I’ve long thought we’d be better off if the entire Beltway media contingent were summarily converted to Walmart greeters and their papers’ foreign correspondents recalled to replace them, then instructed to cover domestic politics as if still writing dispatches from a foreign capital.
That view was reinforced this morning by the spectacle of the German media politely covering Ivanka Trump like the presumptuous banana republic princess she is, something American infotainment personalities have repeatedly failed to do. Via Politico:
BERLIN — Ivanka Trump arrived in Berlin Tuesday morning armed with facts and figures to recite at what was expected to be a high-brow international summit to discuss women entrepreneurship, alongside German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
But on her first international trip as an official representative of the United States, the first daughter was put on the spot about her father’s attitudes toward women, booed and hissed at by the crowd, and grilled by the moderator about what, exactly, her role is in President Donald Trump’s administration.
“You’re the first daughter of the United States, and you’re also an assistant to the president,” the moderator, WirtschaftsWoche editor-in-chief Miriam Meckel, said. “The German audience is not that familiar with the concept of a first daughter. I’d like to ask you, what is your role, and who are you representing, your father as president of the United States, the American people, or your business?”
“Certainly not the latter,” Ivanka Trump said. “I’m rather unfamiliar with this role as well…It has been a little under 100 days and it has just been a remarkable and incredible journey.”
We’re all unfamiliar with the role because it shouldn’t exist, not outside a tin-horn kleptocracy. But while Trump’s sole non-fluff response about her role was to explicitly deny that she represents her business, the only tangible results she’s achieved in “office” have accrued to her brand. She’s done exactly nothing to “moderate” her lunatic father or advance the vague objectives she supposedly champions, i.e., empowering women and families.
Ivanka Trump, who was deeply involved with her father’s campaign and has been instrumental in his administration in the first three months in office, positioned herself as someone who is still in humbling listening tour mode. “I’m striving to think about how best to empower women in the economy,” she said, at one point calling herself a feminist. “I have no doubt that coming out of this trip I’ll be more informed.”
But she was booed and hissed at by the majority-women audience at the conference when she lauded her father for supporting paid leave policies. “I’m very proud of my father’s advocacy,” she said, calling him “a tremendous champion of supporting families and enabling them to thrive.”
The Politico account overdramatizes the reaction (shocking, I know) — it was more of a collective groan at the absurdity of framing the grotesque orange pussy-grabber as an advocate rather than actual booing and hissing (at least on the audio I heard). When asked to respond to the audience reaction, where the elder Trump would have screeched “FAKE NEWS,” Ivanka replied with a more modulated, polysyllabic version of that non-response:
“I’ve certainly heard the criticism from the media, that’s been perpetuated,” she said, drawing laughs from the audience.
Good for them, because laughter is an appropriate response to that ridiculous deflection. But Ivanka, still determined to pass her gross old fart-sack of a father off as pro-woman, barfed up the following treacle:
“As a daughter, I can speak on a very personal level. I grew up in a house where there were no barriers to what I could accomplish beyond my own perseverance and tenacity. That’s not an easy thing to do, he provided that for us. There was no difference [between Trump’s treatment of her and her brothers].
Well, Trump didn’t repeatedly imply that he’d like to shag the sons, so that’s at least one difference. But again, the overweening entitlement and self-regard. This isn’t a person who was born on third base and thinks she hit a triple. This is someone who was born in the Diamond Suite in the clubhouse and thinks she won the World Series.
Still, even people who should know better will go on assuming the shitgibbon’s chief enabler is a good influence and deserves credit for curbing the worst of her vile shit-stain of a father’s excesses. Jon Oliver dispatched this myth ably late last week:
The most telling tidbit was a quote from Ivanka’s book, “The Trump Card: Playing to Win in Work and Life,” which flat-out telegraphs her current role in the Trump shit-show:
Perception is more important that reality. If someone perceives something to be true, it is more important than if it is in fact true. This doesn’t mean you should be duplicitous or deceitful, but don’t go out of your way to correct a false assumption if it plays to your advantage.
As Oliver says, the apple didn’t fall very far from the orange. And the word I was looking for up top is “Scheiße,” which I imagine in thought-bubbles over the heads of the accomplished women who had to share a stage with this vapid dilettante. It’s just so embarrassing.
schrodingers_cat
Why is she wearing my grandma’s floral curtain?
ArchTeryx
“What is this shit?” is just about right. It’s what I’ve been thinking nonstop since the election (interspersed with, ‘when are they going to kill me?’)
Betty Cracker
@schrodingers_cat: She’s probably hawking reproductions on QVC right now!
rikyrah
they booed her..
BWA HA AH AH HA HA HA HA HA
Corner Stone
I only recognized a few of the women on the stage one being Christine LaGarde, while an absolute scumbag, is an incredibly accomplished individual. I can not imagine what she could possibly be thinking when they had her seated beside Ivanka.
And Merkel, my goodness. Why would she ever invite her to this unless it was to have her ridiculed and publicly humiliated?
amk
beeb’s 24 point headline now
Groans as Ivanka defends Trump in Berlin.
wwlaughingstock.com
Corner Stone
I didn’t hear any hissing either. And I think the “booing” was the actual audible collective groan from the audience that got the moderator to interrupt Ivanka. Because Ivanka was going to just keep blathering in her hideous flat man voice.
cmorenc
@schrodingers_cat:
Ivanka is actually riffing off Carol Burnett’s parody of “Gone With the Wind” (curtain dress scene)
amk
@Corner Stone: methinks that was angela’s plan. she is not an asskisser.
GregB
Public ridicule doesn’t work with the Trump family. They don’t have the shame bone.
schrodingers_cat
@Betty Cracker: That’s one ugly dress and inappropriate for the venue. She is dressed like she is going to a summer picnic or something.
