Yeah, I'm disappointed with BBC's lack of spine. I know they're trying to be the "impartial" organisation, but it all smacks of trying too hard to justify what's been going on and the decisions being reached, so as not to upset the country that seemingly couldn't care less about anyone/thing else.
Trump 2.0
- Thread starter James R
- Start date
Great news coming out of Canada, who yesterday elected the Liberal party back into power as a message to Trump. That isn't all, the leader of the Conservative party who not only lost the election, after 20 years in government, lost his own seat to a Liberal. Take that Trump!
Pinball1970
Valued Senior Member
They cannot go all out, this is not SNL, they are the BBC. Same with Starmer, why is he not going all out? He has absolutely every right to but sensible thing now is to keep this lunatic in sight, not completely alienate him.
exchemist
Valued Senior Member
It’s another example of what I gather is termed “false balance”, whereby a ludicrous point of view is given equal treatment with the viewpoint held by just about everyone sane. A famous recent example was when the BBC came in for flak when for a while they were giving climate deniers equal treatment with the scientific consensus.
In Trump’s case what makes me really uneasy is that failure to call out a coup for what it was is what enabled Hitler to consolidate his hold on power. It takes a lot to get moderate, politically unengaged people’s attention and the danger is not to realise where things are going until it’s too late.
As far as false balance, or bothsidesism, goes, it's especially unsettling when a foreign media outlet is doing this with respect to the US. The US did very much the same thing with respect to Hitler for several years, just glossing over the unsavory bits and atrocities. The New York Times actually covered, or at least referenced, the camps something like a thousand times prior to the US entering the war--they just downplayed every significant aspect in the most egregious possible way.
I'm not suggesting they need go all SNL on the US administration... we have enough of those sorts of things (HIGNFY, Mock the Week, when it was on, etc)... but they shouldn't be sanewashing things, or pussy-footing around. Unbiased doesn't mean you can't tell it how it is. In fact they should be telling it how it is. The BBC is editorially independent of government, and prides itself on the impartiality it brings (it's obviously not perfect, but better than most). Yet with Trump you can barely find any actual criticism, despite his tariffs damaging our economy, despite his treatment of Ukraine damaging our defensive alliances, and despite him cosying up to someone waging war and other dictators. It's all "will it work out?", "ooh, he's done so much in 100 days!" nonsense.
Oh. Wow. Just... wow.
Trump has done an interview with ABC (Terry Moran), and while Moran remained respectful, he didn't let Trump gaslight him the way others do.
Full transcript: https://abcnews.go.com/US/full-tran...0-days-broadcast-interview/story?id=121291672
But some juicy morsels regarding Kilmar Abrego Garcia:
TERRY MORAN: You could get him back. There's a phone on this desk.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I could.
TERRY MORAN: You could pick it up, and with all --
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I could
TERRY MORAN: -- the power of the presidency, you could call up the president of El Salvador and say, "Send him back," right now.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: And if he were the gentleman that you say he is, I would do that.
TERRY MORAN: But the court has ordered you --
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: But he's not.
TERRY MORAN: -- to facilitate that -- his release--
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I'm not the one making this decision. We have lawyers that don't want --
TERRY MORAN: You're the president.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: -- to do this, Terry --
TERRY MORAN: Yeah, but the -- but the buck stops in this office --
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I -- no, no, no, no. I follow the law. You want me to follow the law. If I were the president that just wanted to do anything, I'd probably keep him right where he is --
TERRY MORAN: The Supreme Court says what the law is.
So basically he's admitting to disobeying the Supreme Court's order for him to "facilitate" the release of Garcia. He has admitted that he could simply phone the President of El Salvador and arrange it, but that he (Trump) is refusing to do that.
Then later...
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: On his knuckles -- he had MS-13 --
TERRY MORAN: Alright. There's dis -- there's a dispute over that --
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, wait a minute. Wait a minute. He had MS-13 --
TERRY MORAN: Well --
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: -- on his knuckles tattooed.
TERRY MORAN: -- he -- he -- he -- it didn't say-- oh, he had some tattoos that are inper -- interpreted that way. But let's move on
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Wait a minute.
TERRY MORAN: I want --
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Hey, Terry. Terry. Terry.
TERRY MORAN: He -- he did not have the letter --
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Don't do that -- M-S-1-3 -- It says M-S-one-three.
