Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Republicans in disarray!

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

T R E 4 5 O N

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

I didn’t have alien invasion on my 2023 BINGO card.

The words do not have to be perfect.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

You cannot shame the shameless.

Let’s finish the job.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

Bark louder, little dog.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

This blog will pay for itself.

Second rate reporter says what?

Peak wingnut was a lie.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Open Thread: Trump’s State of the Disunion Speech

Open Thread: Trump’s State of the Disunion Speech

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ETA:

Here’s the Guardian livefeed (which is how I’m listening).

So far, it’s a half-hearted recap of his campaign-trail greatest hits: Carnage in the inner cities (gang violence conflated with ‘a shooting in Kansas’; stock market gains; only he can Make America Great Again; regulations will be trashcanned; build A WALL!!!).

Reader Interactions

282Comments

  6. 6.

    Keith G

    @SiubhanDuinne: I am watching on VOX’s Facebook page. All the frowning emojis as he walked in are cracking me up. But I was just there for the warm up. Not going to watch this.

  12. 12.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Black History Month – CHECK
    Vandalized Jewish Cemeteries – CHECK
    Indians shot in Kansas City -CHECK

    Okay, so much for the sop to Diversity Cerberus, now back to the base.

  13. 13.

    Betty Cracker

    I’d rather chew an entire roll of tinfoil than listen to that vile sack of shit address Congress. Y’all let me know if he strokes out. I’d tune in for that.

  15. 15.

    TS

    @Keith G:

    How cute. A little Black girl next to FLOTUS.

    Read that – thought – well why not – Michelle Obama always gets it right.

    No way wife 3 of orange man 2 will ever be FLOTUS on my watch. Michelle has that title for life.

  16. 16.

    ThresherK

    @SiubhanDuinne: How dare you sully the memory of James Cagney?

    Cagney played better, more accomplished crooks than Trump is, and also good guys Trump will never be.

    (However, the last hurrah as the racist Irish cop in “Ragtime” might be up Trump’s alley.)

  21. 21.

    jl

    I’l read about the mess later. Good luck to everyone who is going to expose themselves to it in real time. Or ever watch the moving pics with sound.

  25. 25.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @ThresherK:

    How dare you sully the memory of James Cagney?

    No offence to the great James Cagney. In an earlier thread I noted that Trump has this weird way of speaking that sounds like a second-rate impressionist doing a bad imitation of Cagney. Should have spelled it out here instead of using shorthand.

  27. 27.

    Elizabelle

    Several good basketball games on tonight.

    There’s an Indiana-Purdue game. Gives Hoosiers another reason not to watch their unbeloved former guv, behind the Orange One. They be grateful.

  29. 29.

    JGabriel

    I hear there’s a crazy man giving a speech in front of Congress tonight and all the networks are broadcasting it. Is that true?

  31. 31.

    TriassicSands

    OMG, in 2016, “the earth shifted beneath our feet.”

    Fact checkers take your marks…

    I, Donald Trump, am responsible for every good thing that has happened since my historic victory last November…

  32. 32.

    Eric S.

    @Elizabelle: I rarely watch him. Occasionally I feel like I need to hear the opposition.

    Sadly this is my 2nd surgery. So far it’s going better. The doc gave a good report.

    Fuck Me! He just fucking applauded himself.

  34. 34.

    Dumbspear O'Sparrow

    James Cagney was interesting politically. A lefty Democrat in the 1930s when his good friend Pat O’Brien was a determined Republican, after WW2 he turned around (like Reagan, etc., etc.) and O’Brien said Cagney made him look like a liberal.

  41. 41.

    Steeplejack

    This speech is even more word-salad-y than I expected. Trump sounds like a bad high school valedictorian on an ego high.

    Big observation so far: When Trump came in, and on all the applause points, there is not only applause but almost raucous, frat-boy style cheering, which I presume is coming from the Republicans. I don’t remember vocal cheering from previous addresses.

  44. 44.

    Keith G

    Just before switching to an episode of the Young Pope, I heard him say he is issuing a directive the the Dakota Access pipeline only use steel from America.

    So he is going to order private companies to use the contruction supplies that Trump feels to be appropriate? Hmmm.

  47. 47.

    Quinerly

    I shouldn’t be watching this. In Marble Canyon, AZ…half way mark of 6 weeks road trip. Very disturbing speech. A Hopi man I chatted with earlier today when I was filling up with gas called Trump “sinister.” Works for me.

