Nicola Sturgeon refuses to accept Trump and his shameless racism and misogyny.
“Conflict of interest” doesn’t even describe it
Nov 16th, 2016 5:57 pm | By Ophelia BensonIt gets worse. The Times asks questions about the conflicts of interest.
Even if he no longer manages his businesses directly, Mr. Trump will continue to own them and his family will be involved in deals, both foreign and domestic, to develop real estate projects or license his brand. He will still be aware of the existence of his business interests and how his actions as president will affect them. The conflicts between his private interests and his public role will be impossible to untangle.
And it’s not as if he’s such an obviously principled, public spirited, integrity-endowed guy that we can just trust him to get it right. No, it’s not. Very much the opposite.
And now we … Read the rest
Improvising
Nov 16th, 2016 5:25 pm | By Ophelia BensonI never got to that Times story yesterday that sent furious Trump to Twitter again. It says the Trump team is making a hash of things, to the surprise of no one.
President-elect Donald J. Trump’s transition was in disarray on Tuesday, marked by firings, infighting and revelations that American allies were blindly dialing in to Trump Tower to try to reach the soon-to-be-leader of the free world.
One week after Mr. Trump scored an upset victory that took him by surprise, his team was improvising the most basic traditions of assuming power. That included working without official State Department briefing materials in his first conversations with foreign leaders.
Well, briefings. He would have had to read those…and … Read the rest
There is no scientific evidence that the product works
Nov 16th, 2016 4:41 pm | By Ophelia BensonHave a press release from the Federal Trade Commission:
… Read the restThe Federal Trade Commission today announced a new “Enforcement Policy Statement on Marketing Claims for Over-the-Counter (OTC) Homeopathic Drugs.” The policy statement was informed by an FTC workshop held last year to examine how such drugs are marketed to consumers. The FTC also released its staff report on the workshop, which summarizes the panel presentations and related public comments in addition to describing consumer research commissioned by the FTC.
The policy statement explains that the FTC will hold efficacy and safety claims for OTC homeopathic drugs to the same standard as other products making similar claims. That is, companies must have competent and reliable scientific evidence for health-related claims,
Trumpian epistemology
Nov 16th, 2016 11:57 am | By Ophelia BensonThe New Yorker reporter Evan Osnos was on Fresh Air yesterday to talk about what President Pussygrabber will likely do.
Toward the end Dave Davies raised the issue of temperament. He did it much too timidly and normalizingly, but he did it.
… Read the restDAVIES: When you wrote about Donald Trump and his policies towards the military and towards foreign affairs, the issue of temperament comes up. This is a loaded word. He hated being criticized for his temperament. But you have – you found a quote from his book “Think Like A Billionaire.” It can be smart to be shallow, that he has a penchant for making big decisions quickly, that he trusts his gut. Share what – some of what
Trump is the only one who knows who the finalists are!!!
Nov 16th, 2016 11:02 am | By Ophelia BensonTrump has been puking out crazed tweets again.
Very organized process taking place as I decide on Cabinet and many other positions. I am the only one who knows who the finalists are!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 16, 2016
Jeremy Duns observed that that one sounds as if he thinks it’s a game show.
I am not trying to get "top level security clearance" for my children. This was a typically false news story.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 16, 2016
The failing @nytimes story is so totally wrong on transition. It is going so smoothly. Also, I have spoken to many foreign leaders.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 16, 2016
That’s the next president, taking … Read the rest
This was not a target that was selected purely arbitrarily
Nov 16th, 2016 10:21 am | By Ophelia BensonA striking piece of news that will probably get lost in the breathless coverage of Trump’s deranged tweets:
… Read the restThe leaks and disclosures published by WikiLeaks in the run-up to the US presidential election this year were a “conscious effort by a nation-state to attempt to achieve a specific effect”, according to the director of the National Security Agency (NSA).
US intelligence chief Michael Rogers, who has managed the secretive agency since 2014, said during a Wall Street Journal conference on 15 November that Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid was hampered by state-sponsored hackers who worked to influence the outcome of the 2016 election.
“There shouldn’t be any doubt in anybody’s mind – this was not something that was done casually,” he
Run by goons or not at all
Nov 16th, 2016 5:59 am | By Ophelia BensonWe have to resist the urge to normalize. Brian Beutler at the New Republic points out the media normalization around the Obama-Trump meeting, and how sucky it is.
