Category Archives: Fail!

“True this!” Trump’s change of heart on Syria isn’t reassuring, it’s profoundly disturbing | David Shariatmadari | Opinion | The Guardian – #LoserTrump-#TraitorTrump is just about the tweet, the sale and looking good for the minute of the next thing

All this may just be routine strategic ambiguity. But, as ever with the Trump administration, we are in uncharted territory. No one quite knows whether Haley et al are speaking from a Trump-approved hymn-sheet, or concerned with protecting their own reputations in an administration not exactly known for its message discipline. No one quite knows whether Haley’s statement, only last week, that “Our priority is no longer to sit there and focus on getting Assad out,” will stand or be overturned. Since the latter would represent a 180-degree turn, however, it’s worth considering in more detail.AdvertisementThose celebrating the possibility of a shift should ask how it may have come about. If there’s one thing we do know, it’s that Trump wants us to see that he cares. This is a president who is obsessed with how he is perceived, griping about unflattering photos and the size of the crowd at his inauguration.It’s not even clear that he has any ideological aims, other than to win, and to be liked. He has, after all, donated to both Republicans and Democrats. He supported the Iraq war, then didn’t, then claimed that he never had.

Source: Trump’s change of heart on Syria isn’t reassuring, it’s profoundly disturbing | David Shariatmadari | Opinion | The Guardian

Trump condemns chemical attack as his U.N. ambassador assails Russia’s role – The Washington Post #TraitorTrump, #LoserTrump still just selling himself and could care less about facts – Who unleashed the gas? All sides of this conflict spin and lie, so how are we to know who to blame?

“History will judge all of us in how we respond to these unforgettable and unforgivable images of the innocent,” British Ambassador Matthew Rycroft said. “How long are we going to sit here and pretend that actions in these chambers have no consequences?”

Source: Trump condemns chemical attack as his U.N. ambassador assails Russia’s role – The Washington Post

Trump, Citing No Evidence, Suggests Susan Rice Committed Crime – The New York Times #TraitorTrump, #LoserTrump, sell, sell, sell – no buyers – what did you do when and with whom?

“I think it’s going to be the biggest story,” Mr. Trump said in an interview in the Oval Office. “It’s such an important story for our country and the world. It is one of the big stories of our time.”He declined to say if he had personally reviewed new intelligence to bolster his claim but pledged to explain himself “at the right time.”

Fact Check: Trump, Faulting Obama on Syria, Contradicts Himself – The New York Times – #LoserTrump Prince of Lies

Mr. Trump told Mr. Obama to ‘not attack.’In 2013, the Obama administration concluded that the government of Syria’s president, Mr. Assad, had used chemical weapons in an attack that killed hundreds of people on the outskirts of Damascus. At the time, critics noted that Mr. Obama was stepping back from his own “red line” threat to punish Mr. Assad for deploying chemical weapons.Mr. Trump also mentioned the red line threat, but to counsel restraint.In more than a dozen messages on Twitter in 2013 and 2014, Mr. Trump repeated his advice, emphatically stating that “Syria is NOT our problem,” appealing directly to Mr. Obama to “not attack Syria” as “there is no upside and tremendous downside” and telling him to “stay out of Syria.”

Allegedly Racist Fox News Finance Head Accused Of Mocking Breast Cancer Survivor’s ‘One Boob’: Gothamist

Among other accusations, Douglas claims that:Slater allegedly lamented that New York City is home to “so many more black people now than when I was a kid.”She allegedly described Douglas as having “black eyes,” and contrasted them with the blue eyes of the “Aryan race.”Slater allegedly complained about the “problem” of people of Indian descent moving to her town in New Jersey and turning the train she rides into the “Bombay Express.”She allegedly called Brooklyn, Douglas’s home borough, the “murder capital of the world” (Brooklyn, home to 2.5 million people, had 127 murders in 2016, or about 5 per 100,000 people. This is below the national average of 5.7 for cities in 2015, the latest year for which national data is available. Even Brooklyn’s most dangerous neighborhoods have murder rates on par with Chicago, which, despite the national headlines, trails Baltimore, St. Louis, and New Orleans, among others.)She allegedly told Douglas, who is of Panamanian ancestry, that she would not let her dog eat the foods Panamanians eat.Slater allegedly ridiculed Douglas’s accent and, as she allegedly did with the other two plaintiffs, mocked her pronunciation of certain words that she said black people pronounce incorrectly.At least twice, Slater allegedly kicked Douglas in the rear as she was walking down the hall, and she “regularly” rubbed Douglas’s hair to feel the “texture.”Douglas also survived breast cancer and had part of a breast removed during treatment. This too allegedly was a subject of Slater’s abuse. Slater allegedly told Douglas, among other things, “Your boobs look like they are different sizes—oh, that’s right, you only have one boob.” She allegedly called Douglas, “boobs girl,” the “one-boobed girl,” “and cancer girl,” and regularly complained that Douglas’s treatment drove up the office’s healthcare premiums.All of this behavior was sanctioned by Fox bosses at the highest levels, according to the employees’ lawyers, who note in the lawsuit that they and Slater worked on the second floor alongside now-former CEO Roger Ailes. Ailes was pushed out and given $40 million last year after more than two dozen women accused him of sexual harassment.

Source: Allegedly Racist Fox News Finance Head Accused Of Mocking Breast Cancer Survivor’s ‘One Boob’: Gothamist

Mediterranean fish stocks deteriorate ′at alarming rate′ | News | DW.COM | 03.04.2017

Some 93 percent of researched fish stocks in the Mediterranean are overexploited, the EU’s Joint Research Centre says. It also says more than a third of the sea’s total fish population has vanished in the past 50 years.

Source: Mediterranean fish stocks deteriorate ′at alarming rate′ | News | DW.COM | 03.04.2017

Trump: ‘If China is not going to solve North Korea, we will’: Shanghaiist

“Well if China is not going to solve North Korea, we will. That is all I am telling you.”Asked if that meant dealing with Pyongyang one on one, Trump said, “I don’t have to say any more. Totally.”Dennis Wilder, a former CIA China analyst, tried to shed some light on what exactly Trump meant with these cryptic statement. Wilder told Financial Times that the president is trying to warn China that the US is about to begin instituting “secondary sanctions” on North Korea, including sanctions on “Chinese companies and individuals who deal with North Korea.”Still, others aren’t so sure that Trump will back up his tough talk.

Source: Trump: ‘If China is not going to solve North Korea, we will’: Shanghaiist

Donald Trump and Russia: The Spanish connection with Trump’s Russia scandal | In English | EL PAÍS

On February 1, Alexander Torshin, 63, a Russian politician and banker who is close to Vladimir Putin and whom the Spanish anti-corruption prosecutor and the Civil Guard define in their reports as a godfather from a notorious Russian mafia organization, had in his diary for the next day an appointment to meet in Washington with the world’s most powerful man: Donald Trump. The encounter was due to take place before an official and well-attended breakfast meeting, which Torshin attended as the head of a Russian delegation. The meeting was canceled that very night, according to sources from the White House, given the wave of criticism in the US press related to the influence of determined Russian circles in President Trump’s power teams. But the information reveals the heights to which this person, who has been investigated by the Spanish authorities, had reached in his rise to the upper echelons of the American leader’s circle.

Source: Donald Trump and Russia: The Spanish connection with Trump’s Russia scandal | In English | EL PAÍS