  50. 50.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Eric S.:

    Fuck Me! He just fucking applauded himself.

    Seriously? SRSLY??

    (Don’t know why I should act surprised. This is so like him.)

  51. 51.

    JGabriel

    Keith P.:

    Somebody’s got the sniffles again

    What with all the security and LEO’s watching Crooked Donald, how the hell does he find a way to score an 8-ball of coke and snort it all down without anyone noticing and leaking photos?

  52. 52.

    Steeplejack

    Uh-oh. Now Trump has launched into a recitation of the bad situation he inherited. He’s throwing out a blizzard of statistics, 98% of which will be shown to be absolutely false upon review.

  55. 55.

    Prufock

    The last time Dolt 45 addressed the nation, I was in the emergency room, doubled over in pain from a gangrene laced gall bladder that would be taken out the next day. Still wasn’t as bad as having to listen to the press conference in the waiting room. I won’t be subjecting myself to that tonight.

  56. 56.

    Sab

    @Betty Cracker: I am watching the NASA channel. Earlier the astronauts were playing with their Food! Shocking on the taxpayers dime, but otherwise very cool. Squirting little dabs of honey at each other that the other guys kind of dived/floated to bite at. Are space station guys still astronauts or are they called something else?Also women in space. Longer hair weightless is not a good look.But cool that they are there. Can’the win. Crew cut women in space probably also not a good look unless Sigourney Weaver.*

  58. 58.

    TriassicSands

    In recent years, the applause has gotten out of hand. However, tonight it seems like the cheering and over-the-top applause have reached a new high. The funny thing is that it is Republicans doing all the cheering but they are soon going to face one conflict after another with Trump and his public statements. Unless, of course, Trump doesn’t mean a word he utters (LAUGHTER).

  59. 59.

    Ian

    @Mike J:
    If you had to choose, what choice would you make? I can’t blame her one bit, besides it only costing American taxpayers millions.

  61. 61.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @SiubhanDuinne:
    This is the kind of thing that’s gotten him made fun of in the past. I wonder if it will be the ‘take away moment’ from this speech?

    @Steeplejack:
    He’s pissed off the news companies enough, they might fact check him. ‘Here’s a list of Trump’s lies’ articles would also be a great legacy for his first SOTU.

  65. 65.

    JGabriel

    @Keith P.:

    Kellyanne looks like she’s carrying. Or at least has the means for staying up days at a time.

    Ahh… yes, that makes sense.

  66. 66.

    TS

    @Mike J:

    It’s hard to think of somebody who views living in the White House as beneath them as FLOTUS.

    Trophy wife, trophy FLOTUS.

  67. 67.

    efgoldman

    @Keith G:

    So he is going to order private companies to use the contruction supplies that Trump feels to be appropriate?

    It’s probably all made and purchased already.

  69. 69.

    Quinerly

    @Baud:
    I’m finding the applause disconcerting. And, yes, Joe Manchin applauded. I also saw Saint Bernie in a half applause. Repugs noisy.Dems too polite

  75. 75.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Eric S.: That was the color Gandhi’s followers too. White/off white homespun cloth. Also, in the Hindu context, white is the color of mourning.

    ETA: Homespun so as to not use the cloth from British mills.

  77. 77.

    Steeplejack

    Infrastructure! He will propose a $1 trillion plan that will create “millions” of new jobs. Verbatim.

  81. 81.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Keith G: The pipes for that pipeline were purchased several years ago and have been sitting outside weathering in the elements for the past two years as things have been held up. The same with the Keystone XL pipeline pipes. They weren’t made with American steel. And, more’s the pity and potential calamity, no one will force either company to replace them with new pipes that have not been exposed to the elements for prolonged periods becoming degraded and more likely to crack, break, fracture, and therefore leak.

  83. 83.

    Steeplejack

    He is really overpromising on the “replace” part. Paul Ryan has gone to his special place inside his head.

    Uh-oh. More bullshit statistics. The fact-checkers are going to have a field day overnight. Or a coronary.

  84. 84.

    lamh36

    I took a dinner break…moms cooked me a meal on my last night in her apartment (technically I be back and forth for a couple more days, but tonight is the last night I still officially don’t have my own apartment).

