Maybe discuss it with women first?
Apr 29th, 2017 3:49 pm | By Ophelia BensonA law which protected Jordan’s rapists from punishment if they married their victims looks set to be scrapped.
The Jordanian cabinet revoked Article 308 on Sunday, after years of campaigning by women’s activists, as well as Muslim and Christian scholars and others.
The law had meant rapists could avoid a jail term in return for marrying their victim for at least three years.
Its supporters said the law protected a victim’s honour and reputation.
The victim’s “honour and reputation” shouldn’t be at issue anyway. It’s ridiculous. Imagine thinking someone whose wallet is stolen suffers damage to her honour and reputation.
And the rapist, blindingly obviously, should not escape punishment by further victimizing the victim. Imagine a guy beats up a woman, concussing her and breaking some ribs. Now imagine he gets to escape punishment if he marries her. The problem is obvious: oh gee, he beat her up once, what’s to stop him doing it again?
I suppose the logic is that then they would be married so then the forced sex would not be rape, it would just be sex. They’re married – married women don’t get to refuse sex with their husbands.
Heads men win, tails women lose.
Noor – not her real name – was just 20 when she was raped by a 55-year-old man.
He was her boss when one day, she complained of a headache. After taking the two pills he offered her, she lost consciousness.
“I couldn’t remember what happened next; I wake up and find myself naked and raped,” she told women’s rights campaign group Equality Now.
“I couldn’t tell my family what had happened. I cried and cried not knowing what to do. At that moment, I realised that my family will be devastated.”
It was only after Noor discovered she was pregnant, that she found the courage to report the rape – but then her attacker offered to marry her under Article 308.
Noor was given no choice in the matter.
“With all the hatred I have in my heart, my family forced me to marry him so as to save the ‘family’s honour’,” she said.
Nice “family.”
Guest post: Most people working today don’t remember how it used to be
Apr 29th, 2017 3:28 pm | By Ophelia BensonOriginally a comment by iknklast on Eliminate the safety regulations.
I wonder how the “let’s get rid of safety regulations” policy is going to go over with Trump’s presumed blue-collar, working man base
Most of the blue-collar workers that surround me are ecstatic about the idea. They have bought into the idea that these regulations are unnecessary, are telling them how to do their job, are keeping them from making better money…in short, they voted for Trump because of this sort of thing, not in spite of it. At a recent meeting of a group that benefits highly from OSHA regulations, they were all discussing how eager they were for OSHA regulations to go away.
I think the problem is that most people working today don’t remember how it used to be. They assume the workplace would still be as clean and safe without the regulations, because they have been told that all the regulations do is mean that they can’t move this box without two people—oh, goodness, you mean I can’t lift a 100 pound box without help? How dare they! And they believe that the big benefactor of these regulations is the government, not the working man.
Now, once the regulations actually go away, they may find out the truth…by then, it will be too late. It took a long time and a lot of hard work, and dead people, to get the rules put in place to begin with. It may be even more difficult to get them back. (And it may not…people who have known what life is like with the rules may rise up very quickly and very firmly once they lose them…we can hope that is the scenario, that they throw the bums out).
The international project of flattering Ivanka Trump
Apr 29th, 2017 12:22 pm | By Ophelia BensonAmy Davidson in the New Yorker looks at the abject process of paying homage to Princess Ivanka.
The international project of flattering Ivanka Trump—which some of the world’s most notable women, from Angela Merkel, the Chancellor of Germany, to Queen Máxima, of the Netherlands, engaged in at a panel discussion during the W20 conference, in Berlin, this week—does not always run smoothly. There was, first, the achingly obvious oddity of deciding that Trump, whose experience on the public stage largely consists of marketing her clothing and jewelry lines, and her efforts to get her father, Donald Trump, elected, was qualified to sit between Christine Lagarde, the head of the International Monetary Fund, and Chrystia Freeland, the Foreign Minister of Canada. That was quickly followed by the dispiriting thought that Trump might actually have as much power over people’s lives as the other women, through the influence that she supposedly wields over her father. Why else would the head of the World Bank, Jim Yong Kim, have co-authored an op-ed in the Financial Times with her, on the importance of promoting female entrepreneurship? Their insights include this: “mentorship opportunities and access to networks bring learning opportunities and connections to capital and markets.”
Ooh, you don’t say. Thank fuck we have Ivanka to explain us that.
At some point during her Berlin sojourn, Trump spoke to Mike Allen, the political journalist. Allen ran an item on Axios with the headline “Ivanka Trump’s new fund for female entrepreneurs,” illustrated with a photograph of Trump grazing her fingers on one of the slabs that make up Berlin’s Holocaust memorial. “Ivanka Trump told me yesterday from Berlin that she has begun building a massive fund that will benefit female entrepreneurs around the globe,” Allen wrote.
It sounded like a very big deal, until people started asking questions.
What about conflicts? Would this be a for-profit operation or a shakedown one? In a few hours, it became clear that it was neither of those—because “Ivanka Trump’s new fund” was a complete misnomer. This would be a World Bank project, as spokesmen for the White House and the bank emphasized. Trump would not be involved in raising money, managing it, or deciding how it would be spent. But the World Bank wanted everyone to know that it was very, very grateful to Ivanka for promoting the fund, or “facility,” as it would be called. It was kind of her idea.
Why are any journalists confused about this? She’s like her father – she’s a marketer. That’s all. She’s not a genius of policy or global empowerment of women – she’s a fashion marketer.
