The Wall Street Journal: We Will Not Call A Lie A Lie.

Credit: Screenshot

Credit: Screenshot.

Since President-elect Donald Trump won the election, he has continued his campaign habit of making inconsistent, unverifiable, or even just obviously false statements. The American public is left to rely on the media to learn the truth and make sense of his proclamations.

That’s exactly what the media is supposed to do with any politician—when the President lies, it is the press’ obligation to tell the public. But it’s doubly important with a politician like Trump, whose entire political career has often been punctuated by flagrant lies.

But when Trump lies, the Wall Street Journal—the second largest paper by circulation in the country—will not call it a lie, according to the its editor-in-chief Gerard Baker.

“I’d be careful about using the word, ‘lie.’ ‘Lie’ implies much more than just saying something that’s false. It implies a deliberate intent to mislead,” Baker told Chuck Todd on Meet the Press on Sunday.

Well no shit, Sherlock. A lie is a deliberate intent to mislead. That would be why it’s called a lie. A falsehood. A fabrication. For fuck’s sake, it truly is Nineteen Eighty Four, and Doublespeak is here.

Instead, Baker said the paper would investigate the claim, and then present both sides: What Trump said, and what the paper found. Then, the readers will be left to decide which account is correct.

As an example, Baker cited one of Trump’s more outrageous lies: When he claimed that thousands of Muslims in New Jersey gathered on rooftops to celebrate 9/11. Baker noted that the WSJ investigated his claim and found it baseless.

Right. That’s an excellent example of a lie, a deliberate intent to mislead people into thinking this made up bullshit was true. So, it’s a LIE. Big, yuuuuge LIE. It’s okay to say so.

“I think it’s then up to the reader to make up their own mind to say, ‘This is what Donald Trump says. This is what a reliable, trustworthy news organization reports. And you know what? I don’t think that’s true.’ I think if you start ascribing a moral intent, as it were, to someone by saying that they’ve lied, I think you run the risk that you look like you are, like you’re not being objective,” he said.

Oh fuck you, with bells on. You can leave it up to people to decide whether or not they are okay with someone lying, you can’t prevent that anyway. What you can do is call a LIE a LIE.  That’s not a moral judgement, it’s reporting the truth. Idiot. And fuck all this “both sides” bullshit, too. I’m not interested in being fair to tyrants, facsists, compulsive liars, or nazis, among others.

The full story is at Think Progress.

Phobie of the Year: Pat McCrory.

00_pat-mccrory_phobie-treatement

The competition for Phobie of the Year was devilish in 2016, but one man out-hated all the rest. Pat McCrory, the outgoing governor of North Carolina, even outdid Vice President-elect Mike Pence.

At least in Indiana, where Pence was governor, he backed down when business representing millions of dollars threatened to leave the state over its Religious Freedom Restoration Act — also known as a “license to discriminate.” Pence signed a fix to the law so discriminating against LGBT people wasn’t allowed under the RFRA’s protections. In North Carolina, though, even as jobs left the state and performers canceled concerts and millions piled up in lost revenue, McCrory and Republicans refused to rethink what they passed in House Bill 2.

Lawmakers hadn’t approved a RFRA exactly. Instead, they passed a law banning any locality from including LGBT people in antidiscrimination ordinances. In other words, they wanted to ensure that discrimination against LGBT people remains legal no matter where you go in North Carolina. They also barred transgender people from using the bathroom that matches their gender identity in any government building, without citing a single incident caused in North Carolina by letting transgender people use the bathroom of their choice.

There’s much more at The Advocate, including the Phobie Finalists:

[Read more…]

Only in America…

The list of “celebratory” gunfire incidents in this barely begun year goes on and on and on and on. All over the place, people who would, I am sure, consider themselves “good Americans” whipped out guns and started firing indiscriminately. A lot of people have been shot, a five year old girl was killed. I’m sure everyone one of them would class themselves in the “responsible gun owner” category, too.

