Posts Tagged ‘
Trump ’
Dec 1st, 2017 4:21 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Oh really. Is that what happens.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) on Thursday said he is fed up with the media’s portrayal of President Donald Trump. “What concerns me about the American press is this endless, endless attempt to label the guy as some kind of kook not fit to be president,” Graham told CNN. “It’s pretty frustrating for most Republicans, quite frankly, that it’s 24/7 attack on everything the president does or thinks. It gets a little old after a while.”
Yeah, it does! Damn right it does. It gets old being shamed and degraded hour after hour by this appalling evil toxic malevolent zero of a man.
It’s pretty frustrating for all decent people seeing a bad-in-every-way psychopath … Read the rest
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Tags: Trump
Dec 1st, 2017 11:15 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Jennifer Rubin must have written this at top speed, because there are words missing. It’s about how dire this could be for Donnie from Queens.
The Post reports, “Former national security adviser Michael Flynn pleaded guilty Friday to lying to the FBI. … Flynn’s admission … is an ominous sign for the White House, as court documents indicate Flynn is cooperating in the ongoing probe of possible coordination between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin to influence the 2016 election.” ABC News reports, “Michael Flynn promised ‘full cooperation to the Mueller team’ and is prepared to testify that as a candidate, Donald Trump ‘directed him to make contact with the Russians.’ ” That could be direct testimony
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Tags: Trump
Dec 1st, 2017 10:12 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Here we go.
President Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, pleaded guilty on Friday to lying to the F.B.I. about conversations with the Russian ambassador last December during the presidential transition, bringing the special counsel’s investigation into the president’s inner circle.
Mr. Flynn, who appeared in federal court in Washington, acknowledged that he was cooperating with the investigation by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, into Russian interference in the 2016 election. His plea agreement suggests that Mr. Flynn provided information to prosecutors, which may help advance the inquiry.
Benjamin Wittes will need a whole set of baby cannons for this boom.
Mr. Flynn pleaded guilty to making false statements to F.B.I. agents about two discussions
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Tags: Trump
Nov 30th, 2017 5:50 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
The Times gives Trump credit for accomplishing something – uniting people in the UK in loathing of him.
One member of Parliament called him a “fascist.” Another described him as “stupid.” A third wondered aloud whether President Trump was “racist, incompetent or unthinking — or all three.”
The stream of criticism that began after Mr. Trump shared anti-Muslim videos from a far-right British group on Wednesday morning turned into a gusher on Thursday, after he rebuked Prime Minister Theresa May in a nighttime tweet, telling her: “Don’t focus on me, focus on the destructive Radical Islamic Terrorism that is taking place within the United Kingdom.”
Mr. Trump’s one-two punch managed to generate rare unanimity in a Britain that is
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Nov 30th, 2017 10:36 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Julian Borger wonders how that “special relationship” is going these days.
It was some poor official’s job this morning to tell Theresa May that while she slept, the relationship with the US became special for all the wrong reasons.
It is at least historic. No US president in modern times has addressed a UK prime minister with the open peevishness and contempt of Donald Trump’s tweet telling May to mind her own business.
He’s draining the swamp.
There are many layers of humiliation here for May to get her head around over breakfast. Not only is it personally demeaning, it is also politically toxic.
The prospect of a successful or at least survivable Brexit is posited on a strong relationship
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Tags: Trump
Nov 30th, 2017 10:04 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Trump’s contemptuous tweet at Theresa May yesterday didn’t go down very well in the UK.
Trump’s message came in response to criticism from the British prime minister’s spokesman over the president’s retweeting of incendiary videos posted by the deputy leader of a British far-right group.
Justine Greening, the education secretary, said never mind the tweet, look at the bigger picture: allies, important, mustn’t let a tweet distract, etc.
Sajid Javid, the local government secretary, who is Muslim, took a much harder line. He posted on Twitter: “So POTUS has endorsed the views of a vile, hate-filled racist organisation that hates me and people like me. He is wrong and I refuse to let it go and say nothing.”
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Nov 30th, 2017 9:07 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Britain’s ambassador to the US made a formal protest yesterday.
Theresa May condemned the president’s decision on Wednesday to share propaganda videos tweeted by the deputy leader of Britain First and is expected to address the issue again in a speech in the Middle East on Thursday.
But government sources revealed that Sir Kim Darroch, the ambassador to Washington, had already raised the issue formally.
In Westminster, MPs lined up to condemn the president’s behaviour, and urge the government to formally cancel the state visit invitation made by May when she became the first world leader to visit the Trump White House last year.
But the home secretary said nope we’re not going to cancel…but she also said that … Read the rest
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Tags: Trump
Nov 30th, 2017 8:54 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Well Trump has his faults but at least he’s good at managing his own people.
Oh wait, no he’s not.
The White House has developed a plan to force out Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson, whose relationship with President Trump has been strained, and replace him with Mike Pompeo, the C.I.A. director, perhaps within the next several weeks, senior administration officials said on Thursday.
People keep quitting or being fired or being told to leave. It’s almost as if he’s not a pleasant guy to work for, or be within a mile of.
It was not immediately clear whether Mr. Trump has given final approval to the plan, but he has been said to have soured on
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Nov 29th, 2017 12:57 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
He’ll say anything.
Shortly after his victory last year, Donald J. Trump began revisiting one of his deepest public humiliations: the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape of him making vulgar comments about women.
