Occasionally when Trump posts one of his many outrageous or nonsensical tweets, you’ll get someone who attributes to him way more brains & strategic savvy than he actually has. They’ll posit that Trump has posted this latest controversial tweet in order to distract the media and the public from some other controversy that he really do
esn’t want them to pay attention to. I think that’s being way too generous to Trump, and that the truth is
Don’t Account On It
The Wall Street Journal is out with a report tonight that Trump plans to “revamp” top US intelligence agencies, including the CIA and the Director of National Intelligence, which seems to mean he wants to cut them back and restaff them with loyalists. This comes after months of him voicing great skepticism over their reports about the Russian email hacks, and showing a general display of distrust and disrespect toward the intelligence community. Continue reading
Ask And You Shall Receive?
Just a quickie post for now, because I’m experiencing some technical difficulties . . . So, this morning, Facebook gifted me with this memory from 2012. I had posted it right after Michele Bachmann dropped out of the Republican presidential primary race.
But I have to apologize to all of you, because I’m afraid the universe might have mistaken my sarcasm for a presidential wish list. And in 2016, the universe granted it in abundance.
When Worlds Collide
If you’re reading this blog, then you already know that one of my interests is U.S. politics. But it may surprise you to learn that I also have a weakness for “guilty pleasure” tv. My favorite “guilty pleasure” is The Bachelor/Bachelorette franchise. Last night a new season of The Bachelor started, and in the most dramatic plot twist yet, the politics world and the Bachelor world came together.
Get Over It
If there’s one thing Donald Trump knows how to do it’s dominate a news cycle. However the story that has most consistently been in the news since Election Day is one that Donald Trump wishes would go away: the Russian hacking & interference in our election. I haven’t commented on this story so far because it’s gotten saturation coverage, and Trump’s response to it is so obviously absurd, there’s not much to say about it.
However, yesterday, President Obama announced sanctions against a number of Russian operatives & entities in response to the email hacks (among other things), and I think there was something noteworthy about the response from Trump this time. Continue reading
Putting it Together
Well this is serendipitous: I swear I didn’t know this was coming when I wrote yesterday’s post Check, Please, in which I sung the praises of reporter David Fahrenthold for his reporting on Donald Trump’s scam foundation and fraudulent claims of personal charitable donations. But late last night, Fahrenthold tweeted that he had a new piece coming in the morning that would give a behind the scenes look at his experience reporting on Trump.
I happen to love “behind the scenes” looks at presidential campaigns, whether they come from journalists or from people who worked on the campaigns. But this year, these works coming from reporters are especially interesting since this was such an unusual campaign, and Trump was so challenging to cover. So I just finished reading the Fahrenthold piece, “David Fahrenthold tells the behind the scenes story of his year covering Trump”, and it didn’t disappoint. Continue reading
Check, Please
Just a quick post for today, since many of you are off on a sunny beach or a snowy ski slope (or busy wrangling kids with cabin fever after a few days vacation). I wanted to bring to your attention a neat little tool developed by Washington Post reporter Philip Bump. It’s a browser extension for Chrome or Firefox that fact checks Donald Trump’s tweets. Yeah, this is likely just preaching to the choir, as the only people who will use it are people who are already inclined to think Trump is lying. But, for those in the choir it’s kind of handy to have the fact checking built right in. That way you can get the accurate information to counter Trump’s bizarro version without even having to search for it.
Empathy For We, But Not For Thee
Today I want to talk about something I just read about North Carolina. But first a little background: I mentioned – only briefly – in my very first post, If You See Something . . . that politics has become increasingly polarized in recent years, but particularly so on the Republican side. I recommended a book that gives an eye-opening analyses of how that’s happened with D.C. Republicans (our national representatives) during the Obama era. But a great example of that on the state level has been happening in North Carolina. Continue reading
Merry, Happy . . .
Merry Christmas! Happy Hanukkah! Joyous Chrismukkah!! Wishing a wonderful day to all . . .
Naughty or Nice
This morning I had one of those “Your Memories on Facebook” pop up in my news feed. It was from this day in 2010, and here’s what I had written:
Wow, Don’t Ask Don’t Tell repeal, tax cut deal, food safety bill, New START Treaty, 9/11 Health Bill — don’t look now, but progress has broken out in Washington. There really is a Santa Claus!
What a difference elections make. That was the last time Democrats held the Presidency, the Senate and the House.* Continue reading
DC Deciphered 