Here’s a fascinating exchange between Trump and a reporter, who asks about the British national security organization GCHQ’s sharp rebuke of Trump’s claim that they (GCHQ) had a role in spying on Trump at President Obama’s behest:
Wow. Trump to Merkel about alleged wiretapping by Obama: “At least we have something in common, perhaps.” She appears to be very confused. pic.twitter.com/la4p9ZJGvo
— Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) March 17, 2017
Jaffy highlights Trump’s reference to Merkel’s phone being tapped, but what I find most interesting is what occurred next: Trump shifted blame for the false claim about GCHQ to Fox News. As if U.S. presidents bear no responsibility for babbling unverified nonsense in public.
I think I mentioned to y’all a while back that our family, alarmed by our grandma’s transformation from a conservative but kindly old lady into a rage-filled Fox bot, secretly activated the parental controls on her TV and blocked Fox News. In a matter of days, she turned back into a kindly old wingnut and now dotes on Animal Planet.
On the basis of our successful experiment and in the spirit of bipartisanship, I offer the following information to Sean Spicer, who, while undoubtedly a vile sack of shit, is probably weary of being trotted out daily to defend the indefensible:
To set up and use Parental Controls:
1. Press the Menu button on your remote.
The Main Menu is displayed on your TV screen.
2. Highlight System and press OK/Select.
3. Using the arrow buttons on your remote, highlight Settings and press OK/Select
4. Select Parental/Purchase and press OK/Select.
5. Create or enter your 4-digit Parental Controls PIN. You’ll then need to retype your PIN to confirm your selection.
6. Select Parental Controls to turn them on.
7. Select Parental Preferences to block by content rating/channel/day/time or to control adult information.
You can’t fix stupid and hateful, but you can deprive it of fuel. You’re welcome, Spicer.
SFBayAreaGal
?
TenguPhule
He volunteered to eat that shit. So let him eat it till he bursts wide open.
danielx
One does wonder about Spicer’s consumption of antacids and various pharmaceuticals.
Yarrow
I did not know you had done that. That is awesome! Animal Planet ftw.
If you listen to the video it sounds like Trump says, “I am a traitor.” Why yes. Yes he is.
Pogonip
My mom had Fox Geezer Syndrome. It was on every moment she was awake, until she no longer remembered who they were or what they were talking about.
Now that soap operas in English are going away I think Fox fills the gap; there are heroes, villains, and an ongoing storyline.
cmorenc
@danielx:
I predict that after 12 to 18 months, Spicer steps down from White House Press Secretary, to take a less stressful, lower-key job as P.R. flak for Massey Mining Company or some utility with a radiation-leaking nuclear power plant problem, where he'll have a far easier task defending and explaining his employer than he does with Trump.
Brachiator
It makes sense, but I didn’t realize the degree to which Fox nonsense could change some people. I figured that it attracted angry people looking for a place to reinforce their views.
Glad to hear that grandma is more peaceable now.
Mike J
If you have Amazon Prime, you can watch The Brainwashing of My Dad (trailer at link).
Major Major Major Major
@Brachiator: twitter kind of does the same thing to me. Some things are just toxic.
ruemara
You did her a kindness as well as the world.
In other news, I hated the girdle so I’m still wearing my post surgery binder. But today’s annoying me so much I want to take it off. I have 4 more hours of work to go. And I look like caribbean frankenstein. Surgery is disturbing. And I want burgers & fries even though I can’t get through a whole burger. How do people deal with this inactivity as a lifestyle?!! I WANT TO WORKOUT. I want to clean things. I want to get some writing done and a whole slew of things and I want this goddamn binder off my torso and I want my forming scars not to itch and not to be hunched over.
I’m surprised more sick people aren’t homicidal maniacs during recovery, because if I wasn’t tired after work, it would seem like an option.
Yarrow
The Brainwashing of My Dad is available On Demand.
Yarrow
@cmorenc:
I think you’re way off. I’m not sure he’ll last six months.
Mike J
@Yarrow: Jinx, you owe me a coke.
M. Bouffant
Your gran wasn’t suspicious or highly irritated when she could no longer get FOX? As in, “Obama turned off my FOX!”
Pogonip
@Yarrow: Not everyone is susceptible to FGS. My son and I both hated it because of the yelling and the all talking at once. It really bothered him; he has enough trouble making out what one person at a time is saying.
Thru the Looking Glass...
So Cheeto Benito INSISTS on doubling down here… and having been slapped silly by the Brits, who now are probably even more leery about dealing w/ him, he’s trying to drag Merkel into this as an ally… my money says Angela’s way too smart for that and will make it abundantly clear she’ll want nothing to do w/ this steaming pile…
If Drumpf keeps poking at this and pushing, he’s liable to force SOMETHING into the open he’ll wish he hadn’t… like that maybe the intel about Flynn and the Russians actually came from a country not yet ID’ed… perhaps the Netherlands or one of the Baltic states… some country w/ GOOD cause to be afraid of the Russians and where it would NOT be illegal to listen to Flynn doing his business… and they just decided to pass that intel along for the good of everyone involved… just sayin’…
Nick
Just like a particular radio station in Rwanda is considered instrumental in causing the genocide, I suspect that when we look back on this era of American politics, media regulatory decisions made in the 1980s and 1990s will be implicated in the savage decline of our politics. It’s probably as simple as the fact that, just as you cannot teach a class when the kids in it are playing radios, you can’t run a government with a certain level of unhinged braying in the media.
