” he said during a campaign rally in Gettysburg, Pa., in October. “The events never happened. Never. All of these liars will be sued after the election is over.”

He’s a bad man.

Without evidence, he said the women were coordinating with the campaign of his rival, Hillary Clinton. He also mocked some of the women, suggesting they were not attractive enough for him to sexually harass.

“When you looked at that horrible woman last night, you said, ‘I don’t think so,’ ” Trump said at a rally about one of his accusers, a People Magazine reporter who said Trump shoved her against a wall and forcibly kissed her while she was at his Florida Mar-a-Lago estate on assignment in 2005.

He’s a cruel bullying lying monster of a man.

Zervos said she excused Trump’s behavior for years, particularly because she was ultimately offered a job at the Trump Organization, but she had been compelled to step forward after hearing the presidential candidate brag to “Access Hollywood” host Billy Bush about behaving similarly with other women.

According to the suit, the tape convinced Zervos that Trump was “a sexual predator who had preyed on her and other women.”

You can see how it would. It shows that he did that shit routinely and calculatedly, and that he bragged about it to other men. Yes, that’s predatory.

Lie down with dogs, get up with Donald Trump as president.

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Falling apart

Jan 17th, 2017 4:57 pm | By

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution expanded on Trump’s assertion that John Lewis’s congressional district is “in horrible shape and falling apart (not to mention crime infested)” a few days ago.

The Democrat’s district includes parts of Fulton, DeKalb and Clayton counties – and most of the city of Atlanta – as well as Brookhaven, College Park, Decatur and Morrow. The district has several of Atlanta’s most prominent gems, including Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, the King Center and the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

And it has the bulk of Georgia’s higher education institutions: Emory University, Clark Atlanta University, Morehouse College, Georgia Tech and Georgia State University are all in the 5th Congressional District. It is also where many of the state’s Fortune 500 companies are based, including Coca Cola Co., Southern Co. and Delta Air Lines.

Um. Er. So not really in such horrible shape then. Not actually falling apart then. Kind of the opposite. Five colleges and universities, and CocaCola, and Delta, and the CDC.

Ah yes but does it have any Trump Towers?

Image result for trump tower

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Translating Trump

Jan 17th, 2017 3:59 pm | By

Rob Zaretsky at the LA Review of Books talks to a French translator about what it’s like translating Trump. They start with Obama. Translating him was a joy. Trump is…different.

Well, as I said, you have to be able to get into someone’s mind in order to translate his speech and reformulate it into your own language. Trump is not easy to translate, first of all, because, most of the time, when he speaks he seems not to know quite where he’s going. In my essay, I took the example of the interview he gave to The New York Times. He seems to hang onto a word in the question, or to a word that pops into his mind, repeating it over and over again. He shapes his thought around it and, sometimes, succeeds in giving part of an answer — often the same answer: namely, that he won the election. Trump seems to go from point A (the question) to point B (himself, most of the time) with no real logic. It’s as if he had thematic clouds in his head that he would pick from with no need of a logical thread to link them.

Indeed. I too have been reading him closely, and yes that is what he does. Remember the answers from the Times – Bild interview? A question about his view of the UK – a reply about his golf course. A question about his heroes – a reply about how awesome he is. Random and narcissistic at once.

But here’s the other problem with Trump: even once you’ve understood his point (or lack thereof), you must still express it in your own language. You realize, at that moment, that you have written something very unpleasant to read. Trump’s vocabulary is limited, his syntax is broken; he repeats the same phrases over and over, forcing the translator to follow suit. If she does not, she betrays the spirit of the original piece. The translator has to translate the content and the style. So that is what I do, and reading Trump in French, which is a very structured and logical language, reveals the poor quality of his language and, consequently, of his thought.

It’s very unpleasant to read in English too. It’s especially unpleasant in light of his new job. That brain-dead tweet about Martin Luther King for instance: nothing but “great” and “very very.” It’s horrifying that that is succeeding Obama.

Does this mean that Trump poses an ethical as well as linguistic challenge to the translator?

As a translator of political discourse, you also have the duty to write readable texts: so what am I to do? Translate Trump as he speaks, and let French readers struggle with whatever content there is? (Not to mention the fact that I will be judged on the vocabulary I choose — sometimes the translator is blamed for the poor quality of a piece.) Or keep the content, but smooth out the style, so that it is a little bit more intelligible, leading non-English speakers to believe that Trump is an ordinary politician who speaks properly — when this is obviously not the case?

