Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Consistently wrong since 2002

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

A Senator Walker would be an insult to the state and the nation.

Being the leader of the world means to be the leader of peace.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

This fight is for everything.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

Let there be snark.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

I really should read my own blog.

This really is a full service blog.

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

You are here: Home / Politics / Trumpery / Dolt 45 / Another Croggle-Worthy* Read: “Donald Trump After Hours”

Another Croggle-Worthy* Read: “Donald Trump After Hours”

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*croggle: (dated, fandom slang) To shock so much as to cause brief paralysis; to stun; to startle.

Thing is: HE THOUGHT THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA. Kanye West, Ryan Seacrest, watch and admire me, bigly!

Michael Scherer and Zeke J. Miller, at TIME, with a great subhead: “From where the 45th President works, eats and sleeps, everything is going just great. Now if only everyone else would see it that way“:

In a few minutes, President Donald Trump will release a new set of tweets, flooding social-media accounts with his unique brand of digital smelling salts—words that will jolt his supporters and provoke his adversaries.

Nearly a dozen senior aides stand in the Oval Office, crowding behind couches or near door-length windows. This is the way he likes to work, more often than not: in a crowd. He sits behind his desk finishing the tasks of the day, which have included watching new Senate testimony about Russian involvement in the 2016 presidential election, by signing orders in red folders with a black Sharpie.

When he held the job, Barack Obama tended to treat the Oval Office like a sanctum sanctorum, accessible only for a small circle of advisers to break its silence on a tightly regulated schedule. For Trump, the room functions as something like a royal court or meeting hall, with open doors that senior aides and ­distinguished visitors flock through when he is in the building…

And the stream of visitors is constant. Just a few hours earlier, National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster had stopped by with a foreign military delegation. Vice President Mike Pence brought by the Prime Minister of Georgia unscheduled for a photo. The New England ­Patriots got to take pictures behind the desk recently, and the President says the billionaire Ronald Lauder, a great collector of art, went crazy when he saw the painting of George Washington above the fireplace. “Never had people,” Trump likes to say of Obama’s use of the space. “I use the room. I use it a lot. I had the biggest people in the country here.”…

The powers of the presidency are vast, but Trump has discovered in these first months in office that they do not include­ much influence over how his words and actions are consumed by the American people. Among the many frustrations, none seems to burn quite as much as the disrespect he feels he has received from the press, which has steadily failed to reflect his version of reality. The story he wants told is not the one the nation reads and sees…
 
“The truth is, I got a raw deal,” he says later in the evening, the frustration unmistakable for a man who has spent so much of his life grading himself by headlines. The détente with the press after the election that he had hoped for never came. “It’s gotten worse,” he says. “It’s one of the things that surprises me.”

To cope with this new reality, the President says he is trying a mindfulness trick: he has tried to tune out the bad news about himself. “I’ve been able to do something that I never thought I had the ability to do. I’ve been able not to watch or read things that aren’t pleasant,” he will say later in the night, listing off the networks he tries to tune out and the newspapers he struggles to skim. Of course, as his public outbursts indicate, he does not always succeed, but he says he no longer feels a need to know everything said about him. “In terms of your own self, it’s a very, very good thing,” he says. “The equilibrium is much better.”

The following day, the news of the Senate hearings will once again fail to comport with the meaning he derived from his TiVo. The focus instead will be on Yates’ description of how she warned the White House about the apparent duplicity of Trump’s first National Security Adviser, Michael Flynn, who misled the Vice President about his contacts with Russia. Flynn is now facing an investigation into foreign payments that officials say he failed to report.

Trump can’t do anything about that, for the most part. But he can still tweet. So now he walks out of his dining room, followed by the same substantial entourage of senior aides. Back in the Oval Office, he checks in with his waiting staff. “Did you get that stuff out?” the President asks of the tweets he had prepared. “The Russia-Trump collusion story is a total hoax,” one reads, “when will the taxpayer funded charade end?” Dan Scavino, his social-media director, is sitting on the couch. “Yes, sir. Instagram, Facebook, Twitter. It’s everywhere,” he says….