Yarrow
@Mike J: Great minds…
Thru the Looking Glass...
@Yarrow:
HAH! Six WEEKS… and Sean’s outta here in a strait jacket…
Yarrow
@Pogonip: Enough people are though. The pattern is reported over and over again. People see it happen in their own families.
Pogonip
Yes, it’s common.
Spanky
@ruemara: You have a binder full of woman!
XTPD
@Pogonip: Indian news networks are even worse in this regard.
Aleta
Trump about his false staement:
The media lies. So I use twitter to speak directly to people.
Fox said that. I just repeated it.
It’s Fox’s fault.
Thru the Looking Glass...
@Nick:
I believe Bill Clinton did say after he left office that he was sorry he signed the 1996 telecommunications bill… couldn’t find anything on line about it but I do remember it…
Betty Cracker
@M. Bouffant: We lied — told her it was dropped from the cable lineup. That probably wouldn’t have worked when she had 100% of her marbles; she was a history teacher and sharp as a tack in her prime. But it’s easier to pull one over on the poor old thing these days. We felt bad about it, but everyone is happier now, most especially her.
raven
@ruemara: Well go ahead and do some stupid shit and have to have the surgery again. Advice from an oft injured athlete, do what you are told and heal.
MCA1
What a f’ing disgrace this person is, pretending to be president.
And 40% of America thinks he’s doing a bangup job and fulfilling his promises and speaking their mind, because they take this fool’s personal narrative of how awesome he’s doing as legitimate and block out all the other noise.
StringOnAStick
@Yarrow: I’ve seen that pattern in mine. My folks always were far right but had no fellow traveler media available until FOX came along. I hear now that it is on from sun up to sun down and my mom has slipped even farther into angry dementia; my dad’s always been Mr. Angry. They threw me out of their house almost 2 years ago after I worked for a week slaving over the landscape of their 1 acre homestead, all for the sin of suggesting that at 85 years old and with the house falling apart and overgrown that perhaps they should consider hiring some help with things. My most unforgivable sin is being a liberal, and that sin is far more important to them than my being one of their kids is. I’m sure FOX reinforces that notion quite nicely.
Bumper
Already warned oldest child to disable Fox for his dad and me if he starts to notice a problem in our later years. Don’t currently have cable so not an issue yet…but I’ve seen this with enough older relatives that I want to do what I can now to prevent it
StringOnAStick
@Betty Cracker:
That is what matters the most. You did a good thing, and now she can spend the rest of her life enjoying animal shows instead of rage-inducing BS.
Emerald
@Yarrow:
I predicted in January that the Marmalade Mussolini wouldn’t last six months, and so far I think I might still be right about that.
Brachiator
@Major Major Major Major:
Yeah, I can see that. But at least with Twitter you have more control over the crap that might be coming your way.
Lyrebird
Maybe we’ll get more analysis this evening, but might the blowhard’s remarks, if related to anything true, constitute another casual release of classified information?
The Moar You Know
@Yarrow: My mother, after decades as a self-identified liberal, now lives on a diet of Fox and CNN (CNN is as bad if not worse than Fox and I’m very dismayed at how little attention they get as a force of evil) and has become one of the most hateful, racist people I’ve ever known.
My father, lifelong Republican, voted for Hillary and wants to see Trump in prison for treason.
Go figure.
A Ghost to Most
@StringOnAStick:
I had to cut my family loose 10 years ago. They are in the vanguard of the white Xian nationalist movement. Now I am seeing more and more tales of people having to do the same as the crazy ramps up.
Aleta
Could we ask Germany and Japan for help to defeat Trump and Russia?
Olivia
My mom is 92 and blind and has always tended toward paranoia and fanaticism. I have blocked many channels from her TV since she lost her sight and now she only gets worked up if she can find her radio.
Chris
@Brachiator:
Radicalization: it’s not just for terrorists. Fox News takes people who are generically conservative or from that kind of background and blows them so full of hot air they end up as permanently enraged and argumentative as an IMDb comments’ section.
Nixon and Reagan may have gotten the ball rolling, but more than anything else, Fox News has made it impossible to walk back from the brink. And its successors for future generations will be no better. It’s going to be all Breitbart and the like from here on in.
Patricia Kayden
@Pogonip:
And the heroes just happen to always be Rightwing White guys while the villains are always dark-skinned Liberals.
If only Fox News was as benign as a harmless soap opera.
Yarrow
@StringOnAStick: @The Moar You Know:
When my mom was in a nursing home/rehab situation a lot of the TVs had Fox on. I’d never watched it much but couldn’t really escape it while I was there. I was kind of amazed at how they set up stories. Lots of repetition, bright colors heightened emotions. It’s just the kind of thing that would work for older people whose brains aren’t absorbing things as quickly or whose critical thinking might be impaired. So much repetition that at some point it becomes “fact.” And the bright colors, loud noises and heightened emotions make it hard to look away. The attractive women keep the men’s attention too.
The Moar You Know
@Lyrebird: Sure but you gotta remember that, as the president, he is the originator of classifying authority and therefore can say anything he wants. He could sit in front of a camera on Fox, tell the Russians to tune in, and give them the location and status of every last nuke we have, if he wanted. He could then tell them how to build our latest and best (assuming he could pronounce the words, which he can’t). Not a joke, that is really how the laws work.
