It only matters if the media is really bad at their job, and we already know the answer to that.
11.
PsiFighter37
First question was to NY Post reporter, second to someone framing a pro-life question. Great…
12.
Lizzy L
I’m reading the liveblog on The Guardian website. His answers to questions are — not enlightening.
When will the border wall start to be built?
As soon as possible, Spicer says.
Are you enforcing the Obamacare mandate?
Discussions continue on repealing and replacing Obamacare, he says.
13.
JPL
@Yarrow: Trump was disappointed with the Saturday press conference, because the visuals were off. Now he has a side row filled with female aides, and Spicer has been dressed up. I still don’t think he keeps his job though.
14.
lamh36
@carolynlochhead White House closes public switchboard, replacing with recordings directing to post comments on line or on Facebook. 202-456-1414
15.
Corner Stone
@JPL: I remember that Robert Gibbs was also very bad at this job but he smoothed out a little. I don’t think he ever started out quite *this* bad.
This really makes me miss episodes of “The West Wing.”
21.
Elizabelle
@lamh36: Probably couldn’t hire enough people with asbestos ears.
How fun would it be to be a Talking Points Memo intern undercover at the White House comments switchboard? Probably the wild west, between opponents and (worse) supporters.
22.
Corner Stone
He keeps calling countries “companies”. I wonder if that’s an accident.
23.
Kay
I know that no one knows what’s actually in the TPP, most especially Donald Trump but one thing ABOUT the TPP is it is very, very good for agriculture states. Because it opens markets abroad for US agricultural products and because US markets for imports are ALREADY open that is a guaranteed win for US agriculture producers.
Republicans will screw all the ag state Republican voters who have supported them year after year to help Donald Trump retain his razor close majority in rust belt states.
@Corner Stone: That is the true definition of Fascism — the elision of government and corporations. Frankly, Cass Sunstein did a little ground work for Trump with his “liberal paternalism” claptrap.
…but one thing ABOUT the TPP is it is very, very good for agriculture states.
Please provide a cite supporting this claim.
43.
O. Felix Culpa
ACTION OPPORTUNITY:
The Republicans need to get the message from the majority of Americans that we value and need the benefits of Obamacare. Here’s how we do that.
On January 23rd [TODAY] everyone who feels that way (our numbers are legion) sends a note to Donald Trump with a simple message:
“Don’t make America sick again. Improve Obamacare. Don’t repeal it.”
One envelope for every ACA supporter in your household…even if they are under 18 years old.
Just that simple message. Put it in an envelope, and put a stamp on it.
On January 23rd, mail it to:
Pres. Donald Trump
1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW,
Washington, DC 20500
Can you imagine the picture of 53 MILLION letters arriving at the White House by January 26th? It will be a mountain. That image might help deter the Republicans from killing the most substantial improvement to American healthcare since the discovery of Penicillin.
Do it today! Drop it into a mailbox near you on Monday, January 23rd.
Please send this email to 20 (or more) of your friends, neighbors and fellow Americans. Ask them to do the same.
Oh God. Baghdad Bob just cited the cheering crowds at the CIA as evidence of Trump’s popularity there, utterly oblivious to the fact that CBS has recently reported that Trump packed that audience with his own cheering section.
@Kay: I am certain that Xi Jinping is quietly cheering.
52.
O. Felix Culpa
@O. Felix Culpa: Wouldn’t hurt to send the letter to Paul Ryan either:
1233 Longworth HOB
Washington, D.C. 20515
“Don’t make America sick again. Improve Obamacare. Don’t repeal it.”
53.
bystander
@Corner Stone: I wish I could agree with you about Thomas Roberts, but I can’t. I kept wanting Joy to hush him up, not that she would ever do that.
The changeover at MSNBC has affected a lot of people. I caught an ad in which Rachel Maddow exhorts us all to give the wretched Greta Van Succubus a chance. Uh huh.
“The most important thing we saw yesterday, the big takeaway, was the numbers of women in rural America, in the middle of America, who came together and realized, ‘I’m not alone,’ ” she said. “That’s so empowering, and those are going to be our future candidates.”
Guessed before checking that the link was to this.
60.
TriassicSands
From the WaPo:
Sean Spicer earns four Pinocchios, but, seriously, we wish we could give five.
Obviously, the Post needs a new unit. I suggest the “Trump,” which kicks in after four Pinocchios. However, we’re going to have to move to the Light Trump. Much like the vast distances to stars and other galaxies, Trump’s lies outstrip normal units of measure. The Light Trump should be enough — at least for the foreseeable future.
Spicer’s Saturday lies earn the first “Trump.” The lie was obvious and easily disproved.
@lamh36:
I would put it slightly differently. You’ll be able to tell which journalists are honest by whether this press briefing pisses them off. Journalists who accept being transparently lied to as the price of access are not honest.
62.
dww44
@Corner Stone:I remember that Gibbs was quite bad as well. He may have smoothed out, but he never really got more progressive. Josh Earnest turned out to be the best Press Secretary of the last couple of decades.
As long as we’re tallking about the press here’s an email I got a couple of hours ago from the AJC. The email title was “We need help” although the linked article was a bit more restrained, just about all the tornado damage in the state yesterday and the night before. FYI, Albany is the part of the state that Shirley Sherrod hails from and where she, as far as I know, still resides. Albany/Dougherty county has become a majority African American county in recent decades.
“We need help,” Christopher S. Cohilas said during a news conference. “FEMA, please get people on the damn ground.
#Albany officials: “We need help… FEMA… please get people on the damn ground” at news conference now @wsbtv
— Brian Monahan, WSB (@BMonahanWSB) January 23, 2017
“We don’t have enough resources. We need everything our country can give us.” President Donald Trump on Sunday called Gov. Nathan Deal to offer condolences and pledged his support.
“We’ll be helping out the state of Georgia,” he said.
Because anyone with a fucking brain in his head and a love of liberty would be aghast at any so-called “trade agreement” that gave corporations supernational powers, aka “investor-state dispute settlements”?
66.
MisterForkbeard
@bystander: Ick, no. Fox people were awful then and continue to be awful now. I know Maddow is probably contractually obligated to do this, but I’m kind of upset with her now.
67.
Quinerly
@Kryptik:
I caught that, too. I hope someone covers that.
68.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
Meanwhile, overheard from right-wing world (the wingnut two cubes over). “I hear they banned CNN from White House press briefings, har har. Don’t know the details but something about how their reporting on Inauguration Day was suspect…”
The “suspect” part being that they pointed out the discrepancy between Spicer’s statements and objective reality.
Le sigh.
69.
MisterForkbeard
@TriassicSands: “We have a new scale. 1-4 Pinocchio’s for lying, and a Dumpster Fire for Trump Administration attempts to lie about easily verifiable facts.”
That is the true definition of Fascism — the elision of government and corporations.
Not really (not that I’m fond of such elision). It’s true that many fascist states were marked by corporatism. But if you look at the definitions listed under Wikipedia, it’s not mentioned at all.
72.
Quinerly
@Laertes:
This Administration continues to poke at the CIA. This isn’t going to end well. My money is on the CIA. Spicer just out and out lied twice now in this presser about that cheering and clapping at the CIA.
I imagine that once both Clinton and Trump had come out against TPP, it was dead as a doornail and there wasn’t much that President Obama could do about it. Kicking up a fuss over it would have hurt Clinton, and at the time this didn’t seem like a lost cause.
76.
lamh36
So all it takes is to lie more professionally…ok cool got it…smh…US press is a fuqn joke!
He brings his own studio audience. What a fucking lunatic.
79.
GregB
Moscow Spice?
Baghdad Bob Spice?
Propaganda Spice?
80.
O. Felix Culpa
@Miss Bianca: @aimai: Thank you! I’m heading out to the post office shortly to mail my letters. Along with a few packages I promised to send for Ms. O.
81.
Quinerly
At 5:00 AM the DOD tweeted “Social media postings provide an important window into a person’s mental health. Know what to look for.” I’m pretty sure this is General Mattis first day. Hmmmmmmmmmm.
82.
MisterForkbeard
@liberal: Yep. My understanding is that part of her contract says she can’t attack fellow MSNBC people and has to help promote them, but she goes farther than she needs to.
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Not much you can do to help combat that kind of nonsense. Trump said it, they believe it, and it doesn’t matter how obviously wrong he is.
I would do it as a postcard. A sealed envelope gives them an excuse to throw them all away out of “anthrax fear.”
Good idea. Is anthrax still a thing? I have some nice postcards of New Mexico I can send our President (ptui!) and House Majority Leader (ptui again!).
Spicer just out and out lied twice now in this presser about that cheering and clapping at the CIA.
I missed that. What did he say? I heard the clapping and cheering and it sounded quite enthusiastic. (The same enthusiasm was present when Trump called the media people incredibly dishonest.)
89.
Miss Bianca
@NotMax: “trufflers”? Pigs rooting for the rare, rare, nugget of truth?
90.
trollhattan
Well, well, Wikileaks magically has become concerned about the missing Trump tax returns, and now offers to release them should somebody care to share.
The US opened US markets to ag imports. Other countries didn’t reciprocate. The TPP remedies what is an uneven playing field for US ag- they have to compete with foreign producers in the US but they aren’t allowed access to the markets in other countries.
That’s exactly what happened with manufacturing, except there it was free traders who created the uneven playing field. They opened US markets to imports but other countries didn’t reciprocate.
Trump is making the same mistake free traders made in the 1980’s and 1990’s, except he’s doing it for protectionist purposes. He doesn’t understand fair trade. It’s ABOUT reciprocity. “Trade” isn’t bad. That was never what the fair trade argument was about. It doesn’t matter if he gets rid of a deal that opens foreign markets to US ag. The US ALREADY opened markets to foreign ag. All he’s doing now is making it harder for US producers to compete.
You can look at it as plus and minus signs. The US is a plus sign. Free trade. If they are competing with a minus sign they’re at a disadvantage. It has to be minus/minus or plus/plus. Plus/minus hurts the free trade country. That’s us.
So in agriculture we know the US is a plus (+) So we need another plus country to trade with or it’s not a level playing field. The TPP turns Japan (for example) into a +. Right now it’s +/-, US/Japan. That hurts US ag producers.
94.
Gin & Tonic
@TriassicSands: It was enthusiastic because it was all Trump shills.
95.
Mnemosyne
So MomSense mentioned earlier today that Richard Cohen (Trump’s lawyer) was snarking that the pink hats women were wearing on Saturday weren’t made in America. Ladies (and crafty gents), I say we track down this jackass’s office address and send him a bunch of pink hats of his very own since it seems like he really wants one. Who’s with me?
96.
Jeffro
@TriassicSands: I think the lie was that the clapping was from CIA officials, when it was actually from Trump invitees and suck-ups who had been given the first three rows of seats.
A sealed envelope gives them an excuse to throw them all away out of “anthrax fear.”
Pretty sure all mail to congress and the White House is delivered to a distant, contractor-run facility where it’s opened by (presumably poorly paid) workers, scanned then destroyed. There won’t be a Miracle on 34th Street style pile of mailbags anywhere near D.C.
99.
