I would have taken this for an “Airbnb for the Affluent Asshole” listing, except it’s published on the official US Embassy & Consulates in the United Kingdom page:
The US Ambassador to the Court of St. James didn’t develop this promotional content; it’s from ShareAmerica:
ShareAmerica is the U.S. Department of State’s platform for sharing compelling stories and images that spark discussion and debate on important topics like democracy, freedom of expression, innovation, entrepreneurship, education, and the role of civil society.
The ShareAmerica team is part of the Bureau of International Information Programs, which works with U.S. embassies and consulates in more than 140 countries to engage with people around the globe on U.S. foreign policy and American society.
So, to recap, the US State Department is disseminating content worldwide on behalf of Trump’s for-profit private club, which doubled its annual membership fee to $200K after the election.
These Trump assholes are absolutely shameless. It’ll be a miracle if they don’t cart off the silverware and rip the copper wiring out of the White House walls when compelled to vacate government housing.
Open thread!
schrodingers_cat
Banana Republic Time!
TenguPhule
We are so forked as a nation.
Это курам на смех
I didn’t get a harrumph outta that guy.
TenguPhule
@schrodingers_cat: Point of order. Even banana republics know better then to kill the magic money trees.
Olivia
I just wonder how much will be carted off or even destroyed. Put nothing past this gang of thugs.
piratedan
why don’t they just say that US policy is for sale, because essentially, it is…
what we don’t know yet is if these guys have already sold it to Putin once or if its available for sale again and if so, what the hell they’re really buying or selling because with these guys you can’t really trust them on ANYTHING.
Mike in NC
Better to rename it “FleeceAmerica”
TenguPhule
Proving that I’m not always bringing bad news, a spot of light in the darkness
Now if only someone could spirit off the Republican party in the middle of the night.
Mnemosyne
But remember, Hillary giving a speech to Goldman Sachs about women entrepreneurs proves that she would have been worse!
//
cope
I….uh…err….like…well….meep….
As an ancient tree-hugging progressive, I never thought I would be cheering sea level rise on but so be it.
I guess to blunt the pain, I need to look at it like I looked at fraternities in college: I wouldn’t want to be in one but at least we know where all the assholes are.
schrodingers_cat
My comment from the last thread:
T’s vision for the United States, is to make it East Germany of the Cold War.
1. Wall at the border
2. Stasi within
3. Russia’s client state.
ETA: Already have #3. Working on #2. #1 has been proposed.
I know the Wall is supposed to keep people out for now, but if the Rs are successful in all that they want to do gut this country and sell it for its parts, the Wall will be used to keep us in, instead.
Goku
Some reporter should ask Sphincter at the next presser about wtf promoting Mar-a-largo has anything to do with that
Mnemosyne
@Goku:
Well, obviously, it’s about entrepreneurship, because The Donald built everything he has all by himself. No help from daddy, no bankruptcy protections, just entrepreneurship.
Goku
@TenguPhule:
From wiki:
If I had my way, the statue would be melted down
Mnemosyne
@Goku:
Holy shit. That’s a whole lot of economic insecurity on display there.
Miss Bianca
@Goku: holy shit, that’s even more vile than just the monument.
ruemara
We are going to be the best, hugest, most powerful banana republic of sickened morons possible. USA! USA. Dear god, the USA.
schrodingers_cat
@ruemara: Being Putin’s bitch is not exactly the most powerful anything.
TenguPhule
@Goku:
Baby steps. First you get it out of sight. Then you dispose of it.
Betty Cracker
@Mnemosyne: In case anyone is unclear on the reference to 1876, that’s when Reconstruction officially ended and federal troops were withdrawn as part of the negotiations to end the dispute over the contested election.
Mike in NC
@Goku: national election of November
18762016 recognized white supremacyGoku
@Miss Bianca: But don’t worry, in the 70s they put a plaque right next to the old one that said how white supremacy was not compatible with then-present day New Orleans’ philosophy. Its not like the City couldn’t have taken down or destroyed the monument or anything. History is important, but this monument celebrated the destruction of multi-ethic/racial democracy
ruemara
@schrodingers_cat: IT is. We’re essentially a giant well-armed golem that can wreak havoc and we’re under the control of a twat and his handler. We are very powerful. We’re just not in charge of ourselves any more.
cain
I had to look up the election of 1876. Damn, Prez Hayes was pretty cool.. the whole Republican thing is kind of wierd to hear when it sounds like modern day democrats. Too bad, he wasn’t held in higher esteem. That said, wasn’t a fan of his Indian policy. Trying to turn them into white people caused a lot of harm.
Waynski
@cope:
Trump’s not worried about sea-level rise. He’ll just build a wall…a beautiful wall.
japa21
The whole promotion starts with a lie. It is not an Trump’s estate, it is a for profit club he owns. Big difference.
cain
@TenguPhule:
No.. symbols are very powerful. Instead, stick it in a museum, and allow people to mock it for what it stands for. Degrade it.
Goku
Bonus:
ArchTeryx
Easy to say “we’re fucked” but I believe that less then I used to, thanks to Trump’s so-called agenda sinking like a lead paperweight into the Cayman Trench.
Yeah, there’s STILL trying to raise Zombie Trumpcare up from the dead – if we shock it enough times, maybe it’ll come to life and wreck shit this time! – but don’t seem to be having any more success now then they did before.
