Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

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

Second rate reporter says what?

You cannot shame the shameless.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

You can’t love your country only when you win.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

Consistently wrong since 2002

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

The willow is too close to the house.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

I was promised a recession.

Infrastructure week. at last.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / Donald of Arabia: A Photo Album

Donald of Arabia: A Photo Album

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(Nice cup of tea, but no accompanying large bowl of individually-wrapped pharmaceuticals)


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(Edgar suit, Men in Black)

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140Comments

  3. 3.

    rikyrah

    There really is a tweet from him about everything.. thanks for including the one about Forever FLOTUS not covering her head. The right likes to pout as we bring up all these receipts. Oh well ????

  5. 5.

    The Lodger

    …and right opposite the picture of the hotel in Riyadh with the pictures of Trump and the KIng is an ad for Motel 6.
    I am not making this up.

  6. 6.

    Mnemosyne

    DVR Alert reposted from thread below:

    Billy Wilder’s A Foreign Affair is showing on TCM tomorrow at 8:45 am Pacific time. If nothing else, tune in for Marlene Dietrich and Jean Arthur going toe-to-toe as an ex-Nazi and an American congresswoman fighting over the same man (who isn’t good enough for either of them, but that’s one of the movie’s flaws).

    The opening is a direct mockery of The Triumph of the Will, as Arthur’s plane flies through the clouds to expose the shattered ruins of Berlin. But the movie is darkly funny, too, like Stalag 17.

  7. 7.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Major Major Major Major:

    Over lunch today my husband referred to Trump as a “high-functioning YouTube comment” and I just thought I’d share that.

    I hope your husband doesn’t have any objection to my stealing that.

  8. 8.

    Mnemosyne

    @Origuy:

    I would almost feel sorry for him because of that look of barely suppressed terror on his face but, let’s face it — like all racists, that terror is something he created inside his own head. It has no basis in reality. He did it all to himself.

    And as I was saying in a previous thread, I know the Saudi princes will have a drink or two just to flout the rules, but it’s going to be hard for Bannon to secure the amount of alcohol he currently needs just to prevent withdrawal.

  9. 9.

    Mnemosyne

    @rikyrah:

    Seriously, is it possible for Melania to at least pretend to smile? She’s there representing our country in front of the whole world and she looks like someone just handed her a dead rat.

  14. 14.

    lgerard

    too funny

    Arthur Chu‏Verified account @arthur_affect
    Replying to @mattyglesias

    To be honest I wish someone would convince Trump he had to cover his own hair

  17. 17.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Mnemosyne:

    And after all these months, I still find myself both repelled and disproportionately infuriated by Trump’s four-inches-too-long necktie. It looks so sloppy and stupid. I’m sure he does it to call the viewer’s attention to his crotch — which it does, of course. Might as well be a big downward-pointing arrow.

  18. 18.

    Mnemosyne

    @David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:

    Holy crap. I just looked it up and Melania is a year younger than I am. I do look fairly young for my age (thank you, high-SPF sunscreen) but, still, she looks much older than I do, even with the Botox.

    This also means that G is a year younger than she is. Christ.

  19. 19.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @jl:

    “I have the best bows, the most bows. I’m going to bow so much you’re going to be sick of all the bowing.”

  20. 20.

    Mnemosyne

    I was going to ask why Ivanka is wearing tan shoes with a black dress, but then I saw that Jared’s dudebro on the left is wearing brown shoes with a black suit. Has the world gone mad?

  25. 25.

    GxB

    Okay, for the time being I’ll abide by this farce (only because I must do so legally.) But I gotta know, if this all goes up into impeachment (as it should) can we demand a refund of all the tax money spent on this charade? If a refund isn’t possible can we take public beheadings of the guilty parties? I’m feeling charitable.

    ETA:@Major Major Major Major: Now THAT is pure comedy. Bravo to your hubby.

  28. 28.

    Origuy

    @Mnemosyne: Oh, sure, they all bring whisky back from trips to London, but they’re not going to offer it anyone in the Trump entourage. Too many loose lips in that bunch. What the religious police don’t know won’t hurt them.
    Friend of mine used to be married to a Saudi, not one of the big boys. She told me about a cousin of his, back in the days of VHS, who took a porno movie out of the cassette and wrapped it around himself to smuggle it back from the US.

