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You are here: Home / Politics / Trumpery / Hail to the Hairpiece / Late Night Open Thread: While Everybody Was Distracted…

Late Night Open Thread: While Everybody Was Distracted…

by Anne Laurie|  February 6, 20171:36 am| 46 Comments

This post is in: Hail to the Hairpiece, Open Threads, Republican Stupidity, Republican Venality, Assholes, Not Normal, Our Failed Media Experiment

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Massive pro-Trump demonstration of at least a dozen people and Fox News is ON IT https://t.co/XEUPn8zMvH

— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) February 5, 2017

Breaking News: Pro-Trump protesters are rallying outside of Trump Tower in New York City. @BryanLlenas pic.twitter.com/UCQNqK4DPQ

— Fox News (@FoxNews) February 5, 2017

I hear they're all being paid by Steve Bannon. @FoxNews https://t.co/XKivcMA9X5

— Charles Johnson (@Green_Footballs) February 5, 2017


.

… “President” Bannon was busy elsewhere:

Buried in the NYT story that just dropped today: "not fully briefed on the order he signed."
What a mess. pic.twitter.com/MPqAsWlZoq

— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) February 6, 2017

Trump signed EO putting Bannon on National Security Council without realizing what he was signing. Now mad at Bannon https://t.co/ALctkvCzG3 pic.twitter.com/Hrovp5Hg7h

— Micah Lee (@micahflee) February 6, 2017

I know this is a common refrain by now, but can you imagine the shitstorm McConnell/Ryan would rain down if this was reported about Obama? https://t.co/TtO0B5Ztqv

— Dave Levitan (@davelevitan) February 6, 2017

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Previous Post: « One to ponder
Next Post: Pre-Dawn Startle-Awake-Nightmare Open Thread: “Trump and Staff Rethink Tactics After Stumbles” »

Reader Interactions

46Comments

  1. 1.

    Mary G

    February 6, 2017 at 1:41 am

    I notice those Pro-Trump “protesters” don’t have many home-made signs. The one in front is holding up a yard sign. Lazy and sad!

  2. 2.

    ? Martin

    February 6, 2017 at 1:41 am

    You notice none of the signs at the pro-Trump rally is handmade? Shades of his announcement to run.

  3. 3.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    February 6, 2017 at 1:42 am

    I’m getting the impression, more each day, that Dolt45 either can’t or has no inclination to read anything.

  4. 4.

    bemused senior

    February 6, 2017 at 1:42 am

    Just ran across this interviewof Theda Schochpol (SP?) and it is mandatory reading for guiding our activism.

  5. 5.

    Mnemosyne

    February 6, 2017 at 1:43 am

    I suspect that the people who think Trump is going to be irate at Bannon getting so much attention are absolutely correct. There is NOTHING a narcissist hates more than being forced to share the spotlight.

    Someone said elsewhere that Bannon likes to compare himself to Thomas Cromwell, but he probably should have waited for Hillary Mantel to finish the trilogy since he doesn’t seem to realize how that story ended for Cromwell …

  6. 6.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    February 6, 2017 at 1:43 am

    @? Martin: So you’re saying they were actors paid $50 each.

  7. 7.

    cynthia ackerman

    February 6, 2017 at 1:45 am

    Unpresidented

  8. 8.

    Redshift

    February 6, 2017 at 1:45 am

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    So you’re saying they were actors paid $50 each.

    Well, promised $50, more likely.

  9. 9.

    Westyny

    February 6, 2017 at 1:47 am

    Saw another photo of a pro Trump rally in Portland, ME. At least a minyan were present.

  10. 10.

    Mnemosyne

    February 6, 2017 at 1:53 am

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    It would be irresponsible not to speculate.

    When I went to the LAX protest, they had markers and posterboard so people could make signs, but some people brought their own.

  11. 11.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    February 6, 2017 at 2:17 am

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    Disturbing (but fact-based) video on SCROTUS literacy. Includes footage of Trump in legal deposition.

  12. 12.

    mdblanche

    February 6, 2017 at 2:20 am

    @Mnemosyne: Wasn’t Cromwell’s downfall due to messing up the choice of his boss’s fourth wife?

  13. 13.

    Darkrose

    February 6, 2017 at 2:23 am

    @Mnemosyne: I hope the executioner is drunk. Metaphorically speaking.

  14. 14.

    NotMax

    February 6, 2017 at 2:23 am

    More people than you can shake a stick at.

    A very small stick.

    Well, a toothpick.

  15. 15.

    amk

    February 6, 2017 at 2:25 am

    Plenty of “trump curious” tears here.

    Too late, morons.

  16. 16.

