Lately, it seems like leaks and/or effective reporting offer a scoop on the Trump-Russia story or general Team Trump incompetence and infighting on a daily basis, with stories coming out just in time to dominate the evening news cycle. Trump himself has settled into a pattern of undermining his own team and/or generally confirming that he’s an incompetent boob via morning tweets. Today was no exception:
There’s so much wrong here. First, Trump flacks have spent weeks trying to tamp down the “ban” talk since characterizing the Muslim ban as a “Muslim ban” is a loser in court. Their boss just made liars of them by using the word “ban” and implying that it’s targeting Muslims by invoking “political correctness.”
Trump further undermined his own people by dissociating himself from the “politically correct” document he signed. And he’s undercut his pending SCOTUS case by saying the courts are compromised and hinting that it would be better if his decrees could be enacted immediately as if he were Vladimir Putin, a Saudi prince or a Turkish or Filipino strongman. All in the space of about seven minutes.
Meanwhile, my Twitter feed tells me Kellyanne Conway is on TV this morning admonishing journalists for covering Trump’s tweets and basically implying that the so-called president doesn’t speak for his own administration.
It’s entirely possible this is all a cynical ploy: Maybe the Trumpsters know the SCOTUS will strike down the ban anyway and are doubling down on anti-Muslim hysteria so they can use the next terrorist incident here as a Reichstag fire moment. It honestly would not surprise me.
Welcome to Crazytown, folks. Every day, it feels more and more like something has to give, that we can’t go on this way for another three years, seven months and 16 days.
EBT
Well unless they feel like they will lose their majority in 18, Which is only barely mathematically possible, then it sure is going on for three years seven months and sixteen more days.
Quinerly
OT…I didn’t watch the Putin interview but looks like the reviews are coming in: http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-93459846/
Another Scott
Donnie just loves setting everyone else up for failure. “It’s not my fault, it’s all those losers out there!!1”
The Acting Solicitor General must be pulling his hair out. If he’s sensible, he’s also updating (probably for the nth time) his resignation letter…
Cheers,
Scott.
Archon-seven
They’re such boobs that I have trouble imagining a competent plot. Not to mention the fact that the CI that would investigate such an event is dead set against him.
Villago Delenda Est
The man is a deranged Faux Noise watching dipshit like your crazy uncle, yet he has access to the launch codes.
Quinerly
Morning J Kush read: https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-06-05/kushners-hunting-hard-for-a-loan-to-pay-back-chinese-investors
Waspuppet
More like a fire in search of a Reichstag, no?
Keith P.
This.
Quinerly
Busted: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/06/05/its-time-to-bust-the-myth-most-trump-voters-were-not-working-class/?utm_term=.651317748ba7
hovercraft
Mark Good News For John McCain suggested that in anticipation of what will be the worst day of his presidency, on Thursday when Comey testifies, he will spend they next few days churning up talk about the “travel ban”, which has in the past served as chum for the villagers. If that’s the case, the Shitgibbon still doesn’t understand that the media is completely focused on him, and that they not only have an “A” block, and can devote A, B, C, and the even D block to his antics if he throws chum into the water. Richard Haas called his distortion of Mayor Khan’s statement a dog whistle, the Editor in Chief of the Economist called him a petulant child, the Shitgibbon is having a great morning.
Bobby Thomson
We can and will go on like this unless he croaks. Republicans are incapable of removing him.
NorthLeft12
Deadbeat Donald’s ignorance and idiocy know no bounds. It will be interesting to see how the election in the UK turns out and whether Trump’s boneheaded comments and his support of former PM May have any influence in the outcome. Remember, everything he touches turns to garbage/failure.
BTW my daughter lives in the area near London Bridge. One of her flatmates was in a pub that was locked down during the attack. My daughter was in another part of London [Clapham] during the incident. She knows enough now that she messages us and other family/friends whenever there is an incident like that in London.