People truly need to stop, and take a good look at themselves, and their country. If you were looking at pages of articles about people deciding to whip out loaded guns and fire at will, because holiday, and this was taking place in a different country, how disapproving and condemnatory would you be? This is barely short of insanity, the gun mania in uStates, and it must stop. Dallas (Texas) alone received over 1,000 calls about idiots with guns. Is anyone going to care that a lawmaker was shot in the head? That a five year old child is dead? That scores of other people have been shot? That scores more have been traumatized? That houses have been marked with bullets? What’s it going to take?

This is not greatness. This is idiocy descending into chaotic madness. Go ahead, take a look at all the incidents, then take a very good look at the country which is supposedly so grand.

A Pre-Loaded Porn Nanny.

Chris Sevier (WZTV).

Chris Sevier (WZTV).

There is a state-by-state campaign underway in the United States to pass legislation that would require laptops and all internet-connected devices to come preloaded with an unspecified porn blocking mechanism.

It’s a mission led by Chris Sevier, a Tennessee man and Christian music producer who previously sued Apple for his alleged porn “addiction” and fought marriage equality by filing a stunt lawsuit asking for the right to marry his laptop. He’s an attorney who was disbarred in his state for “mental infirmity or illness” — and, despite the outrageousness of Sevier’s back story, let alone the nature of the legislation itself, the push to block porn across the country appears to be gaining some traction.

A bill of this kind has been pre-filed in South Carolina — but Sevier says that North Dakota and Indiana will soon pre-file a version of the bill ahead of the next legislative session. He claims that, in total, sponsors from 27 states have agreed to introduce a version of the bill, which Sevier drafted. The text varies somewhat state by state, but the overall aim is largely the same: to force manufacturers of “products that distribute the internet” to sell their devices with technology that broadly blocks pornography as well as websites that facilitate the sale of sex. Consumers can opt out of the block if they are over the age of 18 and pay a $20 fee to the state.

Oh, North Dakota, always eager to be regressive. I thought repubs didn’t care for the whole “nanny government” they constantly whined about over the last eight years. Oh right, that’s whenever there was any sort of program meant to help people. I guess nannyism is just dandy if you’re using it for oppressive measures.

“The reason why this bill is constitutionally sound, this isn’t like a prohibition. It just makes it by default, it’s blocked,” Sevier told Vocativ. “There are a lot of adults who don’t want access to that stuff.”

The push behind the bill — which is titled, the “Human Trafficking Prevention Act” — is largely being done in the name of fighting human trafficking. What, you might ask, does human trafficking have to do with pornography? Sevier argues that “pornography is an advertisement for prostitution,” and that it “erodes consent,” “promotes sexual voyeurism,” and “cultivates female objectification.”

The big ol’ fly in the legislative ointment is that Sevier makes no distinction between those who have been forced into sex work, and those who are consensual sex workers. For the conservative minded, yes, there is a difference, a very big difference.

The bill also gestures toward the alleged social harms of pornography and the need to protect children from obscene materials. (As for the harm of pornography, several studies have contradicted the common anti-pornography claim that adult content is linked to domestic violence and sexual abuse. There isn’t reliable evidence to support the existence of “porn addiction.”) In addition to blocking regular porn, Sevier highlights that it would also filter out “revenge porn” and child porn, which is already illegal. Despite a lack of evidence, Sevier sees consensual adult pornography as a gateway to child porn and abuse. “It sends them down a slippery slope where before you know it, they’re starting to get more and more into hardcore forms, like worse and worse, like grosser and grosser, and the next thing you know they’re on a plane flying to Thailand to molest a child,” he said.

There’s no stupid quite like conservative stupid. If you find the idea of fucking a child repugnant, all the porn consumption in the world is not going to cause you to suddenly decide to do that. Also, a whole lot of hetero couples find sharing porn increases their fun and intimacy, many of them conservative. Regardless of orientation, who gives a shit if people enjoy porn? I don’t care. Then again, unlike the majority of christian conservatives, I don’t spend my time with my nose in other people’s crotches.