  31. 31.

    Mnemosyne

    @Major Major Major Major:

    I have a pair of pants that look gray if I wear them with something brown and brown if I wear them with something gray. It’s a little annoying.

    And IIRC, there was some study years ago that found that women as a group really can see more range of colors than men do. That may be why I can usually solve the “navy blue or black?” dilemma just by holding something blue next to it.

  33. 33.

    Mnemosyne

    @amk:

    In their defense, the Naval Postgraduate School probably pulled it to investigate, not to cover it up. They take that stuff very seriously.

  38. 38.

    Viva BrisVegas

    What’s that projected in the middle of the hotel, between Trump and the King?

    It kinda looks like a high piled turd that they’ve both just noticed.

  40. 40.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    @Mnemosyne: she’s also had a lot of surgical work done. (photo)

    High end plastic surgeons love “cat’s eyes” surgery, but instead of helping, it always ruins appearances. (photo)

  41. 41.

    Betty Cracker

    Someone on Twitter wondered why Melania is wearing a WWF championship belt.

    Also, maybe one of y’all can explain this to me: Kushner is being credited for facilitating the arms deal by personally calling the CEO of Lockheed and persuading her to give the Saudis a big discount. Why is that supposed to be a win for Team ‘Merka? Even if you’re in favor of a massive arms deal with the Saudis, wouldn’t you want them to pay the maximum amount you could squeeze out of them?

  45. 45.

    amk

    By this time in his presidency Obama had traveled to Canada, UK, France, Germany, Czech Republic, Mexico & Iraq. Saudis were 9th stop.— Glenn Thrush (@GlennThrush) May 20, 2017

    kenyan – don’t do it. twitler – hold my beer.

  47. 47.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @amk: Your first link says that’s standard procedure when a student is accused of plagiarism, till the investigation is complete.

  48. 48.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    Melania is only pissed that she’s stuck on a boring trip while all the kewl kids are at the Cannes film festival.

    She’ll never get to be Bella Hadid (photo)

    Sad!

  50. 50.

    TenguPhule

    @amk:

    Saudi Arabia, U.A.E. have pledged to donate $100 million to Women Entrepreneurs Fund

    Never let it be said that the Saudis do not know how to bribe people.

  54. 54.

    Viva BrisVegas

    @Betty Cracker:

    Even if you’re in favor of a massive arms deal with the Saudis, wouldn’t you want them to pay the maximum amount you could squeeze out of them?

    To be fair, ISIS have fallen on hard times and can’t afford the repayment schedule the Saudis demand. So someone has to shave their margin.

  55. 55.

    divF

    @Betty Cracker:
    “No Capes!” – Edna Mode, The Incredibles.

    I was looking over the front pages of the local English-language newspapers – outrageous sucking up to The Donald. I’m sure he is going to take them home as souvenirs.

  56. 56.

    TenguPhule

    @Viva BrisVegas: ISIS, nothing.

    I’m sure we’re all looking forward to a renewed arms race between the Saudis and the Iranians.

    With Israel and the Kurds doing their best to get a piece of the action.

  57. 57.

    divF

    @David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
    Actually, I was struck by the extent to which Melania got the look right. Black dresses + gold trim is pretty much the standard look for traditionally-dressed women around here. Ivanka, OTOH, is totally out of place.

    ETA: There was a piece in one of the papers about how Melania’s look was “respectful and elegant”.

  59. 59.

    sm*t cl*de

    Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner have arrived.
    Fuck me. Is that a dazzle-camouflage suit she’s wearing?

  60. 60.

    Anne Laurie

    @divF:

    I was looking over the front pages of the local English-language newspapers – outrageous sucking up to The Donald. I’m sure he is going to take them home as souvenirs. mount framed copies in the Oval Office & demand Disneyworld add duplicates to the Hall of Presidents.

    Fixt.

    (I originally said “the Smithsonian” but I don’t think Trump groks museums that aren’t surrounded by roller coasters and snack stands.)

  63. 63.

    sukabi

    @amk: think they are investigating it…there are about 47 passages pulled directly from other sources…several of them from government publications, all without any attribution.

    What is it with RWing assholes, they all seem to rely on stealing other people’s work.

  64. 64.