Betty Cracker
@Corner Stone: Merkel is a smart cookie. She probably has an eleventy-dimensional strategy that includes exposing the vapid twit to ridicule and then eating our lunch on trade. A half-wit could outfox Trump; Merkel will make mincemeat of him.
Another Scott
@Corner Stone: On the BBC this morning they said that Merkel invited her to have a back channel to Donnie and that “it is working”. She would not be an effective leader of Germany if she wasn’t thinking of ways to get Donnie to come around to her way of thinking.
“Oh, poor dear little Ivanka. I’m so sorry that they were mean to you. Come here, let Mutti comfort you. Now be sure to tell your dear Vatter how much I helped you and while you’re at it could you mention that …”
Cheers,
Scott.
MattF
There’s a few good German words here. But my fave is still the fact that Dr. Freud is ‘Dr. Joy’ in German.
Corner Stone
This is another case where it would be more dignified for the event and the venue if Trump had chosen to not attend the Holocaust Remembrance today.
I have the sound off but just the sight of this vile garbage pail smirking and mugging at the podium saying undoubtedly stupid things. Jesus, people. WTF.
Gin & Tonic
In a couple of hours I have my first physical therapy appointment. I expect to be reduced to a whimpering mess by the end of it.
JPL
@Gin & Tonic: It will be worth it, or at least I hope so.
Jeffro
@Gin & Tonic: The first one always sucks so that the rest look/feel better by comparison. Just put your mind in a happy place and maybe even gulp a couple Advil beforehand so it’s kicking in mid-appointment.
hedgehog mobile
Someone more talented than I needs to come up with a cartoon of the Statue of Liberty with a paper bag over her head. Because that’s how I feel every time I see these grifters.
Jeffro
Stealing this.
Also stealing this!
ET
You know what is so utterly sad, imagine the current president’s administration without the daughter and son in law……. If is incoherent, unprofessional, and understaffed now imagine it without the 2 people with the job titles once held by a dozen.
JPL
As a government employee, Ivanka should represent us, and not try to build up her her father’s ego on a world stage. If that is the role she wants, she needs to find an office outside of the White House.
Personally, I don’t like the dress, but I’m not in the mood to mock what she wore. There was way to much of that during the Obama presidency.
Lurking Canadian
@GregB: Who knew shamelessness, in sufficient concentration, was actually a superpower?.
Betty Cracker
@ET: How would it be different? What have they done to improve things?
hovercraft
While the media fluff this leech, they are also harassing Chelsea Clinton.
Re-posting from downstairs.
Via GOS
Why are so many male journalists ganging up on Chelsea Clinton on Twitter?
From The GOS
Tuesday Apr 25, 2017 · 12:32 AM EST
AliceBlue
@Corner Stone:
I refuse to watch, but I keep wondering how he’s going to work his YUGE HISTORICAL Electoral College win into his speech.
Iowa Old Lady
schrodingers_cat
@JPL: Isn’t she a dress designer or something? What she wears reflects on us too. What she wears is fair game.
hilts
Meet the new dumbest Americans – People who didn’t vote for Trump, but now wish they had voted for him:
They didn’t vote for Trump, but they would now
h/t https://www.yahoo.com/news/contrarians-didnt-vote-trump-now-090051867.html
schrodingers_cat
@hovercraft: We are not supposed to mock IT for her poor judgment, in an area supposed to be her expertise. Keep bringing a butter knife to a gun fight.
smintheus
What?! Or maybe I should say, what a maroon.
Corner Stone
@hovercraft: They want to make sure they have the narrative in place so that anytime she shows her face at a prominent event they have a pre-filed column ready to submit.
And heaven forbid she actually changes her mind and decides to run for something! They have her in her own words saying she’s not going to. Lying Clintons!!! They are all so sneaky and can’t be trusted!!
LAO
@hilts:
Not to put too fine a point on it, but fuck them.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@schrodingers_cat: more a marketer of other people’s designs, isn’t she? A human “brand”? And on top of everything else, how odd that ‘trump’, a word that sounds like an unpleasant if essential bodily function, should be a would-be upscale brand
An annoying but not uncommon tic. Hell, we have half a dozen regulars who wear it like a badge. One of them has made himself mercifully rare in recent months
hovercraft
@GregB:
They may be shameless, but based on the poll numbers most people are embarrassed by their antics. We don’t know for sure what the new crazification number is, 27% may be too low, but it’s definitely not the 45% Hair Furor claims, I think his soft base is 30 to 33%, with and hard floor of 22% when he really fucks up so bad that it can’t be spun. At that point his base will say that growing pains are to be expected, he has no experience, just give him a mulligan while we watch Seoul burn and the region descend into all out war. Just a hic-up, a tiny little oopsie.
JPL
@schrodingers_cat: True.
What I find offensive is that she is representing the US as a daughter, but she has an official role in the government. She needs to represent us, or get an office off of White House grounds.
As posted above, Chelsea Clinton takes a lot of heat, but she has never had a government job. Repubs just don’t care about being shown as hypocrites.
I might add, even though she and her husband don’t receive a salary, their staff sure do.
smintheus
You thought I wrote that essay myself just because I put my name at the top of it? Shouldn’t it have been obvious that it’s lifted from wikipedia, what with the shabby quality and poor citations?
Corner Stone
Hmmmm…Pelosi, HRC, Michelle Obama, Susan Rice, Valerie Jarrett and now more and more Chelsea. Seems like I am sensing something there in the way the media treats the people listed…not coming to me just yet.
Chet Murthy
@schrodingers_cat: Yyep. Daughter-wife gets it from both firehoses at full blast. Straight from the sewage main. Just like Uday/Qusay. Hell, U/Q are LESS responsible for this obscenity than Daughter-wife.
Aleta
> the first daughter of the United States
Since when did this become a title ? (My guess is it is being used in advance material (=propaganda, “here’s how to introduce her”) for her trips to anywhere.