But maybe the make-believe about Ivanka coming up with world-changing ideas is harmless, if it means that her father will look kindly on the World Bank—although a report, this week, in the Washington Post about the conditions in a Chinese factory run by the contractor who makes her brand’s clothes (extremely low wages and long hours) does not quite fit into the picture.
I read that report in the Post. It’s grim. Funny how Ivanka’s not empowering those women.
There was that panel in Berlin…
“You’re the ‘First Daughter’ of the United States,” [Miriam Meckel] said to Trump. “And you’re also an assistant to the U.S. President. As a part of the audience, especially the German audience, is not that familiar with the concept of a First Daughter, I’d like to ask you, what is your role, and whom are you representing: Your father, as the President of the United States; the American people; or your business?”
“Well, certainly not the latter,” Trump said, smiling. “I am rather unfamiliar with this role as well, as it is quite new to me. It has been a little under a hundred days, but it has just been a remarkable and incredible journey.” She continued to speak about how good the trip to Berlin was turning out to be for her, as a learning experience, and then moved on to her real job, which has always been marketing Donald J. Trump. “I’m very, very proud of my father’s advocacy, long before he came into the Presidency, but during the campaign, including in the primaries. He’s been a tremendous champion of supporting families and enabling them to thrive in the new reality of a duelling—”
“You hear the reaction from the audience,” Meckel interrupted. According to press reports, the sound from the crowd was somewhere between a gasp, a boo, and a hiss. Meckel asked Trump to comment on “some attitudes toward women your father has publicly displayed” and how those might raise doubts about his commitment to empowering women.
“I’ve certainly heard the criticism from the media, and that’s been perpetuated,” Trump said, but added that her own experience, and that of women who worked for him, demonstrated otherwise.
I wish someone had insisted that she explain herself at that point. It’s not just “the criticism from the media” – it’s that tape. It’s that tape that we’ve all listened to, that tape that Trump dismissed brutally as “locker room talk” (as if that makes it just fine), that tape on which he brags about being able to grab women by the pussy. It’s disgusting that she skirted around that with “I’ve certainly heard the criticism from the media.”
When asked, more specifically, how she advised him, she said, “It’s been an ongoing discussion I’ve had with my father most of my adult life, and we’re very aligned in many, many areas. And that’s why he’s encouraged me to fully lean into this opportunity and come into the White House and be by his side.” The implication was that nepotism was one of her father’s virtues, and proof of his good character.
Exactly. That “he’s encouraged me to fully lean into this opportunity” is revolting. Melania’s lawsuit against the Daily Mail and a blogger also cited her “opportunities” – to make huge amounts of money because her husband is president. These people are sleazy all the way down.
A certain authenticity and willingness to engage
Apr 29th, 2017 11:58 am | By Ophelia BensonThe Times has a piece on ways Donnie has changed the presidency. This one made me laugh.
…he has cast off conventions that constrained others in his office. He has retained his business interests, which he implicitly cultivates with regular visits to his properties. He has been both more and less transparent than other presidents, shielding his tax returns and White House visitor logs from public scrutiny while appearing to leave few thoughts unexpressed, no matter how incendiary or inaccurate.
Ha! Doin’ it wrong, Donnie. You’re supposed to reveal the stuff relevant to the job and hide the inappropriate thoughts that lurk in the pestilent swamp of your mind.
Although Mr. Trump assumed that his experience in business and entertainment would translate to the White House, he has found out otherwise.
“I never realized how big it was,” he said of the presidency in an interview with The Associated Press. “Every decision,” he added, “is much harder than you’d normally make.”
How mindless do you have to be not to know that ahead of time? How could he possibly not have realized “how big” it is? How can it be that no one told him? Or that he didn’t listen when people did tell him? It still baffles me.
Mr. Trump arrived at the White House unimpressed by conventions that governed the presidency. At first, he blew off the idea of receiving intelligence briefings every day because he was “a smart person” and did not need to hear “the same thing every day.” He telephoned foreign leaders during the transition without consulting or even informing government experts on those countries.
But he’s not a smart person, is he. A smart person would have understood that being president “is big” ahead of time. A smart person wouldn’t charge around like a buffalo on speed, breaking everything in sight. A smart person would take the whole thing seriously.
His Twitter account, of course, has been the vehicle for all sorts of outbursts that defy tradition, often fueled by the latest segment on Fox News. Presidents rarely taunt reality-show hosts about poor ratings, complain about late-night television comedy skits, berate judges or members of their own party who defy them, trash talk Hollywood stars and Sweden, declare the “fake news” media to be “the enemy of the American people” or accuse the last president of illegally wiretapping them without any proof.
Well presidents other than Trump never do that. Not rarely, but never. Never ever.
David Gergen, a White House aide to four presidents, including Reagan, noted that Franklin D. Roosevelt talked about the “moral leadership” of the presidency. “Unfortunately, we have lost sight of that vision in recent years, and it has almost disappeared during the first 100 days of the Trump administration,” Mr. Gergen said.
In a way that’s the worst thing about him. He’s a moral nightmare. He’s poison for a generation of children watching him.
But if the presidency had grown somewhat stale under the old norms as its occupants increasingly stuck to carefully crafted talking points and avoided spontaneity, Mr. Trump has brought back a certain authenticity and willingness to engage. His frequent news conferences and interviews can be bracingly candid, uninhibited, even raw. He leaves little mystery about what is on his mind.
Oh shut up, Times. Shut up, Peter Baker. We don’t need “balance” on this subject. No balance is possible. There’s no “balance” on the subject of a president who calls a senator “Pocahontas” to a cheering audience of gun-fanatics.
