Author: buffalopundit

On February 14th, an expelled student returned to his Florida high school, pulled the fire alarm, and started shooting. Within a span of just six minutes, this teenager had managed to murder 17 people; 14 of them students. 

It was the 8th school shooting of 2018 in the United States. 

The Columbine mass shooting took place in 1999. 

On February 14th, something snapped. The kids had had enough. Enough of being ignored; enough of being sitting ducks for lunatics with easy access to military arsenals. The kids in Florida organized. They went not just to traditional media – these are kids for whom social media is a sixth sense. 

Here in western New York, our local media outlets began suddenly taking this issue of guns and school shootings more seriously than they had in the past, as well. This wasn’t just another incident that was going to get swept under the rug with empty thoughts and rote prayers. 

Even the Buffalo region’s most prominent right-wing media outlet – WBEN – seemingly began to take the issue of school shootings seriously. Gone were the self-satisfied septuagenarian SCOPE spokesman, and instead there was a “12 Voices in 12 Hours” feature where the topics of gun violence and school shootings were suddenly important. Discussion was to be respectful; a conversation.

That’s quite the sea change for WBEN; the station is the official organ of the local Tea Party, where you’ll occasionally find Assemblyman David DiPietro (R-Gun), convicted vote fraudster Rus Thompson, and developer/perv Carl Paladino filling in for the “Financial Guys” with some of the literally dumbest radio no one hears. 

On Wednesday, schoolkids all over America walked out of classes at 10am for 17 minutes for a variety of reasons; to honor the 17 Florida victims, to agitate for gun control, to protest against gun violence and school shootings – as many reasons as there were kids. WBEN covered this walkout with uncharacteristic respectfulness. I guess someone realized that it would not be good for ratings if they denigrated the offspring of the station’s suburban listenership.

Just a week or so ago, occasional WBEN fill-in DiPietro voted no on these two common-sense bills:

A.8976B (vote 115/20) – Extreme Risk Protection Order (ERPO) – Would establish extreme risk protection orders as a court-issued order of protection prohibiting a person determined to be a threat to himself or others from purchasing, possessing or attempting to purchase or possess a firearm, rifle or shotgun and establishes procedures for the application, administration, and expiration or termination of such protection orders. This legislation in FL may have stopped the Parkland shooter. (DiPietro voted No)

A.2406 (vote 121/14) Would establish a waiting period (10 days) before a firearm, shotgun or rifle may be delivered to a person who does not receive an approval/disapproval from the NICS system. Similar legislation in S.C. would have prevented the Charleston shooter from getting the gun he used in killing 9 at Emanuel AME Church. (DiPietro voted No)

Yet this week, WBEN – the tea party organ – changed its tune, as their air personalities and management came to the realization that the mass murder of school children may be a hot topic. Last week, I heard Clarence senior Andrew Kowalczyk essentially debate PM host David Bellavia on gun control and school shootings. I want to applaud Mr. Kowalczyk, who was eloquent and dignified beyond his years. Mr. Kowalczyk is a credit to his school and his community. He held his own against Bellavia, and advocated for his opinions and positions quite persuasively.

He also helped to organize the walkout in conservative Trump country bastion Clarence, where this happened: 

Our age won’t stop us. Our politicians won’t stop us. And most of all snow won’t stop us.

Thank you to everyone who participated. #NeverAgain pic.twitter.com/LiXOtT6gsB

— Clarence Walkout (@theCHSWalkout) March 14, 2018

WBEN’s Tim Wenger took a more measured and serious tone than one would expect: 

Hearing callers say “you don’t have a ‘voice’ until you’re 18 and pay taxes” is disheartening. We don’t necessarily have to agree with their views but we should listen.