TERRY MORAN: I -- that was Photoshop. So let me just--
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: That was Photoshop? Terry, you can't do that -- he had -- he-- hey, they're givin' you the big break of a lifetime. You know, you're doin' the interview. I picked you because -- frankly I never heard of you, but that's okay --
TERRY MORAN: This -- I knew this would come --
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: But I picked you -- Terry -- but you're not being very nice. He had MS-13 tattooed --
TERRY MORAN: Alright. Alright. We'll agree to disagree. I want to move on --
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Terry.
TERRY MORAN: -- to something else.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Terry. Do you want me to show the picture?
TERRY MORAN: I saw the picture. We'll -- we'll -- we'll agree to disagree --
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Oh, and you think it was Photoshop. Well --
TERRY MORAN: Here we go. Here we go.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: -- don't Photoshop it. Go look --
TERRY MORAN: Alright.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: -- at his hand. He had MS-13 --
and he didn't stop there, but went on and on with it.
So, yeah, not sure if you've seen the photo being referred to, but it's got M, S, 1, 3 photoshopped above the 4 tattoos that Garcia does have, and Trump genuinely thinks that he has tattoos "MS13". And this was a hill he seemed willing to die on! He even brought it up again later in the interview.
It's a hoot, and does go into a number of other things. Worth a quick read, anyway. But it's difficult to read without not somehow doing an impression of his voice in your head as youdo so. It's as unpresidential as you can get in tone, it's full of gaslighting, it's delusional, and shows just how truly stupid this guy is.
Trump has done an interview with ABC (Terry Moran), and while Moran remained respectful, he didn't let Trump gaslight him the way others do.
Full transcript: https://abcnews.go.com/US/full-tran...0-days-broadcast-interview/story?id=121291672
But some juicy morsels regarding Kilmar Abrego Garcia:
TERRY MORAN: You could get him back. There's a phone on this desk.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I could.
TERRY MORAN: You could pick it up, and with all --
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I could
TERRY MORAN: -- the power of the presidency, you could call up the president of El Salvador and say, "Send him back," right now.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: And if he were the gentleman that you say he is, I would do that.
TERRY MORAN: But the court has ordered you --
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: But he's not.
TERRY MORAN: -- to facilitate that -- his release--
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I'm not the one making this decision. We have lawyers that don't want --
TERRY MORAN: You're the president.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: -- to do this, Terry --
TERRY MORAN: Yeah, but the -- but the buck stops in this office --
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I -- no, no, no, no. I follow the law. You want me to follow the law. If I were the president that just wanted to do anything, I'd probably keep him right where he is --
TERRY MORAN: The Supreme Court says what the law is.
So basically he's admitting to disobeying the Supreme Court's order for him to "facilitate" the release of Garcia. He has admitted that he could simply phone the President of El Salvador and arrange it, but that he (Trump) is refusing to do that.
Then later...
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: On his knuckles -- he had MS-13 --
TERRY MORAN: Alright. There's dis -- there's a dispute over that --
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, wait a minute. Wait a minute. He had MS-13 --
TERRY MORAN: Well --
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: -- on his knuckles tattooed.
TERRY MORAN: -- he -- he -- he -- it didn't say-- oh, he had some tattoos that are inper -- interpreted that way. But let's move on
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Wait a minute.
TERRY MORAN: I want --
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Hey, Terry. Terry. Terry.
TERRY MORAN: He -- he did not have the letter --
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Don't do that -- M-S-1-3 -- It says M-S-one-three.
TERRY MORAN: I -- that was Photoshop. So let me just--
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: That was Photoshop? Terry, you can't do that -- he had -- he-- hey, they're givin' you the big break of a lifetime. You know, you're doin' the interview. I picked you because -- frankly I never heard of you, but that's okay --
TERRY MORAN: This -- I knew this would come --
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: But I picked you -- Terry -- but you're not being very nice. He had MS-13 tattooed --
TERRY MORAN: Alright. Alright. We'll agree to disagree. I want to move on --
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Terry.
TERRY MORAN: -- to something else.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Terry. Do you want me to show the picture?
TERRY MORAN: I saw the picture. We'll -- we'll -- we'll agree to disagree --
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Oh, and you think it was Photoshop. Well --
TERRY MORAN: Here we go. Here we go.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: -- don't Photoshop it. Go look --
TERRY MORAN: Alright.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: -- at his hand. He had MS-13 --
and he didn't stop there, but went on and on with it.
