Finally, A Statement from Barrett Brown

Courtesy of Roger Hodge:

UPDATE 5/1: He's been re-released.

Every Single Senator

They ALL signed this piece of crap.

That's page 1. Both pages are at co-author Marco Rubio's site. And here's the arm-twist:

The unusual unanimity expands on the fierce denunciation of U.N. treatment of Israel mounted by Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, this year. The letter praises Haley for that effort, which she has said is intended to show that the United States will not “put up with” the bashing of its close ally.

  Israel Palestine News

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Incredible Journey

US President Donald Trump has described his first 100 days in office as an "incredible journey" during a speech at a rally in the state of Pennsylvania.

He used the same speech on Saturday to attack the news media and praise his own accomplishments.

[...]

"A large group of Hollywood actors and Washington media are consoling themselves in a hotel ballroom in our nation's capital right now," he said.

"Media outlets like CNN and MSNBC are fake news ... and they would love to be with us here tonight, but they're trapped at the [White House Correspondents'] dinner which will be very very boring."

[...]

[He] said he was "thrilled to be more than 100 miles from Washington" to discuss the "great journey" of his first 100 days in office.

[...]

Trump said some of his achievements during this phase of his term were the appointment of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, the decision to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal and ending offshoring to "bring back American jobs".

[...]

"I'll be making a big decision on the Paris [climate change] accord over the next two weeks, and we'll see what happens," he said.

[...]

"It's a false standard, 100 days," Trump said while signing an executive order on Friday, "but I have to tell you, I don't think anybody has done what we've been able to do in 100 days, so we're very happy."

  alJazeera

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Climate March 2017

Tens of thousands of people across the U.S. marched in rain, snow and blistering heat to demand action on climate change in mass protests that fell on President Trump's 100th day in office and blasted his administration for rolling back environmental protections.

At the marquee event, the Peoples Climate March in Washington, D.C., approximately 150,000 to 200,000 people made their way down Pennsylvania Avenue on their way to encircle the White House. Organizers had secured a permit for 100,000 but video and photos on social media showed a larger turnout.

  Fox News

That's from Fox News, the organization the president says is "accurate".

"It’s not that Fox treats me well, it’s that Fox is the most accurate."

  CBS

Now waiting for his climate tweet.

The demonstrations came one week after supporters of science gathered in 600 cities around the globe, alarmed by political and public rejection of established research on topics including climate change and the safety of vaccines.

Deja Vu All Over Again

When thousands of US Marines flooded into Helmand eight years ago, they demonstrated Barack Obama’s resolve to quash the Taliban once and for all and leave a peaceful province for Afghans to take over.

  Guardian

And that worked out just as planned, eh?

We're baaaaaaaaaack.

The situation now is worse than when they left. Areas where the US military had outposts and walked the bazaars are now inaccessible even for Afghan forces. Of the province’s 14 districts, only two are firmly under government control.

[...]

Sangin, the deadliest district in the country for both US Marines and British troops, fell to the Taliban again in March, though US forces downplayed the moment.

[...]

The Taliban are now encroaching on the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah, and have periodically managed to block the main highway to Kandahar.

[...]

About half of the 300 Marines who have arrived over the past two weeks have served in Helmand before. Even the flag raised in a ceremony on Saturday was the same, having been kept at the Pentagon since October 2014.

Are we sure that's the best omen-symbol to take?

Brig Gen Roger B Turner, who leads the mission, has said he will not limit his troops to non-combat roles, but they will primarily train and advise Afghan forces.

[...]

On Thursday, two US soldiers were killed and a third wounded by suspected friendly fire during an operation against Isis in Nangarhar where the US dropped its largest non-nuclear weapon, the Moab, on 13 April.

Helmand has been a hellish place, made worse by sweltering summer heat and dust storms. The Taliban are stronger in Helmand than anywhere else. About 350 US Marines have been killed in the province.

[...]

Staff Sergeant George Caldwell, who previously spent eight months in the far south of Helmand that mixed combat operations with training the Afghan border police, said: “I was excited to come back. I have a lot of time invested in Helmand province. We have many, many years of combat operations and we’d hate to see the region become unstable.”

Something about a barn door and a horse. But it's nice to have a positive attitude.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

But We Thought We OWN the WORLD

Don't we?

Famous models on yachts! Exclusive island once owned by Pablo Escobar! Blink-182!

Those were just some of the selling points for Fyre Festival, a supposedly opulent music weekend that was scheduled to begin in the Bahamas on Thursday, with “first-class culinary experiences and a luxury atmosphere,” along with performances by G.O.O.D. Music, Major Lazer, Migos and more.
But when guests arrived on the island of Great Exuma for the inaugural weekend, they found something closer to “Survivor”: grounds that were woefully lacking in the promised amenities, replaced instead by dirt fields, soggy tents and folding chairs.

[...]

By Friday morning, the festival, founded by the rapper Ja Rule and the tech entrepreneur Billy McFarland, was in damage-control mode.

[...]

Taxis were hard to come by, in part because the festival had promoted itself as a cashless event, asking attendees to upload funds to digital wristbands instead. So people were stranded without money.

[...]

General disappointment soon turned to near-panic as the festival was canceled and attendees attempted to flee back to the mainland of Florida.

  NYT

SINCE the wee hours of this morning, Bahamians from all walks of life have been venting their anger at an astounding level of disrespect displayed by the foreign organisers of the Fyre Festival and scratching their heads that the Ministry of Tourism would aid and abet such efforts during the famous Exuma Regatta week.