No, not that second one. Absolutely not. He must never be translated into Less Stupid.

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368 to 1

Jan 17th, 2017 12:30 pm | By

Russia is decriminalizing domestic violence. Not a joke.

Domestic violence kills 14,000 women every year, the Russian Interior Ministry estimates. And just 2 percent of Russian victims of domestic abuse report attacks to police.

Now, the country has just passed a bill that would decriminalize some forms of domestic violence, enraging rights groups who say the measure will leave abuse victims even more vulnerable.

The bill ― known as the “slapping law” ― passed an initial hurdle in the Duma legislative body. It would eliminate criminal penalties for first offenses or attacks that occur only once a year in which a woman or child is not “seriously” injured.

So husbands and fathers get one freebie a year, provided no bones are broken. That makes sense. Obviously a man is going to punch his wife and/or one of their children all the time, so it would just be cruel not to let them do it at least once. What the wife or the child thinks about it doesn’t matter, because only the man is a real person.

The measure’s major proponent, arch conservative senator Yelena Mizulina, has said the current penalties are “anti-family” and a “baseless intervention into family affairs,” CNN reports.

Seriously. Where would family life be if the adult male couldn’t throw a punch now and then? What are families for if the adult male can’t hit his inferiors?

The Russian Orthodox Church also backs the bill, which its leaders see as in line with its patriarchal view demanding a man’s wife and children’s absolute submission to him.

Well God is the patriarch, see, so it all makes sense.

Some 36,000 women are beaten by their husbands daily, the state-run news agency RIA Novosti reports. In 2008 the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs stated that two-thirds of all homicides in Russia were attributable to household or domestic confrontations.

The controversial bill breezed through its first reading — 368 to 1, with one abstention. It will next go through a second and third reading and be voted on again.

Wow. That’s shocking.

I never can seem to get used to how much women are hated.

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Guest post: The cult of ignorance

Jan 17th, 2017 12:14 pm | By

Originally a comment by iknklast on Trump names his heroes. 

Team Him will just say, as usual, that the voters knew that when they voted for him

And he’d be right. Many of his voters voted for him precisely because he was unfit – they seem to think that is some good thing, having no idea what you’re doing. This is seeping into a lot of fields, too. The idea that teachers should be experienced is coming under attack from our “school reform” people – including those on the Obama team. The idea of using experienced people to sell your house? List with a realtor, and see how many people make fun of you for paying a commission, when you could just “do it yourself”. It is nearly impossible to get elected to a school board if you have any education experience. And then, don’t get me started on the whole anti-expertise movement in the medical field, leading to a burgeoning of nonsensical health claims by uninformed people.

But, boy, put one comment out there critical of religion, and they will inform you that you must be properly versed in all aspects of that religion, broad, universal knowledge, before you can say a word against it. Experts in religion are not regarded well by the masses, either, until the time someone points out the nonsense of their position.

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Putin on morals

Jan 17th, 2017 11:45 am | By

Putin speaks.

Vladimir Putin has dismissed the dossier published last week about alleged links between Moscow and Donald Trump, describing the people who ordered it as “worse than prostitutes”.

What a ridiculous comparison. Prostitutes aren’t “bad”; prostitutes aren’t items on the list of Bad Types of People. Items on that list include murderers, rapists, bullies, frauds (funny how the last three apply to Trump) and the like. Pimps can be on that list, but prostitutes, no. But Putin is Putin, of course. I’m sure he thinks pimps and johns are the victims of prostitutes.

Making his first public remarks on the claims three days before Trump’s inauguration as US president, Putin joked about Russian sex workers, who he said were “the best in the world”, but said he did not believe Trump would have met any.

He’s a riot.

In a sometimes bizarre speech in Moscow that echoed some of the more salacious language in the documents, the Russian president said that any allegation that Trump was essentially a Russian intelligence asset was nonsense.

“I’ve never met him. I don’t know what he’ll do on the world stage. So I have no reason either to criticise him, or to defend him,” said Putin, who has previously expressed admiration for Trump’s stated desire to improve relations with Russia.

