Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

T R E 4 5 O N

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

Bad news for Ron DeSantis is great news for America.

Come on, man.

Don’t expect peaches from an apple tree.

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

Bark louder, little dog.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

Everyone is in a bubble, but some bubbles model reality far better than others!

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

Consistently wrong since 2002

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

An unpunished coup is a training exercise.

I’m sure you banged some questionable people yourself.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

You are here: Home / Politics / America / The Taoiseach Lays the Smack Down: Enda Kenney’s 2017 St. Patrick’s Day Address

The Taoiseach Lays the Smack Down: Enda Kenney’s 2017 St. Patrick’s Day Address

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At yesterday’s St. Patrick’s Day celebration featuring the Irish PM, Enda Kenny, the President, Vice President, and Speaker of the House of Representatives, the Taoiseach made his feelings known about the President’s, and by extension, the Republican Party’s current policy preferences on immigration. Kenny’s White House remarks received praise almost everywhere, including in Ireland, where there had been significant concern on whether he should cancel out of this year’s event.

The Taoiseach’s speech on immigration has received global recognition for ‘lecturing’ US President Trump on immigration.

The Taoiseach used the St Patrick’s day visit to speak about the contribution of the Irish community in the United States, leading to the New York Times calling it a “lecture” for the US President on immigration.

Speaking at a party in East Room of the White House, he thanked Mr Trump for “giving so much of his time” to help celebrate St Patrick’s legacy as “the patron of immigrants”.

He appealed to the President to take a more favourable view of immigrants – but made no mention of Mr Trump’s controversial travel ban on six predominantly Muslim countries.

At the 6:30 mark of the video below you can watch and listen to the Taoiseach’s full remarks following the President’s remarks.

The much excerpted point of Kenney’s remarks are these one minute and fifty-two seconds:

Reader Interactions

162Comments

  4. 4.

    Sab

    Sean Spicer is named Sean and expects us to pronounce it Shawn but he can’t call the Irish embassy or Google it to pronounce taoiseach. Fuck. I live in Ohio and I can pronounce it. He is a national embarrassment. Doesn’t that embarrass HIM!

  5. 5.

    Adam L Silverman

    @rikyrah: She looked like the cat that ate the canary when she started to smile at the photo spray. He looked like he was angry he had to be there and wanted to be anywhere else.

  9. 9.

    rikyrah

    Washington Post‏Verified account @washingtonpost

    Trump administration rolls back protections for people in default on student loans

  14. 14.

    Adam L Silverman

    @amk: The Leader of the Free World confronted with nepotism from one of her third world allies.

  17. 17.

    rikyrah

    They were nothing but suckers.

    After White House courts HBCUs, budget disappoints school leaders
    By Danielle Douglas-Gabriel March 16 at 11:22 PM

    Instead, Trump’s first presidential budget released Thursday calls for “maintaining” $492 million in appropriations for HBCUs and minority-serving institutions. Combined discretionary spending for those schools, however, is actually $577 million right now. The White House directed questions about the discrepancy to the Education Department, which did not respond to requests for comment.

    There is no mention in the budget of any federal investment in scholarships, technology or campus infrastructure for historically black colleges that leaders requested. And instead of expanding Pell grants for low-income students to cover summer courses as they had asked, the budget raids nearly $4 billion from the program’s reserves.

    “Less than three weeks ago, this administration claimed it is a priority to advocate for HBCUs but, after viewing this budget proposal, those calls ring hollow,” Rep. Alma Adams (D-N.C.), a graduate of the largest HBCU, North Carolina A&T State University, said in a statement

  18. 18.

    Ithink

    Its embarrassing to the ten thousandth power that our closest allies are coming over from their states of national sovereignty and putting our Libdinous Visitor #45 olto absolute shame in making a fine public speech and example of leadership and personal service.

    Of course though, since we are talking about European immigrants, the painful & dangerous hypocrisies of Christian entho- national sweeping still majority white nations the globe over is not lost on the last descendants of Lord Voldermor that make up our current presidential administration. Still appreciate the fuck out of him for having done it! Best speech given on U.S. soil of this godforsaken era of madness thus far, and by a high-class non-American, no less!

  20. 20.

    Iowa Old Lady

    As I recall, Merkel already had to explain the Geneva Convention to Trump. Irony had to go away on a long vacation that included drinks with little umbrellas.

