this is mikel.org

Michael Boyle's weblog

Josh Marshall: Feel The Propaganda, Feel the Hate

by

Josh Marshall in Talking Points Memo about the core deceptions at the heart of the administration’s twin crime and immigration policy stances.

We’re familiar with President Trump’s dystopian vision of an America in chaos, preyed on by foreigners and awash in citizens violated by feral criminals and “illegals.” Through last year’s campaign and into this year, Trump has repeatedly lied about the national crime rate, murder rates and much more. Here though is a case where anti-immigrant policies continue to be justified by at least deliberately misleading statements and what can only be called incitement. […]
There’s not much more to say. If this were one deception it might be dismissed. But of course it is not. It is a single illustrative example of deception as policy, one peep in a symphony of lies that President Trump, Attorney General Sessions and all their fellow travelers and appointees use regularly to sell their anti-immigrant crackdown and attempt to return to the ‘tough on crime’ policies of the past.

Source: Feel The Propaganda, Feel the Hate

Lizza: The Continuing Fallout from Trump and Nunes’s Fake Scandal

by

Ryan Lizza in The New Yorker on the scrambling reaction to unprovoked and made-up Tweets from President Trump about how he had supposedly been surveilled the the previous administration. Strong stuff.

The intelligence source told me that he knows, “from talking to people in the intelligence community,” that “the White House said, ‘We are going to mobilize to find something to justify the President’s tweet that he was being surveilled.’ They put out an all-points bulletin”—a call to sift through intelligence reports—“and said, ‘We need to find something that justifies the President’s crazy tweet about surveillance at Trump Tower.’ And I’m telling you there is no way you get that from those transcripts, which are about as plain vanilla as can be.” (The White House did not respond to a request for comment.)

Source: The Continuing Fallout from Trump and Nunes’s Fake Scandal – The New Yorker

2017 Australian Grand Prix practice in pictures

by

The 2017 Formula 1 racing season gets underway tomorrow in Melbourne, Australia, and judging by what I’ve seen on TV from practice and qualifying, the new cars are pretty damned sexy. In particular, the orange MacLaren, the Renault, finally in Renault Yellow, and the unique pink Force India cars looks very fresh. Of course the Ferrari is always a beauty!

This will also mark the debut of Upper Westmount’s own Lance Stroll, driving for Williams, the same team that Jacques Villeneuve debuted with 21 years ago. Of course the two debuts were completely different – when he started in F1, Villeneuve was already a CART and Indy 500 Champion, whereas Stroll is just 18 years old and comes straight from the “minor leagues” of open wheel racing.

Pictures from the first day of practice for the 2017 Australian Grand Prix.

Source: 2017 Australian Grand Prix practice in pictures · F1 Fanatic

Afghans Who Worked With U.S. Forces Told They Can No Longer Apply For Special Visas

by

Really? Seems like cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face, no?

On Thursday, the U.S. State Department announced that it expected to run out of special visas by June 1. The visas are for Afghans who are in danger because they assisted the U.S. mission.

Source: Afghans Who Worked With U.S. Forces Told They Can No Longer Apply For Special Visas – The Two-Way – NPR

The winning argument Democrats have against Trump

by

This is an optimistic article, but there are already conspiracy theories that Obama is running a “shadow government” and derailing everything Trump tries (or not) to do. So it’s not clear to me that this administration can’t insulate itself from such practical but mundane problems.

What President Trump has done and said in his short time in office is bad enough. But Democrats may find that it is what Trump has failed to do — and is likely to continue to fail to deliver — during his tenure that provides the most powerful case against him.

Source: The winning argument Democrats have against Trump – The Washington Post

Michael Boyle Blog