Ever wonder how the youngest lambs get down the hill? Wonder no more.
Donkey & mule nannies are used in Italy when grazing animals are moved from high pastures down to the plains. Newborn lambs are unable to make the journey on their own.
They ride in pouches of a specially made saddle on the back of a nanny.
At rest stops lambs are returned to their mothers for a meal & some nuzzling.
James Kirkup is not impressed by the BBC’s reporting on trans issues.
For one example, it sought to correct a claim by Fair Play for Women that “41 per cent of trans women in jail are sex offenders.”
The BBC seeks to test the FPFW figure of 41 per cent mainly by way of official Ministry of Justice figures, released following a BBC request under the Freedom of Information Act. Those figures show that 60 of 125 transgender inmates were serving sentences for sexual offences. That’s 48 per cent.
So what does the BBC do? It comes up with strained reasons to ignore the figures.
And then there’s its reporting on our friend Councillor Gregor Murray.
Cllr Murray of Dundee identifies as non-binary and prefers “they” as a pronoun. Cllr Murray recently quit as convenor of children and family services, and as SNP equal opportunities spokesman.
“Trans councillor leaves roles after ‘threats to life’” was the BBC headline on the story about this last week.
A casual reader might have taken the impression that this was a simple, sad tale of bigotry in modern Britain, a transgender person hounded out of a prominent public role by the nasty prejudice that too many trans people do indeed suffer. What that reader would not have learned is that Cllr Murray’s resignation came about after a series of incidents in which Cllr Murray published obscene and offensive comments about women who disagreed with him. Among those comments, he described a group of lesbians who took part in a public protest as “utter c***s”.
Journalism should always distinguish facts and assertions, and prioritise facts over assertions. That’s especially true when covering politicians, who routinely try to use assertions to obscure facts they find inconvenient.
It is a fact that Cllr Murray called some women “c***s” and faced significant public criticism for doing so. (A fellow SNP councillor described Cllr Murray’s conduct as disgraceful, for instance.) It is a fact that this criticism preceded Cllr Murray’s resignation. It is an assertion that Cllr Murray is resigning because of threats to Cllr Murray’s safety: the councillor’s letter of resignation, quoted in extravagant detail by the BBC, provides no evidence of such threats.
Also, somewhat off topic but not really, notice the way Kirkup is talking about calling women “cunts.” Notice the discrepancy between that and the way we are always told that “cunt” is not a misogynist or sexist or extraordinarily insulting epithet in the UK.
The BBC report, however, repeats the politician’s assertions at length and without any attempt at critical analysis, while scarcely mentioning the established fact of the politician’s conduct and reactions to it. The reader has to reach the 10th paragraph of a 13 paragraph story before finding this mealy-mouthed sentence:
“The councillor had been criticised for language they used in online rows with women’s groups.”
And that’s all. No mention of quite what that “language” was. It’s impossible to avoid wondering if the BBC would have been so circumspect on the issue if, for instance, a non-trans councillor holding an equalities post had described a group of women as “absolute c***s”. Having spent most of the last two decades writing about politics, I’d have expected Cllr Murray’s comments to be central to any story about their resignation, especially from a post that involves representing the interests of minorities, including the lesbians the councillor described as “absolute c***s. Something in the spirit of “Councillor who called women ‘c***s’ quits” would be the headline I’d have expected to see.
And that is the way the Dundee Courier covered the resignation: “Children’s convener resigns following row over expletive-laden social media outbursts”, it reported. In so doing, the paper did its job, reporting facts in the public interest and in proper context. The BBC failed to do that job. Why did the BBC fail in these instances? I don’t know or pretend to know. I can offer some informed speculation though. There is a live and sometimes heated debate within the BBC about coverage of transgender issues. Echoing wider political and public debate, there are some people in the BBC who worry that this issue is not being fully discussed or examined. These people, who include some very senior journalists, feel the BBC is sometimes too cautious, too timid, too afraid of controversy and possible offence over a complicated and contentious issue. They, like me, worry that the voices of women (and men) who have doubts and questions about custom, practice and policy on transgender issues (and the possible impact on women and their rights) are not being properly heard.
