What stupid shit has Trump done today?

[Smangus]

119 oh...

 

[taffboy gwyrdd]

some light relief

 

[a_chap]

Trump ends amnesty that protected the children of illegal immigrants from being deported.

Trump just scrapped the DACA amnesty protecting 800,000 young immigrants from deportation

Children.

What a cunt

 

[CRI]

Trump ends amnesty that protected the children of illegal immigrants from being deported.

Trump just scrapped the DACA amnesty protecting 800,000 young immigrants from deportation

Children.

What a cunt

Shitstain of the highest order, Sessions, could hardly contain his glee in announcing the end of DACA, and lied through his teeth throughout.

He described the 800,000 people affected as "adult illegal aliens" as if they sneaked over the border yesterday. The average age of those arriving with their parents was six. Many have siblings, spouses and children of their own who are US citizens. Now they face forced removal to countries they'e never visited, may have no family there, don't speak the language, etc. He's trying to paint them as greedy, shady and threatening. He lied when he said they were entitled to all the same benefits as citizens. They're liable to pay income, property, sales and other taxes, but they are barred from claiming social security, food stamps, medicaid, even getting health insurance through the ACA. He did the classic, "these shifty brown folk are sponging off the state," and Trump supporters will swear on their children's lives it's true.


And the press secretary droned on about Obama implementing DACA by executive order overstepping his role and congress had rejected it (GOP members of the house blocked it, and it's not like Trump's shy about signing executive orders,) so this was just returning to the situation as it should have stayed. She points out that it doesn't mean these young adults will be priorities for deportation (although that's already happened to some who've not committed crimes and had impeccable backgrounds), but their work permits will be "phased out." If they're not allowed to work anymore, and can't claim any form of assistance, how will they pay for food, mortgage, health care? It's indirectly forcing them out, and they're hoping their US citizen spouses and dependents will fuck off with them.

Her racist slip has shown before in her palpable discomfort and patronising manner whenever questioned by Black reporters. But her comment about if they exit stage left, that will leave jobs open for other black and brown folk who need the jobs? WTF?

Oh, and she referred to President Obama twice when the meant Trump. Obama's very existence is like a worm chewing at the insides of Republican brains. The lot of them still can't deal with the shame of having an African American President of the USA.

 

[CRI]

More "in America under Trump and the GOP" . . .

Hookworm, a disease of extreme poverty, is thriving in the US south. Why?

Hookworm was rampant in the deep south of the US in the earlier 20th century, sapping the energy and educational achievements of both white and black kids and helping to create the stereotype of the lazy and lethargic southern redneck. As public health improved, most experts assumed it had disappeared altogether by the 1980s.

But the new study reveals that hookworm not only survives in communities of Americans lacking even basic sanitation, but does so on a breathtaking scale. None of the people included in the research had travelled outside the US, yet parasite exposure was found to be prevalent, as was shockingly inadequate waste treatment.

The peer-reviewed research paper, published in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, focuses on Lowndes County, Alabama – the home state of US attorney general Jeff Sessions and a landmark region in the history of the nation’s civil rights movement. “Bloody Lowndes”, the area was called in reference to the violent reaction of white residents towards attempts to undo racial segregation in the 1950s.

It was through this county that Martin Luther King led marchers from Selma to Montgomery in 1965 in search of voting rights for black citizens, More than half a century later, King’s dream of what he called the “dignity of equality” remains elusive for many of the 11,000 residents of Lowndes County, 74% of whom are African American.

The pipe was cracked in several places and stopped just inside the copse, barely 30ft from the house, dripping ooze into a viscous pool the color of oil. Directly above the sewage pool, a separate narrow-gauge pipe ran up to the house, which turned out to be the main channel carrying drinking water to the residents.

The open sewer was festooned with mosquitoes, and a long cordon of ants could be seen trailing along the waste pipe from the house. At the end of the pool nearest the house the treacly fluid was glistening in the dappled sunlight – a closer look revealed that it was actually moving, its human effluence heaving and churning with thousands of worms.