    NotMax

    February 6, 2017 at 2:29 am

    @Darkrose

    Henry VIII brought over a professional headsman from France.

    I don’t think the French provide that service anymore.

  17. 17.

    Darkrose

    February 6, 2017 at 2:34 am

    @NotMax: That was for Anne Boleyn. Cromwell’s execution was a horribly botched job; reportedly the headsman was drunk.

  18. 18.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    February 6, 2017 at 2:35 am

    It’s another day in LA, another police chase.

  19. 19.

    NotMax

    February 6, 2017 at 2:39 am

    Note for the birders.

    Great Backyard Bird Count set for Feb. 17-20

  20. 20.

    NotMax

    February 6, 2017 at 2:42 am

    @Darkrose

    It was the 16th century. Everyone was drunk.

  21. 21.

    Keith P.

    February 6, 2017 at 2:45 am

    Massive pro-Trump demonstration of at least a dozen people

    Every man there had an erection, and every woman was ovulating left and right.

  22. 22.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    February 6, 2017 at 3:02 am

    @Steeplejack (phone): OMG, he IS fucking illiterate.

  23. 23.

    Steeplejack (tablet)

    February 6, 2017 at 3:03 am

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    That video is pretty convincing.

  24. 24.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    February 6, 2017 at 3:16 am

    @Steeplejack (tablet): One wonders how he managed to get though college. Hired someone to read everything to him?

  25. 25.

    Steeplejack (tablet)

    February 6, 2017 at 3:26 am

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    Pay attention in class, minimize reading, pay for papers. In-class tests could be a problem.

    Or maybe he (or his father) took “buying a degree” to the logical conclusion.

  26. 26.

    Aleta

    February 6, 2017 at 3:30 am

    Headline 1935 at nyt “Hitler to appoint German judges”
    https://mobile.twitter.com/andreapitzer/status/828404442550636545?p=v

  27. 27.

    Steeplejack (tablet)

    February 6, 2017 at 3:30 am

    @Steeplejack (tablet):

    ETA: Or maybe he could read better earlier but let his skills atrophy over the years of being a high-powered deal-maker.

  28. 28.

    Darkrose

    February 6, 2017 at 3:31 am

    Another piece in the NYT about Mar-a-lago:

    Yet here, in the cosseted confines of Mar-a-Lago, those concerns seemed a million miles away. The guests had gathered for the 60th annual Red Cross ball, a staple of the Palm Beach social calendar, which this year carried the theme “From Vienna to Versailles.”

    In keeping with the Hapsburg and Bourbon motif, the male staff members wore powdered wigs and breeches; the women were costumed in flouncy gowns and ash-blonde beehive wigs in the style of Marie Antoinette, the queen guillotined in the French Revolution.

  29. 29.

    J Michael Neal

    February 6, 2017 at 3:51 am

    I just watched the first episode of The OA, and it’s not like anything I’ve seen before. For one thing, the opening credits come an hour into the episode. I am very, very intrigued to see where this series is going.

  30. 30.

    Aleta

    February 6, 2017 at 3:53 am

    @Darkrose: fwiw: From Vienna to Versailles

    https://www.scribd.com/doc/137043338/L-C-B-Seaman-From-Vienna-to-Versailles-1990

  31. 31.

    J R in WV

    February 6, 2017 at 3:57 am

    Banning slipped The Donald an Executive Order putting Banning in charge of the National Security Council – The Donald didn’t know what he was signing, because he doesn’t read anything, even these 1 or 2 page Executive Orders he’s been signing. And The Donald was pissed, but didn’t fire Banning, even after Banning screwed him publicly.

    If The Donald can’t even read a 2 page, large print doc, who’s to say when we start a war with China, because Banning wants to destroy the current civilization?

    We are SO fucked.

  32. 32.

    Aleta

    February 6, 2017 at 4:02 am

    @J R in WV: And if he won’t fire Banning for something like that … another bad sign. Though maybe this leak is sign of the effort to get him out.

  33. 33.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    February 6, 2017 at 4:05 am

    @Steeplejack (tablet): I was also thinking that might be the case, or as you said in the previous comment; dad just could have bought the degree.

  34. 34.

    Ian

    February 6, 2017 at 4:07 am

    but can you imagine the shitstorm McConnell/Ryan would rain down if this was reported about Obama?

    They have become about as venal and corrupt as humanely possible. Filibustering/delaying nominees? That’s apparently the most awful ever that the Democratic party just started for no reason two months ago. Signing executive orders? No problem here, we haven’t ever said or done anything about EOs we don’t agree with. Military raid gone wrong resulting in a American civilian dead? No need to have a years long committee on every single facet of it.

    The rules are one sided.

  35. 35.