Quinerly
@TriassicSands:
I can’t link on this smarty pants phone. Go to CBS and TPM. Stories up about how Trump brought a cheering section with him to the CIA speech. People from the CIA have told this to CBS. At this very moment Spicer is again lying about it. Third time.
100.
MisterForkbeard
@trollhattan: WikiLeaks went whole hog on the ant-hillary pro-Trump bandwagon last year. I can’t imagine how anyone with half a brain thinks of them as a neutral arbiter of… anything.
And yet some of my liberal friends still insist they’re just merely anti-secrets. Sigh.
101.
Jeffro
@trollhattan: Anything that comes via Wikileaks, true or not, will automatically be suspect by both sides – and it’ll make any other future releases suspect as well. They won’t care if there are a million versions of Trump’s taxes out there, they can just claim that none of them are true.
We need someone to get Trump’s real returns to the WaPo or NYT, a.s.a.p.
I say we track down this jackass’s office address and send him a bunch of pink hats of his very own since it seems like he really wants one. Who’s with me?
I’d say “yes,” except I can’t knit and it would be a sad waste of nice hats. Otherwise I love it for the prank value. Add “Lovingly handcrafted in the USA” labels. Abbie Hoffman would be proud.
103.
O. Felix Culpa
@Mnemosyne: I hear ya. I’ve passed your postcard suggestion on to the friend who initiated this effort.
104.
p.a.
@Percysowner: He’s not President. He’s Chuck Barris prodecing a schlock tv show.
That was why I knew Obama was a true free trade believer. There was no political benefit for Democrats in that deal. All the benefits flow to GOP states. That’s why it had nearly 100% GOP support. It was a wash or a deficit for Democrats but it was an absolute win for Republicans.
One positive thing about the IRS is the standard of severe and dedicated security when it comes to access to individual returns. Would be of lasting damage to have that compromised.
Now, when it comes to state returns…
113.
Thoroughly Pizzled
What a whiny-ass baby. Truly pathetic.
All of the Republican White House press secretaries have been transcendentally loathsome.
114.
Librarian
@bystander: You should’ve seen the episode of her show when she talked about Greta coming to MSNBC. She couldn’t say enough great things about her and what a great journalist she is.
115.
Corner Stone
Dammit, I had to get on a call for a while and muted Sarcastic Spicer in the transition to Angry Spicer so I didn’t start lying about the TPS reports.
Looked like he was getting lambasted for a bit.
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Are you Botsplainer of the old? Score, on the Old Spice. A guy who I briefly dated used to have, what felt like a bath in that thing. Eeww.
119.
mai naem mobile
I’ve listened to Stephanie Miller and Randi Rhodes make a few comments(few and farnbetween) about Rachel Maddows behavior at Air America so I don’t think she’s all pure etc. I am sure she’s got her side of the story but Rachel is ambitious and I believe willing to bend her principles a little here and there to get where she wants to get. And,BTW, I think up to an extent, thats okay.
120.
Quinerly
Presser totally off the rails, in my opinion.
121.
Thoroughly Pizzled
When I think of sacrifice, I think of Donald Trump.
122.
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
@A Ghost To Most: Is it too much to expect these media asshats to hold a consistent position for more than two days in a row ? I know stupid question, they’re going to get a lot of people killed.
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Not to be catty but KAC always looks like the proverbial “Walk of Shame” person after a hard night’s drinking in a low down dirty biker bar or beat down country jukebox poolhall.
I don’t care. As far as I’m concerned agriculture deserves everything Republicans do to them. Food stamps are thebest thing that ever happened to those people and they all oppose them.
It’s literally A VOUCHER for poor people to buy ag products. I mean, Jesus. It’s not my job to draw them a map of how they benefit from that. It’s a giant subsidy for agriculture. Imagine if we had a huge voucher program for any other product. The recipients of that largesse would not be demonizing the end-user recipients! They’re morons.
127.
Corner Stone
Hallie Jackson looking on oh so intently. *this is my “I take this new job vveeerrryyyy seriously face” you like?*
@Quinerly: I don’t think anyone there knows what to do at this point. They just keep asking these blathering questions and he either gets petulant or says he’ll have to get back to them on that.
131.
Jeffro
@NotMax: If only there were agencies…or perhaps an entire (I)Community…that was good at hacking stuff…
132.
Thoroughly Pizzled
@NotMax: Before my time. But it sounds like he was a decent fellow.
Spicer has now categorically denied there were any Trump people present…at all.
He also tried to parse his statement about the size of the inaugural crowd so that it was “true.” He said he couldn’t imagine how anyone would interpret his words to mean anything but the “total audience of both in person and around the globe…combined.” Funny. Everyone interpreted them otherwise. He’s an accomplished liar.
134.
Barbara
@O. Felix Culpa: I posted this on Facebook with the intro that four people in my immediate family have coverage or better coverage because of the ACA, including my mother who is on Medicare — the ACA began closing the Part D donut hole.
135.
Corner Stone
Why IN THE FUCK can’t these fucking preening camera whores just ask one godsdamned question when it is their turn?!
Yesterday the reporters and on air personalities were panicking over the unprecedented craziness from Trump and Spicer… a day passes… orders from the suits at Corporate have reached the front line, and everyone is back in THIS IS FINE mode.
Elites want a King. Trump is a mess, but he’s the only guy who would volunteer for the job.
138.
Corner Stone
“Aaaannnd I’m spent.”
139.
Jeffro
@Corner Stone: Gonna be hard to stall day-in, day-out, for four straight years…
140.
Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho
@Mnemosyne: I think there are better uses for the hats, like donations to organizations that serve people who need hats in cold weather. Send Michael Cohen postcards explaining how they were made instead. Hundreds of them. Ideally with the story reported from many different sources. Stamp a pink pu$$y hat on them, or a kitteh face. Make hats for people who need them.
141.
tobie
@liberal: not quite. Trade agreements are designed to set standards where local law is lacking. For instance it binds a country like China to respect intellectual property even if China has no similar law on the books. TPP actually bound countries to US standards, it didn’t lower ours. You really shouldn’t listen to all the demagogic crap spouted by no-time-for-details St. Bernard of the North.
142.
Calouste
@john (not mccain): This might be the right occasion to point out that these days the CIA is by law prohibited from assassinating foreign heads of states.
143.
Corner Stone
Andrea Mitchell is blowjobbing the absolute fuck out this Spicer performance today.
144.
Quinerly
@TriassicSands:
I just don’t get this continual poking at the CIA. Those guys know who were there. They know who clapped and some have let CBS know that they know.
“And – and – he’s president of more Americans than the first 24 presidents, combined! So there!”
(Press room erupts in guffaws.)
146.
p.a.
@Kay: IIRC some of the pre-Teatard (R) congresscritters from farm states did support SNAP/whatever because they realized its benefits to BigAg. They still wanted piss in a cup for every loaf of Wonder Bread, but at the time there was support, at least among the professional pols.
Trump is a mess, but he’s the only guy who would volunteer for the job.
Wha…? No “Deep Bench”? =)
He’s the one that half of their base wanted, that they were terrified of, and so the other 16 of them gave him enough of a pass.
I still think that big donor dark money is the untold story of this election – Koch cash kept all the GOP MoCs well funded, while the Mercers’ cash and threats kept Cruz & Rubio from going totally rogue (and splitting the party). Same dynamic is playing out right now, notice Rubio caving on Tillerson.
Oh, I’ll also make hats for people who need them, but only sending pictures or postcards allows him to remain in his bubble and insist that it’s all fake and Soros-funded.
I want the asshole to literally trip over pink hats inside his very own office and watch him try to claim they don’t really exist.
149.
Thoroughly Pizzled
@tobie: I was wondering about that. Is it the fault of the trade agreement, or the lack of follow-up domestic legislation? It’s probably impossible to get higher standards negotiating with other countries than negotiating internally.
the CIA is by law prohibited from assassinating foreign heads of states
Probably not supposed to off domestic ones either.
151.
Immanentize
@liberal: Please don’t make me argue with Wikipedia, it will make me have a teacher’s sad.
152.
Quinerly
I’m probably beating this to death but the cheering at the CIA really got to me. Malcolm Nance was on Joy Reid yesterday mad as hell over it. We all know he is ex CIA and he said before that CBS report that he knew Trump brought a cheering section of about 40, I believe. That they were off to the side…that the CIA people looked to the side at the cheering section when it went down. Trump tweeted about the CIA cheering him and Spicer repeated it 4 times in this presser. They are idiots.
153.
Jeffro
@Corner Stone: Some of these media folks want SO badly to not have to report that one side has gone completely off the rails. Because you know, it’s just rude, I guess.
154.
p.a.
@Thoroughly Pizzled: I remember NAFTA: the worker and environmental protections in 2nd/3rd world economies were to ‘follow’ the original agreement. The century they were to follow IN was unspecified.
I don’t care. As far as I’m concerned agriculture deserves everything Republicans do to them. Food stamps are thebest thing that ever happened to those people and they all oppose them.
I know…I know..
156.
p.a.
@Fester Addams: That would be FBI jurisdiction. They worked so hard electing him, offing him out of the question.
157.
Thoroughly Pizzled
@p.a.: Aye, there’s the rub. We should negotiate these agreements when the Democrats are comfortably in charge.
158.
catclub
@Fester Addams: I remember a TED-type talk that said you write a letter, by hand, to the local office of your congressman. That way is most likely to get read. Others are more generally counted and put in stacks.
Wikileaks magically has become concerned about the missing Trump tax returns
If their goal is to sow discord and confusion, this makes sense. Now that the worst candidate is in office it is time to thrash him soundly. Putin has a plan …
And this is how Trump wins. He gets competing narratives out there and eventually either people just ignore the whole thing or his supporters believe him and the rest of us…despair over the death of truth.
161.
Barbara
@TriassicSands: What he meant was that the number of Russians watching on tv was at an all time high, since Putin made sure that it was the only thing on all the tv stations at the time. That’s a joke, by the way.
I’m probably beating this to death but the cheering at the CIA really got to me. Malcolm Nance was on Joy Reid yesterday mad as hell over it.
You are not beating it to death.
It’s so unbelievably offensive..it just gnaws at you. Being a patriotic American, watching this fraud, insult the CIA, in their own house, IN FRONT OF ITS WALL OF HEROES – those that made the ultimate sacrifice for this country…
and, have the gall to bring a CHEERING SECTION?!?
It’s indecent. It’s profane. It punches you in the gut.
Whatever people think of Maddow around here I have recently discovered that every single blue collar/pink collar woman I have encountered who is a rabid, well informed, democrat is a mad Maddow watcher. I would avoid dissing her and attacking her because she isn’t good enough, in your eyes, for some reason. In the real world she is one of the few friendly, female, faces of democratic/leftist information on TV. We don’t have anyone to waste in that position. And if she has to do what she has to do to stay on TV then that is what she has to do. We don’t have enough left wing radio/tv to spare anyone with any kind of an audience.
164.
Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho
@Mnemosyne: I understand your sentiment, but it’s a waste of yarn, and of clothing that could be used by people who need it. It’s a matter of perspective. He’ll claim Soros funded that as well, and it will be wasted effort. Send postcards of photos of boxes full of hand-knitted pink hats addressed to charities, but please doesn’t waste actual clothing making a point he won’t accept.