The much bigger problem is this huge white supremacy streak that’s now out, loud, and proud, and running pell-mell through our entire body politic. And it doesn’t stop with just other races or immigrants. Apparently, attacking the disabled is the next thing on their little Nazi wish list. [Warning: GOS link]
They won’t stop until I and all like me are dead, or they are chucked bodily out of power. I hope to hell it’s the latter.
schrodingers_cat
@ruemara: Yes we have the military might but the less said about the brains behind that power, the better.
jl
I’m tenants in common with some kin on a few acres in AK, and CA west of Bakersfield.Good for very short hikes. Foreign dignitaries can enjoy the bucolic wonders of real American countryside.
We call the California property ‘Zanja a bomba’ since it connects a ditch and an irrigation pump! We could put a trailer on it.
Could I get a spot on the State Department website for that beauty?
Trump could hike all around them with his bigshot dignitaries and not even get out of breath.
TenguPhule
@cain: The best revenge is to have your enemies buried away forgotten and unknown to the tides of history.
Goku
@cain: Sticking it in a museum like you say is probably the best course of action, so long as the exhibit makes clear the historical context of it. The original plaques (or recreations of them) should be included to drive home the point
@TenguPhule:
Those who forget history are bound to repeat it, no matter how satisfying the notion of erasing vile people from history might be
sharl
Biff Tannen’s Pleasure Paradise is our new White House I guess.
Patricia Kayden
Hustler-in-Chief. It’s amazing what this Trump fella can get away with.
PaulWartenberg
other countries should be suing us for false advertising.
they’ll have a solid case on this.
Mnemosyne
@cain:
We have a great museum here in Los Angeles that would love to have it: the Museum of Tolerance. Though it’s frequently shut down by bomb threats since it’s also a Holocaust museum.
ArchTeryx
@cain: That’s exactly what should be done, with the original plaque if possible, and neutral descriptions of the terms, along with some historical context. Museums shouldn’t be in the role of moral judgements – if we wanted that, the Creation Museum should more then suffice – but the right context will tell the reader that modern New Orleans is very different then the one on that plaque.
schrodingers_cat
@Patricia Kayden: That’s because MSM is a subsidiary of the Rich People’s party bought and paid for. I mean they are still singing paeans to bipartisanship and both-siding it.
jl
I hear on the news that Trump is ready to fold on his extortion threat to kneecap health care for The Great Beautiful Wall.
Will settle for funding for a map room and drafting table for it at M-a-L, or some such nonsense.
Or maybe a demo Lego-Wall out by the Mar-a-Lago pool, to show off. Or something.
ArchTeryx
@schrodingers_cat: Yep. And still trying like hell to Mau-Mau Democrats with their haka into rolling over and letting Trump pass his agenda completely unopposed. The funny thing about being totally locked out of power, though? Rather like Lame Duck Obama, the rump that is the Democrats have no fucks left to give. The media can sing their song all they want, but the Ds in Congress ain’t listening.
Thank Dog.
Mnemosyne
@ArchTeryx:
Depends on the type of museum — Holocaust memorial museums have to take a moral stand, because you shouldn’t “both sides” genocide.
schrodingers_cat
@ArchTeryx: I have never understood the MSM fetish for bipartisanship as the highest political good.
Roger Moore
@piratedan:
They are saying that; they’re just using dog whistles that people from other countries where they’re used to government being for sale will understand.
Chris T.
First, let me just say that “the wall” is a stupid and ridiculous idea in the first place.
That out of the way, here’s what I want to see from some Dem or pundit or something like that (and the more who say it, the better): “Mr Trump, you said Mexico would pay for the wall. So why do you need 20 billion dollars in funding? You don’t put your own money into your own buildings, you use other people’s money for that. Why should we put any of our money into your wall?”
jl
@Mnemosyne: I think important to keep the memorial and plaque to document the origins of the ‘Confederate’ and ‘Southern’ heritage movements.
A lot of people can get on board ‘Southern Heritage’ if it means corn bread and catfish, and chess pie, and such. But the branch of Southern Heritage that involves displaying the Confederate Battle Flag like a fetish boils down the sentiments expressed in this monument, and plaque. Need to preserve the evidence for future generations. IMHO. Question is what is the best venue and context.
Town square is surely not a good venue and provides horrible context.
WereBear
@ruemara: Here you go:
Why the Golem is a Perfect Metaphor for Donald Trump
jl
@Chris T.: I agree. I think the first words out of any Democratic politician’s mouth on it on TV should be “Trump said Mexico would pay. Why is he soaking the US taxpayer for it, and holding the Democratic Party responsible because he couldn’t keep his promise? That is insulting.”
schrodingers_cat
T and Rs reminds me of the story of Nahusha* and the devas who invite him to rule over the heavens, from the Mahabharata. Well, its turns badly for everyone
concerned.
* Ancestor of both the Pandavas and Kauravas, the cousins who fight the ultimately destructive war of Mahabharata.
Shell
How safe is the China Room in the West Wing?
TriassicSands
I just finished reading the transcript of Trump’s recent interview with the AP. As the 100 day milestone approaches, it is no surprise that Trump is ratcheting up the boasting, but some of the shit (I use the word advisedly) he said is beyond the bounds of believability. Of course the statements are not believable, we know that since Trump lies with virtually every breath. What’s not believable is the fact that he would even utter the words.
His claim that Elijah Cummings said he (Trump) would be one of the greatest presidents of all time was bad enough, but out of the whole interview, my favorite quote is the one in which Trump rates his speech before the Congress.