>’it has just been a remarkable and incredible journey’
This is not your fucking personal journey of self-discovery to be ‘shared’ via selling products and workshops for women
>positioned herself as someone who is still in humbling listening tour mode. “I’m striving to think about how best to empower women in the economy,” she said, at one point calling herself a feminist.
If empowering women is what you want, step aside and hire some who’ve worked at this for 30-40 years.
>“I have no doubt that coming out of this trip I’ll be more informed.”
If being informed is what you want, get the fuck informed by other feminists in each country and hire them to lead and use your visibility to protect their work.
rikyrah
Ivanka Trump’s influence reaches unprecedented heights
04/25/17 10:14 AM—UPDATED 04/25/17 11:44 AM
By Steve Benen
The Women20 summit got underway this morning in Berlin, and the guest list featured some extraordinarily accomplished individuals. German Chancellor Angela Merkel is hosting the event, appearing alongside speakers such as International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde and Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland, among others.
It was therefore a bit jarring to see Ivanka Trump, Donald Trump’s 35-year-old daughter, on hand for the event.
…………………………………………………………….
Yesterday, for example, Ivanka Trump had a piece in the Financial Times on women in the developing world – an important topic the president’s daughter has no background in. A few hours later, Donald Trump was in the Oval Office, speaking to the International Space Station, with Ivanka Trump at his side.
She’s the first presidential daughter (or son) to have an office in the West Wing. She’s one of the few presidential advisers to have her own chief of staff. She’s offering the president guidance on matters of national security. She’s meeting with world leaders – while the business she still owns expands its opportunities in those leaders’ countries.
If Ivanka Trump had experience as a senator or a cabinet secretary, this would be a little easier to explain, but again, she has no background in government, politics, or international affairs.
hovercraft
@JPL:
But that’s the point, by “refusing” to accept a paycheck, her and Jared aren’t government employees, they ‘re just “patriotic volunteers” doing these “jobs” out of the goodness of their hearts, at great personal sacrifice, but with all the perks but none of the accountability. See WIN, WIN, we get the benefit of all their wisdom and experience, while they get to build their brands and rake in the dough. America aint it great, when a girl can make it all the way from a penthouse on Fifth Avenue, marry a billionaire and work all the way up to a VP in her fathers company , and from there to now being a Senior Advisor to the President, who just happens to be her father! Talk about clawing her way to the top, she truly is something.
trollhattan
@hilts:
Dear lord, somebody pull this guy’s drivers license, stat. #TooStupidToOperateAppliances
JPL
@Iowa Old Lady: The administration is obstructing justice, and I’m sure the repubs will call for a special investigator anytime now. Also, MSM will spend as much time covering this as they did Hillary’s emails. In other words, don’t expect Yates to testify on May 8th. The White House will block her testimony.
Chyron HR
@hilts:
rikyrah
Another Way to Understand the Divide: Migration
by Nancy LeTourneau
April 25, 2017 8:00 AM
Anyone who pays attention to politics is going to get flooded with various takes on how to slice and dice the electorate in order to explain past elections and predict those that are to come. But what I’ve noticed is that we tend to fall into ruts where you see the same kind of analysis run into the ground over and over again. We’re seeing this now with all of the attention being paid to urban vs rural, white working class vs people of color, etc. to explain the 2016 election and prepare for the one in 2018.
My interest in thinking outside the box on these questions is why I noticed an article by Joel Kotkin and Wendell Cox titled, “The Politics of Migration: From Blue to Red.” As the title suggests, they focus on a factor that is perhaps more significant in this country than just about anywhere else on the globe, but mostly ignored when it comes to political analysis: migration.
………………………………………
How people plan to vote appears to correspond, albeit broadly, with whether they decided to move away from where they grew up. According to the just-released PRRI/The Atlantic poll, 40 percent of Donald Trump’s likely voters live in the community where they spent their youth, compared with just 29 percent of Hillary Clinton voters. And of the 71 percent of Clinton voters who have left their hometowns, most—almost 60 percent of that group—now live more than two hours away.
The effect is even stronger among white voters, who already tend toward Trump. Even a bit of distance matters: Trump wins by 9 points among white likely voters who live within two hours of their childhood home, but by a whopping 26 percent among whites who live in their hometown proper.
Geeno
I think a German would actually be more inclined to say “Was für eine Scheiße ist das?” but still on point.
Chyron HR
@hovercraft:
TRUMP
My morals have been declared
Particularly correct;
IVANKA
But they’re nothing at all, compared
With those of the first daughter-elect!
rikyrah
Uh huh
Uh huh
Lips pursed.
Under Trump, the era of big government is making a comeback
04/25/17 11:23 AM—UPDATED 04/25/17 11:32 AM
By Steve Benen
An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released this week found that 57% of the country believes the government should do more to solve problems and meet the needs of Americans, as compared to 39% who believe the government is doing too much. That’s striking at face value, but consider some historical context.
This same poll has been asking this same question for more than two decades, and these results are the most progressive responses ever seen.
The Pew Research Center’s latest results on a similar question were a little different, but the data nevertheless pointed to a similar trend in Americans’ attitudes.
amk
Russian hackers ‘target’ presidential candidate Macron.
mar-a-smallo
Fyi the word is “Schätzchenwirtschaft”.
Translated as “sweetie economy”.
rikyrah
Public, GOP not on the same page on health care, Russia scandal
04/25/17 10:40 AM
By Steve Benen
In recent months, Republicans have worked from the assumption that the American electorate wants GOP policymakers to take a sledgehammer to the Affordable Care Act. After all, the thinking goes, Republicans made their contempt for “Obamacare” a key aspect of their 2016 platform, and voters rewarded the party with great power.