[...]

From our understanding the festival was originally scheduled for Norman’s Cay; but had to be switched to Georgtown at the last minute. The organisers were again advised to reschedule the event to avoid competing with the famous 60 and more-year-old Georgetown regatta; one of the few times each year during which many Exumians - across all walks of life - can make a good bit of change.

[...]

As we all know, this Regatta is the highlight of the Georgetown social calendar. All hotel rooms, transportation, taxis and majority of the rental houses are booked years in advance for this week. Clearly, this would pose a logistical nightmare and preclude any additional tourists or locals from attending such an event as Fyre Festival. While the older clientele came on their yachts, the young, hip celebrities were forced to stay in the understated luxury of the airport overnight; complaining bitterly after spending thousands of dollars that they did not have room service and open bar.

As if getting one’s head around such matters is not enough, for the promoters to have reportedly enquired if the Georgetown Regatta could be rescheduled lends credence to what Piers Morgan recently described as a US culture of ‘rich, publicity craving, materialistic, talentless, self absorbed, social media fanatics’ who arrogantly believe they can do as they please.

Well, sadly, everyone now knows that one cannot just waltz into a sovereign nation and demand that their wishes be catered to simply because you have a few dollars in your pocket or a trust fund.

  Tribune 242

Well, to be fair, it often has been.

But Mr. McFarland is not giving up on his dream of a top-tier, beachfront concert weekend. Fyre Festival, he said, would be reborn next May on a beach in the United States with one key difference: “The festival will be fully free for everybody who wants to attend.”

  NYT

Yeah, that's a muuuuuuuch better idea. I can foresee no problems there.

He's going to need a private beach.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

A Thought Game

Not Exactly, Sparta

May 1 has been "loyalty day" in the US for quite some time.

And I bet you can guess why.

International Workers' Day, also known as Labour Day in some countries is a celebration of labourers and the working classes that is promoted by the international labour movement, socialists, communists or anarchists and occurs every year on May Day (1 May), an ancient European spring festival.

[...]

May Day is one of the most important holidays in communist countries such as the People's Republic of China, North Korea, Cuba and the former Soviet Union.

  Wikipedia

The holiday was first observed in 1921, during the First Red Scare. It was originally called "Americanization Day," and it was intended to replace the May 1 ("May Day") celebration of the International Workers' Day, which commemorates the 1886 Haymarket Massacre in Chicago.

During the Second Red Scare, it was recognized by the U.S. Congress on April 27, 1955, and made an official reoccurring holiday on July 18, 1958 (Public Law 85-529). President Dwight D. Eisenhower proclaimed May 1, 1955, the first observance of Loyalty Day.In 1958, Eisenhower urged Congress to move Child Health Day to the First Monday in October, to avoid conflicting with Loyalty Day Loyalty Day has been recognized with an official proclamation every year by every president since its inception as a legal holiday in 1958.

  Wikipedia

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

He's Obsessed with Big

I wonder why.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Deconstructing Environmental Protections

When facts get in the way.

The Environmental Protection Agency announced Friday evening that its website would be “undergoing changes” to better represent the new direction the agency is taking, triggering the removal of several agency websites containing detailed climate data and scientific information.

[...]

[T]he website overhaul appears to include not only policy-related changes but also scrutiny of a scientific Web page that has existed for nearly two decades, and that explained what climate change is and how it worked.[T]he website overhaul appears to include not only policy-related changes but also scrutiny of a scientific Web page that has existed for nearly two decades, and that explained what climate change is and how it worked.

[...]

The EPA’s extensive climate change website now redirects to a page that says “this page is being updated” and that “we are currently updating our website to reflect EPA’s priorities under the leadership of President Trump and Administrator Pruitt.”

[...]

Pruitt had argued on CNBC last month that “measuring with precision human activity on the climate is something very challenging to do and there’s tremendous disagreement about the degree of impact, so no, I would not agree that it’s a primary contributor to the global warming that we see.”

The EPA’s climate change website stated otherwise, and did so by citing findings of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

[...]

[A] staffer described the process of reviewing the site as “a work in progress, but we can’t have information which contradicts the actions we have taken in the last two months,” adding that Pruitt’s aides had “found a number of instances of that so far” while surveying the site.

  WaPo

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

So What's Happening with the XL?

Energy Transfer Partners — the company behind the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline — has spilled drilling fluid into two pristine Ohio wetlands this month, according to information reported to the Ohio EPA.

The spills were not related to the Dakota Access Pipeline, and instead occurred while Energy Transfer Partners was constructing a different pipeline that would stretch 710 miles from Appalachia to Ontario, Canada, according to the Washington Post.

[...]

According to Energy Transfer Partners’ reporting to the Ohio EPA, the company spilled as much as 2 million gallons of drilling fluid on April 13, and as much as 50,000 gallons a day later and 100 miles from the first spill.

[...]

In a statement, Energy Transfer Partners denied that the spills would pose a threat to the environment, saying that the drilling fluid is “a nontoxic, naturally occurring material that is safe for the environment,” and is used in common products like lotions and laundry detergents.

[...]

Drilling fluid is used to cool equipment and is not toxic, but it is often mixed with substances like clay, making it mud-like in texture and viscosity. Environmental groups worry that because of that texture, a large enough spill could essentially smother wildlife and ecosystems in the wetlands.