Aleta
@Yarrow: I found that the aides would switch the channel to Fox in my mother’s room.
Turgidson
I used to be completely aghast at how casually the Bush Administration would pass the buck for its daily fuckups to the nearest available stooge. Hair Furor makes them look like Harry “Buck Stops Here” Truman by comparison.
Whenever I start to accept that this dolt was actually elected, he jolts me back into disbelief with shit like this. God, this is going to be a long [however many months/years this lasts].
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker:
Don’t, just don’t feel bad. When my mother was in the hospital for heart surgery I quickly learned that the easiest way to ease my Alzheimered father’s anxiety was to answer his persistent questions about, “Where’s Mother?” with a simple, “She went to the grocery store. She’ll be back soon.” He always said OK and went about his business. 15-20 mins later he’d be back, “Where’s Mother?” to which I again replied, “She went to the grocery store. She’ll be back soon.” and he was OK again.
One morning my little Sis forgot the memo I sent around and when he asked where Ma was, she told him Ma was in the hospital.
“WHAT???!!?!?!!! WHY WASN”T I TOLD ABOUT THIS????!!?!?!?!?? I WANT TO GO SEE HER RIGHT NOW!!!! I CAN”T BERLIEVE NOBODY TOLD ME!!! WHAT IS GOING….” etc etc etc full blown 5 minute melt down with a continued 10 min simmer during which he no longer knew why he was pissed but dammit he was pissed and everyone was going to know it. I damn near throttled little Sis that morn.
Sometimes lying is not just the right thing to do, it’s the only thing to do.
RobertB
@The Moar You Know: Same thing happened to my mom. Went from mildly liberal to Mother MAGA. She tried to tell my daughter that Muslims are breeding like rabbits so they can come over to the US and institute Sharia law, blah blah blah. That got her granddaughter from 0 to full-bore argument in zero seconds flat.
raven
@OzarkHillbilly: You’re here awfully late in the day!
Betty Cracker
@Chris: The U.S. government droned Anwar al-Awlaki for radicalizing people online. Hannity, O’Reilly, Ailes, etc., better hope I’m never in a position of power, or I’d use that as precedent to put a Hellfire up their asses. (Kidding. Mostly. But I do believe Fox has spread poison with much greater consequence than al-Awlaki ever did.)
rikyrah
Merkel didn’t even speak English….
Refused to shake his hand….
HOLLERING!!!!
geg6
@Brachiator:
There’s a film about the horrific effects of FOX watching. I think it’s something like My Dad Was Brainwashed.
ETA: Or just see Mike J at #8.
Suzan
Used to turn on the TV when in hotel rooms, usually to CNN back when it was OK. On vacation in Thailand years ago one stop was in a nice hotel where the only channel in English was Fox. We played this game “how long can we go without turning it off and who will crack first?” DH thought we were stupid but my then 18 year old son and I did it whenever we returned to the room. Never made it 5 minutes before one of us leapt up screaming as we tried to get to the TV to turn it off.
Hadn’t heard about blocking your grandma’s TV, love the story and the results. Should happen all over America.
Barbara
@Pogonip: I would say something flip, like look at HGTV instead of FOXN, but it’s not funny, and I think this is more of a problem for the elderly and rural people because they don’t have the same kind of access to Internet enabled communications. For the elderly, it’s a matter of age as much as infrastructure, but somehow local governments back in the day managed to bring cable tv to their citizens but have become powerless to do the same thing for Internet.
Bill Arnold
@Yarrow:
Animal Planet is my change-to channel of choice when Fox News is playing in a public venue and I have permission of the other people around. (Doesn’t happen often; fortunately public Fox News is blessedly rare in the area; the few exceptions tend to have multiple screens.)
Chris
@Betty Cracker:
I like to point out that our right wing has come close to destroying the country three times. Once through open violent revolution, during the Civil War. Once through catastrophic economic mismanagement, during the Great Depression. And once, through a decade and a half of ever-escalating Red Scare rhetoric that, when the bill came due in the Cuban missile crisis, damn near got everybody killed, and if someone less sane than Kennedy had been at the helm, would have.
No foreign enemy has put the nation in that much danger for over two hundred years. For a country like ours, the biggest threats to national security are, unfortunately, the ones we can’t deal with through national security organs.
Zelma
Re Fox News, it happened with my husband. He was brilliant but always anxious. He was moderately liberal until he began watching Fox News and listening to talk radio. He became more and more conservative and angrier and angrier. Finally, I gave him the choice: me or Fox News. And I meant it. He chose me. The change in his personality was pretty amazing. He ended up voting for Obama both in 2008 and 2012. I can’t imagine what he’d think of Trump. I believe he’d be appalled.
SWMBO
@Pogonip: My mom had it on once when we were visiting her. My son asked her, “Why do you listen to the howler monkeys? All they do is scream and make noise. They don’t really say anything.” She doesn’t watch it now when we visit.
Jeffro
1) Fox News is just multiple facets of Big Brother blathering in old peoples’ ears all day long…”We have always been at war with Eastasia”, etc etc. We all know it and it’s here and it only works on authoritarians (both leaders and followers)
2) Y’all did see that “Trump Goes Without Key Advisers” article I linked to in the last thread. So. True. And so weird, to see anyone – much less our president – essentially mind controlled by whatever he sees on his “preferred” “news” channels.