  23. 23.

    rikyrah

    New York Magazine‏Verified account @NYMag

    White nationalist Richard Spencer is an absentee landlord of a cotton farm that gets millions in federal subsidies

  25. 25.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Iowa Old Lady: She also had to explain to our expert on deals and trade that the US and Germany do not have any bilateral trade agreements. Germany’s are handled by the EU.

  26. 26.

    amk

    beebs: WH intruder jumped three fences.

    We are gonna build the biggest, the beautifullest wall around the white house, ok? Believe me.

  29. 29.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Villago Delenda Est: As far as I know, everyone in the EU’s trade agreements are handled under the US-EU multilateral agreement. I have no idea why the President has a preference for bilateral versus multilateral trade agreements, since he has no experience with either. But if he, and his advisors, think that 1) abandoning that (and other) multilateral agreements will be quick, easy, and painless and 2) that then negotiating bilateral agreements to replace them will be quick, easy, and painless he’s got another think coming.

  30. 30.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Oatler.:

    You’ve got to pick up the pieces
    Come on, sort your trash, you better pull yourself back together
    Maybe you’ve got too much cash
    Better call, call the law
    When you gonna turn yourself in?
    Yeah, you’re a politician
    Don’t become one of Hitler’s children

  32. 32.

    ruemara

    Hmph. On the plus side, all this smackage beating the Donald about the head and shoulders. Minus side, my job probation got extended. I fear the boss o’ bosses decided I should be scapegoat for the messy project that I got stuck with. How am I responsible for the look of things when the footage was shot 3-5 months before I ever was hired?

  34. 34.

    amk

    the presidential foreign leaders meet & greet fuckups

    Japan – check
    Canada – check
    Germany – check
    Ireland – check

    eta: Mexico – We are too smart to meet with this nutter.

  36. 36.

    Tokyokie

    Frankly, I’m absolutely disgusted that it is left to the leader of a foreign country to voice the soaring rhetoric of this nation’s ideals because the Republican president is neither capable of inspirational speech nor of understanding anything beyond his petty self-interest. A human with even a modicum of of graciousness would be mortified by such a development, but the Republican president is utterly lacking in that attribute because it doesn’t help him chisel dough from suckers. The asshole is what Timothy McVeigh would have been had he been born into enormous wealth and was utterly lacking in self-awareness.

  37. 37.

    rikyrah

    3 Latino and 2 Black?
    Yeah, we know why they mad

    …………………….

    Kids on winning robotics team told, ‘Go back to Mexico’
    The Indianapolis Star 12:10 p.m. ET March 17, 2017

    INDIANAPOLIS — The day should have been one of glory and celebration for five fourth-graders.

    The Pleasant Run Elementary students had just won a robotics challenge at Plainfield High School, and the students — new to bot competition this year — were one step closer to the Vex IQ State Championship.

    Then racism got in the way.

    For the record, their race or ethnicity shouldn’t be a part of this story. But it is.

    The team is made up of 9- and 10-year-olds. Two are African American and three are Latino.

    As the group, called the Pleasant Run PantherBots, and their parents left the challenge last month in Plainfield, Ind., competing students from other Indianapolis-area schools and their parents were waiting for them in the parking lot.

    “Go back to Mexico!” two or three kids screamed at their brown-skin peers and their parents.

    This verbal attack had spilled over from the gymnasium. While the children were competing, one or two parents disparaged the Pleasant Run kids with racist comments — and loud enough for the Pleasant Run families to hear.

    “They were pointing at us and saying that ‘Oh my God, they are champions of the city all because they are Mexican. They are Mexican, and they are ruining our country,’ ” Diocelina Herrera, the mother of PantherBot Angel Herrera-Sanchez, heard a woman say.

    If you allow racism and hate to dictate these things, minority students from the east side of the city, poor kids from a Title I school, aren’t supposed to be smart. They aren’t supposed to be talented. They aren’t supposed to be technologically savvy.

    And they definitely aren’t supposed to be able to best white students from surrounding communities.

    “For the most part, the robotics world is kind of a white world,” said Lisa Hopper, the team’s coach and a Pleasant Run second-grade teacher. “They’re just not used to seeing a team like our kids.
    “And they see us and they think we’re not going to be competition. Then we’re in first place the whole day, and they can’t take it,” she said.

  40. 40.

    JPL

    OT.. As I mentioned a thousand times, I campaigning for a special election for city council. It’s in the same town that the mayor called Ossoff a foreigner . Anyway local elections are non partisan, and the person I’m supporting is for smart development. Today was the first day that some old guy let me know he could call the cops on me for knocking on his door. I calmed him down, by mentioning that the statute that let Tom Price call us on our phones was the same that allowed me to knock on his door. He liked Tom so he calmed down, but he’s not voting for my candidate.