    Anne Laurie

    @sukabi:

    not so much a bow as a curtsy…nice little dip he did there…

    As someone who also has an arthritic knee, I think he just needed to grab the presenter’s arm to stand up without falling over. More of a ‘stagger’ than a ‘curtsey’.

    If it were anyone but Donald Trump, I’d be more sympathetic.

  65. 65.

    sukabi

    @Betty Cracker: you would, but the question should be “what exactly did the Drumpf crime family get for making the Saudi’s that sweet deal?”

  66. 66.

    MattF

    I’m sure that Item #1 on the Saudi ‘How To Deal With Trump’ agenda was ‘Give him a medal’. And it worked! Shiny!

  69. 69.

    Betty Cracker

    Can anyone recommend a decent and SIMPLE drawing / sketching app? I used to love Sketches Pro by Tayasui, but they larded it up with so many new features that it has become unusable for simpletons like me.

  70. 70.

    Elizabelle

    I see those photos of The Trump Family in Saudi Arabia, and feel only disgust that they’re representing “us.”

    I feel no responsibility whatsoever for their being there; we did everything we could to prevent this outcome. The photos of Steve Bannon are particularly revolting. And Ivanka and Jared.

    Did previous GOP presidents trot their adult children around on official government trips? I don’t mean the Bush twins, when they were still college age … does anyone recall?

  71. 71.

    MattF

    @Betty Cracker: I’ve been looking for something like that for quite a while– I often want to draw simple and accurate pictures on viewgraphs. And simple apps to do that don’t seem to exist. Generally, the non-pro apps are missing various essential features or are overly ‘helpful’, and the pro apps are… excessively complicated. And expensive.

    The bad answer that seems to work is to get a good pro app and use only the few features I need. My current go-to drawing app is Affinity Designer. Yeah, complicated, but not so expensive; about $50. Available for both macOS and Windoze.

  72. 72.

    Betty Cracker

    @Elizabelle: Can’t remember if Poppy Bush traveled with the bushlings or not, but I’m pretty sure he didn’t install them in the White House as top advisers and fan them out to shake down tycoons and foreign government officials for donations / bribes during trips abroad. Maybe he did. I was in school back then so too busy partying to take notice! :)

    Speaking of partying, now that the kid has flown the coop, hubby and I are released from the obligation to set a good example, etc., and are touring area bars as if we were youngsters again. Yesterday a pair of dudes seated near us at a local watering hole saw a news brief on TV of Trump in Saudi Arabia and started loudly yapping about how great he is.

    Hubby and I had vowed not to argue with strange Trumpsters in bars anymore as we’re getting too old to brawl, but I replied passively aggressively by playing “American Idiot” on the jukebox three times in a row. Then we paid our check and skedaddled!

  74. 74.

    Elizabelle

    @Betty Cracker: American Idiot! LOL.

    I hope Green Day is hard at work on some songs that make it even more obvious. Like, obvious to Trump supporters obvious. Which is right next to teaching dogs to speak English hard.

  75. 75.

    Morzer

    @divF:

    Hi, is this the American Reality customer service department? I have a defective presidential unit I’d like to return.

  78. 78.

    Cheryl Rofer

    Wondering if Trump knows that he can’t keep that medal.

    One of my friends on Twitter said he wants to see a video of when they try to take it off him.

  79. 79.

    Amir Khalid

    A professor of psychology at UC Berkeley argues that President Trump lacks even the positive intellectual and social traits she has documented in children as young as 18 months. For some reason, I am not even remotely surprised, and you won’t be either.

    (It’s an NYT link, so open it in a private window.)

  81. 81.

    Raven Onthill

    @sukabi: “What is it with RWing assholes, they all seem to rely on stealing other people’s work.”

    Good question. I can think of a number of snarky reasons, but finding out the answer would be interesting.

  84. 84.

    SFAW

    @Mnemosyne:

    I was going to ask why Ivanka is wearing tan shoes with a black dress, but then I saw that Jared’s dudebro on the left is wearing brown shoes with a black suit. Has the world gone mad?

    Back when you were a wee lass, someone — might have been National Lampoon? Don’t recall — made a list of reasons to like (or at least, not hate) Trciksie Dicksie Nixie. One of them was “He would never wear brown shoes with a blue suit.”