— Tim Wenger (@TimWBEN) March 14, 2018

The #schoolwalkout broadcast from four different locations across WNY on @NewsRadio930 this morning demonstrated a remarkable difference in how students came together and peacefully communicated their messaging. Well done. pic.twitter.com/SQUie62mpD

— Tim Wenger (@TimWBEN) March 14, 2018

Mr. Wenger, who is the Operations Manager at WBEN, has not, however, been shy in the past about showing his disdain for protests with which he doesn’t agree. 

So all of this – WBEN’s “12 voices”, Wenger’s sudden respect for teens – all of it smacked of concern-trolling; all of it reeked from disingenuousness. Consider the other 360-ish days in any given year, when WBEN in particular is like flypaper for the most radical and extreme gun supporters. You know who they are. 

After Sandy Hook, I wrote often and extensively about the 2nd Amendment. I wrote an article (with apologies to the Buffalo Beast’s Ian Murphy) called “Fuck Your Gun“. All that rhetoric about how the 2nd Amendment exists to enable suburban dads and rural welfare recipients to battle “tyranny” is garbage. The 2nd Amendment enables citizens to possess firearms for protection and for lawful purposes like hunting and other sport. You don’t get to take up arms to battle the government. You don’t get to play Ruby Ridge or David Koresh from your subdivision’s model home.

In response to Sandy Hook, the New York legislature passed the NY SAFE Act, a basket of various regulations aimed at preventing mass shootings. You’d have thought that Kenyan communist Muslim Obama had conspired with “il Duce Cuomo” to take away all the guns. Against that backdrop, in December 2014, WBEN sponsored a bus to take listeners to Albany to protest the new law. Here’s the banner they used at the protest (it was on display in Entercom offices for some time afterwards) – the banner is paid for and sponsored by Carl Paladino’s various corporate entities.

I don’t know who paid for the bus, but WBEN offered wall-to-wall coverage of that demonstration during the ostensibly straight morning newscast, as well as the opinion programming later in the day. 

I mean, does this seem like objective journalism or advocacy and propaganda? If any other nominal news outlet tried to pull a stunt like this, it’d be a scandal. 

But when black people protested police brutality, WBEN’s Tim Wenger just didn’t get it. 

Therefore, when you examine “12 Voices in 12 Hours” against the backdrop of the “Gun Rally Express”, the only reasonable conclusion is that WBEN is merely feigning respect for the students and their walkout. Sure, they’re treating these brave young adults with kid gloves now, but never lose sight of the fact that their genuine loyalties are inexorably with the NRA and the ammosexual lunatics who can take time off to take a free bus ride to Albany to agitate for the right to own and possess a military arsenal. Why? Because they believe the 2nd Amendment to be somehow absolute or not subject to any governmental restriction whatsoever. Yet, like it or not, the SAFE Act is Constitutional. 

I am not against the 2nd Amendment; I recognize the individual’s right to bear arms for self-protection and for legal activities like hunting. I am also, however, anti-gun, and I am anti-slaughter-of-schoolchildren. So, I support the student walkout,  and applaud the kids whose political consciousness is now awakened. 

I encourage and admonish them to be especially wary of right-wing media in Buffalo peddling phony concern and an insincere search for solutions, when just over 3 years ago, they were all “GUN RALLY EXPRESS!”

Last week in a shopping area of Salisbury, Sergei Skripal and his daughter were severely injured after being poisoned by some sort of Russian-developed nerve agent called “Novichok”. Skripal is a former officer in Russia’s FSB who was convicted in Russia of treason for passing secrets to the British. As part of a 2010 spy swap with the US, Skripal emigrated to the UK. The Daily Telegraph claims that Skripal is close to Christopher Steele, he of the now-infamous Steele Dossier, which is a dump of raw intelligence related to the Trump family business and its ties with the Russian state and its mafia subculture. 

En route to DC from Nigeria last night, then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson met with reporters in the back of the his Air Force jet to offer harsh criticism of what appears to be Russian state-sponsored murder-by-nerve-agent in the streets of Salisbury. 

“It’s almost beyond comprehension that a state, an organized state, would do something like that.”