But the GOP is clearly misreading its mandate. Quinnipiac’s latest national poll asked respondents, “Do you think that Republicans in Congress should try to repeal and replace Obamacare again, or do you think they should move on to other issues?” The results weren’t close: only 36% of the public wants GOP lawmakers to keep trying, while 60% want Republicans to move on.
Other polling is pointing in the same direction.
…………………………………
Mnemosyne
@Betty Cracker:
The one thing that Merkel needs to keep in mind is that the Trumps outmaneuver people by pulling shit that no normal person would ever do, and then counting on normal people to be too flabbergasted to stop them.
The only way to deal with narcissists is to set firm boundaries that you never allow them to cross no matter what the circumstances. They are the original “give them an inch and they’ll take a mile” assholes.
Aleta
Has it been mentioned that her clothing line has been relabeled (supposedly by a company that supposedly is in charge of it, but is not really). And the name on the label now being used on her clothes is the name of a Hungarian immigrant (a designer who doesn’t own the label).
hovercraft
@Iowa Old Lady:
I am shocked!! This cesspool of a White House is against transparency? How can this be? The problem is that these people are dumb enough to have left a paper or electronic trail, the “good” news for them is that the GOP controlled congress won’t press them for real accountability. The GOP doesn’t care about public opinions, see anytime background checks come up. Sigh.
gvg
actually i have thought for decades that too many people pay to much attention to the Presidential relatives. I really don’t care what the “first Lady” wears. IMO they should barely be mentioned in the news, much like we never hear about Mrs McConnel etc. I have thought this since Jackie Kennedy was hunted in the tabloids. I also think we have fewer good candidates for President partly because the families of some potential choices know they couldn’t stand it.
The harassment of Chelsea is really another instance of over the top tabloid nutty ness. She could say “I wasn’t thinking of running, but ya’ll are pissing me off so much that now I am thinking about it. Not president though, because democratic voters wouldn’t support anyone with no prior experience in government. We value experience and competence.” she is entitled to throw some shade I think.
Betty Cracker
@hilts: It strikes me as akin to the phenomenon of those bubble-heads who go gaga for “handsome” serial killers. Some people are just mind-bogglingly gullible and bone-deep stupid.
hilts
@trollhattan: @Chyron HR:
How do these people manage to tie their own shoes or know to properly handle utensils?
The week is still young, but I’m nominating every individual from that Yahoo News story who says they currently support Trump even though they didn’t vote for him, as my biggest assholes of the week.
rikyrah
#TrumpLeaks Docs: Mitch McConnell led Super PAC took $2 million from a pro-Putin Ukrainian businessman last election cycle #trumprussia pic.twitter.com/bnOxaflKMl
— Scott Dworkin (@funder) April 19, 2017
Betty Cracker
@gvg: In my more optimistic moments, I hope Melania Trump’s refusal to play “first lady” strikes a blow against that institution. We weren’t going to do any better than Michelle Obama anyway. Shut it down.
catclub
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I would say that people who want attention find ways to get it. Reporters love finding them, and they are happy to oblige.
Mnemosyne
@hilts:
Hang on, let me put on my psychic Kreskin hat and make a prediction: they’re both white dudes, right?
The White Supremacy Klaxon is still in full operation, even if Bannon is not front and center anymore, and these guys are hearing its siren call.
hovercraft
@hilts:
Like attracts like, the media is slanted against Twitler? Hillary conceded 11/9, and the media is still attacking her and now her daughter you fucking moron. I really, truly, deeply, despise, loath, hate these morons with every fiber of my body.
@schrodingers_cat:
Bullshit, Lucretia willingly and knowingly foisted this pustule on America, and now she’s helping him screw us all, she’s no longer some loyal daughter rooting for her father, she’s chosen to jump in to the arena with him, and so she will be attacked just like Bannon or that other waste of oxygen KAC, they are all detestable people and they’ll be called out for it. Tiffany will get a smack down when she posts dumb shit on the book of faces, but for the most part she’ll be left alone. Lucretia has chosen to move to DC and help her Dada destroy our country so fuck her and her ugly ass so called designer shit, she’s fair game.
Amir Khalid
@schrodingers_cat:
Yeah. You’d think that a businesswoman, like Ivanka says she is, would have heard of business attire.
hilts
@Betty Cracker:
Betty, that’s a great comparison. These people are simply the lowest of low information voters.
smintheus
@mar-a-smallo: I think “Vetternwirtschaft” is closer to the word Germans would choose for Ivanka’s position.
Mnemosyne
@rikyrah:
It’s okay, I’m sure it just another strange and completely unrelated coincidence that just happens to trace back to Putin. How many of those do we have now?
catclub
slightly OT:
National Security
Russians who hacked Clinton campaign also targeted French candidate Emmanuel Macron
7:12 PM
catclub
@Mnemosyne: :
Probably so, but in the article on people picking up food at the food bank while cheering on Trump’s cutting the funding for same, they found a black guy. Stupid people come in all colors, so I’ve heard. Also, attention seekers.
JPL
@rikyrah: The shit just keeps on coming.
chris
Not to steal rikyrah’s thunder but…uhuh
hovercraft
@gvg:
Point taken, but :
Corner Stone
@Betty Cracker:
Except for the hypocrisy related to the costs involved, I personally could not care less if Melania never sleeps one night in the WH, has no portfolio, and pushes no cause(s). I think it’s a two sided issue because if that individual has the platform I feel like using it to help others or a cause to help others is important. But we see how badly MO got treated for just trying to help kids get and stay healthy.
I also agree it’s a farce and should be shut down. We had all this nonsense about what would Bill be called if HRC won? Well, what about the first elected president in a same sex relationship? Or no significant other? The whole thing’s just well past any bit of pomp the nation ever tried to imbue into it. Like it was our last gasp at having royalty as our leadership.
ThresherK
@cmorenc: Didn’t Bob Mackie literally design that dress for Carol Burnett? Trump should be so lucky.
