Rex Tillerson is supposed to demonstrate importance of a free press, but held a news conference in Riyadh without alerting any US reporters pic.twitter.com/Xqbuw6SQwY
— The Lead CNN (@TheLeadCNN) May 22, 2017
Wilbur Ross touts the lack of protests in Saudi Arabia during Trump's visit (maybe it's because protesters are jailed & sometimes beheaded?) pic.twitter.com/DQIENgtopz
— Brian Klaas (@brianklaas) May 22, 2017
Okay, the Secretary of Commerce thinks criminalizing protests isn’t such a bad thing, since he got ‘two gigantic bushels of dates’ from his security detail. One look at Wilbur Ross’s face, you can understand why dietary fiber is so valuable to him!
Egypt's el-Sisi tells @potus he has "a unique personality that is capable of doing the impossible." Trump's response: "I agree" #riyadh
— Cecilia Vega (@CeciliaVega) May 21, 2017
Saudi Arabia barred Israelis and an American Jewish reporter from entering the country to cover Trump's trip: https://t.co/Z53A4uze7S
— (((Yair Rosenberg))) (@Yair_Rosenberg) May 21, 2017
I've asked the White House for comment on this multiple times since yesterday. Zero response. https://t.co/T0TvStX6P1
— Jeremy Diamond (@JDiamond1) May 22, 2017
Trump and his cabinet are touting the success of the Saudi leg of their trip — but it's all downhill from here. https://t.co/Gtnj4BcW29
— Daniel W. Drezner (@dandrezner) May 22, 2017
Trump to Saudis: "a new spirit of optimism is sweeping our country"
— John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) May 21, 2017
Yes. We're all looking forward to the 2018 midterm wipeout. https://t.co/Ig70mhehHe
— Bill Harnsberger (@BillinPortland) May 21, 2017
Santorum on @CNN just claimed that Trump's friendly Riyadh speech negates his 'Muslim ban' statements – so courts will now rule in WH favor.
— Glenn Thrush (@GlennThrush) May 21, 2017
Baud
Why don’t you talk about Hillary’s lack of press conferences some more? That’ll make you feel better.
debbie
I’m surprised Wilbur could stay awake long enough to say that.
randy khan
I seem to recall that Santorum is a lawyer. Surely he knows better than to say that statements made months after the executive order was released are unlikely to have any bearing on how a court will view the intent at the time of the order (and that’s not even considering that the speech had nothing to do with the ban itself).
germy
@debbie: Wilbur and Sessions together look like a pair of evil little elves.
Mary G
Twitler is down to 37/56 in the latest Gallup poll. Only 10 more points to go to his real base.
Quinerly
The finalists have been announced for Trump’s personal legal team. It’s going to be funny when he stiffs Ted Olson:http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/wapo-report-trump-outside-legal-team-russia-probe
Villago Delenda Est
Santorum is…santorum!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Beth Fouhy, a reporter was just on my TV talking about what a great visit trump had in SA. As an American, she was impressed with the fact that fundamentalist Wahabist dictators projected a giant image of trump on his hotel
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: What you’re saying is that the failure to include American reporters was a function of quality control.
Plausible if it were any other president. Trump doesn’t do quality control.
Shalimar
Waiting for the next stop, where Trump reads a psalm to the pope and leans over to whisper, “don’t tell anyone, but anything that starts with piss makes me laugh.”
MisterForkbeard
Gotta love Santorum’s response, and I see this all the time from RWNJs. Dude, if Trump is told his ban was demonstrably racist because of the racist stuff he said beforehand… saying “Muslims are great!” afterwards means nothing.
Not only would it have been done expressly to counter a publicly stated legal objection and obviously couldn’t be trusted to mean anything, it’s in contravention to many other statements he’s made concurrently or in the past. A single positive mention to an audience of Muslims doesn’t make his other statements to a bunch of racist assholes any less real.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud:
I’m sure that Spike will talk about that next.
feebog
@randy khan:
Nobody said he was a good lawyer.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Beth is obviously easily impressed.
Baud
You guys, the funny thing about Santorum’s statement isn’t that it’s legally wrong. It’s that Trump will say something nasty about Muslims in the next couple of days that will completely negate the argument.
SatanicPanic
@Baud: Someone needs to coin a term for defending Trump only to have Trump pull the rug out from under them the following day. “getting Trumped” seems too obvious.