Sevier’s text relies on state obscenity laws regarding the display of adult or “girlie” magazines. Commonly, states require brick-and-mortar vendors to place “obscene” material behind blinders. Sevier argues that the manufacturers of digital devices should be held to the same standards. (Although, it’s worth noting that if you want access to an adult magazine at a 7-11, all you have to do is buy the magazine — you don’t have to pay an additional fee to uncensor the product that you’re purchasing.)

[…]

Apply these same standards to all of the internet, and it’s easy to imagine not just hardcore pornography being filtered out, but also art and sex education materials. It’s a critique Sevier has anticipated. “There’s a lot of scenarios where a parent, a grownup, or a minor could possibly be okay without having access to that content,” he said. “If they really want access and they’re over 18 they have to go get the filter removed. There are a lot of people that are gonna say, ‘Yes, there might be a few things I’m going to miss out on, but I really don’t need that stuff.’”

You know what stuff I can do without? Prudish assholes so afraid of human bodies and sexuality that they attempt to legislate everyone else’s choices. Yet another reason to get the fuck out of this country.

There’s more at Vocativ.

Sunday Facepalm.

Shutterstock.

Shutterstock.

Pendejo-elect Trump, who at one point said hacking may have been the work of someone sitting on their bed weighing 400 pounds, and more recently said it was time to let it go and move on, has now declared himself an expert in hacking, and in a move already seen too many times to have become boring, promised a secret which will be revealed on Tuesday or Wednesday. If there’s one thing we know already, it’s that Trump doesn’t know jack shit about computers, and there’s no juicy secret with special sauce waiting in the wings to be revealed.

He added: “And I know a lot about hacking. And hacking is a very hard thing to prove. So it could be somebody else. And I also know things that other people don’t know, and so they cannot be sure of the situation.”

Sigh. No, you don’t know anything about hacking, Donny, not one teeny, tiny thing. No, hacking is not hard to prove. Also, proving hacking and proving exactly who did the hacking, not the same thing, your dipshittedness. Of course, clarity isn’t exactly Donny’s middle name. As for this whole “I know things other people don’t know”, oh, grow the fuck up already. This childish isht is already beyond annoying, I cannot cope with the thought of years of this “I know something you don’t know, na na na!” garbage, especially when it isn’t so. Donny keeps saying this, and every time, it turns out there’s no there there. In the earlier post, linked above, he didn’t know about the imposed sanctions, because he never knows about anything.

Mr. Trump, who does not use email, also advised people to avoid computers when dealing with delicate material. “It’s very important, if you have something really important, write it out and have it delivered by courier, the old-fashioned way, because I’ll tell you what, no computer is safe,” Mr. Trump said.

“I don’t care what they say, no computer is safe,” he added. “I have a boy who’s 10 years old; he can do anything with a computer. You want something to really go without detection, write it out and have it sent by courier.”

:Laughs: Oh, I just can’t wait to see how that one is going to turn out after Jan. 20th. This fucking idiot is going to be in charge of some very complex systems indeed, and doesn’t know one thing about them, but hey, he can tweet! The idiot knows more than all the intelligence agencies (not that there’s much boasting to be done there, but still), and doesn’t understand that hacking isn’t something done solely by the so-called bad guys. Hacking is not dependent on someone using email, either. There is every possibility that in the coming years, an eyeroll will actually prove fatal.

Trump also said “I just want them to be sure because it’s a pretty serious charge,” which is beyond laughable, given his penchant for spreading baseless bullshit and lies all over the place, insisting they are true, such as insisting President Obama’s birth certificate was a fake, and that thousands of American Muslim people in NJ celebrated the 9/11 attack. Pretty much everything Donny says is unsubstantiated at the least, and an outright lie at the worst.

Via The NY Times.

Sean Spicer is also sprinkling his stupidity all over:

“Why aren’t we talking about the other influences on the election? Why aren’t we talking about Hillary Clinton getting debate questions ahead of time?” Spicer said in response.

Y’know, just because someone is intelligent enough to perform well in a debate, and did things like prepare, doesn’t mean it was cheating.

