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Mark Twain once said that History doesn’t repeat itself, but if often rhymes. Today’s meeting between Kanye and Trump reminded me a bit of Sammy Davis Jr. and Nixon. If you haven’t heard Malcom Gladwell’s Revisionist History podcast on the Nixon and Davis, “The Hug Heard Round the World”, it is worth listening too. There is some weird similarity here, but to be fair to Sammy, the 60s were a different time. Kanye, having grown up in today’s world, should have known better. http://revisionisthistory.com/…/26-the-hug-heard-round-the-…

The story of Supreme Court candidate Brett Kavanaugh being accused of attempted rape when he was a teenager is dominating the news these days. Not just because it’s the latest chapter in the seemingly never-ending drama of Donald Trump and his Republican enablers gleefully defecating all over the Constitution. No, this story has tentacles that reach out to a number of key issues of the day, and it’s got people talking, regardless of which hill of political ideology they’ve chosen to die upon. It’s the #MeToo movement, showing the ultimate case of old-school white males ignoring, or deeming inconsequential, a woman’s right to be heard if it interferes with their goals, or even the tranquility of their day-to-day lives. It’s about the Republican Party, discounting anything that gets in the way of getting their hand-picked guy through to the highest court in the land, knowing that he will faithfully protect their agenda of enriching only the wealthiest of Americans, taking the right to choose from women in regards to what occurs or doesn’t in their own bodies, and, if it comes to it, providing the protections of a dictator onto our President, who at this point in time is the woefully unequipped Donald J. Trump, a man who may very well be clinically insane. It reaches back to the consistency of Republican hypocrisy, as they now push forth a candidate for the Supreme Court, who hardly qualifies as a learned theoretically non-partisan arbiter of justice, simply because they can, while, in 2016 preventing President Obama from placing a highly respected, moderate judge to the court, simply because they could.

The story continues to explode as more allegations surface, suggesting that the bravery of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford has opened the door for other victims to come forward and share their encounters with Kavanaugh. Encounters they felt powerless to address previously. Of course, it’s possible that this, as Republicans are immediately assuming, is a political dirty trick on behalf of Democrats desperate to prevent The Supreme Court from being loaded with right-wing appointees who will influence major decisions in this country for decades. Is this revenge for Merrick Garland? Have Democrats forgone the motto: “When they go low, we go high”? Can they even afford to operate by that standard in this partisan political arena, or would that doom them to near-certain extinction? (more…)

On his recent trip to Singapore, Donald Trump was asked whether he believes Kim Jong-un would actually destroy a nuclear test site and return American POW remains. His response:

“Honestly, I think he’s going to do these things. I may be wrong, I mean I may stand before you in six months and say, hey, I was wrong — I don’t know that I’ll ever admit that, but I’ll find some kind of an excuse.”

By admitting that he’ll make excuses if things don’t work out with North Korea, Trump is being honest. In fact, this may be the most honest thing Trump has said since he’s been president.

Today marks the 29th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre in Beijing – a tragic day where 100s of civilians were killed by the People’s Liberation Army in a brutal crackdown on pro-democracy protestors.

For years, American presidents from both sides of the aisle have honored the sacrifice of the protestors who sacrificed their lives to bring democracy to their country. But Donald Trump is different. When asked about the event shortly after it happenned in 1990, instead of expressing admiration for the protestors, Trump expressed admiration for the strength of the Chinese Government.

“When the students poured into Tiananmen Square, the Chinese government almost blew it. Then they were vicious, they were horrible, but they put it down with strength. That shows you the power of strength.” — Donald J. Trump

This guy is now our president.

One of the things that amazes me about Donald Trump is his uncanny ability to somehow troll his future self. On the day when reports are circulating that Rex Tillerson once called Trump a moron, a quick search down the Trump tweet archive turns up this beauty.

It is easy to forget that not so long ago, Trump was vehemently opposed to getting involved in Syria. In fact, Trump campaigned on getting out of the Middle East and spending money at home. Back in 2013, Donald Trump tweeted a series of tweets urging Obama to not attack Syria.