  41. 41.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @amk:

    the presidential foreign leaders meet & greet fuckups

    Japan – check
    Canada – check
    Germany – check
    Ireland – check

    United Kingdom — check
    Israel — check

  43. 43.

    amk

    The claim that GCHQ carried out surveillance on Donald Trump during the election campaign is “arrant nonsense”, Rick Ledgett, the number two at the US National Security Agency (NSA) has told the BBC in an exclusive interview.

    Take it away, Adam.

  44. 44.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @debbie: Ms. Merkel publically demonstrated that he’s no genius, except perhaps in the Wile E. Coyote sense.

  46. 46.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @amk: The Faux Noise yapping heads are not smart enough to point the finger at say the Lithuanians as having monitored comms in and out of Trump Tower.

  47. 47.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @rikyrah: I saw that when you posted it earlier. The behavior of the parents in front of their children was appalling. Another generation of racists be indoctrinated. Horrifying.

  48. 48.

    rikyrah

    THE RECLUSIVE HEDGE-FUND TYCOON BEHIND THE TRUMP PRESIDENCY
    March 27, 2017 ISSUE

    excerpt:
    Patterson also recalled Mercer arguing that, during the Gulf War, the U.S. should simply have taken Iraq’s oil, “since it was there.” Trump, too, has said that the U.S. should have “kept the oil.” Expropriating another country’s natural resources is a violation of international law. Another onetime senior employee at Renaissance recalls hearing Mercer downplay the dangers posed by nuclear war. Mercer, speaking of the atomic bombs that the U.S. dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, argued that, outside of the immediate blast zones, the radiation actually made Japanese citizens healthier. The National Academy of Sciences has found no evidence to support this notion. Nevertheless, according to the onetime employee, Mercer, who is a proponent of nuclear power, “was very excited about the idea, and felt that it meant nuclear accidents weren’t such a big deal.”

    Mercer strongly supported the nomination of Jeff Sessions to be Trump’s Attorney General. Many civil-rights groups opposed the nomination, pointing out that Sessions has in the past expressed racist views. Mercer, for his part, has argued that the Civil Rights Act, in 1964, was a major mistake. According to the onetime Renaissance employee, Mercer has asserted repeatedly that African-Americans were better off economically before the civil-rights movement. (Few scholars agree.) He has also said that the problem of racism in America is exaggerated. The source said that, not long ago, he heard Mercer proclaim that there are no white racists in America today, only black racists. (Mercer, meanwhile, has supported a super pac, Black Americans for a Better Future, whose goal is to “get more Blacks involved in the Republican Party.”)

  49. 49.

    Eric S.

    @ruemara: I cannot help you but I sympathize. I told the PM at my new job that “5 years into 2.5 year project, I can’t save you.” It didn’t go over well but I’m tight with the boss I directly report to. I’ll be ok.

  52. 52.

    JPL

    @SiubhanDuinne: Have you worked with Atlanta council on International Relations? ACIR Today while door knocking I met the most interesting person, who works with the organization.

  53. 53.

    rikyrah

    Kaiser Family Found‏Verified account @KaiserFamFound

    House GOP #AHCA’s payroll tax repeal would take 3 years off #Medicare Part A trust fund solvency

  54. 54.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Tokyokie: Actually that’s unfair to McVeigh. A deep dive into McVeigh’s bio as a case study (which I’ve done professionally and the below is off the top of my head – I’m not going to pull my publications and review them right now) indicates that McVeigh came from a tumultuous and much less than optimum familial experience. He’d managed to escape most of that by joining the Army. Unfortunately that escape, and his attempt to make a career, came apart. When he attempted to qualify for Army Special Forces (ARSOF), he became quite ill during the Qualifying (Q) Course and had to drop out. He had been sick before it started and foolishly refused a non-punitive offer to withdraw and try again once healthy. Everyone I’ve known who has gone through the entry courses – Special Forces Preparation Course and the Special Forces Assessment Course, as well as Robin Sage (the final Green Beret Q Course) or Ranger School (both full fledged members of the Rangers and those who are just Ranger tabbed) have made it very clear that by the time they were done with the courses they were either physically ill and/or no longer at peak physical condition because of what the courses entail. He should have taken the option of the temporary withdrawal and reschedule.