“No one is asking those questions. The fact is that everyone wants to make Donald Trump admit to certain things. When do we talk about the other side, which is what did Hillary Clinton do to influence the election? Is she being punished?”

Yes, Donny does need to admit to things, people tend to hold presidents accountable, so best get used to it. So, Clinton tried to influence the election, but Donny didn’t do that at all, no. FFS, couldn’t they at least get someone with a modicum of intelligence in their team? This level of stupid is too close to fatal.

Via Think Progress.

A New Year’s Eve Message…

Pendejo-elect Trump’s NY Eve tweet. So inspiring, graceful, inclusive, and mature, ennit? I think the eyeroll I just had was sufficient to wake me up and make me want to go clean.

Via Raw Story.

More Jobs? No, More Lies.

President-elect Donald Trump speaking to reporters at Mar-a-Lago on Wednesday. CREDIT: AP Photo/Evan Vucci.

President-elect Donald Trump speaking to reporters at Mar-a-Lago on Wednesday. CREDIT: AP Photo/Evan Vucci.

On Wednesday, President-elect Donald Trump made a huge announcement: because of his presidency, Sprint has decided to bring back or create 5,000 jobs in the United States, while satellite startup OneWeb will create another 3,000.

The claim, however, was false. Those jobs are part of a $50 billion investment from SoftBank, which owns 80 percent of Sprint and has made a large investment in OneWeb, that was previously announced as part of a deal with a Saudi investment fund before Trump won the presidency. Meanwhile, not all of the jobs promised by Sprint will be at the company itself, but instead at contractors.

But it’s in both the company’s interests and Trump’s to create glowing, if misleading, headlines about cooperation between the administration and the corporation.

For Sprint, cozying up to Trump is almost certainly related to the hope that it can get approval of its previously failed attempt to merge with T-Mobile. Sprint was in the process of making a bid to buy T-Mobile in 2014, and thus combining the third and fourth largest wireless carriers in the country, but ended up abandoning the plan in the face of regulatory opposition from the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Both agencies have stated an intent to keep four major carriers in the country, rather than let them combine, under current leadership.

While Sprint has been able to remain solvent since then, it hasn’t turned an annual profit since 2006 and has more than $30 billion in total debt. SoftBank’s CEO Masayoshi Son, who personally met with Trump after the election and re-announced his company’s intents to invest in the United States from Trump Tower, has made it clear that he sees consolidation as a must for getting the company to profitability. “We need scale,” he told Bloomberg in 2014. And he still reportedly has his eyes on T-Mobile.

If the FCC and DOJ become more friendly to mega-mergers under Trump, that would be an enormous win for the company. And even before Sprint started currying favor with Trump, his administration has been shaping up to be just what the company is looking for. One of the president-elect’s top policy advisers on technology has suggested abolishing the FCC altogether and is a proponent of industry mergers, writing, “Telecommunications network providers and ISPs are rarely, if ever, monopolies.” Other advisers are staunchly against net neutrality regulations that aim to keep the internet a level playing field but have been opposed by giants like AT&T and Verizon.

Rarely monopolies. Right. In what fucking universe? Have people forgotten Ma Bell already? It wasn’t that bloody long ago.  Living rural, I already get screwed royally when it comes to net access, and I’m capped, too. No streaming for me, I can’t afford it. Whether or not I’ll be able to afford net access at all once the incoming administration guts everything, who knows? I really hate interesting times.

There’s much more at Think Progress.

Aw Hell.

bookdates

I have months worth of release dates for books in one of my calendars, and now I find out that Simon & Schuster have made a $250,000 book deal with Milo Yiannopoulos. I won’t punish an author (or myself) by refusing to buy a book I had planned to purchase if published by them, but that will also have to be an end to any more books put out by them. I hope that authors flee them in droves for doing this. Not only is Yiannopoulos a person singularly without talent, he’s a known hack and plagiarist, which are yet more black marks against Simon & Schuster.