Indeed.
A clusterfuck we didn’t hear about at the time:
Early on in the Donald Trump administration, the president vested many of his nearest and dearest with tasks they were woefully unprepared for—and Apprentice superstar Omarosa Manigault-Newman was no exception.
Long before she was his chief antagonist, Manigault-Newman was tapped by President Trump to handle veterans’ issues for the White House—causing immediate backlash from vets organizations who read this as a slap in the face and a betrayal of his campaign rhetoric about “taking care of our veterans.”
What, just because she had no relevant experience or expertise and was appointed as an act of grotesque frivolity by her reality TV buddy? Picky picky picky.
So they all had a meeting in March 2017.
The event nearly degenerated into a uniquely Trumpian trainwreck.
During this White House meeting, certain details of which have not been previously reported, the president managed to again annoy and confuse U.S. war veterans, this time by getting into a bizarre, protracted argument with Vietnam War vets present about the movie Apocalypse Now and the herbicide Agent Orange.
“It was really fucking weird,” one attendee bluntly assessed to The Daily Beast.
Well, he’s a fucking weird guy.
So they were all at the big table, right? And Trump goes around the table calling on people.
Soon, he got to Rick Weidman, co-founder of Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA), who was one of Vietnam vets in the room that day, having served a tour of duty in 1969 as a medic. (Trump famously avoided military service in that disastrous war, ostensibly due to “bone spurs,” and had once said that his prolific sex life was his own “personal Vietnam.”)
…
During the course of the meeting, Weidman brought up the issue of Agent Orange, an extremely notorious component of the U.S. herbicidal warfare on Vietnam. Weidman was imploring the president and his team to permit access to benefits for a broader number of vets who have said they were poisoned by Agent Orange.
Trump responded by saying, “That’s taken care of,” according to people in the room.
His reply puzzled the group.
Attendees began explaining to the president that the VA had not made enough progress on the issue at all, to which Trump responded by abruptly derailing the meeting and asking the attendees if Agent Orange was “that stuff from that movie.”
He did not initially name the film he was referencing, but it quickly became clear as Trump kept rambling that he was referring to the classic 1979 Francis Ford Coppola epic Apocalypse Now, and specifically the famous helicopter attack scene set to the “Ride of the Valkyries.”
Source present at the time tell The Daily Beast that multiple people—including Vietnam War veterans—chimed in to inform the president that the Apocalypse Now set piece he was talking about showcased the U.S. military using napalm, not Agent Orange.
Trump refused to accept that he was mistaken and proceeded to say things like, “no, I think it’s that stuff from that movie.”
Yes, that’s a good look, a guy who never went to Vietnam correcting a bunch of vets who did go to Vietnam on the content of a famous movie about the war in Vietnam. Who is more likely to have paid close attention and remembered it in detail, a vet who was in the war or a real estate speculator who was not? Next Trump should summon some astronauts and explain Apollo 13 to them.
He then went around the room polling attendees about if it was, in fact, napalm or Agent Orange in the famous scene from “that movie,” as the gathering—organized to focus on important, sometimes life-or-death issues for veterans—descended into a pointless debate over Apocalypse Now that the president simply would not concede, despite all the available evidence.
And the fact that he was the least likely to know person in the room.
Finally, Trump made eye contact again with Weidman and asked him if it was napalm or Agent Orange. The VVA co-founder assured Trump, as did several before him, that it was in fact napalm, and said that he didn’t like the Coppola film and believed it to be a disservice to Vietnam War veterans.
According to two people in attendance, Trump then flippantly replied to the Vietnam vet, “Well, I think you just didn’t like the movie,” before finally moving on.
The debate over Apocalypse Now in the Roosevelt Room lasted at least two minutes, according to estimates from those who endured it. The president was not able to call on everyone at the roundtable by the end of the event, in part due to these types of tangents.
