Liar

Jun 17th, 2018 5:35 pm | By

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The first lady expressed empathy for affected families

Jun 17th, 2018 5:17 pm | By

No, don’t go thinking Melania Trump is distancing herself from Don the Punk on the grabbing children from their parents question. Of course she’s not.  She’s got a nice comfortable life being Don the Punk’s most recent wife, and those children aren’t her problem.

Melania Trump urged “both sides of the aisle” on Sunday to come together to stop federal authorities from separating children from their parents when apprehended at the border, a rare public intervention in an issue that has generated enormous criticism of her husband.

In other words she echoed Don the Punk’s lie about the Democrats forcing him to grab children away from their parents.

In a statement issued by her office, the first lady expressed empathy for affected families, saying the country should be governed “with a heart,” but did not directly take issue with President Trump’s policy. Instead, by saying that “both sides” needed to agree, she adopted his argument that the situation was caused by political stalemate rather than a policy he initiated.

Except that it’s not an argument but a lie.

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Tooning Trump

Jun 17th, 2018 4:28 pm | By

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Feminists who don’t buy the “choose your gender” position

Jun 17th, 2018 12:05 pm | By

David Aaronovitch suggests that it’s difficult to figure out what we think about a new and contentious package of truth claims if we’re not allowed to discuss them openly and without fear.

Last year the government promised changes to the Gender Recognition Act (GRA) which
would, among other things, give legal status to the gender choice of an individual, rather than to the biological sex that they were born with, without the need for lengthy psychiatric assessment.

Needless to say, such a change would be welcome for many trans people, who would no longer have to prove that they suffered from a nebulous condition dubbed “gender dysphoria”.

Then again, if gender dysphoria is nebulous, what exactly are “trans people”? What do we mean by “trans”? What are we talking about when we talk about trans rights? What is it that makes a trans person trans if it’s not “gender dysphoria”? (And if it is “gender dysphoria” then what is that, and how do we know, and how do people who say they suffer from it know? There are a lot of hard-to-knows in this subject.)

But you don’t have to be a tabloid leader writer to see that there are some big problems to be dealt with here, some practical, some anthropological, some philosophical. “What,” my sportiest daughter asked, “about women’s sports?” People born biologically male are physically bigger, stronger and faster than biological women. So what about places designed to protect women from the possible consequences of that physical difference? Do we really want to say that we will not see the difference in experience between, crudely, someone with a womb and someone with a willy?

Maybe you do. Maybe I agree. But wouldn’t you also say that if ever there was a case for an “open debate” this was it? You can’t just make a change like this without arguing it through and hearing the other side. Yet that seems to be exactly what many people, largely on the left, want to do.

And some of them want to do it with the help of baseball bats wrapped in barbed wire, or at least imagery of same. (It’s hard to know how seriously to take the threats implied by the imagery. It’s hard to know how risky it is to assume it’s just Twitter militancy and no actual threat to anyone.)

So the LGBT website Pink News will carry a report of a Women’s Place meeting beginning “Women’s Place UK, which are known to propogate (sic) discrimination against the transgender community, will be hosting an event at Manchester Quaker Meeting Hall this evening.” Debate in itself becomes propagation of discrimination and the pickets turn up.

The pickets turn up, and they shout “TERF!” at women, and they block the doors. In Vancouver they vandalize a women’s library, at Speaker’s Corner in Hyde Park they punch a woman repeatedly, in St Louis they beat up a lesbian and then brag about it on Twitter.

Feminists who don’t buy the “choose your gender” position have now been classified as “Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists”, for whom the hostile acronym “TERF” is widely used. The word’s closeness to “turd” is not accidental. The term is used widely on the left now.

So you can see how dissent has become propagating discrimination, and that has morphed into hate. Over to Bristol university students’ union for the final step in the declension. “Opening the debate,” wrote the student newspaper recently, “FemSoc’s vivacious president made the case for no-platforming, arguing that TERF rhetoric, by encouraging trans-exclusionary legislation, has a ‘direct impact on safety’ for trans people. She cited the frequency with which trans people are murdered as a further argument against accommodating anti-trans activists on campus.”

And thus, in easy, treacherous steps dissent is deemed accessory to murder. It is an utterly pernicious logic.

