Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

I was promised a recession.

A last alliance of elves and men. also pet photos.

Today’s GOP: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

He really is that stupid.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

After roe, women are no longer free.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.

You are here: Home / Politics / Trumpery / Dolt 45 / Chew on This Open Thread: April Ryan Is Not Trump’s African-American

Chew on This Open Thread: April Ryan Is Not Trump’s African-American

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Donald Trump tells us that he is the least racist person ever. I would say ‘Donald Trump believes he is the least racist person’, but I’m chary of putting ‘Trump’ and ‘belief’ in the same sentence.

April Ryan, incidentally, is not Donald Trump’s ‘girl’ either (in the Mad Men ‘my girl will set it up with your girl’ sense)…

Reader Interactions

96Comments

  3. 3.

    Hal

    So Seth Meyers wasn’t joking:

    Donald Trump said recently he has a great relationship with the blacks, but unless the Blacks are a family of white people, I bet he is mistaken.”

  6. 6.

    rikyrah

    UH huh

    Kyle Griffin Verified account
    ‏@kylegriffin1

    Rep. Joaquin Castro says GOP Judiciary Cmte. chair Bob Goodlatte wants to deport all 11MIL undocumented immigrants.

  7. 7.

    amk

    @Punchy: The fucking media had bazillion chances to slay this monster. Instead, they built it, fed it and egged it from sidelines. Karma, bitchez.

  8. 8.

    scav

    and, at an additional level, he just sees all random people about him as flunkies and lackeys, there to do his bidding. (or, as manipulables, objects, there for him to insult or jerk around to make some other point. Were all just props on his stage.)

  9. 9.

    Sab

    April Ryan has been covering Congress and the Whitehouse for twenty years. If she doesn’t know most of the CBS members she’s not very good at her job (and as far as I can tell she is very good at her job).The issue isn’t whether prominent black people in one city know each other. It’s that she is not his fucking social secretary. I am Midwestern white. Am I misunderstanding the issues?

  10. 10.

    efgoldman

    @Punchy:

    Really bad things happen once the media is neutered.

    Tricksie Dicksie Nixie thought he was neutering the media, too.
    And he didn’t even have pervasive social media and instantaneous communication to deal with.

  12. 12.

    pharniel

    Sweet zombie jebus this week….

    Oh hey, NuWhite Wolf have released some new ‘games’ for the resurrected Transmedia World of Darkness.

    If you’re interested some technical notes, some story notes & a possible political one

    1 – They’re Visual Novels presented through cellphone conversations, so, if you don’t think of “Choose your own adventures” as ‘games’ then it’s not for you. Bloodlines this isn’t.
    2 – Even though they are paid apps they have ads
    3 – There are current some technical issues
    4 – Not a single person at NuWW (Owned by Paradox Interactive, people who make Europa Universalis, Crusader Kings, Magicka, Stellaris, etc.) or the VN company they hired has played a VN made in the past 12 years such as Fate/Stay Night, Hatefoul Boyfriend, or any of the Christine Love games because there are 0 quality of life enhancements that have become standard after 2005 or so. Be prepaired to spend half an hour going through the same scene with the same choices until you get to the end for the change over, and over, and over.

    Story Notes – They are ‘Edgy’, including a whole host of really super weird stuff. The Mage: the Ascension prelude brings in Syrian refugees, the Vampire: the Masquerade has charactures of ‘the left’. It all feels like a 2nd edition Montreal by Night attempt at edge that just winds up juvenile. YMMV and there are tons who adore the 2nd ed over the top feel. If so – this is for you m8! Congrats, you won the content lottery!

    The ‘political’ issue –

    Zak “You’re the real sex-negative prude ’cause I game with pornstars” Smith wrote the Vampire: the Masquerade one. Zak’s been involved in a great deal of stuff, but NuWW went so far as to proclaim everything he’s ever been accused of is false.

    Zak may or may not be sitting on a crowdsource harassment campaign that’s the primordial version of Gamergate but he is a self admitted gigantic asshole, so, y’now, be aware where your money goes.

    My beef with Zak is the “he’s been an insufferable dick in every interaction I’ve ever had with him” variety, but people I know are in the middle of “Oh look at that, people are trying to bruteforce my accounts” or “I guess I need to find out if it’s safe to go to Gencon” so I don’t look upon him and his with much kindness.

  13. 13.

    efgoldman

    @Sab:

    The issue isn’t whether prominent black people in one city know each other.