Among the likely winners
Apr 29th, 2017 11:37 am | By Ophelia BensonGuess who would benefit from Trump’s (sketched) tax plan?
Oh darn you must have peeked. That’s right: it’s the man himself.
Among the likely winners in President Donald Trump’s tax-cut plan would be a real estate developer turned reality TV star who now happens to occupy the White House.
The one-page proposal released Wednesday seems sure to benefit the president’s businesses. It would eliminate the estate tax, repeal the alternative minimum tax that affects some affluent people, deeply slash corporate rates and reduce investment taxes — all of which could in theory benefit a billionaire real estate magnate like Trump.
It’s a sensitive subject for a White House that is telling Americans its proposed cuts to individual and corporate tax rates would aid the middle class and fuel stronger economic growth.
Well, if they will believe a lying cheating stealing real estate hustler when he tells them he’s on their side…but then not all of them did, did they. We like to “elect” people with fewer votes than the closest rival.
When Trump’s spokesman, Sean Spicer, was asked by reporters Thursday whether it was fair to inquire about the benefits that the tax cuts would provide for the president and his family, he sidestepped the question.
“I would guess that most Americans would applaud what the president is doing,” Spicer said.
Aw quit lying, Spicey. No you wouldn’t. Most Americans think Trump sucks, and some of them can spot a tax cut for the rich when it’s in front of their noses.
The plan calls for the elimination of the Alternative Minimum Tax, which raises the federal tax bill of wealthy Americans like Trump who would otherwise capitalize on special tax breaks to pay far less. The benefit to Trump could run as high as tens of millions of dollars a year. According to recently leaked Trump documents from 2005 cited by Pelosi, Trump paid $36.5 million in federal taxes that year because of the AMT. Without it, he would have owed just $5.5 million.
But that’s not why he wants to eliminate the AMT. No no no. It’s all about stimulating growth.
The worst 100
Apr 28th, 2017 4:03 pm | By Ophelia BensonSo about those “hundred days”…
David Leonhardt gives Donnie low marks.
No doubt, you’ve seen a torrent of coverage in recent days of the milestone. And while it’s certainly an arbitrary milestone, it’s also a meaningful one. Presidents are at their most influential in their early months, which makes that period a particularly important one for a presidency.
In other words the hundred days is an arbitrary number, but the first few months of a presidency, is not. Trump’s hundred, Leonhardt says gently, is the worst ever.
Trump has made no significant progress on any major legislation. His health care bill is a zombie. His border wall is stalled. He’s only now releasing basic principles of a tax plan. Even his executive order on immigration is tied up in the courts. By contrast, George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan had made substantial progress toward passing tax cuts, and Barack Obama had passed, among other things, a huge stimulus bill that also addressed education and climate policy.
Well cut him a little slack – he was very busy with other things. Rallies; trips to Taco del Mar; photo ops; watching Spicey on tv; watching cable news on tv; watching Fox on tv; tweeting; bragging; threatening; calling people names. There are only so many hours in the day, ya know.
Trump is far behind staffing his administration. Trump has made a mere 50 nominations to fill the top 553 positions of the executive branch, as of Friday. That’s right: He hasn’t even nominated anyone for 90 percent of its top jobs. The average president since 1989 had nominated twice as many, according to the Partnership for Public Service.
He’s saving money. That’s 503 people not drawing a government paycheck!
The Trump administration is more nagged by scandal than any previous administration. No new administration has dealt with a potential scandal anywhere near as large or as distracting as the Russia investigation. It could recede over time, true. But it also could come to dominate the Trump presidency.
Plus the countless ethics violations and conflicts of interest. That shit’s not going to recede over time.
His basement-level popularity is another problem.
Trump’s low approval isn’t only a reflection of his struggles. It also becomes a cause of further struggles. Members of Congress aren’t afraid to buck an unpopular president, which helps explain the collapse of Trumpcare.
Obviously, Trump can claim some successes on his own terms. Most consequentially, he has named a Supreme Court justice who could serve for decades. Trump has also put in place some meaningful executive orders, on climate policy above all, and he has allied the federal government with the cause of white nationalism, as Jonathan Chait wrote.
He got some stuff done, but it’s bad stuff.
It’s worth considering one final point, too. So far, I’ve been judging him on his own terms. History, of course, will not. And I expect that a couple of his biggest so-called accomplishments — aggravating climate change and treating nonwhite citizens as less than fully American — are likely to be judged very harshly one day.
Or right now. Lots of us are judging them that way right now.
Disgrace
Apr 28th, 2017 11:55 am | By Ophelia BensonTrump has been giving a talk at the National Rifle Association’s annual meeting. In that talk – on camera, with reporters present – he called Senator Warren “Pocahontas” again.
I am so sick of this trashy, vulgar, nasty, schoolyard-bully man.
Trump calling Warren Pocahontas is racist. We kind of gloss over it at this point. But this is the president being racist.
— Sam Stein (@samstein) April 28, 2017
At NRA, Trump looks to 2020: "It may be Pocahontas." A derogatory, dismissive reference to Sen. Warren.
— Robert Costa (@costareports) April 28, 2017
Trump speculates about Dem contenders in 2020, refers to Elizabeth Warren as "Pocahontas…" reprising insult for MA Sen from campaign.
— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) April 28, 2017
Trump refers to Elizabeth Warren as Pocahontas at NRA pic.twitter.com/sZOcJSgOvl
— VICE News (@VICENews) April 28, 2017
Eliminate the safety regulations
Apr 28th, 2017 11:06 am | By Ophelia BensonI guess Trump thinks the Gulf oil spill was a nice jobs-creator, or something. He wants to encourage that kind of thing.
Just past the seventh anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, President Trump on Friday directed the Interior Department to “reconsider” several safety regulations on offshore drilling implemented after one of the worst environmental disasters in the nation’s history.
Friday’s executive order was aimed at rolling back the Obama administration’s attempts to ban oil drilling off the southeastern Atlantic and Alaskan coasts. It would erase or narrow the boundaries of some federally-protected marine sanctuaries, opening them up to commercial fishing and oil drilling.
Because marine life, meh, who needs it, whereas oil – now there’s a useful and beneficent substance. We need to drive around in cars far more than we need to eat or breathe.
Mr. Trump also took aim at regulations on oil-rig safety. In the final years of the Obama administration, the Interior Department implemented several new rules aimed at improving the safety of specific pieces of offshore drilling equipment that had failed during the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and were found to have been responsible for the deadly BP oil rig explosion that caused that spill.
The explosion of the Deepwater Horizon killed 11, set off a weeks-long crisis for the Obama administration and spilled 4.9 million barrels of oil into the sea.
Among other directives, the order instructs Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to review an Obama administration plan that delineated where offshore drilling could and could not take place between 2017 to 2022. The plan put the entire southeast Atlantic coast and large portions of the Arctic Ocean off limits to drilling.
Because when in doubt, it’s always better to risk more spills.
The order also appears designed to roll back a permanent ban placed by President Barack Obama on offshore drilling off some portions of the Atlantic and Alaskan coasts, but that move is expected to be met with immediate legal challenges.
Friday’s order will also direct Wilbur Ross, the commerce secretary — who has jurisdiction over marine sanctuaries — to conduct a review of all such sanctuaries created over the past 10 years, and not to create any new sanctuaries during that review period.
No marine sanctuaries! Let’s destroy the oceans entirely! Future generations won’t thank us but who cares, we won’t be here.
Also last year, the Obama administration unveiled a set of regulations on offshore oil and gas drilling equipment, intended to tighten the safety requirements on underwater drilling equipment and well-control operations. In particular, the new rules tighten controls on blowout preventers, the industry-standard devices that are the last line of protection to stop explosions in undersea oil and gas wells.
The 2010 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig was caused in part by the buckling of a section of drill pipe, prompting the malfunction of a supposedly fail-safe blowout preventer on a BP well.
It appears that those rules may be targeted in Mr. Trump’s new order. But when questioned on which specific equipment regulations would be reviewed, Mr. Zinke simply replied that the review would apply ”from bow to stern.”
They want more Deepwater Horizon disasters. That’s who they are.
They won’t let him drive
Apr 28th, 2017 7:27 am | By Ophelia BensonReuters talked to Donnie and found out that he wants his old life back. We want that for you, Donnie! Do feel free to resign.
He misses driving, feels as if he is in a cocoon, and is surprised how hard his new job is.
President Donald Trump on Thursday reflected on his first 100 days in office with a wistful look at his life before the White House.
“I loved my previous life. I had so many things going,” Trump told Reuters in an interview. “This is more work than in my previous life. I thought it would be easier.”
He thought it would be easier. He thought it would be easier. Oh my god.
More than five months after his victory and two days shy of the 100-day mark of his presidency, the election is still on Trump’s mind. Midway through a discussion about Chinese President Xi Jinping, the president paused to hand out copies of what he said were the latest figures from the 2016 electoral map.
“Here, you can take that, that’s the final map of the numbers,” the Republican president said from his desk in the Oval Office, handing out maps of the United States with areas he won marked in red. “It’s pretty good, right? The red is obviously us.”
He had copies for each of the three Reuters reporters in the room.
He won. He was voted prom king. He won he won he won. Little Donnie from Queens who got no respect – he won. Sadly, that meant he had to work much harder than he wanted to, but still – he won, he won, he won. Make enough copies for every single reporter.
Trump, who said he was accustomed to not having privacy in his “old life,” expressed surprise at how little he had now. And he made clear he was still getting used to having 24-hour Secret Service protection and its accompanying constraints.
“You’re really into your own little cocoon, because you have such massive protection that you really can’t go anywhere,” he said.
Yes, it sounds absolutely horrible. But surely he was aware of that before he decided to campaign for the job?
Ah well, he has his final map of the numbers to cheer him up.
Out the other side in excellent shape
Apr 27th, 2017 6:04 pm | By Ophelia BensonElsewhere today – Cassini took a deep breath and dove through the rings of Saturn.
In the wee hours of this morning, NASA established that Cassini had survived. Now the little craft has begun sending back a stream of images that are the closest look at Saturn’s atmosphere yet.
Cassini was launched in 1997 on a mission to explore Saturn and it’s various moons. Over the years, it’s sent back a massive amount of data, including the recent discovery that potentially microbe-friendly hydrogen is spouting from the icy moon Enceladus. But Cassini has come to the end of its fuel and is now beginning its grand finale mission in which it will dive between Saturn and its rings once a week for 22 weeks, beaming back info on the planet’s atmosphere and magnetic field. On September 15, Cassini will make a dramatic exit, crashing into Saturn’s atmosphere.
How amazing is that?