The waiters know well Trump’s personal preferences. As he settles down, they bring him a Diet Coke, while the rest of us are served water, with the Vice President sitting at one end of the table. With the salad course, Trump is served what appears to be Thousand Island dressing instead of the creamy vinaigrette for his guests. When the chicken arrives, he is the only one given an extra dish of sauce. At the dessert course, he gets two scoops of vanilla ice cream with his chocolate cream pie, instead of the single scoop for everyone else. The tastes of Pence are also tended to. Instead of the pie, he gets a fruit plate…

This is the part of the job that he has clearly come to enjoy, playing businessman for the American people. He brags about the close relationships he believes he has formed with foreign leaders, complimenting Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel on inviting his daughter Ivanka to speak overseas. He boasts of convincing Egypt’s leader, General Abdul Fattah al-Sisi, to release several political prisoners, including an American­. He even runs through the many ways he has revised the rules of engagement in the war on the Islamic State. “They keep coming to me, at weird times too,” he says of requests for approval for drone strikes and Special Forces raids in his earliest days in office…

When asked directly if he feels his Administration has been too combative, he makes a brief allowance. “It could be my fault,” he says. “I don’t want to necessarily blame, but there’s a great meanness out there that I’m surprised at.” The inner conflict is clearly evident. This is the same man who just a couple hours earlier had joked about former federal officials choking “like dogs.”

One senior White House official recently outlined the three rules of Trump for a group of reporters: When you’re right, you fight. Controversy elevates message. And never apologize. All of these rules have survived his time in office, if in slightly more modest forms. After bringing new levels of combativeness to the political process, “the only way you survive is to be combative,” Trump says now. “I’ll read stories in the New York Times that are so one-sided. Hey, I know when I am successful. I know victory.”….

HE IS THE WORLD’S BIGGEST CELEBRITY, PEOPLE! (Why does everyone laugh at his mighty sword?… )

Reader Interactions

106Comments

  6. 6.

    Jeffro

    @BBA:

    What’s Putin’s endgame? Whatever he’s trying to get, is it really worth this?

    You’re kidding, right? Look at what he’s gotten (and may yet get) for his/his cronies’ relatively minimal investment.

  7. 7.

    burnspbesq

    @BBA:

    Whatever he’s trying to get,

    Delegitimizing the very idea of democracy? Yeah, that’s worth it.

  8. 8.

    Mnemosyne

    From where the 45th President works, eats and sleeps, everything is going just great. Now if only everyone else would see it that way

    Welcome to life with a narcissist. Nothing is their fault, everything is great except for the other people who are fucking everything up.

  9. 9.

    dmsilev

    With that diet and (lack of) exercise, he’s going to eat himself into a heart attack.

  11. 11.

    Jeffro

    @amk:

    It all started with the IRS dropping the ball continuously for decades.

    Someday soon, someone will put together a documentary (or some sort of slide show, fer chrissakes) that makes it easy for Americans to understand the multiple vectors that resulted in this perfect storm of stupid. And you’re absolutely right: the IRS not looking, and looking hard, into shell corporations and foreign investors and rich folks’ taxes will be a big issue. That’s a great point.

  12. 12.

    Mnemosyne

    @BBA:

    Putin wants Russia to be the most powerful country in the world, and to be the leader of that country. Of course this is all worth it to him.

  13. 13.

    dmsilev

    And in (Bill) Clinton news, apparently the former President co-authored tomorrow’s NYT crossword puzzle.

    Another thing that Trump never ever could be capable of doing.

  14. 14.

    burnspbesq

    @amk:

    Bullshit, with a large side of fuck you.

