Apparently Trump heard what the media was saying about his budget deal, mainly that he is a big fat fucking loser, and that prompted a tantrum this morning before his handlers were able to take his phone away and clean his didy:
President Trump on Tuesday called for a government shutdown later this year and suggested the Senate might need to prohibit future filibusters, dramatic declarations from a new commander in chief whose frustration is snowballing as Congress continues to block key parts of his agenda.
“Our country needs a good ‘shutdown’ in September to fix mess!” Trump wrote in a series of tweets Tuesday morning. He likely meant a shutdown in October, as the current spending bill lawmakers have agreed to would fund government operations through Sept. 30.
Trump’s call for a shutdown, which appears to be unprecedented from a sitting president, come as his problems are mounting within the House and Senate, chambers that are both controlled by his party.
House Republicans are still split on whether to approve a bill he supports to roll back the Affordable Care Act, and Trump had to agree to major concessions on a stopgap spending bill in order for it to win support in the Senate, which typically requires 60 votes to pass legislation. Republicans only control 52 votes in the 100-seat chamber.
That made it easier for Democrats to block any funding for the creation of a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico, which had been a top priority for Trump. They were also able to continue funding programs that Trump has sought to cut off or scale back, such as Planned Parenthood and the National Institutes of Health.
If I can’t get what I want, I’m gonna blow it all up, he says. And this is BEFORE the latest version of Trumpcare goes down in flames.
TenguPhule
/Vomits.
That pic is not safe for anywhere.
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
He’s so stupid, he doesn’t realize he can veto the spending bill and get his shutdown. He really has spread shit over all of us.
patroclus
I realize, in TrumpWorld, this is sort of a stupid question, but how would a government shutdown help Trump or his agenda (let alone the country)? To re-open it would require negotiating with Democrats, who would insist on exactly the same stuff we just got on this new CR which lasts until October 1. And as it is filibusterable, the political dynamics wouldn’t be any different. It would just be Trump acting out like a baby, while hurting all sorts of people – does he think this would increase his popularity or win support for all the stupid stuff he says he wants?
artem1s
interesting tactic for getting the latest iteration of AHCA passed. NOT. anyone who believed this guy is good at negotiating is a rube ripe for picking. His go to strategy is the same as every bad used car salesman I’ve ever run into. No, I don’t want to take that lemon off your hands and no amount of ‘discounts’ or lying about the mileage is going to make it less of a wreck.
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
They just unearthed Bannon’s Coriolanus
adaptationdefilement The Thing I Am. Gary Anthony Williams plays Coriolanus in the table read.Citizen_X
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap: I think he’s just a coward. He wants a shutdown, but he wants Congress to pull the trigger.
bemused
I know it’s hard to tell but he’s really losing what few brain cells he has. I just realized he reminds me of a few mean dry drunks I have known, petty, childish, grudge holders.
Betty Cracker
That illustration, while gross, is perfect. A hideous, beshitted man-baby smearing feces all over the American flag with the globe teetering on the edge. Perfect.
oldster
I for one am delighted to have Trump calling for a shutdown. This guarantees that he and Republicans will bear the full blame if a shut-down occurs.
It was already likely that a shut-down would hurt the Republicans–that’s exactly why Schumer could extract so many concessions for this deal. He was happy to walk away from it, knowing that it would most likely be pinned on Republicans. And that strengthened Schumer’s hand.
Now, Trump just strengthened Schumer’s hand even further. Now, the next budget deal will be played out with the same dynamic, only even more favorable to the Democrats: keep funding what we want, or we won’t play ball. Then the government will shut down, and Trump, Ryan, and O’Connell will bear the full blame.
After all, Trump explicitly said on Twitter that he intended to shut it down.
TenguPhule
@patroclus:
Panic the country, then run a Bavarian Fire Drill.
Emergencies create a need for emergency powers.
Remember, the filibuster only exists because its a rule the Republicans haven’t repealed yet. All they need is an excuse and they’ll ditch it for something they really want.
Mike J
Brilliant strategist. Tens (hundreds?) of thousands of federal employees who live in Virginia will miss paychecks because of the Republican party just weeks before elections.
Chris
That was a delightful alliteration.
dmsilev
@patroclus: He still thinks that the techniques which worked for him as a builder are applicable. Threaten to walk away and blow up the deal, threaten to sue, etc. etc. Senators with multi-decade tenures are not particularly likely to be swayed, unlike rebar suppliers or HVAC contractors.
craigie
@Citizen_X:
This
TenguPhule
@oldster:
I guarantee you the FNYT will be blaming the Democrats for not going along with the Republicans.
As will most of the other media outlets.
Major Major Major Major
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD): I saw that yesterday! Pretty fucking nuts! That is now my favorite random fact about Bannon, it’s displaced that he had a failed World of Warcraft gold-farming scheme.
hovercraft
WTF is that picture? It’s so gross and yet not as gross as the person in it.