Calouste
Good chance by the way that the perpetrators of the recent London attack would not be covered by the travel ban. Far more likely that they are British or Pakistan born than from one of the seven countries covered by the shitgibbon’s Muslim ban.
Villago Delenda Est
@Quinerly: He’s fucked. Good.
Frankensteinbeck
@Quinerly:
As I have commented repeatedly, racism flourishes in times of economic plenty, which 2/3rds of Trump voters experience.
Immanentize
@Keith P.: I don’t think this is chess at all. The ninth circuit is still considering the issue, I think there is one in the second circuit as well. I think the Supremes are just going to pass on the emergency appeal and let things roll along. I mean Trump points out they are extreme vetting anyway, so what is the harm in letting the courts do their jobs? Now I have been wrong lots of times about what the Supremes might do, but I don’t see anything happening there for a good while which makes his rant kind of silly.
ETA So the Supreme Court boogyman is a poor target if you want to start a public wave of anti-immigrant fervor.
Villago Delenda Est
@Quinerly: Someone is challenging the narrative of the Village with facts. Stone them!
Gin & Tonic
Speaking of Reichstags, a Turkish paper run by Erdogan’s family runs with a picture of Angela Merkel dressed as Hitler.
clay
@Frankensteinbeck:
Also in times of economic hardship. Also in times when the economy is just so-so.
clay
Breaking: Shooting in Orlando at a business. Police say it’s “contained and stable.”
sdhays
@Quinerly: Pretty disgusting how rich white people elect this piece of shit and then rich white people blame those stupid poor white people because their piece of shit is President*. I wonder how much the distribution changes once you take out the South.
@Calouste: Which in his “mind” would be evidence of needing to “stop being PC and institute a comprehensive Muslim Ban”.
ezra abrams
I have a question:
Would Balloon Juice’s time be better spend on the real, immediate actual harm being done by Sessions, Pruitt, Carson, et al, then spending time parsing the wackos tweets ?
sherparick
Yea, this sort of makes a hash of the argument that Trump did not intend to discriminate because of religion (Muslim) when he issued the ban or that the courts should ignore his campaign comments and twitter outbursts. Also, the term “politically correct” means free to discriminate and oppress.
Trump and ISIS are both their greatest gifts to each other.
Immanentize
@Gin & Tonic:
Sheesh. That picture was probably produced by Merkel herself and will get her an additional 2pts in the upcoming elections. These guys are all stupid in the same ways.
Immanentize
@ezra abrams: I believe we do both. Thank you for the question.
Gin & Tonic
@Villago Delenda Est: The Villagers don’t want to come to grips with the fact that not just their plumber, but also their dentist and their financial adviser are stone racists. That’s why the stories blaming it on coal miners in KY.
Quinerly
@Villago Delenda Est:
I almost dislike Kush more than Trump…almost. I still think part of Trump’s problem is some sort of dementia. I’m not saying Alzheimer’s…just something brain related. His speech pattern, erratic behavior seem to point to something out of his regular normal from years back. Those close to him know that. Kushner is on Bannon level in my book. Ivanka too.
hovercraft
@Calouste:
It doesn’t matter to Twitler and Co., the point is that just like the savage thugs and illegals in this country who are endangering hard working real Americans and draining their tax dollars, the terrorists in the UK are a certain type of people who were allowed in a long time ago and have now changed the essential character of the country, and so now it is essential to stop immigration by those people, and curtail the rights of those who are already here. I’m sure the fact that the cops don’t carry guns and they have no stand your ground laws is a hinderance, but perhaps events like this will bring guns to Europe. Never happen, but they can dream.
germy
rawstory headline:
Quinerly
@ezra abrams:
Personally, I think we multitask on this blog. I will note your concerns, though.
Kay
NYTimes. I know reporters don’t write headlines but they have to stop portraying this as somehow not attributable to Donald Trump. This is what he thinks and this is what he says and he is the President. The rock bottom standard for adults is they are held responsible for their actions. The idiotic things he says ARE actions. Never fucking shutting up is a decision. It has consequences.