    Hindsight is always 20/20, but until the Supreme Court decision in Gitlitz came out in 2002, a majority of competent tax professionals would have said that what Trump did to generate his huge nOL carryover was legit.

  15. 15.

    debbie

    The article is bullshit. There are plenty of photos of Obama in the Oval Office with people other than his senior advisers. Babies in particular.

  16. 16.

    Mnemosyne

    Also, that whole story about how Trump gets 2 scoops of ice cream for dessert but only allows his guests to have 1? That’s how petty narcissists are. They have to get more and better stuff than everyone else or there’s hell to pay.

  24. 24.

    Lyrebird

    @Mnemosyne: You’re making me feel all the more justified in not spending any more time than I have reading his carping and bragging. Ugh.

  25. 25.

    burnspbesq

    @amk:

    Spoken like a tax lawyer with 35 years in practice, you meant to say. Remind us again where you got your J.D. and LL.M. in tax.

  26. 26.

    Ohio Mom

    @dmsilev: I’m impressed. The Friday puzzle is hard! Only Saturday’s is harder (Sunday’s is only intimidating because of its size).

  29. 29.

    BBA

    @others: Yes, yes, destabilizing America and making Russia strong…but is that worth having Donald Fucking Trump on the teevee every minute of every day? To quote a wise man in a wrestling mask and boxing gloves, I can’t listen to that guy for more than about 3 seconds before I start thinking that gnawing my own leg off might be a more better way to spend my time…more…more better.

  30. 30.

    jl

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    ” At least they didn’t call it Donald Trump, After Dark, EEEWWWWW. ”

    No dark shaming from someone who glows, please.

    How about ‘Donald Trump, in the Dark’?

  31. 31.

    dmsilev

    @Ohio Mom: As Friday puzzles go, it wasn’t too bad (I finished a couple of minutes below my average Friday time). BC is apparently quite the crossword fan, so it made sense that the Times would bring him in (this is an anniversary year for the NYT puzzle, so they’re running an occasional series of celebrity co-authored puzzles).

  32. 32.

    martian

    Is more gilt, gold, and glitz creeping into the Oval Office? It’s like a contagion. They’ll be gilding the Resolute desk soon.

  33. 33.

    burnspbesq

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    The problem was that the literal language of the statute could be read as leading you to a result that was pretty clearly not what Congress intended. Shitty drafting is a recurring problem in tax law. There was a circuit split, which was why the Supremes took the case.

  34. 34.

    jl

    I always look on the bright side. The rate at which Trump and the Congressional GOP are chewing through the Constitution, maybe we can force them cough up Arnie into the WH after the current crew is all in the clink.

    Edit: I can see the Faceplant Nation interview
    Dickerson: Mr. Arnie, some say you can’t be president because you aren’t a natural born citizen.
    Arnie: They gawdt me an official natural born perzon ID. Id loogs great. Here id iss.
    Dickerson: Looks very nice. What kind of ID is that?
    Arnie: An official one.

    Later the at the panel: I’m sure glad the new WH has their PR tradeceft tightened up. I think the American people will like that ID. It looks very official.

  35. 35.

    mai naem mobile

    The teevee has been playing the clip of Dolt 45 praising Comey during the campaign. Compare that Dolt 45 with the pic from Sunday night going down AF1. It might be the lighting but it looks like he’s put on a bunch of weight. His face looks all bloated. The bags under his eyes are huge. He doesn’t look healthy. He needs to stop with the ice cream and other crap. I wonder if he even let’s the WH doctor examine him. We may not need to impeach him. He may just keel over.

  37. 37.

    Mnemosyne

    @Lyrebird:

    There literally is no point in checking up on his lies every day, because there will be a new one tomorrow and he will see no reason to even pretend it’s for any reason other than what serves him best.

    G just sent me this WaPo article about him. Trump is proud of being a narcissist. He sees no reason to change, because he thinks it’s what’s made him successful.