165.
catclub
@Fester Addams: The CIA is also prohibited from torture, that is for contractors.
166.
patroclus
@p.a.: The NAFTA side agreements included the creation of the Border Environmental Financing Facility which actually has financed a lot of environmental initiatives in the border region and improved environmental standards at the maquiladores. That was last century. And the Paris Accords concluded a year ago were this century. Trump will have no progress whatsoever and the Republican Congress is already attempting to ax out all consideration of climate change repercussions. But don’t let facts get in the way of your opinion – you sound just like Spicer.
167.
Jeffro
@Quinerly: They just wanted the appearance (including cheering) for propaganda purposes now and down the road. Never mind that watching the actual video was a horrorshow. Just a couple snippets of him in front of that wall being cheered is all they need.
We’re going to have to get more pro-active about this stuff, and we’re going to need to beat on the media not to air it live (and/or without some added context), that’s for sure.
168.
tobie
@Thoroughly Pizzled: this agreement was designed to protect US producers who were getting creamed in countries that don’t respect patents and the like. This was one of its strengths, not weaknesses.
One of the finest perorations I ever heard given on the floor of the Senate was Tom Daschle standing in opposition to NAFTA.
Undoubtedly somewhere in the C-SPAN archives.
171.
Yoda Dog
@Kay: I’m sorry I jumped in there on your behalf. You clearly have it under control. I found a link for you, but you are the link. Good on you, I enjoy reading you.
Well, well, Wikileaks magically has become concerned about the missing Trump tax returns, and now offers to release them should somebody care to share.
Three months too late, assholes.
Not if you understand that Wikileaks acted on behalf of Putin, who is now the holder of all kinds of information that he can use to blackmail Our Glorious Leader into doing his bidding.
This is a shot across Trumplets bow to shut down this government inquiry into the Four Stooges ties to Russia and to get busy doing what he was hired to do.
175.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@TriassicSands: Weird that the global audience would have needed to use the DC Metro system. Whose ridership numbers he lied about anyway.
176.
Quinerly
@TriassicSands:
Maybe I’m a little old fashion. I grew up believing you DON’T FUCK WITH CIA.
Well, you’re not DJ Trump. He fucks with everybody if it suits his purposes. He calls them names, questions their abilities, and then shows up and blames the “supposed” rift between him and the CIA on the media. It is really hard to defeat such a dedicated lying POS.
Didn’t Larry Flynt offer a bounty for the returns? Pre-election, but perhaps an offer not since rescinded.
181.
Timurid
This is Autocrat 101. Not lying with intent to deceive, but lying as a display of power. Taunting everyone with obvious untruths and assuming that they they have no choice but to accept the lies. And he’s been in office less than a week. He’s acting like a guy who’ll never have to win another vote again (see also; his endzone dance with Comey).
We may not be doomed. He may not succeed. But one way or another, this is going to go fast. He’ll be King Trump or ex-President Trump before the year is out.
One positive thing about the IRS is the standard of severe and dedicated security when it comes to access to individual returns. Would be of lasting damage to have that compromised.
Now, when it comes to state returns…
Golly….Andrew Cuomo, who claims to be a democrat, has control over THAT ;)
This is a shot across Trumplets bow to shut down this government inquiry into the Four Stooges ties to Russia and to get busy doing what he was hired to do.
I know the world no longer makes any sense but isn’t a counter-intel investigation into Mike Flynn just flat out fucking crazy?
185.
Quinerly
Good piece up at TPM on that crap some of us watched (so you didn’t have to)
186.
dww44
@Mnemosyne: Although I don’t knit,I support your effort here. His twitter handle is @michaelcohen212 and as he’s now the special counsel to the President, he certainly could be reached at the White House. Or maybe he’s not gonna move to D.C. either but is gonna remain behind at Trump Tower, given his prior position was that of EVP in the Trump Organization.
187.
DaddyJ
@opiejeanne: Yeah, I just finished watching The West Wing a couple days before the election. Goes really well with a shot of rye. There’s a number of reasonable conservative characters in it with integrity, so, you know, about the same level of realism as Doctor Who. But still entertaining.
188.
Quinerly
@TriassicSands:
MSNBC just switched to Trump. He said he just signed “a very powerful document.” Geez…..
It’s literally A VOUCHER for poor people to buy ag products. I mean, Jesus. It’s not my job to draw them a map of how they benefit from that. It’s a giant subsidy for agriculture.
I hear you….but. Farm work is backbreaking, it never takes a day off and never ends. Farm people are (rightly) proud of how hard they work, and (wrongly, I know….) think of themselves as independent/self-made.
190.
Immanentize
@Corner Stone: I’m old enough to remember when Greta was a young idealistic, kick-ass defense attorney in D.C. But her dad was friends with Tailgunner Joe McCarthy (True!) Oh how power corrupts…
the only truly reliable commentator on MSNBC is Joy Ann Reid.
I agree. We all need to send her some love via MSNBC. Let them know we’re watching.
194.
Quinerly
I’ll just throw this out. Unrelated to Spicer. Was flipping around on tv last night and landed on Fox. It was a repeat show of I think that Jeanne Pirot (sp?) show. Dennis Kucinich was on gushing about how great Trump’s inaugural address was….how it basically was what he has been saying for years. WTF?
This is Autocrat 101. Not lying with intent to deceive, but lying as a display of power. Taunting everyone with obvious untruths and assuming that they they have no choice but to accept the lies. And he’s been in office less than a week. He’s acting like a guy who’ll never have to win another vote again (see also; his endzone dance with Comey).
We may not be doomed. He may not succeed. But one way or another, this is going to go fast. He’ll be King Trump or ex-President Trump before the year is out.
But what’s great about this is that they are pre-inoculating the press and the public against believing anything they say, and they’re doing it right out of the gate and over absolute trivia! Crowd size at the inauguration, fercryinoutloud! If they can’t even be trusted to tell us the truth about something as obviously verifiable as whether or not there were more people at Trump’s inauguration than at Obama’s, how do you think the public will react if the administration says, “We have secret intel that we can’t show you that proves your sons and daughters have to go die to fight for this overseas oil field; trust us, it’s important”?
As for it happening fast, Trump does everything too fast; that’s why he always fails. He’s too impatient and overpays for a property so that it can’t be operated at a profit, or sticks his tongue down a woman’s throat the first time he meets her, which is really not the way to run a successful seduction.
197.
patroclus
@Immanentize: Last night Greta was insisting that Trump got more votes from women than Clinton. She said it several times, but was finally corrected because she was merely parroting Fox propaganda that she learned while in that bubble (it was only white women). I think she’ll gradually get better having been removed from the propaganda – she was never all THAT bad when she was at CNN, but deteriorated profoundly while at Fox.
Last week, Donald Trump met with Yale’s David Gelernter, a computer scientist who once called Barack Obama a “third-rate tyrant,” as he seeks to fill the position of White House science adviser. Gelernter is a computing genius whom the Washington Post dubbed an “anti-intellectual.”
If by that they mean Gelernter believes universities now are mostly interested in advancing political agendas and enriching administrators, then they’re right. As Gelernter writes in The Wall Street Journal Monday, “Over 90 percent of U.S. colleges will be gone within the next generation, as the higher-education world inevitably flips over and sinks.”
@Immanentize: “Friends” is pushing it – he was a Democratic counsel on the committee that was chaired by McCarthy – it was Bobby’s first job in D.C. and many Dems at the time were trying to out-Mccarthy Mccarthy, which only egged Joe on.
204.
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
@Ella in New Mexico: Ha ha, no. No one is EVER going to see the Federal Tax returns in their entirety. Not all the history or various forms that Trump fills out every year and has since he started filing. Never going to happen. You may see something state wise, but Federal, never.
As far as Trump is concerned, the seduction was over on 11/9. From here on out it’s just rape.
208.
Captain C
@trollhattan: I think Julian Assange is starting to realize that, even if he’s fine with Trump burning the whole world, most people aren’t and that they hold him at least somewhat responsible, and he’d probably like to leave the Ecuadorian embassy at some point in his life.
@trollhattan: Isn’t he the dude who received a bomb from Ted Kaczynski?
211.
Gin & Tonic
@Captain C: Chances are the heat goes up for ol’ Julian after the February elections in Ecuador.
212.
dww44
@patroclus: Agree. That was my take on her before she moved to Fox.
I also agree with Aimai re Rachel Maddow, while eschewing her desire to be liked by all her cohorts on the right at MSNBC. She has been very good since the election, so much so that she won over my spouse who was never previously a fan. Prior to the election, those long and tedious educational segments were wearing thin. Since the election, they’ve been more historically relevant and she links them to where we find ourselves now.
I want to cause him personal inconvenience inside his physical space in a way that cannot be construed as a threat of any kind. Postcards and pictures will not serve the same purpose. If there’s another way you can think of to make it difficult for him to physically use his office space for days on end, let me know.
It takes me about 2 hours to knit a pussyhat. That time is worth it to me in order to inconvenience him, even if he throws it away. I’m kind of an asshole like that.
You could ask the same question about Obamacare, and the answer would be the same. Obama was never good at rallying a movement to defend his policies + lefty purity pony butthurt.
217.
trollhattan
@Gin & Tonic: Ten Quatloos to G&T–I never would have made the connection.
218.
patroclus
@Larryb: I think Obama didn’t defend TPP last year because he didn’t want to undermine Clinton, who was pretending to oppose it. It would have been good for the economy, lowering tariffs and non-tariff barriers and improving intellectual property protection, but it’s fate was sealed when both parties turned against it. China will now take the lead on lowering tariffs in the ASPAC region – it was a major missed opportunity which will hurt America in the long term, especially if Trump follows through and starts a trade war with China.
219.
Tazj
@Quinerly: I didn’t watch Trump’s inaugural address. However, I was flipping around the channels that evening and watched CNN for a few minutes. John King was praising Trump’s speech, at least one part of it. King said Trump was the only one who could have given such a speech because he went after both sides. Apparently, in the speech according to King, Trump criticized Both Democrats and Republicans for enriching themselves at the expense of the American people. Now, while it is true that many politicians do unfairly enrich themselves, I thought that line was ridiculous coming from Trump who has spent most of his adult life enriching himself at the expense of others(Trump University, hotel workers, contractors for his buildings, etc. you know the list)
I was flabbergasted that anyone thought he had any credibility with this issue, but apparently many voters and media people do. Maybe Kucinich is among them, and he believes Trump to be some new fantastic populist politician who is beholden to no one. I think he is either naïve or just wants a check from Fox News.
220.
lol chikinburd
(Just a note about the pic: if I ever get shakers like those, it’ll be the pepper one that has the halo and the salt one that has the horns.)
Or, to put it another way: I essentially want to send a live elephant to his office and force him to figure out what to do with it. Something large, inconvenient, and not threatening.
223.
trollhattan
@patroclus:
Yup, China will basically come in and drink our milkshake because we’re withdrawing from a regional agreement. I’ll wager they’re bigly disappointed at having this drop into their lap.
224.
trollhattan
@zhena gogolia: Ted seems forever ago but two of his fatalities were in my town, so the stench lingers. Oddly, his and Gelernter’s views on humanities in higher education are identical.
