All entries by this author

Trump is easily distracted by shiny objects

Jan 2nd, 2017 11:18 am | By

Again, the Times says Trump lies, in a headline:

Why Corporations Are Helping Donald Trump Lie About Jobs

The byline is The Editorial Board, so it’s not just one writer, it’s basically the whole outfit.

President-elect Donald Trump would like everybody to believe that his election is energizing the economy by forcing businesses to create thousands of jobs in the United States. And companies like Sprint seem perfectly happy to go along with this fiction because they know they can profit handsomely by cozying up to Mr. Trump.

They point to his lie about the 5000 Sprint jobs, and add:

In sum, Mr. Trump’s statement was hot air, just like his tweet in which he thanked himself for an

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Upside the head

Jan 1st, 2017 5:46 pm | By

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Have it delivered by courier, the old-fashioned way

Jan 1st, 2017 3:39 pm | By

Trump is skeptical about the Russian hacking. He wants good evidence before he accepts the claims.

Speaking to a handful of reporters outside his Palm Beach, Fla., club, Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump cast his declarations of doubt as an effort to seek the truth.

I see what the NY Times did there. They said he’s bullshitting.

“I just want them to be sure because it’s a pretty serious charge,” Mr. Trump said of the intelligence agencies. “If you look at the weapons of mass destruction, that was a disaster, and they were wrong,” he added, referring to intelligence cited by the George W. Bush administration to support its march to war in 2003. “So I want them to be sure,”

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He’s amazed

Jan 1st, 2017 11:34 am | By

The Woodward-Costa interview with Trump last April, part 2.

Woodward asks the great pussygrabber for his thoughts on why Lincoln succeeded. He doesn’t say what he means by “succeed” and of course Trump doesn’t ask.

But he does answer.

DT: Well, I think Lincoln succeeded for numerous reasons. He was a man who was of great intelligence, which most presidents would be. But he was a man of great intelligence, but he was also a man that did something that was a very vital thing to do at that time. Ten years before or 20 years before, what he was doing would never have even been thought possible. So he did something that was a very important thing to

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Only thought process

Jan 1st, 2017 10:52 am | By

Going back to the roots of the catastrophe. Last April Bob Woodward and Robert Costa interviewed Trump. They asked him when the dream was born. He indicated that the earliest hint was perhaps while Romney was campaigning against Obama. He thought Romney was weak – very, very weak.

I thought that — I thought Obama was very beatable. Very, very beatable. You know, you had a president who was not doing well, to put it nicely. And I looked at that very seriously. I had some difficulty because I was doing some big jobs that were finishing up, which I wanted to do. My children were younger. And four years makes a big difference. And I also had a

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The list

Jan 1st, 2017 10:10 am | By

Reina in Istanbul joins Pulse in Orlando, Le Bataclan in Paris, the Sari in Bali, and the Hippodrome in Mali in the class of nightclubs that have been the scene of terrorist mass murders by Islamists. It’s not yet known that the mass murderer at the Reina in Istanbul is an Islamist, but slaughtering people at nightclubs is a fad with Islamists and not with anyone else (that I know of).

Police in Istanbul are hunting for a gunman who opened fire at a well-known nightclub, killing at least 39 people.

The attack happened at Reina nightclub early on Sunday, as hundreds of revellers marked the new year.

Officials say some 15 foreigners were killed, including citizens from Israel, France,

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There is only one way to live

Dec 31st, 2016 3:33 pm | By

Muhammad Sabir is the founder of Slumabad, an organization that works to give homeless children access to education and economic opportunities. He posted a photo on Facebook yesterday and asked people to share it.

Please share it onward
ہم ایک گھر کے لیے خوار اور حاکم شہر
شمار گنبد و محراب کرتا رہتا تھا

This photo tells a story of poverty, inequality and deprivation of basic human dignity and rights. It puts all human development in question and asks basic simple questions from us:

Can we call ourselves civilized, while we see our fellow human beings living on footpath like animals?