  39. 39.

    cthulhu

    @BBA:

    What’s Putin’s endgame? Whatever he’s trying to get, is it really worth this?

    A trillion plus dollars if the sanctions get lifted.

    And, while Trump’s Razor suggests he is not directly and knowingly complicit in the whole Russian election meddling thing, if he were, an eventual kick-back that would finally make Trump a real multi-billionnaire might have been the incentive.

    Nonetheless, I think even Putin is coming to realize the Trump may very well-screw up the sanction elimination thing by being an increasingly terrible advocate for it.

  40. 40.

    Mnemosyne

    @BBA:

    Yes, yes, destabilizing America and making Russia strong…but is that worth having Donald Fucking Trump on the teevee every minute of every day?

    Putin gets to turn the teevee off, unlike us.

  41. 41.

    piratedan

    well… i think most of us feel that Donald is doomed, because normally, the number of questions and the unethical behavior would eventually bring enough pressure to bear on those affected to conform to societal norms.

    In this case, we have a narcissist, surrounded by a party of political psychopaths who are hell-bent on remaining in power, no matter the cost or casualties and they are insulated even further by a circle of bigots and god-botherers who are ecstatic that they get to raid the pantry financially and do harm to women, people of color and the poor and anyone else not subservient to their worldview.

    Couple that with a media that has enabled and coddled the President’s ego long enough that he STILL doesn’t understand that they are using him as a both a news vector and ratings force. If actual laws and repercussions get discussed, well, the charade has to be maintained by someone.

    What we’re all pegging our hopes on is that somehow, some GOP politicians can still be reached as human beings and somehow coerced to do the right thing. I fear that our current President is both stupid and easily manipulated, as well as corrupt. There are just enough smart bastards in place (McConnell for one) who hope to ride this out somehow, but if the truth wills out, I think we’ll find out that the GOP has used to laws to enrich themselves, sabotage their political opponents and collude with another nation state to obtain power outside of our current laws. In short, treason.

    For me, Putin has already won because of the damage done to our international reputation and we’re staring at a Constitutional crisis, unless we fall into becoming an actual Fascist state, the GOP, once all of this alluded to shit comes to light, will cease to exist as a functional political party within a decade.

    all because we elected an erudite black man… and we wonder why we can’t have nice things.

  42. 42.

    jl

    @mai naem mobile: Freedom. Make America Great Again. Alpha males get all the ice cream, and sprinkles, they want. I say, let Donnie eat all the snacks he likes. Great chocolate cake, I hear. The best. Terrific. Put some ice cream on top, while you’re at it.

  43. 43.

    jl

    @piratedan: One hope is that Trump flushes GOP midterm chances into the toilet quickly enough that they get scared into doing something. Impeachment, tie Trump up with repeated Congressional attempts to limit his power, something.

  46. 46.

    Omnes Omnibus

    As expected, amk offered a bit of personal attack, but never bothered to defend his/her original position.

  48. 48.

    West of the Cascades

    @mai naem mobile:

    He needs to stop with the ice cream and other crap.

    Oh, no no no — he needs to start getting THREE scoops of ice cream with each slice of pie, and the occasional extra slice of pie.

  49. 49.

    efgoldman

    @Mnemosyne:

    he thinks it’s what’s made him successful.

    Any sentence that starts “he thinks…” is fiction.
    And what makes him successful is his membership in the lucky sperm club. He wants people to think he’s self made, but any one of us who’d inherited that much money/property would be at least that rich, likely more.

  52. 52.

    efgoldman

    @Mnemosyne:

    Putin gets to turn the teevee off, unlike us.

    All of mine have on/off switches, and devices to change the channel.

  53. 53.

    Chet Murthy

    @BBA: $500B in oil sales from just one “province” (per a Maddow segment a while back) as they’re called (IIUC). And sanctions dropped, so $$$$ for lots of other Russian oil. Maybe an end to the glut (if Smallgloves puts a hurt on Saudi to get ’em to cut back production) on oil, so prices go up again. Yeah, I think it’s worth it.