A lot has changed between September 2013 and today. Trump is now president and is under investigation for is campaign ties to Russia. Far more concerning for Trump than his own poll numbers may be the specter of the current FBI investigation. So what’s a desperate president to do when his own polls are down in the dumps?  In Trump’s case, the answer might be “read your own Tweets”.

When Obama was experiencing a slump in his numbers during the 2012 election, Trump tweeted and implied that a desperate Obama might launch a strike in Libya or Iran with the presumption that a strike against one of these countries might help his poll numbers. Obama never did this, but the Tweet seems strangely apropos tonight. Who knows if a 4 year old Tweet really influenced Trump’s decision to launch a strike, but one thing is for sure – having a long legacy of off-the-cuff Tweets might not be such a good thing when you are president.

Surprise. Looks like the Syrian air base that the US hit with cruise missiles wasn’t really destroyed yesterday. The runway was untouched and planes were observed taking off from the base today. I guess $80 million worth of cruise missiles doesn’t even guarantee a destroyed Syrian air base these days.

What could have happened? Well, it appears that the Syrian military anticipated Thursday night’s raid and moved planes and equipment ahead of the strike. Who knows how they would have guessed this. The US did warn the Russians about the upcoming strike, but it’s not like they would ever tip off the Syrian military. Right???

With Trump, ironic actions are commonplace – just look at today’s news. Days after declaring the month of April as sexual assault and awareness week, Trump comes out in defense of Bill O’Reilly, a man who according to the New York Times has paid out $13 million to 5 different women at Fox News to settle sexual harassment claims.

Never mind that Trump himself has had his share of challenges with women after being caught bragging about sexual assault, Trump rushed to O’Reilly’s defense. In an interview with the New York Times today, Trump said:

Speaking in the Oval Office, Donald J. Trump praised Mr. O’Reilly as “a good person” and declared, “I don’t think Bill did anything wrong,”…

Personally, I think he shouldn’t have settled,” Mr. Trump told Times reporters in a wide-ranging interview.“Because you should have taken it all the way; I don’t think Bill did anything wrong.”

Which just goes to prove, if you are women who was quick to forgive Donald Trump for all his lewd comments from before the election, nothing has really changed.  Donald Trump has shown zero loyalty to all the women who helped get him elected. There is simply no defense for what O’Reilly has done – sexually harassment of women in the workplace is wrong . As Van Jones said today “Trump’s defense of O’Reilly throws conservative women who supported him under the bus.”

With the stroke of his pen, Donald Trump signed into law a bill that officially ends federal online privacy rules – blocking the implementation of rules that would have required ISPs (Internet Service Providers) to ask permission before selling your private web browsing history to advertisers and third parties. In other words, ISPs like Comcast, Verizon, Time Warner Cable,  and AT&T can collect information on your Internet habits without you knowing about it, and sell them to the highest bidder.

This law blocks rules that were originally passed by the FCC in October of last year and set to go into effect later this year.  These rules would have prevented ISPs from selling customers’ web history and would have made it much harder for ISPs to track and deliver targeted advertisements. With the passage of the bill, these rules are effectively dead.

The bill that Trump signed into law not only blocks the rules, but prevents the FCC from creating similar rules in the future. In other words, the FCC has been effectively neutered when dealing with ISPs who trade their customers’ privacy for increased profit.

The passage of this bill was completely along party lines. It is worth noting that not one Democrat in both the house and the Senate voted for this bill. These Republican lawmakers who sold out the privacy of American citizens, received huge amounts of money from the Telecom Industry in this past election cycle. A full list of the lawmakers and how much money they received can be found at http://theverge.com

More information can be found on this topic at the Electronic Frontier Foundation website. http://eff.org

With the stroke of his pen, Donald Trump signed into law a bill that officially ends federal online privacy rules – blocking the implementation of rules that would have required ISPs (Internet Service Providers) to ask permission before selling your private web browsing history to advertisers and third parties. In other words, ISPs like Comcast, Verizon, Time Warner Cable,  and AT&T can collect information on your Internet habits without you knowing about it, and sell them to the highest bidder.

This law blocks rules that were originally passed by the FCC in October of last year and set to go into effect later this year.  These rules would have prevented ISPs from selling customers’ web history and would have made it much harder for ISPs to track and deliver targeted advertisements. With the passage of the bill, these rules are effectively dead. (more…)