Demovictory9
Demovictory9's JournalThe world is staring at Trump, mouth agape
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-world-is-staring-at-trump-mouth-agape/2019/10/16/5f861f88-f05a-11e9-8693-f487e46784aa_story.htmlThe world is staring at Trump, mouth agape
President Trump stood in a crowded East Room on Wednesday afternoon with the Italian president at his side, scores of aides and reporters at his feet, and a bank of cameras relaying his words to millions.
Yet he seemed alone against the world.
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And Trump acted the way he increasingly has lately: as if the walls are closing in. Trump lashed out, indiscriminately, in all directions. His unfocused rage was as cogent as a primal scream and as subtle as a column of Turkish tanks.
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Sickeningly, he attacked just-abandoned Kurdish allies as if they deserve the massacre they are now receiving. He portrayed these friends as enemies, saying they’re “not angels,” that it’s “natural for them” to fight and that the Kurdistan Workers’ Party is “more of a terrorist threat in many ways than ISIS.”
Trump even attacked his fellow Republicans over Syria, unleashing particular fury on the GOP legislator who has compromised himself more than any other to appease Trump, Sen. Lindsey Graham (S.C.). Told that Graham had warned Trump’s abandonment of northern Syria could be a “disaster,” Trump snapped: “I think Lindsey should focus on Judiciary.”
Implicitly threatening Graham, Trump continued: “The people of South Carolina don’t want us to get into a war with Turkey, a NATO member, or with Syria. . . . The people of South Carolina want to see those troops come home. And I won an election based on that, and that’s the way it is, whether it’s good or bad.”
From there, Trump went on to a private meeting with congressional leaders in which he called House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) a “third-grade politician” and his former defense secretary Jim Mattis “the world’s most overrated general.”
More revealing was who Trump didn’t attack: Turkey and Russia. He said Turkey’s invasion “didn’t surprise me.” He praised Turkey for being “almost paid up” with NATO. He said Russia, Iran and Syria can be trusted to take over the fight against the Islamic State.
Such incoherent rage, combined with confusion distinguishing between friend and foe, is uniquely disconcerting coming from the most powerful man in the world. Trump once worried that “the world is laughing at us.” Now the world is staring at us, mouth agape.
"To lack humor is almost inhuman. Trump's idea of a joke is a crass comment, an illiterate insult,"
To lack humor is almost inhuman. Trump's idea of a joke is a crass comment, an illiterate insult, a casual act of cruelty. Trump is a troll ... he is never funny and he never laughs. He doesn’t just talk in crude, witless insults – he thinks in them.
https://twitter.com/JohnRMoffitt/status/1184678085431611392
For instance, he has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no honour and no grace – all qualities, funnily enough, with which his predecessor Mr. Obama was generously blessed.
So for us, the stark contrast does rather throw Trump’s limitations into embarrassingly sharp relief.
Plus, we like a laugh. And while Trump may be laughable, he has never once said anything wry, witty or even faintly amusing – not once, ever.
I don’t say that rhetorically, I mean it quite literally: not once, not ever. And that fact is particularly disturbing to the British sensibility – for us, to lack humor is almost inhuman.
But with Trump, it’s a fact. He doesn’t even seem to understand what a joke is – his idea of a joke is a crass comment, an illiterate insult, a casual act of cruelty.
Trump is a troll. And like all trolls, he is never funny and he never laughs; he only crows or jeers.
And scarily, he doesn’t just talk in crude, witless insults – he actually thinks in them. His mind is a simple bot-like algorithm of petty prejudices and knee-jerk nastiness.
There is never any under-layer of irony, complexity, nuance or depth. It’s all surface.
Some Americans might see this as refreshingly upfront.
Well, we don’t. We see it as having no inner world, no soul.
https://takeadeeperbreathblog.wordpress.com/2019/02/13/definition-of-trump-from-a-brit/amp/?__twitter_impression=true
father featured on From Netflix's 'Living Undocumented' deported within days of it airing
Family From Netflix's 'Living Undocumented' Says They're Being Targeted By ICE
A Colombian family told Newsweek that, since the series aired, their father has been deported and their two sons have left school to go into hiding.
Netflix’s Living Undocumented series presents a rare view of the citizenship crisis many families quietly battle by letting cameras follow the daily struggles of eight undocumented families. The Colombia-born Dunoyer family is one of them, but the price of their participation has been steep: Newsweek reports that they're now living in fear of being targeted by ICE.
