Site Meter

Friday, June 15, 2018

Posters in Casa Padre Brownsville Texas

I am appalled by the Trump administration policy of separating parents and children just because they crossed the border without permission. Like many people I was shocked when the staff of the Casa Padre youth shelter (or jail) in Brownsville called the cops on Senator Merkley when he tried to oversee the (contractors of) the exutive branch. Finally, like many people I was shocked even a bit more to learn that there is a huge poster of Donald Trump on a wall of Casa Padre.

But reading the post, I learned some more. First the shelter (or jail) was operating for a while. I think since the wave of minors who showed up unaccompanied while Obama was president. Most of the residents (or inmates) are there because they arrived at the border without adults not because they were (depravedly) separated (by sadistic subhumans like Sessions). The place is now over crowded, because of the Trump administration policy.

As to the posters (or murals). There are posters of Trump, Obama, Kennedy, Eisenhower, Lincoln and ... Zachary Taylor. I suspect there are many others (Taylor and Lincoln don't fit well together). The Obama poster is accompanied by the quote "My fellow Americans, we are and always will be a nation of immigrants. We were strangers once, too. " and a Spanish translation.

Tuesday, June 12, 2018

In a generally good article on how Trump got nothing out of Kim in Singapore, David Nakamura, Philip Rucker, Anna Fifield, and Anne Gearan make a false claims "Deals reached between Washington and Pyongyang under Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama collapsed after North Korea conducted additional missile and nuclear tests." This implies in particular that the deal reached between Washington and Pyongyang under President Bill Clinton collapsed after North Korea conducted additional missile and nuclear tests. which is a totally false claim. the deal reached under Clinton collapsed when Bush decided to abandon it, because North Korea had bought centrifuges from Pakistan. Bush said this meant that the fact that spent nuclear fuel contaning plutonium was under seal was irrelevant, since N Korea would just enrich uranium.

Later, after N Korea broke the seals and began extracting plutonium, he declared that N Korean exploration of possibly enriching uranium was no big deal & they were going back to the deal. Then N Korea tested a nuclear bomb.

The known facts are totally consistent with the possibility that the Clinton - Kim Jong Il agreement would have lasted and prevented N Korea from developing a bomb if Bush hadn't treated Clinton as Trump treats Obama.

In any case, the assertion of historical fact made by Nakamura, Rucker, Fifield, and Gearan is undeniably false. It shows a determination to give a Ballanced assessment of Clinton and Bush even if the facts are different -- N Korea detonated at least once nuclear device while Bush, Obama and Trump were president and did not detonate a nuclear device while Clinton was president. This is a relevant fact which is contradicted by their false claim which was clearly made to Ballance the very different cases of Clinton and Bush

update: Unsurprisingly, Jennifer Rubin lies more vigorously. She makes definite specific totally false claims.

in 1994 when “Pyongyang committed to freezing its illicit plutonium weapons program in exchange for aid” and again in 2005 when North Korea “pledged to abandon ‘all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs’ and return to the Non-Proliferation Treaty.” The bland statement that Trump obtained seemed almost identical to these past, useless agreements with vows to undertake “complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula” and commit to a “lasting and stable peace.” That sounds like the same pablum we’ve gotten before.

This is utter nonsense. Following the 1994 agreement, North Korea places spent fuel (containing plutonium) under seal and allowed inspections. No one contests that the effort to make a plutonium bomb was stopped cold. No one denies that, after Bush decided to break the agreement, North Korea made a plutonium bomb. The entire case against the 1994 agreement is taht it is about as easy to make a bomb by enriching uranium as by extracting plutonium. This is absolutely false and utter nonsense. I don't blame Rubin for her scientific ignorance. But I will not let her get away with claiming that the detailed specific enforceable 1994 agreement is at all similar to the one page of pablum written in Singapore.

This is nonsense. Now I understand that columnists are allowed to express their own opinions. Howver, the Post also allows them to invent their own facts. A case might possibly be made against the 1994 agreement, but Rubin's case is based on demonstrably false assertions of fact.

Also George Will claimed that Obama tried to pack the DC appeals court by expanding it -- this is a total falsehood. He attempted to fill normal vacancies caused by normal retirement. If the post were a legitimate journalistic enterprise, they would retract the claim of fact which is absolutely demonstrated falze by the fancy mathamatical trick called "counting". But that's another column on another issue. It is only related because both cases show that, even if they have no respect for Trump, two Conservatives at the Post have little respect for historical fact.