As always, Trump relies on “everybody” or “a lot of people” or even the more modest “some people,” but they are always unspecified people and no one could identify even one let alone “a lot” or “everybody.” To claim that people are saying that Trump’s was “the single best speech ever made in that chamber” really is one of the most truly incredible things any politician has ever said. The interview is filled with Trump rewriting history and using the hordes of unspecified people who always find whatever Trump has done to be historic and even so great that history can’t adequately contain Trump’s accomplishments.
Trump’s first 100 days by any objective standard have been a disaster. His one supposed accomplishment — the elevation of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court — isn’t really anything Trump can take credit for doing. The credit — the disgraceful infamy — belongs to Mitch McConnell who stole that seat not from the Democrats or Merrick Garland or Barack Obama, but from the millions of people who elected Obama and were entitled to have their elected president name Scalia’s replacement. Trump is just the placeholder who got to pick a name out of a hat filled with right wing zealots. Any of the umpteen Republicans who ran for president last year would have in all likelihood picked someone equally bad. And, since the Republicans controlled the Senate and were willing to ditch the filibuster to get their way, the success was a foregone conclusion.
At some point, someone is going to have to put together a collection of Trump’s greatest boasts and wildest misstatements of fact and truth. The AP interview would be a good place to begin.
debbie
@schrodingers_cat:
Add to your list that Trump has congratulated Sisi of Egypt, Erdogan of Turkey, and now La Pen of France. I can’t decide which is the worst, but I do know they’re all autocrats. What previous president would have done this kind of thing?
Goku
@jl:
I live in Northest Ohio, and I’ll never understand people who fly the Confederate Battle Flag. There’s a small rural city/town I drive through to get to classes, and it has a Civil War Memorial for the soldiers from there who died. Literally a few blocks away, there are Confderate flags flying on porches.
I can’t imagine what locals from 150 years ago would think
Ajabu
.@ArchTeryx:
Au Contraire, mon ami. The reason it was taken down in the middle of the night by workers in bulletproof vests and masks over the faces to conceal their identity – while protected by armed police and sniper teams – is because New Orleans remains in the south and those fucking white Yahoos are going apeshit over removing a part of their “heritage”.
As Goldman would say: Fuckem.
germy
Adam L Silverman
@schrodingers_cat: 2 will not be so easy.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@jl: I saw Nancy SMASH say that on my TV machine.
Timurid
The fuck? What?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Shell: The China Room is in the Residence, but I hopeful they’ve done a complete inventory prior to the current resident’s arrival.
debbie
@Timurid:
Pretty ominous, considering they’ve included the Democrats.
SatanicPanic
@Timurid: This points to them telling the senators something really stupid, or really scary. Probably both. Either way I don’t like it.
zhena gogolia
@Mnemosyne:
OT because I don’t want to think about North Korea, but have you seen Carmen Cusack do “You’ll Be Back”? Seriously fabulous.
Adam L Silverman
@WereBear: There is more to the legend of the Golem than meets the eye…
Mnemosyne
@germy:
Hard to argue against.
Brachiator
There ain’t no conflicts of interest to see here. No tax returns, neither. Move along.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Goku:
Probably, time to erect some gallows.
Goku
@Timurid: I also heard all democRats will have their mouths duck taped and hands tied behind their chairs
WereBear
@Adam L Silverman: People don’t know much about this monster because he only got a silent movie, years ago. :)
Felonius Monk
@debbie:
Wouldn’t be surprised if they are dis-invited at the last minute.
Baud
@SatanicPanic: I’m going to go with stupid.
Mnemosyne
@Timurid:
I can’t tell from the story — did this happen today, or is it scheduled for later this week?
Lizzy L
@ArchTeryx: This bill, and a number of other extreme House bills, are terrible and terrifying, but in all likelihood they will never get out of committee, and if they do, and are actually passed by the House, no bill will be introduced on the Senate side. There are quite a few of these piece-of-shit bills — there’s one to get rid of the EPA, another to get rid of the Dept of Education, and so on. They are all sitting in committee. That does not mean, of course, that we should not be vigilant — we should be, absolutely — but it does mean that we need to not freak out at the mere introduction of these monstrosities. This bill, and the others like them, tell us what we already knew, which is, those House Republican mofos are freakin’ insane.
jl
@Felonius Monk: If not, Drumpf might be planning a splendid little war, or perhaps more likely, a news worthy big war machine demonstration, to juice his approval ratings. Though, hard to believe his central-casting generals would go along with anything like that. Horrible consequences too likely and too immediate. They’d rather mess with something that they perceive to have a longer and slower fuse, like Iran, for example.
SatanicPanic
@Baud: Always a safe bet. I can’t imagine a DPRK policy from this admin that doesn’t include a healthy amount of idiocy.
Baud
@SatanicPanic:
Vox
Roger Moore
@debbie:
I hope they bring their own drinking water.
Kathleen
@debbie: Tad OT, but NBC “reporter” called LePen a “firebrand”. At least he interviewed people who don’t like Trump, unlike NPR.
Timurid
@Mnemosyne:
It’s supposed to be Wednesday at 3 ET.
KithKanan
@SatanicPanic: Was the ‘DPRK’ qualifier in that sentence really necessary?
