President Donald Trump’s staff have rejected any attempt to link the US leader to a right-wing terrorist who is accused of killing 50 people in two New Zealand mosques, as he defended a Fox News personality who made anti-Muslim remarks.
Making Islamophobic remarks is ok but making remarks against Trump and Trumpsters isn’t according to the White House and POTUS.(ODT)
Thursday’s bloody massacre of peaceful Muslim worshipers at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, appears as I write to be the be work of an expatriate Australian cell of white supremacists who wrote on the internet their admiration of Donald Trump. In his manifesto, the alleged ringleader called Trump the “symbol of renewed white identity.”
But this phenomenon of white nationalists inspired to violence by Trump is hardly new or unusual. The Charlottesville white terrorist who killed Heather Heyer, and his colleagues among Neo-Nazis who chanted “Jews will not replace us,” were in part celebrating that Trump had come to power. He declined to condemn them, insisting that there were very fine people “on both sides.” One side was Nazis.
The 2018 white terrorist who shot up a mosque in Quebec City spent the hours before his murders scouring the internet for Trump quotes and was obsessed by an imagined threat from immigrants.
After 9/11, America’s challenge was al-Qaeda-style asymmetric terrorism. Today, almost all terrorism in the United States has a white nationalist character, and the person promoting stochastic terrorism by the Far Right is the president of the United States.
Judges find the US Constitution doesn’t bar a sitting president from state prosecution
Mr Trump is being sued for defamation by a former TV show contestant who claims he groped and kissed her without consent
Dissenting judges said the lawsuit would interfere with Mr Trump’s job as President, and should wait until he left office
Erik Prince, the founder and CEO of the world’s most notorious mercenary company, Blackwater, landed in hot water during a recent interview with Mehdi Hasan at the Oxford Union in the U.K. Prince repeatedly claimed to have disclosed an August 2016 meeting at Trump Tower to the House Intelligence Committee—a claim not backed up by the official transcripts of his testimony before Congress. On this week’s show, Mehdi Hasan speaks with Jeremy Scahill, author of “Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army,” about Prince’s career and possible future plans. Mehdi also speaks with Rep. Joaquin Castro, who sits on the House Intelligence Committee, about the possible fallout from Prince’s contradictory statements. The two also discuss Castro’s bill to cancel Trump’s emergency declaration, which will be taken up by the Senate this week.
Donald Trump admits to being China’s sock puppet happy to achieve what was already on the cards before his first Summit.(ODT)
Donald Trump has said the US will be “happy” if North Korea simply agrees to continue its moratorium on nuclear and missile testing at this week’s summit in Hanoi.
The North Korean’s leader’s moratorium on testing began even before the two leaders’ first summit in Singapore last June, and followed the successful test of a thermonuclear weapon and two launches of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) in 2017.
At the Singapore summit, Kim Jong-un agreed to the “denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula” but it soon became clear that the US and North Korea had very different interpretations of what the phrase meant. Since then, the North Korean state has carried out demolition work at a nuclear test site and a missile test facility, but according to US intelligence estimates, has taken no substantial steps towards disarmament.
Donald Trump’s presidency has birthed a strong Left-wing movement, including some key female political influencers, writes Dr Lee Duffield.
MOST ELECTORS REJECTED Donald Trump by 2.8 million votes before losing to him through the electoral college system and there’s now a push to mobilise that majority against him.
Trump’s surprise 2016 victory stirred up a new Left-wing movement alongside or within the opposition Democratic Party. The time was right for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, 29, to win a seat in Congress last year, with Trump’s Republican Party becoming unpopular especially with young voters and minorities.
Trump’s bid for regime change in Venezuela is starting to look like a fatal overreach. With the South American country’s military remaining firmly loyal to President Maduro, embarrassing questions loom over US’ dubious game plan
It is not just Washington’s reputation that will take yet another grievous hit. So too will those European states which have shamefully rowed in behind the tawdry attempt at destabilizing a sovereign nation.
US President Donald Trump was asked by reporters at the weekend if he had a “plan B” for Venezuela if President Nicolas Maduro does not stand down soon, as Washington is demanding. With his typical bluster, Trump said he had several backup options.
But, despite his bravado, it looks like Trump’s bet on effecting regime change in Venezuela is a losing venture. The US seems to be increasingly desperate to salvage its plan to topple the government in Caracas.