Not only is Yiannopoulos a well-known member of white supremacist circles, but he’s also a renowned plagiarist. As the Houston Press reported last year, his 2007 self-published book of poetry is actually composed of plagiarized Tori Amos lyrics. Earlier this year, BuzzFeed reported that most of Yiannopoulos’ work is written by interns. While denying the accusations, Yiannopoulos confirmed with BuzzFeed that he had 44 interns helping him with writing and research.

If Yiannopoulos wants to pretend to write a book, he could always peddle it to Sad Puppy Beale, who started his own publishing house. I rather doubt the money would be quite so staggering though.

The full story, along with a host of reactions, is at Think Progress.

Racists Here, Racists There, Racists Everywhere.

A convenience store in New Mexico has posted a sign telling Obama and 'other Muslims' that they are not welcome (Screen cap via KOB 4).

A convenience store in New Mexico has posted a sign telling Obama and ‘other Muslims’ that they are not welcome (Screen cap via KOB 4).

Local news station KOB 4 reports that a convenience store in Mayhill, New Mexico, has angered local residents after displaying signs that read “Obama and other Muslims not welcome here” and “Colin Kaeper-dick, you overpaid half-breed: Take your millions and go back to Africa.”

[…]

a former coworker tells KOB 4 that the owner is actually very intolerant of anyone who says anything that offends him.

“If you go in there and you offend him, you can’t go in there no more,” Marlon McWilliams, who used to work at the store, tells the station. “He turns lots of people away.”

McWilliams says he tries to avoid going into the store, but says for many people who live in the rural area have difficulty avoiding it because it’s “the only place you can go to get milk and bread.”

The convenience store’s Facebook page has been bombed with negative reviews from locals who simply do not want to be exposed to racism when they go to buy a snack.

“Disgusting disgusting disgusting,” wrote one person. “I cant think of another way to describe this.”

“Sick, demented and racist,” wrote another. “Saw the signs and refuse to even step any closer. Don’t use religion to spew hate!”

According to KOB 4, the racist has the store up for sale, but at a very inflated price. The locals would be overjoyed if someone did buy it, just to say good riddance to the the idiot who owns it. I really feel for people who find themselves having to buy from there now and then, sometimes rural life can truly suck.

Via Raw Story.

In a bit of good news, a couple of racists had their arses handed to them. First up, Trent Bennett, whose resignation has been accepted (this is couched in such a way that you know there wasn’t much choice involved).

“I acknowledge that (these comments) were disrespectful and offensive,” Bennett wrote. “I am aware of the impact this has had, and though I negate that I have ever conducted myself in a less than professional manner in regard to my students, I have resigned my teaching position at Malvern High School.”

The former teacher said he had deleted his social media profiles, and he asked reporters and the public to respect the privacy of his family, friends and colleagues.

Bigots always insist their views never ever cause harm, or make them behave in an unfair manner. I don’t know if they are actually incapable of self examination, but they certainly shun it. It’s simply not possible for such beliefs and attitudes to stay all hermetically sealed up. They leak. They ooze. They come out in expected and unexpected ways, and that bias does come out in actions. It’s always a head-shake too, the routine requests for respect, which they not only expect, but truly feel they should be accorded, when they cannot be bothered to pay that respect to those they denigrate and target.

Via Raw Story.

Then there’s the never-delightful Carl Paladino, first featured here with his nasty fantasies, and again with the notpology of the year, who has been given his walking papers:

Carl Paladino was ousted Thursday by the Buffalo, New York School Board following a racist tirade on Michelle Obama. But during the hearing, School Board President Barbara Seals Nevergold didn’t hold back in her criticism of the Donald Trump campaign co-chair.

“Words matter, Mr. Paladino,” she said during the meeting, which Paladino did not attend. “Our president, the Commander in Chief of this nation for the last eight years, Mrs. Obama, our First Lady, and Mrs. Valerie Jarrett, special presidential council are all African-Americans. Among other things, they are accomplished, intelligent, beautiful people and that’s not just my opinion.”

