Yes Irma is creating the predicted havoc in the Florida Keys and will go on to chew up the rest of Florida today and tonight and tomorrow, but never mind, Trump and his goons are still intent on destroying all federal efforts to deal with climate change, because hey, immediate profit for a few is far more important and valuable than the long-term survival of the environment we all depend on.

The news was hard to digest until one realized it was part of a much larger and increasingly disturbing pattern in the Trump administration. On Aug. 18, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine received an order from the Interior Department that it stop work on what seemed a useful and overdue study of the health risks of mountaintop-removal coal mining.

The $1 million study had been requested by two West Virginia health agencies following multiple studies suggesting increased rates of birth defects, cancer and other health problems among people living near big surface coal-mining operations in Appalachia. The order to shut it down came just hours before the scientists were scheduled to meet with affected residents of Kentucky.

Now these are the very people Trump pretends to speak for and defend and rescue – the Forgotten people, the working stiffs, the people who live in coal country. He’s their pal, their ally, their honcho…that is, he’s a big fan of racism and sexism and he figures they have that in common. That’s enough isn’t it? No one would expect him to also give a damn about their health and well-being and safety?

The Interior Department said the study was killed because they need to count the pennies.

This was not persuasive to anyone who had been paying attention. From Day 1, the White House and its lackeys in certain federal agencies have been waging what amounts to a war on science, appointing people with few scientific credentials to key positions, defunding programs that could lead to a cleaner and safer environment and a healthier population, and, most ominously, censoring scientific inquiry that could inform the public and government policy.

Even allowing for justifiable budgetary reasons, in nearly every case the principal motive seemed the same: to serve commercial interests whose profitability could be affected by health and safety rules.

Well yes, because there’s a principle involved. Immediate profit for a few is far more important and valuable than the long-term survival of the environment we all depend on. That’s the principle. It’s pretty much the only one they have. They would give up even racism, even pussy-grabbing, for that one.

This is a president who has never shown much fidelity to facts, unless they are his own alternative ones. Yet if there is any unifying theme beyond that to the administration’s war on science, apart from its devotion to big industry and its reflexively antiregulatory mind-set, it is horror of the words “climate change.”

This starts with Mr. Trump, who has called global warming a hoax and pulled the United States from the Paris agreement on climate change. Among his first presidential acts, he instructed Scott Pruitt, the Environmental Protection Agency administrator, to deep-six President Obama’s Clean Power Plan, aimed at reducing carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants, and ordered Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to roll back Obama-era rules reducing the venting from natural gas wells of methane, another powerful greenhouse gas.

Why? Because of the all-important first word of The Principle: immediate. Profit is immediate, climate change is slow (although it’s speeding up) and gradualish (but speeding up). Profit is today, climate change is maybe tomorrow…or actually maybe right now, if you’re in the Keys, but you can’t actually show us the fingerprints of climate change right on Irma now can you, so climate change is still always tomorrow.

Trump and his goons are carefully ignoring the causal issues of all these exciting hurricanes that give Trump a chance to pretend to be compassionate.

Mr. Pruitt and his colleagues have enthusiastically jumped to the task of rescinding regulations that might address the problem, meanwhile presiding over a no less ominous development: a governmentwide purge of people, particularly scientists, whose research and conclusions about the human contribution to climate change do not support the administration’s agenda.

Well what would you do? If you wanted to put immediate profit for a few ahead of the long-term survival of the many, what would you do? The same exact thing. Well all right then.

Mr. Pruitt, for instance, is replacing dozens of members on the E.P.A.’s scientific advisory boards; in March, he dismissed at least five scientists from the agency’s 18-member Board of Scientific Counselors, to be replaced, according to a spokesman, with advisers “who understand the impact of regulations on the regulated community.”

Ah yes the regulated community – such a warm, friendly bunch, always at the door with a casserole when anyone’s in trouble. Much better than those pesky scientists explaining what’s causing all this crazy weather.

Last month the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration dissolved its 15-member climate science advisory committee, a panel set up to help translate the findings of the National Climate Assessment into concrete guidance for businesses, governments and the public.