[edit:] I may be missing your point. But recall that Obama has answered real letters from people, not some PDF image. So I’d be surprised if as a matter of course that all letters to the WH are destroyed. But maybe you’re right…
snip: “The perception of Donald Trump in capitals around the world is shaped, in many ways, by CNN. Continuing to have an adversarial relationship with that network is a mistake.”
What say you, Juicers? Did Zucker cut off his nose to spite his face with these comments?
I say he did, and someone on the book of faces kindly informed me ‘your a moron.’ We are on the same side of the fence politically, so my only response to him was ‘*you’re* — did you read the link?’ And then he deleted his comment, so maybe he read the link, or maybe he is now hoping I die a painful death for correcting his grammar.
@Calouste: Fortunately, this time around they don’t have to assassinate a foreign head of state to keep America safe.
230.
Gin & Tonic
@trollhattan: I have to be careful with how I phrase this, but I followed Kaczynski pretty closely and felt a certain sort of, um don’t want to call it admiration, but something like it, for his dedication to his cause.
During his first daily briefing with reporters, White House press secretary Sean Spicer launched into a rant about the media’s treatment of Donald Trump when asked why the President discussed the crowd sizes at his inauguration during a speech at the CIA headquarters on Saturday.
“I’s not just about a crowd size. It’s about this constant, you know, ‘He’s not going to run. Then if he runs, he’s going to drop out…'” Spicer said. “There is this constant theme to undercut the enormous support that he has. I think it’s unbelievably frustrating when you’re continually told it’s not big enough, it’s not good enough, you can’t win.”
Spicer said that Trump kept defying the odds only to face a new narrative,
“He keeps getting told what he can’t do by this narrative that’s out there. And exceeds it every single time. And I think there’s an overall frustration when you turn on the television over and over again and get told that there’s this narrative that you didn’t win, you weren’t going to run, you can’t pick up this state,” he said. “Over and over again there’s this constant attempt to undermine his credibility and the movement that he represents. And it’s frustrating for not just him, but I think so many of us that are trying to work to get this message out.”
Spicer said that this is “demoralizing” for Trump.
The press secretary also argued that the media’s treatment of Trump was unprecedented.
“I’ve never seen it like this,” Spicer said.
233.
trollhattan
@Gin & Tonic:
To quote the most quotable of movies, he had a certain ethos. They trucked his cabin here for the trial; it sat behind chainlink fencing at a closed Air Force base. Weird to think about what “terrorism” was prior to 9/11–recalling being pissed at him for causing them to remove the 15-minute parking meters in front of our airport terminal with one of his threat letters.
Spicer stupidly let us know today that the resistance is scoring hits and trump is hurting.
Keep up the fire, folks. Eventually their deflector shields will fail ;)
237.
Yoda Dog
@hovercraft: They act like their ‘movement” is so heady and important to reckon with. It’s just cleeks fucking law on steroids. “FUCK LIBERALS” was the main, and for many the only, voting impetus, imo. And then with the lies that are so huge and easily discernable that they’re insulting to eveyone’s intelligence. WHAT THE FUCK DO THEY EXPECT?! To expect anything but conflict is insane. But then I guess Im just not used to our new administration yet.
A fair number of IP wonks had grave reservations about the IP enforcement provisions, even if they agreed that the goal of reducing overseas appropriation of US-based copyrighted, patented, trade secret, or trademark material was a good one.
People who care most about untrammeled American hegemony/sovereignty hated the dispute resolution mechanism.
People who think that they lost their jobs because NAFTA opposed it.
Hardly anyone publicly identified the Americans who stood to benefit.
Rs were reflexively opposing everything Obama ; if O came out too strongly for it, the R base would demand that their Congressional caucus oppose it.
240.
laura
@NotMax: no. Larry Flint’s magazine “Hustle” has offered money to anyone with proof of Trump underage or kinky sessy-times.
I didn’t. I knew exactly what he was saying, and why. He explicitly said “watched” which is obviously a different word than “attended”.
He said it as a shiny smoke screen to get the press all hot and bothered, to make it clear that Trump wants his version of reality to be reported as if it were actual reality, and to distract everyone from what he and his team are actually doing (and not doing). He’s trying to make the press cower. He’s said he’s in a “running war” with the media. Shouldn’t we believe him about that?
What is going to be the first news organization to start boycotting Trump’s “press” operation? McClatchyDC? WashingtonPost? The BBC?
@Mnemosyne: if you weren’t on the other side of the continent, I’d suggest yarn-bombing something of his in pink. Or creating a human wall of knitters knitting pink hats in front of his office.
So ironic. Republicans are always going on about people doing for themselves and not depending on others for anything. Here you have people that ARE doing it by themselves, that is, making their own article of clothing. And his puny imagination can’t stretch that far.
Richard Cohen (Trump’s lawyer) was snarking that the pink hats women were wearing on Saturday weren’t made in America.
Richard Cohen is a columnist for WaPo. The Trump lawyer is Michael Cohen. I don’t know how to link Twitter but some of the comments on his tweet asking whether the pussyhats were made in the USA were pretty funny. After a couple of people pointed out that they were hand-knitted by American women for American women, the comments all became variations on “Yeah, but where did the yarn come from, huh? HUH?”
247.
Mart
@dww44: Prior to the election, those long and tedious educational segments were wearing thin.
Glad she helps bring some folks to the progressive fold. I am with Bob Sommerby at the Daily Howler; she rails on shinny objects (and cocktails and penises) but never brings the hammer to the big bad horrible things. Where was she defending Clinton’s emails? Did she let us know how many were classified after the fact. Did she describe the three emails with a “C” in the sidebar, not marked Classified at the top. Where were the “tedious educational segments” that there was nothing there on those fucking god damned emails? On so many big issues, she lays down. Almost like there is a plan.
248.
D58826
@Timurid: Yep. They each got a lollipop so they are happy.
249.
Davebo
@cosima: That a guy writing for the Washington Post (Callum Borchers) decided to use the phrase “butt-hurt” is pretty pathetic in and of itself.
Spicer said that this is “demoralizing” for Trump.
Aw, that pore lil thang. My heart bleeds.
251.
cosima
@Davebo: Interesting point. I hadn’t noticed that – I was too annoyed, I guess, about Zucker’s comments and the fact that it plays right into the shitgibbon’s hands. Which makes me wonder — given that it’s a WaPo story, and with that cavalier phrasing on the part of the writer — if there’s some sort of pissing match going on between the two (CNN & WaPo). Or maybe Borcher is attempting to curry favour with the new administration to ensure that he gets a front row seat.
He’ll never see them, and won’t care that they were sent.
Find a local Dem to support instead.
Better yet, run for something yourself.
254.
No One You Know
@Ohio Mom: OMG. A human wall of knitters. Now that’s a visual…and will start a landslide of Madame DeFarge jokes, with all the edge of a guillotine.
And I think Mnemosyne should do whatever makes her happy! Utilitarianism simply doesn’t pack the same kind of wallop as humor. Anger is a fire, and hate is cruel, but nothing withstands ridicule. Even the quick-witted can’t answer a good visual.
“That was the largest audience to witness an inauguration, period. Both in person and around the globe.”
Those were Spicer’s exact words. “Both in person and around the globe” does note mean combined it means that each one was the largest audience in its respective category.
Then, on Monday he lied again. How on earth would Spicer “know” that the worldwide audience watching on TV was the largest ever?
Where did he get that “fact?” Asserting that as fact was a lie. Then, on Monday, claiming that if you combined the two numbers you would come out with the largest combined total was another lie, since he couldn’t possibly have had definitively true numbers about the number of home watchers.
Comments are closed.
Share this ArticleLike this article? Email it to a friend!
Shell
At least his suit is a little less ill-fitting.
tybee
i love slow motion train wrecks
JPL
I had it on mute for a few minutes, and I noticed that he has his hair styled and makeup put on. It’s a much better visual image. lol
Corner Stone
He’s just reading flat propaganda. Looking up every 12 to 15 seconds then reading from a sheet of paper.
Corner Stone
@JPL: The suit is still not a great fit but world’s better than Saturday.
Yarrow
@JPL: Wasn’t the image the only thing Trump cared about with the first one? That he didn’t look good, or something?
Corner Stone
This is some NoKo Dear Leader Strongman type shit.
He is really bad at this job.
Yarrow
@Corner Stone: Really? That’s pathetic. But, hey! His suit fits better so that must mean he’s doing a good job, amirite?
Is he going to take questions?
Elizabelle
Watching Law and Order SVU; haven’t seen this one. So not watching the alternative facts briefing.
Does Spicer look less like a lesser Nazi in this outing?
Lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Corner Stone:
It only matters if the media is really bad at their job, and we already know the answer to that.
PsiFighter37
First question was to NY Post reporter, second to someone framing a pro-life question. Great…
Lizzy L
I’m reading the liveblog on The Guardian website. His answers to questions are — not enlightening.
When will the border wall start to be built?
As soon as possible, Spicer says.
Are you enforcing the Obamacare mandate?
Discussions continue on repealing and replacing Obamacare, he says.
JPL
@Yarrow: Trump was disappointed with the Saturday press conference, because the visuals were off. Now he has a side row filled with female aides, and Spicer has been dressed up. I still don’t think he keeps his job though.
lamh36
Corner Stone
@JPL: I remember that Robert Gibbs was also very bad at this job but he smoothed out a little. I don’t think he ever started out quite *this* bad.
opiejeanne
@lamh36: Well that’s just super.
Spanky
Any signs of Jimmy/Jeff//Gannon/Guckert asking a puffball question?
You just know he’ll be back.
Immanentize
@lamh36: Is that temporary? Seems like the President doesn’t actually control the White House entirely, does s/he?
Spanky
@JPL:
Page Six girls?
Brachiator
This really makes me miss episodes of “The West Wing.”
Elizabelle
@lamh36: Probably couldn’t hire enough people with asbestos ears.
How fun would it be to be a Talking Points Memo intern undercover at the White House comments switchboard? Probably the wild west, between opponents and (worse) supporters.
Corner Stone
He keeps calling countries “companies”. I wonder if that’s an accident.
Kay
I know that no one knows what’s actually in the TPP, most especially Donald Trump but one thing ABOUT the TPP is it is very, very good for agriculture states. Because it opens markets abroad for US agricultural products and because US markets for imports are ALREADY open that is a guaranteed win for US agriculture producers.
Republicans will screw all the ag state Republican voters who have supported them year after year to help Donald Trump retain his razor close majority in rust belt states.
Corner Stone
@PsiFighter37:
Christian Broadcast Network. He called her by name, did not announce the network affiliation.
Corner Stone
ACTUAL FUCKING CHYRON ON MSNBC:
White House: Our Intention Is Never To Lie
NotMax
“Good day. We’ve always been at war with Eastasia. Good-bye.”
liberal
@Spanky: lol
Corner Stone
Still litigating crowd sizes. Wow.
Quinerly
It’s falling apart.
Immanentize
@Corner Stone: That is the true definition of Fascism — the elision of government and corporations. Frankly, Cass Sunstein did a little ground work for Trump with his “liberal paternalism” claptrap.