… Read the restThe political media has relished all of it: the pageantry, the symbolism, the implication that our system of government is sturdy enough to persevere through the ugliest election in modern history and withstand the transfer of control between two men who hate each other.
…
This all sounds very soothing, and Obama in particular must feel obligated to lead the transition with grace and dignity, irrespective of the horribly racist way that Trump—a leading proponent of birtherism—has treated him for the last several years.
But it is all extremely delusional—Obama’s sanguinity,
How Hitler’s publicity machine made it possible
Nov 15th, 2016 4:56 pm | By Ophelia BensonThe tabloid press.
My grandparents died at Auschwitz: parents told me how Hitler's publicity machine slowly made it possible. This is how. Constant repetition. pic.twitter.com/AHbs9HFidi
— carol hedges (@carolJhedges) November 15, 2016
Joe
Nov 15th, 2016 4:42 pm | By Ophelia Bensonbiden: cmon you gotta print a fake birth certificate, put it in an envelope labeled "SECRET" and leave it in the oval office desk
obama: joe pic.twitter.com/UTtv1JkE5o— jomny sun (@jonnysun) November 11, 2016
Biden: What if we paint the Mexican flag in the office
Obama: Joe, no
Biden: I already ordered the paint
Obama: Joe pic.twitter.com/mCCh6OPQRk— dan/nakajima (@tragecies) November 11, 2016
Biden: I'm not giving them the wifi password
Obama: Joe…
Biden: I said what I said pic.twitter.com/l17SaIeQke
— JAY (@pieceofjay) November 11, 2016
Not Trump’s to fill
Nov 15th, 2016 4:17 pm | By Ophelia BensonDahlia Lithwick says we should all throw a huge tantrum about the Supreme Court, and scream and scream and scream until we’re sick, because the Republicans stole that god damn vacancy.
… Read the restThe current Supreme Court vacancy is not Trump’s to fill. This was President Obama’s vacancy and President Obama’s nomination. Please don’t tacitly give up on it because it was stolen by unprecedented obstruction and contempt. Instead, do to them what they have done to us. Sometimes, when they go low, we need to go lower, to protect a thing of great value.
The seat that became vacant when Antonin Scalia died earlier this year was blocked by the Republican party for 9 months for reasons that were transparently false
Get someone with more experience
Nov 15th, 2016 3:34 pm | By Ophelia BensonMore Clown Show. Ben Carson declines a cabinet job because he doesn’t have the relevant experience. And yet…he ran for president.
… Read the restRetired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, a top ally of President-elect Donald Trump, is not interested in serving as the secretary of health and human services, The Hill reported Tuesday.
Armstrong Williams, Carson’s business manager and confidant, told The Hill that Carson won’t join the administration and will instead be an unofficial adviser.
It was reported earlier Tuesday that Carson had been offered the position of HHS secretary.
“Dr. Carson was never offered a specific position, but everything was open to him,” Williams told The Hill. “Dr. Carson feels he has no government experience; he’s never run a federal agency.
Off to a great start
Nov 15th, 2016 3:03 pm | By Ophelia BensonOhio Senator Sherrod Brown gently suggests that hiring a hate-everybody troll for a top policy job in the White House might be seen as unfriendly to non-troll Americans.
… Read the restOhio U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D.) today urged President-elect Donald Trump to reverse his appointment of Steve Bannon, executive chairman of Breitbart News, as chief White House strategist and senior counsel because of his association with the Alt-right.
“We cannot bring the country together by inviting into the White House the same bigotry and hate speech that divided us on the campaign trail,” Mr. Brown said in a statement released today.
“This is not about a difference in policy or politics — Steve Bannon has promoted anti-Semitic, racist, misogynistic and dangerous views
Guest post: Critics see
Nov 15th, 2016 2:32 pm | By Ophelia BensonGuest post by G Felis.
New York Times headline: “Critics See Stephen Bannon, Trump’s Pick for Strategist, as Voice of Racism”
Oh FFS! Steve Bannon’s history of waving the banner of both implicit and explicit racism is not a judgment call or matter of perspective. That’s like saying “Critics See Animal in this Picture as Duck-like.” If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck and calls for the separation of the races like a duck and publishes racist rhetoric like a duck, it’s a racist duck.
