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A 1951 book about totalitarianism is suddenly flying off the shelves. Here’s why.

What Hannah Arendt’s philosophy can teach us about Trump, Brexit and the dangers of isolation

Author and political theorist Hannah Arendt. Getty Images

After Donald Trump was elected president, lots of people started buying books by Hannah Arendt: In December, her 1951 book The Origins of Totalitarianismwas selling at 16 times its normal rate.

Why Arendt, a political theorist who died in 1975? She’s an important philosopher but not exactly a popularly read writer. The answer is simple enough: She has a lot to say about what’s wrong with the world today.

Arendt theorized about the nature of totalitarian societies — how they work, what they prey on, and why they spring up. America is not currently under the yoke of totalitarianism, but the preconditions are there, namely a hollow and fractured society full of dislocated, angry people.

This is what most concerned Arendt, and it ought to concern us today.

I reached out by phone to Lyndsey Stonebridge, a Hannah Arendt scholar who wrote a book about Arendt’s influence, The Judicial Imagination: Writing After Nuremburg. We talked about Arendt’s legacy and how her ideas speak to our present political moment. We also discussed Donald Trump, Brexit, and what Arendt meant when she defined totalitarianism as a form of “organized loneliness.”

Our lightly edited conversation follows.

Sean Illing

Why do you think so many people are suddenly interested in Arendt?

Lyndsey Stonebridge

I think the resurgence in the last year has been around the phenomenon of totalitarianism and that sense that something like a crisis is occurring and we don’t know how to address it. It’s very interesting that it’s The Origins of Totalitarianism that’s being cited and read.

Sean Illing

I read that book in graduate school and was sort of bowled over by it. Her idea that totalitarianism is essentially organized loneliness seems awfully relevant now.

Lyndsey Stonebridge

I’ve made the point quite a few times that Arendt was very important as a 20th-century thinker. I’m trained as a literary scholar and a historian at the same time. That’s my dual background. What’s brilliant about The Origins of Totalitarianism is she’s saying you need to invent new methods for understanding new things. That’s why she was blasted for writing The Origins of Totalitarianism, because she wouldn’t give a big historical narrative. She insisted that we pay attention to what was new and what was different.

Sean Illing

Let’s linger on that thought for a second. What was it about totalitarianism for Arendt that was new? Why was it uniquely a product of the modern world?

Lyndsey Stonebridge

There’s a reason she refused to give some grand historical narrative about the roots of totalitarianism. She believed that certain things had to be in place for totalitarianism to take shape — racism, capitalist expansion for the sake of expansion (what we might call globalization today), the decline of the traditional concept of the nation-state, and anti-Semitism.

Arendt said those things conspired to create a constellation which could produce totalitarianism in the form that she was talking about then.

Sean Illing

What strikes you when reading The Origins of Totalitarianism now?

Lyndsey Stonebridge

Two things. She said studying totalitarianism was like trying to unpack a crystal. She insisted that she wasn’t a “traditional historian” because historians usually write about things because they want to preserve them, whereas she wanted to write about something “I wanted to destroy.”

She thought she could destroy an idea which is both totalitarian but also endemic to lots of ideological thinking, and that is the idea there is a “telos,” or a grand purpose or struggle, and that everything has to be in service of that idea. She didn’t want to replace the totalitarianisms of her day with another master narrative.

She wanted to explode the belief in master narratives altogether.

Sean Illing

I’m glad you went there because that’s something that interests me as well, this belief in grand stories about history or justice — all ideologies have something like this at the center. Why did Arendt believe people were vulnerable to these narratives? Why was modern life making them so attractive?

Lyndsey Stonebridge

For Arendt, it was about the isolation of modern life, the emptiness of it all. What she understood — more than someone like [George] Orwell — is that you don’t need to be a totalitarian state to exhibit the characteristic features of totalitarianism. Her focus was on modern loneliness, the isolated individual who loses a kind of rootedness in the world and therefore is prime material for the takeover of ideology, for the total narrative that gives life direction and meaning.

Sean Illing

What is the political and social price we pay for allowing society to fracture in this way?

Lyndsey Stonebridge

I’d like to answer that by raising a couple of things that Arendt didn’t really wrestle with. The big price we pay for mass loneliness is the loss of a shared reality. Arendt disagreed with Orwell that everyone knows two plus two doesn’t make five. We’re not idiots. We know a lie. But the problem is when people decide they don’t have to accept this reality. Then everyone begins to inhabit their own world, and that loss of a shared reality is what produces the loneliness, and that’s what makes the chaos of post-truth and willful lies so politically and existentially traumatic.

Sean Illing

Draw a line for me. How do we get from a loss of shared reality to totalitarianism?

Lyndsey Stonebridge

Once you’re uprooted from your sense of reality as a community, that allows all sorts of other uprootings to take place. We lose our human connection to other people, and that’s when the conditions are in place for tribalism and mass violence, for the extermination of “superfluous people,” for “others.” This something Arendt understood all too well.

Sean Illing

So obviously we’re dealing with this problem right now, this loss of a shared reality. We’re in this bizarre “post-truth” climate in which our president lies with impunity, fake news and misinformation are pervasive, and much of the country is cocooned inside self-affirming information bubbles. At the same time, there’s a resurgence of racism and ethnonationalism, both here and in Europe.