    The final major incident that drove McVeigh to his extreme views was a dispute with the IRS. When he was deployed for Desert Storm the Army had screwed up his withholding on his pay. And since his pay included deployment pay (35% increase for dangerous location, 35% for hazardous duty) – that was a huge back taxes bill he got hit with. For reasons that I’ve never seen clearly explained and/or documented he was unable to get the IRS to agree to a repayment schedule that he could actually manage. They demanded he pay up and he felt that he should get some consideration for being a combat veteran who had been wounded while deployed in a combat/war zone.

    So McVeigh had significant strain – from his childhood/family, from failing to qualify for Army Special Forces, and because of his negative interaction with the IRS. That provided the basis for his radicalization, which was classic neutralization and drift leading him into the extreme, reactionary, anti-government right.

    This is a very, very different life course trajectory from the President’s.

  57. 57.

    hovercraft

    @Adam L Silverman:

    I have no idea why the President has a preference for bilateral versus multilateral trade agreements,

    Divide and conquer, play them off against one another. They hate collectivism in all it’s forms. Same reason the right hates the UN, all this talk about collective good. The right correctly believes that part of the purpose of the EU is to dilute the power of the US. If we are dealing one on one we have more leverage over the other party because we are the largest market, if they want access they have to get it on our terms.
    I think it’s a combination of all of the above.

  59. 59.

    debbie

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    This kid’s gone Hassidic, and when he hears Spencer say America should be a country for Northern Europeans only, he’s convinced he’s in that group.

    His IQ is really high, but he’s an idiot.

  61. 61.

    Amaranthine RBG

    @rikyrah:

    Your celebrating someone bashing somebody on the head and knocking him to the ground because of littering?

  67. 67.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @hovercraft:
    You’ve left one out that I think is critical to Trump himself: It’s much easier to lie one-on-one. Trump’s business record suggests that telling someone he’s negotiating with exactly what they want and then ignoring the contract and doing what he wants is his major strategy. When you negotiate with multiple partners at a time, it’s harder to come up with an empty promise everyone wants to hear.

  69. 69.

    Adam L Silverman

    @SiubhanDuinne: @JPL: I know some people involved. Or I did. If I recall correctly some of the members of the Atlanta Robert T. Jones Trust are also members of ACIR.

  70. 70.

    millard filmore

    @rikyrah:

    He [Mercer] has also said that the problem of racism in America is exaggerated.

    He must never have been issued a seat belt ticket for sitting in his parked car, with the doors open, and the engine off.

  71. 71.

    Lyrebird

    @Amaranthine RBG: If only it coulda been Ryan being smacked with a piece of trash after baiting a working poor. Then maybe a couple olds in their ordinary walkers could come and poke him a bit… WITH VOTES of course.

    Apologies if I’ve missed snark,
    but it’s not the littering so much as the
    HA HA council jobber I will kick it away from you
    and then essentially call you a moocher.

  73. 73.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @amk:

    @SiubhanDuinne: showoff…

    Naah, just supplementing your excellent list with a couple of also too contributions.

  75. 75.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @millard filmore: Only an asshole rich white guy can make such a statement. One of many reasons why this guy and his daughter need to be on a tumbrel manifest.

  79. 79.

    Adam L Silverman

    @amk: @SiubhanDuinne: Netanyahu has so much buyer’s remorse he’s skipping AIPAC this year.
    http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.777881

    A senior minister who sits in the diplomatic-security cabinet said he met with Netanyahu this week and found him very worried. The reason wasn’t the spat within the government about a new public broadcasting corporation, but Donald Trump. 
    The U.S. president has asked Netanyahu to give him a proposal that would include significant restrictions on settlement construction, the minister said. The prime minister wants with all his heart to avoid a fight with either Trump or settler leaders, the minister continued, and he’s breaking his head over how to square the circle.
    “There’s enormous pressure on him over the settlements from Trump,” the minister said. “Trump told Netanyahu, ‘Tell me what your needs are on the settlements, and what you’re willing to do to rein in construction.’ Netanyahu is in a corner that he doesn’t know how to get out of. 
    “That’s also why he isn’t going to the AIPAC conference in Washington at the end of the month,” the minister added. “He doesn’t yet have anything to bring to Trump. The feeling I got is that he’s starting to miss Obama.”

  81. 81.

    Thru the Looking Glass...

    @Iowa Old Lady:

    Irony had to go away on a long vacation that included drinks with little umbrellas.

    Oh hell… Irony’s drinking straight from the bottle by now…

  84. 84.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Adam L Silverman:
    And after Trump told Nettie the US would support a one state solution, too! So sad. It probably is hard to work with someone who lies all the time and can’t be relied on for anything.

