Department of Fake News, Corruption & Incompetence.

Well, actually, this is real. The art piece labeled “America”, which is also a fully functional, solid 18-karat-gold copy of a Kohler toilet, is currently “on exhibit” as a very personal interactive experience in a restroom in the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. It was offered to our president instead of the Van Gogh he wanted. It could only improve his tweets!

Jake Tapper’s analysis is far easier to absorb than a long paragraph on the firing-not firing of Special Counsel Mueller.

Governments across Southeast Asia have a history of using laws and the judiciary to curb press freedoms – now, they have found a handy crutch to lean on as they intensify clampdowns: U.S. President Donald Trump’s “fake news” mantra.  Most worrying to media rights advocates is that several countries are promoting new legislation or expanding existing regulations to make publishing fake news an offense.

Meanwhile, in Davos, Trump was booed for bringing up “fake news”.  Audience members also booed World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab  when he introduced Trump by saying that “your strong leadership is open to misconceptions and biased interpretations.”

The Foreign Press Is having a hard, and hilarious time of translating “Shithole”, with a lot of interesting variants trying to match the tone of the insult. Apparently, they’ve never had to deal with this kind of language before. Sigh.

Taylor Weyeneth, a 24-year-old former Trump campaigner who was given a senior post in the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy will step down at the end of the month, the Washington Post reported. Apparently he lied on his resume regarding his schooling and work history and now joins the legion of ex-Trump staffers.

Elections and Voting

Alabama state House votes to end special elections. Under current law, if a vacancy occurs in one of Alabama’s Senate seats, the governor appoints a temporary replacement and is required to hold a special election to fill the seat for the remainder of the term. Since that didn’t work out as expected, they want to change the law to allow an appointee to serve until the next general election. They claim “cost”, we claim something else again.

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Continue reading “The Miller Review – Last week’s good, bad and extremely silly.” →