Richard Painter, who served as George W Bush’s ethics lawyer between 2005 and 2007, told cable network Msnbc Mr Trump’s national emergency declaration over illegal immigration was “clearly illegal” and the product of the president’s state of mind.
“The president is not well at all mentally. I think he’s an extreme narcissist. He has been denied what he wants, his wall, and he is having a hissy fit,” said Mr Painter.
Trump made Bannon his chief strategist in the White House.
Bannon praises Benito Mussolini, who is not as widely vilified in today’s America as he should be. His armies slaughtered 330,000 Allied troops during World War II, including large numbers of Americans. Of 45,000 Italian Jews, 8,000 were delivered to Nazi death camps and a similar number were forced to flee abroad. Some $1 billion was stolen from them as a community.
But guess what. In an opinion poll, 72% of Jewish respondents said they hold that Trump is at least somewhat responsible for the synagogue massacre.
His SOTU spectacle cannot cover up that he helped galvanize those Nazis who invaded Charlottesville.
ISIS is a US creation. So are al-Qaeda, its al-Nusra offshoot, and other terrorist groups – used by the Pentagon and CIA as proxy troops.
Trump claiming “(w)e’re knocking the hell out of ISIS…We have defeated ISIS in Syria” are Big Lies. Earlier he boasted that he “know(s) more about #ISIS than generals do…”
“Wow and this whole time I thought he was diligently looking through policy proposals and carefully deciding a course for the country.”
Somebody inside the Trump White House leaked three month’s worth of the president’s daily schedule, which Axios published on Sunday afternoon, and the internet quickly took up the cause by ridiculing the nation’s chief executive for the amount of time he reportedly spends holed up in his private residence each day watching television, reading newspapers, sending bizarre tweets, and making phone calls.
Termed “Executive Time” by his former chief of staff John Kelley, the #ExecutiveTime hashtag was given new life on Sunday.
Donald Trump just announced that a deal has been struck to reopen the federal government until Feb. 15th without getting any border wall money.
That’s basically the same deal he vetoed last year that caused the government shutdown.
And here’s the crazy part: Trump admitted his “big beautiful concrete wall” was not necessary.
He rehashed many of the Democratic proposals for border security and then described the type of walls and barriers he wants.
He said they are “equipped with sensors, monitors and cutting edge technology including state-of-the-art drones.”
Then he lied.
Trump said, “We do not need 2,000 miles of concrete wall from sea to shining sea, we never did, we never proposed that, we never wanted that because we have barriers at the border where our natural structures are as good as anything we can build. They’re already there.”
A bomb attack claimed by Islamic State has killed US troops in northern Syria, weeks after President Donald Trump said the group was defeated there and he would withdraw all American forces.
The “core” problem is that “we have a president without shame who is backed by a party without spine that is supported by a network called Fox News without integrity,” Friedman said. “Fasten your seatbelt.”
Trump has told “one too many lies,” Friedman said. “I don’t know whether it’s lie number 6,000 or 7,000 — The Washington Post has been keeping tab — but … we’re in a moment now where people simply don’t believe a word out of his mouth. When he can stand up and say, ‘I never said Mexico would pay for the wall,’ we’re through the looking glass.”
Mr Trump, as we well know, isn’t particularly partial to “facts”. He didn’t care about them in 1989 when he took out a full page ad in the New York Times calling for the death penalty for a group of innocent teenagers, and he doesn’t care about them now.
Mr Trump knows he’s lying. He doesn’t care. His supporters know he’s lying. They don’t care either.
“I want people to treat us fairly and they’re not. And it’s not — there’s no angles. There’s no angles. There’s nothing — you know, when a country sends us 200 soldiers to Iraq or sends us a hundred soldiers from a big country to Syria or to Afghanistan and then they tell me a hundred times, oh, we sent you soldiers, we sent you soldiers. And that’s 1/100th of the money they take advantage of, they’re just doing it to make me happy. I’ve heard past Presidents say they’ve involved in the Afghanistan war because they sent us a hundred soldiers. Yet it’s costing us billions of billions of dollars. I get along with India and the prime minister and he’s constantly telling me he built a library in Afghanistan. You know what that is? That’s like five hours of what we spend. And he tells it is and he’s very smart and we’re supposed to say oh, thank you for the library. I don’t know who’s using it in Afghanistan but one of those things.”