I take it Arendt would have anticipated this?

Lyndsey Stonebridge

Absolutely. The relationship between that kind of politics and violence was inextricable for Arendt. One of the things people do when they’ve become uprooted is to retreat into us-them fictions, and that often means dividing the world racially.

I think the politics of Trumpism and politics of Brexit, the politics of the new right, have deliberately merged, and so you cannot pull them apart. What we’re also getting as a product of this organized loneliness is a valorization of race politics and even violent racism.

Sean Illing

Can you give me a concrete example of what you mean by violence there? Because I suspect a lot of people will assume that political violence has to be explicit or overt, but that’s not always the case.

Lyndsey Stonebridge

Sure. So we’ve just watched a tower block in London kill 79 people, and that’s a very conservative estimate. That tower block was full of asylum seekers, migrants, poor, working-class, black people. It burned down because there’s a politics that has said in our council and in our country for a long time that the interests of the bourgeois elite and their monetary interests come above those people. There are now criminal proceedings, but it’s an act of murder, and it can’t be divorced from the politics that made it possible.

Sean Illing

Let’s connect this back to Trump and Brexit if we can. How are Trump and Brexit direct responses to the loneliness and the uprootedness?

Lyndsey Stonebridge

I think these movements give people a coherent fiction. My sense is that it gives them a kind of fantasy, and in both Britain and America it’s a nostalgic fantasy, a belief that we can return to some glorious past in which the middle class boomed and everyone had stable incomes and simpler lives.

Britain has the same economic divisions that America has, and in both countries the liberal elites haven’t fully come to grips with the fact that the economic policies of the last 20 or 30 years have produced a monster, a monster that we created.

Sean Illing

So you see Trump and Brexit as twin political phenomena?

Lyndsey Stonebridge

I’m slightly more worried about the Trump fantasy than the Brexit fantasy, because Trump’s cult of personality is built on power and narcissism, and I’m not sure the Brexit fantasy is quite as mad as that.

But I don’t want to turn this into a competition!

Sean Illing

If it’s a madness competition between Britain and America right now, I’ll take America.

Lyndsey Stonebridge

Fair enough.

Sean Illing

So if Arendt were to emerge out of a void and survey our current political landscape, what do you suppose she would say?

Lyndsey Stonebridge

“Think! Think! Think!” I imagine she would also tell us to be scared, but I think she’d have been saying that for the last 10 or 20 years. And she’d say to not just be scared of Trump or Brexit, because those are manifestations of something that’s been happening for a very long time.

Sean Illing

You seem to imply that the intellectual class has been blind to this brewing chaos. Is that right?

Lyndsey Stonebridge

That’s right. There’s a certain type of left intellectual, both in the US and the UK, that simply doesn’t get it. First, we had Brexit. Then we had Trump. The distinguishing feature of that was an absolute incredulity among certain people to understand what had happened, to understand that something totally spontaneous seemed to have happened that we couldn’t predict and that we didn’t like, that we thought was mad and we didn’t understand.

I think Arendt would’ve said this is what politics does. It’s around the space of interruption. It’s around the spontaneous. And whoever owns that space owns the direction it goes, and so you have to be watchful at all times, especially when the signs of disruption are so clear.

Sean Illing

Apart from the elections, what sorts of signs do you have in mind?

Lyndsey Stonebridge

I think Arendt would point to things like the prison system in the States, to the housing estates in London, to the forgotten spaces in Middle America with no role to play in this booming global economy — Arendt would say these are the new homes for superfluous people. But they’re real people, and people in power are blind to them.

These are also totalitarian features. When you crowd people into spaces, declare them invisible, declare them immaterial, those are the new spaces of what used to be the totalitarian camp.

Sean Illing

Political spontaneity works both ways, though. Are there not also encouraging developments?

Lyndsey Stonebridge

Sure. I think Arendt would be enthusiastic about other forms of politics that are coming together in the face of all this. Whereas lots of people are troubled that the Democrats don’t have a central narrative, and until three weeks ago it didn’t seem like the left did in Britain either, I think she’d have been very interested to watch the different groups that are coming together — there’s local community groups and political groups, different international groups — that together form a kind of counter-politics.

Arendt would call this an example of natality, an example of the new, the positive creation that can happen in the face of bad politics. So I think she’d be excited about that.

Sean Illing

I want to go back to the concept of thinking, which had a particular meaning for Arendt, a political meaning. When you say that Arendt would look at our current moment and tell us to think, what do you mean? What would she mean?

Lyndsey Stonebridge

Well, actually, thinking for Arendt isn’t always political by itself. Thinking is something you do by yourself. It is loneliness. It is isolation. It’s always tricky in Arendt’s work to see how she gets from thinking to politics, which I can talk about in a second. But thinking for Arendt was really a way of being; it’s about the dialogue we have in our head. She wanted to valorize that because it’s an internal check, in the moral and political sense.

Sean Illing

Which is why she insisted that all totalitarian societies were defined by a kind of thoughtlessness. They were full of men and women who were smart but stopped thinking in this sense.