Baud
BTW, for the “Can you imagine…” files, can you imagine how the right and the media would react if Turkey had dressed down Obama or Clinton about how their body guards were treated? It would be nonstop about how the world no longer respected America because our president was weak.
Weaselone
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Why was she impressed? Americans project stuff on the side of Trump’s hotels all the time.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
I’ve got to say so far Donny First Big International Adventure is going as I expected with the host countries moving heaven and earth to avoiding diplomatic incident. Extra points to the Saudi’s for sacrificing a underaged vigrin fashion model to the Loc Nar, they mean buisness (I assume that’s what that glowing orb was about)
Bobby Thomson
@Shalimar: Two Corinthians walk into a bar.
Jeffro
Have you guys seen Mike Flynn’s latest excuse for why he can’t testify or produce any documents ? If he produces anything that verifies that they exist , and if they exist he’s guilty , and so therefore he has to ignore the Senate subpoena to prove his innocence .
Something like that .
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: The glowing orb did highlight how short his fingers are. I have short fingers, but I’m also very short person.
Quinerly
@Weaselone:
I saw the segment. Honestly, my takeaway from it was she was reporting how impressed Trump was by the projection. Beth Fouhy is generally a pretty good reporter.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Bobby Thomson: Maybe he’ll bring that up with His Holiness.
mai naem mobile
Did anybody notice that Melanoma didn’t just slap Dolt’s hand when he tried to hold her hand,but she seemed intentionally walking as far from him as possible. Some of the distance appears to be related to where they were walking from but the difference between Bibu & his wife, and Dolt and Melanoma is stark. I am thinking Melanoma was planning a divorce before Dolt pulled this POTUS run.
randy khan
@Baud: Excellent point. It is Trump, after all.
Baud
@Jeffro: “Your Honor, I object to this question on the ground that it makes me look guilty.”
JPL
Survey USA has Ossoff up 51 to 44 with a 4.3 margin of error. Wow.. I’d love to see the 6.5 million in ads that the PAC associated with Ryan bought lose their money.
No wonder Handel has decided to debate. She said she would but hadn’t scheduled any. lol
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Comey’s House testimony delayed while he consults with Mueller about what he can say
Roger Moore
@SatanicPanic:
An interesting question. On a related note, we know what it’s supposed to mean when somebody plays the Race Card or the Gender Card. What should it mean when somebody plays the Trump Card?
schrodingers_cat
Sarfaroshi ki Tamanna Ab Hamare Dil Me Hai
The desire to fight is now in our hearts
This famous poem was the rallying cry of Indian revolutionaries who fought for independence between the two world wars.
This version is from the 2006 movie, Rang De Basanti
What you see is the enactment of lathi charge that killed Lala Lajpat Rai, who was leading a peaceful protest against the Simon Commission in 1928, which was to decide India’s future but did not have a single Indian member.
Baud
@JPL: That’s a nice spread. Hope it holds.
JPL
@mai naem mobile: Nah! It’s all about the money. She’ll stay.
mai naem mobile
@SatanicPanic: I dunno. By the time Dolt is done Trumped will probably be able to be applied to a lot of stuff. Maybe ‘Donnied?’
Baud
@Roger Moore: I wonder if the game of Bridge has been affected by the Trump regime.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@SatanicPanic: you get Rosensteined?
but then you have to hope you don’t get Muellered
Baud
@SatanicPanic: MAGA’d.
rp
@Baud: I’m pretty sure it is legally wrong. I don’t think Trump can cure the problems with the orders with post litigation comments.
sharl
Wilbur Ross might still be traumatized from an encounter with the free press a few years ago, when a reporter sneaked into a billionaires’ play-date event: One-Percent Jokes and Plutocrats in Drag: What I Saw When I Crashed a Wall Street Secret Society.
Poor guy…
JPL
@Baud: The negative ads are running non-stop. He’s either going to turn us into hippies from San Francisco or terrorists from Iran. The poll was after non-stop republican pac ads.
piratedan
@Baud: it’s fucking EVERYTHING about these guys…. everything Faux News and many members of the Right accused Obama of, Trump does, metaphorically beats his chest about it and they say Not A Fucking Word.
If there wasn’t a propaganda arm dedicated to their very existence, spinning everything on its head and gish galloping every fucking issue, they’d be no bigger than the Greens.