    In “reality world” where most of us live, true. In Apricot Asswipe world, “my blacks” all know each other. all live in inner city ghettos, in abject poverty, cowering under their beds in fear of out of control crime…..

  15. 15.

    Peale

    @rikyrah: and a lot of legal ones, too. I’d like to think we can stop this, but people have been promised that they won’t see a Mexican again without a trip to Cancun.

  16. 16.

    Smiling Mortician

    @Sab:

    Am I misunderstanding the issues?

    Yes. You might understand that a veteran reporter would know some members of the CBC. But Trump didn’t know that because he’s too aggressively uninformed to know that. He assumed because the word “black” was involved (hell, he may not even really know what the CBC is) that the black lady was involved and could set it up.

  17. 17.

    Another Scott

    @Sab: The real issue (IMHO) is that Trump is brain damaged and needs to be removed from office ASAP.

    My particular injury was to the frontal lobe, which governs executive functioning, including decision-making, problem-solving, memory, language, initiative and motivation. Additionally, it regulates inhibition, impulse control, judgment and social behavior. One of the questions neurologists routinely ask friends and family of brain-injured people is whether they’re quicker to anger. In my case, oddly, everyone said, “Oh, no, she’s much nicer!” (This has passed.)

    Also, oddly, while I was unable to think of words — calling an umbrella an elephant and saying that my closet, though large, “doesn’t have much parking” — I could conduct mathematical calculations in my head seemingly without thinking.

    The brain is a mysterious place.

    Trump’s seems especially so — unless he is simply displaying signs not of brain injury, necessarily, but of atrophy associated with aging. If so, then this would help explain his impulsiveness, his inappropriate language, his quick temper and a “mean” streak.

    […]

    He’s a danger to the Republic and all of us.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  19. 19.

    RealityBites

    @rikyrah: Goodlatte represents my district. And the word is that he is NOT doing any town hall meetings anytime soon. Also very difficult to reach by phone. So hope we can find someone to defeat him in the next election. I think he’s starting to get a bit antsey.

  21. 21.

    Kay

    Nunes asks FBI to investigate Trump leaks
    The House intelligence chairman has said the president is being targeted by the intelligence community.

    Everyone is attacking Donald Trump UNFAIRLY.

    God almighty- do these people ever stop whining? They whine about protesters, they whine about media, they whine when companies drop their crappy products.

    Apparently the federal government runs whether or not anyone is in charge. We know that now. The whole Trump team can take the next 4 years off if it’s too difficult for them.

  22. 22.

    Yarrow

    I heard that bit of the press conference while in the car. It’s a good thing I was in stop and go traffic because otherwise I think I would have driven off the road. It was shocking to hear. He is so uninformed and unqualified for the job.

    I do think the sexism in the exchange was overlooked. Had it been an African American male reporter who asked the very same question, would Trump have responded in the same way? I don’t know. Would he have asked a male reporter to set up a meeting?

  26. 26.

    Princess

    It sounds like Comey’s briefing this evening freaked out the senators. We’ll see if something comes of it. And one GOP house rep is not calling for an investigation — Walter Jones from NC.

  28. 28.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Corner Stone:

    Wait, wait. Don’t tell me. All black people *do not* actually know each other?

    Pretty sure lamh, rikyrah, the thin black duke, and hovercraft are all besties with Shelley O.

  29. 29.

    Felonius Monk

    As long as all these reporters show up for The Trump Show this kind of nonsense will continue. They need to send one pool reporter to cover these “news conferences” (and I use the term loosely) including the “Spicey Briefings”. This won’t change the Trumpian Word Salad, but it will tend to convey the message that they are on to his bullshit. Trump can’t operate in a vacuum so start taking the air out of the room.

  30. 30.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Sab:

    The issue isn’t whether prominent black people in one city know each other. It’s that she is not his fucking social secretary.

    In all fairness, I believe his scheduler was frogmarched out of the WH earlier today because she couldn’t pass the basic security clearance. So he’s kind of desperate.

  31. 31.

    scott alloway

    To ask a reporter to do his job is insulting. To ask an African-American woman to to intercede for him and do his job is disgusting.

  34. 34.

    Brachiator

    @scav:

    and, at an additional level, he just sees all random people about him as flunkies and lackeys, there to do his bidding. (or, as manipulables, objects, there for him to insult or jerk around to make some other point.