    ETA: And the Western Alliance in tatters? C’mon, this has been a steal at 100x the price!

  54. 54.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    @jl: This is all about timing now. The prospect of Trump being this radioactively and visibly corrupt from now until the midterms has got to have Republicans freaking out about a wave flushing them out of the majority, on the other hand every other thing about them argues against jumping ship and agreeing to impeachment, just one of the reasons being that they all got in line once he managed to get elected, and would have to admit what a blunder that was. If they did it soon maybe it would be better than later, but I doubt anything will help them now in 2018.

    The smartest thing any GOP member of Congress could do right now would be to switch parties and become a Democrat. I’m serious.

  56. 56.

    dogwood

    @debbie:
    I don’t think the article is talking about scheduled visits to the Oval which occurred regularly during the Obama years. They’re talking about an open door policy where staff can come in whenever. This is a chaotic and disorganized White House. Of course Trump can let anyone he pleases come in whenever it pleases him because he’s not really working on anything. He isn’t engaged in long serious meetings; he doesn’t read briefs or focus on anything. He likes to be a king showing off his castle and he has time to do that. And this isn’t reminiscent of the rather freewheeling structure of the early Clinton years that gave Bill some grief. Clinton was working hard , but not necessarily efficiently. The structure of the Obama WH was actually similar to the W. model..

  58. 58.

    efgoldman

    @West of the Cascades:

    he needs to start getting THREE scoops of ice cream with each slice of pie, and the occasional extra slice of pie.

    I think we should twitter bomb Frito Lay to send him trailer loads of free product. For the publicity, of course.

  59. 59.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Mnemosyne:

    Putin gets to turn the teevee off, unlike us.

    My TV remote has an on/off button. My remote also allows me to choose channels. Are these things unavailable in the paradise that is California?

  60. 60.

    BBA

    @Bill E Pilgrim: I didn’t think the Democrats would take back the House in my lifetime (and I’m younger than many here). Now, well, I still don’t think so, but this is the best chance we’ve ever had.

  63. 63.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    @Adam L Silverman: Hmm, I figured Chance was basically a halfwit who said things that were taken as profound entirely by accident or you know by people trying to imagine themselves as perceptive. Charming sure, but thus the evil goateed Spock version, no charm there, all evil intent.

  66. 66.

    BBA

    @Omnes Omnibus: Gerrymandering + single-member districts naturally favor rural areas + too many Democrats don’t vote in midterms + ticket-splitters in Presidential years. It’s always something.

  70. 70.

    PsiFighter37

    The speed with which this whole situation has spiraled downwards for Cheeto is impressive. The media is out for blood now, and someone wants to be the next Woodward and Bernstein. I would be surprised / shocked if any major legislation happens in the near future – Democrats can simply gum up the works in the Senate and keep hollering about Russia – and Trump will undoubtedly keep stepping on his dick because that’s the only thing he is demonstrably competent at.

    I will start having real hope about things shifting if he starts floating into the lower-30% range on approval. Right now, he’s got too much of his rabid base behind him. Start losing those fuckers, and the GOP will quickly turn on him.

  71. 71.

    mai naem mobile

    @jl:
    @West of the Cascades:
    Fine,if thats what you have in mind, may I suggest pies made with lard and salad dressings made with animal fats. Add in some HFCS for a sweet kick. Only the best fats and sugars for Lord Smallgloves. The best.

  73. 73.

    Jean

    And yet, he has high approval ratings from self-declared Republicans. On FB today, I saw a poster sent by someone that had images of Obama and Hillary with the words, “in jail” underneath. It’s still startling to see this polar opposite world of belief.

  74. 74.

    Mike in NC

    Fat Bastard has always been a vindictive, narcissistic prick. Many of us have had bosses exactly like that fucker.