And pervasive. It’s the first thing a hostile commenter said on a recent post about the difficulty of talking about the issues – But Their Suicide Rate. If you try to talk about it you are driving them to suicide.

Meanwhile, take a good look at this baseball bat, bitch.

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Daily News Front Page

Jun 17th, 2018 9:16 am | By

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The tent city near El Paso

Jun 17th, 2018 9:00 am | By

https://twitter.com/Kokomothegreat/status/1008160509718392832

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The powers that be are ordained of God

Jun 17th, 2018 8:54 am | By

Michael Harriot at The Root explains about Romans 13:

Around A.D. 49, the Roman emperor Claudius expelled the Jews from the city of Rome. Historians argue about the exact date and the reasons, but we know that Claudius did not want them holding office or bringing in more immigrants. Instead, he wrote that the Jews (pdf) “should rest content with what belongs to them by right and enjoy an abundance of all good things in a city which is not theirs. They must not bring in or invite Jews who sail in from Syria or Egypt; this is the sort of thing which will compel me to have my suspicions redoubled.” The Jews, according to Claudius, were running in gangs, opening the borders and taking the good jobs from the true Romans.

Sound familiar?

As this was happening, one of the early Jewish leaders of a new sect called “Christianity” was composing a letter to his church. In the epistle, he told his oppressed minority of followers to avoid causing trouble with the most powerful government in the world.

He wrote Romans 13.

Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? Do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same. —A Letter to the Roman Church From the Apostle Paul, Chapter 13, Verses 1-3

Great stuff, isn’t it. The powers that be are ordained of God. Never mind who they are, never mind what they do, mind your own business – they are ordained of god. If they’re Hitler, they’re ordained of god; if they’re Stalin, they’re ordained of god; if they’re Mugabe or Pinochet or Genghis Khan or Marcos or Duterte or Berlusconi or Trump, they’re ordained of god. Suck it up, buttercup. Nobody gets to be on top without god’s ordinance, therefore anyone who is on top is there because god said so, therefore you have to accept and bow and obey. Power is ordained by god, so all power is sacred and Meant To Be and to be obeyed. God loves a bully.

If you have ever wondered why slaves adopted the religious philosophy of their slave masters, Romans 13 is your answer. If you wanted to know why slaves, who often outnumbered slave masters, rebelled so rarely, the answer lies in Romans 13. To understand why the Bible was the only book many slaves were allowed to own, read that verse again.

Christianity was adopted by people, rulers and governments all around the globe because it tells its followers to comply. It boasts of a benevolent God who knows best; even when you are the subject of brutality, the Bible tells you that this is what God wants. At the root of Romans 13 is an edict to obey authority.

The 13th chapter of Romans is white supremacy, explained.

So it’s no wonder Jefferson Beauregard invoked it to justify Trump’s “take their kids away” policy.

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But it’s fun, and there’s real merit in that

Jun 16th, 2018 3:55 pm | By

Dr Jen Gunter is pissed, and she’s right to be. Why is she? Because now, after all this time, GOOP is going back into the archives and sorting posts into factual and hahaha just for laughs.

GOOP is retroactively labelling “wellness” posts so women can figure out what was pure bullshit, what was just the hypothesis of a naturopath, and what might actually be factual. I haven’t come up with one that is labelled as factual yet.

According to Racked, the categories are as follows (GOOP’s words, not mine):

For Your Enjoyment: There probably aren’t going to be peer-reviewed studies about this concept, but it’s fun, and there’s real merit in that.

Ancient Modality: This practice is nearly as old as time — many find value in it, even if modern-day research hasn’t caught up yet (it’s possible the practice will never attract its attention).

Ugh, what is that even supposed to mean? Many find value in it – many find value in robbing banks, too, but so what? It sounds like Trump – “many people say” some bullshit he wants you to believe.

Speculative but Promising: There’s momentum behind this concept, though it needs more research to elucidate exactly what’s at work.

Momentum? Again, what does that mean? The “momentum” could be all from deluded idiots.

Supported by Science: There’s sound science for the value of this concept and the promise of more evidence to come soon that may prove its impact.

The promise of more evidence to come soon – the check is in the mail.

Rigorously Tested: The validity of this concept is pretty much undisputed within the world of M.D.’s, D.O.’s, N.D.’s, and Ph.D.’s.