    So All Things Shitgibbon is/are/be not even as classy as Nixon. Which is no surprise, of course. There aren’t many persons in this world, living or dead, who have/had LESS class than Shitgibbon. I knew a guy who once wore mismatched plaids (because he was kinda clueless about that shit), and HE had more class.

  85. 85.

    GregB

    George Orwell Lesson of the Day.

    Lovely Ivanka Kushner has kindly accepted millions of dollars from Gulf Arab leaders for her global initiative to empower women.

    Filthy &*%$$ Hillary Clinton greedily grubbed money from a bunch of Muslim’s who hate gays and want to enslave women.

  86. 86.

    SFAW

    @Mnemosyne:

    I have a pair of pants that look gray if I wear them with something brown and brown if I wear them with something gray. It’s a little annoying.

    “Mnem and Her Pants of Many Colors“?
    “Mnem and the Amazing Technicolor Dreampants“?

  89. 89.

    Tokyokie

    @SFAW: It was National Lampoon, and it was a list of 100 (think that was the number) of nice things that could be said about Nixon. The list ended in probably the low 40s, and besides “He would never wear brown shoes with a blue suit,” there were also variations like “With a blue suit, he would never wear brown shoes” and “Brown shoes he would never wear with a blue suit.”

  94. 94.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Mnemosyne: This is the horror to expected in a world with homosexuals removed. Instead of fall fashions it’s fallen fashions.

  95. 95.

    Kenneth Kohl

    @efgoldman:

    “Allowed?” Allowed by whom? Some authority gonna’ come to my house and take my shoes off?

    You prefer they take off your pants instead? Hey, it’s your house – your call…

  98. 98.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Betty Cracker: You need to test how far you can push your game and I am betting a lot consider using what GregB posted in a sentence

    Lovely Ivanka Kushner has kindly accepted millions of dollars from Gulf Arab leaders for her global initiative to empower women.

    Filthy &*%$$ Hillary Clinton greedily grubbed money from a bunch of Muslim’s who hate gays and want to enslave women.

    And it back watch their brains flicker as they know, this is has to be wrong because a liberal said it, but it’s On Message so, error.

  100. 100.

    BubbaDave

    @divF:
    Not surprised she got the look right. Catering to backwards autocrats is something she has a lifetime of experience doing, after all….

  101. 101.

    SFAW

    @Tokyokie:

    Thanks. I had forgotten about the list ending in the 40s, and about the multiple brown shoes/blue suits variations.

  102. 102.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @sukabi:
    I believe the answer is contained within the question, and that’s not snark. They’re assholes. It’s an entire philosophy of assholishness. It specifies that the believer is deserving and everyone else should suffer. It encourages cheating, and absolves the believer of every sin.

  104. 104.

    sdhays

    I see they had Trump pose with his classic “constipated” expression for the hotel picture. Iconic.

  106. 106.

    StringOnAStick

    Ivanka gets $100 mil for her “foundation” and Jared got the Saudi’s a better deal on American made weapons. Couldn’t be simpler or more obvious. These grifters are shameless.

  109. 109.

    Miss Bianca

    @TenguPhule: Didn’t the Saudis also donate to the Clinton Foundation? Wasn’t that The Worst Corruption Ever, because Arms Dealing!!?

  111. 111.

    Miss Bianca

    @sdhays: Oh, RIGHT, how could I keep forgetting?

    Seriously, why do I feel as if I am living in a madhouse? When did things cease to have any level of objective meaning at all? When did America decide, unreflectively and unapologetically, that if the Clintons or the Obamas did something it was a sign of their utter neoliberal sell-out corrupt tendencies, and when Trump – or any Republican – did the exact same things, hey, no big deal? Or even, “wow, Big Good Deal”? Has it ever been thus?

  113. 113.

    GregB

    Make sure you let your wingnut relatives now that their leader has now declared Islam as one of the great world’s religions.

  121. 121.

    Hal

    I will say, I do like Melania’s black ensemble. She still looks pissed to be first lady though.

  122. 122.

    Suzanne

    @Elizabelle:

    hope Green Day is hard at work on some songs that make it even more obvious.

    I have been hoping that all of America’s punk and hip-hop musicians are diligently at work writing the soundtrack to this time. I think Green Day is pretty weaksauce, but it’s the perfect time for Rage Against the Machine to reunite. Rise Against seems to be the only punk band trying to carry the mantle, and they can’t do it alone! Kanye’s gone full Kardashian, so he can’t do it. Drake is Canadian and they don’t get angry. We need a new crop of great musicians to remind us what we need to do.