—
Um, what?
hovercraft
This is good news, I think, any locals chime in and let me know.
GOP Rep. Devin Nunes just drew his most serious Democratic challenger for re-election in years
By Stephen Wolf
Tuesday Apr 25, 201
hovercraft
@Betty Cracker:
Perfect analogy, Charles Manson still has a substantial following.
Aleta
I’m grateful to the Germans for making this distinction.
1. She doesn’t represent the US. But her trips are being financed by us as though she were our representative, and so she’s receiving the official treatment accorded a representative of the US.
2. And she doesn’t represent her father, though she pretends to, like a dollar bill on a string on a sidewalk. (Although presented to us as fact, that claim is backed up only by two flimsy statements– “as a daughter” and “I quietly speak into his ear”–
+ some anonymous propaganda planted in the press.
But NO confirmation from him.)
3. In reality she is only advertising herself and her product placement in the international market. “Women who work” is her fucking brand and a hundred reporters are putting it on the front pages. Alongside photos of other countries’ actual representatives, coerced into sitting there by the machinery of US trade diplomacy.
Immanentize
@Mnemosyne: Bannon may be out — or just laying low; but Sessions is certainly picking up the white racist slack(ers).
[And Kreskin?! Wow, haven’t heard that for a long while.]
glory b
@schrodingers_cat: Right. This is a business conference, she’s wearing a floaty, floral garden party type dress.
Although, to be fair, I think her REAL area of expertise is knocking off other designers’ work.
If we can’t be mean girls here…
hovercraft
@ThresherK:
Well she had to do something after Obama’s vicious attack they day before.
Obama’s Barrage of Complete Sentences Seen as Brutal Attack on Trump
CHICAGO (The Borowitz Report)—In an appearance at the University of Chicago on Monday, former President Barack Obama unloaded a relentless barrage of complete sentences in what was widely seen as a brutal attack on his successor, Donald Trump.
Appearing at his first public event since leaving office, Obama fired off a punishing fusillade of grammatically correct sentences, the likes of which the American people have not heard from the White House since he departed.
“He totally restricted his speech to complete sentences,” Tracy Klugian, a student at the event, said. “It was the most vicious takedown of Trump I’d ever seen.”
“About five or six sentences in, I noticed that all of his sentences had both nouns and verbs in them,” Carol Foyler, another student, said. “I couldn’t believe he was going after Trump like that.”
Obama’s blistering deployment of complete sentences clearly got under the skin of their intended target, who, moments after the event, responded with an angry tweet: “Obama bad (or sick) guy. Failing. Sad!”
Immanentize
@hovercraft: But Manson was never good looking….
Barbara
@rikyrah: “Staying in place” is not the significant factor; there are likely multiple lurking variables, such as, people who stay in place are much less likely to have skills that they can maximize by moving — and are probably much older than average, having not needed to move when they were 18-25 in order to obtain employment.
hovercraft
@chris:
Perhaps someone should forward to these people how the tale ended? Who knows if she’s dead, (poised), or living under house arrest, in some Uzbek gulag, or in hiding, but eventually it all catches up to you, Twitler is 70 years old and obviously unhealthy, Lucretia at just 35 has many years ahead of her, looking over her shoulder because she aided and abetted the most venal person ever elected to the presidency.
hovercraft
@Immanentize:
There’s no accounting for taste, some people I guess are attracted to evil.
Chris
Shouldn’t you have thought of that shit before winning the election?
Barbara
@catclub: There is a guy now at Stanford who has done a lot of research into the logic behind what gets published in medical journals, and what he found was that it is far easier to get funding and publication for articles that purport to have found something startling and new. Whereas, the articles (just as important scientifically) that reproduce or refine the “new” finding don’t have nearly as much appeal. So if you are a reporter and you go to a food bank and interview 100 people, and 98 give you what you expect about Trump — I always knew he was an asshole who would just as soon see me dead — that’s not an article worth writing. Whereas, “Clinton voter who has changed their mind!” is a story with legs. It’s incredibly misleading, but that’s not the point.
Chris
@Another Scott:
Can you imagine what it takes for a woman who grew up under an actual communist regime to humor a person sobbing about how having the media say mean things about you and the ridiculously low taxes you pay (or are supposed to pay) in America is just like communism! and pretend to be empathizing?
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@Corner Stone:
There is a ineffably dreadful quality to Ivanka’s voice. A smug flatness with entirely artificial sensitivity. She lies directly in the way she has been taught while clearly believing whomever she is speaking to is too stupid to get it.
chris
@hovercraft: Like most crooks she doesn’t think she’ll ever be caught. If she is of course the law doesn’t apply to her because she’s rich and white.//
Mnemosyne
@catclub:
Also, misogyny. It’s a small number, but there is a group of people who were willing to vote for Obama because he has a peni$, but refused to vote for Hillary. It’s usually people from specific religious traditions that say that women should not be allowed to speak in church lest they spread their woman-cooties to the ears of the men.
hilts
@Corner Stone:
@West of the Rockies (been a while):
I’ve heard computerized voices that sound more human than Ivanka. In addition to sounding like a robot she’s just as dumb, dishonest, and repulsive as her father.
Chris
@chris:
Wait, I thought it was considered insufferable East Coast liberal elitism to know who the President of Uzbekibekibekibekistanstan was.
Ian G.
70+ years after the end of World War II, Berlin has a thriving Israeli expat community drawn to the city’s arts and business opportunities, among other things.
150+ years after the end of the Civil War, it’s “controversial” to tear down a monument to white supremacist terrorism against civil society and democracy in New Orleans.
Am I the only one embarrassed by this? (a rhetorical question)
TenguPhule
@hilts: Obviously these people are too stupid to be free citizens and need to spend a lifetime as slaves. They need their betters to instruct and guide them through life.