Today he’s back at his golf club. Before leaving he told reporters it was going to be work, all work.
Via Slate, the statement:
August 16, 2018
STATEMENT FROM FORMER SENIOR INTELLIGENCE OFFICIALS
As former senior intelligence officials, we feel compelled to respond in the wake of the ill-considered and unprecedented remarks and actions by the White House regarding the removal of John Brennan’s security clearances. We know John to be an enormously talented, capable, and patriotic individual who devoted his adult life to the service of this nation. Insinuations and allegations of wrongdoing on the part of Brennan while in office are baseless. Since leaving government service John has chosen to speak out sharply regarding what he sees as threats to our national security. Some of the undersigned have done so as well. Others among us have elected to take a different course and be more circumspect in our public pronouncements. Regardless, we all agree that the president’s action regarding John Brennan and the threats of similar action against other former officials has nothing to do with who should and should not hold security clearances – and everything to do with an attempt to stifle free speech. You don’t have to agree with what John Brennan says (and, again, not all of us do) to agree with his right to say it, subject to his obligation to protect classified information. We have never before seen the approval or removal of security clearances used as a political tool, as was done in this case. Beyond that, this action is quite clearly a signal to other former and current officials. As individuals who have cherished and helped preserve the right of Americans to free speech – even when that right has been used to criticize us – that signal is inappropriate and deeply regrettable. Decisions on security clearances should be based on national security concerns and not political views.
William H. Webster, former Director of Central Intelligence (1987-1991)
George J. Tenet, former Director of Central Intelligence (1997-2004)
Porter J. Goss, former Director of Central Intelligence, (2005-2006)
General Michael V. Hayden, USAF, Ret., former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (2006-2009)
Leon E. Panetta, former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (2009-2011)
General David H. Petraeus, USA, Ret., former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (2011-2012)
James R. Clapper, former Director of National Intelligence (2010-2017)
John E. McLaughlin, former Deputy Director of Central Intelligence (2000-2004)
Stephen R. Kappes, former Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (2006-2010)
Michael J. Morell, former Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (2010-2013)
Avril Haines, former Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (2013-2015)
David S. Cohen, former Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (2015-2017)
Fred Kaplan at Slate says yesterday’s op-ed by retired admiral William McRaven is a big deal.
One former senior intelligence official who read the op-ed sent me an email: “Takes my breath away. This is BIG!!!” Another wrote, again on background, that fellow officers—retired and active-duty—will take this as a sign of a major rupture in civil-military relations, brought on by Trump’s blatant disrespect for national security officials and the entire security system.
Which has to be alarming for people in the military. The guy at the top who can unilaterally make things happen is a flaming lunatic and egomaniac – yes that’s pretty scary.
Then, late on Thursday night, 12 former CIA directors and deputy directors released a similar statement. By coincidence, the statement was written a few hours before McRaven’s op-ed appeared, according to two of the organizers.
The intelligence officials stopped short of asking Trump to revoke their clearances—that idea hadn’t come up in conversation. But like McRaven, they defended Brennan’s integrity and denounced Trump’s action as having “nothing to do with who should and should not hold security clearances—and everything to do with an attempt to stifle free speech.”
The statement went on: “We have never before seen the approval or removal of security clearances used as a political tool, as was done in this case,” adding that “this action is quite clearly a signal to other former and current officials” to stay silent. It noted that some of the signatories agree with Brennan’s long string of critical statements about Trump, while others do not. However, they all agree that decisions on security clearances “should be based on national security concerns and not political views.”
Plus, again, the views aren’t political so much as moral. Trump is a bad man and that wouldn’t change if he switched parties.
The ex-officials include William Webster, Porter Goss, Gen. Michael Hayden, and John McLaughlin (those who served Republicans); Leon Panetta, Gen. David Petraeus, Gen. James Clapper, Michael Morell, Avril Haines and David Cohen (those who served Democrats); and George Tenet, and Stephen Kappes (who served presidents of both parties).