  75. 75.

    jl

    @mai naem mobile: Remember, this is a guy who lives on cheeseburgers with creamy dressings poured all over them. That part of his fate is really out of our hands. It really is.

    Edit: and the greatest, most terrific, chocolate cake you’ve ever imagined. The best chocolate cake. Believe me.

  76. 76.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    @efgoldman: Many points for the Rocky and Bullwinkle reference.

    It does actually work, FWIW, two examples being two of the people who ran for President in the recent primaries. Both on the Democratic side.

  77. 77.

    jl

    @PsiFighter37: I wonder if his rushed out voter integrity panel is an attempt to reassure the GOP that he can suppress the vote enough so that they don’t have to shit their pants over the midterms. An attempt at an Obama ‘don’t worry, I got this’ moment.

    Not sure it will work. Sooner or later the voter suppression task will just get way too big. And who believes Trump has anything?

  78. 78.

    rikyrah

    KAY,

    Topher Spiro‏ @TopherSpiro

    Topher Spiro Retweeted Kaiser Family Found

    PORTMAN (R-OH) is plotting to cut Medicaid. Call him up and tell him this will exacerbate the opioid epidemic in Ohio: 202-224-3353

  79. 79.

    Jeffro

    @PsiFighter37:

    The speed with which this whole situation has spiraled downwards for Cheeto is impressive. The media is out for blood now, and someone wants to be the next Woodward and Bernstein. I would be surprised / shocked if any major legislation happens in the near future – Democrats can simply gum up the works in the Senate and keep hollering about Russia – and Trump will undoubtedly keep stepping on his dick because that’s the only thing he is demonstrably competent at.

    I know, right?

    Not even 120 days in, and here we are – Russia front and center, the whole Koch/Mercer agenda largely on hold, the WH staff scrambling each day for something (anything!) to justify whatever it was that Trumpov said that day/hour/tweet. And with every step, Trumpov reinforces the narrative, looks that much crazier, threatens to crack the GOP and expose it in a hundred different ways.

    I’ll never give in to despair with this clown. Give me a charming, suave, evil genius with some sense of strategy, optics, and smart advisers/operatives and I’d worry…but with Trumpov? Not hard to be a happy warrior.

  80. 80.

    hueyplong

    @Mike in NC: “Fat Bastard has always been a vindictive, narcissistic prick. Many of us have had bosses exactly like that fucker.”

    That’s why, if he goes down, the Schadenfreudemania will be so intense and widespread.

  82. 82.

    dmsilev

    @Jean: “And yet, he has high approval ratings from self-declared Republicans. ”

    Letter to the editor in today’s LA Times:

    All Americans should be rejoicing over Trump’s firing of Comey. The FBI director’s dismissal has shown once again that Trump is a great president. Comey was not fit to be the director of the most prestigious investigative agency in America. He proved this once and for all on July 5, 2016, when he announced that he was not recommending criminal charges against Hillary Clinton for the illegal use of a secret and private email server. Everyone with more than half a brain knows that Clinton deserved to be prosecuted for breaking numerous federal laws and endangering American security. Comey probably knew this but did not have the backbone to recommend charges. The FBI cannot have a director who ignores the law and has no spine. It’s very comforting to have an adult in the White House with the courage to make this a better country.

    Bob Wallace, Las Vegas

  85. 85.

    rikyrah

    first NC, now PA

    West Wing Reports‏Verified account @WestWingReport

    Nine counties in PA hit by storms have been denied federal aid by President. He won seven of those counties in Nov.

  86. 86.

    rikyrah

    Blavity‏Verified account @Blavity

    American University’s student body president given police protection after Neo-Nazi threats

  87. 87.

    PsiFighter37

    @rikyrah: Fuck ’em. They might as well get a head start on tasting what life will be like once their Medicaid goes bye-bye.

  88. 88.

    Jeffro

    @hueyplong: It does take effort, sometimes, for me to believe my own optimism. But then I look at the evidence…and these are folks who can’t even play checkers.