  86. 86.

    Adam L Silverman

    Impending tweet storm in T-Minus 5 hours and 52 minutes. Everyone synchronize their watches!

  90. 90.

    hovercraft

    @Villago Delenda Est:
    The combination of being a rich, white man, and a “conservative” means that he has no concept of what POC go through every day. Remember republicans only seem to be able to conceive what happens to them personally, they have no concept of empathy, that terrible liberal failing. The video’s we’ve been seeing for the last couple of years, prove nothing, they are edited, or incomplete and show only the “inflammatory” parts.

  92. 92.

    jl

    @Adam L Silverman: Well, I dunno, maybe even Trump will stumble on a couple of decent policies. But, still, no way Trump knows what he’s doing or how to react to problems.

    But Netanyahu was a damned fool if he could not see something like this was a distinct possibility from Trump.

  93. 93.

    debbie

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    If you didn’t see it, find the SNL episode Chappelle hosted. All of it’s funny, but he did a takeoff on The Walking Dead with a bunch of his characters.

  95. 95.

    debbie

    O/T: My local news tells me a judge overturned all of the laws meant to weaken the Dem NC Governor. Overall, this has been a very good day.

  98. 98.

    Adam L Silverman

    @jl: From reading the article this all seems to be from the new Special Envoy Jason Greenblatt. Despite having no government or diplomatic or international negotiation experience he seems to have wowed everyone in Israel and the West Bank. He met with Israelis, Palestinians. Everyone was impressed. From the article:
    http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.777881

    On the eve of his visit, the New York Times published an article describing him scornfully as a man with no diplomatic experience who landed his job almost by chance. But Greenblatt proved this week that even if he lacks the experience of veterans of the peace industry in America, he is blessed with sharp instincts, seriousness, common sense and a great deal of personal charm and emotional intelligence. Everyone on the Israeli side who met with Greenblatt this week, on both the right and the left, as well as everyone on the Palestinian side, had a positive impression.
    “Greenblatt is a serious, honest envoy,” tweeted MK Tzipi Livni (Zionist Union) after meeting him. “There’s no doubt President Trump is committed to peace, and that’s good news. It won’t be easy – but there’s hope.”
    On his first visit to the region as Trump’s envoy, Greenblatt came mainly to listen and learn. Alongside his meetings with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, he held a great many meetings with segments of the population that until now most U.S. envoys had passed over. 
    He surprised many on the Palestinian side by meeting with residents of the Jalazun refugee camp near Ramallah, and surprised others on the Israeli side by meeting with two mayors of settlements, Oded Revivi and Yossi Dagan. He met with Palestinian and Israeli students, with residents of the Gaza Strip, with senior Jewish, Christian and Muslim clerics.

  101. 101.

    Mary G

    Just had a poller call and decided to answer to see if it was a real poll or a push poll. Once he learned I was a white Democrat age 61 living in California he told me they were over quota on those and he would have no further questions. Weird.

  102. 102.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Yarrow: And those applicants, if admitted, pays the full amount for tuition. This helps offset the cost for US students on scholarships and grants and work study and, at the grad level, assistantships.

  104. 104.

    jl

    @Frankensteinbeck: First time I’ve heard anything half way sensible in way of policy from Trump. But.. damn… Trump doesn’t know what he’s doing, a good chance he’ll mess it up.

    Trump may well fold if Netanyahu bluffs. On the other hand, Trump could stir up such a bungle that it will just alienate both sides even more and set things back even more. Trump could get both sides mistrusting and resenting us. (Edit: actually, likely, since Trump has said if Israel doesn’t want a deal, so what? That would be OK with him, keep the occupation going. Though Trump would probably deal out punishment to Israel in incompetent and counterproductive ways, because it would be perceived as a defeat for Trump and he’d be pissed pettily)

    See, I don’t trust Trump to do anything right.

  106. 106.

    hovercraft

    @Adam L Silverman:
    He misses being able to shit all over him and imply is=f not say outright that he hate Jews and Israel. Poor Bibi, I feel about as sorry for him as I do for Paul Ryan, these fuckers chose to get on board the crazy train, to allow the crazies into the room and now they have taken over and they want sympathy? Fuck em, they got the benefits, harming their countries, now it’s time to pay the piper. Obama is chillin living the good life, well liked and respected, while these assholes who sold their souls to maintain/gain power, are miserable as hell. Karma.

  109. 109.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Adam L Silverman:
    That’s so strange, since there’s no way he has backing from the administration for all this. I wonder where it will go?