Lyndsey Stonebridge

Right. She was writing in response to what she saw as totalitarian thoughtlessness. What she noticed about [Nazi leader Adolf] Eichmann when she went to see him [on trial] in Jerusalem was that he spoke purely in clichés, in banalities. She said he could only do that because he hasn’t got the inner voice, he hasn’t got that second voice in his head. He’s a human machine, a thoughtless tool. His thoughts were the thoughts drilled him into via the propaganda and the slogans.

Which is why she always cautioned against banal or clichéd speech; this was a sign that people had stopped thinking for themselves, and once that happens, totalitarianism isn’t far behind.

Sean Illing

Let’s close with something useful for readers who are interested in reading Arendt as a way of making sense of the present. Where should they start?

Lyndsey Stonebridge

The essays that I go back to are the “Thinking and Moral Considerations” essay, which she wrote coming out of the Eichmann trial. The book on Eichmann is wonderful just for its sense of narrative and indignation. But the “Thinking and Moral Considerations” essay is especially interesting because it was written during the Watergate scandal. There was a real sense of America tearing itself down and a belief that something different was happening.

 And that is a familiar feeling these days.
In: vox 

White House offers unapologetic defense of Trump tweets

The White House offered an unapologetic defense Thursday of President Trump’s tweets attacking MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski during a contentious televised press briefing.

Spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders was grilled over whether Trump’s inflammatory tweet was beneath the dignity of the presidency, fueled a hostile political environment and set a bad example of how women should be treated by powerful men.

She responded by defending Trump and berating reporters for ignoring the president’s policy agenda on taxes, healthcare and infrastructure.

“The only person I see a war on is this president and everybody that works for him,” she said. “I don’t think you can expect someone to be personally attacked, day after day, minute by minute, and sit back. The American people elected a fighter.”

Sanders said Trump shows the dignity of his office “every day in the decisions he’s making, the focus and the priorities he’s laid out in his agenda.

“He’s not going to sit back and be attacked by the liberal media, Hollywood elites — and when they hit him, he’s going to hit back,” she said.

Trump’s outburst at Brzezinski escalated his long-running feud with the news media, a fight in which he appeared to gain the upper hand this week after CNN was forced to retract a story about the Russia probe.

But Trump’s decision to take aim at her looks, saying that the “Morning Joe” co-host had been “bleeding badly” from a “face-lift,” sparked bipartisan outrage in Washington.

“Mr. President, your tweet was beneath the office and represents what is wrong with American politics, not the greatness of America,” GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) tweeted.

Critics on both side of the aisle took specific issue with Trump’s attack on a female reporter — Trump faced repeated allegations of sexism and harassment that bubbled up during his presidential campaign.

Kansas Republican Rep. Lynn Jenkins tweeted Thursday that Trump’s comments were “not okay,” adding that “we should be working to empower women.”

But Sanders pushed aside the notion that Trump’s tweets were sexist or a bad example for how to treat women.

“Everybody wants to make this an attack on a woman — what about the constant attacks that he receives or the rest of us?” she said.

“I’m a woman, I’ve been attacked by that show multiple times, but I don’t cry foul because of it.”

When another reporter followed up by asking if Sanders felt that the tweet set a good example for her children, she deflected by saying that God is the “one perfect role model.”

The spokesperson chided reporters for not focusing more on policy questions and the White House’s legislative agenda, saying that reporters are more consumed by investigations related to Russia election interference and possible collusion between Trump campaign aides and Moscow.

“The media’s focus on priorities don’t line up with the rest of America,” she said. “America is winning, and that is what we like to talk about, but you guys constantly ignore that narrative.”

But critics say Trump’s Twitter broadsides against the media and the Russia investigation are distractions from his policy message.

In addition to the healthcare debate on Capitol Hill, Trump’s staff planned out a series of messaging events called “Energy Week,” featuring a presidential speech about energy development later Thursday. Those events have been overshadowed by the president’s attack.

It also undercut his call for unity after this month’s shooting at a congressional baseball practice that left House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) and others injured.

“We may have our differences, but we do well in times like these to remember everyone who serves in our nation’s capital is here because, above all, they love our country,” Trump said at the White House on June 14, the day of the shooting.

In: thehill 

The rise and fall of Trump’s relationship with Mika Brezinski, the ‘Morning Joe’ co-host he just attacked on Twitter

President Donald Trump made news on Thursday morning when he viciously attacked MSNBC host Mika Brzezinski on Twitter, calling her “low I.Q. Crazy Mika” and said she was “bleeding badly from a face-lift.”

Brzezinski shot back at the president on Twitter, posting a photo of a box of Cheerios that showed a child reaching for the cereal with the words “Made For Little Hands” printed across it.

Trump has long taken issue with accusations that his hands are small. Brzezinski called the president’s hands “teensy” during her show, “Morning Joe,” on Thursday morning.

But Brzezinski and her co-host and fiance Joe Scarborough have not always had a contentious relationship with Trump. During the early stages of his candidacy, the hosts invited Trump on their show regularly, boosting his campaign.

Here’s a look back at the president’s relationship with the co-hosts >

Brzezinski and Scarborough invited Trump on their MSNBC show, “Morning Joe,” many times in the early months of the 2016 presidential campaign, acting as one of Trump’s greatest media promoters. Trump thanked the two in February 2016 for being “believers” in his campaign.