But under Paladino, Nevergold said that they were reduced to criminals, frauds or gorillas.

“The impact on children of color, especially African-American children is incalculable,” she continued. “How do we encourage them to use their God-given talents to soar, to reach for the stars, when a sitting board member responsible for their education demonstrates such contempt of their role models?”

She went on to say that Paladino’s contempt for the First family and their aides has fallen to a level of “unmitigated and hateful, racist and misogynist, rhetoric” that can’t be disassociated from the race and culture of the students in the district. Paladino has established a record and a pattern of behavior that the board believed violated his oath of office as well as the ethics as a board member.

Nevergold said that she has heard from people all over the state, indeed the country, who were shocked that Paladino would “demonstrate such a lack of responsible leadership.”

“They would like me to tell you, ‘You’re fired,’” Nevergold continued, as the audience applauded. She asked that he do the right thing and resign.

Paladino has 24 hours to tender his resignation; if he refuses, the lawyers come out. According to the articles, the room burst into applause as Ms. Nevergold concluded her firing of Paladino. I’ll add my virtual applause. Oh, that was quick: Paladino refuses to resign.

Via Raw Story, one, two.

NYC EMT Steven Sampson falsely claimed he was attacked by 'thugs' on Christmas (Screen capture).

NYC EMT Steven Sampson falsely claimed he was attacked by ‘thugs’ on Christmas (Screen capture).

A white New York City emergency medical technician was reportedly lying when he said he was the victim of a racially-motivated attack on Christmas in the Bronx.

Mediaite.com reported Thursday that 41-year-old Steven Sampson’s headline-grabbing story about getting stabbed and robbed of $2,600 worth of Christmas gifts by a “menacing group of thugs” has turned out to be full of holes.

[…]

Anonymous sources within the police department who spoke to the New York Post said that it quickly became clear to police that Sampson wasn’t telling the truth.

“He gave so many different accounts of what happened, he’s no longer credible,” they said.

[…]

In recent years, the word “thug” has been appropriated by white conservatives as shorthand for young black men of whom they do not approve. Writer Charles F. Coleman Jr. said in Ebony magazine that “thug” is the new “N-word.”

“The racial epithets of yesterday are no longer commonly acceptable but have been deftly replaced with terms that are racially neutral on their face, but the usage of which is almost exclusively reserved for Black and Latino people,” Coleman wrote. “The result, is that through the persistent use of such language, folks are able to draw — consciously and subconsciously — associations between certain words and ethnic groups.”

“‘Thug’ is the latest, and perhaps the most dangerous example of racism’s new lexicon,” he said.

It’s a mystery to me why people do such a thing. All I can figure is that the hate eventually boils over.

Via Raw Story.

And finally, the racist-elect is rather desperate to appoint a Latino person to the department of agriculture, in an attempt to show their “diversity”. Apparently, it has not dawned on them that one somewhat brown person in a sea of white isn’t diversity.

Politico reports that Trump and his team are making a last-minute scramble to add some Latino to his cabinet to make it slightly more diverse than the mostly white cabinet that he’s set up so far.

“They’re desperate to find a Latino for [The Department of Agriculture],” one Trump donor anonymously told the publication, although Politico notes that the agricultural industry has been resistant to endorse Trump’s prospective candidates because he and his team “have reached out to candidates who are part-Latino and have no experience in agriculture.”

Via Raw Story.

Jobs! Wages! Workers! Yeah, No.

Andy Puzder (YouTube).

Andy Puzder (YouTube).

All those people who thought Trump would be just ever so dandy for jobs, and the rights and wages of workers? Yeah, you can go screw yourself, because it will be much more gentle than what the incoming administration has in mind. I’ve posted about the new Labor Secretary before, and it was quite clear that he doesn’t think much of workers. Just in case that wasn’t quite plain enough, a bit of background on Puzder’s attitudes towards those worthless workers has surfaced.

The Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s parent company CEO has already come out against a $15-an-hour minimum wage on a recent radio interview with the horrible Hugh Hewitt. An op-ed in the Orange County Register  found a way to applaud the Puzder pick as someone who will somehow bring about wage growth. If you believe the Trumpbros, not only are you getting a businessman, but you’re getting a good, God-fearing man.

But a better, more revealing look into his views comes courtesy of a December 2009 interview stored in Cal State Fullerton’s Center for Oral and Public History (COPH). Allison Varzally spoke with Puzder at Carl Karcher Enterprises in Carpinteria for COPH’s Southern California Food Culture and Visionaries project.

[…]

Trump’s labor man also had choice words for Carl’s Jr.’s home state. “I think the big change in California, it’s really become a kind of socialist state,” Puzder opined. “You can’t be a capitalist in this state, and Carl was at heart a capitalist who created a company that to this day bears his initials.” The would-be Labor Secretary complained about regulations and overtime laws, claiming workers are overprotected.

“Have you ever been to a fast food restaurant and the employees are sitting and you’re wondering, ‘Why are they sitting?'” Puzder asked. “They are on what is called a mandatory break [emphasis his].” He shared a laugh with the interviewer, saying the so-called nanny state is why Carl’s Jr. doesn’t open up any new restaurants in California anymore.

Having been one of those workers who could, on occasion, be found sitting, resting screaming feet for a few moments, no, I have never wondered about why employees are sitting. Employees, they are human beings, who should be treated with respect, if nothing else. It’s not like a 10 or 15 minute break is a sudden luxury trip to the Bahamas. It’s barely time to slurp down a coffee or two, and just maybe, cram some sort of food in your mouth, as you frantically chew, trying not to choke, as you have to be back at station, now. I guess people with billions at their back just aren’t terribly empathetic. Golly, there’s a shock.

The above is from Gabriel San Roman’s article at OC Weekly. I’m going to adopt Mr. San Roman’s use of Pendejo-elect, and Pendejo after 1/20/17. Pendejo Trump. Sounds about right.

Add that to the existing list of problematic values for someone who is poised to head the U.S. Department of Labor, which as Mother Jones reports, “exists to ‘foster, promote, and develop the welfare of the wage earners, job seekers,’ as well as to ‘improve working conditions’ and ‘assure work-related benefits and rights.’”

Even before the release of this 2009 interview, Puzder was on record as an opponent of raising the minimum wage. He suggested in 2014 that increasing the minimum wage would hurt low-wage workers. At that time, he was earning 291 times more than minimum-wage employees working for his fast-food chains.

Puzder’s company was also hit with a class-action lawsuit in 2013 for “allegedly failing to pay its general managers overtime, even while requiring them to be on call 24 hours a day,” according to Law 360.

Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich slammed Puzder as “anti-worker” during a CNN panel earlier this month. He pointed to the fact that “The Department of Labor came into his restaurants and found that half his restaurants had wage and labor violations that violated the law of the United States.”

Via Raw Story.

The Inauguration Huckster.

Donald Trump with Pastor Paula White (Photo: Facebook).

Donald Trump with Pastor Paula White (Photo: Facebook).

Take a good look at the background in that photo.

In 2007, TV preacher Paula White got investigated by the U.S. Senate for her shady fundraising practices.

Ten years later, she will pray at Donald Trump’s inauguration.

Yes, really.

White is a televangelist with a huge audience and a knack for stirring controversy. She’s been a Trump booster for years, and she helped organize a summit for him in the early days of his presidential campaign with other televangelists. Her presence at the inauguration is a very strong indicator that Trump’s White House will be a safe space for the Christian right’s most controversial characters.

Think of Paula White’s ministry as the church version of Trump University. She preaches the prosperity gospel, an approach to Christianity that is, shall we say, unorthodox. Prosperity-gospel preachers teach that God wants people to be rich, and that he makes them wealthy as a sign of his blessing and favor; the richer you are, the more God loves you.

[…]

While Grassley was investigating White, Trump was praising her. CNN quoted him in a broadcast aired Nov. 26, 2007, describing her in glowing terms.