SatanicPanic
@Baud: huh, maybe we’re wrong. McConnell is a lot of horrible things, but I wouldn’t call him stupid.
jl
@Baud: OK, thanks. Maybe not quite the immediate disaster I feared. More like preparing to initiate start-up to eventually begin a disaster. Kind of like a Microsoft update.
Kathleen
@Felonius Monk: If White House serves Kool Aid, Dems should decline.
SatanicPanic
@KithKanan: no, entirely superfluous.
Baud
@SatanicPanic: Who knows?
LurkerNoLonger
@Chris T.:
Thank you! I think this gotten lost in the conversation about this fucking stupid, ridiculous wall. (Which is what you said, but without the cursing.)
Baud
@jl:
Things are worse than I thought.
ArchTeryx
@Mnemosyne: Yeah, that’s absolutely true. There’s no neutrality in genocide. You’re either one of the killers or one fighting against it.
Jeffro
@Baud: it’s just more theater from a flailing idiot of a president and his chief enabler
HeleninEire
OMG so the Garda (Irish police) just came to my door. Apparently someone got shot right down the street (a big thing in Dublin – only drug dealers have guns) and he wanted to know where I was and what I was doing on March 26th. Well, shit, I don’t know. But that was Mother’s Day in Ireland so I actually knew where I was.
So I told him my “I moved to Dublin” story and he told me that when my lease is up I should move from this neighborhood. It’s tough, he said. I LARFFFFED. “Dude”, I said, “I moved to NYC in1981 when there was 4,000 murders. Beat that.” he slunk away.
He was cute and gave me his number, so maybe I might call him. ;)
ArchTeryx
@schrodingers_cat: That fetish only lasts as long as Republicans are in power. It disappears the moment Democrats control anything.
Kathleen
@Roger Moore: I see we’re on the same page!
Roger Moore
@Lizzy L:
I think they’re proposed in the confident knowledge that they’re never going to get anywhere. The point of these bills is to show the teabaggers back home- and probably the Koch brothers and similar insane money people- that they’re working on dismantling the government as promised. It’s more or less the same thing as their repeated votes to repeal Obamacare: you can really let your freak flag fly when you know the stuff you’re saying will never get out of committee.
ArchTeryx
@Ajabu: The city itself is not what it used to be. Southern politics, I’m sad to say, hasn’t changed a bit.
(And I suppose you could argue New Orleans has reverted right back after the whitewashing post-Katrina).
The security measures, I’m pretty sure, weren’t because of what they feared from city denizens. They were because of the bloody KKK yahoo outriders that still consider anything above Baton Rogue Yankee territory.
Goku
@HeleninEire: What happened to blind date guy? Or did I miss something?
moops
Moron President thinks a war with North Korea will take the attention off his bad performance and get his Wartime Bump in popularity and good press. It’s all he thinks about is good press and his popularity.
Baud
@HeleninEire:
Shooting drug dealers?
Roger Moore
@Kathleen:
Somebody else said earlier that it’s too late by the time they start playing “The Rains of Castamere”.
Librarian
@Goku: it can’t be melted down. It’s made of marble.
KithKanan
@Librarian: Crushed and made into Tums, then given out to all of the people having heartburn over the statue’s removal?
SiubhanDuinne
@Mnemosyne:
I can’t tell from the story — did this happen today, or is it scheduled for later this week?
Per the first paragraph of the story:
Miss Bianca
@HeleninEire: OK, true story…
So, Bernadette Devlin, of Sinn Fein fame, and quite the firebrand in her day, came to Wayne State University in Detroit sometime back in the late 70s or 80s to talk about the situation in Belfast during the height of the Troubles. To get her point across about how bad the Unionist thugs were, she emphasized that there had been *over 90 murders* in Belfast the previous year! She pauses for effect, then one of my friends gets up and said, “uh…Ms. Devlin…this is Detroit. There were over *900 murders* here last year.”
According to my sources she went white as a sheet before glancing at the University President for confirmation, which he reluctantly gave. Apparently, she got off the stage pretty fast after that.
Roger Moore
@Librarian:
Then it can be burned for lime.
different-church-lady
Hey, look at the bright side: we get to have the novelty of knowing what it’s like to live in a kleptocracy.
SiubhanDuinne
@HeleninEire:
Did you ever post a review of your date the other night?
(ETA: What Goku said at #94.)
HeleninEire
@SiubhanDuinne: @Goku:
Spanky asked me in an earlier thread what decision I made about making the trip West. Here was my answer:
“No report until now. Here it is: the date went pretty well until the last hour. He insisted on talking about US politics even though I said at least 3 times ‘No I do not want to talk politics, sometimes one needs a break.’ Well it turns out that he believes we should give Trump a chance.
So no trip West.”
Lizzy L
@Roger Moore: Yes, agree. In the case of at least one of these bills, House Bill 610, at least one and possibly two of the bill’s original sponsors have quietly withdrawn their names as sponsor. The bill’s been in committee since January, and it’s not going anywhere, and there’s no Senate counterpart.
It’s not true of the folks here, since as we all know the jackals who lurk at this water hole are very knowledgeable, but it makes me crazy how little people seem to know about our federal system — how a bill becomes law, for example.
I am sure the bastards would love to eliminate or gut the ADA. But this bill is not a serious threat. That’s not to say, again, that we shouldn’t be paying attention. Anyone who’s really worried about the health of ADA should bookmark Senator Tammy Duckworth’s contact information. For obvious reasons, if the Rs were about to make a run at the ADA, her office would know.