More significant, seven of the 12—Webster, Goss, Hayden, McLaughlin, Clapper, Morell, and Kappes—were career intelligence officials. One, Petraeus, was a career combat commander. [Update, Aug. 17, 2018, 12:10 a.m.: Just before midnight, a 13th ex-director, Robert Gates—another career CIA official who has served under several presidents of both parties—added his name to the statement. He had been inaccessible, until then.]
One of the signers told me that some who signed the statement did so reluctantly, given the long-standing principle that intelligence and military officers should remain apolitical. However, the consensus was that Trump’s behavior has gone beyond the pale.
Again – it’s not political. Firing people because they criticize you isn’t a matter of party allegiance, it’s a matter of crazed reckless narcissism. Trump holds a political office but what’s wrong with him is moral rather than political.
I’m going to give the statement its own post. It needs room to breathe.
Jonathan Best wrote a piece the other day.
In 2005 I became the artistic director of Manchester’s Queer Up North Festival. QUN took place annually in Manchester between 1992 and 2011 and had a tradition of disruptive, provocative performance work centred around sexuality and gender, alongside literature, film, music and debate. Artists and performers such as Lea DeLaria, Ursula Martinez, Mojisola Adebayo, Mx Justin Vivian Bond, Taylor Mac and Sandra Bernhard appeared. Scores of writers spoke, including Edmund White, Patrick Gale, Armistead Maupin, Sarah Waters and Val MacDiarmid. We invited a wide range of speakers, including Linda Bellos, Julie Bindel, B Ruby Rich and Billy Bragg. It was an irreverent and stimulating mix of events. Most importantly, it was a place where artists, writers, performers and audience were free to be themselves.
It also had an activist side, including an anti-bullying theater for schools project.
In 2007 QUN began a drive to programme a greater variety of events aimed at our lesbian audience. Like many LGBT or queer organisations, we’d been a bit gay men-centric. One of the artists I researched was a hugely talented singer songwriter — Bitch — yet to perform in the UK. She is top-notch musician who’d appeared in John Cameron Mitchell’s gorgeous film ‘Shortbus’ — I felt confident she would find an appreciative audience in Manchester.
So I invited her. She accepted and the event quickly sold out.
Then, a few weeks before the festival, I got an email.
It informed me that Bitch had performed at Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival, which had a policy of admitting only natal women. Apparently not only had Bitch appeared at the festival, she’d defended its women-born-women admission policy as well. Therefore, the email argued, Bitch was transphobic and the event must be cancelled.
The therefore, of course, is not a therefore. Not inviting or including Xs in a thing is not necessarily based in hatred of Xs. It can be, but it isn’t necessarily. Women organize women-only events and spaces for several reasons, none of which boil down to “because we hate men.” Feminists hate patriarchy, but that’s not the same as hating men.
But of course that’s not the issue; the issue is that seeing trans women as men is labeled “transphobic.” It’s not transphobic. Not agreeing with people’s fantasies about themselves is not hatred and should not be labeled as such.
Jonathan Best felt the need to think more about the subject.
As I continued to think about all of this, I did what I imagine many people do when they’re thinking about LGBT issues and considering their view — I consulted the Stonewall website. I found a page (no longer live) which listed examples of transphobic views and ideas. Included there were words to the effect of ‘if you don’t think trans women are real women, that’s transphobic’.
This troubled me in two ways. Firstly, Stonewall’s version of transphobia didn’t seem to require any negative view of trans people, let alone hate or unfair discrimination. All that was necessary to be designated a bigot by the UK’s leading LGBT charity was to question whether trans women and natal women might, in some ways, be different.
Secondly, Stonewall’s edict unquestioningly prioritised the wishes of trans women over those of natal women. This seemed both arbitrary and unfair to me. This question had been turning around in my head since I discussed it with Julie a year earlier and I’ve still not heard a satisfactory answer to it: why should feminists, engaged in their own civil rights struggle, be forced to redraw their definition of a woman to include trans women? Of course, some feminists have been happy to do so. Some have not. Labelling those who have not as bigots seemed intolerant and disproportionate to me then — and it still does today.