The President of the United States says these things. He’s no longer just a real estate heir. Make him take responsibility for them. “Off the cuff” is not an excuse.
rikyrah
See, this is why you don’t need to be doing the most on social media.
Harvard Rescinds Acceptances for At Least Ten Students for Obscene Memes
By HANNAH NATANSON, CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
Harvard College rescinded admissions offers to at least ten prospective members of the Class of 2021 after the students traded sexually explicit memes and messages that sometimes targeted minority groups in a private Facebook group chat.
rikyrah
We’ve already had a number of terrorist attacks since Dolt45 became President.
but, they were WHITE Domestic Terrorists…so, of course, he doesn’t pay attention to them.
hueyplong
“It’s entirely possible this is all a cynical ploy: Maybe the Trumpsters know the SCOTUS will strike down the ban anyway and are doubling down on anti-Muslim hysteria so they can use the next terrorist incident here as a Reichstag fire moment.”
If Trump wrote the tweets himself, there is no strategy behind them beyond whateverthefuck Trump has seen on Fox and Friends. The idea of a strategic loss looking ahead to something else is just us trying to impose a reasonable narrative on something that ain’t reasonable because we want to think things happen for a reason.
Republicans have an irrational, damaged, angry child in the White House. He won’t leave unless a bunch of them decide to make him leave. And that’s that.
germy
@rikyrah:
So it was a private chat but the admissions office still caught it.
No matter how carefully the giggling young racists try to hide, it all comes out.
sherparick
@Bobby Thomson: Trump is the essence of the Fox News watching, Rush Limbaugh, Republican Base as it has been shaped by 35 years of talk radio and right-wing media. That 35% total support he has in the national polls is 70% of the Republican Party (and Republican leaning independents). Their leadership (Ryan and McConnell) want him to sign their donor pleasing tax cuts and health cut bills and the Freedom Caucus and assorted other troglodytes (Steve King, Gohmert, and so many others) are on board for the racism and hippie punching. That this agglomeration of (Ayn) Randism, Christianists, and White Supremacists will hold Trump accountable for his crimes and self-enrichment is laughable. They are as anti-democratic (small “d”) and anti-republican (small “r”) as he is and will aid and abet him to the destruction of the United States and world.
Gin & Tonic
@hovercraft: I can understand the concern about immigrants to the UK, since London has no experience with acts of terror or political violence before those damned Muslims started coming.
bemused
Trump and WH cabal = the Republican party on meth.
ruemara
@clay: no. When times are hard, you pare down to the essentials. Hate is a luxury good. When times are easier, then you have time to fret about those not like you. You didn’t hear from these gobs under GWB. That wasn’t just because he was a republican. Trying to divide the country for a foreign power? Anyone pulling this shit would’ve been in Guantanamo.
My personal hope is that president Donnybrook the Oleaginous has a mental break, slaughters his veep and aides before being taken in by the SS.
@rikyrah: No, I want racist teens and college students to do the most on social media. And then I want them to discover a little thing called “consequences”.
rikyrah
I thought that it was obvious that he wants a terrorist attack on American soil.
Brachiator
Excellent post! Trump excels in contradicting himself and collapsing all potential defenses into a black hole of political confusion. But the net result is to push the GOP leadership into supporting a divine right of presidents in which whatever Trump wants must be supported, the courts and the Democrats be damned.
The sad thing is that Trump absolutely speaks for his base. Their kneejerk reaction to the events in London is to want to punish Muslims as severely as possible and to separate them from “real” Americans. And they don’t want him to back down at all.
NorthLeft12
@Kay: I’ll make this comment for the NYT editorial staff;
“off the cuff” = WRONG. Better description would be “ignorant, obnoxious, offensive, and uninformed.
Since this was a headline, I would advocate using one of the first three descriptors. Uninformed is far too kind.
There, I think that is more accurate and appropriate.