In June, Mr. Pruitt told a coal industry lobbying group that he was preparing to convene a “red team” of researchers to challenge the notion, broadly accepted among climate scientists, that carbon dioxide and other emissions from fossil fuels are the primary drivers of climate change.

Andrew Dessler, a professor of atmospheric science at Texas A&M University, called the red team plan a “dumb idea” that’s like “a red team-blue team exercise about whether gravity exists.” Rick Perry, the energy secretary, former Texas governor and climate skeptic, endorsed the idea as — get this — a way to “get the politicians out of the room.” Given his and Mr. Pruitt’s ideological and historical financial ties to the fossil fuel industry, it is hard to think of a more cynical use of public money.

“Cynical” is a harsh word. “Principled” would be a kinder word. Somebody has to take care of the immediate profits for the few, and those goddam climate scientists sure aren’t going to.

At the E.P.A., a former Trump campaign assistant named John Konkus aims to eliminate the “double C-word,” meaning “climate change,” from the agency’s research grant solicitations, and he views every application for research money through a similar lens. The E.P.A. is even considering editing out climate change-related exhibits in a museum depicting the agency’s history.

The bias against science finds reinforcement in Mr. Trump’s budget and the people he has chosen for important scientific jobs. Mr. Trump’s 2018 federal budget proposal would cut nondefense research and development money across the government.

The president has proposed cutting nearly $6 billion from the National Institutes of Health, the nation’s single largest funder of biomedical research.

Why would we want to spend federal money on biomedical research? Immediate profit, remember? Biomedical research can take years to deliver profits.

It is amazing but true, given the present circumstances, that the Trump budget would eliminate $250 million for NOAA’s coastal research programs that prepare communities for rising seas and worsening storms. The E.P.A.’s Global Change program would be likewise eliminated. This makes the budget director, Mick Mulvaney, delirious with joy. He complains of “crazy things” the Obama administration did to study climate, and boasts: “Do a lot of the E.P.A. reductions aim at reducing the focus on climate science? Yes.”

As to key appointments, denial and mediocrity abound. Last week, Mr. Trump nominated David Zatezalo, a former coal company chief executive who has repeatedly clashed with federal mine safety regulators, as assistant secretary of labor for the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration. He nominated Jim Bridenstine, a Republican congressman from Oklahoma with no science or space background, as NASA administrator. Sam Clovis, Mr. Trump’s nomination to be the Agriculture Department’s chief scientist, is not a scientist: He’s a former talk-radio host and incendiary blogger who has labeled climate research “junk science.”

So if he’s not a scientist how can he be the Agriculture Department’s chief scientist? Even my fanatical support for the Immediate Profit Principle can’t quite get a handle on that one.

From the beginning, Mr. Trump, Mr. Pruitt, Mr. Zinke and Mr. Perry — to name the Big Four on environmental and energy issues — have been promising a new day to just about anyone discomfited by a half-century of bipartisan environmental law, whether it be the developers and farmers who feel threatened by efforts to enforce the Clean Water Act, oil and gas drillers seeking leases they do not need on federal land, chemical companies seeking relaxation from rules governing dangerous pesticides, automakers asked to improve fuel efficiency or utilities required to make further investments in technology to reduce ground-level pollutants.

But look on the bright side: a few people will get a lot richer. A good swap, wouldn’t you say?

The Senate Appropriations Committee has issued a report criticizing the Trump administration’s proposed State Department budget for being too damn low.

The unusually harsh language appeared in the report attached to spending legislation for the State Department and foreign operations that totals $51 billion, roughly $11 billion more in funding than the administration had requested. The Trump administration had proposed a budget that slashed State Department spending for fiscal year 2018 by about 30 percent from the previous year.

Because Trump and his buddies are so thick they think we can do everything by shooting and bombing.