The family explained in the series that they fled to the U.S. in 2002 and applied for asylum through San Diego's immigration system because their father Roberto's life was being threatened by drug traffickers. (The series even stated that guerillas in Colombia were still sending Roberto threats at the time the documentary was made.) But in 2008 a judge denied their asylum request. After the Netflix series aired, Roberto was picked up by authorities in the parking lot of his job and he was deported, the family tells Newsweek. Now, his sons Camilo and Pablo, who are 18 and 21, have dropped out of school and are living in separate hideaway locations. Camilo told Newsweek, "I don't feel safe anywhere. [...] I barely leave the house I'm in."
The Dunoyer family's plight highlights an issue in documentary filmmaking: what happens when a project puts its subjects at risk? In Living Undocumented, Roberto's background story of narrowly escaping murderous drug traffickers heightens the drama and suspense of the series. But for the Dunoyer family, that's their reality.
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/mbmkqn/family-from-netflixs-living-undocumented-says-theyre-being-targeted-by-ice
190 lb mastiff got exhausted on hike. had to be carried back
https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/14/us/mastiff-rescue-utah-trnd/index.html
The rescue team was called around 6:30 p.m. after other hikers passed Floyd on the trail and saw his owner needed help. The 3-year-old dog wouldn't budge and temperatures in the area were quickly dropping, according to police.
"The team is completely volunteer," Sgt. Melody Gray of the Unified Police Department, which works with the sheriff's search and rescue team, told CNN. "They had no hesitation whatsoever, even when they heard it was a dog."
The rescue team strapped Floyd to their litter, a stretcher, and began their descent to the trailhead. The team posted video on Facebook showing the huge dog being carried across a narrow beam over a creek.
"Floyd was a good boy and was happy to be assisted," the rescue team's Facebook post says.
The whole rescue took about four hours, Gray said.
Amy Sandoval commented on the Facebook post, saying Floyd was her brother's dog. She said they took a wrong turn and it was difficult for them to get back on trail. Once they did, Floyd was exhausted.
"THERE IS DEFINITE HANKY-PANKY GOING ON": the president's talk has made some traders billions
“THERE IS DEFINITE HANKY-PANKY GOING ON”: THE FANTASTICALLY PROFITABLE MYSTERY OF THE TRUMP CHAOS TRADES
The president’s talk can move markets—and it’s made some futures traders billions. Did they know what he was going to say before he said it?
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/10/the-mystery-of-the-trump-chaos-trades?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=onsite-share&utm_brand=vanity-fair&utm_social-type=earned
n the last 10 minutes of trading at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange on Friday, September 13, someone got very lucky. That’s when he or she, or a group of people, sold short 120,000 “S&P e-minis”—electronically traded futures contracts linked to the Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index—when the index was trading around 3010. The time was 3:50 p.m. in New York; it was nearing midnight in Tehran. A few hours later, drones attacked a large swath of Saudi Arabia’s oil infrastructure, choking off production in the country and sending oil prices soaring. By the time the CME next opened, for pretrading on Sunday night, the S&P index had fallen 30 points, giving that very fortunate trader, or traders, a quick $180 million profit.
It was not an isolated occurrence. Three days earlier, in the last 10 minutes of trading, someone bought 82,000 S&P e-minis when the index was trading at 2969. That was nearly 4 a.m. on September 11 in Beijing, where a few hours later, the Chinese government announced that it would lift tariffs on a range of American-made products. As has been the typical reaction in the U.S. stock markets as the trade war with China chugs on without any perceptible logic, when the news about a potential resolution of it seems positive, stock markets go up, and when the news about the trade war appears negative, they go down.
The news was viewed positively. The S&P index moved swiftly on September 11 to 2996, up nearly 30 points. That same day, President Donald Trump said he would postpone tariffs on some Chinese goods, and the S&P index moved to 3016, or up 47 points since the fortunate person bought the 82,000 e-minis just before the market closed on September 10. Since a one-point movement, up or down, in an e-mini contract is worth $50, a 47-point movement up in a day was worth $2,350 per contract. If you were the lucky one who bought the 82,000 e-mini contracts, well, then you were sitting on a one-day profit of roughly $190 million.
A week earlier, three minutes before the CME closed on September 3, someone bought 55,000 e-mini contracts, with the index at about 2906. At around 9 p.m. in New York—9 a.m. in Hong Kong—the market started moving and kept rallying for the next six hours or so, reaching 2936. Around 2 p.m. in Hong Kong—2 a.m. in New York—Carrie Lam, the Hong Kong leader, announced that she would be withdrawing the controversial extradition bill that had been roiling the city in protest for months. Whoever bought those e-mini contracts a few hours earlier made a killing: a cool $82.5 million profit.
