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theliberaltony · 7 years

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via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

During her decade in national politics, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand has been profiled, ad nauseam, by any number of very important publications: The New Yorker, New York Magazine (a couple times), Vogue, The New York Times.

But her 2012 interview with Self magazine, three years into her Senate tenure, is among the most compelling and useful texts for the Gillibrand close-reader. In a span of 599 words, the senator manages to ruminate on fitness tips (her 40-pound postpartum weight loss being the ostensible reason for the story), touch on the difficulties of being a working mother, name-drop several across-the-aisle friendships, and plug, in the most deft of humblebrags, her tireless spirit: “I approached losing weight the same way I’ve approached any other challenge throughout my life: I figured out exactly what I needed to do to succeed and dove in. I was determined.” Through Self, Gillibrand was cleverly reaching beyond snoozy news stories to a voting public that would perhaps remember a young senator who talked food-journaling and breastfeeding.

But the interview also offers an oblique insight into Gillibrand’s ever so determined and calculating rise in Democratic politics: At the time, Gillibrand had a standing weekly squash date with Sen. Al Franken. Yet five years later, she was the first Democratic senator to call for Franken to resign, and became, by no accident, the face of a movement to clean House (as it were) of harassers in public office.

No one was off the table, including — or perhaps especially — political patrons. Gillibrand said Bill Clinton, husband of the woman whose Senate seat she inherited, should have resigned from office. That led Clintonworld capo Philippe Reines to tweet, among other things, “Over 20 yrs you took the Clintons’ endorsements, money, and seat. Hypocrite. Interesting strategy for 2020 primaries. Best of luck.”

But Gillibrand’s appetite for biting the hands that feed her might actually be just what brings her success in the Democrats’ all-but-free-for-all scramble for leadership. She sniffed out the direction of the party months, even years ago, and has been tacking hard to the left ever since. She is attuned to the base, fluent in the new mediums of activism and, perhaps most importantly, knows how to spin. Who is Kirsten Gillibrand and what does she want? The latter is easy to answer: She likely wants to be president.1 But the former — who exactly is this woman whose moment it is we’re all living through — takes a bit more to parse.

The Gillibrand biography has, at this point in her career, reached a calcified, rote state that is particularly advantageous to politicians: maximum schmaltz, minimum actual insight. Generally, what you’re meant to take away from a Gillibrand bio paragraph in a profile is this: raised in regular old America; strong female role models growing up (including a grandmother who seemed to be Albany’s own LBJ); driven; Dartmouth; fancy lawyer (but let’s not linger on that too long); loves her kids; loves God; loves working across the aisle.

She has been charged in print on not one, but two occasions with being less-than-reflective.

The New Yorker called her “not given to soul-searching,” while New York called her “not inclined toward introspection.” FiveThirtyEight is neither given nor inclined to say much more than that Gillibrand might just be well media-trained, or perhaps she’s the kind of person who really does just plunge ahead. Just a political animal with a goal in mind, as she told the good people of Self.

She’s sensed the identity politics vehicle of the era, and has settled into the driver’s seat for a long haul.

At her essence, Gillibrand would seem to be not an ideologue, but an operator. In order to win she has evolved her positions, changed her mind … flip-flopped, in less polite terms. She used to have an “A” grade from the NRA, when she represented a conservative upstate district in the House, and she was against protections for sanctuary cities. One New York immigration group, incensed by her 2009 appointment to the Senate, issued a press release noting “she strongly supported throwing more resources toward ineffective border enforcement but appeared to oppose any path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.” Progressive members of New York’s congressional delegation were so incensed by her appointment, they threatened to run against her.

In 2017, things are different. Gillibrand supports a path to citizenship, and has called Trump’s border wall a “hurtful, terrible policy that will never work.” In 2016, she wept in an interview while discussing her former stance on guns. She has voted against Trump’s positions more often than any other senator and is the sole member to vote against every one of the president’s Cabinet nominees. Gillibrand is a co-sponsor of Bernie Sanders’s single-payer health care bill, widely seen as a new Democratic presidential litmus test. In the House, where she served from 2007 to 2009, she was among the least liberal members of the Democratic caucus, ranking 209th out of 241. But in the Senate, she has skewed left. In the last Congress, she was the seventh most liberal member of the 46-person Democratic caucus.