Brzezinski and Scarborough invited Trump on their MSNBC show, "Morning Joe," many times in the early months of the 2016 presidential campaign, acting as one of Trump's greatest media promoters. Trump thanked the two in February 2016 for being "believers" in his campaign.

Donald Trump jokes with Joe Scarborough on the set of ‘Morning Joe’ in January 2016Scott Morgan/Reuters

Scarborough, a former Republican congressman, had a particularly close relationship with Trump, which reportedly unsettled MSNBC staff, who found the chumminess between the candidate and both hosts “over the top” and “unseemly.”

Scarborough, a former Republican congressman, had a particularly close relationship with Trump, which reportedly unsettled MSNBC staff, who found the chumminess between the candidate and both hosts "over the top" and "unseemly."

Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski interview Donald Trump on the campaign trail in January 2016.Scott Morgan/Reuters Source: CNN

As Trump’s campaign gathered momentum, the “Morning Joe” hosts became increasingly critical of his policies and rhetoric.

As Trump's campaign gathered momentum, the "Morning Joe" hosts became increasingly critical of his policies and rhetoric.

Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough react to a Trump campaign speech.Morning Joe

In the spring of 2016, Trump began lashing out at the two, tweeting in May that Morning Joe had become “hostile” and misrepresented his opinions. In June, Trump accused Brzezinski of going “wild with hate.” In August, Trump said that he would “tell the real story” about Brzezinski and Scarborough’s personal relationship, which had been the subject of widespread speculation. Trump targeted Brzezinski in particular, calling her “crazy” and “very dumb” and accused her of having a “mental breakdown” in a September tweet.

In the spring of 2016, Trump began lashing out at the two, tweeting in May that Morning Joe had become "hostile" and misrepresented his opinions. In June, Trump accused Brzezinski of going "wild with hate." In August, Trump said that he would "tell the real story" about Brzezinski and Scarborough's personal relationship, which had been the subject of widespread speculation. Trump targeted Brzezinski in particular, calling her "crazy" and "very dumb" and accused her of having a "mental breakdown" in a September tweet.

Donald Trump on MSNBC.@morning_joe/Twitter Source: Business Insider and The Washington Post

A few weeks after the presidential election, Brzezinski visited Trump Tower, reportedly to meet with Ivanka Trump about the MSNBC host’s seminar series for women.

A few weeks after the presidential election, Brzezinski visited Trump Tower, reportedly to meet with Ivanka Trump about the MSNBC host's seminar series for women.

Mika Brzezinski at Trump Tower in November 2016Evan Vucci/AP Source: The Washington Post and Politico

In February 2017, Brzezinski further escalated her criticism of the Trump administration, calling it a “fake presidency” and banning White House counselor Kellyanne Conway from appearing on “Morning Joe,” arguing that Conway peddled “fake news.”

In February 2017, Brzezinski further escalated her criticism of the Trump administration, calling it a "fake presidency" and banning White House counselor Kellyanne Conway from appearing on "Morning Joe," arguing that Conway peddled "fake news."

Michael Loccisano/Getty Images Source: Business Insider

In May 2017, the “Morning Joe” hosts announced their engagement, ending the years of rumors. Vanity Fair reported that Trump offered to officiate the couple’s wedding, which he suggested be held at the White House or at his Florida resort, when they visited Trump at Mar-a-Lago in January.

In May 2017, the "Morning Joe" hosts announced their engagement, ending the years of rumors. Vanity Fair reported that Trump offered to officiate the couple's wedding, which he suggested be held at the White House or at his Florida resort, when they visited Trump at Mar-a-Lago in January.

Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough in February 2017Andy Kropa/AP Source: Business Insider

In: businessinsider 

Trump Mocks Mika Brzezinski; Says She Was ‘Bleeding Badly From a Face-Lift’

WASHINGTON — President Trump lashed out Thursday at the appearance and intellect of Mika Brzezinski, a co-host of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” drawing condemnation from his fellow Republicans and reigniting the controversy over his attitudes toward women that nearly derailed his candidacy last year.

Mika Brzezinski in Trump Tower in November. Credit Evan Vucci/Associated Press. Image: https://static01.nyt.com/images/2017/06/30/business/30trumpmedia1/30trumpmedia1-master768-v2.jpg

Mr. Trump’s invective threatened to further erode his support from Republican women and independents, both among voters and on Capitol Hill, where he needs negotiating leverage for the stalled Senate health care bill.

The president described Ms. Brzezinski as “low I.Q. Crazy Mika” and claimed in a series of Twitter posts that she had been “bleeding badly from a face-lift” during a social gathering at Mr. Trump’s resort in Florida around New Year’s Eve. The White House did not explain what had prompted the outburst, but a spokeswoman said Ms. Brzezinski deserved a rebuke because of her show’s harsh stance on Mr. Trump.

The tweets ended five months of relative silence from the president on the volatile subject of gender, reintroducing a political vulnerability: his history of demeaning women for their age, appearance and mental capacity.

“My first reaction was that this just has to stop, and I was disheartened because I had hoped the personal, ad hominem attacks had been left behind, that we were past that,” Senator Susan Collins, a moderate Republican from Maine who is a crucial holdout on the effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act, said in an interview.

