Zorro
Zorro's JournalTrump's Budget Contains Twenty Million Dollars for Bail
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Donald J. Trump’s $4.7-trillion budget raised eyebrows on Monday when government-watchdog groups discovered that it contained twenty million dollars for bail.
The line item for a “bail fund” was buried in the fine print of the published budget, along with a footnote specifying that the money could be used only to bail out Trump and members of his immediate family.
The footnote listed the members of his family who would be eligible to use the funds, including his daughter Ivanka and his sons Donald, Jr., and Eric, but not his son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi joined a chorus of congressional Democrats who cried foul at the notion of American taxpayers posting bail for Trump and his family.
“At the end of the day, this is going to cost way more than twenty mil,” she said.
https://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/trumps-budget-contains-twenty-million-dollars-for-bail
Arizona ranchers who supported Trump wall now have doubts about border plans
When Donald Trump was elected president, rancher John Ladd said smuggling traffic on his ranch immediately dipped, and he slept soundly for the first time in years.
Ladd, 63, a fourth-generation cattle rancher, had voted for Trump and his promise to build a border wall and have Mexico pay for it. But the wall hasn’t been constructed, the respite didn’t last, and Ladd, along with other vocal southern Arizona ranchers, has lost faith in the Border Patrol’s barrier plans.
“If they build a wall and do what they did to us, it isn’t going to work,” Ladd said last week as he drove through the 10½-mile stretch of his ranchland that borders Mexico — roughly from the community of Naco west to the San Pedro River.
All but about half a mile of the border on his ranch is already fenced, a patchwork of varying heights, all erected on his land prior to the Trump administration. To his immediate west, at the foot of the Huachuca Mountains, the fence ends.
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/nation-world/la-na-arizona-border-trump-ranchers-20190310-story.html
NRA targets Ocasio-Cortez in scathing attack, labelling her a 'self-absorbed socialist darling'
Source: The Independent
The National Rifle Association has launched a scathing attack on Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, branding the congresswoman a “self-absorbed socialist darling”.
Grant Stinchfield, who is a host on the TV channel of the largest gun lobbying group in America, said Ms Ocasio-Cortez made him “sick”.
Mr Stinchfield, a self-described “firearms enthusiast”, hit out at the Democrat for criticising the war in Afghanistan.
“AOC thinks the war was disastrous and wrong,” he said on NRA TV. “The woman whose Green New Deal promises to figure out a way to handle cows that pass gas, is now crapping on patriotism and of course national security.”
Read more: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/nra-alexandria-ocasiocortez-socialist-green-new-deal-afghanistan-war-grant-stinchfield-a8816501.html
Game on, NRA!
Trump brands Ann Coulter a 'wacky nut job' over border wall criticism
Donald Trump has rounded on former ally Ann Coulter, branding the right-wing commentator a “wacky nut job” over her criticism of his inability to secure funding for a border wall.
The president defended the apparent lack of progress on his signature policy during a string of tweets on Saturday, taking aim at Coulter in particular.
“Wacky Nut Job @AnnCoulter, who still hasn’t figured out that, despite all odds and an entire Democrat Party of Far Left Radicals against me (not to mention certain Republicans who are sadly unwilling to fight) I am winning on the Border,” he wrote.
“Major sections of Wall are being built… and renovated, with MUCH MORE to follow shortly." “Tens of thousands of illegals are being apprehended (captured) at the Border and NOT allowed into our Country." “With another President, millions would be pouring in. I am stopping an invasion as the Wall gets built. #MAGA”
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-ann-coulter-wacky-nut-job-tweet-border-wall-delays-funding-criticism-a8816021.html
God Offers People of Alabama New Bibles to Replace Ones Trump Signed
MONTGOMERY, Alabama (The Borowitz Report)—God has offered to give the people of Alabama brand new Bibles to replace the ones that Donald J. Trump signed during his visit to the state on Friday.
In a rare public statement from the famously mysterious deity, God said that He was furious at Trump “for defacing My book,” calling Trump’s signature “a wanton act of vandalism.”
“Where was Mike Pence in all of this?” God asked. “These people can’t do anything right.”
God added that He was “dumbfounded” that Trump had taken it upon himself to sign his name on a book to which he had “no relationship whatsoever.”
“I’ve got news for Trump: the Bible is not ‘The Art of the Deal,’ ” God said. “Of course, he didn’t write that book, either.”
https://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/god-offers-people-of-alabama-new-bibles-to-replace-ones-trump-signed
Fox News's Chris Wallace embraces false equivalence
If Fox News’s Chris Wallace made arguments such as these on his own program, he would destroy himself.
In an interview with Michael M. Grynbaum of the New York Times, Wallace, host of the excellent program “Fox News Sunday,” criticized the decision earlier this week by Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez to stiff-arm Fox News for its 12 primary debates in the 2020 presidential cycle. A recent article by Jane Mayer of the New Yorker, Perez said, was critical to the decision. “Recent reporting in the New Yorker on the inappropriate relationship between President Trump, his administration and Fox News has led me to conclude that the network is not in a position to host a fair and neutral debate for our candidates. Therefore, Fox News will not serve as a media partner for the 2020 Democratic primary debates,” Perez noted in a statement.
The whole New Yorker angle, Wallace suggested, had the ring of pretext: “Do I think Tom Perez read the New Yorker article and suddenly said, ‘Oh, my gosh, there’s gambling going on in the back room?’ No,” he told the New York Times. “There is a visceral antipathy to Fox News among the left wing of the Democratic Party, and I think they saw this as a good opportunity to make a decision that I’m sure the D.N.C. was under a lot of pressure to make.”