    The great (and appalling) thing about Trump is that there are so many layers to his ignorance and lack of concern for anyone besides himself.

  35. 35.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    In all fairness, I believe his scheduler was frogmarched out of the WH earlier today because she couldn’t pass the basic security clearance. So he’s kind of desperate.

    Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha… Gasp. Pant pant. Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha Keel over.

  39. 39.

    ? Martin

    Trump will focus on jobs and infrastructure.

    “I never imagined that the electrification of a train would be subjected to such brutal, partisan politics,” Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Palo Alto, whose district includes several Caltrain stations, said in a statement. “This is not a Democratic project nor is it a Republican project. It is about the modernization of an outdated commuter system that is the spine of the transportation system of the Peninsula and the Silicon Valley region.”

    Eshoo added that Caltrain electrification “is a shovel-ready project which would create thousands of jobs in the Bay Area and employ thousands in other states. It would be built by American workers and built with American products.”

    Maybe we can work out a deal with China.

    This was already budgeted money, contracts to be awarded in 2 weeks. Gone.

  40. 40.

    opiejeanne

    @Sab: I watched it again and his tone is actually one that you hear when someone is fed up with being nagged, ‘You care so much about this, then YOU set it up.”
    She certainly didn’t deserve that.

  42. 42.

    efgoldman

    @bmoak:

    Maybe he mistook April Ryan for Omarosa?

    Apparently Ryan and Omarosa had a knock down/drag out in the WH

    Manigault, who is now a communications official in the Trump administration, got into a heated argument with a White House reporter just steps from the Oval Office last week, according to witnesses. The reporter, April Ryan, said Manigault “physically intimidated” her in a manner that could have warranted intervention by the Secret Service.
    Ryan also said Manigault made verbal threats, including the assertion that Ryan was among several journalists on whom Trump officials had collected “dossiers” of negative information.
    Manigault, a onetime friend of Ryan’s, declined to address Ryan’s accusations on the record, offering only this emailed statement: “My comment: Fake news!” She did not specify what she considered false

  44. 44.

    Lizzy L

    @Yarrow:

    Would he have asked a male reporter to set up a meeting?

    Good question. I think he would have. As scav pointed out upthread, he sees everyone else in the room as props on his stage. That’s classic narcissism. It’s also rich people syndrome. It’s also how men treat women, and how white people treat non-white people.

    It’s also nuts, that he should ask a reporter to set up a meeting for him with members of Congress. One more piece of evidence that he’s got No. Fucking. Clue. what he’s doing.

  45. 45.

    Mary G

    <a href: https://balloon-juice.com/2017/02/17/chew-on-this-open-thread-april-ryan-is-not-trumps-african-american/#comment-6254048 CNN reports Tillerson has abruptly changed up positions of career officials.

    The unusual move has left career employees on edge about Tillerson’s reorganization of the entire agency and what it might mean for policy making.
    “We keep hearing there is a plan to restructure but nobody knows what is going on,” one senior career officer said. “Everybody is in the dark and it’s causing a lot of anxiety.”
    These career officers consider themselves apolitical, often have regional expertise and serve as liaisons between the State Department leadership and the bureaus where policy expertise is centered.
    The career officials voiced concern that Tillerson, a former CEO of ExxonMobil who has no previous government experience, either doesn’t understand or appreciate the work of the State Department and won’t be a forceful advocate for the agency with the White House.

    Messed up the link, sorry, edit unsuccessful)

  46. 46.

    efgoldman

    @Hungry Joe:

    I’m Jewish and I know every single Jewish-type person.

    I don’t know you. My mom had 700+ cousins and SHE didn’t know you. And Kushner is a putz whether anybody knows him or not.

  49. 49.

    Kay

    President Donald Trump this week abruptly dropped the nation’s commitment to a two-state solution for Middle East peace — without reviewing the specifics of his new strategy with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.
    State Department officials and Tillerson’s top aides learned about the president’s comments in real time, according to two sources with knowledge of the situation. Tillerson himself was in the air when Trump announced the change in the longstanding U.S. position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. At the White House, there was little thought about notifying the nation’s top diplomat because, as one senior staffer put it, “everyone knows Jared [Kushner] is running point on the Israel stuff.”

    Kushner, officially a White House senior adviser, has become something of a foreign policy proxy in the White House — a “shadow secretary of state,” as one administration source described him — corresponding with governments at Trump’s request. That’s causing consternation at Foggy Bottom, as top State Department officials, foreign policy experts and embassy officials are frozen out of foreign policy decisions and often unsure who is doing what, or who is responsible.

