Trump Can’t Contain His Vile Eruptions

Donald Trump has always perfumed his personal word cloud with sulfurous vitriol and dank insults. At an early point in the mid-1970s, as the on-the-make developer from Queens crashed the Manhattan scene, he learned that if he directed enough volume at his opponents, he could intimidate, embarrass and shock them into collapse.

Trump’s fountain of bile — calling people “disgusting,” “moron,” “dummies,” “disgraceful,” “horseface,” “lowlife,” ‘dogs,” “low I.Q.,” or branding them with degrading nicknames — flowed then and flows now like an impure stream. In recent weeks, he’s topped even himself by calling obliquely for the execution of Gen. Mark A. Milley, urging shoplifters to be “shot,” accusing NBC News of “treason,” which is punishable with prison or death, and repeatedly calling the special counsel putting him on trial a “thug.”

‘Empire of lies’: Russia’s Lavrov slams West in UN speech

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has called the West an “empire of lies” and accused it of adopting a neo-colonial mindset in its overtures to the Global South to win backing for Ukraine in the war.

Speaking after a week of intense global diplomacy at the annual gathering of world leaders at UN headquarters in New York, where Ukraine and its Western allies sought to drum up support for Kyiv as it fights against Russia’s invasion, Lavrov said a “global majority” was being duped by the West.

Netanyahu Retracts Assertion That Palestinian Inspired Holocaust

JERUSALEM — After more than a week of local and international condemnation, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel issued a statement on Friday retracting his accusation that it was a Palestinian cleric who gave Hitler the idea of annihilating Europe’s Jews during World War II.

Mr. Netanyahu, criticized even by Israeli historians for distorting facts, had already said he never intended to absolve Hitler of responsibility for the Holocaust by blaming the mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, but the new statement went further.

Please Advise! Is My Cynical, Divisive Tip Line Working?

[Editor's note: Steve Burgess is an accredited spin doctor with a PhD in Centrifugal Rhetoric from the University of SASE, situated on the lovely campus of PO Box 7650, Cayman Islands. In this space he dispenses PR advice to politicians, the rich and famous, the troubled and well-heeled, the wealthy and gullible.]

Dear Dr. Steve,

If re-elected, we at the Conservative Party of Canada have promised to set up a "barbaric cultural practices" tip line. As revealed by Conservative candidates Chris Alexander and Kellie Leitch, the phone line would allow patriotic Canadians to report on the shameful behaviour of any neighbourhood barbarians.

Does this seem to you to be a winning political strategy?

Thankfully yours,

The PMO

Ministers had no objection to niqabs in public service last March

After Zunera Ishaq won a Federal Court challenge of a 2011 government change to citizenship judicial rules requiring the judges to refuse citizenship for Muslim women who refused to take off face-covering niqabs while swearing oaths in public ceremonies, Treasury Board President Tony Clement, saying he had no objections to niqabs in the public service, told reporters hijabs and niqabs were “frequently worn” in the ranks of government.