I gather there aren’t many of those. In any case, the point is, Gunter among others has been pointing out much of GOOP is bullshit, often harmful bullshit, and Gwyneth Paltrow has been denying it and saying harsh things…and now she says some of it was just for fun? Well gee I hope not too many women made themselves sick or spent more than they could afford on flapdoodle.

Gunter gives several examples of bullshit she called bullshit, that GOOP insisted was not bullshit, and now says oh ha ha it was just for fun.

How about the jade egg? GOOP said I was “strangely confident” for pointing out A) the jade eggthusiast didn’t know what the fuck she was talking about regarding the pelvic floor muscles and B) a porous rock could introduce oxygen into the vagina which has been proven to be a critical step in development of toxic shock syndrome.

What is science when you have an “ancient therapy?” I’d also like to point of that GOOP has never actually offered proof that is an ancient therapy, but facts are irrelevant.  Maybe there will be a rating scale for ancient therapies next year?

Regardless, being “ancient” doesn’t mean it has value. In “ancient” times people believed in evil humors and that tuberculosis was caused by vampires. I like my therapies post-germ theory.

Screen Shot 2018-06-16 at 12.26.49 PM.png

Lots of people just don’t know to be suspicious of empty compliments like “said to harness the power of energy work and crystal healing” and “Shiva Rose raves about the results.” Lots of people don’t pause to ask “yes but do jade eggs actually harness anything and if so what and what does it do?” and “yes but did Shiva Rose actually get results and if so what kind?” They just read the soothing meandering nothings and go out and buy that jade egg and then stick it up’em.

Read the whole post to get all the examples.

To Gwyneth Paltrow and GOOP I say you should be ashamed of yourselves. You so proudly touted your site JUST LAST YEAR as being so empowering and intuitive that women could clearly take away the right information for their health and yet here you are having to go back and point out for these same women that most of these posts have no science and many were just a joke.

Do you think women are lemmings? Because it is totally looking more and more like you have been herding them to a ledge for money, like Disney executives. You do know that lemmings didn’t end up jumping over the cliff on purpose, they were pushed.

You used your massive international platform to push fake therapies and make-believe on women under the guise of “conversations,” not to empower but to sell products and books. When I pointed out that these ideas and therapies were at best useless and fringe but potentially very harmful you leveraged that same international platform to accuse me of medical myopia and not trusting women. You accused me of ridiculing women.

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Will Gwyneth Paltrow apologize to Dr Jen Gunter? Let’s not hold our breaths.

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Where are the girls? We are panicking

Jun 16th, 2018 3:24 pm | By

It’s worth watching the clip with Walter Shaub. Nothing new, but it’s good to hear him.

And then there’s this.

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A view from abroad

Jun 16th, 2018 3:03 pm | By

Roland Nelles at Spiegel Online is not a huge fan of Furious Don.

The debacle at the G-7 clearly shows that the real problem with Donald Trump’s policies is Donald Trump himself. There is no rhyme or reason to his actions aside from the desire — the need — to be the best, the most important, the biggest. The collapse of the West and the destruction of alliances that have held up for decades are merely the side effects of this unprecedented ego trip.

At the G-7 summit, Trump treated America’s oldest friends as though they were enemies. At the same time, he fawns over Russian President Vladimir Putin and calls dictators such as North Korea’s Kim Jong Un “very honorable.” He sees the reflection of himself in such men. He does what he wants. Agreements with partners, the rules of the international order: None of that holds water with Trump.

Trump wants complete control and can’t stand being contradicted. He always has to have the first word and the last. Indeed, it was far from surprising that he sought to impose his own agenda (the trade conflict and Russia) on the summit. The tweet he sent from his plane out of Canada, in which he revoked his support for the summit statement, was merely a logical result of his egomania. It’s always just me, me, me.

He’s like an enormous enraged baby.

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Why can’t we just do it?

Jun 16th, 2018 11:16 am | By

Trump got bored as soon as he arrived in Singapore and wanted to rush the whole thing through so that he could kick back and watch tv.

After arriving in Singapore on Sunday, an antsy and bored Trump urged his aides to demand that the meeting with Kim be pushed up by a day — to Monday — and had to be talked out of altering the long-planned and carefully negotiated summit date on the fly, according to two people familiar with preparations for the event.