They aren’t a political party, they’re a fucking cargo cult of hatred, bigotry, ignorance and stupidity, who have just the right amount of cunning hucksters to package it and sell it to folks who will take any answers that don’t require the tiniest bit of introspection.
SatanicPanic
@Roger Moore: Oh that’s an easy one. It’s what you do when some dummy suggests that you need an outsider to get in there and “shake things up” in DC. “Oh stop playing the Trump card, it could work if it were someone smarter/less corrupt/with better hair!”
Villago Delenda Est
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Fucking Village scum. Their demise cannot come a nanosecond too soon.
randy khan
@Baud:
I play in a casual bridge group sometimes. Quite a few of us are much more enthusiastic about bidding No Trump.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@JPL:
I missed trump campaigning, was it a robocall?
Baud
@JPL: I’m not sure which is worse anymore.
@piratedan: You aren’t wrong.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@JPL: and from what I’ve heard, Ossoff isn’t even talking about trump? I imagine the debate moderators will
Brachiator
Trump supporters are thanking the baby Jesus for this Middle East trip. I’ve heard pundits and and other asswipes resurrect the idea of Trump the Great Deal Maker eager to bring peace to the Middle East.
There has also been a palpable sigh of relief that a “realist” like Trump has dropped all the Obama bullshit about human rights and Arab Springs. I guess this is a win-win. If authoritarian Middle Eastern rulers viciously suppress their people, this will spout anger and revolution and anti-American reactions. We can then freely hate the people and bomb them into submission again. Using weapons that we sell to Middle Eastern authoritarians. It’s the Military Industrial Complex Circle of Life.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
You Californians have quite a bench of Dem talent, from what I’ve seen recently
JPL
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: When he was in town for the NRA convention, he went to a fundraiser for Handel. Nice pics and they haven’t been used yet. I hope that as the election nears, there will be a new ad. Pence has already committed to come next month and campaign. That should help. The CBO score should help also.
SatanicPanic
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: yeah, I think getting Rosensteined is what happens when you blithely throw a subordinate under the bus.
Whenever Trump undercuts his approved explanation by telling the truth it makes me think of a cartoon character sawing off the tree branch that some other character is standing on. Needs to be some way to convey that.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
in other words, Trump pressured lintel community to fabricate narrative to shut down investigation and obstruct justice
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Humdog
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: we Californians offer up a mixed bag. For every Pelosi, Harris or Spierer we seem to send an Issa, Nunes, Rohrbacher…. crap! Are we even net positive? If you count historical bad Californians like Nixon and Reagan, I fear Californian political men are dragging us down
Gravenstone
One can only hope that the dates Ross was given were the “bad dates”, a la Indiana Jones.
hovercraft
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
Don’t you people understand that the entire Federal Government is now a subsidiary of The TRUMP CORPORATION? They are all there to protect the king, for KING AND COUNTRY!!!!!!!
JPL
In Manchester England there was some sort of explosion. Ariana Grande had just finished performing.
CNN INternational http://www.livenewschat.eu/international/?ref=fv
Hopefully, it’s not bad. Since CNN International is now covering the big Celtics win, maybe not.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
Today’s Bombshells as of 6:30 PM Eastern
► Trump openly admits he blew Israeli deep cover agents
► Flynn takes 5th
► Trump pressured intell chiefs to interfere with FBI
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Humdog: that’s true… and my “favorite” wingnut maybe of all time: Bob Dornan.
I was surprised Feinstein never got a serious primary challenge, that I’m aware of, especially post-Iraq. I”m glad she’s there now, ’cause she gets almost as much Beltway love as McCain and Graham, so she’ll be a useful voice over the next few months.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
Nixon was impeached for calling on the Intell community to impede an FBI investigation
HeleninEire
@Baud:
Just got a Facebook “memory” from a year ago. Big NYC meet-up. Thanks Reddirtgirl. You picked your cabinet from those pics.
Jeez. Good, quiet, funny times.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@JPL: damn, numerous fatalities, and it looks like there were a lot of young kids at the concert
SiubhanDuinne
@JPL:
UK media are saying several dead.
mai naem mobile
@JPL: I’m sure it’s the money but she cold have threatened to divorce him after the election and gotten a better pre nup deal. I wonder what happens to a couples assets or estate if the feds convict him on money laundering/bribes etc. Same for the rest of the family and I assume their trusts.
ruemara
@Baud: The American media are rage inducing.
