waylander

[waylander]

Trump is Bannon’s puppet whose one sustaining parlor trick is to deliver incoherence with confidence. Strangely enough, people find comfort in this kind of imperfect parlance. Maundering is the rhetoric of the middlebrow. Demagogic language is reductionist language. It draws its power from its lack of proximity to soaring oratory. It can be quaint and even clumsy, all of which can give idiocy, incomprehensibility and untruth a false air of authenticity. So Trump and Bannon spin their folksy tale of media corruption to give Trump a needed enemy in his perpetual campaign and a needed diversion from the enormity of his disasters. This fits Trump perfectly because not only does he have a gnawing insecurity, he also views the confrontational nature of news as maleficently targeted. The press is the light that makes the roaches scatter. Remember this every time you hear Trump attack the press: Only people with something to hide need be afraid of those whose mission is to seek.

Charles M. Blow, NYT (Feb. 27, 2017)

[waylander]

Trump Gets Schooled

Today we got another abject demonstration of exactly how far Donald Trump is in over his head. The lesson came courtesy of Xi Jinping and the Chinese government. You will recall that His Orangeness demonstrated his ignorance of, and reckless disregard for, the nuances of international affairs last December in first taking a phone call from the president of Taiwan and then adding insult to injury by foolishly bragging about to anyone who would listen. In a further display of weapons-grade stupidity, he's been defending his actions by saying that the US should not be bound by the One China policy unless China handed over some kind of diplomatic payola to him.

Not surprisingly, the Chinese were having none of it. And how did they respond? The same way any adult would deal with a spoiled child throwing a temper tantrum. The Chinese made it clear that Trump's behaviour was unacceptable and that any contact between their president and the man-child currently inhabiting the Oval Office would be contingent upon a US affirmation of the One China policy.

They then proceeded to ignore Trump.

How embarrassing did this get? Well, that depends on whether you are Chinese or American I guess. To untangle the mess Trump used his National Security Advisor, Michael Flynn as his FedEx guy to hand-deliver a greeting card from him to the Chinese Ambassador. The purpose of the card? To wish President Xi wishing the Chinese people a "happy Lantern Festival and prosperous Year of the Rooster".

Thus convinced that their "time out" had had the desired effect, President Xi agreed to take a phone call from Trump. Durning that call Trump - wait for it - pledged that the US would honour the One China policy. And what did he get in return for that commitment? What concessions did Trump wring from the Chinese as a result of his irresponsible and idiotic gamesmanship? He got nothing (unless you count the humiliation of being completely bested by your opponent and exposed as a fraud on the international stage ).

The self-proclaimed toughest negotiator on the planet who spent his campaign bloviating about how "rough" he was going to be on the Chinese was thoroughly schooled by some REAL master negotiators. Maybe Trump can be relied upon if you need someone to browbeat a lower price on cheap shag carpet out of some cut-rate contractor, however, when it comes to issues of significance on the international stage, he is utterly and completely overmatched.

What an embarrassment to have him as the face of your nation.

[waylander]

CEO Locates Moral High Ground

They say that everyone has their price. It seems like we’ve finally discovered what Uber CEO Travis Kalanick’s is. Or far more likely he has finally demonstrated his squeal point. After weeks of escalating pressure, it seems like Kalanick has finally discovered that being a member of Trump’s business advisory council sends an inappropriate message to his employees and to his customers about his company’s values.

You have to go all the way back to the halcyon days of Bernie Madoff to witness such a unambiguous display of business ethics and corporate leadership.

Up until his resignation from Trump’s committee Kalanick had been justifying his membership in the group as “necessary” in order to “execute on Uber’s mission”. One might reasonably wonder what part of Uber’s “mission” necessitated that their CEO act as an advisor to an administration that is demonstrably hostile to women, human rights, freedom of speech, LGBTQ rights, the economically disadvantaged, reproductive rights, net neutrality, people with non-white skin, the environment, evidence based public policy, and immigrants in the first place. Now, nearly a week after Trump issued his executive order banning the citizens of seven countries from entering the US, Kalanick has finally decided that Trump is “hurting many people in communities all across America”. Better late than never I guess.