Trump’s surprise visit to a US military base in Iraq on the day after Christmas has provoked a strong critique among some Iraqis, who mind that Trump slipped in and out to visit the Ain al-Assad base in al-Anbar Province but did not bother to meet with any Iraqi officials. It was as if Iraq were an empty vessel useful only for hosting the US military.
Trump has made a poor impression in Iraq by saying the US should have “taken Iraqi oil” as a reward for having invaded the country in 2003. He also keeps asking the politicians in Iraq to use their oil money to pay the United States’ military expenses incurred during the invasion and occupation of the country.
Even a broken clock is right twice a day. It doesn’t justify a reason for keeping it. Not all of Trump’s declarations are wrong but nor do they mollify the rightfull opposition to him him. (ODT)
Abandoning the American-backed Kurdish allies, Pentagon officials have argued, will hamper future efforts by the United States to gain the trust of local fighters, from Afghanistan to Yemen to Somalia.
It is worth remembering that even high-ranking military personnel from within the US government have ‘blown the whistle,” on behind-the-scenes tactics. In 2007 General Wesley Clark, a four star US General and NATO’s supreme allied commander, for example, listed a number of countries including Iraq, Iran and Syria that the US planned to take down long before 9/11, simply because they have “a good military and can take out governments.” (source)
Maj. Danny Sjursen is a U.S. Army officer and former history instructor at West Point. He served tours with reconnaissance units in Iraq and Afghanistan…
President Trump regularly fumes during meetings and calls his aides and advisers “fucking idiots.” He watches ever more TV, wonders why the press covers him so critically, and distrusts advisers who tell him that even as president he doesn’t always have the authority to make his wishes come true.
All this and more is outlined in a lengthy New York Times piece published Saturday outlining how at almost two years in, Trump’s presidency is unravelling, as he grows ever more “isolated,” “more sure of his own judgement,” and intent on following through on it at all costs.
The piece is based on more than 30 interviews with Trump’s inner circle—personal friends, political allies, former administration staffers, and more. “The portrait that emerges,” notes the Times “suggests a president who revels in sharp swings in direction, feels free to disregard historic allies and presides over near constant turmoil within his own team as he follows his own instincts.” More from the Times:
Trump shared the title this year with such luminaries Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong Un, and the entirety of the United Kingdom, among others.
(The translation of ‘Vollpfosten’ to ‘idiot’ doesn’t really capture the flavor of the word. Dumbass is much closer.)
Video and picture is from their 2017 Awards show, which Trump dominated.
President Trump says “yellow vest” protests were prompted by environmental legislation
Said protesters were chanting “we want trump” but footage was from London
French Foreign Minister reminded Mr Trump that the French government does not comment on US politics
if the president’s Twitter feed is any indication, he isn’t handling it well. He took to his favorite medium Friday morning to accuse Mueller of “Conflicts of Interest” and criticize a potential forthcoming public report from Mueller as being part of a “Witch Hunt.” He also pushed back on an Atlantic article yesterday suggesting that Trump and his team were unprepared to respond to Mueller’s findings.
You can read the nearly 1,000-character freak-out here:
US President Donald Trump has attacked his French counterpart in a series of tweets just two days after returning from commemorations to mark 100 years since the end of World War I in Paris.
Mr Trump lashed out over Mr Macron’s suggestion Europe should build up militaries
He also complained about tariffs on US wine and attacked Mr Macron’s popularity
The complaints struck a nerve in France on the anniversary of the Paris terror attacks
At a weekend commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I, the president who proudly declares himself a “nationalist” stood apart, even on a continent where his brand of populism is on the rise.
A conclusion in the Maryland emoluments case—or any of the several other ones—may be years away, but a decision to allow the discovery process to go forward is potentially enormously damaging to Trump—politically and personally. The plaintiffs in the case are arguing that Trump’s hotel is being paid substantial sums of money by foreign governments—amounts significant enough to potentially affect the president’s decision-making process. Practically speaking, Trump’s continued ownership of the hotel, along with the lack of any transparency on how the hotel operates, means a foreign government—or anyone else—who wanted to put money in Trump’s pocket has an extremely easy way to do it. The act of booking a block of hotel rooms or a ballroom at a Trump property would be, in effect, a personal payment to the president.
The woman had just settled into her plane seat and fallen asleep when she was awoken by an unwanted touch – a hand from behind her grabbing the right side of her breast.