The challenge to places like Lowndes County is not to restore existing public infrastructure, as Trump has promised, because there is no public infrastructure here to begin with. Flowers estimates that 80% of the county is uncovered by any municipal sewer system, and in its absence people are expected – and in some cases legally forced – to provide their own.

 

[redsquirrel]

I guess I must have been in a different reality where there hadn't been a Democrat in the Whitehouse for 8 of the last 9 years. Or did this all suddenly happen in January this year?

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

On Wednesday, Facebook revealed that hundreds of Russia-based accounts had run anti-Hillary Clinton ads precisely aimed at Facebook users whose demographic profiles implied a vulnerability to political propaganda. It will take time to prove whether the account owners had any relationship with the Russian government, but one thing is clear: Facebook has contributed to, and profited from, the erosion of democratic norms in the United States and elsewhere.

Opinion | Facebook Wins, Democracy Loses

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

It is commonly believed that Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential campaign consisted mainly of the hacking and leaking of Democratic emails and unfavorable stories circulated abroad about Hillary Clinton. But as a startling investigation by Scott Shane of The New York Times, and new research by the cybersecurity firm FireEye, now reveal, the Kremlin’s stealth intrusion into the election was far broader and more complex, involving a cyberarmy of bloggers posing as Americans and spreading propaganda and disinformation to an American electorate on Facebook, Twitter and other platforms.

Opinion | Russia’s Fake Americans

 

[TheHoodedClaw]

The modern world is so, so fucking strange. Here's former Mexican President Vicente Fox (I...I think it's really him?) with a message.



Vint Cerf, Bob Kahn, Tim Berners-Lee et al must surely be reconsidering whether the internet was a good idea

 

[J Ed]

The modern world is so, so fucking strange. Here's former Mexican President Vicente Fox (I...I think it's really him?) with a message.



Vint Cerf, Bob Kahn, Tim Berners-Lee et al must surely be reconsidering whether the internet was a good idea

What an embarassment.

 

[J Ed]

Some incredible statistics in this really interesting article from Doug Henwood. Looking through it you can easily imagine how those experiencing the decay of US infrastructure would be more receptive to a politician promoting himself as someone promising a renewal of America and a return to a partly real partly imagined past.

Why the United States Is Falling Apart

If I were a debased purveyor of clickbait, I’d call this “Everything that’s wrong with America in two charts.” But I’m not, so I won’t. But still . . .

Hurricane Harvey is only the latest reminder that the US infrastructure is falling apart — a situation that become more urgent as the climate crisis bites harder. Here’s a data series that goes a long way to explaining why. In simple English, the public sector is barely investing enough to keep up with normal decay, let alone doing anything to improve things.

The series is net civilian public investment from the national income accounts. (The source is table 5.2.5, here.) “Net” means after depreciation, aka wear and tear. Public investment means expenditures on long-lived assets like schools and roads. Prisons are in there too. If we took those out, the numbers would be slightly lower — though not profoundly so, because most of the costs of maintaining the carceral state come from day-to-day operations — 96%, according to this estimate — not from building new prisons.

Of course, it’s hard to put exact dollar values on the decay of physical assets over time. Economic stats are always highly imperfect, even if they seem precise, carried out to several figures beyond the decimal point. But they’re the best we’ve got — and these are the numbers that American capitalism produces to understand itself, even if they don’t bother to pay much attention to what the numbers are saying

 

[Dogsauce]

Opinion | Russia’s Fake Americans

There's a lot of very smart cyber criminals / hacker types in Russia, something originating from there doesn't necessarily implicate the Russian government, just that some people were hired by whoever. This idea that Putin has a hand in everything linked to or originating from .ru is ignorant childish bollocks. It's just where a lot of particular skills are.

I would imagine voter profiling for targeted Facebook messages would be something originating from a US source due to the kind of local knowledge such a task would require. There's already right-wing organisations with this kind of capability known to have been involved in this and other campaigns, it's not even an illegitimate activity under current laws. I guess Russian troll/scam farms were cheaper than India.