    I’m back now, watching Futurama in the background and following along on twiiter and FB as I surf the net for new furniture.

    this pic of Elena Kagan I think is all of us…lol
    @joshsternberg
    We are all Elena Kagan

  85. 85.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Hunh, interesting, he deliberately gave a shoutout to Matt Bevin and KYnect, knowing full well of course that Steve Beshear is giving the Dem response.

  86. 86.

    amk

    so the rethugs have collectively gone all the way in and are going to jump off the cliff with the twitler. good for them.

  89. 89.

    Quinerly

    @Elizabelle:
    He’s exhausted. Snoring loudly. He’s pretty pampered for an ex street dog. I am the women who has driven Poco through 5 states, 3300 miles. I posted something similar on my Book of Faces page and a friend who I thought knew me pretty well thought I was on the road with the band.?

  91. 91.

    tobie

    @misterpuff: Tweety is too stupid to know the difference between tax credits and direct investment, when it comes to infrastructure. This is an infrastructure plan that reduces the taxes of large players in the building trades. How much it will actually do to improve infrastructure is open to question.

  92. 92.

    Steeplejack

    Bring down drug prices now! Yay!

    Sell insurance across state lines! It’s the answer to everything. How come Mayhew never told us this?

  93. 93.

    TS

    @schrodingers_cat:

    How do you know that she doesn’t want to be there or T doesn’t.

    That she isn’t there is a good reason to assume she doesn’t want to be there. Millions of people cope with schooling their children when they have to move house – this one – like her husband – blamed a 10 year old child for keeping her from the white house.

  94. 94.

    misterpuff

    Trump is really bad at this. Doesn’t look into the camera, reading the teleprompter woodenly, fat little pig eyes, jutting jaw, no gravitas.

  95. 95.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Quinerly:

    a friend who I thought knew me pretty well thought I was on the road with the band.?

    HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! That is so great! LOVE!

  106. 106.

    efgoldman

    @Adam L Silverman:

    no one will force either company to replace them with new pipes that have not been exposed to the elements for prolonged periods becoming degraded and more likely to crack, break, fracture, and therefore leak.

    All pipelines leak, no?

  109. 109.

    Steeplejack

    “The unbounded power of a father’s love for his daughter.” Danger! Danger!

    (Said about the rare-disease poster girl, but it’s Trump talking.)

  111. 111.

    JPL

    I’ve been at a debate for an upcoming city council election, on a scale of A to D, how is he doing?
    Did he pivot?

  113. 113.

    The Dangerman

    @Betty Cracker:

    I’d rather chew an entire roll of tinfoil than listen to that vile sack of shit address Congress.

    I’d rather stir my drink with a well used toilet brush* than to listen to that fascist fuck.

    *yes, my Trump era drinks ARE that big

  114. 114.

    Adam L Silverman

    @efgoldman: Yes, but if you want to make it more likely to happen sooner. And to be a bigger more damaging leak then you use old pipes that have been weathering outside exposed to the elements for prolonged periods of time.

  115. 115.

    lamh36

    @GRYKING
    Wait. He wants clear air and water? But didn’t Trump just signed executive orders to rollback the regulations? #JointAddress

  116. 116.

    misterpuff

    Thank God Megan’s parents were rich or obviously had health insurance.

    Oh that’s the catch…Megan could have been cured faster if we didn’t have restrictions on drug testing….regulations bad! Sad, really.

  117. 117.

    lamh36

    @AriFleischer 44m44 minutes ago
    More
    The fact that some Ds won’t shake his hand or are boycotting the speech is sickening. 70 Ds boycotted his Inaugural. Enough is enough.

    @psddluva4evah
    @AriFleischer “You Lie”…sound familiar?

  118. 118.

    Steeplejack

    These hypocritical fucks are giving a standing ovation to the black woman who “broke the cycle of poverty” and is about to get her master’s degree.

    And why is she showing up at a Trump event?!

  121. 121.

    lamh36

    @tbogg
    Trump talks about a young black woman getting a college degree — segues to shootings in Chicago for some reason

  122. 122.

    Elie

    @Eric S.:
    Well I hope you have your pain meds ready to go. And ice. First night for my knee and shoulder surgeries were not fun once the block wore off

  127. 127.

    Steeplejack

    Holy shit! He has ordered Homeland Security to “create an office to serve American victims”: VOICE—Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement. Audible groans from the audience.

  128. 128.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Talks about Jamil’s potential. I kept thinking about Michael Brown’s and Trayvon Martin’s potential, for some reason.

  130. 130.