So what to make of this impressive litany of flip-flops, her ease in changing her mind? It would appear that Gillibrand is a Democrat above all else. As the party has shifted left, so has she.

In other words, she is good at politics, if by politics we mean sensing the direction of the populace, capturing their sentiments in rhetoric, turning that rhetoric into votes, fundraising off those votes, gaining power and popularity, running for re-election, winning, and doing it all over again.

And the membership of the Democratic Party has, after all, gotten a whole lot more liberal during Gillibrand’s time in office, a trend that is only likely to continue. In 2008, according to Pew, 41 percent of Democrats called themselves “moderate” and 33 percent said they were “liberal.” By 2015, the ideological balance had flipped in the party, with 42 percent of Democrats calling themselves “liberal” and 38 percent “moderate.”

As of 2015, 49 percent of millennial Democrats identified as “liberal,” meaning that it’s smart politics to evolve left. Gillibrand is on to something. When people write that it is Gillibrand’s moment, it largely has to do with her capitalizing on the #MeToo movement to call out harassers. (After Trump’s taunting tweet, for instance, her office sent out a fundraising email.) But Gillibrand has been at the political fore of feminism’s resurgence for years. Well before this year, she made waves advocating for changes to the way the military prosecutes sexual assault, and she has introduced a paid family leave bill every year for the past five years.

She’s sensed the identity politics vehicle of the era, and has settled into the driver’s seat for a long haul. A recent poll showed that 64 percent of Democrats thought that sexual harassment was a very serious problem in the country, and 86 percent of women college graduates thought it represented a serious problem in society. Should Gillibrand run for president, that group, which continues to lean ever more Democratic, would be an important constituency.

And while many public figures are tone deaf on Twitter or have fallen victim to equivocating on behalf of allies (as Nancy Pelosi has), Gillibrand understands the moral absolutism required to survive in the Twitter age. “I think when we start having to talk about the differences between sexual assault and sexual harassment and unwanted groping, you are having the wrong conversation,” she said at a press conference calling for Franken to resign. “You need to draw a line in the sand and say none of it is OK. None of it is acceptable.” Polls showed that about half of Democrats thought Franken should leave.

So if her 2020 viability as a candidate is attached to the cultural reckoning over harassment and women’s empowerment, would Gillibrand still face the challenges Hillary Clinton had as a female candidate?

Any election she’s in will feature gendered lines of attack, but Gillibrand’s advantages go back to the kind of assured wielding of soft power she showed in that Self magazine interview. A generation younger than Clinton, Gillibrand has had the luxury of refining her power, allowing it to reside not just in the Senate chamber, but also in the facts of her womanhood. Iron ladies aren’t entirely in vogue; relatability is. And the senator from New York has made her empathy something central to her persona — it might have even helped her get her current job. Then-Gov. David Paterson told The New Yorker that she was a great comfort to him after an “SNL” parody centering around his legal blindness. “I’ve never mentioned to her really why I picked her, but that incident played a role,” he said.

Empathy might have helped her rise in politics, but it’s that operator’s sense that has likely helped keep her in it. In the last week of a hard-fought 2006 election to Congress, a police report about a domestic violence incident involving Gillibrand’s Republican opponent surfaced. Gillibrand, New York Magazine later noted, “has never denied that her campaign was the source of the leak despite being asked about it several times. She defeated Sweeney by six points.”

Politics can be a nasty line of work, and Kirsten Gillibrand is good at politics. Maybe that’s all a person needs to make their moment.

#IFTTT #Politics – FiveThirtyEight #politics #538 #Clare Malone

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thisdaynews · 5 years

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7 reporters recount a historic week in impeachment

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/7-reporters-recount-a-historic-week-in-impeachment/

7 reporters recount a historic week in impeachment

Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch during her Friday hearing before the House Intelligence Committee. | Joshua Roberts/Getty Images

History was made this week as public hearings began in the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump.

It was difficult, but not impossible, to overlook this simple fact amid the blizzard of breaking news and onslaught of accusations, counter-claims and Twitter tirades.