TenguPhule
@Ian G.: The Confederacy pulled an “I surrender suckers” on the Union and promptly became the enemy within.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@hilts:
Vocaloid Ivanka!
chris
@Chris: Dunno. Kendzior lives in St. Louis but she does have a college degree. Flatland liberal elitism?
Aleta
The conservative attack machine is longsighted, is afraid of the anger over the stolen election and sympathy for HRC, and recognizes that C. Clinton might be a strong candidate some day.
Attacking Chel and blaming HRC for defeat is the part of the work against any Dem advantage from the Russia stories. (Similar work happened in the period before HRC ran for Senate, when they needed to erase any increased public respect for H after the impeachment.)
Above all they need to neutralize the Dems wherever they can, and to polish Pence’s image for when he steps in, and to hold the R Congress for him.
They actually need a Clinton scarecrow or something similar to keep the Dems divided.
Waynski
Ivanka reminds me of this woman:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj3iNxZ8Dww
TenguPhule
@rikyrah:
Not exactly. The GOP just wants their stormtroopers and Freedom camps to deal with the undesirables. The big government they want is not the big government the progressives do.
ruckus
@Gin & Tonic:
Last time I did PT for my shoulder a firefighter walked by the table and asked the therapist what the hell she was doing to me to make my face look like that. I was holding back from what it really felt like.
Splitting Image
@TenguPhule:
I agree with this. One thing about Marine Le Pen is that she is a lot more explicit than the average GOPer about wanting a welfare state for white people. A government doesn’t become “too big” when it does a lot of things for everyone; it happens when a government does a lot, or even a little, for those people. Republicans are for “big government” now because they have faith that Trump et al. will not do that.
hovercraft
@chris:
So was/is Gulnara Karimova.
Sometimes even they mus be made an example of. Though the people around the despot are usually the ones who pay. Here’s hoping, she is afterall supposed to be the “brains” in this repugnant family.
hovercraft
@chris:
I was going to be a smrt ass and ask if she’d attended an elitist coastal college, but:
I guess the mouth breathers are right, it’s colleges period that are ruining “real America”. SAD!
Chris
@Splitting Image:
It’s an interesting thing in that far right people on both sides of the Atlantic claim radically different beliefs and end up with pretty much the same practices. American right wingers claim to be individualists who believe a man should rise or fall on his own merits with no help from the state, but in practice, they’ll always blink when given a “downsize the government” scheme that shrinks their own benefits. European fascists claim to be communitarians who believe the state has a responsibility to help its own citizens when they’re going through a rough patch, but in practice, they’ll always blink when given an “expand the government” scheme that gives benefits to citizens they see as “other.”
Elie
Ivanka, her husband and father all share essential cluelessness. This whole adventure is not going to end well for her — or them. If I were her, I would do what her mother is doing — lying low and staying out of the fray. When the shit splatters on this, its going to have a wide radius. Her fake “concern” and “empathy” is seen as just that: fake. Nothing about her is real or authentic and the more exposure she has, the more evident that will be. She won’t be able to finesse this with slick wording or positioning herself just so. I think I despise her more than her skanky father…
Boatboy_srq
@schrodingers_cat: Dresses and accessories are to Ivsnka as ugly brocades and gold fixtures and furniture are to Lord Dampnut.
Villago Delenda Est
Vile bitch needs to hang from the same gallows as her sire and siblings.
NorthLeft12
@rikyrah: I wonder if part of the new found appreciation/desire for government services is the public perception that Deadbeat Donald and his cronies have slashed so many services since he was elected, that they think he has gone too far?
I know, I know that DBD has actually not done much of anything, and especially not in 2016, but I am thinking that this is another example of how gullible the public is in believing whatever the Right Wing Nut Job propo machine spits out.
hovercraft
@Villago Delenda Est:
Ivanka Trump: I Don’t Like The Word ‘Accomplice’ Because It Isn’t ‘Productive’
Ivanka Trump on Tuesday said that she doesn’t like suggestions that she is her father’s “accomplice” because the “intonation” isn’t “productive.”
Asked by NBC News’ Hallie Jackson to respond to headlines questioning whether she will exert a moderating influence on her father’s agenda or be his “loyal accomplice,” Trump expressed her distaste for the word in an interview for TODAY.
“Well, I don’t like the intonation of that, which, you know, assumes that, I think, you know, I don’t like the word accomplice, because, you know, in this context, I don’t know that that’s productive,” she said.
Trump said that her father “curates ideas and he likes to hear from people with divergent viewpoints.”
“That’s not always true in politics,” she said. “That’s actually seldom true.”
Earlier in April, Trump took issue with critics who say she is “complicit” in her father’s presidency and agenda.
“If being complicit is wanting to, is wanting to be a force for good and to make a positive impact, then I’m complicit,” she said, coming up with a new definition of the word to apply to herself.
If you have the tolerance to click through and watch the interview, I don’t want to start muttering expletives in a public place.
Elie
@hovercraft:
Trust me, the more she talks and is heard making lame excuses and deflections, the worse it will be for her and the Trump “brand”. Her husband doesn’t try to talk as much. She would be wise to have a lower profile. Those boos in Germany were just the beginning…
Splitting Image
@Chris:
Yep, and on the other side of the coin, you can see why wildly different visions of left-wing politics have such similar problems maintaining a coalition. You begin with the basic idea that however large or small the government is, it has the same responsibilities to all of its citizens, and everyone has the same rights under that country’s laws. Everyone nods their heads in agreement, but then a woman decides to wear a niqab, another woman needs to be screened for breast cancer, a third says she has the right not to be harassed at work, a man is denied a loan because his name’s Washington, another man is shot dead by a policeman, two other men want to adopt a child…
… and several of the people you were counting on for support ask you “Well, how do those issues affect me?”