“We’re here now,” the president said, according to the people. “Why can’t we just do it?”

Trump’s impatience, coupled with a tense staff-level meeting between the two sides on Sunday, left some aides fearful that the entire summit might be in peril.

Because what, before that they were confident it would be a walk in the park?

At one point, after watching North Korean television, which is entirely state-run, the president talked about how positive the female North Korean news anchor was toward Kim, according to two people familiar with his remarks. He joked that even the administration-friendly Fox News was not as lavish in its praise as the state TV anchor, one of the people added, and that maybe she should get a job on U.S. television, instead.

At another point, Trump marveled at how “tough” the North Korean guards seemed, noting that they were always stone-faced and refused to shake hands, the two people said.

He was jealous. He wants to look tough like that – that’s what he’s going for with the scowl and the pout, but because he’s so absurd-looking, they don’t work.

Image result for north korean guards

Image result for trump scowling

No.

In a news conference Tuesday before departing Singapore, Trump hinted at his dreams of real estate diplomacy, noting that he had played Kim a video — derided by some as more akin to North Korean propaganda than the work of the president’s National Security Council — to show him the possibilities of a deal with the West.

“As an example, they have great beaches,” Trump said. “You see that whenever they’re exploding their cannons into the ocean, right? I said, ‘Boy, look at the view. Wouldn’t that make a great condo behind?’ ”

The president continued: “You could have the best hotels in the world right there. Think of it from a real estate perspective.”

And you’d get to be the only guest, too.

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He neglected to await repeal

Jun 16th, 2018 10:41 am | By

Oopsie.

 

Most ominous for Trump is the attorney general’s conclusion that “Mr. Trump’s wrongful use of the Foundation to benefit his Campaign was willful and knowing.” It is ironic, and highly damaging to Trump, that he made an issue in his campaign about the federal prohibition on tax-exempt involvement in campaigns. He committed that he would act, if elected, to repeal it. It appears that he and his campaign neglected to await repeal and simply declined to comply with it. In any event, his stated awareness of the law, together with his repeated execution of tax forms for the Foundation “in which he attested that the Foundation … did not carry out political activity,” puts him at severe risk of “willful and knowing” liability. As “foundation managers” under the law, Trump and his children are exposed to personal liability if they gave knowing and willful consent to the charity’s illegal expenditures. They could face similar consequences—that is, personal liability—in the event, however unlikely, that the FEC takes meaningful enforcement action.

He conspicuously announced his dislike of the law he was breaking and planning to continue to break. Sloppy.

What emerges from the New York complaint’s account is something that has become increasingly familiar. Trump does what he wishes, acting all too often on impulse and without regard to rules or norms, and those around him are expected to do as he says. The result in this instance was, from a legal perspective, disastrous. And that is putting the matter charitably.

Maybe, eventually, that will catch up with him and this nightmare will end.

Or maybe not.

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You don’t understand sarcasm

Jun 16th, 2018 9:07 am | By

Philip Rucker at the Post on Trump’s galloping case of dictator envy:

President Trump’s praise Friday for Kim Jong Un’s authoritarian rule in North Korea — and his apparent envy that people there “sit up at attention” when the 35-year-old dictator speaks — marked an escalation of the American president’s open embrace of totalitarian leaders around the world.

Reflecting on his impressions of Kim following their Singapore summit, Trump told Fox News: “He’s the head of a country, and I mean he’s the strong head. Don’t let anyone think anything different. He speaks, and his people sit up at attention. I want my people to do the same.”

It was unclear whether Trump was referring to Americans generally or only to his staff. His interview took place along the West Wing driveway, and as the president talked about “my people,” he gestured toward the White House.

Later, when pressed by a CNN reporter about the comment, Trump claimed it had been a joke. “I’m kidding,” he said. “You don’t understand sarcasm.”

He probably was sort of “kidding” but that doesn’t mean he didn’t also mean it. It’s entirely possible to say things in a “kidding” way while also entirely meaning them. Trump does that all the time. It makes his endless barrage of insults and taunts sort of kind of deniable, but not really. His “base” will always claim they are “jokes” and the rest of us will know that kind of joke is not really a joke – if a joke is taken to be something we don’t really mean. Jokes can be both accurate and intended to draw a laugh, after all. Jokes about ugly people, foreigners, women, servants, Jews – they’re not less destructive or sadistic or hatred-inciting simply because they’re “jokes.”