“Paula White is not only a beautiful person, both inside and out, she has a significant message to offer anyone who will tune in and pay attention,” Trump said. “She has amazing insight, the ability to deliver that message clearly, as well as powerfully.”

White has expressed similar sentiments about Trump, once describing him as “a diamond that reveals a new facet each time it is turned in the light.”

And during Trump’s campaign, she vouched for his saintliness.

[…]

As The Daily Beast detailed last year, the overlap between Trump’s and White’s message is glaring. One of the sermons for sale on her website is called “Why God Wants You Wealthy.” Trump, meanwhile, wrote a book titled Why We Want You to Be Rich. Trump and God both. Why aren’t you rich already?

Via The Daily Beast.

Oh, For Fuck’s Sake. What. A. Twit.

Donald Trump again lashed out at President Barack Obama in a wounded tweet — and he was buried in online mockery.

The president-elect — who will keep using Twitter as “a really exciting part of the job,”according to his press secretary — pulled out his phone Wednesday morning to continue the feud that erupted when Obama suggested he could have beaten Trump.

Emphasis mine. Upon reading that, there was a headdesk with a bounce. A Twitter mosquito thinks he’s going to run a whole country. In light of the recent news that President Obama has been declared the most admired man of 2016, and this is the ninth time President Obama has been chosen as most admired man, I suppose we can expect that to occupy Trump’s tiny mind for some time to come.

I really, really wish this was some sort of bad joke that was going to end.

Via Raw Story.

The New Boss, Same As The Old Boss.

A YouTube video from North Dakota’s new Gov. Doug Burgum. More of the same about Standing Rock.

A YouTube video from North Dakota’s new Gov. Doug Burgum. More of the same about Standing Rock.

Damn. Think about what was possible: A governor who is framing his entire administration on innovation just dismissed the most disruptive force in his state’s recent history. That is what Standing Rock is about. Instead of saying, “What can we learn from this? What can we do together?” The new governor relied on the screen saver that was there before; the idea that powerful forces will roll over the tribe and build the Dakota Access Pipeline without interference. Thank you.

Burgum also scratched away at an old story: The Obama administration created this problem.

But his larger message is that the state of North Dakota and its corporate partners are more powerful than any tribal government. Instead of a pause, a moment to engage in a government-to-government dialogue, the new governor emphatically says the pipeline will get built soon. No. Matter. What.

“Make no mistake, this infrastructure is good for our economy,” the governor said in his YouTube video. “And it’s the safest way to transport North Dakota products. Failure to finish it would send a chilling signal to those in any industry who wish invest in our state and play by the rules.”

[…]

The new governor could have reset the law enforcement battle lines too. Nope. “As a result of the Obama administration’s refusal to uphold the rule of law on federally owned land, both our citizens and local and state law enforcement have been put in harm’s way,” he said. “These actions are putting daily demands on the scarce resources of our state and local government.”

Those daily demands are because the state of North Dakota made it so. Pick a word: defuse, de-escalate, negotiate. There were so many better alternatives, ones that were dismissed in favor of sending in the cavalry. I have interviewed many government officials over the years that successfully reduced tension instead of using the police powers of a state. In every test the state failed in this regard and the new governor is following the same path.

I had hopes that Gov. Burgum would see the potential of the Standing Rock story as one that could make North Dakota a beacon. Think about this: This moment in history has brought indigenous people together in a way that’s unprecedented. And the world is paying attention to that. What an amazing opportunity, something that could stir the imagination of investors, entrepreneurs, and governments. Potential partners in a state that found a solution by working with tribes to solve an intractable problem.

The former governor blamed social media for this global perception. But that misses the point that the Standing Rock Tribe owns the story. And that won’t change because the new governor posts a video on his account. The problem is not social media. It’s the message that the State of North Dakota will use the rule of law, the police power of a state, to roll over a tribal nation. It’s a message of brute force instead of inspiration.

Same old tired shit. Same old tired white privilege. Nothing ever changes. Mark Trahant’s full column at ICTMN.