So, yeah, not sure if you've seen the photo being referred to, but it's got M, S, 1, 3 photoshopped above the 4 tattoos that Garcia does have, and Trump genuinely thinks that he has tattoos "MS13". And this was a hill he seemed willing to die on! He even brought it up again later in the interview.
It's a hoot, and does go into a number of other things. Worth a quick read, anyway. But it's difficult to read without not somehow doing an impression of his voice in your head as youdo so. It's as unpresidential as you can get in tone, it's full of gaslighting, it's delusional, and shows just how truly stupid this guy is.
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exchemist
Valued Senior Member
What Trump wants is to establish in the minds of his MAGA faithful the "alternative fact" that these initials really are on the guy's hands - or at least that there is a "controversy" about it.
He is adept at giving people who are so motivated "reasons to believe" in him and his policies. (This is just marketing - RTBs are a thing in the development of marketing campaigns: https://www.themarketingsage.com/what-is-a-reason-to-believe-statement-and-why-is-it-important/. ) I don't think he has had formal marketing training, but he does it instinctively, twisting the truth or lying brazenly if necessary.
He won't follow the law as promulgated by the courts but claims he is following the law because he is passing the buck to "the lawyers"
Did I get that right ?
Also attempting to corrupt the interviewer(and other potential interviewers,of course)
I hope Terry Moran took a bath after.
Pinball1970
Valued Senior Member
And of that $32.5 billion:
The New York Times started looking at those receipts, by looking at the HTML code on the web page (contained the grant number) and working backwards.
The biggest one on the list was $1.75 billion. But when they called the agency that received that grant, they said that they had already received and spent the money. So actual savings of zero.
Another grant listed an original cost of $83 million. But that's not what the grant was for; that was the highest amount the grant could possibly be. The actual amount authorized by the grant was $1.5 million and they had already received $800K. So the actual savings was $700K even if the grant was really cancelled.
From the list of grants they could track down, the real savings averaged 2.6% of the claimed savings. So the claimed savings of $32.5 billion is likely closer to $1 billion - a savings of $4 per taxpayer.
When the NYT reporter asked DOGE about this their response was swift - they removed all the HTML data from the site so nothing could be checked.
Now, this is still good, right? Even a billion is a great amount to save. But at what cost?
Turns out there's a cost to DOGE. Costs related to putting tens of thousands of federal employees on paid leave, re-hiring mistakenly fired workers, defending against wrongful termination lawsuits and overall lost productivity. The Partnership for Public Service (PSP), a watchdog nonprofit, puts that cost at $135 billion.
So overall DOGE has COST us between $134 and $103 billion, depending on how valid those receipts are. No wonder Trump is raising taxes.
Hmm. I've seen a few examples like this. You could argue that by cancelling the grant they are cancelling a potential c.$82m, assuming that the rest of the grant could still be authorised. But if they're saying that any saving is the value of what was authorised that they have now cancelled, yeah, just the <$1m.
Is he raising taxes? Or do you mean the tariffs?
He did say an interview with Time that he liked the concept of an increase in tax for those earning over $1m, but this was quickly put down by the right, and Trump has since distanced himself from the idea.
Right, and I am sure that's what they are claiming. But that's not money that was going to be spent. We've had similar grants where it was a $5 million grant - but we got approved for $750K. Cancelling our grant does not save $5 million.
The tariffs. Largest tax increase in 50 years.
Most polls are showing that Trump's approval rating is in the toilet, the lowest for a President at 100 days for 70-80 years. In fact, the only other Presidential term to have a sub-50% approval rating at this juncture was Trump himself, and this term is even worse than that. And it's not just one poll, but pretty near all of them. Including Fox News' own poll, that actually puts him lower than others.
Naturally Stephen Miller, the comic-book henchman, said in an interviewer that the Fox pollster should be sacked. Because that's always their way: don't like something? Sack the person.
Even Trump has cakked pollsters "criminals" and demanded they be investigated!
No, you couldn't make this shit up.
Fox News did try to mitigate their own bad news, at least in their digital reporting, with a column by Liz Peek (whoever she is?) urging readers to simply "ignore" the "biased polls". She claimed, without evidence, that the polls didn't poll enough Trump supporters. At one point she claimed that only 34% of those polled were Trump supporters, clearly not in line with the 50% he won at the election, right?