The House speaker accused the president of bribery. The president attacked a diplomat during live testimony. Democrats cried witness tamperingon the same dayTrump’s key campaign adviser was convicted of the same charge (alongside six other felony counts) as Republicans scrambled to defend a president intent on defending himself.

It’s a lot to take in and break down, so we asked seven reporters who are covering the Trump presidency and the investigations what on earth just happened, and what in the world will happen next.

What happened this week that moved the dial and will be remembered when the history books get written on this?

Melanie Zanona, Congress reporter:The first public impeachment hearings in 21 years! That was enough to move the dial, no matter what happened. Now, whether that was enough to move public opinion remains to be seen … but there were definitely some standout moments. Like the surprise bombshell from William Taylor, who revealed his staffer overheard a phone call between Trump and another diplomat discussing “the investigations” into the Bidens. Or Marie Yovanovitch testifying about how she was mistreated by Trump administration officials — at the exact same time she was being attacked by President Donald Trump on Twitter, which was then promptly read out loud to her so she could respond in real time.

Anita Kumar, White House correspondent:There were a lot of important moments during the testimony this week but I was actually struck by something that happened outside the hearing room — the moment the speaker of the House accused the president of the United States of bribery. That’s one for the history books. “The devastating testimony corroborated evidence of bribery,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told reporters at her weekly news conference. House Democrats ramped up their rhetoric this week in part to get more Americans’ understanding and support for their investigation. They traded in “quid pro quo” for “bribery” or “extortion.” Bribery, of course, is also one of the few reasons — “treason, bribery, and other high crimes and misdemeanors” — cited in the Constitution for impeachment.

Andrew Desiderio, Congress reporter:The mere fact that the House of Representatives began public impeachment hearings this week is historic on its own, given how rarely the impeachment process has been used in U.S. history. But beyond that, I think it was made clear to the public this week that, despite efforts by partisans on the left and the right to try to spin it to their political advantage, the story of Trump’s impeachment will generally come down to the unfiltered accounts of career, non-partisan Foreign Service officers and diplomats. That will hold true especially next week, when eight witnesses are expected to testify in a three-day span.

Kyle Cheney, Congress reporter:There’s a lot of competition for the worst week of the Trump presidency, but this has to rank in the top three. Roger Stone was convicted on seven felony charges for lying to protect Trump. Trump lost successive court decisions trying to shield his financial records from lawmakers and prosecutors.

But the most unforgettable image from this week that will stick with us is Trump’s attack on a witness of otherwise unquestioned character — not by Democrats or Republicans of any political faction — and the way it backfired in real time. Trump may not ultimately be removed from office, but the moment captured Trumpian defiance, and his sometimes self-destructive behavior, in its purest form and in one of the most perilous moments of his presidency.

Are Trump and his presidency in any more trouble than a week ago?

Nahal Toosi, foreign affairs correspondent:Well, he’s not in any less trouble. I was especially struck by U.S. diplomat Marie Yovanovitch’s testimony. She came across as a sympathetic figure given Trump’s decision to yank her out of Ukraine as his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, was smearing her. Even Republicans treated her with caution and praised her service. But memories are short, and in a couple of weeks, the mood could be entirely different.

Anita:Maybe. House Democrats are under pressure to show more about how Trump himself was involved beyond, of course, what we already know from the July 25 call between him and the president of Ukraine. They managed to more directly tie Trump to the scandal when William Taylor, acting ambassador to Ukraine, testified that Trump supposedly asked Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, about “the investigations” he wanted on a July 26 call. The call was overheard by at least two people.

Andrew:I’m not ready to say that quite yet. I think we entered this week with a high probability that the House would ultimately vote to impeach Trump in December — and I think the week largely ended with that same probability. Another obvious reason Trump isn’t in more trouble is that his GOP firewall in the Senate doesn’t appear to have cracked at all this week. Of course, that could change — especially as eight more witnesses testify in public next week. It is still the case that Trump is very likely to be impeached once the House wraps up its inquiry; it also remains true that the Senate is very likely to acquit him. Nothing that happened this week changed that.