NotMax
@Corner Stone
We all know what the road to Hell is paved with, don’t we?
Mothra
I did not know that iPhones, tablets, and YouTube had to be “added” together- wouldn’t streaming account for all of them?
Corner Stone
@NotMax: Hopefully the bones of people who served in the Trump admin.
opiejeanne
@Brachiator: The West Wing is on Netflix. It’s good for your sanity, most of it.
Corner Stone
White House: Sometimes We Can Disagree With The Facts
sukabi
@Corner Stone: did they put a fact check calling bullshit under it?
Eta or at least a “LOL ???”
Yarrow
@lamh36: Wow…… That is just…. Wow.
dexwood
@NotMax:
The opposite of good is good intention.
Corner Stone
This has all gone horribly wrong now. They were not able to line up enough tame patsies in a row to ask softball questions.
Roger Moore
@Corner Stone:
And since they’re always lying, this should be interpreted as “Our Intention Is Always To Lie”.
randy khan
@lamh36:
As I suspected in my post on an earlier thread. Shocking.
liberal
@Kay:
Please provide a cite supporting this claim.
O. Felix Culpa
ACTION OPPORTUNITY:
Miss Bianca
@Quinerly: Was it ever together?
Laertes
Oh God. Baghdad Bob just cited the cheering crowds at the CIA as evidence of Trump’s popularity there, utterly oblivious to the fact that CBS has recently reported that Trump packed that audience with his own cheering section.
Yarrow
@Corner Stone:
Really? Did someone ask a question or did Spicer bring it up himself?
randy khan
@Quinerly:
Details! We want details!
Miss Bianca
@O. Felix Culpa: ooh, nice one! I’m gonna do it!
Roger Moore
@NotMax:
Melting snowballs.
Kryptik
@Laertes:
“Disagreeing with Facts” in action.
Gin & Tonic
@Kay: I am certain that Xi Jinping is quietly cheering.
O. Felix Culpa
@O. Felix Culpa: Wouldn’t hurt to send the letter to Paul Ryan either:
1233 Longworth HOB
Washington, D.C. 20515
bystander
@Corner Stone: I wish I could agree with you about Thomas Roberts, but I can’t. I kept wanting Joy to hush him up, not that she would ever do that.
The changeover at MSNBC has affected a lot of people. I caught an ad in which Rachel Maddow exhorts us all to give the wretched Greta Van Succubus a chance. Uh huh.
opiejeanne
@Corner Stone:
CBN. One of the scabbiest huckster “Christian” money-making groups/companies out there.
Thoroughly Pizzled
Why was TPP defended so tepidly? I can’t believe Obama let his party turn on it in such numbers. Was it to avoid smashing up the negotiations?
Origuy
Sorry if this has already been posted. After they marched, 500 women learned how to run – for office
The last paragraph is worth noting.
Percysowner
In a totally unsurprising reveal we now know why there was cheering and laughing at Trumps CIA speech from Talking Points Memo Report: Trump Stocked Audience At CIA Speech With Cheering Supporters.
lamh36
If this press briefing doesn’t make each and every HONEST journalist pissed off then the whole lot of them deserve what they get
NotMax
@Roger Moore
Guessed before checking that the link was to this.
TriassicSands
From the WaPo:
Obviously, the Post needs a new unit. I suggest the “Trump,” which kicks in after four Pinocchios. However, we’re going to have to move to the Light Trump. Much like the vast distances to stars and other galaxies, Trump’s lies outstrip normal units of measure. The Light Trump should be enough — at least for the foreseeable future.
Spicer’s Saturday lies earn the first “Trump.” The lie was obvious and easily disproved.
Roger Moore
@lamh36:
I would put it slightly differently. You’ll be able to tell which journalists are honest by whether this press briefing pisses them off. Journalists who accept being transparently lied to as the price of access are not honest.
dww44
@Corner Stone:I remember that Gibbs was quite bad as well. He may have smoothed out, but he never really got more progressive. Josh Earnest turned out to be the best Press Secretary of the last couple of decades.
As long as we’re tallking about the press here’s an email I got a couple of hours ago from the AJC. The email title was “We need help” although the linked article was a bit more restrained, just about all the tornado damage in the state yesterday and the night before. FYI, Albany is the part of the state that Shirley Sherrod hails from and where she, as far as I know, still resides. Albany/Dougherty county has become a majority African American county in recent decades.
aimai
@O. Felix Culpa: Excellent idea. I will do it. I am already engaging in the postcard project of the women’s march but this is definitely worth doing.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
So li’L Seanie Spicer is again struggling? Awesome. Spice Boy failing again.
liberal
@Thoroughly Pizzled:
Because anyone with a fucking brain in his head and a love of liberty would be aghast at any so-called “trade agreement” that gave corporations supernational powers, aka “investor-state dispute settlements”?
MisterForkbeard
@bystander: Ick, no. Fox people were awful then and continue to be awful now. I know Maddow is probably contractually obligated to do this, but I’m kind of upset with her now.
Quinerly
@Kryptik:
I caught that, too. I hope someone covers that.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
Meanwhile, overheard from right-wing world (the wingnut two cubes over). “I hear they banned CNN from White House press briefings, har har. Don’t know the details but something about how their reporting on Inauguration Day was suspect…”
The “suspect” part being that they pointed out the discrepancy between Spicer’s statements and objective reality.
Le sigh.
MisterForkbeard
@TriassicSands: “We have a new scale. 1-4 Pinocchio’s for lying, and a Dumpster Fire for Trump Administration attempts to lie about easily verifiable facts.”
NotMax
@MisterForkbeard
Maddow has constantly demonstrated she wears opaque ideological blinders when it comes to speaking of her drinking buddies.
liberal
@Immanentize:
Not really (not that I’m fond of such elision). It’s true that many fascist states were marked by corporatism. But if you look at the definitions listed under Wikipedia, it’s not mentioned at all.
Quinerly
@Laertes:
This Administration continues to poke at the CIA. This isn’t going to end well. My money is on the CIA. Spicer just out and out lied twice now in this presser about that cheering and clapping at the CIA.
Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho
@TriassicSands:
I love that also too.
And who doesn’t bring a cheering section to rallies, I mean agency addresses, after all?
Brachiator
Baron Harkonnen: He who controls the Spicer, controls the universe!
— with apologies to Dune
Laertes
@Thoroughly Pizzled:
I imagine that once both Clinton and Trump had come out against TPP, it was dead as a doornail and there wasn’t much that President Obama could do about it. Kicking up a fuss over it would have hurt Clinton, and at the time this didn’t seem like a lost cause.
lamh36
So all it takes is to lie more professionally…ok cool got it…smh…US press is a fuqn joke!
@ktumulty
PressSec doing a solid, professional job. #reboot
Mnemosyne
@O. Felix Culpa:
I would do it as a postcard. A sealed envelope gives them an excuse to throw them all away out of “anthrax fear.”
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Percysowner:
He brings his own studio audience. What a fucking lunatic.
GregB
Moscow Spice?
Baghdad Bob Spice?
Propaganda Spice?
O. Felix Culpa
@Miss Bianca: @aimai: Thank you! I’m heading out to the post office shortly to mail my letters. Along with a few packages I promised to send for Ms. O.
Quinerly
At 5:00 AM the DOD tweeted “Social media postings provide an important window into a person’s mental health. Know what to look for.” I’m pretty sure this is General Mattis first day. Hmmmmmmmmmm.
MisterForkbeard
@liberal: Yep. My understanding is that part of her contract says she can’t attack fellow MSNBC people and has to help promote them, but she goes farther than she needs to.
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Not much you can do to help combat that kind of nonsense. Trump said it, they believe it, and it doesn’t matter how obviously wrong he is.
NotMax
@the Conster, la Citoyenne
Henceforth to be known as truffers.
(Trump fluffers.)
A Ghost To Most
@lamh36:
Fuck KarenTumulty – yesterday on CNN she was acting all pissed about the lies; today she is with the program, as expected
Thoroughly Pizzled
“I’ll get back to you.”
“It’s day one.”
“It’s the first day.”
They want to be held to the standards to which they’ve been held their entire lives.
Quinerly
@Miss Bianca:
Not really but it obviously started to go downhill. I give him less than 90 days.
O. Felix Culpa
@Mnemosyne:
Good idea. Is anthrax still a thing? I have some nice postcards of New Mexico I can send our President (ptui!) and House Majority Leader (ptui again!).
TriassicSands
@Quinerly:
I missed that. What did he say? I heard the clapping and cheering and it sounded quite enthusiastic. (The same enthusiasm was present when Trump called the media people incredibly dishonest.)
Miss Bianca
@NotMax: “trufflers”? Pigs rooting for the rare, rare, nugget of truth?
trollhattan
Well, well, Wikileaks magically has become concerned about the missing Trump tax returns, and now offers to release them should somebody care to share.
Three months too late, assholes.
schrodingers_cat
@GregB: Moscow mule.
Watching this I feel, like I need to start brushing up on my Hindi skills.
rikyrah
@Corner Stone:
he’s reading from a piece of paper?
Kay
@liberal:
The US opened US markets to ag imports. Other countries didn’t reciprocate. The TPP remedies what is an uneven playing field for US ag- they have to compete with foreign producers in the US but they aren’t allowed access to the markets in other countries.
That’s exactly what happened with manufacturing, except there it was free traders who created the uneven playing field. They opened US markets to imports but other countries didn’t reciprocate.
Trump is making the same mistake free traders made in the 1980’s and 1990’s, except he’s doing it for protectionist purposes. He doesn’t understand fair trade. It’s ABOUT reciprocity. “Trade” isn’t bad. That was never what the fair trade argument was about. It doesn’t matter if he gets rid of a deal that opens foreign markets to US ag. The US ALREADY opened markets to foreign ag. All he’s doing now is making it harder for US producers to compete.
You can look at it as plus and minus signs. The US is a plus sign. Free trade. If they are competing with a minus sign they’re at a disadvantage. It has to be minus/minus or plus/plus. Plus/minus hurts the free trade country. That’s us.
So in agriculture we know the US is a plus (+) So we need another plus country to trade with or it’s not a level playing field. The TPP turns Japan (for example) into a +. Right now it’s +/-, US/Japan. That hurts US ag producers.
Gin & Tonic
@TriassicSands: It was enthusiastic because it was all Trump shills.
Mnemosyne
So MomSense mentioned earlier today that Richard Cohen (Trump’s lawyer) was snarking that the pink hats women were wearing on Saturday weren’t made in America. Ladies (and crafty gents), I say we track down this jackass’s office address and send him a bunch of pink hats of his very own since it seems like he really wants one. Who’s with me?
Jeffro
@TriassicSands: I think the lie was that the clapping was from CIA officials, when it was actually from Trump invitees and suck-ups who had been given the first three rows of seats.
Mnemosyne
@O. Felix Culpa:
They would claim it was still a thing, so I wouldn’t even let them have the excuse.
Fester Addams
@Mnemosyne:
Pretty sure all mail to congress and the White House is delivered to a distant, contractor-run facility where it’s opened by (presumably poorly paid) workers, scanned then destroyed. There won’t be a Miracle on 34th Street style pile of mailbags anywhere near D.C.
