President Donald Trump ordered a 59 missile strike on a Syrian airfield on April 7, 2017 (image shows some of the damage to the airfield).
During the 2016 campaign, then candidate Trump criticized US overseas military operations repeatedly. He also indicated that the US should take care of its home business first.
The strike was against the Syrian airfield, which was the one that launched a chemical warfare attack against Syrian civilians. The Trump administration does not claim that American interests were at stake and instead bases the justification for the strike on the fact that the weapons used by Syria were banned and, in fact, Syria claimed not to have such weapons.
The strike against Syria was very popular. It was praised by, among others, former Secretary of State John Kerry, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Senator John McCain and Senator Chuck Schumer all of whom were, during the Presidential campaign, critics of Trump (and mostly they still are).
It was opposed by very few notable people and I am unable to find a single one who accused Trump of hypocrisy, even though it seems to obviously be such a case.
A report of the April 7, 2017 strike on Syrian is here.
A summary of the pro and anti sides of the Syrian tomahawk strike is here.
An NBC article covering Trump's criticism of US actions overseas including some qualified praise of Saddam Hussain is here.
The Supreme Court as Partisan Tool
On April 4, 2017, the NYTimes had an editorial opposing the possible elimination of the filibuster for Supreme Court Nominees. This is yet another chapter in the NYTimes shifting position on this issue.
The image is from that editorial.
In 1995, the NYTimes was anti filibuster.(a Democrat was President).
In 2005, the NYTimes was pro filibuster (a Republican was President).
In 2012, (the Democrat was President), the NYTimes went anti filibuster.
Now, after the Republicans took the Presidency, the NYTimes likes the filibuster again.
The 1995-2012 situation was the subject of the 2012 post on this website. It is here. It provides links to the 1995, 2005 and 2012 NYTimes editorials.
The 2017 editorial by the NYTimes is here. It is filled with a lot of justifications but given the way the editorial position favors the policy side that the NYTimes favors, its pretty obvious that the justifications are a smokescreen.
Back in April 2016, Senator Elizabeth Warren made a long statement about equal pay for women and also tweeted about it.
The tweet is below
A pretty good chunk of the transcript of Warren's statement is here.
The transcript notes that in some recent year women received 79% of the income of men, mentions the phrase 'equal work for equal pay' a number of times and says the system is 'rigged' a number of times.
A reporter dug into the final wage figures for Warren's staffers in 2016 and found that, in that office, the women were paid 71% (substantially below the national figure).
Most of the report on Warren's staff's wages is here (from within an opinion post).
So is it a case of hypocrisy. Actually it may not be. Warren calls for 'equal pay for equal work' but the individual staffers each do different work, for example (from the report),
":..Among employees employed the entire year, only one woman, Warren’s
director of scheduling, earned a six-figure salary, at $100,624.88. Five men—Warren’s director of oversight and investigations
($156,000), legislative director ($149,458), deputy chief of staff
($119,375), Massachusetts state director ($152,310), and deputy state
director ($113,750)—earned more than Warren’s highest paid woman staffer
in 2016...."
So, if Warren is only calling for equal pay for equal work, there is not hypocrisy. Of course, Warren also calls the system rigged, etc. Of course if she really believed the rhetoric, you'd think the office wages would demonstrate that.
The Boston Globe tweeted/instagramed a message today.
It was commenting on the portrait of Melania Trump.
Below is the tweet portion (the instagram portion is the portrait of Melania to the upper left).
