The Cruelty and Cynicism of Trump’s Transgender Ban; New Yorker, July 26, 2017

David Remnick, New Yorker; The Cruelty and Cynicism of Trump’s Transgender Ban: The President’s tweets are a naked attempt to divert attention from his scandals.

"Let’s begin with the retrograde cruelty. There are thousands of transgender people already serving among the 1.3 million active-duty members of the military. These are people who have volunteered their service and have potentially put their lives on the line, and yet their President, who managed to come up with a flimsy doctor’s note back in the day, denies them their dignity, their equality. He will not “accept or allow” them in the military. Imagine the scale of this insult...

It is implausible that Trump paid much attention to his highest-ranking generals, or to experts, generally; Secretary of Defense James Mattis has supported transgender individuals joining the military. And the hardly radical Rand Corporation has published an in-depth study refuting the idea that transgender soldiers are somehow expensive, or that they undermine the morale and cohesion of the military over all. Trump’s decision to bar transgender people from the military is pure politics, cheap and cruel politics, a naked attempt to divert attention from his woes, to hold on to support from his base—a base that he believes will cheer his latest attempt to do battle with the secular-humanist coastal élites who are so obsessed with identity politics. (One Administration official told Axios’s Jonathan Swan that the move was intended to force Democrats from Rust Belt states to take “complete ownership of this issue.”) In other words, it is a decision straight out of the Steve Bannon playbook. Cue the organs of the alt-right press.

Trump likes to declare what a “disaster” the military is, how deeply it has fallen into disrepair, and how he will be its salvation. When you begin to consider the meanness of what Trump has done, it is worth remembering him saying that he was “smarter” than the generals on military matters, and that he mocked John McCain’s service in Vietnam because “I like people who weren’t captured.” When you begin to think about the scale of this offense, it is worth remembering Khizr Khan, the Gold Star father who lost a son in Iraq, addressing Trump directly from the lectern of the Democratic National Convention: “You have sacrificed nothing and no one.”"

Current copyright regime makes entertainment industry boring; The Daily Texan, June 18, 2017

Usmaan Hasan, The Daily Texan; Current copyright regime makes entertainment industry boring

"The current system of copyright and intellectual property protections quells artistic expression gives consumers the short end of the stick.

Mickey Mouse, as a property of Disney, enjoys bipartisan support in Congress. He was created in 1928, and under the existing copyright regime of the time, Disney’s right to Mickey should have ended in 1956 at the soonest, 1984 at the latest. Yet with some Disney magic, without fail, Congress expands copyright protections every time the Mickey is about to lapse into the public domain.

The hypocrisy coming from Disney is staggering. It has gained its immense wealth by monetizing properties in the public domain – like Cinderella, a centuries old fairy tale owned by no one – lobbying for copyright protections for those properties, and then reworking properties while constantly expanding the lifetime of their protections. It is a company that has managed to exercise artistic reinterpretation of cultural touchstones while making it nearly impossible for others to do the same. In fact, Disney has made its wealth by making movies on at least 50 works in the public domain."

Comey’s testimony changed everything — and not in Trump’s favor; Washington Post, June 9, 2017

Jennifer Rubin, Washington Post; Comey’s testimony changed everything — and not in Trump’s favor

"Before Comey, Republicans and Democrats had many bones to pick with Comey. After Comey, both sides avoid questioning his integrity. Republicans carped about his refusal to rebuke the president in the Oval Office (for a group that has never seriously confronted Trump on much of anything, this is rich). They made hay out of — gasp!– a leak of unclassified materials after Comey was fired. Not once, however, did any senator say he disbelieved Comey’s account or try to shake his recollection. Aspects of Comey’s factual account can be supported now by others, which will further bolster his own credibility and diminish Trump’s. Comey may be prickly, overly concerned with his own reputation and even a little schoolmarmish, but few will argue that he is a liar."

Where Are the United States Attorneys?; New York Times, June 6, 2017

Editorial Board, New York Times; 

Where Are the United States Attorneys?

"Three months after President Trump abruptly fired half of the nation’s 93 United States attorneys, following the resignations of the other half, he has yet to replace a single one.

It’s bizarre — and revealing — that a man who called himself the “law and order candidate” during the 2016 campaign and spoke of “lawless chaos” in his address to Congress would permit such a leadership vacuum at federal prosecutors’ offices around the country. United States attorneys are responsible for prosecuting terrorism offenses, serious financial fraud, public corruption, crimes related to gang activity, drug trafficking and all other federal crimes.

As is usually the case when confronted with his own incompetence, Mr. Trump has spent his time looking for somebody else to blame...

There are two other obvious, and perhaps simpler, explanations, and both may be correct. Mr. Trump does not actually believe in or care about his campaign claim of “lawless chaos” in our streets. And Mr. Trump is not a good manager — not of his businesses, certainly, and not of the vastly larger, more complex organization he now runs, the one that matters to the well-being of every American."

The Bullshitter-in-Chief; Vox, May 30, 2017

Matthew Yglesias, Vox; The Bullshitter-in-Chief

"The common thread of the Trumposphere is that there doesn’t need to be any common thread. One day Comey went soft on Clinton; the next day he was fired for being too hard on her; the day after that, it wasn’t about Clinton at all. The loyalist is just supposed to go along with whatever the line of the day is.

This is the authoritarian spirit in miniature, assembling a party and a movement that is bound to no principles and not even committed to following its own rhetoric from one day to the next. A “terrific” health plan that will “cover everyone” can transform into a bill to slash the Medicaid rolls by 14 million in the blink of an eye and nobody is supposed to notice or care. Anything could happen at any moment, all of it powered by bullshit."