Kyle:Trump proved that the biggest trouble from his presidency comes from within. It became clear that there are limits to Trump’s trust-my-gut impeachment defense, so to the degree he recognizes that he’s not winning the battle for America’s hearts and minds on impeachment, it could have a significant effect on the rest of his presidency.

What is the biggest outstanding question you have for Donald Trump in the Ukraine scandal?

Anita:My question is a big one: Why? I’ve been covering the Trump presidency since Day One and I’m constantly asking this question. I know I should be used to it by now but somehow it still surprises me. Why does he do things that he knows other people will criticize him for? After all, politicians are supposed to care what other people think. When I recently wrote about Trump choosing to hold the G-7 summit of world leaders at one of his family’s resorts, I asked people close to him this question. I was told that he has become “fearless” because he has seen over and over again that he won’t lose the backing of supporters no matter what seemingly outrageous action he takes. “He has demonstrated he’s bulletproof,” someone that used to work for him told me. I’d still like Trump to answer the why.

Natasha Bertrand, national security correspondent: My questions are less for Trump and more for the Office of Management and Budget officials who were tasked with carrying out his order to suspend military aid to Ukraine in July. They could provide testimony on the president’s motivations and state of mind when he asked for the funds to be held up, which, as my colleagues Kyle and Andrew have pointed out, remains elusive for the Democrats. Former OMB Director Mick Mulvaney, now the president’s acting chief of staff, was reportedly involved in conversations about suspending the aid until Ukraine opened the investigations Trump sought, and an OMB official was the first to brief the interagency about the hold. Mulvaney has refused to comply with a congressional subpoena to testify, and so far, only one senior Budget official has agreed to comply with a subpoena. Three other OMB officials, Russ Vought, Michael Duffey and Brian McCormack, have also refused to appear.

Melanie:Marie Yovanovitch actually put it perfectly: Why was it necessary to smear her reputation before ousting her as ambassador to Ukraine? Republicans have argued that the president has the right to appoint whomever he wants to serve as an ambassador. But that doesn’t explain why there was an effort to gin up negative news stories about her and personally damage her reputation.

What did we learn this week about how Trump will fight impeachment?

Anita:Trump continues to do what we’ve come to expect of him — talk, tweet, say whatever he wants, without sticking to Republican talking points. But his aides, at least, began to develop a more coherent, organized message. The White House, Trump’s campaign and the Republican National Committee set up rapid response teams to push back on testimony in real time — similar to what they did during special counsel Robert Mueller’s testimony about the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings.

Kyle:Trump is willing to go where even his GOP defenders won’t. His direct attack on Ambassador Yovanovitch — in the middle of her testimony — was not only ignored by the Republicans on the impeachment panel but refuted. One after another they praised Yovanovitch’s service, leaving Trump isolated in his willingness to impugn her integrity.

Melanie:The same way he fights everything: attack, attack, attack. He has continued to act as a one-man war room in the impeachment fight, and at times, has undercut his own party’s defense strategy. Trump’s mid-hearing attack on Yovanovitch blew up the GOP’s carefully orchestrated plan not to personally go after Yovanovitch and turn her into an even more sympathetic character.

Andrew:Trump will continue to speak in direct, absolute terms as he defends himself against charges that he abused the power of his presidency — even if he makes life harder for his congressional GOP allies. We saw evidence of that on Friday, when Trump attacked Yovanovitch while Republicans on the Intelligence Committee were praising her service and largely taking pains not to harangue the veteran diplomat. We’ve seen this movie before: Trump has repeatedly dubbed his July 25 phone call with the Ukrainian president “perfect,” but none of his allies on Capitol Hill have described the call that way. Some have even said the call itself was inappropriate — but, they stress, not impeachable. Still, Trump has made clear that those defenses aren’t good enough. He demands complete loyalty.

What should we make of Senate Republicans trying to stretch out an impeachment trial to make life difficult for 2020 Democratic candidates who also serve in the Senate?

Melanie:It’s actually not clear that Republicans will try to stretch out the trial — they haven’t even started negotiations over the chamber’s impeachment proceedings. And keep in mind, while a long trial might hurt 2020 presidential candidates, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has his own vulnerable senators to protect. They won’t want to be there any more than the Democratic candidates.