Despite his public acknowledgment of the recording’s authenticity in the final days of the presidential campaign — and his hasty videotaped apology under pressure from his advisers — Mr. Trump as president-elect began raising the prospect with allies that it may not have been him on the tape after all.
Most of Mr. Trump’s aides ignored his changing story. But in January, shortly before his inauguration, Mr. Trump told a Republican senator that he wanted to investigate the recording that had him boasting about grabbing women’s genitals.
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Nov 29th, 2017 12:35 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
CNN points out that it’s a little unfortunate that Trump appears to be getting crazier every day right now when North Korea is getting Better and Better and BETTER at lobbing nukes in our direction. Yeah, it is.
[T]he President of the United States is raising new questions about his temperament, his judgment and his understanding of the resonance of his global voice and the gravity of his role with a wild sequence of insults, inflammatory tweets and bizarre comments.
On Wednesday Trump caused outrage and sparked fears of violent reprisals against Americans and US interests overseas by retweeting graphic anti-Muslim videos by an extreme far right British hate group. Earlier this week he used a racial slur in front
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Nov 28th, 2017 4:11 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
It’s taken some effort to ignore the wall-to-wall freakout about the Windsor wedding, but Newsweek has a kernel of pleasing information.
When the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge were married, in 2011, the Obamas were left off the guest list because of the added security costs of protecting the president. The day of the wedding, thousands of Britons took the day off, and about 1,900 guests attended the ceremony in Westminster Abbey in central London. The Obamas traveled to the U.K. less than a month later for an official state visit. Since Obama is no longer president, he doesn’t require as extensive a security detail as he once did.
A reason not to invite Trump, along with a reason … Read the rest
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Tags: Trump
Nov 28th, 2017 9:56 am |
By Ophelia Benson
A few more details on Trump’s disgusting derailment yesterday.
Native American groups have long objected to President Trump’s use of the nickname “Pocahontas” to deride one of his political foes, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).
Well of course they have. A lot of goons are pretending to be unable to see anything racist about it, but that’s just the usual fraud. It’s racist first of all to use any name like that as a generic for All People In This Group I’m Insulting. People used to do that casually without giving it any thought, but those days are over.
It’s racist in that it reveals that Trump thinks one Native American can stand for all of them.
It’s racist in … Read the rest
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Tags: President Racist Pig, Trump
Nov 27th, 2017 2:24 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Oh GOD.
President Trump used a White House event honoring Navajo veterans of World War II on Monday to utter a favorite Native American-related insult of a political opponent, deriding Senator Elizabeth Warren as “Pocahontas.”
Standing in the Oval Office alongside three World War II Navajo code talkers, Mr. Trump made the unscripted comment after other officials praised the veterans’ history and contributions.
“You were here long before any of us were here,” Mr. Trump said as he turned to look at the code talkers. “Although we have a representative in Congress who they say was here a long time ago. They call her Pocahontas.”
I wish someone would throw him, fully clothed, into a sewage tank.
Mr. Trump’s use
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Tags: President Racist Pig, Trump
Nov 27th, 2017 10:39 am |
By Ophelia Benson
The New York Review of Books is running a series on living in Trumpworld. Katha Pollitt wrote a blisterer.
I sometimes feel like I’m a different person now. I’m fidgety and irritable and have trouble concentrating. For months after the election, I could hardly read, except for books about Roman history, which turns out to be full of Trumps: fantastically rich sociopaths obsessed with crushing their enemies.
Snap. I was thinking Nero-Caligula all day after the Man of the Year tweet.
My work seems trivial: Given what we are facing, what difference does one more Nation column make? I might as well be an ancient Egyptian scribe logging production figures for cat mummies. In the old days, the
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Tags: Katha Pollitt, Trump
Nov 26th, 2017 11:55 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Trump yesterday:
Oh dear. It turns out that link was
- broken
- wack
Newsweek has the details.
President Donald Trump Saturday re-tweeted and thanked a website showcasing his achievements —that has also promoted conspiracy theories and anti-Semitism.
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The website has in the past published articles promoting the conspiracy theory that DNC staffer Seth Rich was murdered on the orders of Hillary Clinton, and that banking is corrupted by “certain bloodlines.”
Subtle.
The site has tweeted claims that Luciferians, financier George Soros, and the Vatican control the world.
The same bizarre “flow chart” claims
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3 comments
Tags: Trump
Nov 25th, 2017 12:07 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Chris Cillizza asks and answers why Trump is so obsessed with being on the cover of TIME.
Why does Trump care so much about Time — a magazine that, like all national magazines, has been hit hard by the fracturing of the media and the changing advertising landscape?
Because all of Trump’s ideas about the media were formed in the 1980s. And at that time, Time was a massively important part of the culture. It was a tastemaker — and breaker. And, most importantly for Trump, it had a cover. A cover that, if you were on it, signified success in the broader culture.
Except not really. Time then (and still, as far as I know) was seen as … Read the rest
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Tags: Trump
Nov 25th, 2017 10:30 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Trump of the year.
https://twitter.com/politvidchannel/status/934199988543832064
Why doesn’t THE WHOLE WORLD name him GLORIOUS ASCENDED MASTER HUMAN OF THE YEAR every single year? Why, why, WHY??
Meanwhile, TIME itself says excuse us no we didn’t.
So…why on earth did he tweet that silly lie? Did he simply forget that TIME would see it and point out that he lied? If so, what else is he forgetting? That China too has nukes? That Putin once ran the KGB? That he has grandchildren?… Read the rest
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Tags: Trump