“On May 23, 2017, President Donald Trump submitted to the Congress the fiscal year 2018 budget of the United States government entitled, ‘A New Foundation for American Greatness,’ and asserted in ‘The Budget Message of the President’ that ‘[i]n these dangerous times, our increased attention to public safety and national security sends a clear message to the world — a message of American strength and resolve,'” the report said. “This message is not reflected in the International Affairs budget request of $40,521,826,000, a 30 percent cut below the fiscal year 2017 enacted level.”

“The lessons learned since September 11, 2001, include the reality that defense alone does not provide for American strength and resolve abroad,” the report continued. “Battlefield technology and firepower cannot replace diplomacy and development. The administration’s apparent doctrine of retreat, which also includes distancing the United States from collective and multilateral dispute resolution frameworks, serves only to weaken America’s standing in the world.”

Trump thinks standing=the biggest guns.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has defended the proposed cuts to the State Department.

“It is an unmistakable restatement of the needs the country faces and the priorities we must establish,” Tillerson said in a letter to the department’s 75,000 employees in March. “It acknowledges that U.S. engagement must be more efficient, that our aid be more effective, and that advocating the national interests of our country always be our primary mission.”

What would he know about it? He was an oil executive, not a diplomat or foreign policy scholar.

Draining the swamp.

People at the CIA say the agency is becoming more white, male, and Jesus.

For those who have worked inside the agency, the backtracking on diversity represents a threat to the workforce and national security, according to Nada Bakos, a former CIA analyst who helped track high-level terrorist targets like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

The agency needs employees from different backgrounds and orientations to effectively recruit agents abroad. “What if you have to recruit someone who’s gay and that’s the only reason they’re talking to you?” she asked.

“This isn’t just about today’s diversity issue. It’s about tomorrow’s lack of diversity that will erode the agency,” Bakos told FP. “You can’t hire someone who’s typically white American to walk around Baghdad.”

Mind you, it took them a long time to figure that out.

In 1995, President Bill Clinton issued an executive order that prevented intelligence officers from losing their clearances on the basis of their sexuality, kicking off what was to be a long and hard-fought shift in agency culture.

In March 2013, John Brennan was appointed director under President Barack Obama, and the new CIA head moved to make diversity and employee rights a priority. Senior leaders competed for spots to speak at employee gay pride events and accompanied the director to diversity events and celebrations.

While embraced by many, Brennan’s policies drew the ire of right-wing publications like the National Review, which claimed his diversity and inclusion strategy was just a way to make the agency more “politically correct.”

Or to put it another way, was “just” a way to make the agency more open to people other than middle class white men. It’s really not self-evident that that goal is something to be disparaged as “politically correct.” It’s neither self-evident nor true that only middle class white men have useful talents and skills.

But for Brennan, the changes were a matter of building a better workforce, as well as national security. “I believe strongly that diversity and inclusion [are] what this country is all about,” Brennan said in a phone interview with FP. “I can think of no organization that can make a better business case for diversity and inclusion than the CIA. We have the responsibility of covering the globe, understanding all societies, cultures, and backgrounds.”

But that was then.

Things changed quickly with President Donald Trump’s pick for CIA director, Mike Pompeo. A West Point graduate and former small-business owner, he never made a secret of his conservative social viewpoints during his time as a lawmaker. He has visited college campuses to talk about his disapproval of same-sex marriage, arguing that “the strength of these families having a father and a mother is the ideal condition for childbearing.” He has sponsored several pieces of legislation that would have weakened the rights of gay couples and supported organizations that champion those same beliefs.

Kamala Harris, a Democratic senator from California, pressed Pompeo during his confirmation hearing on whether he’d support the rights of his LGBTQ employees. He promised that he would treat all his employees in a way that is “appropriate and equal.”

But when he entered the building in late January, the former Republican lawmaker from Kansas publicly and privately snubbed calls for his commitment to diversity, according to multiple sources.

Plus also he’s a Jesus freak.

The concerns are not that Pompeo is religious but that his religious convictions are bleeding over into the CIA.