Is there only one way to live left for millions of deprived souls?

کہ ہم غریب ہوئے ہیں

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Tweeting in a more dignified manner

Dec 31st, 2016 3:03 pm | By

Dan Rather is underwhelmed by the New Year tweet by Donnie from Queens. I’m kidding: he’s not underwhelmed, he’s disgusted.

I guess the President-elect’s New Year’s resolution doesn’t involve tweeting in a more dignified manner?

Donnie from Queens doesn’t know from dignified. He’s vulgarity personified. He’s a living breathing insulting demonstration that vulgarity has nothing to do with poverty, except poverty of feeling and sense and consideration.… Read the rest



Enemies

Dec 31st, 2016 11:47 am | By

NYT reports Trump continues to be more childish every day.

Americans woke up on the last day of 2016 to a message from President-elect Donald J. Trump wishing them a happy new year.

But the holiday missive, posted on Mr. Trump’s official Twitter account around 8 a.m., came with a pointed jab.

“Happy New Year to all,” Mr. Trump wrote, “including to my many enemies and those who have fought me and lost so badly they just don’t know what to do. Love!” (Some social media users homed in on Mr. Trump’s use of the word enemies, rather than opponents or another word for those who oppose him.)

That’s so typical, isn’t it, and so symptomatic. We have no … Read the rest



In the interest of our country and its great people

Dec 31st, 2016 10:16 am | By

I’ve been marveling at Trump’s “statement” on the Russian hack.

It’s time for our country to move on to bigger and better things. Nevertheless, in the interest of our country and its great people, I will meet with leaders of the intelligence community next week in order to be updated on the facts of this situation.

I’ve been marveling at the grandiosity of it. He says it as if he’s doing us some big favor, some spectacular concession out of his deep love for our greatness and out of his own remarkable generosity.

He is such a lying fraud.

Taking a security briefing is not some kind extra favor he’s doing us, it’s an important part of his jobRead the rest



He is making a good-will gesture

Dec 30th, 2016 3:58 pm | By

The Times on Trump’s embrace of Putin:

President-elect Donald J. Trump, who has pledged to reset relations with Russia, may have been tossed a lifeline by President Vladimir V. Putin on Friday. The Russian leader, skilled at keeping several steps ahead of his adversaries, announced that he would not retaliate in kind against the Obama administration for imposing new sanctions and expelling Russian diplomats from the United States.

That clears the way for Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin to declare that they are starting anew — just what both men have publicly called for.

Then they report on his fanboy tweet.

For effect, Mr. Trump “pinned” the post to the top of his Twitter feed, ensuring that

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Decline and fall

Dec 30th, 2016 3:50 pm | By

Trump four hours ago:

Great move on delay (by V. Putin) – I always knew he was very smart!

Trump one hour ago:

Russians are playing @CNN and @NBCNews for such fools – funny to watch, they don’t have a clue! @FoxNews totally gets it!

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Scowl more

Dec 30th, 2016 3:36 pm | By

The Times got a candid shot of Trump talking to reporters yesterday.

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In otherwise opaque comments

Dec 30th, 2016 3:17 pm | By

The Times has a little video clip of Trump trying to sound grownup and intelligent when he answers a question. He fails miserably, while making exaggerated duck face the entire time. It’s painful to watch.

The Times calls this word salad “remarks” that he made

late Wednesday, when he was asked at his Mar-a-Lago estate about Mr. Obama’s plan to take action against Russia. In otherwise opaque comments, Mr. Trump appeared to concede the need to make computers more secure.

That “otherwise opaque” is good. If you can’t bear to watch the clip:

“I think we ought to get on with our lives,” he said. “I think that computers have complicated lives very greatly. The whole age of computer has

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Back into harm’s way

Dec 30th, 2016 11:42 am | By

The Guardian has been investigating the way women are abused in family court in the UK:

Violent and abusive men are being allowed to confront and cross-examine their former partners in secretive court hearings that fail to protect women who are victims of abuse, a Guardian investigation has found.

