This blog will focus on political images I have found all around the Internet, though I will intersperse some commentary and quotes that I find interesting.
Sunday, July 01, 2018
That's what SHE said
“I know that there are those who are talking about censuring me, talking about kicking me out of Congress, talking about shooting me, talking about hanging me. All I have to say is this: If you shoot me, you’d better shoot straight. There’s nothing like a wounded animal. I am prepared to make whatever sacrifices need to be made.”
Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), quoted by HuffPost, responding to death threats made against her.
Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), quoted by HuffPost, responding to death threats made against her.
‘The American Is Out’: UN Migration Agency Snubs Trump’s Pick To Lead It
By JAMEY KEATEN | June 29, 2018 1:44 pm
GENEVA (AP) — The U.N.’s migration agency snubbed the Trump administration’s candidate to lead it on Friday, a major blow to U.S. leadership of a body addressing one of the world’s most pressing issues — and only the second time that it won’t be run by an American since 1951.
Portuguese Socialist and former European Union commissioner Antonio Vitorino won a race to be the next director-general of the International Organization for Migration, edging out both a top IOM official and U.S. candidate Ken Isaacs, the body said in a statement.
Vitorino, 61, will become the group’s second director-general not from the U.S. since the intergovernmental organization was founded. He is a former EU commissioner for Home and Justice Affairs who has been President of the “Notre Europe” think tank for the last seven years, and is considered very close to U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, also a Portuguese Socialist early in his political career.
Isaacs was eliminated in early rounds of voting, and Vitorino won by acclamation over runner-up Laura Thompson of Costa Rica, currently an IOM deputy director-general who was vying to become the agency’s first woman chief.
The move marks a searing rejection of the U.S. candidate just as the Trump administration has been retreating from or rebuffing international institutions — including two others based in Geneva: Earlier this month, the United States pulled out of the U.N.’s Human Rights Council, and Trump has recently criticized the World Trade Organization as “unfair” to the U.S.
Read more
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/world-news/trump-admin-candidate-snubbed-un-migration-agency
GENEVA (AP) — The U.N.’s migration agency snubbed the Trump administration’s candidate to lead it on Friday, a major blow to U.S. leadership of a body addressing one of the world’s most pressing issues — and only the second time that it won’t be run by an American since 1951.
Portuguese Socialist and former European Union commissioner Antonio Vitorino won a race to be the next director-general of the International Organization for Migration, edging out both a top IOM official and U.S. candidate Ken Isaacs, the body said in a statement.
Vitorino, 61, will become the group’s second director-general not from the U.S. since the intergovernmental organization was founded. He is a former EU commissioner for Home and Justice Affairs who has been President of the “Notre Europe” think tank for the last seven years, and is considered very close to U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, also a Portuguese Socialist early in his political career.
Isaacs was eliminated in early rounds of voting, and Vitorino won by acclamation over runner-up Laura Thompson of Costa Rica, currently an IOM deputy director-general who was vying to become the agency’s first woman chief.
The move marks a searing rejection of the U.S. candidate just as the Trump administration has been retreating from or rebuffing international institutions — including two others based in Geneva: Earlier this month, the United States pulled out of the U.N.’s Human Rights Council, and Trump has recently criticized the World Trade Organization as “unfair” to the U.S.
Read more
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/world-news/trump-admin-candidate-snubbed-un-migration-agency
The America We Thought We Knew Is Gone
By LILI LOOFBOUROW
JUNE 28, 20186:21 PM
Because countries are not people, it’s tricky to translate whatever “loving one’s country” means—it’s quite abstract—into the language of heartbreak. It sounds melodramatic. What can heartbreak mean as a civic matter? And yet it is what I feel.