The answer is right there in the quote. “Russia” and “organized state” are oxymoronic. 

Just four hours later, Tillerson is summarily and unexpectedly fired, replaced by CIA Director Mike Pompeo. 

We got off the plane with Tillerson less than four hours ago. There was zero indication on flight home that this was imminent.

— Josh Lederman (@joshledermanAP) March 13, 2018

On Monday, British PM Theresa May told the Commons that Russia was “very likely” behind the attack on the Skripals; that a hostile foreign intelligence agency had attempted to commit murder by poisoning of British residents in Britain. 

On Monday, White House Spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders refused three opportunities to echo our ally’s assessment of causation. 

… when asked ― three times ― at a White House press briefing about Russia’s link to the poisoning or any possible repercussions for the country from the U.S., Sanders carefully did not say “Russia” — or otherwise address who may have been responsible for the attack. She characterized it as an “indiscriminate” attack, although British authorities have concluded that Skripal was clearly targeted. 

“We’ve been monitoring the incident closely, take it very seriously,” Sanders said. “The use of a highly lethal nerve agent against U.K. citizens on U.K. soil is an outrage. The attack was reckless, indiscriminate and irresponsible. We offer the fullest condemnation.”

“So you’re not saying that Russia was behind this?” a reporter asked.

“Right now, we are standing with our U.K. ally,” Sanders said again. “I think they’re still working through even some of the details of that.”

Pressed a third time, an annoyed Sanders answered, “Like I just said, we stand with our ally and we certainly fully support them and are ready if we can be of any assistance.”

Thanks to this new book, we know that Trump has had a weird crush on Putin at least since the Moscow Miss Universe pageant, but is this White House’s refusal to even gently chide Russian malfeasance due to a childish Presidential desire to become friends with the Russian dictator, part of a deal that was struck, or the omission of someone who is being blackmailed? It has to be one of those; logic and reason prevent any other explanation. 

The Washington Post is reporting that Trump asked for Tillerson’s resignation on Friday, which may explain why Tillerson felt free to critique Russia on Monday. But this: 

BREAKING: Tillerson aide: Trump never explained to Tillerson reason he was fired, and Tillerson had wanted to stay in job.

— The Associated Press (@AP) March 13, 2018

And the State Department is now confirming to CNN that Tillerson learned of his firing today – Tuesday – when the President sent a tweet. 

Remarkable statement from Tillerson spokesman: Sec State wanted to stay in his job, was “unaware of the reason” for his firing and has not spoken to Trump about it.

— Philip Rucker (@PhilipRucker) March 13, 2018

Something is coming. 

President Trump’s strategy of appointing the equivalent of an aggressively ignorant WBEN caller to Cabinet positions seems to be paying dividends. 

It is almost admirable how quickly and how fundamentally these people crumble at even the most gentle questioning by journalists who are not in the tank for the Trump administration. 

WATCH: Betsy DeVos struggles to provide answers when asked for evidence to support school choice policies https://t.co/VdZFF5jXzl

— Axios (@axios) March 12, 2018

The “best people”. 

The elephant is scared of the mouse. 

Don’t you unhinged leftists know? Like his predecessor Dale Volker, Demented Dave DiPietro thinks he – not the electorate – gets to decide when his Assembly tenure is complete. Nothing sends the local right into a bigger frenzy than Facebook activism (no coincidence, the most preternaturally annoying and unreasonable right-wing trolls I’ve ever encountered are white men over the age of 50 on Facebook.) 

Sure, it’s a “tiny” group by most measures, but I’m a member and from what I can gather, everyone’s showered, tolerant, and not remotely vile. Compared to, for instance, the crusty, faux-alpha freaks who show up to DiPietro’s gun raffle fundraisers, where they vie for the chance for them or their family to be the latest homicide or suicide statistic, we’re downright responsible and reasonable. 