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap:
Shh, no one tell him that he actually can refuse to sigh shit and have a photo op of him NOT signing shit. While it’s true he won’t have any nice pens to give to all his sycophants, he can still be the center of everyone’s undivided attention.WIN !
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
I think a Republican initiated shutdown just as the midterm campaigns kick off would be great news for John McCain.
oldster
@TenguPhule:
And yet, despite those tendencies in the media (and I agree they are there), Obama paid almost no political price for the shut-down, and the Republicans hurt themselves badly. I am pretty sure it will play out the same way if it happens again–esp. when Trump gives us this evidence in advance.
hovercraft
@patroclus:
It will be a show of force just like the Tomahawks were a show of force to his enemies. He’ll shut down the government and show the Freedom caucus, the “Moderates” and the Democrats, just who’s in charge.
Now beyond showing everyone what they already knew, that he’s the president, he hopes it will show how strong and tough he is, and that he’ll see the talking heads all saying and writing about how strong and resolute he is.
how would a government shutdown help Trump or his agenda (let alone the country)?
SHUT UP !!!!!!
Anonymous At Work
@hovercraft: Didn’t he already sign it? Isn’t it too late to take it back? And doesn’t this amount to him not reading it or even getting briefed on the major provisions?
NorthLeft12
Yeah, that cartoon of Deadbeat Donald would no doubt wind up that batshit crazy right wing Uncle/Aunt who post all those ignorant memes on Facebook.
I think even those ignorant Trump supporters would get the gist of that without any explanation.
Starfish
@hovercraft: It is from some Norwegian publication.
schrodingers_cat
@Betty Cracker: Why do you hate babies? They are not malicious unlike the personage in the illustration above and they are cute.
Wjs
“At some point, shutting down the government will backfire on Democrats” is what they keep saying over and over again, hoping it will somehow be true.
What people should really fear is a centrist compromise that subverts sequestration and gives Trump a budget victory of any kind.
Brachiator
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap:
@patroclus:
Again, the problem is not that Trump is stupid. It is that he is unfit for office in the most basic sense that he does not understand politics or how to use the standard mechanisms of government to get things done.
He is exactly what his supporters wanted, a businessman who was not part of the mainstream political establishment. Unfortunately, outside the right wing talk radio/Fox News propaganda bubble, this shit does not work.
And once again, the Republicans thought that they could either work with Trump, or exploit him to get what they wanted. They didn’t quite count on stuff like this:
If he could, Trump would recraft the US government to be more like the recently approved changes in Turkey, giving the president more direct power over the legislature and the Supreme Court. As it is, Trump falls back on more and more grandiose (and emptier and emptier) executive orders that express his will, but which get little done compared to legislative victories.
I don’t know that Trump will ever figure things out. But a craftier Speaker of the House than Chump of the Month Ryan, and a more politically astute Senate Majority Leader could be very dangerous.
Gravenstone
@patroclus:
It would help his ego. And that’s really the only thing he’ll ever really care about. So bring on the Brawndo!
NorthLeft12
@Wjs: But didn’t you hear? Trump’s stooges are claiming that the recent budget agreement was a yooge win for Trump. They have lamely and weakly tried to push this belief, but that is not being bought by his supporters.
Actually his supporters are still pissed that Hillary is not in prison yet.
hovercraft
FFS, will these assholes just stop with this shit? The election is over, how does this help them?
NYT: Ivanka Visibly Upset When Trump Didn’t Want To Apologize For Vulgar Tape
Via TPM
Donald Trump at first only agreed to “say he was sorry if anyone was offended,” which bothered his daughter, per the New York Times:
Ivanka Trump made an emphatic case for a full-throated apology, according to several people who were present for the crisis discussion that unfolded in Mr. Trump’s 26th-floor office. Raised amid a swirl of tabloid headlines, she had spent her adult life branding herself as her father’s poised, family-focused daughter. She marketed her clothing line with slogans about female empowerment and was finishing a book on the topic. As she spoke, Mr. Trump remained unyielding. His daughter’s eyes welled with tears, her face reddened, and she hurried out in frustration.
Can someone please tell Lucretia that we hate her as much as her Dada now, this type of shit is not going to help her except with the villagers.
gene108
NO IT DID NOT UNTIL MCCONNELL BROKE IT!!!
Sorry.
This pissed me off.
60 votes to do anything was not normal. McConnell broke and continues to break the Senate to grasp power.
Major Major Major Major
@Brachiator:
Well, that Trump is stupid is certainly at minimum a problem.
hovercraft
@Starfish:
Between the questions he’s gotten from foreign media at joint presses and the harsh coverage in general, they are doing so much better than our sycophants. Yes I know there are a few exceptions, but that’s the problem, they are exceptions.