During his visit to Singapore, Trump showered praise on Kim, calling him a “very talented man,” a “smart guy” and a “very good negotiator.” He also complimented Kim’s “great personality.”

Trump was more muted when it came to Kim’s record of human rights atrocities. The North Korean leader starves many of his citizens, sentences opponents to labor camps and executes people he perceives as threats to his power, including assassinating family members.

Asked at a news conference in Singapore how he could be comfortable calling a dictator with a murderous record “very talented,” Trump replied, “Well, he is very talented. Anybody that takes over a situation like he did at 26 years of age and is able to run it and run it tough — I don’t say it was nice, or I don’t say anything about it. He ran it. Very few people at that age, you can take 1 out of 10,000, probably couldn’t do it.”

Trump’s posture is inconsistent with Republican orthodoxy. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) tweeted that while Trump was “trying to butter him up to get a good deal,” Kim “is NOT a talented guy. He inherited the family business from his dad & grandfather. He is a total weirdo who would not be elected assistant dogcatcher in any democracy.”

Oops. Awkward. Trump also inherited the family business from his father and grandfather.

Trump kept up his praise of Kim in an interview Friday with “Fox & Friends” co-host Steve Doocy. He noted that he gave Kim “a very direct number” and instructed him to “call me if he has any difficulties.”

“We have a really great relationship for the first time ever,” Trump said. “No president’s ever had this. So I get hit by these fakes back here” — he pointed dismissively to a group of journalists who were gathered behind him at the White House on the North Lawn driveway — “not all of them, some are phenomenal, but I get hit because I went there, I gave him credibility. I think it’s great to give him credibility.”

Yes, that’s our point. You think it’s great to give him credibility and we think it’s really really not.

Trump’s critics pointed to his salute of one of Kim’s generals — footage of which was released Thursday by North Korean state media in a documentary film about the summit — as evidence of the national security risks in his behavior.

The video captured a brief interaction that was not seen by U.S. journalists. A North Korean general saluted Trump, and the president saluted him in return. It is highly unusual for a U.S. president to return the salute of a foreign military officer. Some analysts said Kim’s government was likely to use the image in its propaganda campaigns as a victory for Pyongyang because it suggests the American commander in chief defers to the North Korean military.

Trump defended his salute in his Friday interview with Fox.

“I met a general,” he said. “He saluted me, and I saluted him back. I guess they’re using that as another sound bite. You know, I think I’m being respectful to the general.”

He thinks that because he knows nothing about it. He knows nothing about it because he didn’t trouble himself to learn anything about it. He refused to do any homework. He told us he didn’t need to, that preparing is a mistake; he told us he’d been preparing his whole life. I wish I were joking.

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But everyone tried to be rational and calm

Jun 15th, 2018 5:27 pm | By

Further reporting on how vulgar, racist, crude, disgusting, and obnoxious Trump was at the G7 last week.

Trump told Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe he’d be “out of office” if he had to deal with “25 million Mexicans,” and told French President Emmanuel Macron that “all the terrorists are in Paris,” The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.

Claiming that migration is a huge issue in Europe, he reportedly told Abe: “Shinzo, you don’t have this problem, but I can send you 25 million Mexicans and you’ll be out of office very soon,” a senior European Union official in the meeting in Quebec, told the Journal.

But Trump, who has followed up on his campaign promise to restrict immigration into the U.S., didn’t stop there.

During talks about terrorism and Iran, the U.S. president told Macron: “You must know about this, Emmanuel, because all the terrorists are in Paris,” the EU official said.

Irritation with Trump was in the air, “but everyone tried to be rational and calm,” added the official.

It sounds like everybody’s worst nightmare Christmas family get-together dinner when drunken mean angry racist shithead Uncle Don throws down half a bottle of gin and starts picking a fight with everyone at the table.

Trump seemed wary of coming off as isolated, people in the room told the newspaper, and apparently said, “Oh, well, then it’s five versus two,” when Abe expressed opposition in wording for a joint statement on addressing plastic waste.

Aw, diddums, did diddums feel left out? Well then maybe diddums shouldn’t be such a foul hate-filled belligerent fascist pig. Just a thought.