Major Major Major Major
Speaking of Reichstag fires, Theresa May thinks that now is a good time to talk about how we need to regulate speech on the Internet.
clay
@Kay: Every time Trump tweets something dumb and/or harmful, his supporters rush on TV to complain that the media focuses too much on Trump’s tweets.
I would like someone to respond that the media focuses on his tweets as much as they would focus on any statement by the gee-dee President of the United States.
Someone ask the lich that has taken over Kellyanne Conway’s body just exactly how much attention we should give to statements made by the gee-dee President?!?
rikyrah
Spread the Word: The Survival of Lawrence O’Donnell
by D.R. Tucker June 4, 2017 11:00 AM
And you thought “It’s hard to keep a good man down” was just a cliche.
The news that MSNBC has decided to change its mind about axing Lawrence O’Donnell is a relief for those of us who feared that yet another voice for justice and integrity would be chased off the airwaves. NBC News President Andrew Lack may still harbor thoughts of becoming the next Roger Ailes, but the voices of O’Donnell’s supporters were apparently able to drown him out.
The continued presence of O’Donnell on cable television must drive Trump even further into insanity. O’Donnell has called out Trump for years, declaring in 2011 that the former Celebrity Apprentice host should have been kicked off NBC for peddling the racist hoax that President Obama was born in Kenya. O’Donnell is peerless in his ability to highlight the hubris of Trump, his Cabinet and his supporters–and fearless in his fight against those who would drag this country into a political and cultural wasteland.
I’ve previously noted that O’Donnell was one of the few cable-news figures willing to comprehensively cover the Dakota Access Pipeline controversy. Of course, other folks were paying attention to that controversy for different reasons:
germy
@Quinerly:
I sort of find myself getting irritated when I see the “He’s good looking” meme.
To me, he looks like a hollow-eyed sociopath, in every photo.
EDIT: and the photo of him and his bride at some fancy dress affair; they’re standing in front of a mirror, and he’s got his hand on her ass?
I’ve been to all sorts of dress-up occasions with my wife, and posed for pictures. It never would have occurred to me to grab her ass for any of those photos.
rikyrah
Will Democrats Allow the Perfect to Be the Enemy of the Good in 2020?
by D.R. Tucker June 4, 2017 3:00 PM
Do you get the sense that it won’t be enough?
Do you get the sense that after all of Donald Trump’s outrages, his deceptions, his lies, his depravity, his chicanery, it still won’t be enough?
Do you get the sense that three years from now, the Democratic Party will still be divided along “establishment” vs. “progressive” lines, and won’t be able to focus on removing Trump from the White House?
The creepiest aspect of Trump’s tawdriness is the prospect that he could well get away with it if the Democratic Party doesn’t have its act together. Recent history has proven that when the Democratic Party is divided, years of chaos–and irreversible damage to the country and world–follow. What if the lessons of history are ignored again?
Two weeks ago, I speculated that perhaps the only way the Democratic Party could avoid a divisive 2020 primary was by unifying behind a candidate who could appeal to both the “establishment” and “progressive” wings of the party; I suggested that Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown might fit the bill. Let’s say Brown and other progressives run, but fail to secure the Democratic nomination. (When’s the last time someone considered an undisputed progressive won the Democratic presidential nomination, anyway?) Furthermore, let’s say that the nomination is won by a Democrat who has been lambasted by some members of the party’s base as “not progressive enough”–New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, perhaps, or New Jersey Senator Cory Booker, or former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick (who was considered an undisputed progressive when he ran for the Bay State governorship in 2006, but who is now seen in certain circles as a “corporatist”). Will Democrats unify around that less-than-ideal Democratic nominee? Or will some Democrats listen to the siren song of a progressive third-party challenger?
Quinerly
Have MSNBC on in the background. Unusual for me in the morning. Why is Krystal Ball wearing a maroon cocktail dress at 10:00 AM? Why is she even on my tv? Did her parents really name her that or did she marry a man named Ball? Where is Corner Stone? I bet he could answer my probing questions. I’m in some sort of strange mood this AM and don’t want to face my tasks at hand.