Gravenstone
@Anonymous At Work: He’s referring to the next one, which will have to be signed some time in September when the one he did just sign expires.
TenguPhule
@hovercraft:
They’re trying to normalize Trump.
Unfortunately, I think they’re succeeding.
Patricia Kayden
@patroclus: Not a stupid question but a stupid man like Trump hasn’t thought through what it would mean for a Republican President to shut down the government while his party has a majority of the seats in Congress. This is what you get when you put an Ignoramus in the White House and give him a cell phone. He tweets foolishness in between playing golf at Mar-a-Lago.
TenguPhule
@oldster: I hope you are right.
I’m just not confident given the complete denial of reality that Trump supporters are going into.
The Moar You Know
Was wondering when the GOP would figure out that they’re fucked, because the Nazi wing won’t let the granny starver contingent have what they want. Guess that day is today.
Trump may well be a hell of a dealmaker, but you can’t make a deal if you don’t bother to learn anything about what’s being bought or sold. And Trump still hasn’t done that. He never will, by the looks of it.
MJS
@hovercraft: Hopefully the NYT also understands that an apology that is given only because someone else makes you do it is really no apology at all, regardless of how it’s worded.
Patricia Kayden
@hovercraft:
I wonder if Ivanka really cares how the hoi polloi view her. It’s not as if we can do anything to harm her. She has the nerve to write a book about working women. Just like her father, she has zero self awareness. I work because I have to do so to survive. She “works” because she’s supporting her Daddy’s businesses and won the lottery of life by being born into a wealthy family. She has nothing to say to me about working women.
Corner Stone
@hovercraft:
I love this for at least two reasons. One, her Daddy doesn’t give a shit what she thinks about anything so fuck her and her moderating influence bullshit. And two, she doesn’t get what she wants she folds and flees in a crying huff. Definitely the symbol of empowerment women have been waiting for.
I hate her so fucking much.
TenguPhule
@Brachiator:
Actually he’s not even that.
He’s a conman who’s gotten away with grifting by always being just one step ahead of the suckers.
But now he believes his own lies. And those who can believe in absurdities, will find atrocities relatively simple.
hovercraft
DHS Chief ‘Shocked’ By Officials ‘Rejoicing’ Over Wall Funding Delay (VIDEO)
Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly on Tuesday said he is “shocked” some officials are “rejoicing” that funding is delayed for President Donald Trump’s proposed U.S.-Mexico border wall.
“Frankly I am shocked at the behavior of some individuals in public service or public office,” Kelly said, speaking at the beginning of the White House’s daily press briefing.
Kelly did not name those individuals, but said they are “rejoicing in the fact that that wall will be slower to be built” rather than “celebrating how they’ve managed to reduce the amount of money” required for its construction.
Since Trump’s inauguration, his administration has lowered expectations about the wall and delayed obtaining funding in order to avoid a government shutdown, though Trump insisted last week that “the wall’s going to get built.”
“This is our government’s largest investment in border security in 10 years,” Kelly said on Tuesday. “We need more to keep moving forward.”
Elie
The man is a total mess and will become more and more dysfunctional as time goes on. I see the Republicans are getting pretty on to him and will just do things to keep things going without his approval — debt ceiling was one of those. Are they assholes? Yes, they still are but they are not completely suicidal as a party or as members of this country. They know that this dude is not normal but the fix will not be easy — particularly for the GOP as many of them will be sucked into the fall out — whether its a Russian link or something else. Oh, and all that bullshit about how the Trump supporters have no regrets? I believe that is all bullshit. They just won’t admit it — yet. After a while, they will become fewer in number and generally irrelevant given the possible outcomes in front of us due to this bed shitting asshole. [email protected]Brachiator: — If not “stupid”, Trump has some sort of major impairment that prevents him from accessing his major executive and cognitive brain function. He is extremely disturbed and pretty much unable to adapt. He is very dangerous and his people are focused on protecting HIM, not this country. The Republicans in Congress are ever so slightly starting to get the risk that they and this country have…
TenguPhule
@Elie:
Cleek’s Law says otherwise.
The wingnut event horizon looms ever closer.
The Moar You Know
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap: He wants a shutdown that he can blame on Dems. Which he won’t get. In the meantime, the GOP contingent of Congress has set up a situation where if the government does get shut down, Trump will be the…hmmm, “cannon fodder” seems an appropriate term. The GOP has really put him in a very bad place.
One missed SSI check and Trump is fucking finished. Don’t think he’s figured that out either.
hovercraft
Now this tweet I can get behind:
ETA https://twitter.com/BarackObama/status/859457313232605184
Mezz
He’s so stupid he probably doesn’t realize that if the government is shut down, he can’t collect his $millions$$ every weekend when he flies down to Mar-ew-Lago in bills to the taxpayers. That’s the part that drives me the battiest – that we’re PAYING HIM to avoid doing his job on the weekends, and for his Secret Service contingent. Right into his pockets…. A feature, not a bug….