To me too; see above. To many of us, many of whom are now speaking up.
Best goes on to analyze the disagreement between trans activism and gender critical feminism, and the terrible state of the relations between them.
I have been thinking about writing this for several years but — to be frank — I have been nervous of coming out as gender critical. So many women have now spoken up — often at considerable risk to themselves —whereas, since I left QUN, I have not. That has started to make me look somewhat cowardly. So here we are.
It’s undeniable that trans issues were marginalised in LGBT politics for a long time. Many in the trans community are angry and I don’t blame them. I do not argue for meek, timid activism — positive change only comes to those who are willing to make a stink.
For what it’s worth, I think this is the challenge facing us all: to advance trans rights and liberation without compromising natal women’s sex-based rights and protections. This must be done in an atmosphere of mutual respect in which anyone is free to critically discuss anything they wish, using whatever (respectful) terminology they choose. The underlying issues of sex and gender must be seen for what they are: nobody’s exclusive property.
We are a long, long way from this ideal state of affairs.
On Twitter a gender critical feminist praised his article and hoped he wasn’t getting too much grief for it.
https://twitter.com/JonnnyBest/status/1030487052817715200
It is stark, isn’t it. It never ceases to amaze me how blind people are to that contrast and what it means – how blind people are to the raging misogyny of social media trans activism.
Trump has canceled his fascist parade and blamed the DC government for making it too expensive.
President Trump on Friday canceled plans for a military parade this fall in Washington, blaming local officials for inflating the costs and saying they “know a windfall when they see it.”
Washington’s mayor, Muriel Bowser, pushed back on Twitter, saying that she had “finally got thru” to the president to convey the “realities” of what it costs to stage events like military parades in the city.
She put the number at $21.6 million, though the city’s costs are just a fraction of the total, with federal agencies also kicking in millions of dollars. A day earlier, the Pentagon said Mr. Trump’s parade to celebrate the military could be postponed to 2019, as officials acknowledged that the event could cost more than $90 million.
And what would all that money be for? Nothing. A treat for Trump, and a threat to the rest of us – which is not nothing but it’s also not something we should have to pay for. It would be for nothing in the sense of a reasonable goal or purpose.
Mr. Trump, who enjoys military history, called last year for a parade of troops, tanks, jets and other equipment to pass through the streets of the nation’s capital. Early cost estimates for the fanfare ranged from $10 million to $30 million; CNBC first reported the new $90 million figure.
Nicely sly wording. Trump doesn’t study or pursue or research military history, he doesn’t even read it, he “enjoys” it – meaning, he likes to watch displays of military hardware. That’s not actually military history, of course, it’s just shopping.
Mr. Trump was impressed by a Bastille Day parade that he attended in Paris in July 2017. The city is scheduled to hold its annual Armistice Day parade in November. It was not immediately clear which parade the president plans to attend at Andrews.
The president had hoped to have military tanks and jets at his own inauguration parade, but he was told he could not.
The last time a similar parade was held in Washington was in 1991, celebrating the end of the Persian Gulf War. It cost about $12 million, or about $22 million in today’s dollars.
Mr. Trump’s dream of a military parade with tanks barreling down the streets and fighter jets flying above him has faced resistance. Critics have said these parades typically mark a victory in a war. Others have said it may not be the best use of the Defense Department’s money.
I wish this stupid infant would just go away.
Trump’s legal team said Wednesday it may fight all the way to the Supreme Court to quash a possible subpoena from Robert Mueller for an interview with the president. Trump has so far refused to be questioned by Mueller; his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, is saying Mueller should submit his report before September 7, threatening, “If he doesn’t get it done in the next two or three weeks we will just unload on him like a ton of bricks.”
Mimi Rocah made the mobster connection.