    Soprano2

    I guess these deaths would have been less tragic if they had been killed by legal immigrants or citizens. That’s what I hate about this kind of thing, the idea that the deaths are worse because of who killed them.

  133. 133.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Jamil’s potential? Why do I keep thinking about Michael Brown’s potential and Trayvon Martin’s potential??

  134. 134.

    Steeplejack

    And now he’s trotting out four victims or relatives of victims of immigrant crime engagement.

    Trump is detestable.

  136. 136.

    zhena gogolia

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    I actually heard Cagney say “dirty rats” in an early gangster film on TCM, the name of which escapes me. So it’s not like Cary Grant’s “Judy, Judy, Judy.” He actually said it at least once.

  137. 137.

    TriassicSands

    Shorter Trump:

    We’re going to make America perfect.
    We’re going to rebuild our infrastructure.
    We’re going to get rid of Obamacare and replace it with something great.
    We’re going to build the wall.
    We’re going to zero out our trade deficit by making bullies stop picking on us.
    We’re going to increase the defense budget.
    We’re going to cut crime to zero.
    We’re going to stop all illegal drugs from coming into this country.
    We’re going to provide child care.
    We’re going to…well, do everything and
    We’re going to cut taxes to pay for it all.

  144. 144.

    TriassicSands

    @hovercraft:
    Yes, it’s over. And, yes, you missed the greatest political speech ever delivered to the most adoring country ever to worship a president.

  146. 146.

    misterpuff

    Trump has turned this sham SOTU into a prosecution of Immigrant Bad Hombreism using who I assume are good people to justify the Threat and the Hate.

    Now the widow of the SEAL who was killed in Yemen. Successful and valuable mission! Where’s Dad?

  147. 147.

    efgoldman

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Nancy SMASH, Elena Kagan, and Notorious RBG are bringing it tonight.

    Still should have boycotted or walked out.
    Not every asshole who gets that podium deserves consideration.

  148. 148.

    lamh36

    I see Chuckles and Cillizza are trying to outshine each other while on their knees for Cheeto Prez

    @chucktodd
    He’s hitting the same issues and themes he talks about at rallies but this is the first time he’s used a different tone to sell his agenda

    @TheFix
    Chris Cillizza Retweeted
    This is exactly right. Less hard-edged.

  151. 151.

    Quinerly

    @Steeplejack:
    Said it earlier. I’m traveling. 80 year old Hopi man today outside of Tuba City, AZ used the word, “sinister” to describe Trump. He added that we should “beware.”

  159. 159.

    TriassicSands

    @hovercraft:
    Ooops, Nope, not over yet. He just can’t shut up.

    Odds in Las Vegas are now that he will keep speaking for 7 days and 12 hours. And the Republicans will continue applauding like complete idiots the whole time.

  162. 162.

    lamh36

    Ryan Owen’s widow…does this woman NOT realize that Cheeto Prez is the one who ordered the fuqn raid that killed her husband?

    Hell his own fuqn’ father called out Trump to say he wanted the truth

  164. 164.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Okay, this is really odd. Typing Michael Brown makes the comment disappear (not go into moderation, just disappear POOF), but if I put the italic tag in between Michael and Brown, it goes through okay. That is so weird.

  166. 166.

    Steeplejack

    The co-opting of Navy SEAL Ryan Owens’s widow is obscene. Camera zeroing in on her crying and looking skyward at the end of the speech. (She was seated next to Ivanka, who gave her concerned patting.)

  168. 168.

    TriassicSands

    I just realized what this speech is missing…

    The public execution of an undocumented immigrant who killed an American citizen. Hang him from the balcony and Republican politicians can beat on him with baseball bats until there is nothing left.

  170. 170.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Baud: My guess is she got moderation for something and is testing words and combos to figure out why. Or she snapped. Who can tell?

  174. 174.

    zhena gogolia

    Is there any hope, any hope at all, that we can get rid of this obscene excuse for a human being as the President of the United States?

  180. 180.

    TriassicSands

    @hovercraft:

    Relax, that is all covered under “everything.”

    Your Tesla will be arriving soon.

    But, wait, why do you need a car. You’ve already got a “hovercraft.”

  182. 182.

    mai naem mobile

    @Keith G: isn’t FLOTUS worried that she’s going to get cooties from the little black girl like they were about the Obamas’ jungle gym?

  183. 183.

    Steeplejack

    There’s a weird thing on the audio feed (MSNBC for me) where it sounds like the clapping is in unison, like to a beat. Not like regular clapping.