If, as Kalanick now claims, the values and actions of the Trump administration are so repugnant to him, what took him so long to remember that? In the immediate wake of Trump signing his executive order, competing ride sharing service Lyft responded by donating a million dollars to the ACLU. The New York City Taxi Worker's Alliance announced a one hour work stoppage. And Uber? They responded by trying to take advantage of the stoppage by dropping “surge pricing” in the area affected by the Taxi drivers job action in an attempt to bring people to their service.

Separating the groups with a sincere commitment to ethics from those that are hiding behind a claim of ethics and a concern for the communities in which they operate because it’s suddenly expedient seems pretty straight forward.

It’s also important to remember when deciding what to think about Kalanick’s newly discovered sense of civic responsibility that he and his company have a long history of highly questionable (and in some cases illegal) behaviour. Under Kalanick’s leadership Uber has been accused of lying to its employees, of having mislead its customers about its business practices as well as the safety of its service, and it has acted with blatant disregard for fair and ethical competition practices in markets all over the world. This is a company that has been hurting people in the communities in which it operates with its business practices since its inception. That’s its corporate “culture”.

There was ample reason to do it before, but there is no excuse now...

Delete Uber. 

[waylander]

an example of somebody who has done an amazing job and is being recognized more and more, I notice

Donald Trump speaking about 19th-century abolition leader, writer and activist Frederick Douglass

[waylander]

Azzeddine Soufiane, Mamadou Tanou Barry, Khaled Belkacemi, Aboubaker Thabti, Ibrahima Barry and Abdelkrim Hassane.

The names of the six Canadians whose lives were taken in a senseless act of cowardice and bigotry on Sunday, January 29, 2017 in Quebec City.

[waylander]

Canada is an open, welcoming country that stands by its citizens. We are a nation of millions of immigrants and refugees, of hundreds of cultures, languages, and religions bound by one, unwavering, unshakable belief: we are stronger not in spite of our differences, but because of them. These tweets by Fox News dishonour the memory of the six victims and their families by spreading misinformation, playing identity politics, and perpetuating fear and division within our communities. Muslims are predominantly the greatest victims of terrorist acts around the world. To paint terrorists with a broad brush that extends to all Muslims is not just ignorant — it is irresponsible. If we allow individuals and organizations to succeed by scaring people, we do not actually end up any safer. Fear does not make us safer. It makes us weaker. Ramping up fear and closing our borders is not a solution. It distracts from the real issues that affect people’s day to day life.

Excerpts from a statement released by the Canadian government in response to twitter posts circulated by Fox News which falsely identified the perpetrator of the murder of six Muslim Canadians in Quebec City as being “of Moroccan origin“.

[waylander]

A Study in Contrasts

While Trump is signing an executive order banning refuges from seven countries from entering the US, Ivanka tweets out a photo of her and her husband, ready for an evening out.

Meanwhile, far away, a little girl gets dressed for her night...

[waylander]

Deductive Reasoning - Trump Style

So, now that he’s officially taken up residence in the White House, Trump has unsurprisingly stopped making up excuses for why he will not release his tax returns and flatly stated that he’s not going to do it. As usual, he trotted out Satan's hand maiden, Kellyanne Conway to do the heavy lifting. Gone was the pretense that, as per his tweet of May 11, 2016, he will release his taxes following the completion of the audit that he claims (but has never proven) he is undergoing. Instead, Conway brazenly insisted that the reason Trump would be reneging on his pledge was because the “people didn’t care”. And how does Conway know that people don’t care? Well... because “they voted for him” of course.

There’s so much wrong here that it’s almost difficult to know where to begin...

First of all, even if we are to give Trump the benefit of the doubt and assume he is telling the truth about being under audit, there’s no law preventing him from releasing his taxes. Also, it would have been a simple matter for him to offer proof that he was in fact telling the truth about the being under audit. The fact that he has not done that doesn’t inspire much confidence in the veracity of his claims. There is also his documented history of telling self serving and bald-faced lies while on the campaign trail, so...