TenguPhule
@Villago Delenda Est: Ball, chain, a spot in the Atlantic ocean. If it was good enough for Bin Laden, its good enough for the Trumps.
NorthLeft12
I am currently reading “In the Garden of Beasts” by Erik Larson, and I gotta tell you the similarities to present day and 1934 Berlin are eerie. I am referring to the belief of a lot of people that Hitler and his henchmen were not going to last, were too unstable and inexperienced to run the country, someone or organization were going to force them out, or force them to moderate their policies and plans.
I’m referring to the opposition to Hitler in Germany, the foreign diplomats, and even the victims of Nazi oppression. They all felt that Hitler et al would collapse and everything would return to normal.
The difference today is that there is a public and vocal opposition, which really was not in place back in 1934.
Betty Cracker
@Villago Delenda Est: Not in my thread, please.
@TenguPhule: See above.
TenguPhule
@Betty Cracker: As you wish.
NorthLeft12
@hovercraft: I think the assertion that Deadbeat Donald likes to hear divergent viewpoints from his is one of the most ludicrous statements I have heard this year.
Donald oozes with privilege, and surrounds himself with the sleaziest group of sniveling sycophants that I have ever seen. Anything I have read about him is that he cannot tolerate criticism or opposition to his views or beliefs.
He constantly moans and complains about people that are “hard” on him, while rewarding those media lapdogs that suck up to him. Shameful.
geg6
@hovercraft:
Motherfucker would get a punch in the neck from for saying this kind of shit to me. Asshole, passive aggressive, Gamergate kind of shit right there.
NorthLeft12
@Betty Cracker: Thanks for that Betty. I know people are disgusted with the Trumps, but wishing physical harm is a right wing thing. Don’t want to see it here.
chris
@hovercraft: I was being snarky. Sort of.
I’d like to see the whole damn family crammed into…. a crappy three bedroom townhouse somewhere in the NYC hinterlands and worrying about food stamps and the cable bill.
Not going to happen but a boy can dream,
Splitting Image
@NorthLeft12:
Well, in a manner of speaking they were right. Hitler’s regime did collapse pretty quickly all things considered. His instability led him to go to war against the rest of the world, and something (i.e. Allied advance) did eventually force him out.
What was shocking was the amount of damage he was able to do in such a short time. Another difference between then and now is that more people realize how much damage a Great Power can do if it’s let off of the reins for even four short years. Hence the opposition. Here’s hoping it’s enough.
hovercraft
@NorthLeft12:
Well Bannon may suggest rounding up all the Jews, brown and black people, loading them on trucks and ships, and send them back to where they came from, whereas Sessions suggests that they just strip them of all their rights and keeps the here as little more than indentured servants, then Daddy’s Senior Advisor pipes in that it will sound and look better if they at least get minimum wage and are strongly encouraged to purchase her wares. See diverse and she really is a moderate!
hovercraft
@chris:
So was I ;- )
In the interests of not wishing harm onto others, I wish they could all be banished to Staten Island, it would be a win win, hear me out, they love him out there, he’d get his adulation, they’d finally have someone of consequence giving a shit about the place, and we’d be rid of him/them. That would be the one condition, they’d have to stay on the island, no coming back across the river, and we would need for them to wear ankle monitors so that if they trespassed we’d know.
TenguPhule
@NorthLeft12:
Its a human thing. Especially when justice is just not happening. When the law is openly flouted and the guardians of the law ARE the problem.
I still want them tried and convicted. I just disagree with you that they should only go to prison.
Corner Stone
@hovercraft:
How would she know? How many political campaigns has she worked on/with? How many politicians has she been on staff (not a pun) for?
chris
@hovercraft: Staten Island? That’s harsh but it works for me.
Corner Stone
@NorthLeft12:
I am essentially a non-violent person. It is not pleasing me that I have started questioning my beliefs on this topic.
TenguPhule
@Corner Stone:
I think Trump’s greatest evil is that he brings out the worst in everyone.
Not once in his life has he truly been punished for being a stupid evil asshole. He’s setting an example to everyone now and to future generations yet unborn.
In the back of our minds is that hideous thought, “He’s teaching the next one down the line to be worse.”
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
Well there’s this too:
hovercraft
@chris:
From http://www.silive.com/news/index.ssf/2016/11/election_day_2016_live_vote_re.html, who desperately needed an editor on the blog. They definitely deserve him.
hovercraft
@Corner Stone: @TenguPhule:
To me this has been the worst part of his election for me on a personal level, apart from , you know the empowering of racist cops, and racists generally, and misogyny, and well fucking everything. Okay another terrible thing about his election is finding out that I can and do hate strangers who I’ve never met, I always thought that was the purview of bigots, hating people they don’t know, but I’m one of them now. I believe and hope that the difference is that these people have actually done something to harm me and mine, they elected a dangerous demagogue who has empowered people who endanger my and my kids futures not to mention our very lives. When the justice department says it’s okay for people to kill us because we’re black and scary, that’s cause for me to hate you.
Kay
Lots and lots and lots of fathers are like this.
It’s such a low bar with these privileged people. They all expect prizes for acting like decent human beings.
Betty Cracker
@Corner Stone: I share that feeling. I wouldn’t do it myself or seriously encourage someone else to, but I’ll admit to feeling a little glee when someone punched that Nazi shithead in the face a while back, and I found the subsequent hullabaloo on Twitter amusing, with the GIFs of Indiana Jones punching Nazis, etc.
I loathe Trump, his grifting family and the pack of lying plutocrats, racists, sexists and dickheads advising him more deeply than I’ve ever despised public figures in my life. I’d love to see the whole bunch perp-walked. I can’t even promise I wouldn’t crack open a bottle of bubbly if Trump choked on an overcooked steak.
That might make it hypocritical to object to public execution fantasies, but those feel different to me — they don’t seem jokey or hyperbolic; they honestly seem kind of creepy. I’m not censoring anyone, just asking for restraint.