And the man authorities say is responsible allegedly cited President Donald Trump’s past lewd language about women as justification for his alleged sexual assault.
plenty of Washington think tankers and pundits, not to mention senior members of the Trump administration, are reluctant to speak out against Saudi Arabia and have been busy smearing Jamal Khashoggi instead. Much of this has to do with Donald Trump’s financial interest in Saudi Arabia, as well as the fact that Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are obsessed with Iran, and are bent on going after Iran, and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is their key ally in that aggressive endeavor. In this week’s episode, Mehdi Hasan is joined by The Intercept’s D.C. bureau chief, Ryan Grim, and the founder of the National Iranian American Council, Trita Parsi, to deconstruct the evil Justice League of Donald Trump, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Mohammed bin Salman.
As criticism mounted over the country’s alleged role in the disappearance and possible death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the Trump administration reportedly urged the leaders of Saudi Arabia Friday to stick to killing random Yemeni civilians. “The potential murder of a high-profile journalist critical of their regime raises grave concerns for us, and we appeal to the leaders of Saudi Arabia to restrict their extrajudicial murders to Yemeni people who don’t have any public platform,” said President Trump, adding that the White House would not sit idly by as the Saudis caused the deaths of innocent people unless they were Yemeni children in a school bus or a group of Yemeni people attending a wedding.
The president has long sold himself as a self-made billionaire, but a Times investigation found that he received at least $413 million in today’s dollars from his father’s real estate empire, much of it through tax dodges in the 1990s.
Here are five eye witness accounts, one a police document, that I am persuaded establish beyond doubt that Kavanaugh binge drank and was an aggressive, mean drunk and that he lost control of his inhibitions:
IN the UN they Laughed At Him. In a Safe Crowd They Laughed with Him. Trump Often Forgets Where He Is.(ODT)
The President of the United States of America stood on a stage at a Make America Great Again Rally and, on live tv, mocked and ridiculed a woman who was sexually assaulted at age 15. And the crowd in the room cheered, laughed and chanted “lock her up”
LOCK HER UP.
Let that sink in. They are cheering to lock up the victim of a sexual assault.
And for what? For coming forward? For sharing her story?
There is a reason why so few women come forward with their stories of sexual abuse and assault. Even now, in the era of MeToo, women (and men) are terrified. They are scared to not be believed, so be victim shamed, asked if they had too much to drink or if they dressed slutty. They are scared to be accused of lying to get back at a man who scorned them. They are scared to be mocked.
And Donald Trump. What does he do? He mocks a victim from the Presidential podium.
The embarrassing exchange came when Trump boasted that his administration had accomplished more over two years than “almost any administration” in US history, eliciting audible guffaws in the cavernous chamber hall.
The President appeared startled. “Didn’t expect that reaction,” he said, “but that’s OK.”
Members of the audience chuckled again – perhaps this time in sympathy.
Advertisement
News Man Andrew Bolt seemed to have left a lot of facts go missing in his recent commentary on the matter in Australia. So has Fox News USA boosting the Trump SCOTUS nominee.(ODT)
The local newspaper in Montgomery County, Maryland, is reporting that investigators there are aware of a fourth accuser (counting attorney Michael Avenatti’s anonymous one). The Sentinel writes: “Government investigators confirmed Monday they’re aware of a potential second sexual assault complaint in the county against former Georgetown Prep student and Supreme Court nominee Kavanaugh. While investigators weren’t specific and spoke on background, they said they are looking at allegations made against Kavanaugh during his senior year in high school after an anonymous witness voluntarily came forward to speak with them this weekend.”
This fourth witness is obviously corroborating the allegations of Professor Christine Blasey Ford, a prominent specialist in psychiatry at Palo Alto and Stanford Universities, who says that at a high school party in Montgomery County, Kavanaugh and a friend forced her into a room and down on a bed and then Kavanaugh lowered himself on her and attempted to rape her.
Kavanaugh vehemently denies the charges of all four women.
Seventeen years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the US government and media outlets have decided that Al-Qaeda is now a rebel group worthy of our sympathy. The cynical narrative change is par for the course, experts told RT.
As somber newspaper headlines mark the anniversary of the devastating attacks, some commentators have pointed out that the terrorist group accused of murdering 3,000 Americans seventeen years ago is now occupying northeastern Syria – with the US threatening to take military action if the “rebels” are evicted from the region by the Syrian army and its allies.