Patricia Kayden
@hovercraft: Kelly is such a good foot soldier. “Yes, boss. Anything you say, boss”. He can’t get enough of licking Trump’s dirty boots. Why does he care if public officials are rejoicing about the wall’s doom? Why talk about it at all? Are public officials required to walk lockstep with every thing Trump proposes? It’s not as if Republicans in Congress are acting in lockstep with Trump’s wishes.
Elie
@hovercraft:
I tell you, reading this from this retired four star general gives me major shivers… that he would serve this creature and play to it, is just shocking to me… and the other generals in this administration, are just enablers of a seriously — no — dangerously ill person who has enormous responsibility but is not capable of being responsible for himself. He is barely functional and this — this — enabler is giving him cover. If our country survives this, he and his other colleagues in this mis-administration need to go into hiding like the former Nazis did… He is a disgrace…..
The Moar You Know
@hovercraft: Just wait until he finds out how they’ll be celebrating his retirement party.
Teddys Person
@Corner Stone: Fleeing in a huff is a Trump specialty.
Elizabelle
@hovercraft: Meh. Barack Obama. Just some “partisan.”
/snark. I have a feeling Jimmy Kimmel knows which party supports saving his baby’s life, as opposed to delivering him a moral lesson.
FWIW: there have to have been other babies in that neo-natal ward that are less insured than rich young baby Kimmel. I’d love to see Jimmy have another parent or two on, in time, to share their family’s experience with illness/damage striking a baby so young. The post-fetal set.
TenguPhule
@The Moar You Know: Burning him in effigy?
gvg
The simplest answer is he thinks he can take a vacation and people will stop “bothering” him if the government shuts down. Yes I think he is that stupid.
Gin & Tonic
@Corner Stone: Ivanka’s publicist must give the world’s best blowjobs in order to get stories like that placed.
JDM
Here’s a big part of the problem with the USA: “likely meant a shutdown in October”. They cleaned up his speech. He didn’t “likely [mean] a shutdown in October”, he meant what he said. And what he said was ludicrously ignorant, which is an extremely important part of the story. You don’t edit out the important parts of your story. It’s one thing for sports writers to sometimes “clean up” some athlete’s locker room conversation; the exact phrase isn’t necessarily important. It is important if the person whose speech is spiffed up and made more accurate is the President of the United States. It’s not just important, it’s critically important to know if the nation’s president is an ignorant buffoon.
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
Well let’s not forget we haven’t really had an actual government shutdown. I mean some federal employees go home and maybe some museums and parks close but everything is designated critical and it keeps going. If we had a real shutdown, no air traffic control, no DHS airport security, all ports shutdown, SS turns off their computers so no checks, VA has no doctors or nurses report – you know the list is endless. Maybe if this happened just once, the motherfucking morons who hate the government might get a clue. But no, we’ve never actually shutdown the government during one of these government shutdowns. The whole thing is a big kabuki.
TenguPhule
Reason upteenzillion why I have zero faith in the innate goodness of humanity.
To add cruel irony to the mix, this dad used to be a fan of the right wing radio nuts and their crazy “theories”.
Anonymous At Work
@Gravenstone: Can he remember events that far into the future?
rikyrah
@Elie:
.
Why are you surprised?
1. He’s the same muthaphucka that tried to reason separating PARENTS FROM THEIR CHILDREN wasn’t a bad idea.
2. When meeting with concerned groups, he got into such a snit that he:
a) threatened to leave- how DARE these people challenge him
b) gave some sort of bullshyt reason as to why the government couldn’t keep stats on WHO was being stopped at the border and being prevented from entering the country.
TenguPhule
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap:
Because the Democrats in office were neither sadistic nor insane.
Ruckus
@TenguPhule:
There is no wingnut event horizon. Their shit just keeps going round and round and comes back upon us. It may look like the horizon, but like the real horizon it is always ahead of you the same distance. It’s why their shit has been rank for eons. It keeps coming back around. It doesn’t really change, it’s just sometimes more obvious. Like now. The tea party wasn’t created out of nothing, the morons existed. White supremacists aren’t new, those same chowder heads have been around since before man walked upright. There have been conservatives that want to tear it all down since before it was built. None of this is new. And most of it won’t go away in the lifetimes of anyone breathing today. They may have less power, hopefully soon, but go away? Not gunna happen. There will always be people who defy logic, reality, reason, compassion, etc. You can’t stop them, you can’t change them, you can’t even wipe them all out. They can be marginalized to a degree but that’s the extent of it. The trick is to learn how to marginalize them enough that the rest of us can actually have reasonable lives. That they may have reasonable lives, right now, who gives a shit?