Shifting gears, what did we learn about Donald Trump from the Roger Stone trial?

Darren Samuelsohn, senior White House reporter:

Here’s where I can actually offer up something substantive, as these last two weeks have been a crash-course rerun on all things WikiLeaks, Julian Assange and Robert Mueller’s attempts to learn what had happened in 2016.

Trump’s name got dropped dozens of times during the course of the Stone’s trial, which ended Friday with a guilty verdict on all seven courts. Stone lied to protect Trump, the prosecutors said. And phone records show Stone called Trump 60 times during the final 11 months of the presidential campaign, including three times during which they appear to have talked about the Democratic document dumps.

We also learned that many of the high-ranking people around Trump were clued in to what Stone was up to, including Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort, Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller.

Now that Stone’s been convicted and is looking at a couple years of prison time, all the focus shifts to Trump and whether he’ll heed calls from MAGA-world to pardon his longtime friend and political adviser. Buckle up.

Whose testimony are you most looking forward to next week?

Andrew:Gordon Sondland’s testimony on Wednesday morning, with no other witnesses beside him, will be fascinating for a number of reasons — chief among them, William Taylor’s revelation this week of a previously unknown phone call between Trump and Sondland that one of Taylor’s staffers overheard. Republicans said Taylor’s testimony about the call — that his aide overheard Trump asking about “the investigations” and that Sondland said the Ukrainians were ready to move forward — was simply second- and third-hand information. But when Sondland appears before lawmakers, it’ll be the first time he addresses the claim. If Taylor’s account of the call is correct, it’s another data point Democrats can use to connect Trump directly to the scandal. Sondland’s public appearance will also present Democrats with an opportunity to put his revised testimony on camera, most notably Sondland’s testimony that he told a top Ukrainian official that the country “likely” would not receive military aid absent public announcements of the investigations Trump was seeking.

Nahal:Gordon Sondland. Gordon Sondland. Gordon Sondland. I cannot WAIT to see him in the spotlight. He’ll be testifying on Wednesday, and he’s one of the people who had direct interaction with Trump on the issue of Ukraine. He’s already had to revise his private testimony and has effectively admitted there was a quid pro quo. I. Cannot. Wait.

Natasha: Gordon Sondland for sure, but also Fiona Hill. Her no-nonsense responses to questioning during a closed-door deposition could make for a very interesting hearing, and as the former top Europe and Russia adviser on Trump’s National Security Council, she could offer up some new, first-hand information on the conversations surrounding Ukraine policy at the White House as Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani conducted his backchannel diplomacy. It will also be difficult for Republicans to maintain their argument that all the witnesses called so far in the inquiry have only had “hearsay” to offer — the witnesses testifying next week, including Volker, Sondland, Tim Morrison, and Hill, spoke directly with the president about Ukraine on several occasions.

Anita:Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, Ukraine specialist on the National Security Council staff, will be the first person who was on the July 25 call between Trump and Zelensky to testify. Trump and House Republicans keep arguing that Democrats are relying on “hearsay.” Vindman’s testimony will be a first-hand account. Not only that but he makes two serious allegations — the White House released a summary of the call that was missing references to the Bidens and the top NSC lawyer who he spoke to about his concerns about the call told him to keep quiet.

Kyle:Curveball. I’m interested in Kurt Volker. He’s a witness Republicans wanted to call because during his closed-door deposition, he was reluctant to acknowledge that the actions Trump took amounted to a quid pro quo. But Volker also was the very first witness in the entire inquiry. And he’ll now be testifying with the benefit of having seen his colleagues testify and read the transcripts of others, including some who put him closer to the center of the action than was initially understood.

#Foreign #historic #impeachment #Politics

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gadgetsrevv · 5 years

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Ansu Fati: Who is Barcelona 16-year-old with 100m euro release clause?

Ansu Fait could feature for Spain at the Fifa Under-17 World Cup next month

Ansu Fati… if you’ve never heard of Barcelona’s new superstar, you can be forgiven: until a couple of weeks ago, neither had the vast majority of the Spanish club’s fans.