Barbara
I actually do understand the need to veg out, but that’s why I watch Curling Night in America or Say Yes to the Dress. Something that doesn’t ask for political engagement or make enemies and monsters out of other people.
Patricia Kayden
@cmorenc: 12-18 months is an awfully long time for such a hard job involving so much lying, backtracking and screeching. Not sure if his body can take that for so long. I’ll refrain from commenting on his body but he doesn’t look all that young.
Yarrow
@Bill Arnold: A doctor’s office I visit regularly has whatever channel has the house flippers on it. Is that HGTV?
Shana
@rikyrah: Actually HE refused to shake HER hand.
Betty Cracker
Seems timely — via CNN:
Of course, if Fox were an actual news organization with scruples, its crew would have refused to cover the meeting if its colleagues were excluded. But Fox is a propaganda outlet.
Patricia Kayden
@rikyrah: According to this video, she asked Trump if he wanted to shake her hand and he pretty much ignored her. Awkward as hell.
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: Taking a break from cleaning out the garden. Just about to head back out, so you’ll have to deal with the loss of my sunny presence again. :-)
catclub
I am pretty sure, and will go check, that Merkel’s phone was monitored by the US in about 2002 when she was something like minority leader in Germany. I suspect while she has been chancellor, her phone security has improved.
Another thing time traveling Obama is guilty of.
Patricia Kayden
@Betty Cracker: So when does the media stop kissing up to Trump and his people and actually take some kind of uniformed action against this preferential and fascist behavior? The so-called liberal mainstream media should boycott covering any Trump events until this foolishness stops. Can you imagine what would have happened if President Obama had only provided access to BET or MSNBC to any of his events?
Roger Moore
@raven:
This. The biggest problem that causes athletes not to recover as quickly as they ought to is that they push themselves too hard and aggravate their injuries.
Patricia Kayden
@catclub: Apparently, there were rumors that the NSA during the Obama years hacked into Ms. Merkel’s phone. Those rumors were never proven to be true though.
I assume that Trump was trying to refer to those rumors with his awkward self.
Chris
@Zelma:
Good story.
In this day and age, I really could not be in a relationship with a movement conservative. The most I could do is an apolitical or third party or nonvoter or “I didn’t leave the party the party left me!” person, but actually part of the movement is a dealbreaker. Religion? Don’t care. Nationality? Don’t care. Sports? Don’t care. Heck, even being a Star Trek: Voyager fan isn’t a dealbreaker. But politics is. Being part of the movement means that you are actively trying to hurt me and millions of others, that you are hurting me and millions of others, and whether you’re too dumb to realize it or are in an abuser-mentality “it’s for your own good” mindset… I don’t care. That’s not going to work.
Lyrebird
@The Moar You Know: Yeah. Not entirely comforting somehow.
artem1s
I noticed it in the 90s when clear channel started hoovering up all the AM radio stations. The very politically neutral sports talk station in CLE turned into a hate/rage machine over night. 15K watts and a ready made audience of Cleveland sports fans primed and ready to be enraged. Now when I drive thru the middle of the state (rural) the entire dial is chock full of crazy christian nonsense and Rush wanna bes. I’ve never been so glad to have a digital music player.
trollhattan
@OzarkHillbilly:
Sound advice. And for heaven’s sake, do not mention mom/dad/grandma/grandad visiting a “nice farm upstate.”
raven
@Roger Moore: Spending 9 months in a full body cast and another 6 in a brace gave me a decent baseline. I thought I might never walk again and it turned out I was essentially unaffected by a fractured spine. It also helped that it was the dawn of sports medicine and my buddies who played football at Illinois urged me to do physical therapy when the orthopod thought I was nuts!
raven
And SC pulls the big upset over SMU!
trollhattan
@Yarrow:
House Flippers–must be on Animal Planet. “Dolphins, living in the Orlando suburbs,
runswim into a flood of problems trying to buy furniture at the mall.”Betty Cracker
@Chris: Same. I’m often tempted to disown family members, including my one surviving parent, for voting for Trump. I can’t imagine voluntarily entering into a relationship with one.
Chris
@Betty Cracker:
Yeah, that’s the other part of the reason. I already have relatives that I can barely stand ever since I discovered their Facebook/Twitter feed, and have to be nice to in order to avoid family reunions turning into a giant war. That’s already all I can handle, I sure as hell am not piling on more. (I barely have conservative friends as it is, and the only exception I can think of is in the “friend-of-a-friend”/”we have so many friends in common we’re never not going to see each other” kind of way).
schrodingers_cat
@Chris: I cut my ties off with a friend of over a decade because though she voted JS, she was constantly making excuses for T. I think her husband voted for T. After she defended the travel ban, I was like, Adios Non Amigo.
ThresherK
@RobertB: This post from the incredible David Willis is something I think has played out over too many Christianist families, between a man, his wife, and their child.
Joyce is the young woman; her story is the basis for the webcomic Dumbing of Age. In-universe, the father has become a cool, trustable authority figure, and the mother has gone off the rails.