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Masha Gessen bails on “Intellectual Dark Web” event

Jun 15th, 2018 4:54 pm | By

Not a headline you see every day:

Masha Gessen Quits ‘Intellectual Dark Web’ Panel After Accidentally Joining ‘Alt-Right Shitshow’

The organizers of a panel celebrating self-identified members of the Intellectual Dark Web—a very serious circle mostly consisting of men who REALLY don’t want you to call them alt-right—have persuaded a few real life intellectuals into joining them on stage for a “Day of Reflection” at Lincoln Center later this year.

New Yorker contributor and author Masha Gessen tells Gothamist she was shocked to learn last night that an event she’d agreed to speak at is actually an “alt-right shitshow,” hosted by racism-debunking podcaster David Rubin and focused on such illuminating questions as: “Has #MeToo Gone #TooFar?” “Can We Move Beyond Race?” and “Does Islam Pose A Unique Challenge To Modernity?”

I’d seen the poster for it, probably via Eiynah (Nice Mangos).

061418REASON.jpg

Soooo many usual suspects…along with, to be sure, some not so usual ones. Fareed Zakaria for instance is both a get and a wild card – he’s hardly part of the Twitter anti-SJW crowd.

“The way I learned about it is that I was at home watching a movie with my kids and I saw my Twitter feed go nuts, and strangers are [direct messaging] me asking, ‘Why the hell are you taking part in this?'” Gessen said. “There’s a lot of people who watch out for my ideological purity where I don’t think it’s appropriate, but I looked at this and was like ‘holy shit.’ So I immediately told my agent I was pulling out.”

Gessen notes that when she agreed to take part, she’d only been informed of the name of the #MeToo discussion, which “gave me pause, but I thought the lineup seemed really serious.” Information on the panel—distributed to Gessen’s agent through the event organizer Pangburn Philosophy—made it seem like she’d be appearing alongside other thoughtful woman, like NY Times investigative reporter Jodi Kantor. But immediately after she signed a contract, publicity materials went out showing a wholly different set of speakers, almost all of them far-right personalities and media provocateurs. (Plus CNN anchor Fareed Zakaria, who we’ve reached out to but not yet heard back from.)

Quite so. I daresay he’ll bail too.

“Pangburn Philosophy” of course has been throwing these “angry dude plus angry dude plus angry dude” events for awhile now. Sam Harris meets Jordan Peterson meets Peter Harris Jordanson; watch the sparks fly. Zzzzzzzz. Also as I’ve mentioned before, “Pangburn Philosophy” sounds very grand but it’s just some guy. He’s not a philosopher.

Those actually scheduled to speak at the event include Douglas Murray, who wants all immigrants out of Europe, and Sam Harris, who’s just asking questions about whether black people are genetically inferior to white people, as well as several known Islamophobes. A majority of the panelists were referenced in NY Times opinion editor Bari Weiss’s recent column about the “Intellectual Dark Web,” in which Weiss (who is also set to speak at the event) described the group as “iconoclastic thinkers, academic renegades and media personalities…purged from institutions that have become increasingly hostile to unorthodox thought.”

It’s interesting that Mister Pangburn is now trying to lure people in by keeping shtum about the nature of the events he sponsors.

Updating to add: Masha Gessen on how they got her to agree:

By misrepresenting the event is how they did it I am just seeing this now, and I am pulling out.

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The tyrant addresses his people

Jun 15th, 2018 11:46 am | By

The Times reports Trump is drunk on his North Korea ??success?? and lashing out at everyone in sight.

President Trump went on offense on Friday with a withering series of attacks on the F.B.I., congressional Democrats, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Canada’s prime minister, football players, the media, the special counsel and other favorite targets even as he hailed his relations with the leaders of North Korea, China and Russia.

Let’s not forget the children of immigrants when we compile our list of people to attack. He must have gotten out of breath.

In his first extended comments on his meeting with Mr. Kim since returning to the United States, Mr. Trump hailed their agreement, enshrined in a vague 391-word statement that committed North Korea to “complete denuclearization.”

“I signed an agreement where we get everything, everything,” he said.

Although there is no concrete arrangement for how that would happen, when it would happen or who would verify that it happen, Mr. Trump dismissed such questions as details that will be worked out.