“I don’t think it directly affects the negotiation on the health care bill, but it is undignified — it’s beneath a president of the United States and just so contrary to the way we expect a president to act,” she said. “People may say things during a campaign, but it’s different when you become a public servant. I don’t see it as undermining his ability to negotiate legislation, necessarily, but I see it as embarrassing to our country.”

A slew of Republicans echoed her sentiments. Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who, like Ms. Collins, holds a pivotal and undecided vote on the health care bill, tweeted: “Stop it! The presidential platform should be used for more than bringing people down.”

Senator Ben Sasse, a Nebraska Republican who opposed Mr. Trump’s nomination during the presidential primaries, also implored him to stop, writing on Twitter that making such comments “isn’t normal and it’s beneath the dignity of your office.”

Senator James Lankford, Republican of Oklahoma, added, “The president’s tweets today don’t help our political or national discourse and do not provide a positive role model for our national dialogue.”

Ms. Brzezinski responded by posting on Twitter a photograph of a box of Cheerios with the words “Made for Little Hands,” a reference to a longstanding insult about the size of the president’s hands. MSNBC said in a statement, “It’s a sad day for America when the president spends his time bullying, lying and spewing petty personal attacks instead of doing his job.”

Mr. Trump’s attack injected even more negativity into a capital marinating in partisanship and reminded weary Republicans of a political fact they would rather forget: Mr. Trump has a problem with the half of the population more likely to vote.

Representative Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas and others in the House criticized President Trump’s remarks on Thursday. Credit Stephen Crowley/The New York Times. Image: https://static01.nyt.com/images/2017/06/30/us/30dc-trumpwomen-3/30dc-trumpwomen-3-master675.jpg

Christine Matthews, a Republican pollster who specializes in the views of female voters, said the president’s use of Twitter to target a prominent woman was particularly striking, noting that he had used only one derogatory word — “psycho” — to describe the show’s other co-host, Joe Scarborough, and the remainder of his limited characters to hit upon damaging stereotypes of women.

“He included dumb, crazy, old, unattractive and desperate,” Ms. Matthews said.

“The continued tweeting, the fact that he is so outrageous, so unpresidential, is becoming a huge problem for him,” she added. “And it is particularly unhelpful in terms of building relationships with female Republican members of Congress, whose votes he needs for health care, tax reform and infrastructure.”

But it was unclear whether the vehemence of the president’s latest attack would embolden members of his party to turn disdain into defiance.

Senior Republicans, including Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, cycled through what has become a familiar series of emotions and calculations after the Twitter posts, according to staff members: a flash of anger, reckoning of possible damage and, finally, a determination to push past the controversy to pursue their agenda.

“Obviously, I don’t see that as an appropriate comment,” the House speaker, Paul D. Ryan, said during a Capitol Hill news conference. Then he told reporters he wanted to talk about something else.

Representative Nancy Pelosi, the House Democratic leader, demanded an apology, calling the president’s Twitter posts “sexist, an assault on the freedom of the press and an insult to all women.”

A spokeswoman for the president, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, urged the news media to move on, arguing during the daily White House briefing that Mr. Trump was “fighting fire with fire” by attacking a longtime critic.

Ms. Brzezinski had called the president “a liar” and suggested he was “mentally ill,” added Ms. Sanders, who defended Mr. Trump’s tweets as appropriate for a president.

Melania Trump, the president’s wife — who has said that, as first lady, she will embark on a campaign against cyberbullying — also rejected claims that her husband had done what she is charged with undoing.

“As the first lady has stated publicly in the past, when her husband gets attacked, he will punch back 10 times harder,” Mrs. Trump’s spokeswoman wrote in a statement, referring to the first lady’s remarks during the campaign.

Current and former aides say that Mr. Trump was chastened by the furor over the “Access Hollywood” tape that emerged in October, which showed him bragging about forcing himself on women, and that he had exhibited self-restraint during the first few months of his administration. But in the past week, the sense that he had become the victim of a liberal media conspiracy against him loosened those tethers.

Moreover, Mr. Trump’s oldest friends say it is difficult for him to distinguish between large and small slights — or to recognize that his office comes with the expectation that he moderate his behavior.

And his fiercest, most savage responses have almost always been to what he has seen on television.

”Morning Joe,” once a friendly bastion on left-leaning MSNBC, has become a forum for fiery criticism of Mr. Trump. One adviser to the president accused the hosts of trying to “destroy” the administration over several months.

After lashing out at Mr. Scarborough and Ms. Brzezinski at one point last summer, Mr. Trump told an adviser, “It felt good.”

Even before he began his campaign two years ago, Mr. Trump showed a disregard for civility when he made critical remarks on television and on social media, particularly about women.

He took aim at the actress Kim Novak, a star of 1950s cinema, as she presented during the 2014 Academy Awards, taking note of her plastic surgeries. Chagrined, Ms. Novak later said she had gone home to Oregon and not left her house for days. She accused Mr. Trump of bullying her, and he later apologized.

As a candidate, Mr. Trump was insensitive to perceptions that he was making sexist statements, arguing that he had a right to defend himself, an assertion Ms. Sanders echoed on Thursday.