  Think Progress

I worry that the fact they've had two spills this month indicates a lack of care that we might expect with the pipeline project when tar sands are flowing under the Missouri river.

And the possibility of a Trump administration EPA deregulation of reporting requirements.

 ...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

And Would That Be Bad?

Can We Believe Them?

Under pressure from the secret court that oversees its practices, the NSA said its “upstream” program would no longer grab communications directly from the U.S. internet backbone “about” specific foreign targets — only communication to and from those targets.

This is a major change, essentially abandoning a bulk surveillance program that captured vast amounts of communications of innocent Americans – and turning instead to a still extensive but more targeted approach.

“This change ends a practice that could result in Americans’ communications being collected without a warrant merely for mentioning a foreign target,” Senator Ron Wyden said in a statement. “For years, I’ve repeatedly raised concerns that this amounted to an end run around the Fourth Amendment. This transparency should be commended. To permanently protect Americans’ rights, I intend to introduce legislation banning this kind of collection in the future.”

  The Intercept

I don't know why I feel skeptical.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

Unintelligible Addendum

After you've read the AP interview, tell me: Do you think Trump and Sarah Palin could have a conversation and understand each other?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Unintelligible and Un-fucking-believable

I've just delved into the "unintelligible" AP interview. Mostly, you just have to read it yourself to appreciate the unbelievable awfulness, but here are a few excerpts from the reports.

In the A.P. interview, alongside complaints about CNN and MSNBC, and praise for the superiority of Fox News (“It’s not that Fox treats me well; it’s that Fox is the most accurate”), he included a boast about his appearance on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” which, he said, drew more than five million viewers: “It’s the highest for ‘Face the Nation,’ or, as I call it, ‘Deface the Nation.’ It’s the highest for ‘Deface the Nation’ since the World Trade Center. Since the World Trade Center came down."

[...]

Why are we spending so much time trying to match what Donald J. Trump says to reality? Is it because he is the President of the United States, and could start a war with words? Or because we place some sort of value on the truth, or on the meaning of words? Whatever the source of our folly, it is, from the President’s perspective, just that: a big waste of time. Reality will contort itself to match his imagination—his Presidentialness—all on its own. He doesn’t even need to sign laws, let alone accurately describe what he wants to do. He is in the White House; the world and time bend.

That, at any rate, is among the secondary conclusions that one can draw from Trump’s interview, over the weekend, with Julie Pace, the White House correspondent for the Associated Press. [...] Pace asked Trump about his assertions, during the campaign, that he would designate China as a currency manipulator (a label that has consequences under U.S. trade law).

[...]

TRUMP: No. 2, from the time I took office till now, you know, it’s a very exact thing. It’s not like generalities. Do you want a Coke or anything?

A.P.: I’m O.K., thank you. No.

TRUMP: But President Xi, from the time I took office, he has not, they have not been currency manipulators. Because there’s a certain respect because he knew I would do something or whatever.

[...]


“And I said, ‘How badly have they been’ . . . they said, ‘Since you got to office, they have not manipulated their currency.’ That’s No. 1.” (It had been No. 2, but only if you’re hung up on numbers as well as words.)
  New Yorker

Or whatever. But at least we now know, he's a bigger audience draw than 9/11.

he memory of mass terror seems to exist for Trump only as a measure of his own presence. In case anyone didn’t think that the attacks were a way to keep score on the Trump scale, he added, in the A.P. interview, that “MSNBC, I heard, went crazy” when he had said “about the thing, you know, when I said it’s a terrorism,” before all the details were in. (It was not clear which “thing” he was talking about.) “By the way, I’m 10–0 for that,” Trump said. “I’ve called every one of them. Every time, they said I called it way too early, and then it turns out I’m—whatever.” [...] “Whatever,” Trump continued. “In the meantime, I’m here and they’re not.”

This week, indeed, he will have been here for a hundred days. During that time, he has delivered a plodding address to a joint session of Congress (“A lot of the people have said that, some people said it was the single best speech ever made in that chamber”); ordered the firing of fifty-nine Tomahawks at Syria (“I’m saying to myself, ‘You know, this is more than just like, seventy-nine [sic] missiles. This is death that’s involved,’ because people could have been killed”).

I'm dying right now.

The final tally is in, and you can add 16 lies to Donald Trump’s AP interview total of 16 unintelligible remarks. We owe Toronto Star fact checker Daniel Dale for his attention to detail in gathering all the facts and presenting them to us.

[...]

Trump repeated some oldies but goodies for the AP interview, including his lie about his Lockheed Martin savings, which, as Dale remarks, “remains untrue.” There are also his various lies about his 100 Days. Dale debunks each and every one of them.

[...]

The scope of Donald Trump’s dishonesty is nothing less than breathtaking and he tells them so smoothly and effortlessly that you have to wonder if he even knows what the truth is any longer.

If you add Trump’s 16 lies to the 16 times he said something completely unintelligible in what was a one-on-one interview, you don’t even need the ever-present cloud Trump’s collusion with Russia to identify him as a man wholly unsuited to the office of president.

  Politicus USA

The 16 lies are listed here. Some of them may not be lies so much as ignorant statements.

In his interview with the A.P., Trump had this to say about how he is personally saving taxpayers billions:

I saved $725 million on the 90 planes. Just 90. Now there are 3,000 planes that are going to be ordered. On 90 planes I saved $725 million. It's actually a little bit more than that, but it's $725 million. General Mattis, who had to sign the deal when it came to his office, said, “I've never seen anything like this in my life.” We went from a company that wanted more money for the planes to a company that cut. And the reason they cut—same planes, same everything—was because of me. I mean, because that's what I do.