Kay
Also, we all know she’s there to put a “moderate” face on her father’s Presidency.
We know it because she deliberately planted promo pieces in major US newspapers loudly proclaiming that to be true.
Not everyone is a chump, Ivanka. A lot of people can see right thru this self-promoting bullshit you and your family are peddling. Peddle away, but don’t insult us with this patronizing empowerment-speak.
Corner Stone
@Betty Cracker:
I told my ex the other day that I have never hated another human being the way I do Trump. I come from honest stock of grudge holding peoples. My maternal grandmother could have taught master classes in grudge holding.
It’s really not healthy but where do you go to get away from that awful feeling? Even if you stop watching TV or news or etc, he’s still there. His awful family is still there. They exist, even if you ignore them.
Corner Stone
@Kay: Ivanka has the best PR people on the planet. No idea what she’s paying them.
Take a look at the CV’s of the women that were on stage with Ivanka in Germany. See something odd?
Chris
@hovercraft:
The rise of the teabaggers already did that for me.
(In fact, most of the changes that I’m seeing liberals report in themselves after Trump’s election are things that I recognize in myself, but were triggered by the Obama backlash years before Trump was even a thing).
Chris
@Kay:
“Participation trophies,” you might even call them.
Betty Cracker
@Corner Stone: They’re inescapable! I also hate Trump so much more than GWB, even though I thought Bush was a truly catastrophic president and a lousy excuse for a human being. Honest to dog, I never expected to dislike a president that much ever again — yet here we are, just eight years later — with someone even worse.
Sometimes I question why I find Trump so much more despicable than Bush II. I mean, Trump hasn’t yet launched a war that needlessly killed hundreds of thousands of people. He hasn’t yet poured a trillion dollars down a rat hole or crashed the economy. But the truth is, as much as I disliked Bush, as much as I resented every second of his presidency, as often I dismissed him as a fool and longed for the day he’d leave office, I find Trump a thousand times more repellent.
I hate Trump’s in-your-face demands for adulation. I can’t abide his shamelessness about everything, including his lies, greed, misogyny and bigotry. And I hate what his elevation to that office says about this country. Ugh.
schrodingers_cat
@Kay: Did you see that lean-in Faceborg exec is back talking about women’s empowerment.
Kay
@schrodingers_cat:
I hate the word. It’s a word that has been ruined by people who use it dishonestly or for nefarious reasons.
Get rid of it. Put it next to “reform” in the group of words that usually mean something horrible and fake :)
In addition to all my other problems with these people, I hate the words they use. They loved “thoughtful” for a while. Everything was “thoughtful”. Ivanka uses “curate” Blech.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: And she used “curate” about the vile orange fart-sack, which completely detaches the word from its linguistic moorings! Sweet Cajun-fried Jeebus, does anyone imagine for a second that Trump actually evaluates and organizes ideas? All evidence indicates he can’t hold a coherent thought in his own noggin, let alone “curate” the ideas of others!
[Okay, I’m going to quit ranting about the goddamned Trumps and get back to work. Another reason to hate the bastards — they’ve cut into my productivity by keeping me in a constant state of outrage! ?]
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
I have a whole set of words I hate and they use all of them. Remember in school? “Use your words!” It meant “stop hitting people” but it’s what I think of when I hear these things.
Why do they not have their own words?
I’m waiting for Trump to fold on the trade war with Canada. I don’t know about Wisconsin but Canada is Ohio’s most valuable trading partner. We send a ton of shit up there and they send a ton back. Ohio would go out of business if not for Canada. Dumbo has no earthly idea how the real economy works.
schrodingers_cat
@Kay: @Betty Cracker: Curate is fashion blogger and d-i-y mommy blogger speak. They curate everything from their wardrobe to their children’s toys. Your closet is not a museum, idiot fashion blogger. Enough with the curate.
Corner Stone
I want to curate dat azz!!
Oh, wait. Did I type that out loud?
giantslor
My first thought was “schadenfreude.” Lots of schadenfreude if you read Memeorandum today.
Uncle Cosmo
@Geeno: OTOH IMHO Germans would actually be more inclined to say Was für eine Schweinerei gibt’s hier? but still on point. (Look it up.)
Auntie beak
In my never-to-be-considered-humble opinion, the media fawns over her because she’s blonde and pretty. Period. Another example of the leg up good-looking people get in a visual culture. Not that I’m not stunning, myself, but I’m not blonde and young anymore. Real young. Still kind of young. Well, compared to really old people… Never mind.
Sondra
I won’t for one moment defend the first daughter. She has no business being in the position she is in, but however easily she was boosted into the world of business by her doting Daddy, she has a point.
Every woman who has ever worked in a field that is dominated by men knows that what she says here is true; that “Perception is more important than reality. If someone perceives something to be true, it is more important than if it is in fact true. This doesn’t mean you should be duplicitous or deceitful, but don’t go out of your way to correct a false assumption if it plays to your advantage.”
Back in the Reagan years when I finally landed my job selling specialty open heart surgical products for a company that had a sales force of 70 men and 3 women, I realized at our first big sales meeting that the Madonna/Whore Syndrome was on full display. One of the women stayed up late drinking with the men in an effort to show she was just one of the boys. But the boys weren’t impressed by a sloppy drunken woman.
The second woman signaled her sexual availability and soon became known as Rhonda Round Heels.
I had a cocktail with my boss and my co-workers while we chatted over canapés, sipped on the wine and laughed at the insipid jokes during dinner, danced a sedate Lindy with a few of the top brass after dessert, tactfully discouraged the advances of a couple of the bigger jerks and excused myself from the party at 10:00 to go up to my room alone for the evening.
The verdict of the gentlemen from upper management as to the three newly hired women? It was unanimous – Two Whores and one Madonna ✅