“No spacecraft has ever been this close to Saturn before. We could only rely on predictions, based on our experience with Saturn’s other rings, of what we thought this gap between the rings and Saturn would be like,” Cassini Project Manager Earl Maize of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory says in the press release. “I am delighted to report that Cassini shot through the gap just as we planned and has come out the other side in excellent shape.”
According to the European Space Agency, Saturn’s atmosphere is very complex. NASA hopes the Cassini dives will help provide more data about its makeup. The ESA reports that it is composed of 75 percent hydrogen and 25 percent helium with other trace elements and is known to have some of the strongest wind storms in the solar system, up to 1,100 miles per hour. It’s believed that the atmosphere is composed of three cloud decks, with the top layer made of ammonia clouds, a middle layer made of ammonium hydrosulfide and a bottom deck made of water vapor clouds.
In 2013, Cassini discovered a giant hexagonal jetstream at Saturn’s north pole with a massive hurricane, including an eye more than 1,000 miles across. According to Bill Chappell at NPR, Cassini’s dive yesterday took it over the hexagon, and many of the images it is sending back are of the strange storm. It’s scheduled to make its second dive through the rings on May 2.
Pretty god damn amazing.
He totally meant her voice
Apr 27th, 2017 5:17 pm | By Ophelia BensonPoor Fox. They just can’t get it right.
Jesse Watters, the Fox News host who took heat this week for making a joke about Ivanka Trump that was criticized as lewd, said on Wednesday that he would be taking a family vacation until Monday. The move came just three days after his show began airing in a new high-profile time slot.
Mr. Watters, who denied that his comment about President Trump’s daughter was sexual, announced his upcoming absence near the end of Wednesday night’s edition of “The Five.” He will miss two days of the show’s first week in prime time after it took over the 9 p.m. slot from “The O’Reilly Factor,” and he will miss his “Watters’ World” show on Saturday.
So he messed up on his second day. That’s gotta hurt.
Mr. Watters’s highly scrutinized joke came during Tuesday’s show as the hosts discussed footage of Ms. Trump being jeered onstage in Berlin while she was speaking on a panel about female entrepreneurship.
“It’s funny, the left says they really respect women, and then when given an opportunity to respect a woman like that, they boo and hiss,” he said.
Oh yeah, the zany left doesn’t admire Sarah Palin, either. That’s because respecting women as a class is about thinking women are people; it’s not about thinking all women are perfect. I think that’s a pretty clear distinction.
Then he added with a grin: “So I don’t really get what’s going on here, but I really liked how she was speaking into that microphone.”
On Wednesday, after the clip had been shared widely on social media, Mr. Watters said in a statement that the comment had not been sexual innuendo, as critics perceived it to be.
Because Fox just isn’t like that, right?
Managing him
Apr 27th, 2017 1:02 pm | By Ophelia BensonAnother piece on how Trump’s people have to manage him as if he were a volatile heavily-armed toddler.
As Trump is beginning to better understand the challenges—and the limits—of the presidency, his aides are understanding better how to manage perhaps the most improvisational and free-wheeling president in history. “If you’re an adviser to him, your job is to help him at the margins,” said one Trump confidante. “To talk him out of doing crazy things.”
Interviews with White House officials, friends of Trump, veterans of his campaign and lawmakers paint a picture of a White House that has been slow to adapt to the demands of the most powerful office on earth.
“Everyone is concerned that things are not running that well,” said one senior official. “There should be more structure in place so we know who is working on what and who is responsible for what, instead of everyone freelancing on everything.”
But they’re learning. One key development: White House aides have figured out that it’s best not to present Trump with too many competing options when it comes to matters of policy or strategy. Instead, the way to win Trump over, they say, is to present him a single preferred course of action and then walk him through what the outcome could be – and especially how it will play in the press.
As if he were a literal child. They have to “manage” him as if he were a literal child but one with dangerous powers. They can’t treat him like a fellow adult, because he isn’t.
“You don’t walk in with a traditional presentation, like a binder or a PowerPoint. He doesn’t care. He doesn’t consume information that way,” said one senior administration official. “You go in and tell him the pros and cons, and what the media coverage is going to be like.”
He doesn’t consume information that way – meaning, he’s stupid, and barely literate, and lazy, and not in the habit of thinking.
Downplaying the downside risk of a decision can win out in the short term. But the risk is a presidential dressing-down—delivered in a yell. “You don’t want to be the person who sold him on something that turned out to be a bad idea,” the person said.
Advisers have tried to curtail Trump’s idle hours, hoping to prevent him from watching cable news or calling old friends and then tweeting about it. That only works during the workday, though—Trump’s evenings and weekends have remained largely his own.
“It’s not like the White House doesn’t have a plan to fill his time productively but at the end of the day he’s in charge of his schedule,” said one person close to the White House. “He does not like being managed.”
Of course he doesn’t, but he’s so dangerous he has to be managed. But he refuses to be managed, and some damn fool left the door open and let him be elected president.
While his predecessor was known as “no-drama Obama,” Trump has presided over a series of melodramas involving his top aides, including Priebus, Bannon, counselor Kellyanne Conway and economic adviser Gary Cohn.
“He has always been a guy who loves the idea of being a royal surrounded by a court,” said Michael D’Antonio, one of Trump’s biographers.
Not the idea of doing the real work of presiding over a major government, but the idea of playing king surrounded by lackeys.
Trump continues to crave attention and approval from news media figures. Trump huddled in the Oval Office with Matt Drudge, the reclusive operator of the influential Drudge Report, to talk about his administration and the site. Drudge and Kushner have also begun to communicate frequently, said people familiar with the conversations. Drudge, whose visits to the White House haven’t previously been reported, didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Several senior administration aides said Trump loves nothing more than talking to reporters – no matter what he says about the “failing” New York Times or CNN – and he often seems personally stung by negative coverage, cursing and yelling at the TV.