    And question: Given that anti-black prejudices are also thick in Israel, what do you think of the idea that Bibi may have hated Obama because negotiating as equals with a schwartzer offended him?

  113. 113.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @jl:
    I guarantee you that Trump does not have a good or even coherent policy on this. Trump just tells the lie that feels right at the moment and gives not one shit about Israel for or against. So… who WILL decide policy towards Israel? What are their priorities? I mean, Bannon’s a Nazi, for pity’s sake.

  114. 114.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Adam L Silverman: And I share that sentiment entirely. Your non-sarcastic one. But you knew that, and anyone reading the blog regularly probably does, but who knows who we’ve got lurking here.

  117. 117.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Frankensteinbeck: Based on the reporting, my understanding is that Jared Kushner has control over this portfolio. Not the Secretary of State in conjunction with the Secretary of Defense as was the case under the Obama Administration. President Obama’s Special Envoy, Gen. (ret) Allen, ran the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Security Dialogue (in the Middle East). He reported directly to both the Secretary of State and Defense, as well as to the President. The Secretary of State had primacy despite where the office was located. The reason DOD was involved is because the major US initiative with the Palestinians is preparing their law enforcement and emergency services, as well as the administration of justice system so they’re ready when they do get their own state. That initiative is run by a 2 star in conjunction with the Consul General in Jerusalem (the US Embassy in all but name to the Palestinians and the oldest US diplomatic post).

    The current Special Envoy, however, reports to Jared Kushner. But he is also the former Chief Legal Officer to the Trump Organization and the President when he was running it. So he has a direct line to the President because of the working relationship. I highly doubt he’s off the reservation or freelancing here.

  118. 118.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Adam L Silverman:

    “He doesn’t yet have anything to bring to Trump. The feeling I got is that he’s starting to miss Obama.”

    That brought a big smile to my face.

  119. 119.

    Anne Laurie

    @amk:

    Angela’s wtf are you doing here face at the twitler’s spawn.

    “You’d think such a well-to-do leader could hire a more professional home health aide.”

    (Go look up Khadaffi’s UN trip, where he was accompanied at all times by two attractive blonde ‘nurses’, and tell me I’m wrong… )

  120. 120.

    Lizzy L

    @Adam L Silverman: But he will only react if he sees it, and he’ll only see it if it’s reported on Fox or Breitbart. Though I suppose he might see The Spectator Index Twitter feed. There’s this, too.

    GERMANY: Foreign ministry official calls Trump 'small and pathetic' for his behaviour with Angela Merkel at the White House— The Spectator Index (@spectatorindex) March 17, 2017

  121. 121.

    hovercraft

    @Adam L Silverman:

    That’s a foreign tweet, maybe he won’t see it, maybe whoever is on printout duty won’t print out the Irish and German and UK papers accounts of the goings on in the White House the last couple of days, given his volatility they may decide it’s best to just keep him on the dark. Best to just tell him he did splendidly, and have him watch his glowing reviews on FOX.

  122. 122.

    Anne Laurie

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Christ, what an asshole.

    Someone with better artistic talents than mine needs to do a Trump Family Crest with that as its motto. In a crappy Latin translation, of course.

  123. 123.

    Ken

    I’m hoping that Merkel found a private moment to lean in and whisper, “The Bundesbank has bought the paper on your loans, and the BND got copies of the hotel and brothel videos.”

  124. 124.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Frankensteinbeck: To your question: I have no idea. Bibi has never needed a reason to hate. He learned that early from his Dad. Anything and anyone that wasn’t Jewish, preferably Israeli, and even more preferably within the Jabotinsky revisionist Zionism must be struggled against. The Jabotinskyites are almost perfect Neitzcheans.

    That’s why you get this crap:
    http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.777861

    Students who want to take part in delegations going abroad are obliged to take an online government course which some parents and teachers say has a “blatant political agenda.” The course consists of film clips in which several speakers address the students and coach them about the messages they should express overseas.
    Arab students are also required to take the course.
    “The messages are simple and repetitive,” a mother of an 11th grade student from the central region says. “All the Arabs hate us, in fact almost the entire world hates us.”
    In June 2016 the Education Ministry sent detailed instructions to schools about preparing delegations for trips abroad. “Students and youth in delegations overseas represent Israel and its society and serve as its ambassadors,” it said. “The students will represent Israel using the main messages taught in the course,” the directive says, noting the goal is “cultivating Israeli pride and a sense of calling among those going abroad.”