Villago Delenda Est
This asshole needed to be removed from office three fucking months ago.
dmsilev
@Librarian:
Sure it can. You just need a Sufficiently Hot heat source. Throw it into the nearest volcano (Hobbits helpful, but not strictly necessary).
HeleninEire
@Baud: That answer there is why everyone loves you and why this blog is just not the same without you.
Baud
@HeleninEire: Aw, thanks. And for the record, I don’t think we should give Trump a chance.
Omnes Omnibus
@HeleninEire: Not everyone loves Baud.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
Anyone comment yet on the passing of Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance?
I tried to like that book. After 150 pages on the, I guess, elusive nature of “quality” and the psychological and emotional abuse of his own juvenile son, I bailed out.
Kathleen
@Roger Moore: Holy Crap! Didn’t watch GoT so I googled the reference. Is it possible TrumpWorld is worst than Game of Thrones? It would be irresponsible not to speculate.
? Martin
@Librarian:
Everything has a solid, liquid and gaseous state. With enough energy, you can melt anything.
HeleninEire
@Miss Bianca: LOL. Yeah. Great story. And as an aside, if anyone wants Bernadette’s story of the Troubles her book is called “The Price of My Soul.” A fascinating book by a VERY partisan person.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus: I myself have many doubts.
trollhattan
@Miss Bianca:
Hilarious. Admittedly, “murder” sounds so much more interesting said in an Irish accent. Even better than “moidah.”
different-church-lady
@? Martin: Sure, but who has that much energy nowadays?
Mike in NC
Just got a call from Gallup concerning Trump’s first 100
daysdaze. I went with “strongly disapprove” of the Tangerine Turd’s performance.liberal
WTF is this about?
bbc news on trump summoning Senate to wh
…ah…I see it’s been covered above
HeleninEire
@Omnes Omnibus: You are mistaken. Maybe you meant “Not everyone loves Corner Stone.”
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: I’m a well wisher, in that I don’t wish you any specific harm.
jl
@Omnes Omnibus:
” Not everyone loves Baud. ”
Down with Baud!
Edit: always remember, Baud came first, then the end of the world. That is just simple science fact. You can’t argue with that.
SiubhanDuinne
Lot of blowback on the DoS Mar-a-Lago a̸d̸v̸e̸r̸t̸i̸s̸e̸m̸e̸n̸t̸ c̸o̸m̸m̸e̸r̸c̸i̸a̸l̸ h̸u̸s̸t̸l̸e̸p̸o̸s̸t̸ s̸a̸l̸e̸s̸ p̸i̸t̸c̸h̸ totally objective and non-partisan informational page about this famous Trump property. From what I’m seeing on FB, they’ve taken it down. LOL!
different-church-lady
@Timurid: Relax, he’s just going to try to sell them timeshares.
Kathleen
@SiubhanDuinne: HeleninErie could easily be made into a PBS series. Her life sounds like so much fun and fraught with romance!
japa21
@liberal: Although Spicer says this is at the behest of McConnell, I have a hunch it isn’t. The question is, is this Wednesday meeting to discuss options going forward, or to explain why he started WWIII on Tuesday.
SiubhanDuinne
@Kathleen:
I would definitely watch!
schrodingers_cat
@ArchTeryx: Bipartisanship: Democrats do want Rs want. Hey they know who is cutting their checks.
Felonius Monk
@Omnes Omnibus:
I’m a well wisher, also. I wish Trump and his entire crew would fall in a well.
Omnes Omnibus
@jl: À bas Baud!
SiubhanDuinne
@japa21:
It does seem very cumbersome, if for no other reason than the sheer number of people. Seems to me it would be much easier and more efficient for half a dozen WH officials to go to Capitol Hill than have 100 Senators (plus, presumably, at least some aides) to go to the White House. I also love the way all the headlines and news reports are that Senators have been “summoned” to the WH, but Spicer is saying, Nope, not our idea, ask Mitch McTurtle. Which, I guess, means that Mitch invited himself and 99 colleagues to the WH instead of extending an invitation, which would be more, uh, normal.
HeleninEire
@Kathleen: I met someone in the pub tonight who said I should write a book about my NY to Dublin adventure. I prolly should. At least a blog cuz I haven’t told y’all the half of it. Especially the “romance” [used euphemistically] part.
Oh my. I have said to much.
p.a.
Just as an fyi, as the French vote thread is long dead, here’s a map of leading vote getters by department. How many of the overseas depts can you recognize? I got Corsica (easy) and New Caledonia (I’m pretty sure.) My guess is the big non-Corsica blob is French Guiana. The island near Canuckistan? No idea.
SiubhanDuinne
@jl:
“BAUD 2020! L’apocalypse, c’est moi!”
schrodingers_cat
@Adam L Silverman: Empowered ICE and CBP is the beginning.
SiubhanDuinne
@p.a.:
Saint-Pierre et Miquelon.
chris
@p.a.: St. Pierre et Miquelon
ETA: Damn, SD!
TenguPhule
@Felonius Monk:
With or without water at the bottom to break their fall?
debbie
@Roger Moore:
I didn’t get the reference either, and having just watched all six seasons GoT, I realized I didn’t remember that song. Probably because I was so upset at seeing most of the characters I cared about being butchered in a matter of seconds.
joel hanes
@schrodingers_cat:
I have never understood the MSM fetish for bipartisanship as the highest political good.