This has been debunked: the Pentagon has asserted that it negotiated the lower costs for a 90-plane order with Lockheed Martin long before the election had occurred. But what’s stunning is that Trump one-upped his own claims for how much money he’s saved the country. Back in February, Press Secretary Sean Spicer claimed that he had saved $455 million, while Trump himself claimed he saved $600 million. (For the record, the Pentagon said it saved $500 million without Trump’s help.)

[...]

Despite estimates suggesting Trump’s proposed wall along the U.S.-Mexico border would cost north of $20 billion, the president—who likes to think he knows a thing or two about cost overruns—says otherwise. When asked why the wall was so expensive, and whether he would refuse to sign an omnibus spending bill that did not contain funding for the wall, Trump was adamant about correcting the record. ”One hundred percent it's getting built. And it's also getting built for much less money—I hope you get this—than these people are estimating,” he said. ”The opponents are talking $25 billion for the wall. It's not going to cost anywhere near that.”In fact, he promised that it would cost only $10 billion—that is, unless ”I do a super-duper, higher, better, better security, everything else, maybe it goes a little bit more.”

It is unclear what a “super-duper” is, but we can’t wait to find out.

  Vanity Fair

It was a journey through the Hieronymus Bosch hellscape of Trump’s brain, and not even a legendary news outlet like the AP could decipher Trump’s incoherence — peppering the interview with more “unintelligible” parentheticals than an interview with Ozzy Osbourne.

[...]

In this quote, Trump elaborated on the responsibilities of the president, and whether he anticipated the gravity of the job.

Number One, there’s great responsibility. When it came time to, as an example, send out the 59 missiles, the Tomahawks in Syria. I’m saying to myself, “You know, this is more than just like, 79 [sic] missiles. This is death that’s involved,” because people could have been killed. This is risk that’s involved, because if the missile goes off and goes in a city or goes in a civilian area — you know, the boats were hundreds of miles away — and if this missile goes off and lands in the middle of a town or a hamlet . . . every decision is much harder than you’d normally make. [Unintelligible.]

This is involving death and life and so many things. . . . So it’s far more responsibility. [unintelligible.]

The financial cost of everything is so massive, every agency. This is thousands of times bigger, the United States, than the biggest company in the world. The second-largest company in the world is the Defense Department. The third-largest company in the world is Social Security. The fourth-largest — you know, you go down the list.

  Alternet

Jesus wept.

Furthermore, when I repeat the phrase “Trump knows nothing,” I’m not exaggerating all that much.

They had a quote from me that NATO’s obsolete. But they didn’t say why it was obsolete. I was on Wolf Blitzer, very fair interview, the first time I was ever asked about NATO, because I wasn’t in government. People don’t go around asking about NATO if I’m building a building in Manhattan, right? So they asked me, Wolf . . . asked me about NATO, and I said two things. NATO’s obsolete — not knowing much about NATO, now I know a lot about NATO — NATO is obsolete, and I said, “And the reason it’s obsolete is because of the fact they don’t focus on terrorism.” You know, back when they did NATO there was no such thing as terrorism.

Still weeping, along with the early Christians.

Worse, he based his entire NATO platform — the idea that it’s obsolete and they have to pay up (for something, something, something) — on an answer he yanked out of his ass with the help of Wolf Blitzer, apparently.

He’s now president and is still mad about something last year.

The Democrats, they have a big advantage in the Electoral College. Big, big, big advantage. I’ve always said the popular vote would be a lot easier than the Electoral College. The Electoral College — but it’s a whole different campaign [unintelligible]. The Electoral College is very difficult for a Republican to win.

[...]

You have to win all these states, and then I won Wisconsin and Michigan and all of these other places, but you remember there was no way to, there was no way to 270.

So [Hillary Clinton] had this massive advantage, she spent hundreds of millions of dollars more money than I spent. Hundreds of millions . . . Yeah. Or more, actually because we were $375 she was at $2.2 billion. But whatever. She spent massive amounts of money more and she lost. Solidly lost, because you know it wasn’t 270, it was 306.

[...]

The Electoral College is so skewed in favor of a Democrat that it’s very, very hard. Look at Obama’s number in the Electoral College. His numbers on the win were . . . but the Electoral College numbers were massive. You lose New York, you lose Illinois. Illinois is impossible to win. And you look at, so now you lose New York, Illinois, no matter what you do, and California.

There have been two modern cases in which the Electoral College vote winner was different from the popular vote winner. In both situations, a Republican won.

  Salon

This electoral college business will have to be summarized so that it can fit on his tombstone, because he can't get over it.

The whole bleeding interview, if you're up for it, is here.  It starts right in from the beginning to be Trump in all his self-absorbed glory:

AP: I do want to talk to you about the 100 days.

TRUMP: Good.

AP: I want to ask a few questions on some topics that are happening toward the end of the interview.

TRUMP: Did you see Aya (Hijazi, an Egyptian-American charity worker who had been detained in the country for nearly three years) ...

AP: Can you tell me a little bit about how that came about?

TRUMP: No, just — you know, I asked the government to let her out. ...

TRUMP: You know Obama worked on it for three years, got zippo, zero.

  AP News

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Draining the Swamp Continued

In early 2007, a group of Morgan Stanley bankers bundled a group of subprime mortgage instruments into a package they hoped to sell to investors.