If these “leftists” “don’t stand a chance” to beat “Dave”, then surely this “tiny” group would hardly merit a mention from his attack dog. This is an example of a special kind of aggressive snowflakeism that is a hallmark of the MAGA radical set. 

The anti-Trump left may not have – or ever have – its shit completely together. I mean, who does? Certainly not the West Wing. But it’s motivated af, and it’s coming for guys like Demented Dave and Creepy Chris Collins because the y’re Trump lieutenants, and they’re complicit in the rapid erosion of American democracy and values, which has motivated millions of people who had until recently taken these things for granted. 

Like DiPietro, Collins also wears his public office like a title of nobility. Days ago, his endorsed Democratic challenger, Grand Island Supervisor Nate McMurray, bumped into Collins. McMurray wasn’t rude to him – he didn’t angrily confront him or anything else we vile, unshowered, intolerant leftists are wont to do. He merely introduced himself and invited Collins – who has never once held a town hall meeting to listen to constituents who may conceivably disagree with him – to a debate. 

Here’s how it unfolded at the Pride of Wyoming County Agricultural Dinner:

Guess who I ran into tonight? Collins. I asked him for a debate. He said no. Actually he said never. Essentially, he said he’s too big for that. Does that seem right? It’s not.#natewantsadebate pic.twitter.com/YsX7j7Sn0b

— Nate McMurray for Congress (@Nate_McMurray) March 4, 2018

Collins laughed. He refused. He told McMurray he’s too big of a deal to “debate”. It’s the same thing as when County Executive Mark Poloncarz invited Collins to hold a public discussion about gun violence. Collins and DiPietro think that elections are mere formalities they have to endure every couple of years. They think they’re entitled to their seats in Congress and the Assembly. Even the tiniest suggestion of a credible challenge – regardless of how credible or organized it is – drives them to apoplexy. 

Maybe Collins and McMurray can debate at DiPietro’s church, since that seems to be the fashionable new venue for overtly partisan political events. 

Sure, unseating DiPietro and Collins may be an uphill battle, but elections aren’t mere formalities. These two need to stand up before the voters and defend not only their own scant accomplishments, but the degradation of American democracy under their leader, Trump. 

No wonder they’re terrified. 

I hadn’t planned on watching the State of the Union. You know – don’t feed the troll.

Alas, I sat in a conference room at WGRZ Tuesday night with Maryalice Demler and Republican strategist Andrea Bozek to watch it. At least in this context I had no choice but to pay close attention to it, and followed along with its prepared text.

I quipped before it began that politics in this country have become exhausting. Partisanship – even as deep as it is now – is neither unhealthy nor unprecedented, so that doesn’t bother me. What I mean is that every calendar day is packed with literally a month’s worth of scandal and breaking news. Every day brings with it limitless shitshow additur that it’s no wonder people are retreating to binges of Netflix and booze. I simply can’t keep up. I don’t even have it in me to give an example from Tuesday about the executive refusal to carry out duly enacted Russia sanctions, or the list of oligarchs – cribbed from Forbes – that the Trump administration used as its list of sanctioned Russians, or the brazenly partisan hackery of the memo regarding FISA warrants targeting wannabe Russian spy Carter Page that Rep. Devin Nunes – who had supposedly recused himself from all things Russia – is pushing like a bottle of Oxycontin in a back alley. 

So, I watched. This man who commenced his campaign to be the leader of the free world by declaring undocumented Mexican immigrants to be rapists and murderers, who has taken to Twitter to pick fights almost exclusively with people of color, who makes up schoolyard nicknames for people he doesn’t like, who can dish it out but whose skin is as thin as tracing paper – this man now pleads for national unity. 

Yes, Donald Trump, of all people, spent a few minutes on Tuesday calling for national unity; just before he exploited families’ grief to insinuate that undocumented unaccompanied minor immigrants are all members of a gang, or that the only gang violence in the US comes from immigrants; or that terrorism in the US is immigrant-driven; or that family reunification – Trump prefers the white nationalist term “chain migration” – has led to violence against Americans; or that MS-13 is somehow an existential threat to the United States. 