According to four sources familiar with the matter, Pompeo, who attends weekly Bible studies held in government buildings, referenced God and Christianity repeatedly in his first all-hands speech and in a recent trip report while traveling overseas. According to a profile by the Washington Post’s Greg Miller, Pompeo is working on starting a chaplaincy for the CIA campus like the military has.

The CIA did not dispute these events. “Director Pompeo is a man of faith,” the spokesperson said. “The idea that he should not practice his faith because he is Director of CIA is absurd.”

Oh stop that. The idea is not that he should not “practice his faith”; it’s that he should not practice it on the job.

Michael Weinstein, a former Air Force officer who founded the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, says he has been seeing increasing complaints from those inside the intelligence community. Weinstein’s foundation, which focuses on preventing religious pressure from creeping into the military, also has clients in the intelligence community, mostly from the CIA, the National Security Agency, and the Defense Intelligence Agency.

According to Weinstein, agency employees don’t want to go public with their complaints because of fear of retribution or being labeled as “leakers.” They don’t typically file formal complaints within the government. But certain things are making them especially uncomfortable, such as officials signing off with the phrase “have a blessed day.”

That’s something “straight out of The Handmaid’s Tale,” Weinstein said.

…

The foundation’s intelligence community clients have doubled since the July 2016 Republican National Convention, Weinstein said. While he wouldn’t specify the number of intelligence community clients he works with, Weinstein said it was in the hundreds — the majority of them working out of Langley. “In the intelligence community, we see supervisors wanting to hold Bible studies during duty hours [and] inviting lower-ranking individuals to their homes for Bible studies,” Weinstein told FP.

Have a blessed day.

Siva Vaidhyanathan explains why that story about the bot ads on Facebook is so worrying.

On Wednesday, Facebook revealed that hundreds of Russia-based accounts had run anti-Hillary Clinton ads precisely aimed at Facebook users whose demographic profiles implied a vulnerability to political propaganda. It will take time to prove whether the account owners had any relationship with the Russian government, but one thing is clear: Facebook has contributed to, and profited from, the erosion of democratic norms in the United States and elsewhere.

The audacity of a hostile foreign power trying to influence American voters rightly troubles us. But it should trouble us more that Facebook makes such manipulation so easy, and renders political ads exempt from the basic accountability and transparency that healthy democracy demands.

The majority of the Facebook ads did not directly mention a presidential candidate, according to Alex Stamos, head of security at Facebook, but “appeared to focus on amplifying divisive social and political messages across the ideological spectrum — touching on topics from L.G.B.T. matters to race issues to immigration to gun rights.”

They’re a kind of ad that’s peculiar to Facebook, and not in a good way. They’re very targeted and they run very briefly and then disappear entirely.

The service is popular among advertisers for its efficiency, effectiveness and responsiveness. Facebook gives rich and instant feedback to advertisers, allowing them to quickly tailor ads to improve outcomes or customize messages even more. There is nothing mysterious or untoward about the system itself, as long as it’s being used for commerce instead of politics. What’s alarming is that Facebook executives don’t seem to grasp, or appreciate, the difference.

A core principle in political advertising is transparency — political ads are supposed to be easily visible to everyone, and everyone is supposed to understand that they are political ads, and where they come from. And it’s expensive to run even one version of an ad in traditional outlets, let alone a dozen different versions. Moreover, in the case of federal campaigns in the United States, the 2002 McCain-Feingold campaign-finance act requires candidates to state they approve of an ad and thus take responsibility for its content.

None of that transparency matters to Facebook. Ads on the site meant for, say, 20- to 30-year-old home-owning Latino men in Northern Virginia would not be viewed by anyone else, and would run only briefly before vanishing. The potential for abuse is vast. An ad could falsely accuse a candidate of the worst malfeasance a day before Election Day, and the victim would have no way of even knowing it happened. Ads could stoke ethnic hatred and no one could prepare or respond before serious harm occurs.

And that’s the world we’re living in now.

Our best hopes sit in Brussels and London. European regulators have been watching Facebook and Google for years. They have taken strong actions against both companies for violating European consumer data protection standards and business competition laws. The British government is investigating the role Facebook and its use of citizens’ data played in the 2016 Brexit referendum and 2017 national elections.