Corner Stone
Fuck you, Chuck Todd. How is Gorsuch *not* going to change the balance of the SCOTUS? That seat should have been to a justice nominated by a D POTUS. NOT A REPLACEMENT FOR SCALIA.
different-church-lady
JUST DOPE SLAP HIM, ANGELA! IT’S THE EASIEST WAY!
rikyrah
@Betty Cracker:
So, what are they gonna do about it?
Whine or do their phucking job?
Lizzy L
@Roger Moore: This this this. Nearly fifty years of training and teaching martial arts have given me some experience with injuries. Let yourself heal. Also, physical therapy is awesome. Let yourself heal and talk to the physical therapists.
In my experience, the best doctors to see for musculoskeletal stuff are the sports medicine doctors, especially the ones who train or practice a sport themselves. Other doctors will simply tell you give up the thing you love, and will not be helpful when you say you’re not going to do that. Doctors in sports medicine tend to understand that of course you’re going to keep doing it, whatever it is, and their job is to accept that and help you find a way.
Aging athletes are the most stubborn people I know.
efgoldman
@cmorenc:
I don’t think it will be that long. He’s lousy at lying (he’s also lousy at telling the truth, if he ever does), so doesn’t really fit in with the administration. Not like Kelly Anne Riefenstahl, who just makes shit up and says it as if she was telling us the sky is blue.
Corner Stone
Pack it in, guys. The D party faces a lot of danger by being the Party of No. We just can’t do that. So let’s all get together somewhere and have some green tea and do some yoga.
trollhattan
Trump. Ryan et al want to make sure you and your relatives don’t get this, or at least have the gummint help you get it.
One supposes Tom Price bought a crapton of Amgen stock recently.
Chris
@schrodingers_cat:
Yeah, there’s a category of “I didn’t for vote Trump, I just happen to defend everything he does and still think liberals are the worst” people out there that I include in as well.
The worst offender in the relatives I mentioned above was my uncle, who says he was a NeverTrumpist. It might even be true – he posted a few things during the primaries that support that. But you’d basically never know it from anything he’s saying now or said at the time.
Ruckus
@The Moar You Know:
I have a friend who is a self proclaimed racist and he always votes Democrat, including Hillary. He thinks the shitgibbon is a disgrace and a major fucking asshole. So while he can be a bit hard to take some days, his vote is in the right place even if all of his heart isn’t. He also gives people who don’t look like him a fair chance before he calls them names, but he still does put them in categories. Whata ya gunna do, none of us is perfect.
Baud
FWIW, I’m probably angrier because I read liberal blogs than if I didn’t, since I feel like I’m more aware of what’s going down. I don’t feel like I’ve lost my senses or my grip on reality, however.
.
.
.
Baud! 2020!
Baud
@Corner Stone: That sounds pleasant.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
Chris
@Ruckus:
Quite honestly, better that (though not by much) than the people who will talk your ear off about how they’re not racist, but vote based on little else.
efgoldman
@OzarkHillbilly:
Not for nothing did they used to call Alzheimer’s/dementia “second childhood.”
Baud
@Ruckus: I’ve come across a lot of racists whose racism isn’t “personal” but involves stereotyping people based on their group identities (like the “Asians are good at math” type thinking)
Chris
@Baud:
True, probably, but pretty much the only realistic alternative is to disconnect completely. I’m not as pissed off from reading this as I would be if the only things I read were the mainstream media and right wing media outlets that dominate the news.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: I have thought of taking a break from Balloon Juice too.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat: As did I, for a while after the election.
hovercraft
@The Moar You Know:
My Mom isn’t “old” yet, 75, she loves her some CNN, but only to spend her time yelling at it, the kids had no idea she swore like a sailor till last years election. As an older black woman raised in Rhodesia, I doubt she’s in danger of succumbing to the liars on TV. If anything I fear they may give her a stroke given how much they piss her off.
ThresherK
@schrodingers_cat: I don’t have any JS voters who are defending the travel ban. But I do have a crap-tonne of them who: Expressed amazement over Trump not draining the swamp; re-posted any fart of his that sounded moderately in touch (which he’s never acted on) with the majority of America on social issues, and added “he’s not a professoinal politician, so we don’t know what he’ll do!”; and can complain about Trump’s emails, Goldmans Sachs’ appointees, and fake charity, while blithely forgetting all the shit they spewed at Hillary.
Ruckus
@Chris:
My thought as well. He is a reliable political ally and that has to count for something. Really he’s just a loud old white man who understands that no matter his own views on certain issues he likes the country far better when Democrats run it, including the last guy, who he voted for, twice.
Patricia Kayden
@Corner Stone: Being the Party of No and Obstructionism sure worked out bad for them Republicans, I tell ya.
SatanicPanic
@Corner Stone: Is that you Van Jones?
Patricia Kayden
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: I wonder if Trump will even care since he has expressed contempt for Merkel in the past. His body language shouts “she’s not my type so I have zero interest in her” during their press conference together and meeting in the WH.
Chris
@Ruckus:
It counts for a lot. It’s one of those “it’s not who you are, it’s what you do, that I care about.” Most people just don’t realize that voting and being a voice in politics are part of “what you do.”
clay
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: Remember how Trump used to claim that we would be more respected around the world when he took office?
Corner Stone
@Patricia Kayden: Gorsuch is highly qualified. You may not agree with all his decisions, but you have to vote for him. Or else.