(The duck pictured is just a metaphor, of course. I apologize for any implication that the duck in this picture is racist. He isn’t a racist, he just thinks ducks … Read the rest
Trump’s talent pool
Nov 15th, 2016 10:10 am | By Ophelia BensonThe Times provides some highlights of Steve Bannon and Breitbart.
… Read the restHere, in his own words, are a selection of Mr. Bannon’s public statements about the country, the Republican Party and his own political philosophy.
• “Fear is a good thing. Fear is going to lead you to take action,” he said in a 2010 interview.
• Referring to Ann Coulter, Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin in a 2011 radio interview on Political Vindication Radio, he said: “These women cut to the heart of the progressive narrative. That’s why there are some unintended consequences of the women’s liberation movement. That, in fact, the women that would lead this country would be pro-family, they would have husbands, they would love
The rise of the angry white man
Nov 15th, 2016 9:42 am | By Ophelia BensonAbi Wilkinson keeps an eye on the region that Stephen Bannon comes from:
That loose network of blogs, forums, subreddits and alternative media publications colloquially known as the “manosphere”. An online subculture centred around hatred, anger and resentment of feminism specifically, and women more broadly. It’s grimly fascinating and now troublingly relevant.
I’m well familiar with it, and have been since 2011. It’s a sewer.
… Read the restIn modern parlance, this is part of the phenomenon known as the “alt-right”. More sympathetic commentators portray it as “a backlash to PC culture” and critics call it out as neofascism. Over the past year, it has been strange to see the disturbing internet subculture I’ve followed for so long
Pence is refusing to sign
Nov 15th, 2016 8:56 am | By Ophelia BensonAnd so their incompetence has caused a breakdown already. Surprise surprise.
President-elect Donald J. Trump’s transition operation plunged into disarray on Tuesday with the abrupt resignation of Mike Rogers, who had handled national security matters, the second shake-up in a week on a team that has not yet begun to execute the daunting task of taking over the government.
Imagine how the fur will fly when they actually have to do things!
… Read the restMr. Pence took the helm of the effort on Friday after Mr. Trump unceremoniously removed Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, who had been preparing with Obama administration officials for months to put the complex transition process into motion. Now the effort is frozen, senior White
Defining reality away
Nov 15th, 2016 3:41 am | By Ophelia BensonWe can’t define our way out of this. Magical thinking isn’t going to work. Judicious ignoring might work on the personal level for things like being able to sleep, but on the public level – we can neither pretend nor ignore our way out of this catastrophe. Just defining Trump as normal and equivalent to all the other candidates ever cannot possibly work because it’s a gross denial of reality.
This bit of political punditry from an Irish observer defines Trump as normal and equivalent to Clinton and Obama, with ludicrous results.
… Read the restI hope that Donald Trump’s gracious acceptance speech, and his positive meeting with President Barack Obama, can begin to reverse the descent into the political gutter by both
Invasion of the meme-makers
Nov 14th, 2016 5:04 pm | By Ophelia BensonSuzanne Moore at the Guardian:
… Read the restThe appointment of Steve Bannon as “chief strategist and senior counselor” means that those who have been attacking the progressive narrative from the far right are now horrifyingly in positions of power. Those on the left who argued during the election that there was not fundamentally much difference between Trump and Clinton clearly saw women’s bodily autonomy as some sort of elite liberal issue.
The euphemistic talk around unplanned pregnancies hides the fact that it is those women at the bottom who suffer most without basic healthcare. The idea that reproductive rights are human rights or that human rights even matter is an anathema to Trump’s entourage.
Do not forget that the wesbite Breitbart
North star
Nov 14th, 2016 4:46 pm | By Ophelia BensonFrom Obama’s press conference today:
… Read the restFirst of all, let me mention three brief topics. First of all, as I discussed with the president-elect on Thursday, my team stands ready to accelerate in the next steps that are required to ensure a smooth transition and we are going to be staying in touch as we travel. I remember what it was like when I came in eight years ago. It is a big challenge. This office is bigger than any one person and that’s why ensuring a smooth transition is so important. It’s not something that the constitution explicitly requires but it is one of those norms that are vital to a functioning democracy, similar to norms of civility and
