February 1, 2017

Sadly, polls show more Americans support Trump's Muslim ban (48%) than are against it (41%)

though at least it doesn't crack 50% support

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/01/31/reuters_ipsos_muslim_ban_poll_finds_support_for_order.html

It's depressing that so many people are either falling for the demagoguery or don't understand the EO.

February 1, 2017

Trump picks Colo. appeals court judge Neil Gorsuch for Supreme Court

Source: Wash Post

President Trump selected Colorado federal appeals court judge Neil Gorsuch as his Supreme Court nominee on Tuesday, opting in the most important decision of his young presidency for a highly credentialed favorite of the conservative legal establishment to fill the opening created last year by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia.

Gorsuch prevailed over the other finalist, Thomas Hardiman of Pennsylvania, also a federal appeals court judge, and Trump announced the nomination at a televised prime-time event at the White House.

Trump broke tradition by entering the White House ceremony by himself, rather than alongside his nominee. He declared that after the most transparent judicial selection process in history, he had delivered on a campaign promise to find the very best judge in America for the court.

Gorsuch, 49, said he would strive to be independent and impartial, and that he would follow the law to its rightful outcome. A judge who personally agrees with the outcome of every case, Gorsuch said, is probably a bad judge.

Gorsuch and Hardiman, 51, emerged from a list of 21 as Trumps most likely choices. A third person on the shortlist U.S. Circuit Judge William H. Pryor Jr. of Alabama saw his chances diminish as some Senate Republican leaders have said his confirmation would be difficult.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-picks-colo-appeals-court-judge-neil-gorsuch-for-supreme-court/2017/01/31/2b08a226-e55e-11e6-a547-5fb9411d332c_story.html?utm_term=.a75789e263d9

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No real surprise, but Gorsuch is a hard core asshole.

And Trump changes the subject from his other problems.

January 31, 2017

General Strike on Friday February 17

Who is down for it?

https://twitter.com/NatParkUndrgrnd/status/826310038939639808

January 30, 2017

"The Inevitability Of Impeachment"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/the-inevitability-of-impeachment_us_588e8d52e4b0b065cbbcd09f

CONTRIBUTOR
The Inevitability Of Impeachment
After just one week.
01/29/2017 08:57 pm ET | Updated 1 hour ago
21k

Robert Kuttner Co-founder and co-editor, ‘The American Prospect’
X

Trump has been trying to govern by impulse, on whim, for personal retribution, for profit, by decree ― as if he had been elected dictator. It doesn’t work, and the wheels are coming off the bus. After a week!

Impeachment is gaining ground because it is the only way to get him out, and because Republicans are already deserting this president in droves, and because the man is psychiatrically incapable of checking whether something is legal before he does it.

Impeachment is gaining ground because it’s so horribly clear that Trump is unfit for office. The grownups around Trump, even the most slavishly loyal ones, spend half their time trying to rein him in, but it can’t be done.

They spend the other half fielding frantic calls from Republican chieftains, business elites and foreign leaders. Trump did what? Poor Reince Priebus has finally attained the pinnacle of power, and it can’t be fun. It is one thing to live in your own reality when you are a candidate and it’s just words. You can fool enough of the people enough of the time maybe even to get elected. But when you try to govern that way, there is a reality to reality—and reality pushes back.

Heehee! Love it!

January 29, 2017

Parliament committee calls on Baghdad to 'reciprocate' travel ban on Americans

Source: Al Jazeera

Muslim ban: MPs call for reciprocal measures. Parliament committee calls on Baghdad to 'reciprocate' travel ban on Americans as Iraqis express sense of betrayal.

Iraq should "reciprocate" the United States' discriminatory travel ban on Iraqis and citizens from six other Muslim-majority countries, the parliament's foreign affairs committee told the Baghdad government.

The committee issued the call on Sunday following a meeting in the capital to discuss US President Donald Trump's ban.

"We ask the Iraqi government to reciprocate to the decision taken by the US administration," said the committee in a statement read to Reuters by one its members, Hassan Shwerid. "Iraq is in the frontline of the war of terrorism ... and it is unfair that the Iraqis are treated in this way."

Iraq's Popular Mobilisation force also called for a ban, and for Americans already in the country to be expelled.

Read more: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/01/muslim-ban-officials-call-reciprocal-measures-170129094948075.html

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keep in mind we have troops fighting there right now!

January 27, 2017

Trump smirks and scoffs when a BBC reporter takes him to task about torture, abortion and banning Mu

Source: Fusion

"There goes that relationship." Trump smirks and scoffs when a BBC reporter takes him to task about torture, abortion and banning Muslims:



Read more: https://twitter.com/Fusion/status/825068505812844545

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so disgusting to see him laugh off the question. Also check out Conway's glare at the reporter.