Quinerly
@TriassicSands:
I can’t link on this smarty pants phone. Go to CBS and TPM. Stories up about how Trump brought a cheering section with him to the CIA speech. People from the CIA have told this to CBS. At this very moment Spicer is again lying about it. Third time.
MisterForkbeard
@trollhattan: WikiLeaks went whole hog on the ant-hillary pro-Trump bandwagon last year. I can’t imagine how anyone with half a brain thinks of them as a neutral arbiter of… anything.
And yet some of my liberal friends still insist they’re just merely anti-secrets. Sigh.
Jeffro
@trollhattan: Anything that comes via Wikileaks, true or not, will automatically be suspect by both sides – and it’ll make any other future releases suspect as well. They won’t care if there are a million versions of Trump’s taxes out there, they can just claim that none of them are true.
We need someone to get Trump’s real returns to the WaPo or NYT, a.s.a.p.
O. Felix Culpa
@Mnemosyne:
I’d say “yes,” except I can’t knit and it would be a sad waste of nice hats. Otherwise I love it for the prank value. Add “Lovingly handcrafted in the USA” labels. Abbie Hoffman would be proud.
O. Felix Culpa
@Mnemosyne: I hear ya. I’ve passed your postcard suggestion on to the friend who initiated this effort.
p.a.
@Percysowner: He’s not President. He’s Chuck Barris prodecing a schlock tv show.
Kay
@liberal:
That was why I knew Obama was a true free trade believer. There was no political benefit for Democrats in that deal. All the benefits flow to GOP states. That’s why it had nearly 100% GOP support. It was a wash or a deficit for Democrats but it was an absolute win for Republicans.
TriassicSands
@Gin & Tonic: @Jeffro:
Thanks for the clarification.
But, but, but…Trump would never do something like that.
Spicer is now denying that they were Trump shills. The first row was “all CIA.”
john (not mccain)
“My money is on the CIA.”
Mine, too. They have spent decades coming up with clever ways to assassinate unstable autocrats who pose a danger to the US.
Brachiator
@GregB:
Oh, definitely Propaganda Spice.
Corner Stone
Angry Spicer Is Angry!
He’s turning green and his pants are starting to split.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@GregB:
I am henceforth calling Kellyanne Conway “Old Spice”.
Yoda Dog
@liberal: You’ve heard of google, yes?
Here’s one.
NotMax
@Jeffro
One positive thing about the IRS is the standard of severe and dedicated security when it comes to access to individual returns. Would be of lasting damage to have that compromised.
Now, when it comes to state returns…
Thoroughly Pizzled
What a whiny-ass baby. Truly pathetic.
All of the Republican White House press secretaries have been transcendentally loathsome.
Librarian
@bystander: You should’ve seen the episode of her show when she talked about Greta coming to MSNBC. She couldn’t say enough great things about her and what a great journalist she is.
Corner Stone
Dammit, I had to get on a call for a while and muted Sarcastic Spicer in the transition to Angry Spicer so I didn’t start lying about the TPS reports.
Looked like he was getting lambasted for a bit.
p.a.
@GregB: Forked Tongue Spice, Slithery Spice, Mephistopheles Spice.
Corner Stone
@Librarian: That 15 minute tongue bath was fucking disgusting. I had been off Maddow for some time but that sealed it.
schrodingers_cat
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Are you Botsplainer of the old? Score, on the Old Spice. A guy who I briefly dated used to have, what felt like a bath in that thing. Eeww.
mai naem mobile
I’ve listened to Stephanie Miller and Randi Rhodes make a few comments(few and farnbetween) about Rachel Maddows behavior at Air America so I don’t think she’s all pure etc. I am sure she’s got her side of the story but Rachel is ambitious and I believe willing to bend her principles a little here and there to get where she wants to get. And,BTW, I think up to an extent, thats okay.
Quinerly
Presser totally off the rails, in my opinion.
Thoroughly Pizzled
When I think of sacrifice, I think of Donald Trump.
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
@A Ghost To Most: Is it too much to expect these media asshats to hold a consistent position for more than two days in a row ? I know stupid question, they’re going to get a lot of people killed.
Mnemosyne
@Fester Addams:
Since I’m feeling prankish today, why not go for a series of singing telegrams? Can’t re-route those to a remote facility.
NotMax
@Thoroughly Pizzled
Excepting Jerald terHorst.
Corner Stone
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Not to be catty but KAC always looks like the proverbial “Walk of Shame” person after a hard night’s drinking in a low down dirty biker bar or beat down country jukebox poolhall.
Kay
@liberal:
I don’t care. As far as I’m concerned agriculture deserves everything Republicans do to them. Food stamps are thebest thing that ever happened to those people and they all oppose them.
It’s literally A VOUCHER for poor people to buy ag products. I mean, Jesus. It’s not my job to draw them a map of how they benefit from that. It’s a giant subsidy for agriculture. Imagine if we had a huge voucher program for any other product. The recipients of that largesse would not be demonizing the end-user recipients! They’re morons.
Corner Stone
Hallie Jackson looking on oh so intently. *this is my “I take this new job vveeerrryyyy seriously face” you like?*
trollhattan
@Quinerly:
So, business as (now) usual then?
Donny’s ready for four years of Calvinball.
Quinerly
@Thoroughly Pizzled:
Spicer ain’t going to last in this position.
Corner Stone
@Quinerly: I don’t think anyone there knows what to do at this point. They just keep asking these blathering questions and he either gets petulant or says he’ll have to get back to them on that.
Jeffro
@NotMax: If only there were agencies…or perhaps an entire (I)Community…that was good at hacking stuff…
Thoroughly Pizzled
@NotMax: Before my time. But it sounds like he was a decent fellow.
TriassicSands
@Gin & Tonic:
@Jeffro:
@Quinerly:
Spicer has now categorically denied there were any Trump people present…at all.
He also tried to parse his statement about the size of the inaugural crowd so that it was “true.” He said he couldn’t imagine how anyone would interpret his words to mean anything but the “total audience of both in person and around the globe…combined.” Funny. Everyone interpreted them otherwise. He’s an accomplished liar.
Barbara
@O. Felix Culpa: I posted this on Facebook with the intro that four people in my immediate family have coverage or better coverage because of the ACA, including my mother who is on Medicare — the ACA began closing the Part D donut hole.
Corner Stone
Why IN THE FUCK can’t these fucking preening camera whores just ask one godsdamned question when it is their turn?!
The Lodger
@Thoroughly Pizzled: And now I wonder if the hairpiece is flammable…
Timurid
Yesterday the reporters and on air personalities were panicking over the unprecedented craziness from Trump and Spicer… a day passes… orders from the suits at Corporate have reached the front line, and everyone is back in THIS IS FINE mode.
Elites want a King. Trump is a mess, but he’s the only guy who would volunteer for the job.
Corner Stone
“Aaaannnd I’m spent.”
Jeffro
@Corner Stone: Gonna be hard to stall day-in, day-out, for four straight years…
Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho
@Mnemosyne: I think there are better uses for the hats, like donations to organizations that serve people who need hats in cold weather. Send Michael Cohen postcards explaining how they were made instead. Hundreds of them. Ideally with the story reported from many different sources. Stamp a pink pu$$y hat on them, or a kitteh face. Make hats for people who need them.
tobie
@liberal: not quite. Trade agreements are designed to set standards where local law is lacking. For instance it binds a country like China to respect intellectual property even if China has no similar law on the books. TPP actually bound countries to US standards, it didn’t lower ours. You really shouldn’t listen to all the demagogic crap spouted by no-time-for-details St. Bernard of the North.
Calouste
@john (not mccain): This might be the right occasion to point out that these days the CIA is by law prohibited from assassinating foreign heads of states.
Corner Stone
Andrea Mitchell is blowjobbing the absolute fuck out this Spicer performance today.
Quinerly
@TriassicSands:
I just don’t get this continual poking at the CIA. Those guys know who were there. They know who clapped and some have let CBS know that they know.
NotMax
@Traissic Sands
“And – and – he’s president of more Americans than the first 24 presidents, combined! So there!”
(Press room erupts in guffaws.)
p.a.
@Kay: IIRC some of the pre-Teatard (R) congresscritters from farm states did support SNAP/whatever because they realized its benefits to BigAg. They still wanted piss in a cup for every loaf of Wonder Bread, but at the time there was support, at least among the professional pols.
Jeffro
@Timurid:
Wha…? No “Deep Bench”? =)
He’s the one that half of their base wanted, that they were terrified of, and so the other 16 of them gave him enough of a pass.
I still think that big donor dark money is the untold story of this election – Koch cash kept all the GOP MoCs well funded, while the Mercers’ cash and threats kept Cruz & Rubio from going totally rogue (and splitting the party). Same dynamic is playing out right now, notice Rubio caving on Tillerson.
Mnemosyne
@Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho:
Oh, I’ll also make hats for people who need them, but only sending pictures or postcards allows him to remain in his bubble and insist that it’s all fake and Soros-funded.
I want the asshole to literally trip over pink hats inside his very own office and watch him try to claim they don’t really exist.
Thoroughly Pizzled
@tobie: I was wondering about that. Is it the fault of the trade agreement, or the lack of follow-up domestic legislation? It’s probably impossible to get higher standards negotiating with other countries than negotiating internally.
Fester Addams
@Calouste:
Probably not supposed to off domestic ones either.
Immanentize
@liberal: Please don’t make me argue with Wikipedia, it will make me have a teacher’s sad.
Quinerly
I’m probably beating this to death but the cheering at the CIA really got to me. Malcolm Nance was on Joy Reid yesterday mad as hell over it. We all know he is ex CIA and he said before that CBS report that he knew Trump brought a cheering section of about 40, I believe. That they were off to the side…that the CIA people looked to the side at the cheering section when it went down. Trump tweeted about the CIA cheering him and Spicer repeated it 4 times in this presser. They are idiots.
Jeffro
@Corner Stone: Some of these media folks want SO badly to not have to report that one side has gone completely off the rails. Because you know, it’s just rude, I guess.
p.a.
@Thoroughly Pizzled: I remember NAFTA: the worker and environmental protections in 2nd/3rd world economies were to ‘follow’ the original agreement. The century they were to follow IN was unspecified.
rikyrah
@Kay:
I know…I know..
p.a.
@Fester Addams: That would be FBI jurisdiction. They worked so hard electing him, offing him out of the question.
Thoroughly Pizzled
@p.a.: Aye, there’s the rub. We should negotiate these agreements when the Democrats are comfortably in charge.
catclub
@Fester Addams: I remember a TED-type talk that said you write a letter, by hand, to the local office of your congressman. That way is most likely to get read. Others are more generally counted and put in stacks.
Millard Filmore
@trollhattan:
If their goal is to sow discord and confusion, this makes sense. Now that the worst candidate is in office it is time to thrash him soundly. Putin has a plan …
TriassicSands
@Quinerly:
And this is how Trump wins. He gets competing narratives out there and eventually either people just ignore the whole thing or his supporters believe him and the rest of us…despair over the death of truth.
Barbara
@TriassicSands: What he meant was that the number of Russians watching on tv was at an all time high, since Putin made sure that it was the only thing on all the tv stations at the time. That’s a joke, by the way.
rikyrah
@Quinerly:
You are not beating it to death.