A corrupt but weak president—this has been my comfort, his weakness—has been given a gift that will make him strong. After upholding the travel ban, weakening labor unions, and allowing crisis pregnancy centers to misrepresent themselves to women seeking help, Justice Anthony Kennedy announced he was retiring before the midterm elections. That decision empowers a reality-television star who lost the popular vote by millions to reform the Supreme Court for at least a generation—a court that rather than rebut his claim to power has affirmed it. In his own branch, he asked James Comey for a loyalty oath and lamented not getting one from Jeff Sessions, whom he has repeatedly condemned for recusing himself in the Russia investigation, saying he never would have hired him as attorney general had he known. There is every reason to think he will do the same for a Supreme Court nominee. When Neil Gorsuch—who took the seat Mitch McConnell withheld from Merrick Garland—seemed to distance himself from the man who offered him the robes, Donald Trump reportedly considered pulling the nomination. Trump has said he will pardon himself if he needs to, a controversial stance that would likely need approval from the high court. Now he has been given a way to assure it. He holds the power over the person who can rubber-stamp him into invulnerability.
The capitulation of two branches of government to a terrifying third, elected by a minority, is not how our government was envisioned. That is frightening. It is also, depending on the America you want to live in, painful.
The problem isn’t simply that Trump—who styles himself a “law and order” president—values neither: He objected to the Central Park Five’s going free, despite the DNA evidence proving their innocence. He wanted their false imprisonment. It isn’t just that he advocates against due process, tars asylum applicants as criminals, and characterizes even their children as an “infestation.” It isn’t simply that he sees black men as intrinsically guilty, the same as brown refugees. It’s that he shouts about law and order while upholding the immunity of the rich and the cruel: He pardoned Joe Arpaio, who tortured undocumented immigrants in unlivable tent cities he openly called concentration camps, and, in pardoning Dinesh D’Souza, has signaled he will pardon his cronies if they are convicted for illegally helping him.
This is open corruption, and it has been openly embraced.
That fills me with grief, but my grief can’t make it untrue. And if this benthic sadness has any value, it’s that clarity. There is no more equivocating to do. You don’t have to equivocate about Trump’s corruption—or Wilbur Ross’, or Scott Pruitt’s. You don’t have to parse whether a “falsehood” is really a “lie.” It is simply true that the president is corrupt and that his supporters celebrate his corruption. That twisted power has enfeebled the institutions that depend on the very things the president would call weak—honesty and honor and service. As those institutions collapse, so does a polity capable of reasoning without them.
For instance: Confused by the fever that’s seized it, the country has spent days debating the “civility” of a restaurant owner who asked Sarah Huckabee Sanders to leave, after she had defended the president’s policy of putting children in cages as a “deterrent” to other migrants. He called sitting members of Congress “crazy” and pettily insulted that same restaurant’s cleanliness. But Trump’s own discourse somehow doesn’t factor into this earnest discussion of civility.
It is as strange as it is dangerous that everyone—supporters and antagonists alike—now excises Trump from this discussion about how people should treat each other. Even more shocking, though, is that this impulse to cordon Trump off, either by forgiving or excepting him, has extended to the courts, where language must matter if the institution is to function. In upholding Trump’s ban on travel from Muslim-majority countries—which Sean Spicer spent days as Trump’s press secretary insisting was not a ban—the Supreme Court dismissed his many, many public statements that declared an intent to discriminate based on religion. (Note that the justices did the exact opposite—citing evidence that some members of the Colorado Civil Rights Commission expressed “bias” against the baker’s religious belief—to rule in the Masterpiece Cakeshop case.)
Read more
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/06/supreme-court-is-now-trumps-and-so-we-grieve-for-america.html
JUNE 28, 20186:21 PM
Because countries are not people, it’s tricky to translate whatever “loving one’s country” means—it’s quite abstract—into the language of heartbreak. It sounds melodramatic. What can heartbreak mean as a civic matter? And yet it is what I feel.
A corrupt but weak president—this has been my comfort, his weakness—has been given a gift that will make him strong. After upholding the travel ban, weakening labor unions, and allowing crisis pregnancy centers to misrepresent themselves to women seeking help, Justice Anthony Kennedy announced he was retiring before the midterm elections. That decision empowers a reality-television star who lost the popular vote by millions to reform the Supreme Court for at least a generation—a court that rather than rebut his claim to power has affirmed it. In his own branch, he asked James Comey for a loyalty oath and lamented not getting one from Jeff Sessions, whom he has repeatedly condemned for recusing himself in the Russia investigation, saying he never would have hired him as attorney general had he known. There is every reason to think he will do the same for a Supreme Court nominee. When Neil Gorsuch—who took the seat Mitch McConnell withheld from Merrick Garland—seemed to distance himself from the man who offered him the robes, Donald Trump reportedly considered pulling the nomination. Trump has said he will pardon himself if he needs to, a controversial stance that would likely need approval from the high court. Now he has been given a way to assure it. He holds the power over the person who can rubber-stamp him into invulnerability.