[...]

Eventually they [...] sold the $500 million Collateralized Debt Obligation with a straight face to the China Development Industrial Bank. Within three years, the bank was suing a series of parties, including Morgan Stanley, to recover losses from the toxic fund.

[...]

Craig S. Phillips, then president of Morgan Stanley's ABS (Asset-Backed Securities) division [...] was the boss of this sordid episode, and it was his name on the [...] document that was presented to Chinese investors.

[...]

Phillips worked in an area of investment banking that was highly lucrative and highly predatory. The basic scam in the subprime world in particular was buying up mortgages from people who couldn't possibly afford them, making those bad mortgages into securities, and then turning around and hawking those same mortgages to unsuspecting institutional dopes.

[...]

This is just another detail in the emerging absurd narrative that is Donald Trump naming Phillips, of all people, to head up the effort to reform the Government-Sponsored Entities, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

[...]

Phillips headed a division that sold billions of dollars of mortgage-backed investments to Fannie and Freddie. Many of those investments were as bad as the ones his unit sold to the Chinese. In fact, [...] Phillips became a named defendant in a lawsuit filed by the Federal Housing Finance Authority (FHFA), which essentially charged, as the Chinese did, that Morgan Stanley knowingly sold Fannie and Freddie a pile of crap.

Morgan Stanley ended up having to pay $625 million apiece to Fannie and Freddie to settle securities fraud charges in that case.

[...]

Of those bad actors [who authored the securities scam], there is a subset of still-worse actors, who not only sold these toxic investments to institutional investors like pension funds and Fannie and Freddie, but helped get a generation of home borrowers – often minorities and the poor – into deadly mortgages that ended up wiping out their equity.

Phillips, who helped Fannie and Freddie into substantial losses and worked with predatory firms like New Century, belongs in this second category.

[...]

Donald Trump, then, has essentially picked one of the last people on earth who should be allowed to help reshape the mortgage markets.

  Rolling Stone

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Trump Tax Plan

Further Idiot Interview

On the end of Islamist terrorism

“We can’t let them come over here. I have to say, there is an end. And it has to be humiliation. There is an end. Otherwise it’s really tough. But there is an end. We are really eradicating some very bad people. When you take a look at what’s going on with the cutting off of the heads. We haven’t seen that since medieval times. Right?”

  Guardian

Seriously? Wrong.

That's been the Saudi way of execution for all of  Trump's lifetime and beyond.

On South Korea and Thaad

“On the Thaad system, it’s about a billion dollars. I said, ‘Why are we paying? Why are we paying a billion dollars? We’re protecting. Why are we paying a billion dollars?’ So I informed South Korea it would be appropriate if they paid. Nobody’s going to do that. Why are we paying a billion dollars? It’s a billion-dollar system. It’s phenomenal. It’s the most incredible equipment you’ve ever seen – shoots missiles right out of the sky. And it protects them and I want to protect them. We’re going to protect them. But they should pay for that, and they understand that.”

Sorry. I can barely decipher that. Except to say he's obsessed with dollar figures and how he can get someone else to pay for things he wants. That has always been his approach to life and is actually now the Trump Doctrine.

 ...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

“There is no change in South Korea and the United States' position that our government provides the land and supporting facilities and the US bears the cost of the THAAD system's deployment, operation and maintenance,” the South Korean Defense Ministry said in a statement.

Meanwhile, a top foreign policy adviser to South Korean presidential frontrunner Moon Jae-in has already said that paying for THAAD would be an “impossible option.”

“Even if we purchase THAAD, its main operation would be in the hands of the United States,” said Kim Ki-jung, a foreign policy adviser to Moon and professor at Seoul's Yonsei University.

“So purchasing it would be an impossible option. That was our topic when we were considering the options,” Kim said.

  RT

He Thought It Would Be Easier

"I loved my previous life. I had so many things going," Trump told Reuters in an interview. "This is more work than in my previous life. I thought it would be easier."

[...]

More than five months after his victory and two days shy of the 100-day mark of his presidency, the election is still on Trump's mind. Midway through a discussion about Chinese President Xi Jinping, the president paused to hand out copies of what he said were the latest figures from the 2016 electoral map.

"Here, you can take that, that's the final map of the numbers," the Republican president said from his desk in the Oval Office, handing out maps of the United States with areas he won marked in red. "It’s pretty good, right? The red is obviously us."

  Reuters

My god. He is truly batshit.

He frequently turns to outside friends and former business colleagues for advice and positive reinforcement.

Positive reinforcement mostly, no doubt.

"I'm a details oriented person. I think you would say that, but I do miss my old life," Trump said. "I like to work, so that's not a problem, but this is actually more work."

He added: "And while I had very little privacy in my old life, because you know I've been famous for a long time ... this is much less privacy than I've ever seen before."

[...]

Trump being leader of the free world was "you know something, something that's really amazing," but added: "You're really into your own little cocoon because you have such massive protection that you really can't go anywhere."

"I liked to drive. I can't drive anymore," he added.

  NBC

You can always quit.

 ...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

An Interesting Thought Experiment

False Flag in Germany?

Police on Wednesday arrested a German army officer suspected of posing as a Syrian refugee to carry out an attack that would be blamed on migrants.

According to the Frankfurt prosecutors in charge of the investigation, the 28-year-old, whose name wasn't revealed in accordance with local customs, lived an incredible double life: He registered as a Syrian refugee under a false name at the end of 2015 and subsequently claimed asylum in Bavaria, where he was assigned a place in a refugee shelter and even received benefits.

