So far it appears that the Trump administration primarily spend their days acting out a series of miraculous cock-ups – whether it’s not being able to use light switches, chewing incomprehensible amounts of gum, getting red and nude about a sketch show or struggling with staircases, there’s always something going on.
In an ongoing effort to discredit the media so as to make themselves effectively completely immune to criticism in the eyes of their supporters (you might be familiar with the words “fake news”), the white house has released a somewhat baffling list of 78 “terrorist attacks” they believed to be underreported by the media.
It was provoked after Trump’s conversation with military leaders in Tampa, Florida, where he discussed how attacks in Europe weren’t accurately detailed because “in many cases the very, very dishonest press doesn’t want to report it. They have their reasons, and you understand that.”
Sure mate, whatever you reckon.
The document comprises of a timeline of events that took place between September 2014 and December 2016, many of which (such as the Bataclan attack, the Nice attack, the San Bernardino shooting and the Orlando night club attack) received an overwhelming amount of press coverage, not just in the US but abroad (we certainly covered them a lot).
Some of the attacks listed also fell under a somewhat questionable definition of “terrorist attack”, such as the Sydney siege, which was a hostage situation undertaken by a man with previously diagnosed mental health issues who had no demonstrable connections to ISIS.
While many significant terrorist attacks over the past two years are referred to, there is literally no mention of any incidents that occurred in Israel – particularly a bus bombing in Jerusalem that injured 20 people (and, of course, Trump and co got in a lot of shit last week for a statement on International Holocaust Remembrance Day that didn’t acknowledge the Jewish people).
In classic Trump administration fashion, there are a fucktonne of spelling mistakes, too. We’ve got a wonderful array of doozies here, with “attacker” spelt as “attaker” (an error they seem to have copy-and-pasted a whooole bunch of times throughout the list) and “Denmark” artfully penned as “Denmakr.”
This is the kind of professional attention to detail we’ve come to expect from the Trump administration. Christ. It’s going to be a long four years.
Source: The Guardian.
Photo: Mark Wilson / Getty.