The capitulation of two branches of government to a terrifying third, elected by a minority, is not how our government was envisioned. That is frightening. It is also, depending on the America you want to live in, painful.
The problem isn’t simply that Trump—who styles himself a “law and order” president—values neither: He objected to the Central Park Five’s going free, despite the DNA evidence proving their innocence. He wanted their false imprisonment. It isn’t just that he advocates against due process, tars asylum applicants as criminals, and characterizes even their children as an “infestation.” It isn’t simply that he sees black men as intrinsically guilty, the same as brown refugees. It’s that he shouts about law and order while upholding the immunity of the rich and the cruel: He pardoned Joe Arpaio, who tortured undocumented immigrants in unlivable tent cities he openly called concentration camps, and, in pardoning Dinesh D’Souza, has signaled he will pardon his cronies if they are convicted for illegally helping him.
This is open corruption, and it has been openly embraced.
That fills me with grief, but my grief can’t make it untrue. And if this benthic sadness has any value, it’s that clarity. There is no more equivocating to do. You don’t have to equivocate about Trump’s corruption—or Wilbur Ross’, or Scott Pruitt’s. You don’t have to parse whether a “falsehood” is really a “lie.” It is simply true that the president is corrupt and that his supporters celebrate his corruption. That twisted power has enfeebled the institutions that depend on the very things the president would call weak—honesty and honor and service. As those institutions collapse, so does a polity capable of reasoning without them.
For instance: Confused by the fever that’s seized it, the country has spent days debating the “civility” of a restaurant owner who asked Sarah Huckabee Sanders to leave, after she had defended the president’s policy of putting children in cages as a “deterrent” to other migrants. He called sitting members of Congress “crazy” and pettily insulted that same restaurant’s cleanliness. But Trump’s own discourse somehow doesn’t factor into this earnest discussion of civility.
It is as strange as it is dangerous that everyone—supporters and antagonists alike—now excises Trump from this discussion about how people should treat each other. Even more shocking, though, is that this impulse to cordon Trump off, either by forgiving or excepting him, has extended to the courts, where language must matter if the institution is to function. In upholding Trump’s ban on travel from Muslim-majority countries—which Sean Spicer spent days as Trump’s press secretary insisting was not a ban—the Supreme Court dismissed his many, many public statements that declared an intent to discriminate based on religion. (Note that the justices did the exact opposite—citing evidence that some members of the Colorado Civil Rights Commission expressed “bias” against the baker’s religious belief—to rule in the Masterpiece Cakeshop case.)
Read more
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/06/supreme-court-is-now-trumps-and-so-we-grieve-for-america.html
Obama offers Democrats tough love ahead of midterms: 'Enough moping'
CNN Digital Expansion 2017
By Dan Merica, CNN
Updated 10:51 AM ET, Fri June 29, 2018
"If what you are doing requires no sacrifice at all, then you can do more," Obama told the tony crowd at a sweeping multi-million-dollar Beverly Hills home. "If you are one of these folks who is watching cable news at your cocktail parties with your friends and you are saying 'civilization is collapsing' and you are nervous and worried, but that is not where you are putting all your time, energy and money, then either you don't actually think civilization is collapsing ... or you are not pushing yourself hard enough and I would push harder."
At one point, he turned to the crowd and declared, "Enough moping, this is a mope-free zone."