Putin dismissed as an “obvious fake” the idea that Trump could have been compromised during a 2013 trip to Moscow for the Miss Universe competition.

“This is an adult, and a man who for years organised beauty contests and spoke with the most beautiful women in the world. I can hardly believe that he ran off to meet with our girls of low social morals. Although of course ours are the best in the world,” said Putin.

Ah there you go – the “girls” have “low social morals.” Men who use women have no such stigma.

“The people who order these fakes which are being spread against the president-elect of America and use them in the political battle are worse than prostitutes. They have no moral limits,” the Russian president added.

Putin said it was absurd to think Russian special services would be interested in Trump given that at the time he was not involved in politics. “When Trump came to Moscow he was not a political figure, he was just a businessman, one of the rich people of America. Do they think our special services follow every American billionaire?”

Um…yes? Of course?

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Bikers for Trump are on their way

Jan 17th, 2017 11:05 am | By

Today in TrumpOnTwitter.

His epistemology needs work. The fact that one sycophant says something flattering about his Twitter use is just that – a minor fact about one person. It’s far from sufficient to demonstrate that the media are dishonest about his Twitter use.

He seems to think his daughter should be immune from press attention unless it’s friendly. If she were a child I would agree, but she’s not. She’s an adult and a participant in his shoddy corrupt activities.

Again – that’s one person saying something. It’s random.

Also notice Trump’s chronic shallowness – notice that he chose a tweet that says nothing, just as he couldn’t manage to say anything about Martin Luther King even when he wanted to. “Great…character…class.” That’s just a generic compliment, it doesn’t mean anything. Trump doesn’t even know how to mean.

No they’re not. People are staying away in record numbers.

No they’re not.

It’s true that Lewis boycotted Bush Jr’s inauguration. Since he doesn’t have Trump’s pattern of reckless lying, I think he forgot as opposed to lying, but I can’t demonstrate it. Mind you, there were very solid reasons for seeing Bush’s first election as dubious, given that 5-4 Supreme Court ruling and all. But Trump is at least telling the truth in that pair of tweets. But so what? He’s telling it in aid of continuing his attack on someone who’s better than he is.

Breitbart. He’s quoting Breitbart at us. He’ll be president in three days and he’s quoting Breitbart at us.

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Trump names his heroes

Jan 16th, 2017 11:27 am | By

The transcript part 2.

Next comes the bit I saw on Twitter, which motivated me to read the whole thing. Empty empty empty. He is so empty.

Do you have any models — are there heroes that you steer by — people you look up to from the past?

Well, I don’t like heroes, I don’t like the concept of heroes, the concept of heroes is never great, but certainly you can respect certain people and certainly there are certain people — but I’ve learnt a lot from my father — my father was a builder in Brooklyn and Queens — he did houses and housing and I learnt a lot about negotiation from my father — although I also think negotiation is a natural trait, I don’t think you can, you either have it or you don’t, you get better at it but basically, the people that I know who are great negotiators or great salesmen or great politicians, it’s very natural, very natural . . . I got a letter from somebody, their congressman, they said what you’ve done is amazing because you were never a politician and you beat all the politicians. He said they added it up — when I was three months into the campaign, they added it up — I had three months of experience and the 17 guys I was running against, the Republicans, had 236 years – ya know when you add 20 years and 30 years — so I was three months they were 236 years — so it’s sort of a funny article but I believe it’s like hitting a baseball or being a good golfer — natural ability, to me, is much more important to me than experience and experience is a great thing — I think it’s a great thing — but I learnt a lot from my father in terms of leadership.

His hero is himself, in fact. He has that heroic quality of being a good negotiator, in the sense of getting more money out of a deal than anyone else. He has it naturally. Heroic.

How is being president going to change how you operate?

Ya know this is a very, very big change — I led a very nice life and ya know successful and good and nice and this is a lot different — but ya know my attitude on that is when you’re president, you’re in the White House which is a very special place — you’re there for a limited period of time — who wants to leave? Like I’ve liked President Obama, he’s been very nice, yeah he’s been nice one on one, but maybe not so nice in other ways — but who wants to leave the White House to go to some other place and be away on a vacation? The White House is very special, there’s so much work to be done, I’m not gonna be leaving much — I mean a lot of work to be done — I’m gonna be in there working, doing what I’m supposed to be doing — but who wants to leave the White House?