Something is not right; Washington Post, May 26, 2017

Ruth Marcus, Washington Post; Something is not right

"In the middle of one night

Miss Clavel turned on the light

And said, “Something is not right!”

— “Madeline,” by Ludwig Bemelmans, 1939...

Something is really not right when all this is done to help pay for trillions of dollars in tax cuts for the richest Americans. When it is built on an edifice of fairy-tale growth projections exacerbated by fraudulent accounting, double-counting savings from this supposed growth.

We are all Miss Clavel now, or should be."

A week that reveals how rotten today’s Republican Party is; Washington Post, May 26, 2017

Jennifer Rubin, Washington Post; A week that reveals how rotten today’s Republican Party is

"This is the state of the GOP — a refuge for intellectual frauds and bullies, for mean-spirited hypocrites who preach personal responsibility yet excuse the inexcusable.

Conventional wisdom says that Trump executed a hostile takeover of the GOP. What we have seen this week suggests a friendly merger has taken place. Talk radio hosts have been spouting misogyny and anti-immigrant hysteria for years; Trump is their ideal leader, not merely a flawed vehicle for their views. Fox News has been dabbling in conspiracy theories (e.g. birtherism, climate-change denial) for decades; now Republicans practice intellectual nihilism...

The country needs two parties and benefits from the ideas associated with classical liberalism (small “l”) — the rule of law (over the law of the jungle), respect for the dignity of every individual, prosperity-creating free markets (including trade), values-based foreign policy. The Republican Party no longer embodies those ideals; it undermines them in words and in deeds. It now advances ideas and celebrates behavior antithetical to democracy and simple human decency. Center-right Americans, we have become convinced, must look elsewhere for a political home."

No, Trump, We Can’t Just Get Along; New York Times, 11/23/16

Charles M. Blow, New York Times; No, Trump, We Can’t Just Get Along:

"[Donald Trump] ended the meeting by saying:

“I will say, The Times is, it’s a great, great American jewel. A world jewel. And I hope we can all get along well.”...

You slammed Clinton for destroying emails, then Newsweek reported last month that your companies “destroyed emails in defiance of court orders.” You slammed Clinton and the Clinton Foundation for paid speeches and conflicts of interest, then it turned out that, as BuzzFeed reported, the Trump Foundation received a $150,000 donation in exchange for your giving a 2015 speech made by video to a conference in Ukraine. You slammed Clinton about conflicts of interest while she was secretary of state, and now your possible conflicts of interest are popping up like mushrooms in a marsh.

You are a fraud and a charlatan. Yes, you will be president, but you will not get any breaks just because one branch of your forked tongue is silver.

I am not easily duped by dopes.

I have not only an ethical and professional duty to call out how obscene your very existence is at the top of American government; I have a moral obligation to do so.

I’m not trying to convince anyone of anything, but rather to speak up for truth and honor and inclusion. This isn’t just about you, but also about the moral compass of those who see you for who and what you are, and know the darkness you herald is only held at bay by the lights of truth."

‘You should resign': Elizabeth Warren excoriates Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf; Washington Post, 9/20/16

Jena McGregor, Washington Post; ‘You should resign': Elizabeth Warren excoriates Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf:

"In at least a couple of instances, she used the bank's own words against him. She began by reading from the bank's "vision and values statement," which says "we believe in values lived, not phrases memorized," and "if you want to find out how strong a company's ethics are, don't listen to what its people say. Watch what they do."

So, she said, "let's do that," noting Stumpf had repeatedly said "I'm accountable." Then she drilled into questions where he was unable to affirmatively answer that he had resigned, handed back money he'd earned or fired any senior executives."

Hillary Clinton’s Tax Return Is a Message to Donald Trump: I Pay, Do You?; Daily Beast, 8/12/16

Jackie Kucinich, Betsy Woodruff, Daily Beast; Hillary Clinton’s Tax Return Is a Message to Donald Trump: I Pay, Do You? :

"In May, Trump bragged to George Stephanopoulous that he fights “very hard to pay as little tax as possible.”

When asked what his tax rate was exactly, Trump responded, “It’s none of your business. You’ll see it when I release. But I fight very hard to pay as little tax as possible.”

But that’s the problem.

Because when your whole message is about this rigged system that is ripping off the average American and your tax forms might show you’ve been doing the same in a completely legal way that—well, to use Trump’s verbiage—could be a disaster."

Roger Ailes opts for secrecy, cowardice in face of Gretchen Carlson suit; Washington Post, 7/9/16

Erik Wemple, Washington Post; Roger Ailes opts for secrecy, cowardice in face of Gretchen Carlson suit:

"“It is repulsive that Ailes is trying to force this extremely serious matter into a secretive, rigged system where Ms. Carlson’s chances of getting justice are far lower even if everything she alleges is true,” notes Bland. “The problems of secrecy in arbitration are really highlighted in this case — you look at all of the women who have come forward with very similar stories, and you can see why Ailes would prefer to keep a lid on all of this by avoiding the public court system where the evidence becomes a matter of public record.” That’s something to keep in mind the next time Chris Wallace or Bret Baier gripes about breakdowns in government transparency.

Another thing to consider is that Carlson worked at Fox News for 11 years, presiding in some way over thousands of hours of programming. Over all those hours, Carlson was adjudged reliable and honest enough such that Ailes and his lieutenants placed their precious Fox News audience in her hands. Now, all of the sudden, she has become the source for her lawyers’ dissemination of “one false and defamatory statement after another.” Even you, Roger Ailes, can’t have it both ways."

Superintendent; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 6/22/16

Rob Rogers, Brewed on Grant, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; Superintendent