    Another question is “Against whom is anti-Semitism directed?” and the right answer is: only toward Israel.
    “The messages say everyone hates us already from the era of the Bible, which is also the only legitimization for Israel mentioned in the course,” an 11th grade student’s mother says.
    “The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is presented with no context – no explanation is given for the Arab hatred and there’s no distinction between Israel and the West Bank,” she says.
    Another parent says, “We’re used to the rightist worldview reflected in civics and history. … Now we have to agree to a blatantly political agenda so that the child can go to a science competition.”
    A teacher accompanying delegations abroad says, “It’s hard to imagine what Arab students and parents feel. The Arabs appear in almost only negative contexts. There’s no reflection of coexistence. Bennett’s message in his clip is – the Arabs must be grateful for the right to vote and should keep quiet.”

  125. 125.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Adam L Silverman:
    If he’s a longtime Trump legal counsel, then dishonest negotiations will be second nature to him. And Trump is too senile to care. So the question becomes what Kushner wants. I thought he was too orthodox to want a real 2 state peace.

  127. 127.

    Anne Laurie

    @rikyrah:

    White nationalist Richard Spencer is an absentee landlord of a cotton farm that gets millions in federal subsidies

    Well, he can get a nice premium selling Klan hoods made from his ‘artisanally sourced’ cotton…

  129. 129.

    jl

    Google says “I want DEAL!’ is ‘Ego bonus paciscor’. That would look swell on a family crest.

  138. 138.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Adam L Silverman:
    While I had not heard this story, it is entirely in line with everything I know about Nettie and everything I heard from Zionists growing up and my Israeli sister-in-law. Honestly, it’s a miracle I escaped believing all Arabs are inherently evil terrorists.

  141. 141.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Frankensteinbeck: He’s Modern Orthodox. Many of the ultra-Orthodox don’t even believe Israel should exist. The Modern Orthodox are supportive. Some are really supportive of the settler movement, some are meh. My understanding is that the Kushner family has been supportive, but I have no idea, and no way of knowing, what Jared Kushner’s personal views are. I can say with some authority, as I wrote the report on this back in 2014 when assigned by OSD-Security Dialogue to US Army Europe, that a one state solution may be inevitable because of the preferences of Israel’s governing coalition (Likud as the left most and largest coalition member), the seeming electoral inability of the opposition left of center parties to break the Likud coalition’s hold on power any time in the foreseeable future, and that the US would need to adjust its strategy accordingly to prevent the formation of a real apartheid or Jim Crow, tailored to an Israeli context, system. Regardless of who would be the next President. In the long term a one state solution is suicide for Israel. They will loose based on demographics within 10 to 30 years. And if they go an Israeli variant of apartheid or Jim Crow, then they’ll be facing perpetual rebellion, insurgency, and revolution, which will only exacerbate the outflow of Israelis back to the European states their grandparents and great grandparents left (because of EU rules they can reclaim citizenship and in a historic irony the largest group of those leaving and reclaiming citizenship are going to Germany) or coming to the US or Australia or NZ or Canada. A one state solution may happen because that’s all the Israelis will let happen, but if it does then Israel will defeat itself in the long run.

  143. 143.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Omnes Omnibus: My guess is Yoni would have made a career of the military and not entered politics until after retirement. His death at Entebbe, however, partially defines the toxic relationship Netanyahu has always had with Ehud Barak. Barak was the overall mission commander for that operation.

  144. 144.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Adam L Silverman:
    I was nodding along with everything but the Ultra-Orthodox. I guess I’ve only encountered a limited variety, but they all took Zionism and the primacy of destroying all Arabs to protect Judaism as assumed. Admittedly the wackiest I’ve known were labovich, and I know there are much weirder branches who don’t just disagree with but hate all other Jews.

  145. 145.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Frankensteinbeck: I can’t speak for what anything is like today, but I was sent, against my wishes, to a Jewish Day School. The place had multiple problems, not least of which is that most of the teachers were unqualified and enjoyed emotionally abusing the students. From there I went to a Jesuit high school – I know what a properly run/administered private, religious school is like. Jesuit was the latter, the Jewish elementary and middle school I went to was not! Another problem with the Jewish day school, and a major one, is that by the time I was 9 I had been taught/learned every date and location where Jews had historically been targeted and/or killed for being Jews and the details. Nothing about how Jews in India or China were welcomed and largely assimilated. Some about the Golden Age of Spain, but only because we’d learned about Maimonides and that was overshadowed by the Inquisition. So pretty much I had learned that everyone who wasn’t Jewish was a threat and Jews lived a precarious existence everywhere and anywhere no matter what the time period. That’ll turn anyone into a proto-fascist.