We are in the midst of a worldwide, internet-based assault on democracy. Scholars at the Oxford Internet Institute have tracked armies of volunteers and bots as they move propaganda across Facebook and Twitter in efforts to undermine trust in democracy or to elect their preferred candidates in the Philippines, India, France, the Netherlands, Britain and elsewhere. We now know that agents in Russia are exploiting the powerful Facebook advertising system directly.

In the 21st-century social media information war, faith in democracy is the first casualty.

Siva’s writing a book about Facebook. We need it.

Josh Jackman at Pink News is outraged by the Daily Mail’s reporting on a prison rape.

The Mail is under fire after coverage of a transgender rapist.

(Note that very typical passive locution – “under fire” – without saying by whom. Could just mean by the author, but leaves the impression that the fire is general. Very sleazy.)

What happened was that a convicted rapist made unwanted sexual advances on fellow prisoners.

What the Mail Online did was mention her deadname, call her “a father,” and implied that her actions were down to the fact she has a penis.

Or to put it much less evasively than Josh Jackman does – a convicted rapist was housed with women prisoners and – unsurprisingly – he tried to rape them.

And Josh Jackman is outraged because the Mail used his “deadname” and…implied that rape is connected to having a penis. Yeah that’s the problem here.

The Mail states: “Transgender rapist who was moved to women-only jail despite still having a penis is segregated”.

Trans activists raised issues with the piece, suggesting it was attempting to link the convicted prisoner’s crimes to their gender identity – leaning on the irrational belief that transgender people are actually lying to gain some sort of benefit.

What trans activists? Where? Was this in Josh Jackman’s kitchen, or what?

But more to the point – yes, rape is “linked” to being male. The victims were women, and the rapist has a penis. Those three facts are indeed connected. Saying that does not in the least depend on any “irrational belief that transgender people are actually lying to gain some sort of benefit.”

Rush Limbaugh is leaving Palm Beach for Parts Unknown.

With his comments mocking Hurricane Irma as a liberal conspiracy theory still fresh, radio host Rush Limbaugh on Thursday appeared to surrender to reality, informing listeners that his program would no longer be able to air from his studio’s Palm Beach location, which is currently in Irma’s direct path.

“I’m not going to get into details because of the security nature of things, but it turns out that we will not be able to do the program here tomorrow,” Limbaugh said in a segment recorded by ThinkProgress. “That will be in the hands of Mark Stein tomorrow. We’ll be on the air next week, folks, from parts unknown.”

“It’s just that tomorrow is going to be…problematic. Legally impossible.”

Limbaugh never directly mentioned the hurricane or Irma by name, instead telling listeners he was forced to cancel a slew of planned activities this weekend. “Now that’s all blown to smithereens,” he said.

So to speak, wink wink, nudge nudge.

But so maybe it wasn’t a conspiracy by Big Battery after all? Maybe there really is a massive hurricane approaching?

Limbaugh couldn’t possibly comment.

Well, this takes a lot of gall.

On Thursday, a day after Seahawks defensive end Michael Bennett claimed that he was the victim of excessive force and racial profiling by the Las Vegas Police Department late last month, the police department asked NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and the league to investigate the incident for “obviously false allegations” from Bennett.

Sadly for the Las Vegas PD, video of the excessive force exists, yet they still have the gall to demand that Bennett’s employers “investigate” him for saying it happened.

Why would that even be anything to do with the NFL if it were true? Employers aren’t responsible for what their employees do outside work.

So the demand is nonsensical as well as outrageous…so they’re just grandstanding then?

“Gall” doesn’t even cover it.

Goodell, who supported Bennett in a statement on Wednesday evening, has no plans to open an investigation.

“There is no allegation of a violation of the league’s personal conduct policy and therefore there is no basis for an NFL investigation,” NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy wrote in response to the LVPD’s request, via ESPN.com.

NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith also issued a statement: “There are no grounds for the NFL to investigate our union rep, and I look forward to Roger confirming the same.”