While he agitates for $25 billion in taxpayer money for a wall that he said Mexico would pay for, he says in his State of the Union that when “there is a frontier, we cross it.” How droll. 

Listen, just because Donald Trump didn’t pause in the middle of his State of the Union to pull his pants down, squat, and do a shit onto the Rostrum doesn’t make any of this Presidential. 

All of us, together, as one team, one people, and one American family.

That’s what he said – he wanted to talk about Americans’ shared future; yet within minutes, he was back to dividing us – by race, as it relates to kneeling protests during the National Anthem; by religion and sexual orientation and gender identity, as he touted his moves to enable Christianists to discriminate against LGBTQ Americans; by immigration status, as he continually talked not of “Americans”, but more specifically of “citizens”, as if Green Card holders and refugees don’t count; and by using grieving families to illustrate how immigration is a scourge that kills innocent children, and must be severely restricted. 

So tonight, I am extending an open hand to work with members of both parties — Democrats and Republicans — to protect our citizens of every background, color, religion, and creed.  My duty, and the sacred duty of every elected official in this chamber, is to defend Americans — to protect their safety, their families, their communities, and their right to the American Dream.  Because Americans are dreamers too.

The converse is true, as well; Dreamers are Americans, too. 

As Trump went through the “four pillars” of his immigration reform proposal, one thing stood out – the most effective deterrent against immigration of any kind – legal and illegal, checked or unchecked – is Donald Trump and his anti-immigrant rhetoric. “Chain migration” hurts no one; has hurt no one. The visa diversity lottery was put in place under the first President Bush to attract people from countries whose citizens had been under-represented in previous years’ immigration trends. Trump suggested that this was just a blind hand-out of immigration visas, as if these people didn’t go through the same background checks and vetting as any other visitor or potential immigrant. I’d be much more amendable to a switch to a Canadian-style merit-based system if Trump would stop lying and making stuff up about the current system. 

As he cheered the abolition of the health insurance mandate, Trump called for drug prices to come under government control because of unchecked gouging. Hey, if other countries can do it – so can we. The difference, of course, is that every other country also offers its citizens a guarantee of comprehensive health insurance as a human right. We don’t; Americans think the people’s right to go into medical debt or bankruptcy is more important than a right to not have to worry about how one would pay for reasonable and necessary treatment.

What’s the point of less expensive medication if you have no health coverage and/or can’t afford to see a doctor to prescribe them? 

Trump wants to let people take experimental treatments for illnesses – sounds good. He spoke of trade deals and how he’d make them more fair, as if they hadn’t already been carefully negotiated in the past to benefit all signatories; as if trade deals were a handout of some sort. He touted a $1.5 trillion infrastructure plan; great! Our infrastructure is decidedly outmoded and poor. 

But Donald Trump can’t spend 364 days and 22 hours of every year being a divisive shit, and then suddenly expect or receive plaudits for a contrived message of unity one night in January. 

Tuesday night, after we watched the State of the Union, Maryalice Demler wanted to get a sort of local perspective on Trump’s speech. I honed in on immigration – it’s a topic that has intense, personal meaning for me, and one that this President has used to divide us since literally day one of his Presidential journey. I like the idea of a path for citizenship for Dreamers, but I don’t quite get the 12-year wait; we’re not Switzerland. I heard absolutely nothing about refugees or whether – or how – we might accept immigrants who aren’t, for instance, chemical engineers or computer scientists. Think about how much Buffalo and western New York have benefited economically and culturally from recent immigrants and refugees from places like Burma and Somalia. These new Americans are no different from your ancestors who came from the shitholes of yesteryear like Ireland or Germany or Italy. They come to this country because “American” isn’t a homogeneous ethnicity – it is a hodgepodge of people from all places, all religions, all backgrounds – all here, together, to make a better life for themselves and each other. 