January 26, 2017

Call me old-fashioned, but I prefer presidents who aren't certifiably insane.

This interview was freaking bonkers.

Trump insisted that he could have “very, very easily” won the popular vote in the election — which concluded more than 11 weeks ago — had he simply tried. He again suggested that Democrat Hillary Clinton won the popular vote because of widespread voter fraud, of which there is no evidence. He hinted that he thinks voter fraud might have also helped elect former president Barack Obama, whose favorability ratings were higher than his on Inauguration Day. He justified some of his unsubstantiated claims by saying that millions of his supporters agree with him. He did acknowledge that his own approval rating is “pretty bad,” but he blamed that on the media.

Trump plugged an “extraordinary poll” that he said found that people “loved and liked” his inaugural address. He again claimed to have “the biggest crowd in the history of inaugural speeches” and accused the media of demeaning his supporters by underreporting turnout. Trump also took credit for the Dow Jones industrial average closing above 20,000 for the first time on Wednesday, referred to a former rival as “one of the combatants that I fought to get here” and said that a recent visitor told him that their meeting “was the single greatest meeting I've ever had with anybody.”

Even some of the discussion of policy seemed to come back to the fight for popularity, with Trump summing up his plan to replace the Affordable Care Act in this place: “Millions of people will be happy. Right now, you have millions and millions and millions of people that are unhappy.”

Four times, the president referred to himself in the third-person.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/01/26/in-his-first-major-tv-interview-as-president-trump-is-endlessly-obsessed-about-his-popularity/?utm_term=.44354bb90226

Fuck. Where are the men in the white coats???

On the other hand, he has taken the Russian treason story out of the news...

January 25, 2017

"Oh we have a madman in the presidency because the Democrats forced Hillary on us"

I STILL keep seeing this argument-- "Oh we have a madman in the presidency because the Democrats forced Hillary on us".

It is such complete obnoxious bullshit I can hardly maintain my composure when I see it.

I know, preaching to the choir here, but still--

First, it was clear from when he first announced that Trump would be EXACTLY like this, and I warned everyone as much as I possibly could. It wasn't that hard to see either. We had countless articles warning us of this, in fact.

Second, to say that "oh Hillary didn't excite people enough" is complete patronizing bullshit. Everyone who votes has agency to see the difference, and if anyone refused to believe that Trump was a madman and Hillary was just as bad as him, then they are to blame for our current situation. Period.

Third, this argument also ignores the three ways the election was actually stolen from Hillary which are actually separate from the media bias against her. 1) Republican voter ID laws and other efforts to suppress the African-American vote. 2) Russian hacking of Democratic emails that led to spread of disinformation about Hillary. 3) Comey's October surprise bullshit news release.

Fourth, we really need to deal with the madman.

January 20, 2017

Obama's Last Interview as president

https://getcrookedmedia.com/here-have-a-podcast-78ee56b5a323#.sbcibto2g

On this new podcast from the "Keeping it 1600" guys (former Obama admin speechwriters and press guys).

Really good interview.

The podcast looks like it's worth keeping up with, during these weird times of the Trump admin.

January 20, 2017

Wayne Barrett, Fierce Muckraker at The Village Voice, Dies at 71

Source: NYTimes

Wayne Barrett, the muckraking Village Voice columnist who carved out a four-decade career taking on developers, landlords and politicians, among them Donald J. Trump and Rudolph W. Giuliani, died on Thursday in Manhattan. He was 71. His wife, Fran Barrett, said the cause was complications of lung cancer and interstitial lung disease. A self-proclaimed country boy from Virginia and a lapsed seminarian, Mr. Barrett spent 37 years at The Voice, the alternative newsweekly based in Greenwich Village.

There he exposed the misdeeds that ensnared appointees and supporters of Mayor Edward I. Koch a trail of serial corruption that he recapitulated in 1988 in City for Sale: Ed Koch and the Betrayal of New York, a much-praised book written with his mentor and fellow Voice mainstay Jack Newfield.
Continue reading the main story

A 1992 book, Trump: The Deals and the Downfall, was, as Mr. Barrett acknowledged, a flop at first. Thanks to his subjects improbable political ascent 25 years later, it was successfully republished and expanded in 2016 as Trump: The Greatest Show on Earth: The Deals, the Downfall, the Reinvention.

Mr. Barretts voluminous background files from the Trump biography, and his professional courtesy, made his Brooklyn home a mecca for investigative reporters during the recent presidential campaign.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/19/business/media/wayne-barrett-dead-village-voice-columnist.html?_r=0

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freaking insane... what is going on? Such irony. I guess he couldn't stomach Trump as POTUS.