It’s so unbelievably offensive..it just gnaws at you. Being a patriotic American, watching this fraud, insult the CIA, in their own house, IN FRONT OF ITS WALL OF HEROES – those that made the ultimate sacrifice for this country…
and, have the gall to bring a CHEERING SECTION?!?
It’s indecent. It’s profane. It punches you in the gut.
aimai
Whatever people think of Maddow around here I have recently discovered that every single blue collar/pink collar woman I have encountered who is a rabid, well informed, democrat is a mad Maddow watcher. I would avoid dissing her and attacking her because she isn’t good enough, in your eyes, for some reason. In the real world she is one of the few friendly, female, faces of democratic/leftist information on TV. We don’t have anyone to waste in that position. And if she has to do what she has to do to stay on TV then that is what she has to do. We don’t have enough left wing radio/tv to spare anyone with any kind of an audience.
Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho
@Mnemosyne: I understand your sentiment, but it’s a waste of yarn, and of clothing that could be used by people who need it. It’s a matter of perspective. He’ll claim Soros funded that as well, and it will be wasted effort. Send postcards of photos of boxes full of hand-knitted pink hats addressed to charities, but please doesn’t waste actual clothing making a point he won’t accept.
catclub
@Fester Addams: The CIA is also prohibited from torture, that is for contractors.
patroclus
@p.a.: The NAFTA side agreements included the creation of the Border Environmental Financing Facility which actually has financed a lot of environmental initiatives in the border region and improved environmental standards at the maquiladores. That was last century. And the Paris Accords concluded a year ago were this century. Trump will have no progress whatsoever and the Republican Congress is already attempting to ax out all consideration of climate change repercussions. But don’t let facts get in the way of your opinion – you sound just like Spicer.
Jeffro
@Quinerly: They just wanted the appearance (including cheering) for propaganda purposes now and down the road. Never mind that watching the actual video was a horrorshow. Just a couple snippets of him in front of that wall being cheered is all they need.
We’re going to have to get more pro-active about this stuff, and we’re going to need to beat on the media not to air it live (and/or without some added context), that’s for sure.
tobie
@Thoroughly Pizzled: this agreement was designed to protect US producers who were getting creamed in countries that don’t respect patents and the like. This was one of its strengths, not weaknesses.
Davebo
@aimai: Amen!
NotMax
@p.a.
One of the finest perorations I ever heard given on the floor of the Senate was Tom Daschle standing in opposition to NAFTA.
Undoubtedly somewhere in the C-SPAN archives.
Yoda Dog
@Kay: I’m sorry I jumped in there on your behalf. You clearly have it under control. I found a link for you, but you are the link. Good on you, I enjoy reading you.
Emerald
@Librarian:
I turned it off when she started that.
She’s also constantly adoring Mrs. Greenspan.
Normally I like Rachel and watch her. But the only truly reliable commentator on MSNBC is Joy Ann Reid.
Percysowner
@Mnemosyne: Good idea. I’ll have to go get post cards, lots of post cards. So mine will hit the mail tomorrow probably.
Ella in New Mexico
@trollhattan:
Not if you understand that Wikileaks acted on behalf of Putin, who is now the holder of all kinds of information that he can use to blackmail Our Glorious Leader into doing his bidding.
This is a shot across Trumplets bow to shut down this government inquiry into the Four Stooges ties to Russia and to get busy doing what he was hired to do.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@TriassicSands: Weird that the global audience would have needed to use the DC Metro system. Whose ridership numbers he lied about anyway.
Quinerly
@TriassicSands:
Maybe I’m a little old fashion. I grew up believing you DON’T FUCK WITH CIA.
Stan
@trollhattan:
I think the real objective there is to turn in whoever gives them the tax information. It’s a trap.
Corner Stone
@aimai: “She’s with us on everything but the Greta.”
TriassicSands
@Quinerly:
Well, you’re not DJ Trump. He fucks with everybody if it suits his purposes. He calls them names, questions their abilities, and then shows up and blames the “supposed” rift between him and the CIA on the media. It is really hard to defeat such a dedicated lying POS.
NotMax
@Ella in New Mexico
Didn’t Larry Flynt offer a bounty for the returns? Pre-election, but perhaps an offer not since rescinded.
Timurid
This is Autocrat 101. Not lying with intent to deceive, but lying as a display of power. Taunting everyone with obvious untruths and assuming that they they have no choice but to accept the lies. And he’s been in office less than a week. He’s acting like a guy who’ll never have to win another vote again (see also; his endzone dance with Comey).
We may not be doomed. He may not succeed. But one way or another, this is going to go fast. He’ll be King Trump or ex-President Trump before the year is out.
Stan
@NotMax:
Golly….Andrew Cuomo, who claims to be a democrat, has control over THAT ;)
catclub
@TriassicSands:
Voting would have worked.
Corner Stone
@Ella in New Mexico:
I know the world no longer makes any sense but isn’t a counter-intel investigation into Mike Flynn just flat out fucking crazy?
Quinerly
Good piece up at TPM on that crap some of us watched (so you didn’t have to)
dww44
@Mnemosyne: Although I don’t knit,I support your effort here. His twitter handle is @michaelcohen212 and as he’s now the special counsel to the President, he certainly could be reached at the White House. Or maybe he’s not gonna move to D.C. either but is gonna remain behind at Trump Tower, given his prior position was that of EVP in the Trump Organization.
DaddyJ
@opiejeanne: Yeah, I just finished watching The West Wing a couple days before the election. Goes really well with a shot of rye. There’s a number of reasonable conservative characters in it with integrity, so, you know, about the same level of realism as Doctor Who. But still entertaining.
Quinerly
@TriassicSands:
MSNBC just switched to Trump. He said he just signed “a very powerful document.” Geez…..
Stan
@Kay:
I hear you….but. Farm work is backbreaking, it never takes a day off and never ends. Farm people are (rightly) proud of how hard they work, and (wrongly, I know….) think of themselves as independent/self-made.
Immanentize
@Corner Stone: I’m old enough to remember when Greta was a young idealistic, kick-ass defense attorney in D.C. But her dad was friends with Tailgunner Joe McCarthy (True!) Oh how power corrupts…
NotMax
@Immanetize
So was Bobby Kennedy.
Immanentize
@NotMax: Friends with McCarthy?
Stan
@Emerald:
I agree. We all need to send her some love via MSNBC. Let them know we’re watching.
Quinerly
I’ll just throw this out. Unrelated to Spicer. Was flipping around on tv last night and landed on Fox. It was a repeat show of I think that Jeanne Pirot (sp?) show. Dennis Kucinich was on gushing about how great Trump’s inaugural address was….how it basically was what he has been saying for years. WTF?
NotMax
@Immanetize
Yup, appointed counsel of his investigatory committee by McCarthy.
Before RFK saw the light.
Joyce H
@Timurid:
But what’s great about this is that they are pre-inoculating the press and the public against believing anything they say, and they’re doing it right out of the gate and over absolute trivia! Crowd size at the inauguration, fercryinoutloud! If they can’t even be trusted to tell us the truth about something as obviously verifiable as whether or not there were more people at Trump’s inauguration than at Obama’s, how do you think the public will react if the administration says, “We have secret intel that we can’t show you that proves your sons and daughters have to go die to fight for this overseas oil field; trust us, it’s important”?
As for it happening fast, Trump does everything too fast; that’s why he always fails. He’s too impatient and overpays for a property so that it can’t be operated at a profit, or sticks his tongue down a woman’s throat the first time he meets her, which is really not the way to run a successful seduction.
patroclus
@Immanentize: Last night Greta was insisting that Trump got more votes from women than Clinton. She said it several times, but was finally corrected because she was merely parroting Fox propaganda that she learned while in that bubble (it was only white women). I think she’ll gradually get better having been removed from the propaganda – she was never all THAT bad when she was at CNN, but deteriorated profoundly while at Fox.
trollhattan
There’s no depth past which Trump won’t dig to assemble his team of nation-killers.
TriassicSands
@catclub:
Hey, I voted four times.
But it was voting that made him win. Sadly, a majority nationwide isn’t good enough.
The problem at the press conference today was that when Spicer lied about what he meant when he said “both” no one pushed back at all.
trollhattan
@Quinerly:
The heck? I had zero clue Kucinich was a tiny proto-autocrat. Was he always?
Miss Bianca
@Kay: “oops”
Quinerly
@trollhattan:
Must be a hands thing.?
patroclus
@Immanentize: “Friends” is pushing it – he was a Democratic counsel on the committee that was chaired by McCarthy – it was Bobby’s first job in D.C. and many Dems at the time were trying to out-Mccarthy Mccarthy, which only egged Joe on.
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
@Ella in New Mexico: Ha ha, no. No one is EVER going to see the Federal Tax returns in their entirety. Not all the history or various forms that Trump fills out every year and has since he started filing. Never going to happen. You may see something state wise, but Federal, never.
trollhattan
@Quinerly:
“High five, Donald! Whoops, missed.”
TriassicSands
@trollhattan:
He’s always been kind of a flake.
Timurid
@Joyce H:
As far as Trump is concerned, the seduction was over on 11/9. From here on out it’s just rape.
Captain C
@trollhattan: I think Julian Assange is starting to realize that, even if he’s fine with Trump burning the whole world, most people aren’t and that they hold him at least somewhat responsible, and he’d probably like to leave the Ecuadorian embassy at some point in his life.
Miss Bianca
@aimai: good point!
Gin & Tonic
@trollhattan: Isn’t he the dude who received a bomb from Ted Kaczynski?
Gin & Tonic
@Captain C: Chances are the heat goes up for ol’ Julian after the February elections in Ecuador.
dww44
@patroclus: Agree. That was my take on her before she moved to Fox.
I also agree with Aimai re Rachel Maddow, while eschewing her desire to be liked by all her cohorts on the right at MSNBC. She has been very good since the election, so much so that she won over my spouse who was never previously a fan. Prior to the election, those long and tedious educational segments were wearing thin. Since the election, they’ve been more historically relevant and she links them to where we find ourselves now.
Captain C
@MisterForkbeard:
I’ll believe that when I see them publish a large dump of secret Russian documents, including at least a few with damaging info on Putin.
Miss Bianca
@Quinerly: @trollhattan: “lefty authoritarian” is a thing on the authoritarianism grid….
Mnemosyne
@Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho:
I want to cause him personal inconvenience inside his physical space in a way that cannot be construed as a threat of any kind. Postcards and pictures will not serve the same purpose. If there’s another way you can think of to make it difficult for him to physically use his office space for days on end, let me know.
It takes me about 2 hours to knit a pussyhat. That time is worth it to me in order to inconvenience him, even if he throws it away. I’m kind of an asshole like that.
Larryb
@Thoroughly Pizzled:
You could ask the same question about Obamacare, and the answer would be the same. Obama was never good at rallying a movement to defend his policies + lefty purity pony butthurt.
trollhattan
@Gin & Tonic: Ten Quatloos to G&T–I never would have made the connection.
patroclus
@Larryb: I think Obama didn’t defend TPP last year because he didn’t want to undermine Clinton, who was pretending to oppose it. It would have been good for the economy, lowering tariffs and non-tariff barriers and improving intellectual property protection, but it’s fate was sealed when both parties turned against it. China will now take the lead on lowering tariffs in the ASPAC region – it was a major missed opportunity which will hurt America in the long term, especially if Trump follows through and starts a trade war with China.