Here’s the piece they did: 

You now live in a country where a high school shooting spree that left two 15 year-olds dead and almost 20 others injured barely registers a blip in the news. 

Every mass shooting – every school shooting – should be a massive scandal. Every one should be an emergency of grand societal and legal proportions. In any other industrialized first-world country, it would be. In ours, it’s just Tuesday. 

Unless the perpetrator is ethnic in any way, in which case there needs to be a wall, a ban on immigration, or it’s an opportunity for the Kek-Trump cult to use the incident as proof of white male “Christian” supremacy. 

Lügenpresse – lying press – “fake news” – is a distinctly German slur that the Nazis used to slam the Jewish, foreign, and opposition press. It’s a handy way to demonize any media that don’t follow the party line. It’s no surprise, then, that one of the mantras of the Trump Cult is “fake news”. Representative Chris Collins (NY-27), the Ti to Trump’s Do; the Krupskaya to Trump’s Lenin – started out an “interview” on WBEN Monday morning by referring to the “Buffalo ‘Fake News'”, most likely because of this article which helps cement the fact that Collins is a shit. 

CNN is not fake news. Neither are the Buffalo News or the New York Times or the Washington Post. Anyone suggesting that they are is a propagandist; lying, wrong, and advancing some right-wing agenda. When Trump especially calls media outlets “fake news”, he is all but signing someone’s death sentence. It is unprecedented and un-American for a President to promote one media outlet – Fox News – and accuse others of being “fake”. Someone’s going to die. 

In an arrest affidavit released Monday, FBI agent Sean Callaghan wrote that Griesemer “made approximately 22 total calls to CNN” between Jan. 9 and Jan. 10. Four of the calls resulted in threats. In the last message, the caller made disparaging remarks about Jewish individuals, before stating: “You are going down. I have a gun and I am coming to Georgia right now to go to the CNN headquarters to f — king gun every single last one of you. I have a team of people. It’s going to be great, man . . . You gotta get prepared for this one, buddy.”

I have no doubt that Trump’s appeal to the very worst in Americans – greed, hatred, selfishness, racism, xenophobia, homophobia, bigotry, the dismantling of democratic norms – will be a temporary aberration that will someday serve as a warning and reminder that it can happen here. 

This is the same crowd that read some emails and decided that John Podesta and Hillary Clinton were running a pedophilic sex ring out of the non-existent basement of a DC-area pizza parlor. Naturally, a guy showed up there with a gun to shoot the place up. The idiots who instigated that attack and promoted those lies have only grown in stature within the “alt-right” axis. 

No matter what, 30% of the electorate will support this petty would-be dictator no matter what he does. As he famously quipped, he could shoot someone in the middle of 5th Avenue – or pay six figures in hush money to a porn star to dummy up about their liaison in the days before an election – and not lose their support. Some people don’t want a functioning government, they just want to be ruled. 

Two former Erie County Legislators were given patronage jobs with the Erie County Board of Elections – Republican Ted Morton and Democrat Betty Jean Grant. In an editorial, the Buffalo News is quite upset about this, offering up the headline, “Lose an election? No worries!”

This time, the beneficiaries are a couple of former politicians, one who just lost his seat in the last election and another who sacrificed hers in an attempt to secure the top job at City Hall.

Thanks to the party higher-ups who provide taxpayer-paid safety nets, both have landed jobs at the Erie County Board of Elections.

This is wrong.

I don’t see anything in the editorial, however, that tends to prove that assertion. The board recounts how Ted Morton was sanctioned by FINRA, his former industry’s governing body, for improperly borrowing client money. That was known when he first ran for the legislature, and didn’t prevent him from being elected, so I can’t fathom why it would disqualify him from a $40,000 per year job pushing papers at the BOE. But at least with Morton, the News had some sort of malfeasance at which to point; Morton’s ethics are questionable, at best. 

