Category Archives: Fail!

Trump Scraps New Sanctions Against Russia, Overruling Advisers – The New York Times

“Trump seems to think that if he accepts what his advisers recommend on even days of the month and rejects their recommendations on odd days, the result will be a strategy,” said Stephen Sestanovich, a scholar at the Council on Foreign Relations and Columbia University who served as ambassador to former Soviet states in the 1990s.

“By and large, other governments don’t know whether to laugh or cry at all this,” Mr. Sestanovich said. “But in Russia, laughter is getting the upper hand.”

Mr. Trump was annoyed with Ms. Haley for getting out in front of the policy, the administration official said, and the president’s decision to reject sanctions left her hanging in public with her credibility on the line.

New York Times editor says Trump attacks on press are out of control | US news | The Guardian

Source: New York Times editor says Trump attacks on press are out of control | US news | The Guardian

Regarding the Post’s story on Kelly, Baquet said “every one of those deeply reported inside stories about the White House from the Times or the Post have all been verified. When [former Trump strategist] Steve Bannon talked about life inside the White House, when he left the White House, he verified them. [Former chief of staff] Reince Priebus came out, he verified them.

“This stuff so far is all held up.”

Baquet also said the Times and the Post would continue to “fight to the death on daily stories… [because] it’s healthy for the countries to have institutions fighting to the death. But we believe in the same principles. And I will defend them on these principles and they will defend me on these principles.”

A state-sponsored mass shooting | +972 Magazine – Isreal at Gaza, Palestine border

Source: A state-sponsored mass shooting | +972 Magazine

The truth of the matter is that while it is especially outrageous when security forces harm journalists, particularly if you are a journalist yourself, the wanton use of live ammunition against unarmed people demonstrating on the other side of a fortified border, no matter what they were doing at the time and no matter what their job title or political affiliation, is simply indefensible.

It’s time to start calling this what it is: a series of state-sponsored mass shootings, which we can expect to see repeated for the next five weeks. Demanding that the army investigate the killing of one journalist is not enough.

E.P.A. Officials Sidelined After Questioning Scott Pruitt – The New York Times

Mr. Pruitt bristled when the officials — four career E.P.A. employees and one Trump administration political appointee — confronted him, the people said.

The political appointee, Kevin Chmielewski, was placed on administrative leave without pay, according to two of the people with knowledge of the situation. Mr. Chmielewski was among the first employees of Donald J. Trump’s presidential campaign, serving as a senior advance official. The two people, who are administration officials, said that Mr. Chmielewski flagged some of his concerns about Mr. Pruitt directly to the White House’s presidential personnel office.

Two of the career officials, Reginald E. Allen and Eric Weese, were moved to jobs where they had less say in spending decisions and less interaction with Mr. Pruitt, the people said. A third career official, John E. Reeder, joined American University as a temporary “executive in residence” after being told by the E.P.A. to find a new job. And a John C. Martin, who served on the security detail, was also removed from the team and had his gun and badge taken away after raising concerns about how Mr. Pruitt’s security was being handled.

Fact check: Were 400 white South African farmers murdered last year? Racist Aussie Leaders Lie Shamelessly to accomplish what?

Former prime minister Tony Abbott says that around 400 white farmers have been murdered in South Africa over the past 12 months. RMIT ABC Fact Check takes a look at the data.

Source: Fact check: Were 400 white South African farmers murdered last year?

The most recent police statistics show that 74 people were murdered on farms in the year to March 2017.

Remember the Resource Officer Who Shot the School Shooter in Maryland? It Never Happened

Donald Trump, the National Rifle Association and people who believe in the magical fairy tale of armed school employees preventing school shootings were all forced to eat their words with a supersized cup of “shut the fuck up” Monday, when authorities investigating the case of the Maryland school shooter who was stopped by a “good guy with a gun” announced that—contrary to earlier reports—the shooter died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.

Source: Remember the Resource Officer Who Shot the School Shooter in Maryland? It Never Happened

Cambridge Analytica academic’s work upset university colleagues | Education | The Guardian

Source: Cambridge Analytica academic’s work upset university colleagues | Education | The Guardian

Kogan and his business partner, Joseph Chancellor, who later went on to work for Facebook, where he remains, harvested data using a personality app developed through Kogan’s commercial enterprise Global Science Research (GSR).

The emails from late May 2014 show Kogan initially tried and failed to elicit the support of two other academics at the university, who had amassed their own trove of Facebook data from volunteers by hosting personality apps on the platform.