Oh, I see – it’s about the house. I didn’t realize that. Ok. He’s excited about the house. He’s all about the house. He won’t be wanting to leave the house.

But he’ll be working hard while he’s in the house. At what? Twitter. He’s really big on Twitter you know. Did you know that? He wants you to know that.

When you’re president will you still tweet? And if you do will it be as the Real Donald Trump, as Potus, or probably as Real Potus?

@realDonaldTrump I think, I’ll keep it . . . so I’ve got 46 million people right now — that’s a lot, that’s really a lot — but 46 million — including Facebook, Twitter and ya know, Instagram so when you think that your 46 million there, I’d rather just let that build up and just keep it @realDonaldTrump, it’s working — and the tweeting, I thought I’d do less of it, but I’m covered so dishonestly by the press — so dishonestly — that I can put out Twitter — and it’s not 140, it’s now 140, 280 — I can go bing bing bing and I just keep going and they put it on and as soon as I tweet it out — this morning on television, Fox — “Donald Trump, we have breaking news” — I put out a thing . . .

Well yes, it’s true that when a president tweets something deranged or contemptible, it gets on the news…but that’s perhaps not such an unalloyed good as he’s thinking.

But ya know the tweeting is interesting because I find it very accurate — when I get a word out and if I tell something to the papers and they don’t write it accurately, it’s really bad — they can’t do much when you tweet it and I’m careful about, it’s very precise, actually it’s very, very precise — and it comes out breaking news, we have breaking news — ya know, it’s funny, if I did a press release and if I put it out, it wouldn’t get nearly — people would see it the following day — if I do a news conference, that’s a lot of work.

Very, very precise – that’s good to know. He’s careful about it, it’s very very precise, he means every word. Good to know.

Are you looking forward to meeting our prime minister?

Well, I’ll be there — we’ll be there soon — I would say we’ll be here for a little while but and it looks like she’ll be here first — how is she doing over there, by the way, what do you think?

Theresa?

Yeah, May.

Glad we got that cleared up.

What do you do when there’s a toddler in the White House? Not because the president has a toddler but because the toddler is the president? What do you do?

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Trump really is Trump

Jan 16th, 2017 11:08 am | By

The Times published a full transcript of the interview of Trump that Michael Gove and Kai Diekmann did for the Times and Bild respectively. It’s not a surprise yet it is a surprise. It’s the same old thing yet it still amazes. He can’t talk competently, and the content of what he says is absurd or horrifying or both. He’s always worse than one can believe.

Their opener is to ask him about relations with Germany and Scotland [and presumably the UK as a whole] – and he replies by talking about his golf course and how it’s raking in the cash thanks to how low the pound is.

They talk about Brexit and he talks about “strong borders” and how he’ll sign strong borders first thing on Monday, not Friday or Saturday because those are party days.

You mentioned you have German ancestors. What does it mean for you to have German blood in your veins?

Well, it’s great. I mean, I’m very proud of Germany and Germany is very special Bad Dürkheim, right? This is serious Germany, right? Like this isn’t any question — this is serious Germany. No, I’m very proud of Germany. I love Germany, I love the UK.

Tell us more about the UK.

When are you coming to the UK as president?

I look forward to doing it. My mother was very ceremonial, I think that’s where I got this aspect because my father was very brick-and-mortar, he was like, and my mother sort of had a flair, she loved the Queen, she loved anything — she was so proud of the Queen. She loved the ceremonial and the beauty, cause nobody does that like the English. And she had great respect for the Queen, liked her. Anytime the Queen was on television, an event, my mother would be watching. Crazy, right?

Is there anything else you take from having a Scottish mother?

Well, the Scottish are known for watching their pennies, so I like to watch my pennies — I mean I deal in big pennies, that’s the problem.

Is there anything typically German about you?

I like order. I like things done in an orderly manner. And certainly the Germans, that’s something that they’re rather well known for. But I do, I like order and I like strength.

Elegantly done.

Given your views on free trade, would you say that you’re a conservative?