Goku
So I used the resistbot thingy today. Here’s the text I sent, pretty anodyne for the most part:
What I don’t like is that just starting out you can’t choose which congressman you can send a message to. Only senators today also. Doesn’t really matter anyway. My rep is dem.
scuffletuffle
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap: This.Let’s go a full day with nothing and see who feels the pain.
Ruckus
@The Moar You Know:
Man this place stinks of urine.
schrodingers_cat
@Patricia Kayden: I am so old that I remember how the generals were supposed to save us from T’s worst. According to some commenters on BJ.
Brachiator
@Major Major Major Major: RE: Again, the problem is not that Trump is stupid. It is that he is unfit for office in the most basic sense that he does not understand politics or how to use the standard mechanisms of government to get things done.
Strictly speaking, Trump’s problem is that he is ignorant, not stupid. He doesn’t know how government works, and tries to use the brute force of his arrogance to get things done.
He was able to get away with this, to some extent, in the business world. It is not working so well with the government.
ETA: are you rested from your recent travels?
amk
@Brachiator: He is that stupid and he is a not businessman. Enough already.
efgoldman
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap:
If he hasn’t had a stroke by September, he’ll cave as he has on every other thing.
Goku
@TenguPhule: Seems to me, that maybe the people sending death threats should have threats sent right back at them. These losers would probably shit their pants tho or go crying to the cops, like the cowardly hypocrites they are deep down inside.
Not endorsing sending death threats because that’s horrible, but would not shed a tear if the same thing happened to the assholes
The Moar You Know
@TenguPhule: I read that. He’s a better man than I. I’d be killing some motherfuckers.
Here’s the real money quote from that article:
“History books will refer to this period as a time of mass delusion. We weren’t prepared for the internet. We thought the internet would bring all these wonderful things, such as research, medicine, science, an accelerated society of good. But all we did was hold up a mirror to society and we saw how angry, sick and hateful humans can be.”
And as he states, it’s too late to fix it.
hovercraft
@Patricia Kayden: @Elie:
Yeah, I remember when the “Generals” and Lucretia were supposed to be the “moderating” forces in this maladministration. As @rikyrah: says, Kelly was already on any reasonable persons shit list, but even the supposedly “good and or moderating” voices have shown themselves to be shit. Consider that Nikki Haley is by far the most “normal and sane” member of this administration, Nikki Haley a certified wingnut is the voice of reason.
WASF
TriassicSands
I cringe every time I see a headline that alludes to Trump losing, being a loser, failing, or being a failure because we’re dealing with a very dangerous child. It’s predictable that if Trump sees someone calling him weak, he will have to prove how tough he is and that will come at the expense of rationality and sound government.
We need to replace Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi with child psychologists.
Mary G
@Patricia Kayden: Ivanka is proof of the theory that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. She’s Daddy’s little girl in a whole lotta ways. I think her appeal is going to go downhill as we get to know her more.
Major Major Major Major
@Brachiator: I am, thanks.
As long as we’re splitting hairs, I think the biggest problem with Trump is actually that he’s incurious.
TenguPhule
@Goku: Fortunately at least some of the assholes are getting arrested. But the supply keeps regenerating.
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
@TriassicSands: I know you’re kidding, but this is right on point from LGM:
Brachiator
@TenguPhule: RE: He is exactly what his supporters wanted, a businessman who was not part of the mainstream political establishment.
You say that as if it’s a bad thing. Successful grifting is an art. And it’s not hard to keep ahead of the suckers, most of whom want to be fooled.
Trump has always believed his own lies. The only difference is that now he has the power of the presidency to force his staff and advisors to push his lies and to try to make them policy. And here I agree that it pushes him closer to being able to commit atrocities.
Roger Moore
@The Moar You Know:
In my job, we’ll frequently have goodbye parties for people who are about to leave. Twice, though, we’ve had good riddance parties to celebrate the not having to put up with people anymore. I suspect there are going to be good riddance parties for a lot of trump appointees.
TenguPhule
@The Moar You Know: He’s spending every day to keep his son’s photos out of the wackjobs websites, suing them for copyright infringement. That’s his boulder to roll up the mountain. But he seems determined to keep rolling it, no matter how many times it takes, just to give his son’s memory a little more dignity.
Its tragic.
efgoldman
@hovercraft:
He talks to hear his own voice. Somebody will tell him the threat was an error and isn’t playing well, and next week he’ll deny that he said it.
Also, yelling at the congress, and especially at the senate, to change the rules and do something OR ELSE is not going to make him many friends on the hill. See also: Tailgunner Teddy Cruz. I don’t recall any other president, not even LBJ who ran the senate before he was VP, doing that out loud.
? Martin
For people that think they won’t be affected by the AHCA, you might want to dig a bit deeper.