If your starting presumptions are that there is no such thing as a fact, and every opinion is as good as any other, and that outcomes don’t matter, then all disagreements are “controversy”, and you needn’t make any judgements yourself … which is a good thing if you’re too chickenshit or stupid or lazy to make any. It makes “journalism” easy and risk-free.
Is the Earth flat? Opinions differ!
Evolution ? Controversial.
Global warming ? We interview experts from both sides.
Sky blue ? Some reports say black with points of light, some say gray, so time will tell.
Given that idee fixe, journamalists can all agree that if “both sides” agree to do something, it must have real merit. Otherwise, there’s no basis to make a judgement, so one must not be made. Only bipartisan measures are “good”; all others are “partisan” or “controversial”.
MomSense
@HeleninEire:
Now that’s the beginnings of a “meet cute”. Definitely give him a call.
TenguPhule
@Kathleen:
Trump didn’t get a Red Wedding. So the answer is yes.
SiubhanDuinne
@joel hanes:
And we’re out of time, so we’ll have to leave it there.
Roger Moore
@dmsilev:
Not everything will melt. Some things will sublime instead. Others, including marble, will decompose before melting.
TenguPhule
@Baud:
Its like the start of the Designated Survivor Pilot episode.
Perhaps the Democratic Senators can quietly boycott the meeting at the last minute, find a secure bunker to stay in for a few days and hope for the best.
gbbalto
@SiubhanDuinne: Well played!
MomSense
@Timurid:
I’m hoping this is a meeting about how to deal with the addled dictator with ridiculous hair – you know the one in “North Korea”. Wink wink.
chris
More. I have a friend who hails from St. Pierre. He lives in Halifax but is still a French citizen so on Saturday he drove to Moncton NB to vote. A six hour round trip because our bustling little port city has no French consulate. In two weeks he will make the same trip and vote again for Macron. He was quite pleased yesterday. Me too.
Some fun things about St. Pierre: 6500 people, 3500 cars, 36 kilometres (22 miles) of road. And nobody walks anywhere because the weather… Speaking of the weather, the ferry from Newfoundland has seatbelts.
japa21
@SiubhanDuinne: More likely it is the mountain must come to Mohammed scenario, although, considering Trump, that may be the wrong analogy. On second thought, let it stand.
TenguPhule
@Goku:
The lessons of the leaders are eternal, but the individual names of the rank and file should be lost to history.
Nobody outside of the historians recalls most of the Germans and Japanese who were the backbone of their respective machines, just the most prominent ones.
HeleninEire
@Baud:
Really? Wanna be my boyfriend???
Spanky
@HeleninEire: We are a nosy bunch, but if Balloon Juice were a small town I’d never move away.
Thanks for answering what was really a pretty nosy question on my part.
Patricia Kayden
@ArchTeryx:
Boy, do I hope you’re right about that. That really is their only job — to stand together and stand tough against Trump’s agenda. Let all the blame for the mess that the GOP is about to unleash on the American people fall completely on Republicans. If Democrats cave in one inch, Republicans are going to find a way to pin the blame on them next November for every dang thing that goes wrong.
Patricia Kayden
@schrodingers_cat: To be honest, except for the Washington Post, I don’t bother with the MSM. Just can’t take their incessant nonsense as I’m trying to keep sane during the Trump years. What they did to Secretary Clinton is unforgivable.
TenguPhule
@joel hanes: “With a choice between fine dining and tire rims laced with anthrax, reporters want to split the difference.”
Thank you John, for that wonderful analogy.
HeleninEire
@Spanky: Nah. Happy to do it. It wasn’t “pretty nosy” at all. if I didn’t want y’all asking what happened I wouldn’t have posted it to begin with.
p.a.
lurker dean
@West of the Rockies (been a while): i’ve tried a few times but never made it to the end. i ride a motorcycle so it seemed right to try, but it just never held my interest.
@SiubhanDuinne: yup, taken down with an apology, lol.
“The intention of the article was to inform the public about where the President has been hosting world leaders,” a small message reads on the Share America website. “We regret any misperception and have removed the post”
schrodingers_cat
@Patricia Kayden: Same here. I haven’t watched TV news since late October. I can’t even stand to watch BBC, Katy Kay is quite the Villager.
TenguPhule
@lurker dean:
…Because we got caught and called out for it.
SiubhanDuinne
@lurker dean:
Channelling my inner rikyrah:
Uh huh.
Uh huh.
Phuck. Outta. Here.
Frankensteinbeck
@joel hanes:
Your explanation is excellent, but let me add one more twist. The journalists discussing bipartisanship agree with most Republican policies, and thus have an overwhelming emotional investment in denying that racism has any part of them. From their perspective, the burden will always be in Democrats to accommodate Republicans.
J R in WV
@Goku:
Well, you see, back in the Good Old Days, people didn’t have to be ashamed of their political and closely held religious beliefs! They could be racist and proud of it out in public back then.
Now, of course, they can hold just as closely to those perverted and bigoted beliefs, but they have to be just a little more private about their private beliefs, the dirty hateful bastards.
Booger
@? Martin: IIRC, marble will decompose into CO2 and calcium oxide, which then melts at 4662 degrees f. So, yeah.
Gin & Tonic
@chris: Isn’t St Pierre where Joe Kennedy ran booze from?
J R in WV
@Goku:
They wouldn’t think about it for long, and then there would be fire and hangings.
Kathleen
@HeleninEire: This is BJ, capitol of naked mopping. You can never tell too much!