  123. 123.

    kindness

    My local paper is a conservative rag. It tells me this morning that The Donald was instrumental in the Saudis buying $110B worth of US weaponry on this trip of Donald’s. I get that Trump would try to portray this as being true, but the media? Really?!? Like any contract with that price tag hasn’t been in negotiations for half a year at least no matter what the goods.

    I tell ya, it’s our Vichy media toadies that are going to have us singing songs about the Fatherland soon if Trump survives.

  124. 124.

    Another Scott

    @Betty Cracker: Here’s a bunch of iPad sketching apps reviews.

    Randall Munroe of XKCD does his stuff on big sheets of paper, scans them, then does cleanup, digital additions, etc., in Photoshop or something similar.

    Use what you’re comfortable with – don’t think you have to be all-digital. :-)

    HTH a little.

    Cheers,
    Scott.
    (Who did a bunch of drawing as a kid, but hates trying to manipulate lines, objects, colors, etc., on a computer.)

  125. 125.

    Suzanne

    @Miss Bianca:

    Melania’s utterly beautiful in that first photo. She looks radiant. Why the hell would she mess with her face that much?

    I wonder if she was a big suntanner, and ended up with a bunch of wrinkles. I am 37, and many women in my age cohort who were sun goddesses in high school and college are starting to display the damage. I think eye surgery looks freaky and that wrinkles are better, but I can see how it happens.

  126. 126.

    Mnemosyne

    @Suzanne:

    I wonder if she was a big suntanner, and ended up with a bunch of wrinkles.

    I would guess yes. One of the big reasons I apparently don’t look my age is that I’ve been wearing high-SPF sunscreen daily since at least age 19 and try to also wear a hat if I do go out in the sun. I had way too many painful sunburns to want to do anything else.

  128. 128.

    Mnemosyne

    @Another Scott:

    I took a color theory class for knitters and was a little surprised to find out how relative color actually is. Colors look different depending on the colors they’re combined with, plus the issues you touched on with lighting (sunlight is blue, most indoor lighting is yellow, fluorescent lighting is green, etc).

    Still, my gray-brown pants annoy me, especially when it comes to shoes.

  129. 129.

    Another Scott

    @Mnemosyne: I think something’s broken with FYWP again. One of my innocent posts last night got eated, and SD and I both got moderated for an Amazon linky.

    Alain probably needs to do some Hoovering of the code again, give the hamsters a bath, or something. It seems to be correlated with the latest update a few days ago.

    Just a guess.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  132. 132.

    Mnemosyne

    @Steve in the ATL:

    Jesus, dude, must you publicly declare that anything remotely feminine is inherently stupid? Does your wife or girlfriend know not to be interested in anything “girly” so you don’t hold her in contempt?

  133. 133.

    smintheus

    Trump was bowing to have the Saudi ruler put what they call a “collar” around his neck. Was it a dog collar, or a slave collar?

  134. 134.

    smintheus

    The weird thing on Melania’s dress looks like it wants to evoke a chastity belt.

  135. 135.

    Doug R

    @Suzanne: I like Rage Against the Machine, but they were doing the bothersideism last election, also too much Wilmer for my taste.

  136. 136.

    David Spikes

    Wonderful, wonderful how they all play these fools.
    The Russians in the Oval Office and now Trump giving speech calling for unity to fight religious extremism.
    As the Sauds send a few more billions to support madrassahs worldwide that teach wahhabism aka religious extremism.
    And the Sauds laughed and laughed;
    How the hell did Iwhanker ever get a rep as a fashion icon? It seems that anything she picks for herself-the aluminum foil dress-is a disaster and now this one.

  137. 137.

    Fair Economist

    @Mnemosyne:

    I have a pair of pants that look gray if I wear them with something brown and brown if I wear them with something gray. It’s a little annoying.

    “No-purpose” neutral pants. An impressive achievement, in a way.

  138. 138.

    Juju

    @Mnemosyne: they didn’t hand her a dead rat, she just married the human equivalent of a dead rat, but with money…maybe. I don’t know that I’d smile much either.

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