    Gosh, I wonder what Trump’s son in law says when he’s “corresponding with governments” on behalf of the United States?

    He has no real job so he’s completely immune from oversight and transparency regulations that apply to actual public employees, right? The rules only apply to the real Secretary of State not the “shadow” one? I guess the public will never know who speaks for us or what they say on our behalf. That will be between Donald Trump and his son in law.

    Imagine for a moment if Hillary Clinton had her son in law acting as a “shadow” Secretary of State and he was undercutting the real Secretary of State? My God, the NY Times would have a team of 15 on it.

  50. 50.

    efgoldman

    @? Martin:

    This was already budgeted money, contracts to be awarded in 2 weeks. Gone.

    The way this maladministration is going, unemployment will double by the end of the year and the economy will be sliding directly into the shitter.
    This is all of a piece with Snotty Walker refusing money and hundreds of jobs for a potential train factory in Wisconsin.
    There are no adjectives crappy enough.

  53. 53.

    efgoldman

    @Mary G:

    Tillerson has abruptly changed up positions of career officials.

    This is typical dick-swinging senior business executive behavior: Get hired by the board of a new corporation, go in the office and reorganize everybody. It happened three or four times in my years at Enormous Brokerage & Mutual Funds LLC.

  55. 55.

    efgoldman

    @amk:

    heh bannnonazi. a great offer for ya.

    Hah! The banner ad at the top of that page is for Verizon. You can’t make this up.

  56. 56.

    ? Martin

    Balloon Juice Tom Friedman gets a supporter for his crazy ideas

    Bill Gates: Certainly there will be taxes that relate to automation. Right now, the human worker who does, say, $50,000 worth of work in a factory, that income is taxed and you get income tax, social security tax, all those things. If a robot comes in to do the same thing, you’d think that we’d tax the robot at a similar level.
    And what the world wants is to take this opportunity to make all the goods and services we have today, and free up labor, let us do a better job of reaching out to the elderly, having smaller class sizes, helping kids with special needs. You know, all of those are things where human empathy and understanding are still very, very unique. And we still deal with an immense shortage of people to help out there.
    So if you can take the labor that used to do the thing automation replaces, and financially and training-wise and fulfillment-wise have that person go off and do these other things, then you’re net ahead. But you can’t just give up that income tax, because that’s part of how you’ve been funding that level of human workers.

    But he’s a billionaire, so his only interest is screwing workers.

  60. 60.

    chris

    @? Martin: Justin Trudeau weighs in. I voted for him and he’s not nearly as progressive as I would like. Kinda like Obama but this works for me.

    Justin Trudeau is blaming corporate and government leaders for the spike in global anger rocking world politics, warning that low wages and the shift to precarious part-time work is at the heart of why citizens are opposing traditional powers.

  62. 62.

    Kay

    @rikyrah:

    did you see what I posted about DeVos in the previous post?

    I did. She’s whining that people are mean to her and there are liberal moles at the US Department of Education.

    She also said people don’t know what kind of “stock” she comes from so they underestimate her gritty grit. You would have to know some wealthy Michigan Dutch to know what this refers to, but what it means is she’s superior to everyone else. There is no group of people more impressed with their own (alleged!) work ethic and general uprightness than that group of people. She’ll be absolutely insufferable. Expect a lot of humble-brags about how frugal she is. That’s key. She’ll make some big to-do over using pencils down to the nubs or something.

  64. 64.

    efgoldman

    @Sab:

    don’t send a pool reporter. Send an intern.

    Have an intern set up video and audio recording, lock the recorders in so they can’t be turned off, and leave the room.

  65. 65.

    danielx

    Harking back to a previous thread…..I thought this was a bad joke for a minute. But it’s real –

    Mainstream Media Accountability Survey

    Having designed a survey or three during the course of my misspent youth, I think I can safely say there are a few, ah, technical issues with the survey. Such as biased questions, a large but narrowly defined audience. On that latter point…

    Not a stats expert, but if memory serves correctly –
    – for a given population of, say, one million or twenty million
    – a sample size of 2000 or thereabouts, bit more maybe
    – will produce roughly the same statistically valid results as a sample of 5000 or 20,000 or a million for that matter.