  146. 146.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Adam L Silverman: Barak oversaw a successful operation. Yoni’s death was a soldier’s risk. Bibi needs/needed to deal.

    ETA: I would hate to see my younger brother act like an asshole because of something like that.

  147. 147.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Villago Delenda Est: No one’s hands are clean in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. And no one is, at the end of the day (so to speak) going to be gloriously right and vindicated. Both sides are likely to be tragically wrong and are going to be lucky to make it through the other side. One of the most profound things I ever heard about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was during a talk by Aaron David Miller, the long time Foreign Service officer working this problem set, who said: “the Israelis cannot afford to be occupiers and the Palestinians cannot afford to be occupied”. Unfortunately the bills for each side seem to come due at different times.

  148. 148.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Adam L Silverman:
    …we had very similar experiences. Mine was cut short because my parents saw how the staff didn’t care about bullying at all, and yanked me out. I never even finished learning to read Hebrew.

  150. 150.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Frankensteinbeck: The most devout, especially in Israel – the Haredim (tremblers) deny the legitimacy of Israel because the Messiah has not returned. And Israel’s existence will prevent that. Those in Israel expect the full protection of the state, are on Israel’s versions of welfare because most of the men don’t work as it interferes with the study of Torah (which is more important), and they have ridiculously large families that have to be fed, clothed, and housed. They refuse military service and get an exemption because of enrollment in specific yeshivas. In the US many of the most devout ultra-Orthodox sects also deny the legitimacy of Israel for the same reasons.

  151. 151.

    efgoldman

    @ruemara:

    How am I responsible for the look of things when the footage was shot 3-5 months before I ever was hired?

    Should have rented Obama’s time machine, you should have.

  152. 152.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Omnes Omnibus: Tracking. I get it, you get it. Bibi wrote a book about it and kept a grudge. It was also part of the reason he hated Arafat and hates Abu Mazen.

  153. 153.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Adam L Silverman: Meanwhile, in the US our ultra-orthodox-based-on-shit-made-up-in-the-19th-century “Christians” see Israel as the key to triggering Armageddon and setting in motion the rapture and the end times.

    Then you’ve got the Daesh folks to the north and east of Israel with their own ideas about how the world is supposed to end…

  154. 154.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Frankensteinbeck: I was fortunate in that a very unconventional Orthodox rabbi started during my second year there. Since I was easily bored when not challenged, and was ahead in learning Hebrew and Judaic Studies, and he and I hit it off, they handed me off to him. It was one of the only bright spots in the entire mess and I would continue to study with him when I was in the area well into graduate school. Jesuit was a great experience. As was going to Emory – a Methodist university. Fortunately, because of good parents and mentors I came out okay instead of as Stephen Miller.

  156. 156.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Adam L Silverman: The mothers in Ireland had to intervene. It seems that families in the Levant are at a different point. To me, there is no solution without a recognition of Israel and a handover of the west bank.

  157. 157.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Omnes Omnibus: Without a doubt. Honestly I think the Jewish American and Muslim American responses to the recent increases in anti-Semitic and anti-Islamic threats, violence, hate crimes, and terrorism in the US is going to eventually lead to the solution. The ties that are being forged between those two communities to protect and support each other will create a trust and comfort level that can, and I think will, be eventually tapped to move a solution forward.

  159. 159.

    efgoldman

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Jared Kushner has control over this portfolio. Not the Secretary of State in conjunction with the Secretary of Defense

    I’m doubtful that anyone in the cabinet is much more competent than Jared.
    And that’s really scary.

  160. 160.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Omnes Omnibus: I do too. The real problem, what really makes this a wicked problem, isn’t designing the solution. Engineering that is easy. We know, by and large what it has to look like. Though far too little thought, in my opinion is given to what to do about/with Gaza and the Gazan Palestinians. Having a state that is not contiguous with a small portion isolated from the larger portion by an at best cold neighbor is not a recipe for success (Pakistani-Bangla War as one example). But by and large we know how to design the solution. The hard part, the wicked problem part, is selling the solution to all the stakeholders. The two principals. Their diasporan communities. And the other Arab, as well as Muslim majority states that have used the conflict as a way to manipulate their domestic politics, subjects, and/or citizens.

  162. 162.

    Thru the Looking Glass...

    @Omnes Omnibus: So are you saying Irony’s out, riding around w/ an unshaved Steve Bannon, in a trashed, mid-sixties convertible, trying to score on some dark street corner?

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