Giuliani’s latest “we’ll come down on you like a ton of bricks” threat to Mueller sounds a lot more like the mobsters he (and I) used to prosecute than a defense attorney. https://t.co/0RemOrEG9B
— Mimi Rocah (@Mimirocah1) August 16, 2018
Civil rights advocates are objecting to a proposal to close about 75 percent of polling locations in a predominantly black south Georgia county.
The Randolph County elections board is scheduled to meet Thursday to discuss a proposal that would eliminate seven of nine polling locations in the county, according to the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia. Included in the proposed closures is Cuthbert Middle School where nearly 97 percent of voters are black.
What does that do? It makes polling places farther away for a lot of people, and it makes the lines longer. Much longer. In short, it suppresses the vote. It does what the Voting Rights Act was meant to prevent, and did prevent, until the Shelby ruling.
According to the latest census figures, Randolph County’s population is more than 61 percent of black, double the statewide percentage.
The median household income for the county was $30,358 in 2016, compared to $51,037 in the rest of the state. Nearly one-third of the county’s residents live below the poverty line, compared to about 16 percent statewide, according to U.S. Census figures.
Just the kind of people who can least afford to take extra time and travel extra long distances to vote.
In 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court rolled back Voting Rights Act requirements that required many jurisdictions to receive permission before changing ways people are allowed to vote. They used to have to prove the voting changes weren’t discriminatory, but that’s no longer the case.
“This is an example of what localities are doing without the pre-clearance requirement,” Andrea Young said.
In addition to statewide offices, Randolph County voters will also vote for state legislative seats in November. All nine polling locations were used during this year’s primary and Republican run-off, so it is unclear why the locations would be closed down, Andrea Young said.
Oh it’s clear all right.
What was so threatening about the former CIA chief? Beyond Brennan’s sheer cussedness, I’d guess that Trump was frightened — and remains so to this day — about just how much Brennan knows about his secrets. And by that, I don’t just mean his dealings with Russian oligarchs and presidents but the way he moved through a world of fixers, flatterers and money launderers.
Hmm, yes, Brennan probably does know a lot about Trump’s secrets. So…it wasn’t particularly clever to piss him off further, was it.
Brennan, like Comey, was there at the beginning of this investigation. Trump must have asked himself: What does Brennan know? What did he learn from the CIA’s deep assets in Moscow, and from liaison partners such as Britain, Israel, Germany and the Netherlands? Does Trump think Brennan will be a less credible witness without a security clearance?
Well, he’s dumb enough. He’s dumb enough to think that removing the security clearance actually removed the knowledge from Brennan’s brain.
The retired admiral who oversaw the raid that killed bin Laden tells Trump to take away his security clearance too.
Dear Mr. President:
Former CIA director John Brennan, whose security clearance you revoked on Wednesday, is one of the finest public servants I have ever known. Few Americans have done more to protect this country than John. He is a man of unparalleled integrity, whose honesty and character have never been in question, except by those who don’t know him.
Therefore, I would consider it an honor if you would revoke my security clearance as well, so I can add my name to the list of men and women who have spoken up against your presidency.
He says he had hoped when Trump was elected he would rise to the occasion and become a great leader.
A good leader tries to embody the best qualities of his or her organization. A good leader sets the example for others to follow. A good leader always puts the welfare of others before himself or herself.
Your leadership, however, has shown little of these qualities. Through your actions, you have embarrassed us in the eyes of our children, humiliated us on the world stage and, worst of all, divided us as a nation.
If you think for a moment that your McCarthy-era tactics will suppress the voices of criticism, you are sadly mistaken. The criticism will continue until you become the leader we prayed you would be.
Which will be never. He couldn’t if he wanted to – he doesn’t have the faintest idea how, or the qualities that would enable him to learn how. He’s bad quality all the way down.
Originally a comment by Freemage on Foreplay is supposed to hurt, yeah?