After the first primary debate, hosted by Fox News in August 2015, Mr. Trump trained his focus on the only female moderator, Megyn Kelly, who pressed him on his history of making derogatory comments about women.

He told a CNN host that Ms. Kelly had “blood coming out of her wherever,” leaving Republicans squeamish and many thinking he was suggesting that Ms. Kelly had been menstruating. He refused to apologize and kept up the attacks.

Later, he urged his millions of Twitter followers to watch a nonexistent graphic video of a former Miss Universe contestant, Alicia Machado, whose weight gain he had parlayed into a media spectacle while he was promoting the pageant.

Mr. Trump went on to describe female journalists as “crazy” and “neurotic” on his Twitter feed at various points during the race. He derided reporters covering his campaign, Katy Tur of NBC and Sara Murray of CNN, in terms he rarely used about men.

His tweets on Thursday added strain to the already combative daily briefing, as reporters interrupted Ms. Sanders’s defense of the president to ask how she felt about them as a woman and a mother.

She responded that she had only “one perfect role model”: God.

“None of us are perfect,” she said.

 —

One of the reporters on this story, Glenn Thrush, has a contract for regular appearances on MSNBC.

Pese a las protestas, Al Sisi ratificó un acuerdo y Egipto cedió dos islas del mar Rojo a Arabia Saudita

El presidente aseguró que las islas de Tirán y Sanafir estaban bajo tutela egipcia, pero siempre habían pertenecido al reino saudita. Las redes sociales estallaron con el hashtag #AlSisiTraidor

Abdel Fatah al Sisi. Imagen: http://img.informador.com.mx/biblioteca/imagen/242×323/1028/1027847.jpg

El presidente de Egipto, Abdel Fatah al Sisi, ratificó el sábado el polémico acuerdo de cesión de dos islas en el mar Rojo a Arabia Saudita, después de que el Parlamento lo aprobase el 14 de junio, un asunto que ha desatado las protestas en el país.

El Cairo ha defendido en todo momento que las islas de Tirán y Sanafir siempre han pertenecido a Arabia Saudita, pero estaban bajo tutela egipcia porque el fundador del reino, Abdelaziz al Saud, pidió a este país protegerlas, debido a que él carecía entonces de una fuerza naval.

En base a esto, ambos países firmaron en abril de 2016 un acuerdo para la devolución de esos dos territorios al reino saudita. La oposición sostiene que existen documentos y mapas del siglo XIX que demuestran que Tirán y Sanafir pertenecen a Egipto.

El hecho de que el régimen de al Sisi haya recibido miles de millones de dólares en asistencia financiera por parte de Riad, enemigo jurado de la Hermandad Musulmana, ha llevado a algunos egipcios a considerar la cesión de las islas era una compensación.

El 21 de junio, durante un discurso en el “iftar” (comida tras el ayuno diurno del ramadán), Al Sisi dio por zanjada la polémica al decir que “se ha acabado el tema” con la aprobación del pacto en el Parlamento.

El mandatario aseguró que “las patrias no se venden ni se compran” e indicó que “los países están liderados por la ley y las realidades”, en aparente respuesta a los que le acusan de vender o regalar territorio nacional a Arabia Saudita.

Imagen: http://www.infobae.com/new-resizer/GbHmX3sxOH1kRcm6qN62-uN0xKY=/600×0/s3.amazonaws.com/arc-wordpress-client-uploads/infobae-wp/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/24170502/mapa-egypt-sf.jpg?token=bar

Tras la decisión parlamentaria, las redes sociales se volcaron con el asunto, con la etiqueta de “Al Sisi traidor” en Twitter

La aprobación en el Parlamento se produjo después de varias sentencias judiciales contrarias que frenaron el acuerdo porque las consideraban que las islas de Tirán y Sanafir, situadas en la entrada del golfo de Aqaba, eran egipcias.

Sin embargo, el Tribunal Constitucional decidió suspender el 21 de junio de forma temporal la aplicación de estos fallos porque algunos eran contradictorios, hasta que dicte sentencia en el caso.

Los partidos políticos de oposición, movimientos de izquierda y activistas egipcios han rechazado la “venta” de las islas y se han movilizado, en las mayores protestas en contra del Gobierno de Al Sisi desde su llegada al poder en 2013.

La Comisión Egipcia de Derechos y Libertades informó de que 146 personas fueron detenidas la semana pasada tras la convocatoria de protestas en contra el pacto.

Las dos pequeñas islas se encuentran en una posición estratégica a la entrada del golfo de Aqaba, desde donde se puede bloquear el paso al puerto israelí de Eilat y al jordano de Aqaba.

Con información de EFE

En: infobae 

Militar roba helicóptero y lanza granadas contra sede de TSJ de Venezuela

“Más temprano que tarde vamos a capturar el helicóptero y a los que han realizado este ataque terrorista”, señaló el presidente Nicolás Maduro.

Un militar venezolano, funcionario de la Brigada de Acciones Especiales y al que medios del país vecino identifican como Óscar Pérez, sobrevoló este martes la sede del Tribunal Superior de Justicia, TSJ, en Caracas, y desde la aeronave lanzó dos granadas de fragmentación contra el edificio.