Also, too. Health care and the debt ceiling.
Corner Stone
@SatanicPanic: Capital P Presidential, babee.
Ruckus
@efgoldman:
I call it childhood in reverse but with much bigger infants. You go from not quite understanding what is going on around you, that’s like 5 to 10 yrs old, to crapping yourself and not knowing your name, the time of day, that there is even a world out there, that’s under one yr old. Of course all of this leaves out the screaming nightmares, etc.
efgoldman
@Betty Cracker:
I was sad when my racist, gun fondling, alcoholic brother in law died ~three years ago, because of course it made mrs efg sad that her big brother died. But he for shit sure would have been full on Persimmon Prevaricator yay go MAGA and been even more insufferable than he would have been.
Baud
@ThresherK: JS voters are kind of worse than Republican voters. Republicans, at least, have a track record of political success that they can point to when choosing to blind themselves to reality.
efgoldman
@different-church-lady:
I would pay REAL money….
Ruckus
@Baud:
Yeah we had a blow out a couple of years ago when I tried to get him to understand the use of the N word and how it didn’t really advance any conversation. But at least he recognizes his racism and he doesn’t like the KKK or belong to or agree with any hate groups. Known him for 44 yrs, we’ve gone through some shit together but he can get on my nerves some days. Over all not a horrible guy but he does have one major flaw.
Corner Stone
I’ve never dealt with a business that made me “feel like part of the family”. I’m there to give you money for something and get you to go away after. My family generally takes too long to leave after our transaction is done.
XTPD
@Chris: Outright white supremacist racism or stereotyping racism?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@The Moar You Know:
With the your father being a conservative is a choice and not some peer groop thing so that gives him resitance to the Fox brainwashing.
Chris
@XTPD:
Eh?
Corner Stone
Oh, Toddler. Lament your poor, poor “broken Senate”. Damn you, Democrats! Damn you!
efgoldman
@Baud:
I couldn’t have dealt with it, without a community of (mostly) like minded people. Even when i was just yelling and cursing, it was both cathartic and supportive.
But I’m just an old, angry white guy who doesn’t do treacle really well.
Corner Stone
“The East and the West are mine. The North and the South are mine. Your burgers and fries are mine. Your girlfriend and her cousin are mine.”
mai naem mobile
It’s not just Fox News Network. It’s also the local news coverage of Fox affiliates. It’s a little more subtle. It’s either omission of stuff or they will say stuff like Obama claimed instead of Obama said.
Paula
I have often thought people should do exactly what Betty describes: find a way to disconnect your elderly folks, grand-folks from FOX. I have friends who complain about visiting their Mom who’s become a horrible, angry conservative and FOX is playing day and night. A lot of these older folks are technically clueless and I don’t think it would be difficult to block FOX without them understanding what’s happened. Maybe do a video interview with them first, so that, if somehow they figure it out, you can show them the “before” and “after” — assuming you were able to cut them off long enough for them to go through withdrawal.
These folks are addicts — hate-addicts. It’s real. It’s very, very negative. It destroys relationships and causes the final years of their lives to be angry and hostile.
chris
How about some good news? From Juanita Jean, former Texas Rep. Steve Stockman was hauled into court in handcuffs and shackles yesterday. He’s accused of some serious finagling with campaign funds.
Y’all remember Steve, of course, the one who made Louis Gohmert look sane sometimes?
Ohio Mom
@ruemara: In my experience, surgeons lose interest in you as soon as the fun part for them (the actual operation) is over. They really don’t give you enough warning about, or support for, how grueling and slow recovery can be.
Raven is right, there are no shortcuts. Eat lots of protein — your body has to rebuild itself — when the time comes, insist on PT, and keep reminding yourself that eventually this will be over.
Patricia Kayden
@Corner Stone: Repubs got away with not even voting on President Obama’s pick to replace Scalia so Democrats should return the favor on Gorsuch (even if they don’t have the votes to stop him from assuming Scalia’s seat).
Another Scott
@Patricia Kayden: Wikipedia says he’s 45.
:-/
Cheers,
Scott.
prob50
well, that certainly expands the original usage and meaning of “parental controls”.
TriassicSands
@Betty Cracker:
The problem or difficulty with having conservative friends and family is that somewhere along the line wingers ceased being merely conservative and turned into mostly horrible people. Trump’s so-called budget is a good partial example of those new values. Whether he goes after the big three — Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid — remains to be seen, but his campaign rhetoric means absolutely nothing. The congressional Republicans will — and already are — going after the safety net. Since Trump has signed on to their plans for Medicaid it’s clear that he will, in the end, dismantle Medicare and Social Security if he feels the urge. Any journalist from here on out who mutters something about Trump’s former promises (as if they meant something) deserves to have his or her pen and steno pad (symbols) taken away and thereafter be forced to work in one of the newly created coal mining jobs Trump has promised.
It’s hard to be friends with people who are racist, xenophobic, hateful, ignorant, and enjoy punishing the poor, elderly, and disabled. Oh, and I shouldn’t forget sexist.
sukabi
@cmorenc: I give it another 6 months then he can go back to what he does best…dressing up as holiday characters and scaring small children.
Baud
@efgoldman: It helped me too. But on an open blog, you also have to deal with a lot of bullshit, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to go on dealing with that.
Patricia Kayden
@Another Scott: No bloody way. Fake birth certificate.
