In honor of Tariq Ramadan – last week’s Jesus and Mo:
Stunned
Nov 1st, 2017 4:16 pm | By Ophelia BensonA French official has admitted knowing Oxford professor Tariq Ramadan was “violent and aggressive” sexually, but denied hearing anything about rape.
Bernard Godard, who was considered the “Monsieur Islam” of the French Ministry of the Interior between 1997 and 2014, was well acquainted with Mr Ramadan, a prominent Islamic scholar and grandson of the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.
A prominent Islamist scholar, albeit one who disguised himself to some extent as a sophisticated academic and deep thinker – but he’s the guy who refused to condemn stoning out of hand but instead called for a “moratorium” while serious theocrats debated the issue. He’s awful but with a veneer of okayness.
And now … Read the rest
Due process: it takes too long
Nov 1st, 2017 3:24 pm | By Ophelia BensonThe Guardian on the White House press briefing today:
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders is holding a press briefing. She denies that the president was going the “political route” by attacking Chuck Schumer on Twitter this morning.
“The president’s not blamed senator Schumer. He doesn’t believe that the senator is responsible for the attack,” says Huckabee Sanders.
Huckabee Sanders is asked about the president’s willingness to “send him to Gitmo.”
She basically makes clear that that was something the president just said but there’s no thinking behind it:
He supports or would support that but he wasn’t necessarily advocating for it.
… Read the rest‘I believe we would consider this person to be an enemy combatant, yes,” Huckabee Sanders said.
The worst political adviser in the White House in modern history
Nov 1st, 2017 12:24 pm | By Ophelia BensonTrump thinks it’s all so unfair.
… Read the restTrump, meanwhile, has reacted to the deteriorating situation by lashing out on Twitter and venting in private to friends. He’s frustrated that the investigation seems to have no end in sight. “Trump wants to be critical of Mueller,” one person who’s been briefed on Trump’s thinking says. “He thinks it’s unfair criticism. Clinton hasn’t gotten anything like this. And what about Tony Podesta? Trump is like, When is that going to end?” According to two sources, Trump has complained to advisers about his legal team for letting the Mueller probe progress this far. Speaking to Steve Bannon on Tuesday, Trump blamed Jared Kushner for his role in decisions, specifically the firings
“What we have right now is a joke and it’s a laughing stock.”
Nov 1st, 2017 11:56 am | By Ophelia BensonTrump seized the opportunity to fling more mud in the direction of the US system of laws.
President Trump said on Wednesday that he would consider sending the suspect arrested after the terrorist attack in New York to the American prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and called on Congress to cancel a longstanding immigration program that he blamed for allowing the man into the country.
Or hey, why not put the suspect on a ship and tell the crew to throw him overboard in the middle of the Pacific?
… Read the restThe president’s comments came at the beginning of a cabinet meeting a day after an immigrant from Uzbekistan plowed a pickup truck along a crowded bicycle path in Manhattan, killing eight
Get those damn scientists out of here
Nov 1st, 2017 10:35 am | By Ophelia BensonScott Pruitt cut the EPA off at the knees yesterday.
Scott Pruitt, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, stripped a half-dozen scientists and academics of advisory positions Tuesday and issued new rules barring anyone who receives E.P.A. grant money from serving on panels that counsel the agency on scientific decisions.
The move will effectively bar a large number of academic researchers, many of them experts in fields ranging from toxicology to epidemiology, from advising the E.P.A. on scientific matters, since the agency is one of the largest funders of environmental research.
They get the grants because they know the subject – so Pruitt throws them out. Let’s not have any experts on environmental science in the EPA, because … Read the rest
There is no such filter
Nov 1st, 2017 9:27 am | By Ophelia BensonTrump’s fun game for today is pretending that Saipov’s slaughter and maiming yesterday are the fault of Chuck Schumer because IMMIGRATION.
… Read the restAs details emerged about the incident, prominent right-wing commentators and news outlets seized on an ABC7 story reporting that alleged attacker Sayfullo Saipov had come to the United States from Uzbekistan under a State Department program known as the Diversity Visa Lottery.
That story is unconfirmed, but Trump appeared off base in his criticism of Schumer. The program originated in part in a bill introduced by the New York Democrat in 1990; but Schumer was also among a group of lawmakers who later sought to drop the visa protocols assailed by Trump.
Still, Schumer was singled out as the