    Aleta

    February 6, 2017 at 4:09 am

    From 2000 to 2006 organized civilian populations successfully employed nonviolent methods in cluding boycotts, strikes, protests, and organized noncooperation to challenge entrenched power and exact political concessions in Serbia (2000), Madagascar (2002), Georgia (2003) and Ukraine (2004–05), Lebanon (2005), and Nepal (2006).

    Why Civil Resistance Works The Strategic Logic of
    Nonviolent Conflict
    , Maria J. Stephan and Erica Chenoweth
    (downloadable)
    http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/isec.2008.33.1.7

  36. 36.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    February 6, 2017 at 4:12 am

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    He is 70 now. Maybe he has trouble concentrating in specific areas, like reading.

    Trying to explain it doesn’t make me feel better. Ugh.

    Bedtime for me. Flying back to D.C. tomorrow (Monday).

  37. 37.

    Ian

    February 6, 2017 at 4:16 am

    @Darkrose:
    Don’t quote that trash here. We are interested in journalism.

  38. 38.

    Anne Laurie

    February 6, 2017 at 4:19 am

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    One wonders how he managed to get though college. Hired someone to read everything to him?

    If Trump’s ADHD — which, as a sufferer myself, I suspect — he’ll have developed coping skills. Getting bullet points, having other people take notes for him, promoting ‘study groups’ where he could absorb things from discussions. Paying to have papers written for him, and probably paying (having his dad pay) administrators to prescribe ‘gut’ courses or recommend profs (teaching assistants) who’d be susceptible to pressure.

    And he obviously can read, just not very fluently or easily. It was a lot easier for me to push myself to plod through blocks of boring informational text when I was 20 than it is now that I’m 60, which is true of many people, even high-IQ people who don’t have ADD. Trump’s 70, and he’s never been anything but lazy; his old man might’ve been able to intimidate young Donald into exerting himself, but obviously Ivanka & Jared have no such power over him.

  39. 39.

    opiejeanne

    February 6, 2017 at 5:00 am

    @Darkrose: I’ve been to Versailles, I know why there was a revolution.

    The day that I was there every American around me gasped and said the same thing when they entered the second room, and that was just a tiny prelude of what was to come.

    These fools really have no idea about the rest of the world, do they?

  40. 40.

    Darkrose

    February 6, 2017 at 5:02 am

    @Ian: I’m just remembering people calling Michelle Obama Marie Antoinette because she went on vacation.

  41. 41.

    opiejeanne

    February 6, 2017 at 5:03 am

    @J R in WV: So, was it Banning who dismissed the chairman of the Joint Chiefs as well as the head of National Intelligence?

  42. 42.

    opiejeanne

    February 6, 2017 at 5:11 am

    @Steeplejack (phone): If Trump has had a minor stroke, one that you might not noticed the outward signs of, he may have trouble with his eyes tracking and reading becomes difficult. We have no idea what his health is.

    My dad had that problem after a major stroke and he loved reading so it was a terrible result. A year later you couldn’t tell that Dad had had a major stroke, unless you watched his left hand very closely and that was only because he didn’t complete his therapy, but the ease of reading never came back.

    This is not to excuse Trump at all. He hasn’t given us a health report worth spit which is just one more straw on the camel’s back.

  43. 43.

    PIGL

    February 6, 2017 at 5:26 am

    @amk: at least one writes “i hang my head in shame”. As well she might, at least she seems to recognize it. This raises the question what exactly did all these people imagine they were voting for?

  44. 44.

    Gvg

    February 6, 2017 at 6:16 am

    @PIGL: they may have imagined they were voting for anything. I noticed during the campaign that his supporters projected all kinds of policies and results on to him, in which one persons opinions of him were opposite of the next persons. Often they said he would do things that were contradicted by Trumps own speeches. i think all political campaigns have some of it, just not this extent. I have seen it a little for Obama and Hillary but with Trump supporters it was raving loonie bin.
    They also seemed to believe he could do whatever he said without regard to the actual powers and limits to the President nor taking into account Congress. Reality like how economies really work was not even asked about. There is a large group who seem to think the only reason they didn’t already have their desired outcome is that previous Presidents and Congress had declined to do something. It’s like they didn’t realize our polititian’s didn’t have magical powers and were being spiteful to deny these people a great life. Gah…

  45. 45.

    PIGL

    February 6, 2017 at 7:22 am

    @Gvg: thanks for this thoughtful response.I’m sorry I had fallen back asleep again by the time you wrote it and now I have to go to work.

    I hope you have a good week, all things considered.

  46. 46.

    TenguPhule

    February 6, 2017 at 12:21 pm

    @Ian: At which point, nobody bothers to follow the rules any more. And then its blood and tears time.

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