[...]

The suspect, who held the rank of a lieutenant, was stationed in France, but he was arrested while undergoing training in southern Germany.

[...]

Nadja Niesen, spokeswoman of the Frankfurt prosecutor's office, told reporters that the 28-year-old army officer was of German origin and did not appear to have any Arabic language skills. “Why this went unnoticed, I'm unable to say,” Niesen said, calling the case “curious.”

  WaPo

That's putting it mildly, I'd say.

 ...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Sometimes You Gotta Shake Your Head and Wonder, Part 2

So, security is a priority these days? Not in the Senate, apparently.

Our government isn't exactly known for its security chops, but in a letter sent recently from Senator Ron Wyden to two of his colleagues who head the Committee on Rules & Administration, it's noted that (incredibly), the ID cards used by Senate Staffers only appear to have a smart chip in them. Instead of the real thing, some genius just decided to put a photo of a smart chip on each card, rather than an actual smart chip.

  Tech Dirt

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Sometimes You Gotta Shake Your Head and Wonder

Where was Brad when he raised those two issues?  Was that at the classified briefing?  And what did the others there say to his idea?  Perhaps they agreed, since he obviously wasn't discouraged from tweeting it.  

Twitter will never fail us...

Exactly what I was thinking.  Perhaps we should ask Rep. Sherman where he gets HIS weed.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

United Jackboots Updated

Treat - of a Special Sort

Perfect description.  LOL.

OMFG

What country are we living in?

AWARD-WINNING JOURNALIST Barrett Brown was re-arrested and taken into custody Thursday, the day before he was scheduled to be interviewed for a PBS documentary.

Brown quickly became a symbol of the attack on press freedom after he was arrested in 2012 for reporting he did [...] about hacked emails that showed the firm Stratfor spying on activists on behalf of corporations. Brown also helped uncover a proposal by intelligence contractors to hack and smear WikiLeaks defenders and progressive activists.

Faced with the possibility of 100 years in prison, Brown pleaded guilty in 2014 to two charges related to obstruction of justice and threatening an FBI agent, and was sentenced to five years and 3 months. In 2016, Brown won a National Magazine Award for his scathing and often hilarious columns in The Intercept, which focused on his life in prison. He was released in November.

[...]

Neither his mother nor lawyer [Jay Leiderman] has been informed where he is being held.

[...]

According to his mother, Brown had not missed a check-in or failed a drug test since he was released.

[...]

According to his mother, who spoke with Brown by phone after his arrest, Brown believes the reason for his re-arrest was a failure to obtain “permission” to give interviews to media organizations. Several weeks ago, Brown was told by his check-in officer that he needed to fill out permission forms before giving interviews.

Since his release, Brown has given numerous interviews, on camera and by phone. But according to his mother, Brown said that the Bureau of Prisons never informed him about a paperwork requirement.

[...]

Leiderman said he had not been presented with a formal justification for the arrest but was told that it had “to do with failing to abide by BOP restrictions on interviews.” Leiderman called the impromptu media restrictions “disgusting” and said he believed the arrest was an act of reprisal for criticizing the government. “I would call the people who did this a bunch of chicken-shit assholes that are brutalizing the Constitution,” Leiderman said.

  The Intercept

Amen.

Also, the Justice Department is being sued by the legal defense fund Free Barrett Brown, which was set up to help cover Brown's expenses, for monitoring the contributions to the fund in violation of the First Amendment. The now defunct fund may be opening again. And be monitored again.

The Free Barrett Brown website is still up and functioning. I'm sure the DOJ knows who's visiting.

Holy Hypocrite, Batman!

via GIPHY

Something suddenly got up his ass in a hurry.



What a fucking DICK. He's threatening to defund the parks system.



Sure. I'm sure that's what they WANT.





And you might ask the Republicans the same question.



The Republicans NEVER threatened such a thing.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Trump's Anti-Immigrant DOJ Before the Supreme Court

[Maslenjak v. United States concerns]  Divna Maslenjak, an ethnic Serb who said she had faced persecution in Bosnia. She was granted refugee status at least partly on that basis in 1999 and became a United States citizen in 2007.

Along the way, she apparently lied about her husband, saying she and her family had also feared retributions because he had avoided conscription by the Bosnian Serb military. In fact, he had served in a Bosnian Serb military unit, one that had been implicated in war crimes.

When this came to light, Ms. Maslenjak was charged with obtaining her citizenship illegally. She sought to argue that her lie was immaterial, but the trial judge told the jury that any lie, significant or not, was enough. Ms. Maslenjak was convicted, her citizenship was ordered revoked, and she and her husband were deported to Serbia.

[...]

Several justices seemed taken aback by [Robert A. Parker, a Justice Department lawyer's] unyielding position that the government may revoke the citizenship of Americans who made even trivial misstatements in their naturalization proceedings.

[...]

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. tried to test the limits of the government’s position at a Supreme Court argument on Wednesday by confessing to a criminal offense.

“Some time ago, outside the statute of limitations, I drove 60 miles an hour in a 55-mile-an-hour zone,” the chief justice said, adding that he had not been caught.

The form that people seeking American citizenship must complete, he added, asks whether the applicant had ever committed a criminal offense, however minor, even if there was no arrest.