TriassicSands
@Patricia Kayden:
Ha, ha. I guess that depends on how old you are.
I will say this, he looks about half as old as his fellow liar Kellyanne Conway. To me, she’s the one who looks like she could succumb to exhaustion.
I don’t know about Spicer. He seems to enjoy lying every day. (Though he is subject to mood swings and tantrums.)
Corner Stone
WTF is wrong with Steve Clemons? Just hand waving away Trump’s bullshit, lying and nonsense.
TriassicSands
@chris:
I object. Louis Gomert has never looked sane (or intelligent). Never.
Saner, maybe (relatively speaking). But actually sane. No. Smarter? That’s a tough one since Gomert has never appeared to be even a tiny bit intelligent.
Mike in DC
I really want to see Comey specifically knock down the Obama wiretapping slander while Glomar-ing all other queries about the Russia stuff (neither confirm nor deny,no public comments on ongoing investigation).
Chris
@TriassicSands:
This a thousand times.
Still on the subject of the aforementioned uncle: one of the more notable cases of this involved the whole Syrian refugee crisis. On Facebook (where he’s connected with a lot more liberals), I’ve read more than a few rambling equivocating explanations, filled with “of course, it’s a difficult decision, but,” “nobody likes to have to do this, but,” “I mean obviously, it’s important to remember that this is a complicated issue.” On Twitter, where he’s not connected with any of us as far as I know – I don’t think he even realizes I follow him – he retweeted a story of Syrian refugees being shipped back with the caption “grab the popcorn!” Not “it’s a hard decision but it’s the right thing to do,” not “we have obligations to our countrymen’s safety that come first,” not any of that equivocating bullshit. He was talking about sending a planeload of refugees back to a war zone, surely not all of whom were terrorists, and the basic reaction was the same one you’d have if your team was winning the Super Bowl.
It’s increasingly hard to find conservatives who aren’t horrible, socopathic, sadistic fucking people, and even those who have enough sense to present a veneer of civility and moderation are, as often as not, still just as terrible underneath.
WereBear
@ruemara: The worst actually comes when you are feeling better and bored out of your skull; yet still without the energy to actually DO anything.
Hang in there…
Brachiator
@Baud:
That some racists believe that it’s not “personal” reminds me of a line from the movie, “Hidden Figures”
Vivian Mitchell: Despite what you may think, I have nothing against y’all.
Dorothy Vaughan: I know, I know you probably believe that.
prob50
@raven:
Yeah, oh me of little faith. I had tuned out at the half, but turned it back on just in time to catch the winning 3-pointer and subsequent SMU last-second miss. I should know better about SC this year – 13th come-from behind win in game they haad trailed by double-digits.
Millard Filmore
@Patricia Kayden:
And may Gorsuch forever be known as The Traitor’s Justice.
D58826
Der Fuhrer is truly an embarrassment. A couple of weeks ago he nearing dislocated Japanese PM Abe’s arm in shaking his hand. Today he would not even look at PM Merkel. He looked like a ten year old boy waiting in the principals office
cckids
@Yarrow:
You’re also dealing with a generation who grew up with Murrow & Cronkite; reputable anchors or reporters, before networks decided that their news divisions needed to make money more than they needed to be honest. Happened to my dad as well; he put an enormous amount of faith in “the news”; once Faux came on air, he was gradually & totally lost.
debbie
I listen to NPR on headphones at work. Between British Intelligence telling Trump to stop lying about their involvement in any wiretapping; Trump not shaking Merkel’s hand; Trump’s pathetic, failed joke to Merkel that they shared being wiretapped by Obama; and Trump’s Irish quote that turned out to be Nigerian — this has turned out to be the first day since the election I’ve giggled all day long. My workmates noted how odd it was they hadn’t heard me swearing under my breath (sort of) in a very long time.
sigaba
@Brachiator: Hidden Figures is the compendium and Principia Racistica of everything relating to “microaggresion” and instituional racism.
Nobody in that movie has anything bad to say about black people, qua black people. It’s all just mobs of white people rationalizing and lying to themselves and each other about why the new girl can’t drink from our coffee urn. It’s not them, it’s just, you know, “the reality of the situation,” and we can’t make certain people “uncomfortable,” and it nobody “means anything by it.”
TriassicSands
@Baud:
It’s important to be able to separate your own life from the world at large while still caring deeply about what happens to others. That’s one of the reasons why I refuse (as a general rule) to call names and engage in heated arguments online. It serves no useful purpose and accomplishes nothing. I suppose if someone finds it somehow cathartic then it’s up to them, but I think a more constructive outlet would be better.
I think it’s good, however, to maintain a certain level of anger and outrage at what is going on in DC. That’s part of caring and remaining involved. I try not to let it affect things like my mood or blood pressure. I’ll admit Trump is the greatest challenge I’ve ever faced, but he’s not that much worse than Ryan and Co. In fact, Trump might get off with an insanity plea, whereas Ryan and Co. are just ugly, mean, horrible human beings. Worse still for congressional Republicans is that they are a constant reminder that millions of Americans are so stupid, ignorant, or just plain nasty that they vote for Republicans over and over. It’s disheartening that so many people have lost their way so badly.