But the 16 year-old has been thrust into the limelight after making history on Saturday, becoming the youngest player in La Liga history to register a goal and an assist in the same game.

Even more impressively, he needed only seven minutes to do so in his team’s 5-2 demolition of Valencia. Just 110 seconds had elapsed when he opened the scoring by meeting Frenkie de Jong’s low cross with a confident right-footed strike from 12 yards; five minutes later, he returned the favour by weaving his way into the box and picking out a precise pass for De Jong to convert.

Fati then continued to thrill the 80,000-plus Nou Camp crowd with a series of skilful thrusts down the left wing, coming close to more goals on several occasions and making it plain that this prodigious teen is poised for greatness.

So, who is he and where did his sudden explosion on to the scene come from?

Following the family footsteps

Fati was born on 30 October 2002 in Guinea-Bissau, and spent the first six years of his life in the African country before moving to Herrera, a tiny town in southern Spain, after his father Bori – a former semi-professional footballer in Guinea-Bissau – found work as a driver for the town’s mayor.

At first, Ansu was outshone by his elder brother Braima, who was signed by Sevilla’s academy. But Ansu joined him before long, and by 2010 his dribbling and shooting talents had attracted serious interest from Spain’s big guns.

According to Bori in a recent radio interview on RAC1, the best financial offer came from Real Madrid – but Barcelona made more effort, with then-academy director Albert Puig (now at New York City FC) making a personal visit to the family home to state the Catalan club’s case. Barca also offered residency within their famed La Masia youth complex, so the Fati family headed to Barcelona.

Braima and Ansu – who were later joined at La Masia by younger brother Miguel – continued to impress, although they were temporarily sidelined in 2014 following Barca’s transfer ban for breaking Fifa regulations on signing young players from overseas. (The Fati brothers had moved from within Spain so they were not directly implicated, but the club briefly removed them from the line of fire as a precautionary measure).

Ansu had another setback in 2015 when he suffered a broken leg, but his progress would not be hindered and last season he was one of the stars of the Uefa Youth League, scoring twice in the semi-final against Chelsea but seeing his team knocked out on penalties.

His goal-laden performances for the youth team were also rewarded with a solitary call-up for the club’s reserve team, which competes in Spain’s third-tier Segunda B Division. So Ansu’s first taste of professional football, in March this year, came in a distinctly underwhelming manner: an unused substitute in Barca B’s 1-0 victory at Ebro in front of a couple of hundred spectators.

At that stage, Fati was still a million miles away from first-team football at the Nou Camp. But then came a whirlwind summer.

New contract and first-team debut

The first real sign of just how highly Barca regarded Fati’s talents came in July, when much-hyped 16-year-old midfielder Xavi Simons stunned the club by accepting a big-money offer from Paris St-Germain.

The day after Simons’ departure, Barca responded by handing Fati a new three-year contract with an eye-watering release clause of 100m euros, sending out a clear message to predators: one of La Masia’s crown jewels had been stolen, but Simons would be the only one to slip away.

Even so, Fati was expected to spend this season continuing to play for the youth team – now managed by former goalkeeper Victor Valdes – with occasional bonus outings for Barca B, and he was not included in the senior squad’s pre-season trips to Japan and the United States.

Fati wasn’t even considered for selection in Barca’s season opener against Athletic Bilbao, but when that game resulted in Luis Suarez and Ousmane Dembele suffering injuries, joining skipper Lionel Messi on the sidelines, manager Ernesto Valverde was suddenly left with a serious shortage of numbers in attack and called Fati into the squad for the home opener against Real Betis.

The 16-year-old made it to the bench and, with his team leading 5-1 and the game already won, was introduced as a substitute for the final 10 minutes. Fati instantly looked at home, producing some bright touches on the right wing and earning a warm congratulatory post-match embrace from Messi.

Even better came the following weekend. With Barca trailing 1-0 at half-time against Osasuna, Valverde reacted by calling Fati from the bench during the interval. The decision was vindicated within seven minutes, as Fati rose to meet a right-wing cross from Carles Perez with a pinpoint header into the bottom-left corner, becoming Barca’s youngest goalscorer.