    Anyway, there’s no point in being a glum warrior, even if it were all coming down around us (which it isn’t). What could be better than exposing cretins for the…cretins…that they are? Keep banging!

  90. 90.

    Chetan Murthy

    @jacy:

    He does not understand object permanence

    I’m sorry, but I think this is just completely incorrect. I’m the sort of person who cannot call him by his name. When I call my reps, I always use one of the many epithets for him and his flaccid horde. He’ll never be my president. NEVER. But still …. he DOES understand object permanence. He DOES understand the consequences of his actions. Let’s remember that for 30 years (THIRTY YEARS) he’s been mobbed-up, in bed with both the Italian and Russian mob. Up to his eyeballs. And yet, he’s still alive and in possession of all his organs. Heck, he’s made *money* from them! That doesn’t happen to a man who can’t deliver, who doesn’t remember what he owes to people who can take him apart for organs.

    Look: I hate him too. But we need to not underestimate him. He’s able to bullshit so effortlessly because he doesn’t care what you and I (and the American people) think. That doesn’t mean he’s unable to calculate the effect of his actions. [Look at the masterful way he ran his rallies, ffs! Look at Maddow’s reporting during the violence around his rallies — he’s not a fool!] He knows that (so far) he’s been able to hoodwink his base, so his lies cost him nothing. He’s a consummate con-man. But a con-man that’s made it >30yr without getting rubbed out.

  91. 91.

    Jeffro

    @rikyrah: Which is just bizarre…I get their wacko mentality that the federal government can’t possibly spend more than a few bucks (unless it’s for national defense and/or in the service of whatever billionaires want that week)…

    …but how do they not get that leaving storm-struck Americans high and dry (or low and soggy) is – besides being immoral – bad PR and especially horrible if it happens in their precious PA/WI/MI?

    Like I said, these idiots can’t play checkers and maybe not even tic tac toe…

  92. 92.

    Jeffro

    @Jeffro: “get their wacko mentality” as in, “understand their internal logic, but do not endorse it of course”

  93. 93.

    rikyrah

    Al Giordano‏Verified account @AlGiordano

    Al Giordano Retweeted so-called Jenn

    The Sanders Inc. primary vs @LacyClayMO1 seems like an assault on the entire @OfficialCBC, attempted revenge for 2016. Att: @RepYvetteClarke

  94. 94.

    Shalimar

    @cthulhu: I think Trump was complicit, and there was a huge bribe. The percentage of the stake in Rosneft mentioned in the British dossier being the same as the percentage that later changed hands to an anonymous buyer in December, plus the CEO of Exxon being appointed Secretary of State is a huge set of coincidences to believe that Trump wasn’t aware of that oil pipeline deal and didn’t get his share of it in payment for dropping the sanctions.

  96. 96.

    efgoldman

    @Jeffro:

    I get their wacko mentality that the federal government can’t possibly spend more than a few bucks

    Isn’t basic FEMA disaster relief already appropriated in the budget?
    What do you want to bet that the shitheel thinks any money that isn’t spent goes into his pocket?

  97. 97.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    @BBA: It has more to do with midterms and the party not in power gaining than anything else it seems, to some degree just a pendulum swing. Therefore was always a lot more likely in 2018 than 2016, even without the current Titanic-level events. And now, with the sinking of the Trumptanic…

    Having said that who knows, not making any predictions, myself.

  98. 98.

    Shalimar

    As far as impeachment, people wishing for it should accept reality. A Republican is going to be president for the next 44 months. Whoever it is will hurt as many Americans as he possibly can.

    This ongoing clown show causes Trump to be as ineffective as a leader can possibly be in accomplishing his agenda. It sucks for the country that he is in charge, but that happened last November. Any replacement now will be far worse.

    We don’t want Trump impeached. This is the best it gets for us under Republican rule.