  184. 184.

    Quinerly

    @lamh36:
    Owen’s widow caught me by surprise. Had no idea she was going to be there. Certainly not on the same page as her father in law.

  187. 187.

    Juju

    @Omnes Omnibus: I haven’t made it all the way through, but it’s suffragette white with purple, if your question hasn’t been answered yet. If it has been…never mind.

  192. 192.

    Steeplejack

    Okay, I’m some minutes behind because I can’t take this in in real time.

    Another verbatim Trump quote, after extended applause for Ryan’s widow: “And Ryan is looking down right now—you know that—and he’s very happy, because I think he just broke a record.” And the Republican fuckers laughed!

  193. 193.

    Adam L Silverman

    He did the one blood, one flag, one nation thing. Nothing somewhat creepy about that at all.

  200. 200.

    Soprano2

    The CBS commentators said he reached across the aisle to Democrats. No he didn’t, he chastised them and shook his finger at them, insisting they need to do what he wants.

    They’re all so excited because Trump sounded “normal” to them. Puke!

  202. 202.

    SiubhanDuinne

    So at some point in the far distant past (15 minutes ago?) I had something pertinent to say about Trayvon Martin and the young man who was shot down in Ferguson, MO. His first name was Michael, his second name was Brown. For some inexplicable reason, I cannot send a comment with that young man’s name unless I separate forename from surname with [em] [/em] tags. Wasn’t sure what specifically in my comments kept disappearing them, so was testing out different words and combinations and tags.

    WTF, though?

  204. 204.

    hovercraft

    @TriassicSands:
    A girl likes to keep her options open. I want my goddamn car.
    Don’t the GOPers understand the creature they are dealing with, the more you flatter him, the longer he will preen.

  205. 205.

    patroclus

    For Trump, that was a really a well-delivered speech. He stuck with the script, promised the moon and had no embarrassing off-the-cuff slip-ups. Of course, it was far more campaign promisy than legislative proposals filled with details and most of what he promised is pie-in-the-sky that can never be achieved, but that won’t become clear until he doesn’t follow through. But that’s the advantage of being new, he can’t be tested as yet on his promises and he can get away with a speech like this at least once. The only really dark moments were when he demonized immigrants time and time again. But it was delivered more benignly than usual, so that was a good step. I suspect it will play well with his base; not so much with others.

  207. 207.

    Steeplejack

    @Soprano2:

    He didn’t reach across the aisle for shit! This reminds me that I’m not sure how much of the MSNBC pundits I can take.

    Just finishing the address now because I got behind documenting the horror.

  212. 212.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @patroclus:

    The only really dark moments were when he demonized immigrants time and time again.

    Aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?

  215. 215.

    Quinerly

    @Alain the site fixer:
    We have a lot of action shots! (sniffing and pissing)?
    I fear we have lost our fellow travelers in that AM thread. And I have no prickly pear cheesecake to pull out of my pocket to piss people off with.

  216. 216.

    Aleta

    In three years of living here the dog, a sensitive soul, has never thrown up. (At least visibly. He’s that polite.) I go back into the living room, and Trump is leading an eternal ovation to a woman, who must be the wife of the fallen Navy Seal. And the dog is vomiting up a huge quantity of muck. Bizarre.

  218. 218.

    Tazj

    @zhena gogolia: This is what I keep wondering. Is there any hope for impeachment?Will the press turn up the heat? Sadly, the usual suspects(Tweety, Todd, and Cillizza) seemed to be thrilled with this speech. That’s not a surprise, but it’s still disappointing.

  220. 220.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Steeplejack:

    There’s a weird thing on the audio feed (MSNBC for me) where it sounds like the clapping is in unison, like to a beat. Not like regular clapping.

    @Quinerly:

    I’m on CNN (only channel I could get in the motel)and thought the same thing about the clapping.

    Yup, listening on NPR. That’s how it sounded to me as well.

  221. 221.

    Adam L Silverman

    @SiubhanDuinne: So your comments have been freed by Alain. And I fixed the problem, which is that someone using Michael Brown as a nym had been blacklisted, and this was done including the nym, which then pushed any comment with Michael Brown in it into the trash folder.

  223. 223.

    Adam L Silverman

    @zhena gogolia: Yep. Not the first time he’s done it, but the first time he didn’t garble it. He used it last week or the week before and it came out as we all bleed the same blood. Which just sends funny. Also it ignores the ABO blood typing schema.