Mothers involved in family court hearings have given graphic descriptions of the “torture” of being questioned by abusive men – a practice still allowed in civil cases but banned in criminal courts.

They describe how former partners can make repeated, sometimes spurious, court applications to continue the harassment.

In one case, a mother was cross-examined for two hours by her ex-husband despite him being the subject of a restraining order

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When he lies, say he lied

Dec 30th, 2016 11:23 am | By

The big meal on the news media plate is how to deal with a president who tells shameless brazen lies all the time. They’re used to dealing with presidents (and members of Congress and similar) who conceal and obfuscate and dance around the truth, but not ones who just tell obvious lies many times every day, including on Twitter. They’re struggling.

Donald Trump is once again claiming credit for beating back the scourge of outsourcing, this time insisting that he is the reason that Sprint has announced plans to move thousands of jobs back to America from other countries.

“Because of what’s happening, and the spirit and the hope, I was just called by the head people at Sprint,

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A way to leave other people holding the bag

Dec 30th, 2016 10:46 am | By

Back at the beginning of the month Paul Krugman pointed out at the Times the way scamming works for Trump. There was the issue of his tax returns for instance – he got away with simply not releasing them, and lying that it was because he was being audited.

[A]t this point it’s apparent that Mr. Trump believed, correctly, that he could violate all the norms, stonewall on even the most basic disclosure, and pay no political price.

Indeed, it’s clear that Hillary Clinton was in effect punished for her financial transparency, while Mr. Trump was rewarded for his practice of revealing nothing about how he makes money.

Which shouldn’t be how any of this works – and yet … Read the rest



The only thing we have to fear is fear itself

Dec 29th, 2016 6:04 pm | By

The self-pity of godbotherers never ceases to amaze.

Pop open the mulled wine, fill-up on minced pies, enjoy the office parties, swap presents, take a holiday – but whatever you do, don’t mention Jesus. In fact, don’t even mention the word ‘Christmas’ – say festive season, winter break, or happy holidays.

Sounds like a joke, right? Wrong. It’s Christmas in Britain 2016. No, it’s not all pervasive, but it’s happening, the fist-in-a-velvet-glove reality for any number of people, particularly Christians, in workplaces up and down the country.

And it has led the British Prime Minster, a Catholic bishop, and the UK’s equality commissioner to speak out about this sort of nonsense – it has to stop.

Ah there it … Read the rest



Hapless Adm yourself

Dec 29th, 2016 2:08 pm | By

Throwdown. 35 Russian diplomats have 72 hours to get out of Dodge.

The US has expelled 35 Russian diplomats as punishment for alleged interference into last month’s presidential elections, giving them 72 hours to leave the country.

It will also close two compounds used for Russian intelligence-gathering.

President Barack Obama had vowed action against Russia amid US accusations it directed hacks against the Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

Well at least no harm was done, because Clinton’s opponent is a responsible, thoughtful, reasonable, compassionate guy who will do a good job.

Or, rather, he’s the opposite of all that, as well as a liar and a thief and a pussygrabber, so I don’t admire the Russians’ prank.

The

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For visiting a city without her husband

Dec 29th, 2016 5:58 am | By

News from Afghanistan:

A woman has been beheaded for visiting a city without her husband, officials in Afghanistan have said.

The 30-year-old was decapitated and stabbed to death on Monday evening in Lati in the Sar-e-Pul province of northern Afghanistan.

The Middle East Press claims a government spokesman told them Taliban militants killed her for the “infidelity act” of going shopping without a male guardian.

National broadcaster Tolo News reports that the provincial governor spokesman Zabiullah Amani said the woman’s husband is in Iran, and that they do not have children.

No doubt they did the stabbing first, to make sure she would feel it.… Read the rest