“I have solved that problem,” he told reporters. “Now, we’re getting it memorialized and all. But that problem is largely solved.”

That’s all it takes. You meet Kim, you unleash the power of the Miraculous Charisma, you exchange a few words, and that’s all there is to it. Magic! Problem solved.

He praised Mr. Kim, brushing aside questions about the repressive regime and gulags in North Korea. “Hey, he is the head of a country, and I mean he is the strong head,” Mr. Trump said. “Don’t let anyone think anything different. He speaks and his people sit up at attention. I want my people to do the same.”

His people sit up at attention because of the gulags and the poison in airports and all that there. Trump wishes he could do the same.

Mr. Trump confirmed that he wants to meet President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia this summer. Asked about Russia’s annexation of Crimea, which has been condemned by the rest of the world as an illegal aggression, Mr. Trump blamed not Mr. Putin for ordering it but Mr. Obama for letting it happen.

“President Obama lost Crimea,” Mr. Trump said. “Because Putin didn’t respect President Obama. President Obama lost Crimea because President Putin didn’t respect President Obama. Didn’t respect our country and didn’t respect Ukraine. President Obama, not Trump — when it’s my fault, I’ll tell you.”

Oh yes? The other day in Singapore he admitted if it turns out he’s wrong he’ll make an excuse.

Likewise, he faulted Democrats in Congress for the federal authorities’ separating children from parents trying to cross the border from Mexico.

“I hate the children being taken away,” he said. “The Democrats have to change their law. That’s their law.”

Both houses of Congress are run by Republicans, who control whether legislation comes to the floor, but Mr. Trump said they could not act because it would require at least nine Democratic votes in the Senate to overcome a filibuster. There seems no reason to assume, however, that Democrats would filibuster a bill barring the separation of families at the border, since they have already introduced such legislation with more than 30 Democratic co-sponsors.

Indeed, Mr. Trump made clear later in the day with a Twitter message that he would not support legislation on family separation unless it includes provisions that Democrats oppose, including full financing for his proposed border wall and a complete overhaul of the system of legal immigration to end policies allowing immigrants to sponsor relatives to come into the country.

Well right, so that proves Democrats are the problem. Heads he wins tails everyone else loses.

Over the course of the Fox interview and the subsequent conversation with White House reporters, Mr. Trump also returned to other frequent topics. He mocked National Football League players for protesting racism whey they are “making $15 million a year.”

He again assailed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada for rejecting new American tariffs after a summit meeting. “We’re all happy, and then he got up and started saying that he doesn’t want to be pushed around by the United States,” Mr. Trump said.

And he dismissed the importance of a misleading statement he dictated last year about a Trump Tower meeting with Russians during the 2016 campaign, a statement that his lawyer and spokeswoman at first denied he had dictated even though his legal team later admitted that he had. “It’s irrelevant,” Mr. Trump said. “That’s not a statement to a high tribunal of judges. That’s a statement to the phony New York Times.”

Yeah. This isn’t an incipient dictatorship, it’s just a dictatorship.

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Hey

Jun 15th, 2018 11:32 am | By

The clip where he says it.

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The underlying crime

Jun 15th, 2018 11:17 am | By

Virginia Heffernan reminds us:

The *underlying* crime is his profound complicity in the mass murder of civilians under Viktor Yanukovych in Ukraine.

So let’s refresh our memories on that, with help from Luke Harding at the Guardian in April:

Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort authorised a secret media operation on behalf of Ukraine’s former president featuring “black ops”, “placed” articles in the Wall Street Journal and US websites and anonymous briefings against Hillary Clinton.

The project was designed to boost the reputation of Ukraine’s then leader, Viktor Yanukovych. It was part of a multimillion-dollar lobbying effort carried out by Manafort on behalf of Yanukovych’s embattled government, emails and documents reveal.

The strategies included:

• Proposing to rewrite Wikipedia entries to smear a key opponent of the then Ukrainian president.

• Setting up a fake thinktank in Vienna to disseminate viewpoints supporting Yanukovych.

• A social media blitz “aimed at targeted audiences in Europe and the US”.

• Briefing journalists from the rightwing website Breitbart to attack Clinton when she was US secretary of state.

The same kind of thing, Harding points out, that Russia did to Clinton and for Trump in 2016. Maybe Manafort tutored them.