I’m pragmatic, look I go in front of crowds — I had the biggest crowds anybody’s ever had for a presidential election and that’s tough and when I was fighting with Jeb Bush, ya know “low energy” Jeb, he would say, ‘Donald Trump is not a conservative’, so I’d go in front of 25,000 people and, like in Michigan, where there’s massive — 32,000 people — and I’m screaming, ‘Jeb Bush says I’m not a conservative’, they’re screaming, ‘Who cares?’, and I said, ‘What do you want? Do you want conservative or a good deal?’ And the reason, because Jeb Bush said I’m not a conservative because I don’t believe in free trade — well I do believe in free trade, I love free trade, but it’s gotta be smart trade so I call it fair trade — and the problem, so I said to the people, ‘Do you want a conservative or do you want somebody who’s gonna make great deals?’, and they’re all screaming, ‘Great deals, great deals’ — they don’t care, there are no labels — ya know there’s some people, he is not — Jeb Bush would stand up — ‘He is not a true conservative’ — who cares — I am a conservative, but I’m really about making great deals for the people so they get jobs . . . the people don’t care ya know when you’re talking — they don’t care, they want good deals — ya know what? They want their jobs back.

And then everyone’s head flew off and the credits rolled.

Just kidding. That’s only halfway. But I do wonder what Gove and Diekmann were thinking.

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Trump’s holiday plans

Jan 16th, 2017 10:07 am | By

Trump is perhaps aware that his tribute to Martin Luther King was a little thin on specifics (unless you consider “wonderful” and “great” to be specifics), so he’s meeting with King’s oldest son to find out what they were.

Sean Spicer, Mr. Trump’s press secretary and communications director, announced the planned meeting in New York between Mr. Trump and Martin Luther King III in a morning posting on Twitter. It came two days after the president-elect had taken to the social media platform to attack Mr. Lewis after the congressman said an interview that he would not attend the inauguration and did not see Mr. Trump as a legitimate president because of questions about whether Russian hacking had affected the American election.

Mr. Trump hit back on Saturday with Twitter postings calling Mr. Lewis, who was brutally beaten in the “Bloody Sunday” march in 1965 in Selma, Ala., “all talk,” and saying that instead of “falsely complaining” about the election results, he should focus on fixing his “falling apart” and “crime infested” Georgia district.

Mr. Lewis actually represents a district that includes part of the wealthy enclave of Buckhead; the world’s busiest airport, Hartsfield-Jackson; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; and the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Later, Mr. Trump said that Mr. Lewis should help him focus on “burning and crime infested inner-cities” throughout the United States and adding, “I can use all the help I can get!”

As if John Lewis were a servant to the president as opposed to a Congressional Representative with his own work to do.

In a series of television interviews on Monday, Mr. Spicer said Mr. Lewis started the fight, and he defended Mr. Trump’s decision to respond, telling CBS that the president-elect is “not going to sit back and just take attacks without responding.”

Ahhhh now you see that’s a problem right there. Actually presidents do have to sit back and just take attacks without responding. It goes with the territory. Presidents have to do that an enormous amount, possibly more than any other single human being on the planet, given our combination of a hefty population and a free press, along with our head of state and head of government folded into one office. Presidents are going to be attacked by all and sundry; that’s the nature of the job. They have to refrain from responding in order to get on with their work. So if Trump really is not going to sit back and just take attacks without responding, then that’s another reason he’s in way over his gleaming orange head.

News reports on Sunday initially said that Mr. Trump, whose aides had refused to divulge his plans for Martin Luther King’s Birthday, would visit the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, but later said the plans had fallen through.

“Fallen through”? What’s that supposed to mean? He forgot he had a geography test today? He had no clean underpants? He lost his bus pass? How can a plan of that kind for the president-elect “fall through”?

Mr. Spicer said that the president-elect would meet with Mr. King and others in New York to discuss voting rights and other ways of pursuing King’s legacy during a Trump administration.

Ah voting rights is it. So is he going to talk to Mr King about his lie about “millions of people who voted illegally”? Trump doesn’t give a shit about voting rights, except for taking them away.

Maybe they’ll just talk about football and call it a day.

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All of the many

Jan 16th, 2017 9:31 am | By

Even when Trump tries for once not to be an asshole, he remains an asshole. That’s because he’s so inadequate and empty.

Behold his masterpiece for MLK Day:

Oh yes, all the many wonderful things. So many. Very wonderful. Very very wonderful.

Honor him. Honor him for being great. So great. Very very very great. Very very great man who did many many very very wonderful things.

Exclamation point!

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