…

The police disputed Bennett’s claims of racial profiling, but video footage of the incident left his brother, Packers tight end Martellus Bennett, shaken. Then, on Thursday, Steve Grammas, president of the Las Vegas Police Protective Association, wrote the letter to Goodell, which included this passage:

“While the NFL may condone Bennett’s disrespect for our American Flag, and everything it symbolizes, we hope the League will not ignore Bennett’s false accusations against our police officers.”

Oh yes that’s the important thing here – respect for the flag. Police brutality is just part of the job, but dissing the flag – now that’s worth making a fuss about.

This is Trump’s America.

Bros before hos.

In his first extensive interview since leaving the Trump administration, former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon tells “60 Minutes” about the fallout after the leaked “Access Hollywood” tape.

…

Steve Bannon: And – and Trump went around the room and asked people the percentages he thought of – of still winning and what the recommendation. And Reince started off and Reince said, “You have – you have two choices. You either drop out right now, or you lose by the biggest landslide in American political history.” And Trump, with his humor goes, “That’s a great way – that’s a great way to start our – start our conversation.” We went around the room. And you could tell – I could tell from the incoming of politicians and I could tell from some of the politicians that were there, is that the natural inclination of politicians are – are – are to be so overwhelmingly stunned and shocked by how the media comes on you. But Trump wasn’t that. And I told him as he went around, I was the last guy to speak, and I said, “It’s 100 percent. You have 100 percent probability of winning.” And that’s the first time –

Rose: But you seem to have done that at every point in the campaign. When he was in trouble, asking him to double down on his rhetoric, double down in terms of appealing to his base.

Bannon: Appealing to the American people and to the working class people in this country, absolutely. You know why? ‘Cause – it was a winner. That’s why I told him “double down” every time. And on that day, that’s the first time and only time he ever got upset with me. He goes, “Come on, it’s not 100 percent.” I go, “It’s absolutely 100 percent.” And I told him why. “They don’t care.”

Rose: But they… they do care about respect for women. They do –

Bannon: They do, they do, but they –

Rose: I do know that.

Bannon: But they – but –

Rose: And it’s not just locker room talk. I mean –

Bannon: That’s locker room talk. The Billy Bush thing is locker room talk.

Fine, it’s “locker room talk.” Meaning what? That that’s just what men do when they’re alone together? All men, without exception, no matter what? They all drop the mask and talk about women as if women were objects, like rocks or apples or chairs, except that in the case of women they’re objects that are useful for providing men with sex? Is that the claim?

If so, one consequence is that all women should mistrust all men, without exception, because objects can be discarded and destroyed without compunction, since objects have no feelings.

Another consequence is that men should mistrust all men too, because the reality is that women are not objects and they do have feelings, so people who think otherwise are fucked in the head.

It’s psychopathic to claim that males in general see women as just objects with pussies that men are entitled to grab and brag about grabbing. It’s psychopathic to claim that Trump’s brutal vulgar contempt for women is just normal, just “locker room talk.”

Charlie Rose apparently dropped the whole thing and changed the subject at that point. So much for his “respect.”

It turns out that Martin Shkreli isn’t just the kind of asshole who buys the rights to patented meds in order to inflate the price by 5000%, he’s also the kind of asshole who harasses and threatens women in public.

Martin Shkreli, the former hedge fund manager awaiting sentencing for defrauding his investors, should have his bail revoked after offering his Facebook followers $5,000 to grab a strand of Hillary Clinton’s hair during her book tour, federal prosecutors say.

I saw that yesterday, via Twitter. I wanted to post about it but decided it might look too trivial or random. But the Secret Service doesn’t think so and the Post doesn’t think so, so ok then.

Shkreli’s conduct since his conviction in early August has escalated and he poses a threat to the community, the prosecutors said in a letter to the judge late Thursday. In addition to his Facebook post concerning Hillary Clinton, which drew the attention of the Secret Service, he has made harassing comments to other women online, they said.