Second, it is entirely possible that at least some voters support was predicated upon his promise to release his tax returns when his audit (remember, we’re giving him the benefit of the doubt) was complete. Provided one was sufficiently credulous as to believe that he would make good on this promise when he had already told multiple lies about this issue, I suppose it’s possible to view his pledge as a demonstration that he believed he had nothing to hide. By going back on his word and claiming that his breaking his promise is the will of the people, he has abandoned all pretence that that is the case. Anyone still unable to see a suspicious pattern in his actions must own some swamp land in Florida.

Third, Conway’s statement that the voter’s “don’t care” about this issue is so demonstrably false and easily refuted as to be contemptible. In order to buy what she’s selling, you would have to be some combination of deluded, disengaged, or just too lazy to bother knowing you are being lied to. Of course this need not concern Trump. His supporters have proven themselves nearly immune to wild assertions that run counter to well established facts. I keep wondering when they will get tired of cheering for this small fraction of a person who daily insults their intelligence with his conduct and his claims.

Finally, Conway seemingly needs a refresher in the basics of logic. Her argument goes something like this: Trump didn’t release his taxes; the people elected Trump; therefore the people don't care if Trump releases his taxes. And if you can’t spot the fallacies in that line of reasoning, well then, congratulations! You’re a Trump voter!

But of course that’s not completely true. The consensus is so overwhelmingly counter to the lies of Kellyanne Conway that even 49% of the people who support Trump believe that he should release his taxes...

[waylander]

Denier in Chief

Want some insight into the rocket scientist brain that resides in the skull of Donald Trump? Trump has appointed Scott Pruitt to head the Environmental Protection Agency. The problem? Pruitt does not seem to believe in protecting the environment, at least not as it applies to climate change. Want more? Pruitt, in his role as the acting attorney general of Oklahoma, is suing the EPA over President Obama's Clean Power Plan, which aims to reduce pollution deaths, clean up the air and prevent catastrophic warming. 

So, His Orangeness has chosen someone who not only doesn’t believe in responding to the threat of global climate change with environmental regulation to lead the government agency responsible for the necessary regulations; that person is also currently suing the the agency he has been nominated to lead.

The fact that history is watching and will judge Trump and his collection of manifestly unsuitable nominees very harshly seems a small comfort.

[waylander]

To Russia with Love

The Trump administration has responded aggressively to CIA reports that conclude that Russia attempted to intervene in the recent American election in an attempt to influence the outcome. In a strongly worded statement Trump harshly condemned the actions of the Russia and the Putin government and called for a thorough investigation of state sponsored interference in the American electoral process.

Just kidding!

The Trump team’s actual response? They defended Russia against the CIA’s charges by releasing a public statement calling into question agency’s competence and professionalism. Stop and think about this for a moment: when forced to choose between which version of reality he was going to embrace, Russia’s or what his own intelligence service was telling him, the President Elect of the United States publicly took the side of Russia. This on top of reports that his Orangeness is only taking one intelligence briefing a week. I guess he thinks he understands foreign intelligence better than the CIA just as he believes he “knows more about ISIS than the generals”. That or he lacks the intellect and the attention span to assimilate any information that won’t fit on a fortune cookie.

As was repeated over and over again during the election cycle by thoughtful people from across the political spectrum, Tump’s disconnection from reality combined with his resistance to new information, his instability, and his profound narcissism renders him not just completely unfit to serve as the leader of a country; it makes him a clear and present threat to global stability in that role. And the echo chamber of sycophants, panderers, enablers and conspiracy theorists that he has surrounded himself with only magnifies that danger.

This is as bizarre as it is sobering. And of course it is only going to get worse...

[waylander]

Trump speaks! (sort of)

The Orange One is apparently holding a big rally this evening in North Carolina (the latest stop in his “Death of Reason and Decency Victory Tour” one supposes) where he will announce his choice for Secretary of Defense to anyone who cannot read a newspaper. Here’s a thought though: how about instead of indulging himself in his pathetic need to hear a bunch of people who think the moon landings were faked chant his name, he holds a press conference and takes questions for once?