Tazj
@Quinerly: I didn’t watch Trump’s inaugural address. However, I was flipping around the channels that evening and watched CNN for a few minutes. John King was praising Trump’s speech, at least one part of it. King said Trump was the only one who could have given such a speech because he went after both sides. Apparently, in the speech according to King, Trump criticized Both Democrats and Republicans for enriching themselves at the expense of the American people. Now, while it is true that many politicians do unfairly enrich themselves, I thought that line was ridiculous coming from Trump who has spent most of his adult life enriching himself at the expense of others(Trump University, hotel workers, contractors for his buildings, etc. you know the list)
I was flabbergasted that anyone thought he had any credibility with this issue, but apparently many voters and media people do. Maybe Kucinich is among them, and he believes Trump to be some new fantastic populist politician who is beholden to no one. I think he is either naïve or just wants a check from Fox News.
lol chikinburd
(Just a note about the pic: if I ever get shakers like those, it’ll be the pepper one that has the halo and the salt one that has the horns.)
zhena gogolia
@trollhattan:
Wow, I thought everyone remembered that. It blew up in a building I used to practice piano in.
Mnemosyne
@Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho:
Or, to put it another way: I essentially want to send a live elephant to his office and force him to figure out what to do with it. Something large, inconvenient, and not threatening.
trollhattan
@patroclus:
Yup, China will basically come in and drink our milkshake because we’re withdrawing from a regional agreement. I’ll wager they’re bigly disappointed at having this drop into their lap.
trollhattan
@zhena gogolia: Ted seems forever ago but two of his fatalities were in my town, so the stench lingers. Oddly, his and Gelernter’s views on humanities in higher education are identical.
Another Scott
@Fester Addams: Mail Isolation Control and Tracking.
It’s illegal to destroy mail.
[edit:] I may be missing your point. But recall that Obama has answered real letters from people, not some PDF image. So I’d be surprised if as a matter of course that all letters to the WH are destroyed. But maybe you’re right…
Cheers,
Scott.
(IANAL)
Yoda Dog
@Tazj:
Both.
cosima
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/01/19/cnns-president-has-fired-a-warning-shot-at-donald-trump/?utm_term=.a3eb8d24004f
snip: “The perception of Donald Trump in capitals around the world is shaped, in many ways, by CNN. Continuing to have an adversarial relationship with that network is a mistake.”
What say you, Juicers? Did Zucker cut off his nose to spite his face with these comments?
I say he did, and someone on the book of faces kindly informed me ‘your a moron.’ We are on the same side of the fence politically, so my only response to him was ‘*you’re* — did you read the link?’ And then he deleted his comment, so maybe he read the link, or maybe he is now hoping I die a painful death for correcting his grammar.
Quinerly
@trollhattan:
#205…thanks for that chuckle.
john (not mccain)
@Calouste: Fortunately, this time around they don’t have to assassinate a foreign head of state to keep America safe.
Gin & Tonic
@trollhattan: I have to be careful with how I phrase this, but I followed Kaczynski pretty closely and felt a certain sort of, um don’t want to call it admiration, but something like it, for his dedication to his cause.
Bill Arnold
@trollhattan:
(re wikileaks/tax returns)
I’d take it. (Even given that one obvious motive (maybe intersecting with true motives) is further damage to the USA.)
hovercraft
Spicer: It’s ‘Demoralizing’ For Trump To See Media Narrative About Him
During his first daily briefing with reporters, White House press secretary Sean Spicer launched into a rant about the media’s treatment of Donald Trump when asked why the President discussed the crowd sizes at his inauguration during a speech at the CIA headquarters on Saturday.
“I’s not just about a crowd size. It’s about this constant, you know, ‘He’s not going to run. Then if he runs, he’s going to drop out…'” Spicer said. “There is this constant theme to undercut the enormous support that he has. I think it’s unbelievably frustrating when you’re continually told it’s not big enough, it’s not good enough, you can’t win.”
Spicer said that Trump kept defying the odds only to face a new narrative,
“He keeps getting told what he can’t do by this narrative that’s out there. And exceeds it every single time. And I think there’s an overall frustration when you turn on the television over and over again and get told that there’s this narrative that you didn’t win, you weren’t going to run, you can’t pick up this state,” he said. “Over and over again there’s this constant attempt to undermine his credibility and the movement that he represents. And it’s frustrating for not just him, but I think so many of us that are trying to work to get this message out.”
Spicer said that this is “demoralizing” for Trump.
The press secretary also argued that the media’s treatment of Trump was unprecedented.
“I’ve never seen it like this,” Spicer said.
trollhattan
@Gin & Tonic:
To quote the most quotable of movies, he had a certain ethos. They trucked his cabin here for the trial; it sat behind chainlink fencing at a closed Air Force base. Weird to think about what “terrorism” was prior to 9/11–recalling being pissed at him for causing them to remove the 15-minute parking meters in front of our airport terminal with one of his threat letters.
Quinerly
@hovercraft:
Who’s the delicate snowflake now?
pat
@hovercraft:
Do you want some cheese with that whine, Sean?
Stan
Spicer stupidly let us know today that the resistance is scoring hits and trump is hurting.
Keep up the fire, folks. Eventually their deflector shields will fail ;)
Yoda Dog
@hovercraft: They act like their ‘movement” is so heady and important to reckon with. It’s just cleeks fucking law on steroids. “FUCK LIBERALS” was the main, and for many the only, voting impetus, imo. And then with the lies that are so huge and easily discernable that they’re insulting to eveyone’s intelligence. WHAT THE FUCK DO THEY EXPECT?! To expect anything but conflict is insane. But then I guess Im just not used to our new administration yet.
Corner Stone
@Yoda Dog:
It’s Hedley, you oaf!
joel hanes
@Thoroughly Pizzled:
Why was TPP defended so tepidly?
A fair number of IP wonks had grave reservations about the IP enforcement provisions, even if they agreed that the goal of reducing overseas appropriation of US-based copyrighted, patented, trade secret, or trademark material was a good one.
People who care most about untrammeled American hegemony/sovereignty hated the dispute resolution mechanism.
People who think that they lost their jobs because NAFTA opposed it.
Hardly anyone publicly identified the Americans who stood to benefit.
Rs were reflexively opposing everything Obama ; if O came out too strongly for it, the R base would demand that their Congressional caucus oppose it.
laura
@NotMax: no. Larry Flint’s magazine “Hustle” has offered money to anyone with proof of Trump underage or kinky sessy-times.
Another Scott
@TriassicSands:
I didn’t. I knew exactly what he was saying, and why. He explicitly said “watched” which is obviously a different word than “attended”.
He said it as a shiny smoke screen to get the press all hot and bothered, to make it clear that Trump wants his version of reality to be reported as if it were actual reality, and to distract everyone from what he and his team are actually doing (and not doing). He’s trying to make the press cower. He’s said he’s in a “running war” with the media. Shouldn’t we believe him about that?
What is going to be the first news organization to start boycotting Trump’s “press” operation? McClatchyDC? WashingtonPost? The BBC?
We need to keep our eyes on the prize…
Cheers,
Scott.
Feebog
@Another Scott:
It’s illegal to destroy or intercept mail while in the mail stream. Once it is delivered the recipient is free to do whatever they want with it.
clay
@hovercraft: I wonder if it was “demoralizing” for Obama to see people proclaim that he wasn’t American simply because of the color of his skin?
Let me count the number of times that Obama whined about that in public. Ummmm……
In short, Trump (and Spicer) can:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSC25Li4E88
Ohio Mom
@Mnemosyne: if you weren’t on the other side of the continent, I’d suggest yarn-bombing something of his in pink. Or creating a human wall of knitters knitting pink hats in front of his office.
So ironic. Republicans are always going on about people doing for themselves and not depending on others for anything. Here you have people that ARE doing it by themselves, that is, making their own article of clothing. And his puny imagination can’t stretch that far.
pluky
@liberal: http://www.agweb.com/mobile/article/how-the-tpp-would-affect-agriculture–naa-tyne-morgan/
SiubhanDuinne
@Mnemosyne:
Richard Cohen is a columnist for WaPo. The Trump lawyer is Michael Cohen. I don’t know how to link Twitter but some of the comments on his tweet asking whether the pussyhats were made in the USA were pretty funny. After a couple of people pointed out that they were hand-knitted by American women for American women, the comments all became variations on “Yeah, but where did the yarn come from, huh? HUH?”
Mart
@dww44: Prior to the election, those long and tedious educational segments were wearing thin.
Glad she helps bring some folks to the progressive fold. I am with Bob Sommerby at the Daily Howler; she rails on shinny objects (and cocktails and penises) but never brings the hammer to the big bad horrible things. Where was she defending Clinton’s emails? Did she let us know how many were classified after the fact. Did she describe the three emails with a “C” in the sidebar, not marked Classified at the top. Where were the “tedious educational segments” that there was nothing there on those fucking god damned emails? On so many big issues, she lays down. Almost like there is a plan.
D58826
@Timurid: Yep. They each got a lollipop so they are happy.
Davebo
@cosima: That a guy writing for the Washington Post (Callum Borchers) decided to use the phrase “butt-hurt” is pretty pathetic in and of itself.
SiubhanDuinne
@hovercraft:
Aw, that pore lil thang. My heart bleeds.
cosima
@Davebo: Interesting point. I hadn’t noticed that – I was too annoyed, I guess, about Zucker’s comments and the fact that it plays right into the shitgibbon’s hands. Which makes me wonder — given that it’s a WaPo story, and with that cavalier phrasing on the part of the writer — if there’s some sort of pissing match going on between the two (CNN & WaPo). Or maybe Borcher is attempting to curry favour with the new administration to ensure that he gets a front row seat.
patrick II
@liberal:
Corporatism used to be in the wiki definition. Somewhere along the line it was removed.
cynthia ackerman
@Mnemosyne:
You’d be wasting your time and yarn.
He’ll never see them, and won’t care that they were sent.
Find a local Dem to support instead.
Better yet, run for something yourself.
No One You Know
@Ohio Mom: OMG. A human wall of knitters. Now that’s a visual…and will start a landslide of Madame DeFarge jokes, with all the edge of a guillotine.
And I think Mnemosyne should do whatever makes her happy! Utilitarianism simply doesn’t pack the same kind of wallop as humor. Anger is a fire, and hate is cruel, but nothing withstands ridicule. Even the quick-witted can’t answer a good visual.
TriassicSands
@Another Scott:
Those were Spicer’s exact words. “Both in person and around the globe” does note mean combined it means that each one was the largest audience in its respective category.
Then, on Monday he lied again. How on earth would Spicer “know” that the worldwide audience watching on TV was the largest ever?
Where did he get that “fact?” Asserting that as fact was a lie. Then, on Monday, claiming that if you combined the two numbers you would come out with the largest combined total was another lie, since he couldn’t possibly have had definitively true numbers about the number of home watchers.