Good. I hope it stings sharply. It’s the only consolation we’ll ever get.
Trump was grinning in his office last week. He wanted to pose for pictures behind the cleaned-off Resolute desk and in front of his gold curtains. He has posed for hundreds of pictures there – sometimes with a grin, sometimes with a thumbs-up – and has guests stand behind him.
Of course he has. That’s what he is – a shallow, greedy, self-important child.
Beep beep
Apr 27th, 2017 12:07 pm | By Ophelia BensonTrump is pining to break up the Ninth Circuit.
President Donald Trump is threatening to break up the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, which blocked his executive order banning travel from several nations with large Muslim populations and restricted the acceptance of refugees.
Asked by the Washington Examiner if he had considered proposals to split the court, Trump replied: “Absolutely, I have.”
“There are many people that want to break up the 9th Circuit. It’s outrageous,” Trump told the website. “Everybody immediately runs to the 9th Circuit. And we have a big country. We have lots of other locations. But they immediately run to the 9th Circuit. Because they know that’s like, semi-automatic.”
Trump claimed that those who oppose him are “shopping” for sympathetic judges by going to the 9th Circuit, where 18 of the 25 jurists were appointed by Democratic presidents.
“You see judge-shopping, or what’s gone on with these people, they immediately run to the 9th Circuit,” he said. “It’s got close to an 80 percent reversal period, and what’s going on in the 9th Circuit is a shame.”
Anything that impedes Trump’s ability to say “do it” and have it be done is “a shame” in his eyes. He thinks he’s the boss of all the things.
The statistic Trump cited about the appeals court’s rulings being overturned 80 percent of the time was also misleading.
According to The Washington Post, 80 percent of the 9th Circuit decisions taken up by the Supreme Court were reversed in 2015-2016. Yet only one-tenth of 1 percent of the 9th Circuit’s decisions were heard by the Supreme Court. In addition, other circuit courts had even higher reversal rates.
That’s not “misleading,” it’s wildly wrong. The difference between 80% of decisions and 80% of .01% of decisions is an enormous difference.
It’s an odd thing about Trump that his own ignorance seems never to give him pause, no matter what. I don’t understand that. You’d think that he would, being so vain, be careful not to expose himself to the risk of being shown up by trying to do things he’s not equipped to do.
But maybe to him it’s all like driving the big truck. You just sit in the seat and blow the horn and scream, and that’s all it takes.
He was arrested on charges of atheism and blasphemy
Apr 27th, 2017 10:43 am | By Ophelia BensonA man in Saudi Arabia has reportedly been sentenced to death on charges of apostasy after losing two appeals.
Several local media reports identified the man as Ahmad Al Shamri, in his 20s, from the town of Hafar al-Batin, who first came to the authorities’ attention in 2014 after allegedly uploading videos to social media in which he renounced Islam and the Prophet Mohammed.
He was arrested on charges of atheism and blasphemy and held in prison before being convicted by a local court and sentenced to death in February 2015.
The Saudi state plans to kill a man for not believing in a god and for rejecting Islam.
Under Saudi Arabia’s strict religious laws, leaving Islam can be punishable by harsh prison sentences and corporeal punishment – and a 2014 string of royal decrees under the late King Abdullah re-defined atheists as terrorists, according to a report by Human Rights Watch.
Last year, a citizen was sentenced to 10 years in prison and 2,000 lashes for expressing atheistic sentiment in hundreds of social media posts.
This is our ally, keep in mind. Brave hater of Mooslims Donald Trump hasn’t uttered a peep about Saudi Arabia.
International human rights watchdogs have consistently condemned Saudi Arabia’s human rights record.
The Kingdom came under further scrutiny last week when it emerged it had been elected to the UN’s women’s rights commission.
Under the country’s system of guardianship, women’s rights and freedom of movement is heavily restricted. They are not allowed to drive, and voted for the first time in 2015.
“Electing Saudi Arabia to protect women’s rights is like making an arsonist into the town fire chief,” UN Watch Director Hillel Neuer said. “It’s absurd.”
Saudi Arabia has sat on the UN’s human rights council since September 2015.
That too is ridiculous. Saudi Arabia has contempt for human rights.
Maajid Nawaz tweets:
https://twitter.com/MaajidNawaz/status/857370244075200512
The process of cashing in
Apr 26th, 2017 4:24 pm | By Ophelia BensonWell, this isn’t what I was hoping to see. Obama has agreed to do a talk at a health care conference sponsored by a Wall Street investment bank for the modest sum of Four Hundred Thousand Dollars.
Out of office for about three months, Mr. Obama has begun the process of cashing in. In February, he and his wife, Michelle, each signed book deals worth tens of millions of dollars. And Mr. Obama’s spokesman confirmed last week that he is beginning the paid-speech circuit.
A $400,000 speaking fee for addressing the Cantor Fitzgerald conference is a sharp increase from the amounts typically paid to his predecessors. Former President Bill Clinton averaged about $200,000 per speech while former President George W. Bush is reportedly paid $100,000 to $175,000 for each appearance.
I suppose nobody much wants to listen to Bush do a talk, even Republicans.
Aaron Blake at the Post has thoughts on why Obama shouldn’t be chasing the bucks the way the Clintons did.
For one thing, it continues a bad precedent.