In short, if you have state mandated essential benefits covered by your employer plan, under the AHCA, states could choose to reduce essential benefits and your employer could then venue shop for which state they want to base their plan in. If you are in a blue state, your employer plan could instead be based on Alabama’s idea of essential benefits.
More immediately, the bill could invalidate all subsidies for plans in California as California is the only state that lists abortion as an essential benefit, and the AHCA explicitly prohibits any subsidies to go to plans that include abortion coverage.
Doug R
@The Moar You Know: Note the “people” causing most of the shenanigans on the internet were adults when it was created. I use quotes because I suspect a LOT of the trolls are bots or at least semi scripted.
hovercraft
@Major Major Major Major:
Incurious and sure that what he knows is right. He doesn’t have sources, he has his gut and anything that agrees with his gut is a reliable source of information, anything that doesn’t, is FAKE! We say he’s not a religious man or a man of faith, but we’re wrong, he has faith in the rightness of his opinions and ideas. He may have been a registered democrat for most of his life, but he’s finally found his true home, the party where data and facts are meaningless in the face of what they believe.
Goku
@TenguPhule: True. I remember reading about these types of douchebags long before the election when they started getting known nationally. We Hunted the Mammoth, a feminist blog, did a good reporting on all the messed up shit MRAs, Red Pills, and Gamergaters said and did around 2014 when I started reading.
Ever heard of SWATing? It’s where someone calls up police and gives an address where hostages are being held or some crap like that. Swat teams get sent in. They actually hope their target gets shot. Horrible little men wanted the state to do their dirty work for them
Weaselone
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap:
I admit that I was somewhat worried about Schumer, but regardless of his issues he seems to have been the right pick for the job at this point in time. Pelosi has always struck me as extremely effective as both Speaker of the House and House Minority Leader. Her weakness is as a face representing the party, but I don’t consider that to be an essential part of those positions. There are others that can and should be stepping forward to promote the party’s positions and vision.
hovercraft
@efgoldman:
Well in another show of kissing up to the boss:
Mulvaney: A ‘Good Shutdown’ Would Prove Trump’s Point About Dysfunction about an hour ago
The White House budget director on Monday threatened Democrats with a government shutdown if they…
and trying to help the boss save face:
Mulvaney: WH Has ‘Not Made Any Decision’ On Paying O’Care Subsidies 31 minutes ago
White House budget director Mick Mulvaney said Tuesday that President Donald Trump had not…
and then to show that the turtle is not ready cede all control to the toddler in the WH
McConnell Rejects Trump Proposal: ‘No, It Isn’t’ Time To Change Filibuster Rules 34 minutes ago
Tierney Sneed contributed reporting. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) on Tuesday threw cold water…
efgoldman
@Elie:
It was amazing how many people in the 49 states he won claimed never to have voted for Tricksie Dicksie Nixie.
Jeffro
@Brachiator: @Major Major Major Major:
GOP failed to vet him, EC failed to do its job, and now we’re looking at stuff like this: The Professional Ethical Challenge of Publicly Discussing a President Who Appears Cognitively Compromised.
He’s stupid and deteriorating – thanks Trump voters!
Major Major Major Major
@hovercraft: good point. Most incurious people are also deferential to authority. They’re both bad, but the ones who aren’t deferential are worse.
clay
@Major Major Major Major:
George W. Bush was incurious. Trump is one dumb-ass sack of shit. He is not simply without curiosity, but he is the opposite of curiosity.
To elaborate, Bush didn’t know about a lot of stuff but he was, by-and-large, aware of his ignorance. He just didn’t care about those topics. He lacked curiosity; thus, incurious.
Trump knows even less about stuff, but he thinks he knows everything. He is not apathetic towards learning new things; he doesn’t think there’s anything for him to learn.
Which is why it’s such a goddamn national embarrassment whenever he opens his goddamn mouth.
Roger Moore
@Major Major Major Major:
He’s ignorant partly because he’s incurious, but I think his problems go a lot deeper than simple incuriosity. Everything I’ve read makes it sound as if he is barely literate, which sharply limits how much information he could readily learn even if he cared to. He’s also unwilling to deal with uncomfortable facts, so he likes surrounding himself with yes men and getting his information only from friendly sources. Again, that kind of bubble would prevent him from getting necessary information even if he were curious enough to want it.
sukabi
@JDM: yeah, but they’ve got to brush up on those “polishing” skills as they’ve been out of practice for 8 years.
Brachiator
@Elie:
Here’s a couple of questions that arise from your post.
Is it possible that Trump’s wealth and upbringing made it unnecessary for him to learn how to adapt? I don’t know if his father had a big thing for winners and losers.
His people are focused on protecting him. But doesn’t he select them specifically for that purpose? Doesn’t he quickly discard those who can’t help him? And I think you may be on to something that pundits easily overlook in that Trump’s people are more loyal to their master than to their country, and this is not a good thing.
