Paul Krugman on Trump the strongman:

In 2015 the city of Ashgabat, the capital of Turkmenistan, was graced with a new public monument: a giant gold-plated sculpture portraying the country’s president on horseback. This may strike you as a bit excessive. But cults of personality are actually the norm in the “stans,” the Central Asian countries that emerged after the fall of the Soviet Union, all of which are ruled by strongmen who surround themselves with tiny cliques of wealthy crony capitalists.

Americans used to find the antics of these regimes, with their tinpot dictators, funny. But who’s laughing now?

We are, after all, about to hand over power to a man who has spent his whole adult life

The Wall Street Journal tells us that Trump’s childish blurts on Twitter are actually all part of his cunning plan.

In fact, there seem to be specific objectives behind many of Mr. Trump’s seemingly scattershot missives and comments. Often, say those who know him, he is posturing or positioning in pursuit of broader goals. He doesn’t mind roiling the waters in the process—and, as a consequence, some of what he says isn’t to be taken literally.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who speaks regularly with Mr. Trump and is developing a lecture series and book examining Trumpism, suggests the president-elect is in this regard similar to Franklin Roosevelt, who sometimes seemed to cultivate chaos in preparing the ground for

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

Why Corporations Are Helping Donald Trump Lie About Jobs

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

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

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

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

… Read the rest

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

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

But he does answer.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

کہ ہم غریب ہوئے ہیں

NYT reports Trump continues to be more childish every day.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He is such a lying fraud.

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

The Times on Trump’s embrace of Putin:

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

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

Then they report on his fanboy tweet.

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

Trump four hours ago:

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

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 30, 2016

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

Trump one hour ago:

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

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 30, 2016

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Uri Friedman at the Atlantic talks to Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, about the Russian hack and the abject failure to do anything about it.

Well before the White House or U.S. intelligence agencies publicly blamed the Russian government for interfering in the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, two members of Congress did. Back in September, Adam Schiff, the leading Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, and Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, released a statement accusing Russian intelligence agencies of hacking Democratic Party institutions. “Americans will not stand for any foreign government trying to influence our election,” they declared.

Ha. If only that had been true. Many Americans were and … Read the rest