    So if you have an audience of ten million wingnuts to whom you want to direct a survey, all you need is the email addresses for a million, say – it’s not going to be hard to hard to get responses from 2000, and if you get more all the better. The $ math for achieving reliable sample size online is completely different than doing it by mail – once you have your predefined list it costs not that much more to send the survey to twenty million than a million. So you get your results for 2500 or 10,000 or a million online responses and can claim it’s a statistically valid result at the 95% confidence level, with a maximum error factor of +/- three percent for the results of individual questions and all that good shit. And it’s true enough, the results are valid for that population – they just don’t specify which population. That population consisting primarily of irate older white people, that being about as kindly as I can put it. Shotguns and Pickups, anybody? Bueller?

    As to biased questions….

    17. Do you believe that the media has been far too quick to spread false stories about our movement?

    Yes
    No
    No opinion
    Other, please specify:

    You could change the phrasing to ‘are liberal media stars baby-eating aliens?’ and achieve about the same results.

    Nevertheless, it will serve…it will serve the purpose: to produce predetermined conclusions.

  67. 67.

    Kay

    @rikyrah:

    She has now publicly complained three times about that single protest against her, while constantly repeating that she “listens more than she talks”. I don’t know – she seems to complain a lot so far. Maybe the “not talking” comes later after she’s thru publicly berating the 15 protesters she had to endure for 5 minutes.

  70. 70.

    Sab

    @Kay: I used to live in western Michigan and I couldn’t agree more.

    My stepdaughter and her cousin both have autistic kids and they are freaking out about the Dept of Ed deleting the special needs kids website. For parents of autistic kids who cannot afford the fancy special private schools it was about the only guidance out there. And now it is gone.

  71. 71.

    FlyingToaster

    @Kay: There is not a more unsufferable self-righteous bunch of prigs than Dutch
    Reformed believers. They’re the embodiment of Calvin and the Theory of the Elect (my eye).

    Their God is Mammon; if you’re rich then it’s the sign that God has chosen you. Jeebus.

    DeVos is going to be a whiny ass titty baby for her entire tenure.

  74. 74.

    Tissue Thin Pseudonym

    @danielx:

    So you get your results for 2500 or 10,000 or a million online responses and can claim it’s a statistically valid result at the 95% confidence level, with a maximum error factor of +/- three percent for the results of individual questions and all that good shit. And it’s true enough, the results are valid for that population – they just don’t specify which population. That population consisting primarily of irate older white people, that being about as kindly as I can put it.

    You have overstated the reliability of this kind of poll. The results are only valid for that population, and you have no way of knowing what that population is. Aside from sample size, the response rate of a given poll is also critically important to its reliability. Anything less than getting a returned survey from 75% of your RANDOMLY SELECTED sample causes problems. Anything less than 50%, and your results are pretty much junk. This is why no one does surveys by mail; your response rate for those is typically < 6%. There are only two ways they can be useful: you aren't interested in drawing statistical inferences and are only concerned with seeing what sorts of responses you get for subjective analysis, or because you want to be able to bullshit about your results.

  75. 75.

    Hungry Joe

    @efgoldman: You say you don’t know me. Well, “Hungry Joe” isn’t, in fact, my real name. Maybe you DO know me. Maybe we went to school together. Maybe I’m your cousin. Maybe you owe me money. Maybe I owe YOU money.

    But in any case, Jared Kushner is still a putz.

  78. 78.

    Kay

    My husband was working in western Michigan today and he went to a restaurant and was eating alone at the bar. This man started talking to him and told him he sends Donald Trump a postcard every day telling him he’s doing a great job.

    He’s blunt and this would not be a welcome conversation. He told me he said “I’m just here eating my hamburger. I don’t want to hear about this”. I guffawed just because I feel like everyone else coddles them and acts like their political views are so vital :)

  81. 81.

    danielx

    There are only two ways they can be useful: you aren’t interested in drawing statistical inferences and are only concerned with seeing what sorts of responses you get for subjective analysis, or because you want to be able to bullshit about your results.

    Yeah, pretty much. In this instance I gotta go with door #2, since I don’t imagine this particular entity is particularly interested in analysis. Somehow they don’t seem like they have much interest in analysis or analytical technique unless the analysis supports what they want to hear…which again leads us to door #2.