But these wins were peanuts compared to the money made by a trader, or group of traders, who bought 420,000 September e-minis in the last 30 minutes of trading on June 28. That was some 40% of the day’s trading volume in September e-minis—making it a trade that could not easily be ignored. By then, President Trump was already in Osaka, Japan—14 hours ahead of Chicago—and on his way to a roughly hour-long meeting with China’s President Xi Jinping as part of the G20 summit. On Saturday in Osaka, after the market had closed in Chicago, Trump emerged from his meeting with Xi and announced that the intermittent trade talks were “back on track.” The following week was a good one in the stock market, thanks to the Trump announcement. On Thursday, June 27, the S&P 500 index stood at about 2915; a week or so later, it was just below 3000, a gain of 84 points, or $4,200 per e-mini contract. Whoever bought the 420,000 e-minis on June 28 had made a handsome profit of nearly $1.8 billion.
Never-Before-Seen Trump Tax Docs Show Major Inconsistencies - expert calls them "versions of fraud"
Never-Before-Seen Trump Tax Documents Show Major Inconsistencies
The president’s businesses made themselves appear more profitable to lenders and less profitable to tax officials. One expert calls the differing numbers “versions of fraud.”
https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-inc-podcast-never-before-seen-trump-tax-documents-show-major-inconsistencies
Documents obtained by ProPublica show stark differences in how Donald Trump’s businesses reported some expenses, profits and occupancy figures for two Manhattan buildings, giving a lender different figures than they provided to New York City tax authorities. The discrepancies made the buildings appear more profitable to the lender — and less profitable to the officials who set the buildings’ property tax.
For instance, Trump told the lender that he took in twice as much rent from one building as he reported to tax authorities during the same year, 2017. He also gave conflicting occupancy figures for one of his signature skyscrapers, located at 40 Wall Street.
Lenders like to see a rising occupancy level as a sign of what they call “leasing momentum.” Sure enough, the company told a lender that 40 Wall Street had been 58.9% leased on Dec. 31, 2012, and then rose to 95% a few years later. The company told tax officials the building was 81% rented as of Jan. 5, 2013.
A dozen real estate professionals told ProPublica they saw no clear explanation for multiple inconsistencies in the documents. The discrepancies are “versions of fraud,” said Nancy Wallace, a professor of finance and real estate at the Haas School of Business at the University of California-Berkeley. “This kind of stuff is not OK.”
New York City’s property tax forms state that the person signing them “affirms the truth of the statements made” and that “false filings are subject to all applicable civil and criminal penalties.”
White House photo staging: Trump vs Obama
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1184198558007869440
Dutch police discover family locked away for years on farm 'waiting for the end of time'
https://twitter.com/i/events/1184162609009848325A group of siblings found after spending nine years secluded in a basement waiting for the end of times
Police in the Netherlands discovered a family of young adult siblings and a 58-year-old man in the basement of a farmhouse after one of the older siblings escaped and made his way to a pub for help. According to a press conference with the mayor of Ruinerwold, the older man is not the father, and the kids had been held in the basement for years.
https://www.straitstimes.com/world/europe/dutch-police-discover-family-locked-away-for-years-on-farm-waiting-for-the-end-of-time?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_campaign=sttw&utm_medium=social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1571155986
AMSTERDAM (REUTERS) - Five siblings and a man believed to be their father were receiving medical treatment after Dutch police acting on a tip discovered them locked away in a secret room at an isolated farm, officials in the Netherlands said on Tuesday (Oct 15).
The five, estimated at 18 to 25 years of age, and a man they identified as their ailing father were found near Ruinerwold, a village in the northern province of Drenthe.
“We found six people living in a small space in the house which could be locked, not a cellar. It is unclear if they resided there voluntarily,” local police said in a statement, adding that the people may have been hidden away on the property for nine years.
“They say they are a family, a father and five children,” police added.
Officials did not confirm local TV reports that the family may have held “end of days” apocalyptic beliefs.
Earlier, local Mayor Roger de Groot said a 58-year-old man, not the father of the children, had been arrested. His role was unclear.
The Dutch newspaper Algemeen Dagblad daily identified the man as “Joseph B.,” an Austrian carpenter.
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