George W. Bush and Bill Clinton did this, too, as have Hillary Clinton, Ben Bernanke and Alan Greenspan. And the more that Wall Street firms give out-of-office presidents and big-name politicians these paydays, the more they become the norm. Other presidents will know that such payments are on the table, and it risks coloring their decisions with regard to Wall Street and special interests.
Which is already happening with Obama, retroactively. Liberals loved (and miss) his presidency, but if there’s one thing the Elizabeth Warren/Bernie Sanders wing is still sore about in the Obama administration, it’s the lack of prosecutions for anybody involved in the financial crisis. In September, Warren, a senator from Massachusetts, requested a formal investigation of why no charges were brought.
And now they’re paying him? Appearances, dude.
Also, this shouldn’t be why people go into government. The more people do it, the more it gets normalized. How’s that working out for us so far?
Blake quotes that bit from The Audacity of Hope that I blogged about recently.
I can’t assume that the money chase didn’t alter me in some ways. …
Increasingly I found myself spending time with people of means — law firm partners and investment bankers, hedge fund managers and venture capitalists. As a rule, they were smart, interesting people, knowledgeable about public policy, liberal in their politics, expecting nothing more than a hearing of their opinions in exchange for their checks. But they reflected, almost uniformly, the perspectives of their class: the top 1 percent or so of the income scale that can afford to write a $2,000 check to a political candidate. …
And although my own worldview and theirs corresponded in many ways — I had gone to the same schools, after all, had read the same books, and worried about my kids in many of the same ways — I found myself avoiding certain topics during conversations with them, papering over possible differences, anticipating their expectations. On core issues I was candid; I had no problem telling well-heeled supporters that the tax cuts they’d received from George Bush should be reversed. Whenever I could, I would try to share with them some of the perspectives I was hearing from other portions of the electorate: the legitimate role of faith in politics, say, or the deep cultural meaning of guns in rural parts of the state.
Still, I know that as a consequence of my fundraising I became more like the wealthy donors I met, in the very particular sense that I spent more and more of my time above the fray, outside the world of immediate hunger, disappointment, fear, irrationality, and frequent hardship of the other 99 percent of the population — that is, the people that I’d entered public life to serve.
And yet here we are.
Word is the deal for the two books the two Obamas will write was $65 million. You’d think they could skip the chats to bankers.
The Tuskegee Airmen
Apr 26th, 2017 3:26 pm | By Ophelia BensonBecause it came up in comments and Dave Ricks provided a link, I belatedly learned of the Tuskegee airmen.
For historical photographs or information regarding the Tuskegee Airmen, contact: Maxwell Air Force Base by e-mail at afhranews@maxwell.af.mil or write the Air Force Historical Research Agency, 600 Chennault Circle, Maxwell AFB, Ala. 36112-6424.
- The Tuskegee Airmen were dedicated, determined young men who volunteered to become America’s first Black military airmen
- Those who possessed the physical and mental qualifications and were accepted for aviation cadet training were trained initially to be pilots, and later to be either pilots, navigators, or bombardiers.
- Tuskegee University was awarded the U.S. Army Air Corps contract to help train America’s first Black military aviators because it had already invested in the development of an airfield, had a proven civilian pilot training program and its graduates performed highest on flight aptitude exams.
- Moton Field is named for Tuskegee University’s second President, Dr. Robert R. Moton who served with distinction from 1915-1935. The Airmen were deployed during the presidential administration of Dr. Frederick Douglas Patterson (1935-1953).
- The all-Black, 332nd Fighter Group consisted originally of four fighter squadrons, the 99th, the 100th, the 301st and the 302nd.
- From 1941-1946, some 1,000 Black pilots were trained at Tuskegee.
- The Airmen’s success in escorting bombers during World War II – having one of the lowest loss records of all the escort fighter groups, and being in constant demand for their services by the allied bomber units.- is a record unmatched by any other fighter group.
- The 99th Squadron distinguished itself by being awarded two Presidential Unit Citations (June-July 1943 and May 1944) for outstanding tactical air support and aerial combat in the 12th Air Force in Italy, before joining the 332nd Fighter Group.
- The 332nd Fighter group was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation for its’ longest bomber escort mission to Berlin, Germany on March 24, 1945. During this mission, the Tuskegee Airmen (then known as the ‘Red Tails’) destroyed three German ME-262 jet fighters and damaged five additional jet fighters.
- The 332nd Fighter Group had also distinguished itself in June 1944 when two of its pilots flying P-47 Thunderbolts discovered a German destroyer in the harbor of Trieste, Italy.
- The tenacious bomber escort cover provided by the 332nd “Red Tail” fighters often discouraged enemy fighter pilots from attacking bombers escorted by the 332nd Fighter Group.
- C. Alfred “Chief” Anderson earned his pilot’s license in 1929 and became the first Black American to receive a commercial pilot’s certificate in 1932, and, subsequently, to make a transcontinental flight.
- Anderson is also well known as the pilot who flew Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of then-U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, convincing her to encourage her husband to authorize military flight training at Tuskegee.
- In 1948, President Harry Truman enacted Executive Order No. 9981 – directing equality of treatment and opportunity in all of the United States Armed Forces, which in time led to the end of racial segregation in the U.S. military forces.
- The U.S. Congress authorized $29 million in 1998 to develop the Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site, with the University, Tuskegee Airmen Inc. and the National Park Service serving as partners in its development. To date, a mere $3.6 million has been appropriated for the Site’s implementation.