    And you’re right again –

    You have overstated the reliability of this kind of poll. The results are only valid for that population, and you have no way of knowing what that population is. Aside from sample size, the response rate of a given poll is also critically important to its reliability. Anything less than getting a returned survey from 75% of your RANDOMLY SELECTED sample causes problems. Anything less than 50%, and your results are pretty much junk. This is why no one does surveys by mail; your response rate for those is typically < 6%.

    Again true – but I’m assuming, in this instance, that it’s NOT a random sample but instead being sent to a sample of a very specific population – wingnuts with a propensity for answering surveys, which I can’t imagine would be a hard list to acquire. Some other qualifiers too, but those are the essential cuts – wingnuts with an intensity level equal too or exceeding N, or whatever. If all you want is to get survey results that tell you what you want to hear from your selected audience anyway, which I suspect is the purpose here and wouldn’t be hard to do, what else do you need? Trump wants a poll telling him what he wants to hear from the audience he wants to hear from? I mean, hell, I could come up with that. It’s more or less what he’s doing with this ridiculous rally tomorrow, letting him wallow in the love – or hate as the case may be.

    ETA: And with that, enough stats horseshit for the evening. I yield the floor to my learned colleague, sir/ma’am.

  82. 82.

    Tissue Thin Pseudonym

    I’m pretty sure that the reason why people in the Netherlands are considered likable and fun is because they exported most of their insufferable assholes to South Africa and western Michigan.

    I say “most” because we still have to explain Geert Wilders.

  83. 83.

    opiejeanne

    @Sab: I won’t take any credit. It was purely accidental, but I did notice the tone. He was exasperated and rude and … oh, what’s the use, the guy is a total asshole.

  84. 84.

    Kay

    @FlyingToaster:

    I love the frugality signaling. It’s like a game. Competitive. “I bought this coat in college”. “Really? Well, this was originally my Easter dress when I was 13“.

    DeVos has, I believe, 12 yachts. I guarantee she’ll institute some dumb limit on copier paper or something to prove she’s just like the pioneers.

  86. 86.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Kay:

    DeVos has, I believe, 12 yachts.

    Pretty sure this was my personal through-the-looking-glass moment.

    What, she’s a member of the “Yacht-of-the-Month” Club? She has a yacht for each Zodiac sign? TWELVE YACHTS??? WTF?

  88. 88.

    Anne Laurie

    @Tissue Thin Pseudonym:

    I’m pretty sure that the reason why people in the Netherlands are considered likable and fun is because they exported most of their insufferable assholes to South Africa and western Michigan.

    Don’t forget Ian Paisley’s ancestors — they’re ‘Orangemen’ after William of Orange. Speaking of insufferable assholes.

    (P.S. I first hear that ‘why the modern Dutch are such tolerant level-headed folk’ jape from a native Netherlander… )

  89. 89.

    workworkwork

    @Anne Laurie: I once worked with a consultant from the Netherlands. He told me the reason the Dutch smile so much is so they won’t get mistaken for Germans.

  90. 90.

    'Nuffsaid

    I’m from Boston, and when I tell people that, I usually get a “I knew a Jimmy, no, James from Boston. James, I don’t know, something Irish. do you know him”? Yeah, we’re tight. Irish Jimmy and me. Boston. Really?

  91. 91.

    prob50

    Trump’s mind/thought processes are like a constant stream of cluelessness. They flow merrily downstream , unimpeded by logic or any sense of propriety, picking up mass, momentum and speed until it becomes a raging river of dickwad craziness.

    It’s really almost breathtaking.

  93. 93.

    Gelfling 545

    @Kay: I may start sending a similar post card. I’d like Trump to keep up his nonsense a bit longer so that the Republicans can be firmly tethered to him and all but his most demented followers are heartily sick of him. Don’t change a thing, Donnie!

  95. 95.

    Ian

    @GrandJury:
    To me the public transfer from federal lands to the states is more important. To me the gutting of the justice department and environmental protection administration is more important. Please do not presume your concerns are more valid than others.

  96. 96.

    Tehanu

    @Lizzy L:

    As scav pointed out upthread, he sees everyone else in the room as props on his stage. That’s classic narcissism. It’s also rich people syndrome. It’s also how men treat women, and how white people treat non-white people.

    I work for a big corporation. This is simply manager behavior: you’re in their office, you bring up some topic, and they immediately jump to, “Well, set up a team and start working on it,” because they assume that’s why you, their employee, brought it up. Dump thinks he’s in a CEO’s office and every single person in the room is there to take his orders — male, female, black, white, or purple people-eater.

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