“If I answer that question no, 20 years after I was naturalized as a citizen, you can knock on my door and say, ‘Guess what, you’re not an American citizen after all’?” Chief Justice Roberts asked.

[Parker] said the offense had to be disclosed.

[...]

“If we can prove that you deliberately lied in answering that question, then yes,” he said.

[...]

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy had heard enough.

“Your argument is demeaning the priceless value of citizenship,” he told Parker. “You’re arguing for the government of the United States, talking about what citizenship is and ought to mean.”

[...]

Justice Elena Kagan said she was a “little bit horrified to know that every time I lie about my weight it has those kinds of consequences.”

Mr. Parker said the law applied to all false statements, even trivial ones.

[...]

Justice Stephen G. Breyer said it was “rather surprising that the government of the United States thinks” that the naturalization laws should be “interpreted in a way that would throw into doubt the citizenship of vast percentages of all naturalized citizens.”

Chief Justice Roberts added that the government’s position would give prosecutors extraordinary power. “If you take the position that not answering about the speeding ticket  [...]  is enough to subject that person to denaturalization,” he said, “the government will have the opportunity to denaturalize anyone they want.”

  NYT

Bingo.

 ...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

In Spite of the Trump Syndrome

This fall, with backing from tech titan Google, [Jason] Okonofua, 31, a junior psychology professor at UC Berkeley, will launch an online intervention for more than 100 U.S. school teachers to motivate them to check their biases against African American students before meting out punishment. His approach is the first of its kind.

  Berkeley News

Continue reading.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Trump's 100 Days

While Trump’s legislative achievements have been less than meager, he has nevertheless succeeded in doing something profoundly consequential. Call it the Great Inversion. In just 100 days, he has turned America and the world upside down, so much so we may never be able to right ourselves again.

[...]

Not for nothing is the key adjective of Trump’s new America “fake,” as in fake news, fake history, fake photos, fake charitable contributions, fake promises and fake achievements.

[...]

We weren’t just afraid that he was an incurious lout who made decisions based on what fed his ego at the moment, though he is and does. And we weren’t just terrified at the political havoc he would wreak, though he has. We felt that he posed a mortal danger to everything that forms the basis of our modern world, everything that knit us together as a society: reason, logic, language, values, science, history, common decency, community and democracy. And he is.

[...]

Trump has normalized the very worst in us. He has inverted social censure so that hatred is not only acceptable; it is considered a form of honesty.

  Neal Gabler

And good luck to us all. He's just gotten started.

The Other Dump Trump Movement

From the Nordstrom controversy to Kellyanne Conway's endorsement, Ivanka Trump's clothing line has maintained a consistent place in retail news in the months following the election. The latest, according to Business of Fashion, is that the brand's licenser G-III secretly relabeled it as "Adrienne Vittadini," a preexisting womenswear brand, without the line's knowledge and sold it to discount retail chain Stein Mart.

The New York-based apparel group confirmed the event to Fashionista, calling it an error.

  Fashionista

“G-III accepts responsibility for resolving this issue, which occurred without the knowledge or consent of the Ivanka Trump organisation,” a representative for G-III said in a statement to BoF. “G-III has already begun to take corrective actions, including facilitating the immediate removal of any mistakenly labelled merchandise from its customer. The Ivanka Trump brand continues to grow and remains very strong.”

  Business of Fashion

Sure. That's why you felt the necessity to relabel and dump it.

It could be argued that G-III was simply looking to protect the Ivanka Trump brand from being associated with a discount retailer.

It could.

Sales performance of G-III's Ivanka Trump merchandise for the first quarter of 2017 — and since President Trump’s inauguration — has yet to be reported, although much of the success of the brand is thought to be due to sales in China, where she is often referred to as a “goddess” on social media.

That's China.

Since the election of her father Donald J. Trump to the office of US president, Ivanka Trump-branded merchandise has been dropped from several prominent American retailers, most notably Nordstrom — which cited weak sales — as well as Neiman Marcus and Shoebuy.com. According to a source within Stein Mart, the retailer has received negative feedback from customers regarding Ivanka Trump product...

The South Will Rise Again

Creationism and ignorance, may come back with a vengeance.



...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

He Forgot

His first tweets of the morning, four hours ago, were whining about his losses in court over his nasty immigration orders. Now, at 11:00 am his time, someone has reminded him his wife's birthday is today. He snagged the picture from the Shite House website.  I bet he doesn't forget Ivanka's.



...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Bully Fact-Checked

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

9th Circuit's Sanctuary City Decision Against Trump

A US judge has blocked President Donald Trump's executive order that sought to withhold federal funds from so-called sanctuary cities, dealing another legal blow to the administration's efforts to toughen immigration enforcement.

US District Judge William Orrick in San Francisco issued the preliminary injunction in two lawsuits on Tuesday - one brought by the city of San Francisco, the other by Santa Clara County - saying the president has no authority to attach new conditions to federal spending.

[...]

Judge Orrick said Trump cannot set new conditions for the federal grants at stake. And even if he could, the conditions would have to be clearly related to the funds at issue and not coercive, the judge said.

"Federal funding that bears no meaningful relationship to immigration enforcement cannot be threatened merely because a jurisdiction chooses an immigration enforcement strategy of which the president disapproves," the judge said.

  al Jazeera

The Jokes Will Be Pouring In

The PR department at United Airlines just can’t catch a break. It’s now emerged a rabbit predicted to become the biggest in the world has died aboard a transatlantic UA flight.