The documents reveal another surreptitious operation to influence international opinion. In 2010 Yanukovych defeated his rival Yulia Tymoshenko in presidential elections. The following summer Ukrainian prosecutors arrested Tymoshenko and put her on trial. This provoked severe criticism from the Obama administration and the EU, which accused Yanukovych of locking up Tymoshenko for political reasons.

Interesting that Trump kept talking about doing the same thing to Clinton, and continues to now.

In 2011 Manafort approved a clandestine strategy to discredit Tymoshenko abroad. Alan Friedman, a former Wall Street Journal and Financial Times reporter, based in Italy, masterminded this project. Friedman has previously been accused of concealing his work as a paid lobbyist.

Also involved were Rick Gates, Manafort’s then deputy, and Konstantin Kilimnik, another senior Manafort associate who the FBI believes has links to Russian military intelligence.

In July 2011 Friedman sent Manafort a confidential six-page document titled Ukraine – A Digital Roadmap. It laid out a plan to “deconstruct” Tymoshenko via videos, articles and social media. Yanukovych deferred to Manafort, who gave the project the go-ahead, sources in Ukraine’s former government say.

Friedman’s proposed operation was ambitious. It included producing anonymous videos attacking Tymoshenko and comparing the opposition leader to a drunk Boris Yeltsin. “The social media space offers great opportunities for guilt by association,” Friedman wrote in the document.

None of this is about reporting facts, it’s about making shit up in order to win.

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A few hundred metres from home

Jun 15th, 2018 10:48 am | By

Another woman raped and murdered for daring to be outside at 10:30 p.m.

The body of Eurydice Dixon, 22, was found at a football field in Melbourne early on Wednesday, only hours after she had performed a gig at a city bar.

A man, 19, has been charged by police.

Comedians and the public have inundated social media with tributes to Ms Dixon, in a case that has reignited local debate about violence against women.

For many, it has evoked memories of the 2012 murder of an Irish woman, Jill Meagher, whose death in an adjacent Melbourne suburb prompted a peace march involving an estimated 30,000 people.

Although not widely known, Ms Dixon has been remembered as a talented comedian at the start of her career.

“She had a great passion for women’s issues and social justice issues and she drew upon them a lot in the material that she produced as a comic,” fellow comedian Nicky Barry told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.

Well she won’t be doing that any more.

Local media reported that Ms Dixon was a few hundred metres from home when she was attacked.

According to The Age newspaper, she had earlier sent a text message to a friend saying: “I’m almost home safe, HBU [how about you].”

Too bad Melbourne is so full of bears wolves tigers sharks rattlesnakes men who hate women.

Ms Dixon’s death has also renewed a more general discussion in Australia about violence against women.

Australia’s human rights commission has said that the country has “a disturbingly high rate of violence against women”.

According to government figures, one in five women, and one in 20 men, have experienced sexual violence or threats since the age of 15.

The other four women don’t go out alone.

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What even are human rights?

Jun 15th, 2018 10:16 am | By

God damn. The big news of the moment is that Manafort is off to the slammer, but there’s another breaking item that’s horrifying: the US is going to quit the UN Human Rights Council.

Talks with the United States over how to reform the main U.N. rights body have failed to meet Washington’s demands, activists and diplomats say, suggesting that the Trump administration will quit the Geneva forum whose session opens on Monday.

A U.S. source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters the withdrawal appeared to be “imminent” but had no details.

Diplomatic sources said it was not a question of if but of when the United States retreats from the Human Rights Council, which is holding a three-week session through July 6.

Why? Putative “anti-Israel bias.”

The forum, set up in 2006, has a permanent standing agenda item on suspected violations committed by Israel in the occupied Palestinian territories, which Washington wants removed.

Washington says the Council is stacked with opponents of Israel and boycotted it for three years under President George W. Bush before rejoining under Barack Obama in 2009.

The 47-member forum last month voted to set up a probe into killings in Gaza and accused Israel of excessive use of force. The United States and Australia cast the only “no” votes. Israel’s ambassador in Geneva, Aviva Raz Shechter, castigated the Council for “spreading lies against Israel”.

Meanwhile, Kim Jong Un is a smart talented guy who makes his people sit right up when he talks.

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