Kathleen
@Villago Delenda Est: Not just a Village assertion. St. Bernard Patron Saint of Transparent Purity has been poultry procreating that lie since the primaries.
rikyrah
Trump’s Plan to Make Government Older, More Expensive, and More Dysfunctional
Slashing federal employees doesn’t save money. It just makes the government more dependent on private contractors and more prone to colossal screw-ups.
by Gilad Edelman
As you know, Donald Trump won remarkably few policy victories in the first six months of his presidency. The courts have blocked his Muslim ban. Obamacare repeal and replace is on life support in the Senate. Tax reform seems a distant prospect. Funding for a border wall remains hypothetical.
One item on his agenda, however, is moving right along: cutting the size of the federal workforce. You don’t hear as much about this one, in part because Trump himself doesn’t talk much about it. But it’s clearly a priority—one the administration has billed as a way for Trump to make good on his promise to “drain the swamp.” His “Contract with the American Voter,” released a couple of weeks before last November’s election, began with “Six measures to clean up the corruption and special interest collusion in Washington, DC.” Item number two was a hiring freeze “to reduce the federal workforce through attrition.”
Trump instituted the hiring freeze in one of his first acts as president. In March, his administration put out a budget outline that called for a $54 billion increase in defense-related spending offset by major reductions at other agencies—a budget that, if enacted, could result in a net cut of as much as 9 percent of the federal workforce, according to estimates by the chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, Mark Zandi. In April, Trump lifted the hiring freeze, but his budget director, Mick Mulvaney, circulated a memo—titled “Comprehensive Plan for Reforming the Federal Government and Reducing the Federal Civilian Workforce”—asking every government agency to develop a plan by September to cut staff in line with Trump’s budget objectives.
rikyrah
Trump campaign’s ‘Pittsburgh, not Paris’ rally draws ‘dozens’
06/05/17 09:20 AM
By Steve Benen
In his White House speech on Thursday afternoon, Donald Trump delivered a soundbite that conservatives quickly embraced: “I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris.” The phrase, which drew quick applause from the president’s supporters, did not, however, make any sense: the international climate accord was agreed to in Paris, but it was intended to benefit everyone, not just Parisians.
Nevertheless, this Politico report, published the day after Trump’s speech, didn’t come as too big a surprise to anyone.
amk
@Bobby Thomson: Yup. Mother nature is and will be the only solution given the rotten gopee and given the voters’ stupidity in handing over complete control to them.
clay
@Quinerly:
Parents are dumb. There’s a poor little girl in my daughter’s 3rd grade class named Indiana-Jones. That’s her first name.
Quinerly
@Kathleen:
Does anyone know if BS has filed his way past due financials? Read the other day that he hasn’t filed any disclosures since 2015 ones.
germy
@Major Major Major Major:
Major Major Major Major
@rikyrah: We’ll see, but I’m finding I have much less patience for such articles right now than I did before January 20.
@germy: I love it when people talk about banning encryption. It’s long division. Or rather the lack thereof. Not that the people who seriously propose such things nowadays could do long division.
bemused
@germy:
I wondered why Jared’s clothing looks so goofy, imo, when he’s got plenty of money to get suits, etc. fit well. I had to laugh hard when someone here, iirc, said he dresses like Peewee Herman.
rikyrah
Following London attack, Trump flunks latest leadership test
06/05/17 08:00 AM—UPDATED 06/05/17 08:43 AM
By Steve Benen
Soon after Saturday night’s terrorist attack in London, where seven were killed and nearly 50 were injured, U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis was asked for his reaction to the deadly incident. “I don’t know enough about it yet,” the Pentagon chief said, adding, “I like learning about something before I talk. So let me look into it.”
His boss adopted a very different kind of posture.
Donald Trump, who has unlimited access to expansive amounts of intelligence, initially responded to the attack by retweeting an item from the Drudge Report. Soon after, the American president declared, “We need to be smart, vigilant and tough. We need the courts to give us back our rights. We need the Travel Ban as an extra level of safety!”