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Fantastic. It would be great to do a regular update once or twice a week on key local races or even do a a 50 states, 50 posts where state races and candidates can get a shout out.
Roger Moore
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
It’s as if we’re seeing Nixon on fast forward.
debbie
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
I hope I never hear anything more horrifying than those Nixon tapes.
lamh36
Wow…armagaddeon has arrived…there was FINALLY a SCOTUS case where even Clarence Thomas voted against it cause it was TOO DISCRIMINATORY…WOW! ABL created a hashtag! Go forth and LAUGH YOUR ASSES OFF!!
#TwitPicYourReactionWhenYouFoundOutClarenceThomasVotedToStrikeDownNCRacialGerrymanderingPlan
https://twitter.com/AngryBlackLady/status/866698271632183296
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
It’s the Military Industrial Complex Circle of
LifeDeath.FIXIT
Isn’t that what’s on their business cards?
Mary G
@Humdog: We might be getting rid of some of them. OC Register says recent poll not looking good for the four Republican incumbents right now. So Issa, Rohrbacher, Mimi and whoever is the other one may be going bye-bye.
The Register is somewhere to the right of the John Birch Society, so if even they are admitting it, things are pretty bad.
DemJayhawks
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: We’ll see what the primary brings. I’ll be knocking on doors no matter who gets the nod.
Old Broad in California
@MisterForkbeard: Reminds me of how, during the campaign, my RWNJ (former) friend posted a photo of Trump with Don King and thought that “disproved” that Trump was racist.
Just because he doesn’t have the nerve to tell people what he really thinks of them to their faces, doesn’t mean he doesn’t think it.
Steve in the ATL
@feebog:
Are you guys talking about me again?!
aimai
@SatanicPanic: Maybe something like “trump speed” as in “he contradicted himself with trumpspeed.
Or I thought we were friends but he betrumped me in a new york minute.
Or, of a vicious, stupid, and ultimately self contradictory statement “It was pure trumpery.”
geg6
@Roger Moore:
I was just saying that exact thing to my John the other day. Worst, most disorienting case of deja vu ever.
amk
yet another thanks, murkkka.
sm*t cl*de
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
It’s just ice-cream.
Steve in the ATL
@JPL: Ossoff is opening a campaign office in Johns Creek this week. Johns Creek!!! Normally every candidate here fights over who is the farthest right nut job and that guy wins. Oh, this could be a beautiful thing.
bemused
@sharl:
Is Ross the guy that likes to wear very expensive velvet slippers in public? I can get it if one has bad feet but he’s wealthy enough to have orthopedic type shoes made that look like actual shoes, not that you just got out of his pj’s and forgot to change out of slippers.
amk
@JPL: so, he will win?
schrodingers_cat
@bemused: I have to say that this version of aristocracy is crass with no class.
daverave
Would love to see CA Rep. McClintock gone but he is a cockroach with some serious baggage who nevertheless seems to survive every attempt to oust him.
JPL
@amk: lol I’m not there yet, but it’s looking good. The area is so conservative, and he needs a strong turnout in DeKalb. He did not get that last time.
sharl
@bemused:
Well I’ll be damned! – Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross Wore $645 Luxury Slippers.
Le Sigh…I can’t relate.
J R in WV
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
You are watching the wrong channels for your TV news!
SatanicPanic
@aimai: betrumped is pretty good. Needs a pun though.
J R in WV
@Baud:
I know that making your bid in No Trump gets the highest score in bridge, IIRC. It was a very long time ago that I played bridge. But No Trump has high appeal for me nowadays.
Roger Moore
@Old Broad in California:
And thinking there are some good members of a group doesn’t mean you don’t discriminate against the group as a whole. It’s no better an argument than “some of my best friends are [group]” as evidence you aren’t prejudiced.
gbbalto
@sm*t cl*de: I see what you did there
TenguPhule
@Jeffro:
Er, not quite.
He’s arguing that if he produces anything, he’ll be forced to testify about any conversations the documents may show occurred and he will not be able to invoke a fifth amendment then because he would have waived the defense by supplying the Committee with evidence that such discussions did in fact occur.
A weasel’s argument, but he has a lawyer who’s forced to work with what they got, so there you have it.
TenguPhule
@Humdog:
The obvious solution is to ban all CA reps from having dicks.
Sebastian
@mai naem mobile:
That has been “confirmed” on Twitter. Allegedly, they had signed agreements already and then he won.