Yeah, when I encounter SWIFs, I’m always dumbfounded by the fact that they so readily dismiss the notion that people (individually) and society (collectively) are influenced by the media they consume. This is a damned staple of every social justice movement in existence–and yet, somehow, we’re supposed to believe that porn (a genre meant to be consumed at precisely the moment you’re establishing some of the strongest emotional connections in your brain) will have no effect whatsoever.
As for the cultural impact of porn–ask any female comic book fan about ‘pornface’. Apparently, a large number of pencilers in the big comic-book houses (DC, Marvel and Image) make use of shortcuts to be able to crank out work quickly, and one of the biggest is tracing–you put the sheet over a picture of a real woman’s face, and then draw the lines in, then send it on to be inked and colored.
Well, starting in the nineties and oughts, a lot of women comic-book readers noticed that there was a particular set of expressions that seemed to be very, very common on female characters. The guys were basically tracing over the pictures of women in porn, most often ones suggesting oral sex. As a result, the women were consistently shown with their mouths in the classic “O” position–which, of course, is rarely actually used when merely speaking. (Greg Land, in particular, did this so often that it practically became a meme.)
Trump has always called women dogs, so lighten up already. Gail Collins is one of those women:
Hey, it was long ago, but it still comes up. Particularly now that we’re making lists of all the women our president has ever compared to a canine. Back when I worked for New York Newsday, he sent me a copy of a column I’d written, scrawled with objections, along with an announcement that I was “a dog and a liar” and that my picture was “the face of a pig.” At the time, he was only a flailing real estate developer trying to make a deal with the city, yet it still seemed so weird that at first I wondered if it might be a joke, or some enemy of Trump’s trying to embarrass him. But no, it was a missive from the man himself.
She thought it couldn’t be at first because normal adults don’t act like that. Period. An adult who sends personal abuse to a total stranger is badly broken somewhere. Trump has always been badly broken.
This week, of course, Trump referred to his ex-friend Omarosa in a tweet as “that dog.” I am going to go out on a limb and say that when the president of the United States insults a woman that way in a public statement, it’s a little bit more of an issue.
One that will never go away. As the temperatures rise and the forests burn and the crops fail, it will still be the case that the US once had a hateful bully as a president.
One of the worst things about this moment in our national lives is the fear that if Trump gets into trouble for doing something dumb and obnoxious, he’ll respond by doing something huge and maybe dangerous. Have you heard that Stormy Daniels is going to be on the British version of “Celebrity Big Brother”? What happens if she tells that story about a hotel room spanking session to a house full of smirking Europeans? He could declare a war.
Or not even declare a war but just do a Pearl Harbor and drop a few nukes on someone.
During the campaign Trump continually pointed out that he went to the Wharton School of Business. (“It’s like super genius stuff.”) That gave many people the impression he’d gotten the high-prestige Wharton M.B.A., but he was really just a transfer student into the undergraduate program. Skeptics suggested he only edged his way in because of family connections. He graduated without any honors or distinction, and went on to publish a best-selling memoir that was written by somebody else.
I’m betting there were no dogs in it.
When slapping doesn’t mean slapping.
https://twitter.com/ztsamudzi/status/1028494677157113856
Wow, she says. Wow, when all she said was
You will get slapped and you will absolutely deserve it.
Does she want white men telling her she’ll be slapped and she will absolutely deserve it? I doubt it.
https://twitter.com/ztsamudzi/status/1028495455234056192
A tweet about protecting trans women, she called it – carefully not mentioning the “TERFs will be slapped and absolutely deserve it” part.
You couldn’t make it up.
Trump is triggered. His people have been telling him to ignore Omarosa and her book, which tells us that they’ve confused him with someone else.
Now advisers fear his rage at Manigault Newman is fueling irrational outbursts that bolster the claim in her book that Trump said the “n-word” during an Apprenticeouttake.
Irrational outbursts? Trump?? Surely not. It’s people like Brennan and Comey who go in for that kind of thing; Trump says so himself.