I wonder if the Republican leadership really get it? They seem more intent on fighting among themselves, to the point that they arrogantly believe that they can ignore their own base. They also still think that they need to back Trump. Such loyal fools.
efgoldman
@The Moar You Know:
He has put himself in a bad place. Nobody forced him to run.
Likewise, Granny Starver, by his own incompetence and lack of political or leadership skills. has put the house RWNJ flying monkeys in a different bad place.
Jay C
@Goku:
And/or take to FB, Twitter, or their favorite blog to shriek to high heaven about how anyone complaining about their sending death threats to Sandy Hook parents is hideously compromising the Rights Of Free Speech, and how any action against them is the Awful Totalitarianism of the Intolerant Left…..
efgoldman
@Patricia Kayden:
Because he’s another whackaloon True Believer.
efgoldman
@Teddys Person:
He gets a special deal from the Huff dealerhip
sukabi
@Brachiator: let’s NOT attempt to educate Drumpf thru examples of #hessostupidthat….
I’d like him to choke on his stupid taped tie.
artem1s
@hovercraft:
She was in tears because he was ruining her brand. period. she did not give one whit about the women he was talking about. she does grasp that her value to her father is only about how much revenue she can produce once her fuckable days are passed.
Chris
@Roger Moore:
There’s a facepalm-worthy and possibly apocryphal story of George Bush saying something about Sweden being “the neutral ones,” after which someone told him “sir, I think you mean Switzerland.” “No, no. It’s Sweden, I’m sure.” At some point later, he supposedly went back to that person and went “you know, you were right. It was Switzerland.”
Donny… is a guy who wouldn’t even be capable of doing that last little thing.
Jeffro
Here’s a great Tweet: “Combining Nixon’s paranoia, Reagan’s dementia, and W’s complete lack of knowledge, Trump truly is the ultimate Republican President” – Orli Matlow
Jeffro
@clay:
Spot-on.
trollhattan
@Brachiator:
Does he select people to protect him or to agree with him and plump his…er…ego? I’m seeing more of the second than the first. Spicey seems to be the only one on the front lines defending/waving off his every move and utterance. It would seem the rest spend their days saying some version of, “Great idea, boss!”
Ruckus
@hovercraft:
Wasn’t the last conservative president a “gut feeling” sort of moron as well? I remember that working out so well. I wonder if in their quest to rid the world of science, conservatives have forgotten that actual though does not happen where food is digested. Maybe the organ that is able to actually have cognitive thought is incapable of that process in conservatives.
Elizabelle
@clay: President Dunning-Kruger.
And that explains the people with professional degrees, who should know better, lining up behind him. It’s a tragedy. And we probably have more of that contingent than is healthy for a functioning democracy.
eclare
@efgoldman: Hahaha…thanks for the laugh!
Yutsano
@Anonymous At Work:
He did? When did that vote happen?
artem1s
@Elizabelle: sorry, I want a full, non stop apology from Kimmel to the people who’s kids don’t have a bottomless pit of money to pay their kid’s health care. He invited that dumpster fire on his show and made him look like a magnanimous guy with that hair ruffling shtick. Kimmel needs to pay penance along with all the other assholes who normalized this shit so they could line their pockets with advertising dollars.
TenguPhule
@artem1s:
Yet I don’t think his son needs to pay it for him.
TenguPhule
@Yutsano: Last Friday.
Mary G
@artem1s: I think it was the other Jimmy – Fallon who did the hair ruffling.
A Ghost to Most
@Ruckus:
It doesn’t come around; it keeps going. Be careful invoking peak wingnut or event horizon; there will be firearms involved at those levels. It doesn’t just go to 11.
TenguPhule
@A Ghost to Most: Cue Wayne Pierre to prep the groundwork.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Major Major Major Major: George W. Bush was incurious, Trump is stupid.
Brachiator
@Jeffro:
I think this article is more wish fulfillment than anything helpful. The author tries to make a case that Trump is impaired, but then starts talking about “continued violations of the Emoluments Clause of U.S. Constitution.” This kind of thing reeks of desperation.
BTW, I think the Republican leadership would be too scared to try to push for a 25th Amendment solution. Democrats might be wary, too. I don’t know if anyone really wants to open the door to cognitive fitness standards for being president.
And let’s see. Pence and the Cabinet would have to instigate this. This might make Ben Carson, who presumably knows something about brains, the most important voice in deciding the fate of the government. Man, that would make a hell of a movie!
hovercraft
@Jeffro: @Ruckus:
The whole “gut” thing is because facts have a liberal bias, if they could point to objective data they’d do it, but since they can’t they flip it and say we are pointy headed liberals who rely on “book learning” whereas they rely on the gut and common sense. They are very good at turning their weaknesses into “strengths”, the media swallows this BS every time. Suddenly the party that actually gets the votes of the lowest income Americans is the party of elites, they do everything in their power to funnel money upwards bu they are the party of the people I hate the media.