Of course if he held a press conference he might be asked to explain why he has appointed dangerously unqualified people like Ben Carson, K.T. McFarland, Betsy DeVos and Myron Ebell to important positions in his administration. Or even worse, he might be called upon to explain why he surrounds himself with people that are just plain dangerous such as Steve Bannon and Michael Flynn. Or perhaps he would be asked to explain his grand strategy in caving to business and putting the Indiana taxpayer on the hook to pay Carrier to keep a small number of jobs in the state and then trumpeting it as an example of his masterful negotiating ability.

Oh, and one more thing... in case you’re keeping track, as of this writing Donald Trump’s last press conference was July 27, 2016.

So, yay democracy!

[waylander]

Like any disease

Like all diseases do, the hateful ideologies championed by people like Trump and the appalling behaviours he gives his supporters cover to exhibit in public have a way of spreading and infecting other weak minded individuals.

At a rally today organized by a conservative talk radio outlet in Edmonton Alberta and attended by Chris Alexander, a Conservative party “leadership” hopeful, the crowd began chanting “lock her up”. The “her” in this case was not Hillary Clinton but Rachel Notley, Alberta’s NDP Premier. And what did the classless Alexander do while this was going on? Admonish the crowd? Nah!Register his disapproval at the inappropriate behaviour? Nope.

He egged them on... the classless and morally bankrupt act of a cynical political opportunist. Or, as the Conservative party calls it, leader.

Shame on them all.

[waylander]

Trump shows true colors

In filling out his cabinet, Trump continues to show what he really stands for and what really matters to him.

This time he’s aggressively undermining the health and safety of women and particularly of low income women by selecting Tom Price as his director of Health and Human Services. Price, a congressman from Georgia, is not just anti-abortion… he’s also anti-contraception, an opponent of the Affordable Care Act and a proponent of defunding Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood of course is an organization that serves more than 2.5 million patients every year, many of them low-income.

The fact that the Trump, an out-of-touch, bloviating, reality denying, misogynist and self-confessed serial abuser of women is prepared to punish women and poor people and put their health and welfare at risk is as shameful as it is unsurprising. Women once again have the expensive dress shoe of a rich, out-of-touch, old, white man on the proverbial throat of their health care and reproductive rights. Think that would have been the case had Hillary Clinton been elected? Yeah, me neither.

Instead of having a leader who would have advanced the cause of gender equity, women have a short-fingered, orange, narcissistic, tweet-monkey at the helm of the ship.

On the bright side I’m sure Ivanka has health care and can afford to cover the costs associated with her reproductive health. And if she can’t she can always hock that $10,000 gold bangle she’s been bragging about.

So, it’s all good, right?

[waylander]

Trump on the Electoral College

In 2012 Trump tweeted “the electoral college [sic] is a disaster for a democracy".

In 2016 after the Electoral College enabled him to win the election despite losing the popular vote by over 2.8 million votes (the largest margin in history) Trump tweeted “the Electoral College is actually genius”.

His entire political existance is premised upon the notion that voters are either too lazy to fact check him or so ethically stunted and indifferent to the truth that he can say essentially whatever he wants and they will still follow him over the cliff.

[waylander]

The next four years...

In response to the announcement that former Cuban head of state Fidel Castro has died Trump, in his best celebratory tone tweets:

“Fidel Castro is dead!”

What a classless, orange bag of sour smelling wind. Once again, ladies and gentlemen... your commander in chief. Good luck with that.

[waylander]

I wonder...

Could Kanye West be a bigger tool? Two songs, an incoherent political rant, and a mike drop followed by him canceling the rest of his tour? Come to think of it, that last part might actually qualify as a public service at this point...

Watching his self destructive, needy, erratic, and VERY public, unspooling has been far more interesting than anything he has done “artistically” for some time now.

[waylander]

Proof that pictures really ARE worth a thousand words. Do you think that maybe this is meant to be ironic and that Trump is actually in on the joke? Yeah… me neither.

Ladies and gentlemen, America’s new first family. Enjoy!