“Shkreli has engaged in an escalating pattern of threats and harassment that warrant his detention pending sentencing,” prosecutors said in their letter to the judge in the case. “The Court should further find that there is no condition or combination of conditions to which the defendant will abide that will ensure that he does not pose a danger to the community.”

Interesting, isn’t it. We’re always being told that online harassment of women is just joking, just bants, just trolls, just free speech…but when it’s a convicted criminal doing it, finally people can grasp that it actually does pose a danger.

As a result of Shkreli’s Facebook post on Clinton, the Secret Service has “expended significant resources additional resources to ensure Secretary Clinton’s protection,” the letter said. “There is a significant risk that one of his many social media followers or others who learn of his offers through the media will take his statements seriously — as has happened previously — and act on them.”

Shkreli later amended his post on Clinton to say that the offer was “satire.” But prosecutors note that Shkreli’s apparent animus toward Clinton includes standing outside her daughter Chelsea’s home when Clinton was reportedly there recuperating after falling sick. Shkreli “spent approximately two hours live-streaming while providing commentary and heckling Secretary Clinton,” they said.

Is that “satire”? No it is not.

“However inappropriate some of Mr Shkreli’s postings may have been, we do not believe that he intended harm and do not believe that he poses a danger to the community,” Shkreli’s attorney, Benjamin Brafman, said in a statement.

But that doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what Shkreli’s attorney “believes.” What matters is the reality: that he put the offer out there, that there are millions of people who have been trained for decades to feel frothing hatred for Hillary Clinton, that there are people who act on their feelings of frothing hatred for public figures, especially political ones, and that violent hatred of women is in fashion.

Shkreli, 34, is best known for raising the price of an AIDS drug by 5,000 percent but was convicted by a Brooklyn jury of defrauding the investors’ in his hedge funds. Shkreli lied to obtain investors’ money then didn’t tell them when he made a bad stock bet that led to massive losses, prosecutors argued…

…

Since his conviction the loquacious executive has kept an active — and combative — online presence. In addition to asking for someone to grab a strand of Clinton’s hair, he has bought the domain names of reporters’ covering his case and promised to “smack” comic Trevor Noah if he ever saw him on the street.

He was busily doing all this and more on Facebook yesterday. Doesn’t violate Facebook’s famous “community standards,” I guess.

Originally a comment by Screechy Monkey on He seemed super upbeat.

Politico:

Many Republicans were furious with President Donald Trump’s budget deal Wednesday

On just his first day in office, President Trump blatantly lied to the American people about the size of his inaugural crowd.

Republican leaders shrugged off criticism of the President, saying that nobody really expects Trump to literally mean what he says.

President Trump fired FBI Director James Comey, and admitted in a subsequent interview that the reasons given in the termination letter were pretextual, and the real reason was Trump’s frustration with the investigation into his campaign’s ties to Russian intelligence.

Republican leaders described themselves as “concerned.”

After neo-Nazi violence claimed the life of a peaceful protester in Charlottesville, President Trump declined to disavow white nationalism, and insisted that there were good people marching with the neo-Nazis.

Republican leaders expressed disappointment with the president’s language.

Trump used his pardon power to excuse a racist thug sheriff who abused his authority and flaunted court orders.

Republican leaders expressed polite disagreement with the decision.

Trump cut a budget deal with Democrats.

Now, Republicans are “furious.”

In fact Trump is so manic that he’s turned himself inside out.

Mr. Trump told reporters after the calls that the deal may signal a new era of bipartisanship. “I think we will have a different relationship than we’ve been watching over the last number of years. I hope so,” he said. “I think that’s a great thing for our country. And I think that’s what the people of the United States want to see. They want to see some dialogue. They want to see coming together to an extent.”

Oh. Really? That’s what the people of the United States want to see? I thought they wanted to see lots and lots of name-calling and wild accusations. I thought they wanted to see non-stop “Pocahontas” and “Crooked Hillary” and “Cryin’ Chuck” and “Crazy Bernie” and “Lyin’ Ted” and “Little Marco.”

Still, I’m not complaining. Mocking, yes, but not complaining.