Day: April 11, 2017

TrumpSpeak: Concentration Camps Are Now ‘Holocaust Centers’

Jon Ponder

White House press secretary Sean Spicer attempted to clean up his instantly controversial claim that Adolf Hitler “didn’t even sink to using chemical weapons” Tuesday by conceding that Hitler had brought chemical agents into the “Holocaust center.”

“I think when you come to sarin gas, there was no, he was not using the gas on his own people the same way that Ashad [sic] is doing … there was not in the — he brought them into the Holocaust center, I understand that, but I’m saying in that the way that Assad used them, where he went into towns, dropped them down, to innocent, into the middle of towns, it was brought, the use of it,” Spicer said. “I appreciate the clarification, that was not the intent.”

Protestors Deliver a Message to U.S. Rep Joe “You Lie” Wilson

Trish

You remember Joe Wilson. He’s the congressman from South Carolina’s 2nd District (Columbia) who made himself famous for his unprecedented rudeness when you screamed, “You lie” at Pres. Obama during a 2009 address to Congress.

This time it was Wilson being called a liar, during a town hall meeting with constituents in Graniteville, SC.

Wilson, who voted against reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act in 2013, was telling the crowd about how he tried to ensure that, “all efforts to make sure that violence against women is fully enforced” when those in attendance begged to differ.

If you’ve forgotten Wilson’s outburst at Obama, here’s a reminder.

[…]

Cruz Counting on Money, Not Personality, to Win

Buck Banks

$5.2 million

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) “is sitting on a war chest of more than $5 million as he prepares for potentially stiff challenges in both a Republican primary and in the general election,” Politico reports. “The Texas Republican raised about $1.738 million in the first three months of this year across his Senate reelection campaign, his political action committee and the Ted Cruz Victory Committee. He now has $5.2 million across those three committees, and $4.8 million of that is in his Senate reelection account.”

Why Trump Should Keep Bannon Close

Buck Banks

“If Bannon is cut loose, the old Washington adage of ‘better to have your enemy inside the tent pissing out’ will come into play. The coverage of Trump in the Bannon/Mercer echo chamber will go from ‘gushing hagiography’ to ‘more in sorrow than in anger’ to ‘Trump is now a globalist cuck shill for the ZOG’ faster than Andrew Breitbart can rotate in his grave. … Another reason firing Bannon is fraught with risk: Bannon is running the Russia pushback operation from inside the White House. He’s up to his ample ass in the Nunes shenanigan with NSC staffer Ezra Cohen-Watnik and White House Counsel’s Office staffer Mike Ellis. Bannon doesn’t just want to protect Trump over the Russia allegations; he wants to protect Russia, a nation he sees as an essential ally in his new alliance of white Christian nations against the Muslim horde. Does Trump really want Bannon, angry and in the wind, declaring his own jihad?”

— Rick Wilson

What Really Goes on at White House Press Briefings

Buck Banks

White House press secretary Sean Spicer speaks during the administration’s daily press briefing in Washington, D.C., on March 28. Joshua Roberts/Reuters
White House press secretary Sean Spicer speaks during the administration’s daily press briefing in Washington, D.C., on March 28.
Joshua Roberts/Reuters

Slate’s Seth Stevenson offers a great insider’s view of the ongoing trainwreck that is Press Secretary Sean Spicer in his article, “The Daily Show.”

The real problem in the briefing room isn’t the kind of questions getting asked, who’s being allowed to ask them, or how they’re phrased. It’s the posturing of the press secretary and the brazenness of his lies. Consider that, during contentious moments in past administrations, press secretaries managed to remain collegial from the podium. Even deferential.

It’s long, but well worth reading to get, as Paul Harvey used to say, “the rest of the story.” Because all we citizens ever see of it is the snippets on TV or the theater of the absurd quotation outtakes.

Stevenson gives a more well-rounded view of the proceedings — but Sean Spicer is still a “keg-shaped bully” and a liar.