The cost of one of Trump’s weekends in Florida.
Who is doing the grabbing?
Apr 26th, 2017 12:54 pm | By Ophelia BensonTrump wants to claw back the national monuments – claw them back from the people in order to give them to developers and ranchers.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order Wednesday directing his interior secretary to review the designation of dozens of national monuments on federal lands, as he singled out “a massive federal land grab” by the Obama administration.
It was yet another executive action from a president trying to rack up accomplishments before his first 100 days in office, with Saturday marking that milestone.
The latest move could upend protections put in place in Utah and other states under a 1906 law that authorizes the president to declare federal lands as monuments and restrict their use.
During a signing ceremony at the Interior Department, Trump said the order would end “another egregious abuse of federal power” and “give that power back to the states and to the people where it belongs.”
Trump accused the Obama administration of using the Antiquities Act to “unilaterally put millions of acres of land and water under strict federal control” — a practice Trump derided as “a massive federal land grab.”
It’s not an abuse of federal power. Yellowstone and Yosemite and the Grand Canyon do not represent abuses of federal power. Trump is a grubby philistine.
And it’s certainly not a land grab. The point is to preserve the land, which is the opposite of grabbing it. It’s the people who want to turn it into cash who are grabby.
“Somewhere along the way the Act has become a tool of political advocacy rather than public interest,” Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said.
Advocacy of what? Preservation and perpetual non-destructive public use? Which is in the public interest?
In December, shortly before leaving office, President Barack Obama infuriated Utah Republicans by creating the Bears Ears National Monument on more than 1 million acres of land that’s sacred to Native Americans and home to tens of thousands of archaeological sites, including ancient cliff dwellings.
Republicans in the state asked Trump to take the unusual step of reversing Obama’s decision. They said the designation will stymie growth by closing the area to new commercial and energy development. The Antiquities Act does not give the president explicit power to undo a designation and no president has ever taken such a step.
So it will stymie growth (if that’s true), so what? Not everything has to grow.
Zinke said that over the past 20 years, the designation of tens of millions of acres as national monuments have limited the lands’ use for farming, timber harvesting, mining and oil and gas exploration, and other commercial purposes.
Yes, obviously. That’s the point.
Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., said that if Trump truly wants to make America great again, he should use the law to protect and conserve America’s public lands. In New Mexico, Obama’s designation of Rio Grande del Norte National Monument and Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument have preserved important lands while boosting the economy, Heinrich said, and that story has repeated across the country.
“If this sweeping review is an excuse to cut out the public and scale back protections, I think this president is going to find a very resistant public,” Heinrich said.
Leaders of the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition called Trump’s action “extremely troubling.”
“It is offensive for politicians to call the Bears Ears National Monument ‘an abuse,’” said Shaun Chapoose, chairman of the Ute Indian Tribe Business Committee. “To the contrary, it is a fulfillment of our duty to preserve our cultures and our ancestral lands, and its designation was the result of a long, deliberative process to fight for our ancestors as well as access for contemporary use of the lands by our tribal members.”
And that could be the case even if more Utahans wanted to farm and mine and develop that land. If a gang of people come along and grab my wallet, they don’t have a better claim to it than I do. Numbers are not always decisive.
See Don run
Apr 26th, 2017 9:30 am | By Ophelia BensonOh god why do they do this? Why do they parade their rudeness and bad behavior in public?
Brad Jaffy tweets two photos, one of the Prime Minister’s office readout of Trudeau’s phone call with Trump, the other the White House readout of the same call.
Left: Prime Minister's office readout of Trudeau's phone call with Trump
Right: White House readout of the very same call
Um… pic.twitter.com/asAxPMGhMp
— Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) April 26, 2017
Or maybe it’s more cowardice than laziness. Business Insider elaborates:
The US and Canada are embroiled in an escalating fight over trade policy, and the tensions between the close allies seemed evident in the readouts both countries released of a phone call on Tuesday between US President Donald Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Trudeau’s office’s readout of the call included several details of the conversation.
“The prime minister and the president reaffirmed the importance of the mutually beneficial Canada-US trade relationship,” Canada’s readout said. “On the issue of softwood lumber, the prime minister refuted the baseless allegations by the US Department of Commerce and the decision to impose unfair duties.”
“Unfair duties” was a reference to Trump’s decision on Tuesday to impose a 20% tariff on Canadian softwood lumber imports.
Who is Trump’s expert on lumber imports? One of his grandchildren perhaps?
The two leaders also discussed the dispute over the Canadian dairy industry that Trump has recently highlighted. He has accused Canada of taking advantage of US dairy farmers.
“The prime minister and the president also discussed Canada-US trade in dairy products, trade which heavily favours the US: Canada imports over $550 million of dairy products from the US, but exports just over $110 million to the US,” Canada’s readout of the call said.
“The prime minister reaffirmed that Canada upholds its international trade obligations, including the North American Free Trade Agreement, under which the US continues to have duty-free and quota-free access for milk protein substances … and that Canada would continue to defend its interests,” the statement continued. “The prime minister and the president agreed to continue their dialogue on these important bilateral issues.”
The White House readout was insultingly shorter and more perfunctory.
President Donald J. Trump and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke today,” the White House’s readout said. “The two leaders discussed the dairy trade in Wisconsin, New York state, and various other places. They also discussed lumber coming into the United States. It was a very amicable call.”
No, it wasn’t. That’s that Trump nonsense about “chemistry” again. However polite Trudeau was (because he’s an adult and a professional), the substance of the call was obviously not amicable.