Simon, a 10-month-old continental giant rabbit, was being transported in the cargo section of the Boeing 767 from London Heathrow to O’Hare International Airport in Chicago when disaster struck. United Airlines say they are investigating the incident.

  RT

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

More Bullshit

An unarmed intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) will be launched from a US Air Force base in California Wednesday to ensure its “effectiveness, readiness and accuracy,” and demonstrate “national nuclear capabilities,” according to the US military.

[...]

“The Simulated Electronic Launch of a Minuteman III ICBM is a signal to the American people, our allies, and our adversaries that our ICBM capability is safe, secure, lethal and ready,” the 625th Strategic Operations Squadron commander, Lt. Col. Deane Konowicz, said in a statement.

  RT

And the biggest reason of all: to spend more military money and enrich the "defense" industry.

“These Minuteman launches are essential to verify the status of our national nuclear force and to demonstrate our national nuclear capabilities,” the commander of the unit, Colonel John Moss, said in a statement.

Who doesn't already know what our capabilities are?

However, a spokeswoman for the Air Force Global Strike Command says the test was planned in advance and is not connected with the situation in North Korea, and the launches happen on regular basis, according to the Washington Examiner.

That's more like it.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

So Much Winning, You Won't Be Able to Stand It

via GIPHY

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

The Sanctuary City ruling.

THAAD in South Korea

The United States military started installing a controversial anti-missile defense system [Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD] in South Korea overnight Tuesday, triggering protests and sparking criticism that it was rushing to get the battery in place before the likely election of a president who opposes it.

[...]

U.S. Forces Korea did not make any statement about the deployment and did not immediately respond to a request for comment about why the installation was started in the dead of night.

[...]

Moon Jae-in, a liberal candidate who has a strong lead in the polls ahead of the May 9 presidential election, has promised to review South Korea’s decision to host the anti-missile battery.

“There’s a sense in Seoul that THAAD deployment has been rushed based on the timetable of South Korea’s presidential election, rather than North Korea’s threats,” said John Delury, a professor of international relations at Yonsei University in Seoul.

  WaPo

Knowing the USG and its "defense" industry, I'd say that's a very strong likelihood.

“But there’s the danger of a backlash among the South Korean public feeling like a pawn in the game of ‘America First,’ ” [Delury said].

EVERYone is a pawn in that game.

 ...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Iraq: a Hot Mess

Wasn't one of the reasons we "had" to take out Saddam Hussein because he was attacking the Iraqi Kurds?  Isn't Turkey our ally?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Good Reason to Do Them Favors While in Office

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

Summoned to the Palace

The Trump administration has asked every member of the US Senate to meet at the White House on Wednesday for a briefing on North Korea, in a rare and unusual move, amid mounting tensions with Pyongyang.

All 100 senators have been asked to attend the Wednesday briefing, which will be conducted by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joseph Dunford, White House spokesman Sean Spicer said on Monday.

  RT

Wouldn't it be more logical for Tillerson, et al., to go to the Senate?

The briefing was originally scheduled for a secure room at the Capitol, but was changed after President Donald Trump suggested a shift to the White House, according to congressional aides cited by Reuters.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

What Would It Cost?

Since "the wall" is estimated to cost over $20 billion dollars, I'm wondering if it wouldn't be cheaper to choose one or two states - Arizona? North Carolina? Wyoming? - and put up a guarded, razor wire fence around them and then move everybody inside who is afraid of terrorists and Mexicans.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

We May Soon Get a Wall at the Canadian Border

via GIPHY

The Trump administration announced on Monday that it would impose new tariffs on Canadian softwood lumber imports, escalating a longstanding conflict with America’s second-largest trading partner.

  New York Times

P.S.

He's apparently seen the news.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 4/26:  The bully has been fact-checked:

He Who Hesitates

Trump, in a private meeting with conservative media outlets, said he might wait until Republicans begin drafting the budget blueprint for the fiscal year that starts on 1 October to seek government funds for building a wall along the US-Mexico border, the White House confirmed.

[...]

Trump, whose approval ratings have steadily declined since he took office, is facing a deadline on Friday for Congress to pass the spending bill funding the government through to September or risk marking his 100th day in office on Saturday with a government shutdown.

[...]

If no spending measure covering 29 April to 30 September is in place by midnight on Saturday, government funds will halt and hundreds of thousands of the country’s several million federal employees will be temporarily laid off.

[...]

Trump’s border wall was a central campaign pledge that he still insists Mexico will pay for in the end, though Democrats and even most Republicans doubt that will ever come to pass.   Guardian

His latest weasel is that Mexico will pay for it "in some form."

Earlier on Monday, White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Trump’s demand that Congress include funds for the construction of the wall remained a White House priority.

“The president has made very clear that he’s got two priorities in this continuing resolution: number one, the increase in funding for the military and number two, for our homeland security and the wall,” Spicer told reporters.

[...]

The border wall spending is fiercely opposed by Democrats and also unpopular with many Republicans.

[...]

Cost estimates range beyond $20bn and the White House had been seeking $1.4bn as a down payment in the spending bill.

[...]

Department of Homeland Security internal estimates have placed the total cost of a border barrier at about $21.6bn.

[...]

Although Republicans control both chambers of Congress, a funding bill will need 60 votes to clear the 100-member Senate, where Republicans hold 52 seats, meaning at least some Democrats will have to get behind it.

And I wouldn't bet that some won't.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 7:30AM:

Apparently he's seen the news.