Following the deadline-day departure to Celta Vigo of Rafinha – starter in the previous two games – Fati received another promotion from Valverde for Saturday’s visit of Valencia, being elevated into the starting line-up for the first time.

Youngest Barcelona scorers in the 21st century Player Date Opponent Age Ansu Fati 31 August 2019 Osasuna 16 years 304 days Bojan 20 October 2007 Villarreal 17 years 53 days Lionel Messi 1 May 2005 Albacete 17 years 312 days Thiago Alcantara 20 February 2010 Racing Santander 18 years 315 days Munir El Haddadi 24 August 2014 Elche 18 years 358 days

Back down to the youth ranks?

Before you anticipate seeing Fati starring at the Nou Camp on a weekly basis, however, there is a clear message from within the club: slow down.

The reality is that Fati has only been able to enjoy his meteoric rise to the first team because Messi, Suarez and Dembele have all been out. When they are fit, the youngster will lose his place. In fact, that has already happened: Fati was taken off after an hour on Saturday for Suarez, who promptly marked his return from injury with two brilliantly taken goals.

And in the wake of Fati’s electrifying full debut, there were plenty of words of caution. Valverde emphasised the importance of “our job to protect the player”, while defender Clement Lenglet added: “We have to be calm with him. He needs to listen to people and work hard, because playing for Barca is very difficult.”

Despite the teenager’s stellar start to the campaign, it remains the case that Barca’s first-choice forward line this season will be Messi, Suarez and Antoine Griezmann, and the most Fati can hope to achieve is competing with Dembele for the status of first-choice back-up.

And that could be a closely fought battle. Valverde has never been truly convinced by Dembele, who is supremely gifted and frustratingly erratic in equal measure, and pundit Michael Robinson came down in Fati’s favour during his television commentary on Saturday’s game against Valencia, observing: “Fati on the pitch already looks more mature than Dembele.”

Fati certainly looks the part. He generally plays on the left wing (he wore the number 11 shirt in Barca’s youth teams), cutting inside to run at defenders or shoot with his stronger right foot. But he is also comfortable using his left foot, demonstrated by his assist for De Jong on Saturday, and at 5ft 10in he has a powerful frame and offers a good aerial threat, as shown by his excellent headed goal at Osasuna.

The fact Fati has already scored a header, a goal with his right foot and an assist with his left foot after just two hours of senior football is a neat indication of his all-round talents, and Barca fans are eager to see a lot more of him.

More immediately, though, Fati could receive the chance to shine on the international stage: the Spanish federation is reported to be rushing through the necessary paperwork to allow him to represent the country in the forthcoming Fifa Under-17 World Cup, which will be staged in Brazil in October and November.

Remember the name. Even now, Ansu Fati is becoming impossible to forget.

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#Uncategorized Ansu Fati: Who is Barcelona 16-year-old with 100m euro release clause?

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rfrew · 7 years

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Weekly Review - 15 July 2017

Paris, Being Crass

And so President Trump has arrived in Paris, at President Macron’s invitation, and immediately hit the ground running.

“You’re in such good shape”, he is reported to have said to Mdme Macron. “Beautiful.” What he didn’t say, but I heard in my head, was, “...under the circumstances”.

One of the great joys of our age is waiting for Mr Trump’s next social faux pas and there is never long to wait. In a British context Mr Trump has taken over from the now retired Duke of Edinburgh as the leading exponent of this form of entertainment. Of course there are many people only too willing to take offence at Mr Trump’s clumsiness and here’s an example from Friday’s Guardian newspaper.

‘ “Trump telling France’s First Lady ‘you’re in such good shape’ epitomizes men toeing the line between compliment & sexual harassment,” wrote Twitter user Alex Berg, a freelance video producer and writer who works on feminist and gender issues.’

But if they are not careful, these people will start to have real trouble finding time for anything else in their lives.

My grandfather once told me that unless I had anything sensible to say it was better to say nothing. Obviously Mr Trump did not receive this advice and he seems to be one of those people who get nervous during breaks in conversation, silence is a space to be filled. But is this a hanging offence, even for the President of the United States? We will return to the modern preoccupation with being offended, later.