What about Betty Jean Grant? 

There is no similar accusation that she acted improperly or unethically. By all accounts, she valiantly and competently served her constituents throughout her public career. What did she do wrong? Well, she was two years short from the 20 years in the system she needed for her state pension fully to vest. So, this BOE job helps her stay in so she can retire comfortably. 

I think every American should have the right to retire comfortably. Good for Betty Jean. 

In September, Betty Jean lost a quixotic primary bid to unseat Mayor Byron Brown. Had she not undertaken that effort or retired from the legislature, she would have easily sailed to a re-election victory. Instead, she’s got a job pushing papers at the BOE. 

I don’t know what necessarily qualifies or disqualifies Morton or Grant from serving on the BOE, except that they’re former elected officials who no longer find themselves in office. It looks like the News’ main complaint is that their respective party bosses got them the jobs. 

If a party boss can’t get a job for a failed or retired elected who served the people and the party well, what good is he? 

With Betty Jean Grant, the Buffalo News doesn’t even go through an exercise in suggesting why Betty Jean Grant shouldn’t be working at the BOE. It’s as if serving in the Legislature for over 10 years automatically disqualifies someone from such a job. How silly. 

Even more obnoxious, however, is this: 

None of this bothers either political party. If it isn’t the Board of Elections, then it is the Erie County Water Authority. The authority has long been a dumping ground for the unqualified and politically connected who collect fat salaries on the backs of ratepayers.

I know it’s about the water authority and not the Board of Elections, but “dumping ground”? $40,000 is a “fat salary”? To whom? You put trash in the dumping ground, and Betty Jean Grant is most certainly not trash. 

Patronage is a problem, sure, but placement of former electeds in jobs that already exist and are already budgeted-for doesn’t especially bother me, and this is not even in the top tier of problems that western New York’s political world faces. 

Get back to me when the Buffalo News’ editorial board attacks our inherently corrupt electoral fusion system, rather than heckling former elected officials earning $40,000 in a state job. 

Nominal President Donald Trump reached around the empty Fiji water bottles and McDonald’s wrappers to lurch for his phone to send this Tweet: 

Reason I canceled my trip to London is that I am not a big fan of the Obama Administration having sold perhaps the best located and finest embassy in London for “peanuts,” only to build a new one in an off location for 1.2 billion dollars. Bad deal. Wanted me to cut ribbon-NO!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 12, 2018

Sure, as usual, President Shithole has to blame the black guy. 

CNN calls Trump out for his shallow and easily debunked lying. 

The decision to move the embassy from Grosvenor Square to Nine Elms was made in 2008 under George W. Bush, not Obama.

Trump literally couldn’t get the most basic detail of his slur – the Presidential Administration that decided the embassy had to move. He also omits the reason – the old embassy in Grosvenor Square was in a dense residential neighborhood and the security needs for American outposts have changed dramatically since 1960. 

It would have been impossible to retrofit the aging concrete building with the security measures needed, officials said at the time.

Also? Wandsworth near the Vauxhall Bridge is not some “off location”. 

The neighbors didn’t like the security measures. 

Since the September 11 attacks in 2001, the embassy has caused controversy locally by installing blast walls in a wide perimeter around the building. Neighbors complained the walls were unsightly, and the walls caused the road in front of the building to be closed to traffic.

Finally, the US didn’t own the Grosvenor Square property in fee simple, but held a lease with the Duke of Westminster.

The Duke reportedly said he would only sell if the US government returned his family’s land, confiscated during the American War of Independence.

The US sold the remainder of its lease to the Qatari government for what is thought to be £500 million, or $681.5 million; not exactly “peanuts”. 

Donald Trump is the shithole President who was essentially asked not to come because Londoners would have come out in their thousands to protest His racist, white nationalist Accidency.

Happy New Year. 

Now I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this. The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from the oligarchies of the past in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just around the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now you begin to understand me.

– George Orwell, 1984