On Saturday, Donald Trump went to C.I.A. headquarters and gave a speech, in which he claimed there was no feud between him and the intelligence community. It was fake news perpetrated by the media. And, when three times as many people showed up to protest his inauguration than those who showed up for it, he sent his press secretary out to claim that a million and a half spectators were there to cheer for the Donald. Michael Harris writes:
President Trump’s new press secretary, Sean Spicer, went on to set a record for most lies told in a maiden press briefing. Amongst other whoppers, he asserted that the greater use of metal detectors in a wider area had kept hundreds of thousands of people from entering the National Mall. But law enforcement had a different story. ABC News reported officials told them that all checkpoints and magnetometers were cleared of all line-ups before the Inauguration ceremony began.
Spicer also said that the white floor covering on the Mall “highlighted” any empty spaces. He added that it was to Trump’s disadvantage, since this was the first time such floor covering had ever been used. Wrong. It was used for Obama’s second inauguration. The reason it wasn’t picked up by cameras then is a little embarrassing for Trump. Back in 2009, people were actually standing on it.
On Sunday, when Chuck Todd of NBC confronted Kelly Anne Conway about Spicer's numbers, she said that Spicer was using "alternate facts." When Todd responded that "alternate facts" was a euphemism for falsehoods, she lit into Todd: “Your job is not to call things ridiculous that are said by our press secretary and our president. That’s not your job.”
We're in George Orwell's world. Big Brother is president.
Image: ExtremTech
13 comments:
There are days, Owen, when I feel it is time to pack up and head for the hills. A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall.
I agree, Lorne. Dystopia has migrated from literature into the real world.
I'd like to publish your comment, Anon. Put my policy is that Anonymous comments must be initialed.
The TPP put in a sleeper hold by Trump. This is a victory for humankind.
I'd wait a bit before I'd praise Trump, Steve.
.. thanks for the link & your related essay.. We're huge fans of Michael Harris.. and the scathing scalding style in which he fries hypocracy, fraud, incompetance.. and serves it up for consumption. I often wonder what the size and reach of his audience is - and wonder why more 'Indy' style bloggers are not getting similar exposure. Here and there I do see Mr Harris on National Newswatch.. but certain writers, who I don't dare refer to as journalists seem to be included there at minimum one a week. You know, the Lorne Gunter types, Rex Murphy or 'contributing' writers in the vein of Joe Oliver or Peter Kent et al the greasy political animals. Hell, I've seen op-eds even from Mr #ridemewilfred James Moore! Who's next? Christy Clark? Ray Novak? Julian Fantino or Manitoba's Judge Toews?
Its possible we should count ourselves lucky.. to see the Trump Experiments Unfold. It like getting to see Monty Python come to life, close to home.. blended of course with doses of Shakespeare & double shots of Fear & Loathing - Hunter S Thompson
I give it less than 2 years for this spectacular reality shit show to cancel or be cancelled.I dunno.. the Donald will get bored, won't like the White House food, will suddenly show signs of rapid onset dementia, or some truly horrible scandal with drag him screaming and kicking off into his alternate universe plus afew of his greasy crew. If one thinks Obama is going to gracefully watch this mangy cur operate without consequence, you'd have to be chipping LSD mini doses daily with a side order of peyote every morning.
Yes yes, we know there's a certain double standard.. the old too big to jail syndrome comes to mind, but I really don't think Obama will just 'abide' .. nor will some quiet background heavy hitters that Trump and his cabinet freaks simply would be out of their league trying to stop. .. and yes, I include Putin, though he sure aint 'quiet backroom' .. and neither is China.
If The great American political order is thousands of spinning tops - The GOP et al are rotten logs and toxic sands being thrown upon a vast smooth surface along with unbalanced tops like Trump suddenly battering and colliding with the existing system. To think Hillary Clintion is not calling in political markers to go after the Great Usurper who crudely cut in on 'her turn is to laugh.. Trump wiped her last chance out.. Its all over now for Clinton, aside from cold cold revenge. Turst me.. its going to be a beautiful thing.. when Trump gets skewered & BBQ'd.. the howling will be deafening
In the end, it will be humour -- satiric, biting humour -- that will do Trump in, salamander. He's well on his way to becoming a laughing stock. And the angrier he gets, the funnier he will get.
I was listening to Cross Country Checkup yesterday and noticing how concerned Canadians were with what has happened and might happen in the States and how little concerned with how this might affect Canada and how Canada might handle upcoming problems. So many Canadians have a very weak sense of identity and seem to think they are Americans. They seem to find Canada a little too boring to think about. The Cross Country host kept asking rather plaintively how listeners viewed Trump's effect on Canadian trade.
I for one am very aware of being Canadian, not American, and very happy to be so. As a Canadian I can take an interest in a foreign country like the States but I do not understand their culture at all. They voted for Trump and can get on with it. It is not my business, except in how it affects Canada. I wish them the best but it is still not my business.
Canada needs to find new allies and stop being so dependent on the States. Canada seems to have moved from being a British colony to being an American colony.
I think you can make the argument, ffd, that -- economically -- Canada has become an American colony. And we should be keeping our other options open.
While Trump was busy putting his grand, yuge signature to the end of TPP, Japanese and Chinese leaders were inking a new, pan-Asian trade deal much like TPP only the nation excluded is the US. Trump may have burned America's geopolitical bridge to the far east. Why do I get the sense that the Chinese were laying in wait for the Great Orange Bloat to step in it?
Even Der Spiegel thinks that the EU should fight back up to and including a new economic relationship with China to displace American hegemony. If TrumpLand is ready to withdraw it may find the rest of the world ready to give them a hand with the packing. That should be worrisome for a nation that might crater but for the largesse of foreign creditors ready to lend America money denominated in US dollars.
I have always maintained that Free Trade has been a success. Whipe out all the jobs and subject labour to a looming poverty only to reinstate" buy America" and "hire America". It's like closing the barn door after the horse has left. I'm quite sure that the underpaid unemployed workers of Atlanta were willing to work for anything when Apple moved back and let us not forget the joy of those workers in Detroit who got those much needed jobs assembling Korean made televisions for $9.00 an hour. It'd corporate realignment to beat down workers again in another new plan.
Unfortunately, multiple bankruptcies didn't teach Trump humility, Mound. All they did was convince him that his name was the gold standard. The world went off the gold standard long ago.
Neo-liberal orthodoxy maintains that labour costs are too high, zoombats. The people taking over -- like the new Secretary of Labour -- hold to that article of faith.
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