Paris, the Capital of Contrasts

Mr Trump’s visit to France is interesting and highlight a few things about how M. Macron operates. I think that having Mr Trump in France makes M. Macron, a leader working hard to establish his credentials, look pretty good. I imagine M. Macron telling people, “You might not like me yet but look at this guy. You see, things could have been a lot worse”.

Presidents Trump and Macron offer two important insights into their respective country’s politics. Many voters in the US elect their presidents based on the principle that he or she is just like them, that their president understands them and their problems and knows how to fix them. That is why Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush got elected, they worked very hard on the empathy side of their campaigns. Donald Trump did the same. Tellingly, Hillary Clinton found it impossible not to seem too clever and remote and so she became the most prepared and intelligent president the US never had.

This is also why Mr Trump’s supporters out in the country, in the ‘fly-over’ states, generally don’t care about his links with Russia or any other Washington scandal. They care that he won and that they now have their man in the White House. Incidentally, if his opponents move towards impeachment of Mr Trump, I think there will be real trouble.

French voters, by contrast, look for an exceptional leader, a person greater and smarter than them. They don’t want a folksy man-in-the-street, they want Napoleon or De Gaulle, they want exceptional. That is M. Macron’s challenge and that is why his speech to congress was so theatrical and why the Bastille Day production in Paris was so extravagant.

Mr Trump being in Paris is another humiliation for Britain, as if there was any room for more British humiliation. M. Macron issued his invitation when it became clear that Mrs May was unsure how a Trump visit would play in her very troubled country. Now France looks more mature by seeking a stronger relationship with the ‘leader of the free world’ while her neighbours across the Channel flounder in their own mess. And M. Macron gets to show off hugely on the world stage.

Trump and Macron have important things to talk about, and bilateral discussions in comfortable surroundings make real talking much easier, away from the stress of the recent G20 summit. Trade, the Paris climate deal, NATO and how to handle Putin’s Russia are a few agenda items. I also think that M. Macron may wish to hear what Mr Trump has to say about deal-making because he will soon have to make deals with the French syndicates over his changes to France’s labour laws and social benefits system. M. Macron is a technocrat not a businessman.

President Trump’s visit to France will not be a waste of time.

London, the Suicide of a Language.

Conservative MP Anne Marie Morris became famous this week when she used the outdated phrase ‘nigger in the woodpile’ to describe an aspect of the Brexit negotiations. The phrase is outdated because its origins lie in the period when slavery was acceptable, it is considered racist in context and because the word ‘nigger’ is regarded as the most offensive way to describe a black person. In my personal opinion the word and the phrase are both disgusting and I have, to the best of my knowledge, never used them.

Having unfortunately publicly deployed the phrase, Ms Morris immediately found herself at the centre of a tornado of outrage by a large number of people who declared themselves offended. Even though her statement had not been directed at any other human being but at a political and legal process, she had the Conservative whip removed and now sits as a shamed independent in the House of Commons.

I am old enough to remember when the nursery rhyme ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’ was expunged from national culture to be replaced by ‘Baa Baa Woolly Sheep’, because the word ‘black’ was deemed offensive. Who, I wondered, would go out into the fields in Springtime to paint all of those offensive black lambs white? Was a special section of the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries created for the purpose?

The hounding of Ms Morris follows the recent public flogging of Mr Tim Farron, an apparently nice man who dared to think that being a devout Christian is still compatible with leading a political party in the United Kingdom. It isn’t as many people declared themselves offended by his private, generally orthodox Christian views on gender issues despite his never attempting to change Liberal Democrat policy in line with his own beliefs. Mr Farron resigned and his case effectively ended any adherence to the concept of freedom of conscience in Britain.

Britain and, as we have seen above in the case of Donald Trump, the US today are experiencing the creation of an intolerant dictatorship of the offended who, simply by declaring themselves offended, seek to prevent others from thinking, writing and saying what they like. The offended are trying to change the English language and to replace it with a robotic, administrative, formulation that murders free thinking and free expression. They want to create an English that is inoffensive, harmless and without passion, character or humanity.

They, the offended, must be stopped.

Trump in Middle Earth.

The funniest thing I saw this week is this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOqKnInZovI

Enjoy, God knows we need a laugh.

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