Tremendously trumping Trump

Chris Cillizza, CNN Editor-at-large, does the best skewering job of a Donald Trump speech that I've ever read.

Trump rambled on like a North Korean or Latin America dictator for an hour while trying to pump up the election chances of Pennsylvania State Rep. Rick Saccone (R)

Click on the blue http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/the-64-most-outrageous-lines-from-donald-trump-s-untethered-pennsylvania-speech/ar-BBK6twJ?ocid=ob-fb-enus-580 to check it out for yourself.

Friedman goes to the mat with Trump

Thomas Friedman of the New York Times, whose credibility includes three Pulitzers, has taken on President Trump head-on.

Friedman’s theme: Either Putin has damaging evidence against Trump or Trump is an incompetent President protecting a Communist dictator.

Trump probably finds Friedman much tougher to deal with than Benjamin Netanyahu.

Check it out for yourself:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/18/opinion/trump-russia-putin.html

Stuart paper’s article on pardon

It’s no surprise to those who worked at the BJ with Stuart Warner, but his New Phoenix Times, a weekly with daily online articles, unleashed an outstanding story about President Trump pardoning former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio.

Mexican-American groups are outraged. Arpaio was convicted of profiling those of Mexican ancestry and stopping them, even if they weren’t violating any laws or were in America legall.

Immigration rights activist Salvador Reza said Trump is “throwing the finger” at the courts and the Justice Department. Arpaio pled guilty in both cases.

To read the article by Stuart’s staff, click on http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/latino-allies-angered-by-trump-pardon-of-arpaio-9629265

Trump policy: Genuflect or reject

WTF time at the Trump/Bannon White House

The White House blocked a number of news outlets from covering spokesman Sean Spicer’s question-and-answer session on Friday afternoon. 

Spicer held an off-camera “gaggle” with reporters inside his West Wing office instead of the traditional on-camera briefing in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room.  

Among the outlets not permitted to cover the gaggle were news organizations President Trump has singled out for criticism, including CNN. 

The New York Times, The Hill, Politico, BuzzFeed, the Daily Mail, BBC, the Los Angeles Times and the New York Daily News were among the other news organizations not permitted to attend.

Journalists from several right-leaning outlets were allowed into Spicer’s office, including Breitbart, the Washington Times and One America News Network. 

A number of major news organizations were also let in to cover the gaggle. That group included ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, Reuters, Bloomberg and McClatchy. 

Reporters from The Associated Press and Time magazine were allowed into the gaggle but refused to attend. 

The White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) sharply criticized the decision. 

Journalists gathered in the briefing room to await the gaggle. When aides came to gather the pool, those who were not selected were turned back by Grisham in the West Wing hallway leading to Spicer's office. 

 

After some reporters voiced their frustration with the arrangement, Grisham asked a uniformed Secret Service officer to tell them to leave the hallway. 

The incident escalated Trump’s long-running feud with the media.

The president repeatedly slammed the “dishonest media” earlier Friday at the Conservative Political Action Conference, while also saying he respects the First Amendment. 

“I love the First Amendment; nobody loves it better than me. Nobody,” he said. 

“But as you saw throughout the entire campaign, and even now, the fake news doesn't tell the truth,” he continued. “I say it doesn't represent the people, it doesn't tell and never will represent the people, and we're going to do something about it.”

I wonder what John Knight, who refused to vote for Richard Nixon because he was so corrupt, would do today.

Thomas Jefferson disagrees with Trump and Bannon.  Jefferson said a free press, even when its writes things that politicians don't like, is essential to a sound democracy.

This sure sounds like "The Emperor Has No Clothes" conundrum. Genuflect or eject is the order of the day. Breitbart, to the right of Attilla the Hun, gets in, but CNN doesn't.

Adolph Hitler is dancing on his grave.

 

View from Moscow: Trump is Putin’s puppet

 

 

Mikhail Fishman is the editor-in-chief of the Moscow Times, an English-language weekly newspaper published in Moscow. The paper is critical of Vladimir Putin; indeed, it was targeted twice in 2015 by Russian hackers and has been attacked repeatedly by pro-Kremlin pundits.

 

He describes President Trump as Putin’s puppet.

To read the article, click on http://www.vox.com/conversations/2017/2/22/14697718/donald-trump-putin-russia-kremlin-hillary-clinton 

Warning from an historian

Ron Rosenbaum, a New York City Jew, writes a frightening and fascinating comparison of the rise to power of Donald Trump and Adoph Hitler.

Rosenbaum’s peg is the Munich Post defying Hitler and the Nazis till the newspaper was forcibly shut down by a Hitler finally in charge of Germany.

He is the author of “Explaining Hitler.”

To read Rosenbaum’s article, click on

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/normalization-lesson-munich-post/

Hear Connie Schultz roar

Connie Schultz, who has a Pulitzer Prize amid her accolades, takes on those who accuse her of supporting Democratic Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton because the former Secretary of State is a woman.