Kathleen
@TenguPhule: Yikes.
joel hanes
@Frankensteinbeck:
Well, I don’t disagree completely, but I mostly dated journalism majors in college, and I still know quite a few journalists (var. print), and they weren’t and aren’t noticeably racist.
What they mostly were was ignorant of every area of learning that wasn’t politics or first amendment law.
They were math-averse, users rather than makers of technology, unaware of most science and liable to make grandiose misinterpretations of the bits they knew, mostly ignorant of history, and read only current books. I tutored two of them through the required intro to statistics, and I can confidently state that neither of them retains any of that today. I tutored one through intro to programming, and although she made a career covering tech, I’m sure she never wrote a line of code after the passed that class.
The biggest challenge for such reporters is how to report without having to learn the subject. The climate change arguments start out simple, but modeling and exponents and rates of change and graphs soon come into it, and it’s just so much blah blah to someone who is basically innumerate. Their eyes glaze over, and they. just. can’t.
What they _can_ do, without learning a thing, is interview a person “from each side” and write down what they said. That takes no knowledge; it’s exactly what their training taught them how to do.
Judgement requires knowledge, and too many reporters have too little knowledge.
TV is worse than print in this dimension, and short-form print journalism worse than long-form.
Goku
@J R in WV: I’ve been getting this answer a lot and I can’t say I’m surprised. Probably right too. I guess I just like asking rhetorical questions.
Goes to show that culture can change a lot in 100 years
SiubhanDuinne
@chris:
A friend/former colleague from the Canadian Consulate General in Atlanta used to grab a couple of extra days of holiday every time he went to Atlantic Canada on business. He always took his passport (this was long before it was required for cross-border travel) and went to St-Pierre et Miquelon for a mini fishing vacation. Apparently it is a wonderful fishing location.
Patricia Kayden
@Miss Bianca: Sounds like my parents in Ontario who go on and on about how bad the murder rate is in Toronto. I keep telling them that we get what Toronto sees in one year in just one weekend in cities like Chicago. I believe last year there were only 27 gun-related murders in Toronto. Not bad for a city of over 2 million, imho.
SiubhanDuinne
Is Mnem around? Have a book recommendation.
ArchTeryx
@Patricia Kayden: They tried singing the peans of bipartisanship with Obamacare repeal. The Ds didn’t bite…not one. They didn’t with SS privatization, either. Sometimes, the Ds can hang tough.
TenguPhule
@Goku: In a hundred years we went from Roosevelt to Trump.
TenguPhule
@ArchTeryx: The prospect of imminent hanging concentrates the mind wonderfully. For if they do not hang together, they will assuredly hang separately.
/Hattip to Ben Franklin
sharl
Apparently some disrespectful young punks – at Georgetown U. I think – upset my favorite big-name NatSec tuff guy, DOCTOR Sebastian Gorka
Iowa Old Lady
@Patricia Kayden: When we were still living in Detroit, we went with a tour group from all over to Paris. The first day there, they gathered us all together and gave this hemming and hawing speech about being careful, etc. If finally dawned on me and Mr IOL that they were warning us about crime. We looked at one another and laughed. We were from DETROIT!
TenguPhule
@Goku:
Your entire article negated in one sentence.
Joyce H
@japa21:
More likely… Vladimir?
TenguPhule
@Iowa Old Lady:
You’re not supposed to beat the pickpockets in Paris to a pulp.
TenguPhule
@Joyce H: Designated Survivor, Pilot Episode.
Lyrebird
Per RawStory, they’ve pulled down the blatant promotion.
Be good to yourself Betty Cracker, we need you…
Goku
@TenguPhule: I think WordPress negated it, because it gor marked as spam
schrodingers_cat
@Iowa Old Lady:City folks like us are tough cookies, despite what the salt of the earth peeps like to believe.
TenguPhule
@Goku: Too much text, I suspect.
Steve in the ATL
@SiubhanDuinne: did you enjoy confederate Memorial Day today? Traffic was lighter than usual; I guess all the racists stayed home!
Sab
@p.a.: Saint Pierre et Miquellon. The Canadians used to run booze through there during their Prohibition, since they were allowed to make booze but not to sell it. So they sent the stuff to the tiny French islands just offshore.
Origuy
@p.a.: One of those overseas departments of France is Saint Martin, the French half of the island of Saint Martin. The other half is the Dutch constituent of Sint Maarten. I was there in 2000. Nice place. The cruise ships all dock at Phillipsburg, on the Dutch side. I stayed on the French side, at Marigot. Much quieter and prettier.
Villago Delenda Est
@Frankensteinbeck: Ayup. The denial of racism is strong with the Berniebots, too. The vermin of the Village have a particularly virulent form of denial of racism as it is enshrined in Rethug policy positions. They also probably nod their heads in sober agreement with John Roberts on the VRA.
Which makes them only one degree removed, at best, from the alt-right’s overt and proud racism.
efgoldman
@Goku:
It’s one of four Traitor Memorials the city is removing. They’re doing it in the wee small hours to avoid the inevitable confederate traitor flag supporters/protestors
Jim Parene
@Goku: Along with all refernces to R.E. Lee. Stonewall Jackson, Nathan Bedford Forrest and all the other now idolized Traitors of the south.
Sab
@Iowa Old Lady: Parisian pickpockets are much better than the ones in Detroit. That is probably what your tour guide meant to warn you about.