Well, for those not trying to spin anything, the 50% at the election was only 50% of voters. And 1/3 of eligible voters simply didn't bother. So who knows how people will declare their support for in a poll.
Then she highlighted a focus group of "15 Trump voters" (convened by a GOP consultant) who seemed happy to give the President time to work through his agenda... 'cos, you know, nothing works better than countering accusations of bias among polls by conducting a survey of solely Trump supporters.
Anyhoo - the Felon is having a meltdown, naturally. This is on the back of his awful interview with ABC (posted about above) as well as some further awful interviews since (in one he confused a question about Harvard for Harlem, and went on a rant about the black vote!)
Naturally Stephen Miller, the comic-book henchman, said in an interviewer that the Fox pollster should be sacked. Because that's always their way: don't like something? Sack the person.
Even Trump has cakked pollsters "criminals" and demanded they be investigated!
No, you couldn't make this shit up.
Fox News did try to mitigate their own bad news, at least in their digital reporting, with a column by Liz Peek (whoever she is?) urging readers to simply "ignore" the "biased polls". She claimed, without evidence, that the polls didn't poll enough Trump supporters. At one point she claimed that only 34% of those polled were Trump supporters, clearly not in line with the 50% he won at the election, right?
Well, for those not trying to spin anything, the 50% at the election was only 50% of voters. And 1/3 of eligible voters simply didn't bother. So who knows how people will declare their support for in a poll.
Then she highlighted a focus group of "15 Trump voters" (convened by a GOP consultant) who seemed happy to give the President time to work through his agenda... 'cos, you know, nothing works better than countering accusations of bias among polls by conducting a survey of solely Trump supporters.
Anyhoo - the Felon is having a meltdown, naturally. This is on the back of his awful interview with ABC (posted about above) as well as some further awful interviews since (in one he confused a question about Harvard for Harlem, and went on a rant about the black vote!)
TheVat
Registered Senior Member
A White House Briefing Straight From North Korea
How MAGA influencers have reshaped the press corps
www.theatlantic.com
(snip)
What if you took the least appealing aspects of traditional broadcast journalism—the self-absorption, the ponderous delivery, the grandstanding—and sucked out any sense of conflict and challenge?
Now we have an answer. For three days this week, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has invited MAGA-friendly influencers to ask her questions during a dedicated press briefing. The results should be deeply embarrassing for everyone involved. We all enjoy getting together with like-minded people to kvetch about petty grievances in our professional lives—that’s what keeps bars open—but most of us would have the sense not to do so in the White House, in front of cameras. The first rule of the new-media briefing is that your question should include either personal thanks to her for inviting you, or a pro forma denunciation of the legacy media. The second rule of the new-media briefing is that your question should be, in the five words that conference organizers most dread, “more of a statement, really.” (end snip)
As Lewis notes at the end, all that these "new media" folk have to do in return for an invitation to this press kiddie pool is to "ask questions that would make a Soviet propagandist blush."
(about a five minute read)
Pinball1970
Valued Senior Member
All the DOGE cuts, or kinda cuts, all the tariffs that will Make America great again actually shrank the US Economy by 0.3%
www.bbc.co.uk
Trump praises tariffs in Cabinet meeting as US economy shrinks 0.3% - live updates
New GDP data focuses on a period before President Trump’s most far-reaching tariffs were announced.
www.bbc.co.uk
exchemist
Valued Senior Member
Oh Helen Lewis. She's good value - used to be deputy editor of the New Stoadsperson, I mean Statesman.All the DOGE cuts, or kinda cuts, all the tariffs that will Make America great again actually shrank the US Economy by 0.3%
Trump praises tariffs in Cabinet meeting as US economy shrinks 0.3% - live updates
New GDP data focuses on a period before President Trump’s most far-reaching tariffs were announced.
exchemist
Valued Senior Member
Well we must be careful with that. There was a lot of import stockpiling this quarter, to beat the Trump Tariffs. That depresses the GDP number so makes it look like a recession. Need to aim off for that.All the DOGE cuts, or kinda cuts, all the tariffs that will Make America great again actually shrank the US Economy by 0.3%
Trump praises tariffs in Cabinet meeting as US economy shrinks 0.3% - live updates
New GDP data focuses on a period before President Trump’s most far-reaching tariffs were announced.
Chances are that next quarter we'll see an equally artificial rebound - which Trump will crow about, even though everyone can see there are empty shelves at Walmart and people are getting laid off.