In recent days, Trump has called Manigault Newman “crazed,” a “lowlife,” and a “dog” on Twitter. His campaign filed an arbitration suit against her seeking “millions.” And Trump told advisers that he wants Attorney General Jeff Sessions to have Manigault Newman arrested, according to one Republican briefed on the conversations. (It’s unclear what law Trump believes she broke.)
No it isn’t! It’s perfectly clear: it’s the law against saying a single harsh word about Trump.
Another Republican recounted how over the weekend Trump derailed a midterm-election strategy session to rant about Manigault Newman’s betrayal.
Look. Election strategy is about other people as well as Trump. Manigault Newman’s “betrayal” is solely about Trump. Which one do you think he’s going to rant about? Let’s stay on our toes here.
One Trump person said it’s a death spiral. That would be good.
Shameful that it’s needed.
JUST IN: US Senate passes resolution with unanimous consent by voice vote that “affirms that the press is not the enemy of the people” and “reaffirms the vital and indispensable role that the free press serves” and “condemns the attacks on the institution of the free press.” pic.twitter.com/uK8DvhsXie
— NBC Politics (@NBCPolitics) August 16, 2018
Well golly gee. Trump artlessly told the Wall Street Journal that he went after Brennan in order to obstruct justice in the Mueller inquiry.
President Trump drew a direct connection between the special counsel investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election and his decision to revoke the security clearance of former CIA Director John Brennan and review the clearances of several other former officials.
In an interview Wednesday, Mr. Trump cited Mr. Brennan as among those he held responsible for the investigation, which also is looking into whether there was collusion between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin. Mr. Trump has denied collusion, and Russia has denied interfering.
Much as a mob bus might tell a lieutenant that Jones has to be silenced because he knows where the bodies are buried.
“I call it the rigged witch hunt, [it] is a sham,” Mr. Trump said in an interview. “And these people led it!”
See what I mean by “artlessly”? He seems to think that we will take his calling it the rigged witch hunt as a decisive reason to agree that it is a rigged witch hunt. “Ohhhh, that’s what you call it, well that changes everything.”
He seems to think we’ll believe him. That’s an enormous gap between belief and reality.
Earlier in the day, White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said the administration was also reviewing the clearances of former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former FBI Director James Comey, and former National Security Agency and CIA chief Michael Hayden.
“I don’t trust many of those people on that list,” Mr. Trump said in the interview. “I think that they’re very duplicitous. I think they’re not good people.”
Says the most duplicitous and evil person on the planet.
Mr. Trump and Mr. Brennan have sparred publicly for months, with Mr. Trump frequently tweeting quotes by others critical of Mr. Brennan.
After Mr. Trump’s news conference last month with President Vladimir Putin of Russia, Mr. Brennan wrote in a tweet that Mr. Trump’s conduct “rises to & exceeds the threshold of ‘high crimes & misdemeanors’ ” and called it “nothing short of treasonous.”
Last month, he likened Mr. Trump to Bernie Madoff, the investor who executed a multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme, tweeting that the two shared “a remarkably unethical ability to deceive & manipulate others, building Ponzi schemes to aggrandize yourselves.”
Cool. I’ve compared Trump to Madoff myself. Mind you it’s a pretty obvious comparison. Famous Psychopaths We Have Seen.
Millions of U.S. citizens hold security clearances, needed for many government and private-sector jobs. The practice of having senior national security officials retain clearance after leaving the government is longstanding and serves various functions, national security officials and analysts said.
When the White House first threatened to revoke the former officials’ security clearances last month, national security analysts described the move as unprecedented.
“I cannot remember a time when the president of the United States got personally involved in the status of individual security clearances within the country,” said Larry Pfeiffer, a former chief of staff at the CIA. “This is an administration shooting itself in the foot by depriving itself of experience and knowledge that could be used for its benefit.”
That’s because it’s an administration that has no important goal other than the promotion and protection of Donald Trump.
— Indian Atheists (@IndianAtheists) August 15, 2018