Baud
@debbie:
I missed that one.
debbie
@Baud:
You don’t have to. You can always skip posts and threads you know will aggravate you.
debbie
@Baud:
Enjoy!
sigaba
@cckids:
There were exactly three TV networks and if they got out of line the FCC would pull licenses. Fairness Doctrine was good for everyone because if one of the three networks started slinging political BS for ratings, the other two would eventually get sucked in in order to compete and TV news would be ruined by adverse selection. People at home would learn to HATE TV because there were so few sources and they’d all be utterly politicized.
Enter Ted Turner and cable.
Baud
@TriassicSands: I am saddened most of all by the fact that our side didn’t rise to the occasion.
@debbie: Posts almost never do. And what’s the point of being here if I give others a heckler’s veto.
TriassicSands
@Brachiator:
One of the best non-fiction books I’ve ever read — “Thinking, Fast and Slow,” by Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman has some truly amazing revelations in it based on legitimate research about how we think and make decisions. For example, they found that if you spoke to a young Asian woman before a standardized math test and emphasized her Asianness she would do better on the test than if you emphasized her femaleness. To me, that is stunning and more than a little scary.
chris
@TriassicSands: Haha! Have some Gohmert.
Baud
@debbie: Thanks. Obviously, the internet was wrong again. It’s not Trump’s fault.
debbie
@Baud:
YMMV, but sometimes, a couple sentences in, I know I won’t want to know about the rest of the post, so I stop reading and move on. Some of these arguments, I just can’t “listen” to them one more time.
debbie
@Baud:
I did like the Irish PM’s crack about Trump totally sticking to his script.
Jeffro
@D58826:
He doesn’t know what to think about smart, poised women and/or women he isn’t interested in molesting. Other than they pose a threat to his tiny lizard brain.
GregB
My expectations of the Tangerine Touch-hole are so low that I gave him credit for not comparing Merkel to Hitler at some point.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@raven: This is horrible news.
TriassicSands
@debbie:
I hadn’t heard that yet, either. Thank you.
I glanced at the Tweets that followed the clip and loved this one:
Interesting:
Always remember to forget,
The friends that proved untrue,
But never forget to remember,
Those that have stuck to you.
(Apparently, Alhassan wrote “stuck to you.” Trump read it as “stuck by you,” which is how native English speakers would phrase it. I like friends, but I don’t want them sticking to me.)
The great irony here is that Trump NEVER forgets those that have “proved untrue” (that is, not been slavishly loyal and obedient). And he’ll jettison a “friend” at the slightest provocation.
(As for “Remember to Forget” it doesn’t strike me as great poetry. Maybe something is lost in the translation (assuming it wasn’t written in English originally).
TriassicSands
@Baud:
I don’t know who is sadder, the ones who have become Trump supporters or the ones who couldn’t be bothered to vote at all.
TriassicSands
@GregB:
GregB, you are generous beyond all imagining. You must work for a charity or NGO.
sukabi
@TriassicSands: Kelly Anne will hold on until her husband gets his appointment in the administration
Bjacques
The wiretap claim is 100% true. One of GCHQ’s top men is confirmed to have admitted it under enhanced questioning by a third party. Secretly recorded by a smuggled phone, this is a FOX exclusive:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4wwQpACwcoM
debbie
@TriassicSands:
Speaking of, I can’t believe I left this out of my giddy day, but did you see Trump’s comments to the Michigan governor yesterday?
TriassicSands
@debbie:
That fits perfectly with Trump’s Irish proverb/Nigerian poem. Trump NEVER forgets those that slight him. Remember to forget? Not on your life. But I repeat myself, since I said that same thing in my previous comment. Some things just keep recurring.
debbie
@TriassicSands:
I don’t know. I got a feeling his memory is going to be really, really taxed with all this remembering of enemies. I wonder how Nixon did it.
Chris
@debbie:
Made tapes.
Gindy51
@Paula: My dad was like this until I flat out told him he better be careful because I was going to be picking his nursing home and he might not want to piss me off, ever.
Another Scott
ICYMI, Drum solves the Trump “tapp” mystery:
It really is that simple.
Cheers,
Scott.
Captain C
@Aleta: The buck never stops on Trump’s desk, unless it’s actual money.
efgoldman
@sigaba:
Actually, when Turner still owned/ran CNN it WAS a real news network. Of course that was before Rupe and friends started Fox “news”
efgoldman
@sukabi:
I thought he’d been appointed solicitor general.
Jinchi
I did the same thing for my own TV. My out of state Republican relatives simply assume that FOX is a premium channel where I live.
RobNYNY1957
@cmorenc: Bomb disposal.
cain
If only there was a virus that would do that.. stick it in a chromecast device or something and then block it completely to the point where they have to buy a new TV to watch Fox.
pseudonymous in nc
@Yarrow:
The colour palette and visual design of Faux News is a remarkable thing. It’s deliberately retro, locating itself somewhere around 1988. All cablenews somewhat follows that model, but Faux goes all the way. If you have HBO, Vice News does pieces on high-def digital video and it’s a completely different aesthetic.
Ryan
“I think I mentioned to y’all a while back that our family, alarmed by our grandma’s transformation from a conservative but kindly old lady into a rage-filled Fox bot, secretly activated the parental controls on her TV and blocked Fox News. In a matter of days, she turned back into a kindly old wingnut and now dotes on Animal Planet.”
This is perhaps the funniest thing I have ever read!