That “visceral antipathy,” it might be noted, has something to do with the programming on Fox News. On Wednesday night alone, host Tucker Carlson, speaking about immigration, contended that the Democrats “are not for America. They’re actively against America.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/03/08/fox-newss-chris-wallace-embraces-false-equivalence
Chris Wallace is and has been a right wing shill his entire career. His father would be disgusted with him if he was still around.
The jobs report shows why the White House should stop touting its 'economic miracle'
Maybe, just maybe, it’s time for this White House to stop selectively celebrating really noisy or possibly-anomalous-to-the-point-of-meaninglessness statistics. Especially ones that can easily reverse themselves, as we saw happen Friday.
A month ago, the Trump administration was crowing about an unusually good jobs report: More than 300,000 jobs were added in January, way above trend. (Job growth has averaged about 200,000 for the past several years.) This crazy-high number was evidence, the president declared, of the “economic miracle” he was overseeing.
As the White House elaborated in a news release at the time: “President Trump has delivered on his promise to reignite the American economy and usher in a new economic boom.” Job growth was “smashing expectations.”
Those who follow the Labor Department’s monthly jobs reports — as I have now for more than a decade — know they are extremely noisy. That is, they bounce around a ton from month to month, and the margin of error in the payroll jobs number is plus or minus about 115,000. So, way above-trend numbers for one month could be the start of a new “miracle” boom, but they are more likely to be an aberration that could quickly reverse itself. Which is why hailing one month of unusually strong growth (or alternatively, mourning one month of unusually weak growth) is always risky.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/03/08/jobs-report-shows-why-white-house-should-stop-touting-its-economic-miracle
Trump thinks his supporters are the most gullible people on earth. Are they really?
I’ve got the perfect slogan for President Trump’s reelection campaign: “Promises Made, Promises Not Kept, But I’m Betting My Voters Are Too Stupid to Notice.”
Let’s take stock:
Trump promised to build a wall along the 2,000-mile southern border, with the cost of the “big, beautiful” barrier to be borne by Mexico. Trump made this pledge dozens of times in a call-and-response ritual at his campaign rallies. “Who’s going to pay for the wall?” he would demand, and the cheering crowds would yell the answer: “Mexico!”
Result: Not a single mile of Trump’s wall has been built. When Mexican officials made clear they would never pay a cent toward construction, Trump asked Congress for the money. Even with Republicans in control of both the House and the Senate for two full years, Congress declined to waste taxpayer dollars on the project. When Democrats took the House, Trump declared a “national emergency” in an attempt to steal funds from other projects. Still, despite what he claims, Trump has built no new wall.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-thinks-his-supporters-are-the-most-gullible-people-on-earth-are-they-really/2019/03/07/1e79a4c4-4119-11e9-9361-301ffb5bd5e6_story.html
One reason for Trump's foreign policy fiascoes -- his National Security Council is broken
National security fiascoes are piling up around President Trump. His summit with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un collapsed last week. In December, he announced a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria, only to have his national security advisor publicly revise the plan. Last July, he endorsed Vladimir Putin’s assertion that Russia didn’t interfere in our presidential election — a stunning rebuke to the findings of U.S. intelligence services.
These are all signs that the National Security Council is malfunctioning. The NSC — the nerve center for creating U.S. security policy over the last seven decades — is intended to advise the president on strategies to prevent war, terrorism and economic disruption. The evident weaknesses of Trump’s NSC are increasing the risk that security threats or intelligence will fall through the cracks, leaving the nation vulnerable.
Since its earliest years, the NSC’s secret meetings in the White House have been the principal forum for presidents to discuss security and policy with military, intelligence and diplomatic officials. Chaired by the president, the council includes the vice president, the secretaries of State, Defense, Energy and Treasury — but the president can add other federal officials as well. The council’s staff can rise to as many as 200 employees.
The NSC is an advisory group, however, and it’s up to the president to make good use of it. Trump doesn’t seem interested. Instead, he keeps belittling and contradicting the work of U.S. intelligence agencies. On Jan. 30, for instance, he tweeted: “The Intelligence people seem to be extremely passive and naïve when it comes to the dangers of Iran. They are wrong! ... Perhaps Intelligence should go back to school!” This hostility significantly undermines the NSC’s ability to serve its historic function.
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-shinkle-nsc-20190308-story.html
SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule splashes down in Atlantic Ocean and is recovered
Source: LA Times
SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean on Friday morning and was picked up a little more than an hour later by a recovery ship, marking the last major milestone of a NASA test mission and precursor to future human spaceflights.
The hatch of the capsule, which did not have a crew aboard, closed on Thursday at 12:39 p.m. EST. The capsule then undocked from the International Space Station at 2:32 a.m. Friday after a five-day stay. About five hours later, after a 15-minute de-orbit burn, the Crew Dragon capsule floated down into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida at 8:45 a.m. EST, buoyed first by two drogue parachutes and then by four main parachutes.
Two boats were nearby as the capsule touched down in the water to complete safety checks on the vehicle. SpaceX’s Go Searcher recovery ship, which is equipped with a helipad and medical treatment facility, lifted the Crew Dragon out of the water around 9:50 a.m. EST.
Shane Kimbrough, a former NASA astronaut who now leads various NASA recovery teams, said on a livestream of the landing that in the future, there will be less time between when the capsule splashes down and when it is picked up.
Read more: https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-spacex-crew-dragon-capsule-landing-20190308-story.html
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