Read more
https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/29/politics/obama-democrats-fundraiser/index.html
By Dan Merica, CNN
Updated 10:51 AM ET, Fri June 29, 2018
Obama cautions irresponsible social media use
Obama: Tend to democracy or risk Nazism
Obama peppered his 45-minute appearance with subtle knocks for despondent Democrats, warning that it is not enough to lament Donald Trump's presidency or complain about the impact he is having on the country. Instead, a tie-less and visibly relaxed Obama urged Democrats to back up those concerns with action and avoid the belief that the party is bound to defeat Republicans in November."If what you are doing requires no sacrifice at all, then you can do more," Obama told the tony crowd at a sweeping multi-million-dollar Beverly Hills home. "If you are one of these folks who is watching cable news at your cocktail parties with your friends and you are saying 'civilization is collapsing' and you are nervous and worried, but that is not where you are putting all your time, energy and money, then either you don't actually think civilization is collapsing ... or you are not pushing yourself hard enough and I would push harder."
At one point, he turned to the crowd and declared, "Enough moping, this is a mope-free zone."
Read more
https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/29/politics/obama-democrats-fundraiser/index.html
Trump Seeking Replacement for Chief of Staff
June 28, 2018 at 4:30 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard
President Trump “is consulting with advisers about whom he should tap as his next chief of staff, with John Kelly expected to depart the administration as early as this summer, possibly even this week,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“The two front-runners for the job, the people said, are Nick Ayers, who serves as chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence, and Mick Mulvaney, who heads the Office of Management and Budget as well as serving as acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.”
Jonathan Swan: “The pressure to remove chief of staff John Kelly has been building for months, and the chief’s relationship with Trump and many others in the building has been strained. Several people who currently work in the administration have lobbied the president to get rid of Kelly. And many more of Trump’s interlocutors outside the White House have lobbied him to get rid of Kelly, too.”
Source
https://politicalwire.com/2018/06/28/trump-seeking-replacement-for-chief-of-staff/
President Trump “is consulting with advisers about whom he should tap as his next chief of staff, with John Kelly expected to depart the administration as early as this summer, possibly even this week,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“The two front-runners for the job, the people said, are Nick Ayers, who serves as chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence, and Mick Mulvaney, who heads the Office of Management and Budget as well as serving as acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.”
Jonathan Swan: “The pressure to remove chief of staff John Kelly has been building for months, and the chief’s relationship with Trump and many others in the building has been strained. Several people who currently work in the administration have lobbied the president to get rid of Kelly. And many more of Trump’s interlocutors outside the White House have lobbied him to get rid of Kelly, too.”
Source
https://politicalwire.com/2018/06/28/trump-seeking-replacement-for-chief-of-staff/
Trump said “NATO is as bad as NAFTA.” That’s scary.
Why Trump’s anti-NATO comment is both unsurprising and horrifying.
By Alex Ward@AlexWardVoxalex.ward@vox.com Jun 28, 2018, 1:30pm EDT
During this month’s gathering of the Group of Seven — the seven countries with the largest economies in the world — Trump reportedly railed against prominent US allies. In particular, he criticized the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) — a decades-long military alliance between the US, Canada, and European nations.
“NATO is as bad as NAFTA,” Trump told G7 leaders in Canada, according to a report by Axios. “It’s much too costly for the US.”
That’s a striking thing to have said ahead of July’s NATO summit in Brussels, where Trump and 28 US allies will meet to discuss threats to Europe — and in particular, Russia. (On Thursday, the White House confirmed that Trump will also meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki on July 16, four days after the NATO summit concludes.)
Experts have roundly criticized Trump’s G7 meeting comment because it breaks with longstanding decision of support for the alliance — while lumping NATO together with a trade deal (NAFTA) that Trump hates. “That’s an unfortunate comparison,” Magnus Nordenman, a European security expert at the Atlantic Council think tank, told me.
The president’s comment is not terribly surprising — but wholly alarming
Trump has spent his year and a half in office reneging on America’s multilateral commitments, such as removing the US from the Iran nuclear deal in May. And NATO has clearly failed to escape Trump’s ire.
In May 2017 Trump failed to commit the US to NATO’s Article 5, which says an attack on one ally is an attack on all. (The following month he did commit to the common-defense provision in an impromptu comment at a White House press conference.) Trump’s tepid support has led some European allies to question if the US would come to their aid if, say, Russia attacked them.
Read more
https://www.vox.com/2018/6/28/17513972/trump-nato-russia-putin-nafta
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