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Jul 28th, 2017 3:08 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Priebus is out, and Trump has replaced him with yet another military man, a retired general. He’s running a military dictatorship.
To warm up for the excitement, he went to Long Island to tell the police to get violent with suspects.
President Donald Trump told a crowd of police officers Friday not to be “too nice” to suspected gang members and others under arrest.
“When you see thugs being thrown into the back of a paddy wagon, you just see them thrown in; rough. I said, ‘please don’t be too nice,'” Trump said Friday at a Suffolk County, New York event discussing the administration’s efforts to handle a violent gang known as MS-13. “Like when you guys put somebody
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Tags: Trump
Jul 28th, 2017 11:04 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Meanwhile…
President Trump’s nominee to lead the Justice Department’s criminal division, Brian A. Benczkowski, said on Tuesday that he helped Russia’s Alfa Bank investigate whether its computer servers contacted the Trump Organization.
Mr. Benczkowski had told the Senate Judiciary Committee last week that he represented Alfa Bank, which is one of Russia’s largest financial institutions and whose owners have ties to President Vladimir V. Putin.
On Tuesday, as Mr. Benczkowski came before the panel for his confirmation hearing, he acknowledged that his work for Alfa Bank directly touched on suspicions related to the bank in connection with the Trump-Russia affair.
Oh. Oh really. Well that seems fine – no possibility of conflict of interest there, right?
Mr. Benczkowski
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Jul 28th, 2017 6:06 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Ryan Lizza’s phone conversation with Scaramucci is a hot item.
Mooch called Lizza Wednesday night wanting to know who “leaked” the information that he was having dinner with Don and Melania plus Hannity and former Fox News executive Bill Shine, information which Lizza had tweeted.
“Who leaked that to you?” he asked. I said I couldn’t give him that information. He responded by threatening to fire the entire White House communications staff. “What I’m going to do is, I will eliminate everyone in the comms team and we’ll start over,” he said. I laughed, not sure if he really believed that such a threat would convince a journalist to reveal a source. He continued to press me and complain about
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Jul 28th, 2017 4:42 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Kellyanne Conway considers ethics rules an unreasonable imposition.
White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, speaking on Fox & Friends Thursday, said the Trump administration’s hiring efforts are being hindered by the “hoops you have to jump through” to comply with Office of Government Ethics rules.
“There are so many qualified men and women who wanted to serve this administration and their country who have been completely demoralized and completely disinclined to do so based on the paperwork we have to put forward, divesting assets,” Conway said.
The “hoops” are intended to prevent people from using government jobs to help their own financial interests. The reason for that is that we want people in government to be working for the public … Read the rest
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2 comments
Jul 28th, 2017 4:34 am |
By Ophelia Benson
So McCain sucker-punched them after all. He joined Murkowski and Collins in voting down the latest repeal of the ACA, which means that effort is over for now.
Republican senators said there was no consensus and no plan for what comes next on health care. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, warned of potentially severe political consequences for Republicans for failing to deliver on what has been the GOP’s unifying campaign pledge for the previous three elections.
“I sadly feel a great many Americans will feel betrayed,” Cruz told reporters, “that they were lied to, and that sentiment will not be unjustified.”
And a great many Americans will feel relieved that their health insurance won’t be yanked away.
The “skinny repeal”
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Jul 27th, 2017 6:24 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Will he, won’t he? Nobody knows for sure. Don really really wants to get rid of Sessions, but how to do it without getting into another mess that could turn out to be just as bad or even worse? It’s keeping him awake on the job.
President Trump has discussed with confidants and advisers in recent days the possibility of installing a new attorney general through a recess appointment if Jeff Sessions leaves the job, but he has been warned not to move to push him out because of the political and legal ramifications, according to people briefed on the conversations.
Still raging over Sessions’s recusal from the Justice Department’s escalating Russia investigation, Trump has been talking privately about
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Tags: Trump
Jul 27th, 2017 6:13 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Nothing at all sleazy about this, oh no, perfectly normal and appropriate.
President Trump dined at the White House on Wednesday night with Fox News Channel star Sean Hannity, former Fox executive Bill Shine and newly installed White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci to discuss overhauling the West Wing staff and his political strategy, a senior White House official said.
The private dinner comes as Trump is contemplating major changes inside his White House, empowering Scaramucci to reimagine his communications strategy.
The president and his new aide solicited advice from Hannity and Shine over a meal in the Blue Room that was described by the senior White House official as social.
Hannity has his head so far up Trump’s … Read the rest
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Tags: Trump
Jul 27th, 2017 5:16 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Meanwhile in Trump World –
The Justice Department has filed court papers arguing that a major federal civil rights law does not protect employees from discrimination based on sexual orientation, taking a stand against a decision reached under President Barack Obama.
The department’s move to insert itself into a federal case in New York was an unusual example of top officials in Washington intervening in court in what is an important but essentially private dispute between a worker and his boss over gay rights issues.
“The sole question here is whether, as a matter of law, Title VII reaches sexual orientation discrimination,” the Justice Department said in a friend-of-the-court brief, citing the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which bars discrimination in
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Jul 27th, 2017 1:34 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
The Onion reports:
Touting it as their most stylish and advanced beauty product to date, officials from global cosmetics brand Maybelline unveiled Thursday the Ideal-Woman Rubber Mask, a flexible facial covering that can be worn over the head in lieu of makeup. “Instead of spending hours each morning applying multiple cosmetic products, now women can simply roll out of bed, grab their stunning latex polymer beauty mask that has been molded to accepted standards of female beauty, and stretch it snugly over their face and hair,” Maybelline spokeswoman Jessica Healy said of the one-size-fits-all contoured masks, which designers carefully crafted with rouged cheeks, pouty full lips, high cheekbones, and a small taut chin for maximum physical appeal. “In the
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Jul 27th, 2017 1:18 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Trump is taking revenge on the people of Alaska for Murkowski’s refusal to vote the way he wants. Yes really. He’s telling her that’s what he’s doing, too.