  102. 102.

    jacy

    @Chetan Murthy:

    I beg to differ. From the evidence, I conclude he is suffering from a narcissistic breakdown — precipitated by some stressor, which could be incipient dementia, or could be some sort of depression-based thing. It doesn’t mean he has always been as debilitated as he is now. In fact, when you look at his speech patterns and behavior over the course of his public life, you can clearly see the deterioration. I’m not a psychiatrist or a psychologist, but I have intimate and long-standing experience with this type of behavior, and have studied it relentlessly for several years. (And I do have a medical background, in molecular biology and immunology, so I’m comfortable digesting complex scientific information.)

    You can be a malignant narcissist and get along fine in the world for a long, long time. You can even seem relatively normal. But under stressful circumstances (which can be a simple as aging), you begin to decompensate. And that compounds the stress, because your strategy to decrease the stress actually increases it, because you act irrationally to protect your hidden self and other people eventually push back on the crazy.

    So he hasn’t always been this “crazy.” But it’s accelerating. He has been insulated from consequences by dint of money and power. And now, increasingly, he is insulated from consequences by his adult children and sycophants he surrounds himself with. And now he can’t hide, so it’s going to get worse. I believe you mistake serendipity (the success of his rallies) for strategy. The fact that he has not been brought low by his deficits is not a monument to his abilities, but is happenstance, luck, and the ministrations of those around him who cover for him and manage him.

    Again, I’m speaking from intimate knowledge — I have witnessed this first hand and been a victim of it. It’s disorienting, because we want it to make sense and we want to ascribe motive and thought and planning, because that’s the way the world is supposed to work. I have no doubt he was once more capable, but I think he no longer is. Understanding this is important, because you deal differently with somebody who is completely untethered from reality than you do someone who has machinations. I believe, not completely, but to a great degree, that he has no current capability for rational action in a reality-based world.

  103. 103.

    danielx

    @jl:

    I wonder if his rushed out voter integrity panel is an attempt to reassure the GOP that he can suppress the vote enough so that they don’t have to shit their pants over the midterms.

    Simple enough; start with a list of registered Democrats for each precinct in the country and figure out a way to fuck with each one of them in whatever manner necessary. Child’s play to somebody like Roger Stone if he has the means and resources.

    A little snarky? Perhaps a little cynical, a little over the top? Perhaps, but…I have to say that at this point I’m a little punch drunk. (Okay, that too.) A year ago at this time, I was thinking it was going to be HRC versus whatever troglodyte the GOP vomited up. Never in my most fevered dreams…it usually takes a year or two, even a second term, for a presidential administration to outright roll in a manure pond. It is a measure of how fast events move now as opposed to the days of my misspent youth that what took years now takes months, what took months now takes days, in terms of moving the political scales. It’s both exhilarating and exhausting by comparison with…let’s just say Obama. Whose motto was, as I understand it, ‘don’t do stupid shit’, a motto to which we may all aspire.

  104. 104.

    BretH

    @Chetan Murthy: Take away his inherited millions and he’s got no kidneys. Smarts get you only so far but having cash that can still be exploited keeps you alive.

  105. 105.

    TenguPhule

    @piratedan:

    What we’re all pegging our hopes on is that somehow, some GOP politicians can still be reached as human beings and somehow coerced to do the right thing.

    Who is this we you’re talking about?

    Republicans stopped being human in 2000.

  106. 106.

    TenguPhule

    @Shalimar:

    As far as impeachment, people wishing for it should accept reality. A Republican is going to be president for the next 44 months. Whoever it is will hurt as many Americans as he possibly can.

    Unless something happens to change that.

    I don’t think impeachment is gonna happen.

    But Trump and the GOP have made enough enemies that their continued survival to the end of the year, let alone the next election, appears at best uncertain.

    President Obama was hated by incompetent crazies.

    Trump is pissing off the professionals who benefit from a stable United States.

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