 

[J Ed]

Not just the Russians either is it

 

[J Ed]

Far more influential and effective voter manipulation comes from UAE, Israel, Saudi Arabia and god knows where else and that's only state actors anyway.

 

[TheHoodedClaw]

What an embarassment.

Innit though. People who in years gone past would be handing out crayoned pamphlets in the bus station toilets get a global audience now. And that includes former heads of state, and some current ones.

 

[redsquirrel]

Not just the Russians either is it

Yes, rather ignores the long time actions of the US (and UK) government. I mean it's not like they've ever "[spread] propaganda and disinformation" to electorates.

 

[TomUS]

There's a lot of very smart cyber criminals / hacker types in Russia, something originating from there doesn't necessarily implicate the Russian government, just that some people were hired by whoever. This idea that Putin has a hand in everything linked to or originating from .ru is ignorant childish bollocks. It's just where a lot of particular skills are.

I think it's about a lot more than where the skills are. I assume, given Putin's background, that Russia has a large and highly skilled domestic and foreign intelligence apparatus plus mafia type actors that the gov can use. Any large scale attempted cyber interference in the US election would be very unlikely to originate from Russia without gov approval at least.

 

[J Ed]

Yes, rather ignores the long time actions of the US (and UK) government. I mean it's not like they've ever "[spread] propaganda and disinformation" to electorates.

Also the interference of other governments in US elections.

 

[J Ed]

From the DM...

Fuck off Obama

 

[maomao]

Also the interference of other governments in US elections.

Where are the Chinese and North Koreans in this. They actually do have tonnes of state employed hackers unlike the dodgy privateers in Russia. Did they just sit on their hands because trying to influence a foreign election would be wrong?

 

[chandlerp]

From the DM...

Fuck off Obama

And what has that got to do with anything in relation to Trump?

 

[J Ed]

And what has that got to do with anything in relation to Trump?

Obama was president before Trump.

 

[Yossarian]

From the DM...

Fuck off Obama

Obama called Tory HQ to pass on inaccurate inside information from the Labour campaign? Sounds like a prank call to me, next election night I'm going to try calling those pricks with messages of support from John Wayne, Daffy Duck, and Bela Lugosi.

 

[not a trot]

Obama was president before Trump.

So was Washington and 40 odd others.

 

[J Ed]

Obama called Tory HQ to pass on inaccurate inside information from the Labour campaign? Sounds like a prank call to me, next election night I'm going to try calling those pricks with messages of support from John Wayne, Daffy Duck, and Bela Lugosi.

Sounds like a prank to someone who knows nothing at all about Obama's politics and his relationship with the Tories.

 

[J Ed]

So was Washington and 40 odd others.

I'm not the one fucking moaning and trying to police what other people post. Post about all the fuckers if you want.

 

[Yossarian]

Sounds like a prank to someone who knows nothing at all about Obama's politics and his relationship with the Tories.

Meow.

 

[TomUS]

Sounds like a prank to someone who knows nothing at all about Obama's politics and his relationship with the Tories.

That part of the article sounds preposterous. What is Obama's relationship with the Tories that leads you to believe it?

 

[J Ed]

That part of the article sounds preposterous. What is Obama's relationship with the Tories that leads you to believe it?

Jim Messina advised the Tories in 2015 and 2017, other senior Obama figures advised the Tories in 2010. Cameron requested that Obama come to Britain and warn against Brexit, which he duely did. Obama has repeatedly attacked Corbyn's leadership.

 

[TomUS]

Jim Messina advised the Tories in 2015 and 2017, other senior Obama figures advised the Tories in 2010. Cameron requested that Obama come to Britain and warn against Brexit, which he duely did. Obama has repeatedly attacked Corbyn's leadership.

The headline isn't consistent with the body of the article. But Obama's answer is bizarre. Given the election results, it's the Democratic party that's not grounded in fact and reality.

Asked about a potential Corbynisation of his party, he said: “I don’t worry about that, partly because I think that the Democratic party has stayed pretty grounded in fact and reality.