Villago Delenda Est
@sharl: His credentials, as Adam has noted, are highly suspect.
Fair Economist
@Librarian:
An acid bath would do nicely then.
ThresherK
@p.a.: As a radio amateur I’m aware of all French department traditions. Even Reunion Island.
TenguPhule
@Villago Delenda Est: Is that what we’re calling doctorate fraud these days?
SiubhanDuinne
@Steve in the ATL:
Confined my driving to the Duluth-Cumming corridor, so wasn’t aware of anything different. And had completely forgotten it was CMD, if I ever knew! (However, I did remember that it is ANZAC Day, and sent greetings to all my Down-Under FB friends.)
TenguPhule
Trump picks fight with Canada over wood.
We will have to fight a two front war on North America within our lifetimes at this rate.
efgoldman
@Roger Moore:
They’ve already ordered the yellow school buses to drive the world’s greatest deliberators from Capitol Hill to the WH
Jim, Foolish Literalist
per Rachel Maddow, the State Department was not represented at Trump’s luncheon for UN Security Council Ambassadors. Maddox didn’t say, but I’m pretty damn sure I saw the perfectly coiffed head of Ivanka at the table
TenguPhule
Remember how Obama designated land a memorials? Well Trump has a solution to get around that pesky law too.
debbie
@sharl:
You might enjoy this interview with Nita Lowey about Gorka.
TenguPhule
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Henry IV already?
ThresherK
@SiubhanDuinne: I recommend you check out The Great War on YouTube, by Indy Neidell. Every week he takes up what happened exactly a century ago and the Gallipoli disaster (but ANZACs’ heroic service during it) has been a big part of his show.
Steve in the ATL
@SiubhanDuinne: Cumming is in Forsyth county, the last vestige of the klan in Georgia, so that was a good plan for today.
TenguPhule
House Republicans: Nobody can top us when it comes to stupid tax cuts! Trump: Hold my beer.
chris
@Gin & Tonic:
Yes. Curiously, several containers of booze arrive every week in St. Pierre to this day ;-)
SFAW
@debbie:
It would be nice if Steve Inskeep were as in-your-face with wingnut guests as he was with Lowey.
Of course, it would also be nice if the Mets could hit above their weight.
efgoldman
@Lizzy L:
If “the president” and his merry band of vacant offices and incompetents, and the majority party in the house since 2010, don’t know, why should anybody else?
SFAW
@TenguPhule:
Is there NOTHING that motherfucker can’t make worse?
ETA: And that goes for his little dog, Turtle, as well.
TenguPhule
@SFAW: No. This has been another edition of SATSQ.
J R in WV
@HeleninEire:
Some of us were worried about you on a blind date in a strange place like Dublin.
sharl
@debbie: Thanks for that link; Nita Lowey is certainly asking some of the right questions about the guy. Hopefully Mattis, McMaster, and other credible national security pros are keeping Gorka away from any major decision-making in the Administration. He can be the designated guy to go on Fox and toss chunks of islamophobia-flavored red meat to Trump’s base, I guess.
So far he’s only been good for stand-up comedian James Adomian’s career, as far as I can tell. Adomian’s voice imitations of Gorka have been a big hit with a lot of people: he’s called in to a popular podcast a couple of times as the intellectually challenged megalomaniac (here, and here) with very positive response.
The dude is a phony with a message popular with islamophobic Foxbots, which is apparently enough for a gig with the bunch now in charge.
Steeplejack
@efgoldman:
Fix’d.
Aleta
Hey Trump, here’s the thing about a tariff: We pay for it.
-Washington Post
debbie
@SFAW:
And she was right back at him.
What galls me the most about him is his need to rephrase the interviewee’s responses. Not only do we not need his help in understanding what was said, but he also eats up time and then cuts off the interview in mid-sentence.
Sab
@Aleta: there goes the construction industry (again).
Steve in the ATL
@Aleta: I don’t think you understand how tariffs work. Every time you buy softwood lumber, you send your receipt to a guy in Canada and he has to send you a check for 20% of the purchase price.
FYI I got my Econ degree at liberty university.
Miss Bianca
@joel hanes: Yow. Quite devastatingly well-put.
Lufa
I still don’t see how he can get away with this stuff. There are all kinds of laws. Putting businesses in a trust run by the kids doesn’t get around any of that but I’m no constitutional lawyer.
Miss Bianca
@Patricia Kayden: I love Toronto so much. I do believe it’s still my favorite city on earth, tho’ it’s been above 20 years since I’ve been back.
My joke about Toronto is, “I looked all over the city for the garbage on the street that is all over the place in American cities. Couldn’t find any, till one afternoon I get off the bus in front of the art museum, look down, and see some. I thought it was an exhibit – American artist, unknown.”
Omnes Omnibus
@Miss Bianca: Have you been to Vancouver?
Steve in the ATL
@Omnes Omnibus: or Montreal
Sab
@HeleninEire: Are you an Outlander fan? If so, have you read “Finding Fraser”? It’s hilarious. Sort of like 18th century novels written as correspondence (Pamela) or (Dangerous Liaisons) but written as blog posts, sort of as romance novel.
Steve in the ATL
@Lufa: here’s all you need to know about constitutional law: what is constitutional is whatever the current iteration of SCOTUS says it is.
There will be a lengthy opinion with lots of citations and arguments. They are all bullshit. The final decision on constitutionality is always political, not legal.