I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. This is Fox News, after all. Of course it’s courting this transparent propaganda. But here I am, actually shocked that this disgusting piece was aired. Here’s the full YouTube Video. I’m also going to include a transcript below the fold, with my responses (though starting of with PZ’s response to the beginning, because it was perfect).
From Paste…
Trump’s ever-expanding axis of evil (i.e. anybody he doesn’t find “tremendous”) grew just a little bit more yesterday. Along with Muslims and exercise, Trump has now decided that Germans are “very bad.” Trump, eloquent as ever, has taken offense to Germany’s trade surplus with the United States. According to German news outlet Der Spiegel (presumably German for “fake news”), Trump made his remarks while voicing his frustration during a meeting with top EU leaders.
Animated gif of Elon James White blinking in confusion…
From Salon…
This hasn’t been a good week for Jared Kushner.
After it was revealed yesterday that the presidential son-in-law was being targeted by the FBI as a “person of interest” in the ongoing investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election, the Washington Post dropped another shocking revelation today in a report stating that Kushner asked Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak if they might set up a “secure communications channel” in a “Russian diplomatic facility,” which would allow the Trump team to have an open and private channel to the Kremlin.
Um… that’s not… you can’t…
What?!?
Yesterday, on May 27, it was reported that a White Supremacist got on the MAX train in Northeast Portland. He saw two teenage girls, one of whom was wearing a hijab, and immediately launched into a racist, Islamophobic tirade.
Two teenage girls boarded a MAX train in downtown heading to Northeast Portland early Friday evening when a man got on at a later stop and immediately launched into a racial tirade as soon as they caught his eye.
“He was saying that Muslims should die,” said Dyjuana Hudson, a mother of one of the girls. “That they’ve been killing Christians for years.”
Hudson recounted what her daughter, Destinee, told her hours after police tracked down the man as he ran from the rush-hour train into the Hollywood neighborhood. Other passengers chased him from a distance and called 911.
Three Good Samaritans attempted to intervene. One is in the hospital, and the other two are dead.
Two men were killed in a stabbing on a MAX train Friday when they tried to intervene as another man yelled racial slurs at two young women who appeared to be Muslim, including one wearing a hijab, police said.
A third passenger who tried to help was also stabbed, but is expected to survive, said Portland police spokesman Sgt. Pete Simpson.
Angry Peter Capaldi
I’m genuinely getting sick of talking about the Thin Skin in the White House. I had to take a break. But here I am, again, because details of his nasty budget are out, and it isn’t pretty. Dude wants to cut a whole lot of important stuff.
We’ve already seen a bit of this. The blueprint of this was released back in March. And it’s even worse than that…
This is a seriously surreal article over at Ozy magazine. I don’t know how to handle it…
While the world remains distracted by the constant circus surrounding the Trump White House, I sense a different kind of power play, and potential American future, brewing beneath the surface at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue: Ivanka Trump becoming the first female president of the United States.
Whatever you think of the character and presidency of Donald Trump, it’s clear he adores his daughter Ivanka, and cherishes the totemic power of his name. And what better way to ensure his family’s legacy than by setting up his daughter, already installed in the West Wing, to assume the presidency? In our current topsy-turvy political era, stranger things have already happened. Let’s take a look at a few potential Twilight Zone scenarios, which aren’t as unlikely as they once might have seemed.
And we’re already off to perhaps one of the most horrific episodes of The Twilight Zone ever dreamed up…
This is looking worse and worse…
From the New York Times…
President Trump asked the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, to shut down the federal investigation into Mr. Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, in an Oval Office meeting in February, according to a memo Mr. Comey wrote shortly after the meeting.
“I hope you can let this go,” the president told Mr. Comey, according to the memo.
The documentation of Mr. Trump’s request is the clearest evidence that the president has tried to directly influence the Justice Department and F.B.I. investigation into links between Mr. Trump’s associates and Russia. Late Tuesday, Representative Jason Chaffetz, the Republican chairman of the House Oversight Committee, demanded that the F.B.I. turn over all “memoranda, notes, summaries and recordings” of discussions between Mr. Trump and Mr. Comey.
Such documents, Mr. Chaffetz wrote, would “raise questions as to whether the president attempted to influence or impede” the F.B.I.
From AP News…
A nonpartisan watchdog group asked Tuesday that officials determine if a New Jersey congressman violated House ethics rules when he notified a bank board member that an employee had joined a group critical of him and President Donald Trump’s policies.
The Campaign for Accountability asked the Office of Congressional Ethics to investigate longtime Republican U.S. Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen, who chairs the House Appropriations Committee.
Saily Avelenda says Frelinghuysen included a handwritten note on a letter to a Lakeland Bank board member that said a “ringleader” of the protest movement worked there. Avelenda says she wasn’t asked to resign but was uncomfortable about being confronted over her outside activities and ended up quitting her job.
Frelinghuysen’s campaign office has said he wrote a “brief and innocuous note.”
Avelenda is part of the group NJ 11th For Change, which refers to Frelinghuysen’s district number. The group has criticized Frelinghuysen for not holding in-person town hall meetings to discuss issues, including the Republican-crafted health care plan.
I don’t even know what to do with this…
From the New York Times…
President Trump boasted about highly classified intelligence in a meeting with the Russian foreign minister and ambassador last week, providing details that could expose the source of the information and the manner in which it was collected, a current and a former American government official said Monday.
The intelligence disclosed by Mr. Trump in a meeting with Sergey V. Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, and Sergey I. Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the United States, was about an Islamic State plot, according to the officials. A Middle Eastern ally that closely guards its own secrets provided the information, which was considered so sensitive that American officials did not share it widely within the United States government or pass it on to other allies.
So… he just wants us to know that he was hand-picked by Putin, doesn’t he?
From the Washington Post…
President Trump signed an executive order Thursday that sets up a commission to review his controversial allegations of widespread voter fraud, along with reports of voter suppression.
The Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity will be led by Vice President Pence and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach (R), who has aggressively pursued allegations of voter fraud in his state.
About a dozen other election officials representing both parties will fill out the commission, which will deliver a report to the president next year, White House deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Thursday.