ETA: Twitler really does believe that he just knows shit because he’s so much smarter than everyone else.
eclare
@artem1s: Do you mean Jimmy Fallon? I remember a big deal when he was on Fallon’s show and Fallon ran his fingers through his hair and basically gave him a tongue bath.
Yutsano
@TenguPhule: Not quite
That signing last Friday was the CR for this week. They’re aiming for a full budget. No votes have happened there yet.
clay
@artem1s: It was Jimmy Fallon on NBC who did the Trump-normalizing. Jimmy Kimmel on ABC is the one with the newborn in medical crisis. As far as I’m aware, he’s never been deferential to Trump.
Uncle Cosmo
@Mary G:
FTFY; better analogy in the context. :^D
Jeffro
@hovercraft:
Well, he does consult himself on a regular basis and boy how I wish I were making that up.
Also he does have the best words…heck, I mean we all know that…
James Powell
@patroclus:
Because in TrumpWorld anything that pisses off liberals is good. And a shutdown means drama and cable news coverage and for Trump anything that gets him on cable news is good.
Let’s dispel with this fiction that Trump, the Republicans, or their supporters give a damn what happens to the country.
TenguPhule
@Yutsano: Sorry, got confused because there was the one he signed and the one he has yet to sign.
And this is why I hate all this buying extra time because they put it to the last minute.
Major Major Major Major
@?BillinGlendaleCA: there can be multiple incurious people.
Jeffro
@James Powell:
Now golf, THAT he cares about. You’d think some enterprising, nocturnal prankster type would find a way to take #TheResistance to the greens of Mar-a-Lago. Wouldn’t take too much to Round-Up a big “F U TRUMP” into the fairway on the ninth hole…
Yutsano
@TenguPhule: Honestly the budget deal is shite. Plus Paulie has already shown he doesn’t know how to count votes and Nancy won’t let this through unless there’s enough protections like for PPACA and such.
Elie
@Brachiator:
His mental disorder makes him function like stupid. He has problems learning and retaining what he has learned, and that by itself can lead to a definition of stupid. Presumably, if you are just ignorant, you can be made aware and learn. Trump keeps “learning” the same things over and over and nothing happens — there is no transformation of information into knowledge. So ok, you want to give him some points for being able to function in the business milieu. I think that was mostly in the past and most recently, before this adventure, he coasted on his past reputation and straight out bullying, using his “fame” as a bludgeon. That takes a kind of gut shrewdness, but not necessarily much intelligence. His focus on himself helps him concentrate on him as the center of the universe. I am very worried that because he has poor cognitive abilities mixed with the aberrant personality, and a staff that does not act as a ballast or restraint, we are sooner or later gonna really pay a huge price.
Tenar Arha
@artem1s: That was Jimmy Fallon on NBC.
ETA, ?? everyone pointed out it was Fallon.
Mike in NC
@Elie: South Korea and Japan stand a roughly 50-50 chance of being incinerated on Trump’s watch.
Origuy
.
So the appropriate response to Trump is to shun him. Sounds right to me.
sukabi
@artem1s: not Kimmel, Fallon was the “hair fluffer”
Elie
@Mike in NC:
Who the hell knows where or what…. hopefully we will all live to remember it. Please also note that the entire west coast of the US with the state with the hugest population and economy is in direct line to the radiation and radioactive debris from Korea and Japan — so when you talk about smoking debris, our problems would just come more slowly but we would be royally fucked. And double down on that because you know we would smoke North Korea as a result and that could lead to whole bunches of mess with China, Russia and the rest of the world. So while it is nice to think of it narrowly as just Japan and Korea, in reality, it would be another world war and one where the US would receive significant nuclear radiation exposure if not direct attack. Fun times!
Elie
@Brachiator:
I think that many in the GOP leadership “get it” but are extremely divided and uncertain about what to DO about it. Add to that that some of them are, shall we say, compromised by the Russian or other corruption. I know some commenting have said that they think that the Repubs have a suicide wish. I don’t think so. Greedy, power hungry yes, suicidal, No — which is why they passed the budget and nixed the wall thing (in part). They are NOT in any way, good people, but they, are NOT stupid and they are becoming more and more anxious about the danger we are all in. Not that they will do the right thing, or anything or ride to our rescue as patriots. I just think they know this regime stinks and like the rest of us, would like to find an exit, but like the rest of us, are pretty much stuck in the circumstance for now.
Elie
@Elie:
Forgot about Hawaii and all those islands like the Marshall Islands, etc — which would be fucked also.
J R in WV
@TenguPhule:
“Burning him in effigy?”
Who needs an effigy???