The Alaska Dispatch News reported Wednesday night that Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke called Murkowski and fellow Alaskan Sen. Dan Sullivan (R) after Tuesday’s health care vote to let them know her position had put some of their state-specific projects in jeopardy ― particularly those pertaining to energy.
Sullivan told the outlet that Zinke’s phone call carried a “troubling message,” and the interior secretary made it clear to him that the call was in response to Murkowski voting no on the motion to proceed on Tuesday.
Nice little state ya got here; too … Read the rest
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Tags: Trump
Jul 27th, 2017 1:12 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
So the question of the hour is: does a Twitter blurt from the Toddler President equal a direct order to the military if it announces a new policy on who can join that military?
It seems to be blindingly obvious that it doesn’t, but not everyone agrees. Some say it’s a direct order and the military is disobeying a direct order by saying they’re not doing anything until they hear from the White House.
I just don’t see how it can be a genuine order to the military. It’s not addressed to them. It’s much closer to a “who will rid me of this meddling priest?” than it is to a direct explicit do it now order. Telling the world … Read the rest
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9 comments
Tags: Trump
Jul 27th, 2017 12:07 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Subtext: Yet again Trump shot off his mouth on Twitter as if he were three years old and having a meltdown at the supermarket checkout because he wants the candy bar HE WANTS IT WAAAAAAAH. Literal text: no change unless and until the White House talks to the Defense Department by a more reliable and discreet channel than fucking Twitter.
The nation’s highest-ranking military officer said Thursday that the Defense Department was making “no modifications” to current policy regarding transgender service members until President Trump gives more direction.
“I know there are questions about yesterday’s announcement on the transgender policy by the President,” Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford said in a statement. “There will be no modifications
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Tags: Trump
Jul 27th, 2017 6:56 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Oh god. Brace yourselves. From the Times:
The Pakistani police arrested 25 people in a rural village on Thursday, after the village council ordered a man to publicly rape a teenage girl to avenge the sexual assault of his sister.
Earlier this month, the council told Mohammad Ashfaq, 20, to rape the 16-year-old girl after Mr. Ashfaq’s family accused the girl’s brother of raping his 12-year-old sister, the police said.
Hell and damnation! It just can’t get any more stark than that – a man is accused of raping a woman so the solution is to rape the man’s sister.
We’ve been here before. I wrote post after post about it when B&W was young. The Guardian, March … Read the rest
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Jul 26th, 2017 6:02 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
More from the latest fascist uprising speech:
So we’re going to start enriching our country. We’re going to start bringing back our jobs, and we will be fools no longer, folks. We’ll be fools no longer. Every single President on Mt. Rushmore — now here’s what I do. I’d ask whether or not you think I will some day be on Mt. Rushmore, but, but here’s the problem. If I did it joking, totally joking, having fun, the fake news media will say, “he believes he should be on Mt. Rushmore.” So I won’t say it, okay? I won’t say it. But every president — they’ll say it anyway tomorrow. “Trump thinks he should be on Mt. Rushmore.” Isn’t
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Tags: Trump
Jul 26th, 2017 5:06 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Some horrors from Trump’s speech in Youngstown, Ohio yesterday.
Then yesterday I was in West Virginia with almost 50,000 of our most impressive young Americans. They are young men who learned to cherish words like duty, honor, god, and country, the Boy Scouts. Then only a few hours ago the senate approved a vote to begin debating the repealing and replacing the Obamacare disaster. [ cheers and applause ] Finally. You think that’s easy? That’s not easy. We’re now one step closer to liberating our citizens from this Obamacare nightmare, and delivering great health care for the American people.
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I’m here this evening to cut through the fake news filter and to speak straight to the American people. Fake
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Tags: Trump
Jul 26th, 2017 3:49 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Those Republican women voting no are trying the patience of their more responsible and reasonable male colleagues.
Throughout the ongoing attempts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA, aka Obamacare), female Republican senators have been at the front of a push for a reasonable plan that does not hurt millions of Americans. In June, Senators Murkowski and Collins stood up for women’s health — and specifically Planned Parenthood. And on Tuesday, July 25, Senators Murkowski, Collins, and Capito all said they would vote against repealing Obamacare without a replacement. Without their votes, that plan failed.
Also on Tuesday, Collins and Murkowski were the only two Republicans to vote against opening a discussion on repealing Obamacare.
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Jul 26th, 2017 12:31 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
The American Prospect tells us about Trump’s latest crowd-incitement, yesterday in Youngstown, Ohio.
On Tuesday evening, at a campaign-style rally in Youngstown, Ohio, President Donald Trump treated his audience to a bit of snuff porn involving high-school age girls and some bad hombres.
After painting all the people currently under deportation orders as drug-importing gang members, the president described their purported crimes. “So they’ll take a young, beautiful girl, 16, 15—and others—and they slice them and dice them with a knife because they want them to go through excruciating pain before any die,” Trump said. “And these are the animals that we’ve been protecting for so long.”
A more perfect encapsulation of the proclivities of the president’s poisonous psyche
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Tags: Trump
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