Antes de tomar el helicóptero, de acuerdo con medios locales, el uniformado dejó un mensaje en Twitter en el que menciona: “Somos nacionalistas, patriotas e institucionalistas. Este combate no es con el resto de las fuerzas del Estado, es en contra de la tiranía de este gobierno”.

Mensaje publicado por funcionario del BAE, Oscar Pérez quién pilotea helicóptero del CICPC con pancarta “350 Libertad”:

Después se publicaron  varios videos donde se ve el helicóptero sobrevolando la sede del Tribunal Supremo de Justicia mientras se escuchan fuertes explosiones.

Por su parte, el presidente venezolano, Nicolás Maduro, denunció que desde el helicóptero policial se lanzaron dos granadas contra la sede del máximo tribunal de justicia en Caracas, lo que consideró un “ataque terrorista”.

“La Fuerza Armada toda la he activado para defender la tranquilidad. Más temprano que tarde vamos a capturar el helicóptero y a los que han realizado este ataque terrorista”, señaló el mandatario en el palacio presidencial de Miraflores.

Durante un acto de premiación por el Día del Periodista, Maduro reveló que el helicóptero que atacó el Tribunal Supremo de Justicia (TSJ) pertenece a la policía científica venezolana.

“Había en el TSJ una actividad social, podían haber ocasionado una tragedia. Dispararon contra el TSJ y luego sobrevolaron el Ministerio de Interior y Justicia. Este es el tipo de escalada armada que yo he venido denunciando”, dijo Maduro, quien no reportó heridos y confirmó que una de las granadas no explotó.

El presidente aseguró que la aeronave era conducida por un hombre que fue piloto de su ex ministro de Interior y Justicia, Miguel Rodríguez Torres, general retirado que se ha distanciado del gobierno, a quien Maduro vincula con un supuesto plan de golpe de Estado en su contra.

Durante el acto, el ministro de Comunicación, Ernesto Villegas, afirmó que la aeronave era pilotada por un “individuo que se alzó en armas contra la República”.

En las redes sociales circularon fotos del helicóptero sobrevolando Caracas con un cartel que decía “350 Libertad”, en referencia al artículo constitucional que establece el desconocimiento de gobiernos que contraríen las garantías democráticas.

Maduro enfrenta desde el 1 de abril una ola de protestas de opositores que exigen su salida del poder, y que ya deja 76 muertos.

En: elheraldo 

Venezuela president says supporters will take up arms if government falls

As protests continue, Nicolás Maduro says his side ‘would never give up’ amid chaos: ‘What we failed to achieve with votes, we would do with weapons’

As the death toll continues to rise from three months of political unrest in Venezuela, the country’s president, Nicolás Maduro, has warned that his supporters will take up arms if his government is overthrown.

Speaking at a rally to promote a 30 July vote for a constituent assembly, Maduro said he would fight to defend the “Bolivarian revolution” of his predecessor Hugo Chávez.

“If Venezuela was plunged into chaos and violence and the Bolivarian Revolution destroyed, we would go to combat. We would never give up, and what we failed to achieve with votes, we would do with weapons. We would liberate the fatherland with weapons.”

His comments, which were broadcast live to the country, came amid reports of one of the worst outbreaks of looting in three months of deadly protests.

Some 68 businesses, including supermarkets, liquor stores, bakeries and food shops were ransacked in a wave of lawlessness that began Monday night in the city of Maracay, 100km west of Caracas, and continued well into Tuesday afternoon.

“I have never seen anything like this. It’s been non-stop. Like we are in a war,” said Rodrigo Ruz, an insurance broker who lives in Maracay. “I went to sleep with the sound of shots and mayhem and it’s now midday and it hasn’t stopped,” he added.

According to Ruz, there was virtually no police presence in the streets of Maracay and the neighboring suburb El Limon, where the violence was at its worst.

Local media reported that several people were injured, including a 17-year-old who was shot in the throat with a gun and was declared “braindead”.

Videos circulating on social media showed at least a dozen supermarkets being ransacked by looters. The headquarters of the governing party, the PSUV, was also reportedly burnt.

In a separate incident on Monday night in eastern Caracas, security forces were prevented from entering a middle-class gated community by inhabitants, who fired at them from nearby buildings. Three national guard members suffered gunshot injuries.

For nearly three months, opposition activists have been staging unrelenting protests against a government they accuse of chronic mismanagement and increasingly authoritarian behaviour. The once-prosperous oil-producing country has suffered from rocketing inflation and spiraling crime rates.

More than 80 people have died since the clashes began in early April, but Monday night’s violence marked the first time that street clashes have spiraled into more generalised anarchy.

Maduro, who accuses protesters of being terrorists trying to wage a US-backed coup attempt against his government, is pushing for a constituent assembly that would redraft the country’s constitution.
The move has been rejected by both the opposition and by a growing number of dissidents from within his own party.

On Tuesday, Maduro said the “destruction” of Venezuela would unleash a refugee wave dwarfing the migrant crisis in the Mediterranean.

“Listen, President Donald Trump,” he said. “You have the responsibility: stop the madness of the violent Venezuelan right wing.”

Julio Borges, head of the opposition-led national assembly just said that Maduro’s statement could not be taken lightly.