  224. 224.

    Steeplejack

    @zhena gogolia:

    Verbatim: “We are one people with one destiny. We all bleed the same blood. We all salute the same great American flag. And we all are made by the same God.”

  225. 225.

    TriassicSands

    @hovercraft:

    But the longer he preens, the longer Grannystarver gets to sit behind him with his smug, self-satisfied smirk.

    The over-the-top applause and cheering were, to me anyway, quite striking. They were cheering for issues about which there is a reasonable to strong likelihood that they are going to run into conflict with Trump. I guess they figure he will fold, which is easy for him to do since he doesn’t actually believe anything.

  230. 230.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Adam L Silverman:
    @Alain the site fixer:

    Thank you, both.

    Alain, is there any way you or someone could put up a list (in the “quick links” thing) that lists all the words, phrases, and names/nyms that will trigger either moderation or a complete ::poof:: disappearance? I think it would save a lot of time and frustration for those of us who stumble all unwittingly into a forbidden snare, as I did earlier in this thread.

  231. 231.

    Steeplejack

    Fuck you, Tweety. The big moment of the speech for him was Karen Owens, the SEAL widow. Of course. He probably splooged in his $2,000 suit. What a fucking tool.

  233. 233.

    Aleta

    @SiubhanDuinne: @Steeplejack: On ABC during the ovation for the military wife, it sounded like that too. It sounded like Trump clapping loudly into his mike and others going into synch.

    I’m sorry to say that the clapping through the whole speech rang like fascist-Italy to me.

  235. 235.

    Another Scott

    @Adam L Silverman: I’m not sure that’s true.

    Metal usually fatigues and fails at joints. If it’s seamless pipe (dunno if it is), then it probably really doesn’t matter much if its in the ground or above. What matters is how well the welding is done (how clean the joint is, etc.). If it’s not seamless pipe, if the welding is done correctly at the factory then it’s just as strong as the rest of the pipe.

    Assuming the pipeline isn’t in salt water, etc., of course.

    E.g..

    FWIW.

    Donnie did say that he was going to insist that US pipe and steel be used in these pipelines (warning – autoplay), but he’s too stupid to know how these things work in the real world…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  243. 243.

    Another Scott

    @SiubhanDuinne: and is a FYWP word now.

    :-/

    Seriously, something seems broken with editing again. Earlier today I tried fixing a comment at least 6 times and it still disappeared no matter what I did.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  252. 252.

    Adam L Silverman

    @SiubhanDuinne: Well Alain freed that comment, so scroll up and read it and then you’ll know. But I think it was in reference to something the President said about African Americans during his speech.

  253. 253.

    Anne Laurie

    @Aleta:

    I’m sorry to say that the clapping through the whole speech rang like fascist-Italy to me.

    Look, applauding for one’s self — as Trump just did, constantly — is simply Not Done. Once you breach that social barrier, you’re just encouraging your hangers-on to behave like the feral boobs they are.

    (No wonder your poor dog was nauseated!)

  254. 254.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Another Scott: That’s a new feature we’re piloting. We’re calling it: “we’ve replaced Another Scott’s edit button with a button marked edit that does random things, lets see if he notices…”

  256. 256.

    Anne Laurie

    @Sab:

    I had always thought purple was the suffrages color, and wondered where this white stuff was coming from.

    Mostly, I suspect, it’s just that more women have something white/ivory in their wardrobes than they do purple/violet or green. But white’s very ‘visible’ in crowd scenes, too!

  257. 257.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Omnes Omnibus: The first timeline is for a security studies professor. Several folks who have either served in the Royal Army or the Territorial Army or have close friends that have have weighed in and basically are alleging that he’s a Walter Mitty type. His claim is he worked on Northern Ireland stuff in the 90s when in the Territorial Army (TA) while an undergrad. Specifically that he was in the 22nd COY. The 22nd COY had nothing to do with Northern Ireland, rather it was focused on post Soviet Eastern Europe and Russia. Given that service in the TA for the 3 years he claims to have been in would have worked out to about 3 months total, he didn’t do much of anything – most likely translated Hungarian newspapers.

    The second feed does a deep dive into his claims, including gathering Hungarian language sources about him and provides translations. Some really interesting stuff there laying out just how dubious his claims are. He knows nothing about terrorism beyond a casual/superficial amount. Other than the job title he had at NDU’s CISA, he has absolutely no experience with special operations, irregular, asymmetric, and/or unconventional warfare.