You know, the “Don’t vote with your vagina” insult.

Connie writes:

“We women have moved on, you see, and one of the things we left behind is men like Donald Trump,” patron saint of racism and misogyny.

To read Connie’s take on Trumph, click on

https://www.creators.com/read/connie-schultz/08/16/voting-like-a-woman

George Will: Trump’s in, I’m out

Conservative commentator and columnist George Will has un-Republicaned himself because Donald Trump is the presumptive GOP presidential nominee.

The Pulitzer Prize winner calls himself "an unaffiliated voter in the state of Maryland."

His advice to the Republican Party: "Make sure he loses. Grit your teeth for four years and win the White House."

Will worked on Republican President Ronald Reagan's 1980 campaign.

Will didn’t say whether he would move to Canada if Trump is elected President.

America has been lurching toward a Trump for 30 years

People say that Trump is an unconventional candidate and that he represents a break from politics as usual. That’s not true.

Trump is the culmination of the trends we have been seeing for the last 30 years: the desire for outsiders; the bashing style of rhetoric that makes conversation impossible; the decline of coherent political parties; the declining importance of policy; the tendency to fight cultural battles and identity wars through political means.

To read New York Times op-ed columnist David Brooks’ brilliant shish kabobbing of The Donald’s bullshit, click on http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/26/opinion/the-governing-cancer-of-our-time.html?smid=nytcore-ipad-share&smprod=nytcore-ipad&_r=0

LIAR, LIAR, PANTS ON FIRE

Kasich claims get an “F” in math

The Washington Post exposes the fallacies of presidential candidate Gov. John Kasich’s “good” education record.

Since Kasich’s 2011 administration began, Ohio has gone from 5^th to 23^rd in education rankings of the states.

Ohio is 9^th in reading gap between its highest- and lowest-performing schools, 2^nd high achievement gap in map and 4^th largest gap in high school graduation rates.

Traditional public schools, which educate 90% of Ohio’s children, are getting $515 million less per year under Kasich while charter schools are getting 27% more taxpayer money.

When Ohio applied for federal funding, there were 10 times as many failing charter schools as the state listed in its request, and half as many successful charter schools as the state claimed.

To read the skewering of Kasich’s boasts that made him second in New Hampshire’s Republican primary, click on https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2016/02/10/the-education-mess-in-ohio-under-gov-john-kasich/

Connie Bloom at Bernie Sanders rally

Bernie & Connie show

Former BJ Features editor/pet columnist Connie Bloom, Ohio’s fabric art (quilt) guru since leaving Ol’ Blue Walls, is among the Monday night crowd in Cleveland State University’s Wolstein Center for the appearance of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.

“Feel the Bern” describes Connie’s feelings about the democratic socialist for months.

Ohio Democratic Party official Nina Turner introduced Sanders.

This is NOT a political endorsement, just a photo of a former BJ editor/reporter following her passion.

The Donald a major Trump card for ratings

24 million watched 10 Republican presidential candidates debate for two hours. In 2012, no GOP debate drew more than 7.6 million.

The Trump card worked.

Folks tuned in to see if brash billionaire businessman Donald Trump would get his comeuppance or chop down his opponents.

Louisiana GOP blame Obama for Katrina

29% of Louisiana Republicans said President Barack Obama was to blame for the federal government's poor response to Hurricane Katrina, according to a new Public Policy Polling survey released Wednesday.

Katrina struck three years before Obama took office when President George W. Bush sat in the Oval Office.

Apparently the Louisiana GOPers forgot that Bush was heavily criticized for his administration’s response to Katrina, which caused 1,833 fatalities, $81 billion in property damage and ranks among the five deadliest hurricanes in United States history.

GOP history revisionists also might as well blame President Obama for the Great Depression (1928), World War II and global warming. Oh, that’s right, the Republicans deny that global warming exists.

OMG, HSCYB!

The making of a President

Abraham Lincoln came to New York City on February 27, 1860 and delivered his Cooper Union address, the most important speech of his 1860 presidential campaign.

Photographer Mathew Brady was there and captured the image that re-invented Lincoln to the public.

Lincoln bowled over his audience, got the Republican nomination and won the general election.

When Lincoln, now president-elect, encountered Brady in Washington the following year, he volunteered: "Brady and Cooper Union made me president.”

Late? Just PhotoShop them in

PhotoShopped quartet (red box) of latecomers

If everyone doesn't show up in time for a photo shoot, just snap the latecomers and PhotoShop them in. That's what was done for the historic photo of Democratic women in the first Congress without a majority of white men with the "D" before their names.

There are 20 women in the Senate and 81 in the House.

Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, Gwen Moore of Wisconsin, Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida and an unnamed fourth Congresswoman were PhotoShopped in.

To see the entire article and the original photo and the PhotoShopped version, click on http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/mediawire/199637/pelosis-office-releases-doctored-photo-of-female-lawmakers/