“It is the clearest acknowledgment that Venezuela lives a dictatorship that intends to impose itself – against the democratic spirit – through a constituent assembly that will only deepen the social, political and humanitarian crisis that affects the country”.

In: theguardian 

Patricia Donayre renuncia a Fuerza Popular

“Se me dijo que se iba a marcar una clara línea contra la corrupción”, señaló la legisladora al dar a conocer su renuncia a Fuerza Popular

Se veía venir. La congresista Patricia Donayre renunció esta mañana a la bancada de Fuerza Popular como corolario de una serie de desavenencias con distintos parlamentarios de su bloque político y la forma cómo se lleva adelante el proceso de reforma electoral.

“Hoy recobro mi independencia “, sostuvo la legisladora, al tiempo de explicar que su renuncia obedece , entre otras cosas, al hecho de ser sometida a un proceso disciplinario al amparo de un reglamento que –dijo no ha sido aprobado por los integrantes de su ahora ex bancada.

““Mi decisión va más allá de un tema personal. Es un tema de principios. Soy totalmente consciente de mi decisión, soy fiel a mis principios y objetivos políticos; soy consciente de que perderé lugar en una bancada pero no la capacidad de iniciativa y de seguir defendiendo los intereses del país”, refirió

Donayre, cabe señalar, formaba parte hasta hoy del bloque Fuerza Popular en calidad de invitada y se convierte ahora en la segunda renunciante a ese grupo. Anteriormente, se recuerda, lo hizo Yeni Vilcatoma.

En declaraciones a la prensa, Patricia Donayre recordó que cuando se incorporó a* Fuerza Popular* “se me dijo que se iba a marcar una clara línea contra la corrupción”

“Espero que los congresistas salgan a pronunciarse sobre su situación”, indicó, tras advertir que el centralismo se notaba en el propio Congreso.

En: peru21 

UNP aprueba quitar título de abogada a congresista Maritza García

Medida fue tomada luego de demostrarse que la hoy congresista presentó documentos falsos para postular a la casa de estudios.

Medida fue tomada luego de demostrarse que la hoy congresista presentó documentos falsos para postular a la casa de estudios. | Fuente: RPP / Referencial

Por decisión unánime tomada en el Consejo Universitario de la Universidad Nacional de Piura (UNP) aprobaron anular el grado y título profesional en Derecho a la hoy congresista Maritza García Jiménez, emitida por esta casa superior de estudios.

Además, a la actual parlamentaria representante de la región Piura, también se le anularán sus estudios de maestría.

El consejo, presidido por la vicerrectora académica Yohani Abad, aprobó emitir la Resolución que ordena dicha medida, al demostrarse que García Jiménez presentó documentos falsos que acreditaban la culminación de su secundaria a fin de ingresar a esta casa de estudios.

La parlamentaria, que también es investigada por este tema en la Comisión de Ética del Congreso, ha dicho siempre que estas acusaciones son mentira y se pregonó víctima de amenazas y chantajes.

Asimismo, manifestaba que era una campaña en su contra orquestada por los que ella llamó ‘una mafia enquistada y monitoreada desde la Universidad Nacional de Piura’, institución a la que asegura viene investigando con sus atribuciones de fiscalización.

En: rpp

Ver: Por mentir en hoja de vida, confrontan con decano a fujimorista Maritza García 

Congreso de la República del Perú: Tratamiento con guantes de seda a congresista fujimorista Yessenia Ponce

En octubre del año 2016, la congresista del partido Fuerza Popular, Yesenia Ponce, intervino en forma “prepotente” en una sesión del Consejo Regional de Áncash en la que se pedía reconsiderar un acuerdo para entregar más de mil hectáreas a la Superintendencia de Bienes Nacionales. Por este hecho, la legisladora fujimorista fue denunciada ante la Comisión de Ética, la cual, debatió el informe de la Secretaría Técnica que recomendó suspenderla por 120 días de legislatura con el respectivo descuento de sus haberes. Ponce habría infringido el Código de Ética así como también vulnerado la autonomía de poderes, SIN EMBARGO, de acuerdo con la Resolución Legislativa del Congreso N° 011-2016-2017-CR, SÓLAMENTE se decidió imponerle la sanción de amonestación escrita establecida en el inciso b) del artículo 14 del Código de Ética Parlamentaria (Documento con fecha 11 de mayo 2017). Moraleja: “Otorongo no come Otorongo”.

Código de Ética Parlamentaria

Artículo 14. Según la gravedad de la falta, por infracción del presente Código se impondrán las siguientes sanciones:

a) Recomendación pública.

b) Amonestación escrita pública.

c) Amonestación escrita pública con multa.

d) Recomendación al Pleno de la suspensión en el ejercicio del cargo y descuento de sus haberes desde tres hasta ciento veinte días de legislatura.

Toda apelación será resuelta en última instancia por el Pleno del Congreso. Cuando la falta sancionada, a juicio de la Comisión de Ética Parlamentaria, presente indicios de la comisión de un delito o de una infracción constitucional, el caso será puesto en conocimiento de la Subcomisión de Acusaciones Constitucionales para los fines de ley.”

Leer: Resolución Legislativa del Congreso N° 011-2016-2017-CR

Ver: Yesenia Ponce: Congresista de Fuerza Popular podría ser suspendida 120 días 

 

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