  262. 262.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Omnes Omnibus: Sort of. Some of the folks tweeting are indicating service in the same unit at the same time and not having any idea who he is. At some point someone will find a way to get the British equivalent of a DD 214 out and then we’ll have a better idea what’s what.

  263. 263.

    Another Scott

    @Adam L Silverman: There was an interesting piece on NPR about him a few days ago.

    SEBASTIAN GORKA: The era of the pajama boy is over January 20, and the alpha males are back.

    WELNA: Gorka is the new White House counterterrorism czar, part of what’s called the Strategic Initiatives group headed by his former boss at Breitbart News, Chief White House Strategist Stephen Bannon. Counterterrorism expert Michael Smith voted for Trump, but he’s questioned Gorka’s credentials under the Twitter hashtag #faketerrorismexpert. Earlier this week, Smith got a threatening phone call from Gorka himself.

    MICHAEL SMITH: I immediately thought this must be a prank call because he’s calling me from a cell phone, suggesting that he wants to talk about official business – specifically, elevating awareness of my tweets about him to White House legal counsel. So that’s a phone call that should be made on an official White House line.

    WELNA: And a call, Smith adds, that should have been recorded, which is exactly what he did as Gorka lit into him.

    Only the “best people”… :-/

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  266. 266.

    efgoldman

    @Adam L Silverman:

    At some point someone will find a way to get the British equivalent of a DD 214 out and then we’ll have a better idea what’s what.

    A professorial type over at LG&M got into the asshole’s doctoral dissertation. Basically it is a fact-free mess; the writing would have gotten him a C, maybe, from my daughter’s junior year high school English teacher. It is awful and impenetrable.

  267. 267.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Omnes Omnibus: No, he’s claiming service in a Territorial Army unit that he has described as the 22nd Intel COY and at other times as the 22nd doing counterterrorism force protection for Northern Ireland. The unit indicator has been removed from his wikipedia page and other bios. He’s separately claimed that he trained the SAS. This has been met with a lot of skepticism, though several of the people going back and forth on it in the first twitter time line think that you could be generous if he once briefed some SAS personnel or if he, after getting his PhD gave a lecture to an SAS unit about something. The problem is that the Marshall Center folks have come out and distanced themselves from him – stating that the affiliation that he claims is not at all what the relationship was. Several of his former colleagues at NDU CISA have come out and indicated that he was problematic and Marine Corps University has come out and distanced themselves from his service there on an externally funded, via the Marine Corps University Foundation, named professorship. Especially now that it has been reported that the person that funded the professorship is a relative of his wife’s who is an heiress.

    Everyone glosses certain things on their resumes, but there’s a ton of gloss here.

  268. 268.

    Adam L Silverman

    @efgoldman: I’m aware of what Professor Nexon is doing. I have reviewed the dissertation as well. The bibliography is all you need to read to know, if you’re familiar with the literature on terrorism – from the first generation of scholars through to my generation that was working on our advanced degrees in the 90s and early 00s, to the folks that have come up since then – that its bad. You’d have noticed that almost none of them were listed in the bibliography.

  270. 270.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Omnes Omnibus: I have copies of all my TDY orders and correspondence with my POCs so if anyone says: USAREUR didn’t have a cultural advisor, I can say I was TACONed to them from USAWC as Cultural Advisor. My support began in DEC 2013, I was on site in JAN 2014 and again in APR 2014, and the remaining support was done remotely through JUN 2014 when my orders were switched to OSD-Security Dialogue and I was formally assigned to support USAREUR’s efforts through AUG 2014. Same thing for when I was helping out at III Corps. And I have the emails to back me up for being TACONed to Chief CA Branch and to assist the Director of INCOPD and the Commandant of the US Army Sergeants Major’s Academy as if I was their cultural advisor. I have copies of all of my OF 69s and all of my contractor Letters of Authorization/contracts.

    I live in constant fear of paper cuts!

  275. 275.

    Calouste

    @Omnes Omnibus: Territorial SAS would be a load of bullshit that even Gorka wouldn’t manage. The Territorial Army is basically the Army Reserves and the SAS are commandos. Those two don’t mix. And with the body of Gorka, he’s obviously not a former commando. As Alan said, 3 years in the Territorial Army at one weekend a month is basically 3 months full time.

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