What does the White House’s proposed Muslim ban have to do with the attack? I don’t know; Trump didn’t say. What “rights” have we lost that Trump wants courts to restore? I don’t know; Trump didn’t explain that, either.
germy
@Quinerly: The Hill:
magurakurin
@ezra abrams:
most of our time would be better spent on actually finding a life…but your idea is good, too.
rikyrah
THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 6/2/17
Mueller inquiry could include Sessions’ role in Comey firing: AP
Eric Tucker, Justice Department reporter for the Associated Press, talk about new reporting that according to Deputy A.G. Rod Rosenstein, the scope of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation could include Jeff Sessions.
Quinerly
@clay:
My mom taught first grade for 30 years. In the 1970’s she taught a little girl named Polyester. I kid you not. The world’s first Dacron Polyester plant (DuPont) was about 7 miles away. Built in the late 1950’s. There will be a test later.
sherparick
@sdhays: Again, I agree the stories lack nuance. But stories about the Republicans and how they represent “real Americans” always lack nuance. The lack of nuance, context, and just general shitty reporting is why I find so much political journalism in the U.S. (looking at you N.Y. Times and Chuck Todd) idiotic. The WaPo is doing a good job but:
1. The story still reveals that majority of poor and working class whites who voted in 2016 voted for Trump. It was the marginal shift of this class, particularly the northern white working class in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and and Iowa that swung those states from Blue (although Blue by relatively narrow majorities) in 2012 to Red in 2016 that got us this disaster. Hillary was never particularly popular in those states (although she won the Pennsylvania and Ohio primaries in 2012 and 2016). The story about the northern white working class switching from Obama to Trump is a story about a small, but critical marginal vote in a particular region.
2. However, the Village media does not like to go on, and on about, them and ignore that the majority of the Trump and Republican vote is rooted in White Supremacy and Male Patriarchy and maintaining it.
Major Major Major Major
@magurakurin: We should replace On The Road with a daily Threat-Down, clearly.
rikyrah
THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 6/2/17
Obstruction case could target Trump aides over Comey firing
Nicker Akerman, former Watergate special prosecutor, talks about the scope of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation and who could be a target in an obstruction case surrounding the firing of James Comey.
NorthLeft12
@rikyrah: I find it hard to understand how some of the commenters tried to defend those that had their acceptances revoked. Acceptances are not only based on your academic standing. They do include non-academic activities and behavior. Those who openly chatted in a misogynistic and racist manner would only cause more trouble and embarrassment later in their Harvard careers.
Personally, I think Harvard did these kids a huge favour…….provided they actually learn something positive from this experience.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
He’s melting down before our very eyes
For those who were watching baseball or kids graduate, Khan tweeted out very specifically that an increase in uniformed/armed police in London was planned after Saturday night, Twitler jumped on it, is now doubling down.
and yesterday morning the White House floated an idea of a visit to London, to show support
rikyrah
THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 6/2/17
Trump blabbing would hurt executive privilege claim over Comey
Barbara McQuade, former U.S. attorney, talks about Donald Trump would have a hard time asserting executive privilege to prevent former FBI Director James Comey from testifying.
magurakurin
@ruemara:
that is actually a quite interesting scenario and one I hadn’t envisioned before at all. He goes out in a full blaze of glory like Scarface…
Kathleen
@Quinerly: Funny you should ask that. I was just getting ready to hit The Googlz. Film at 10 oh somethin! BTW, thanks so much for that link.
germy
@bemused:
That apparently is the style, the tighter suits, but it only looks good when a person has taste. You’re right, he looks more like Pee Wee’s big adventure.
Fortunately for him, Tucker carlsen made the bow tie an object of shame, otherwise jared could have his own Playhouse.
ArchTeryx
I wonder if this idiot ever once thought what the Mayor of London is probably doing: Community policing. Treating terrorists acts as murder conspiracies. Reaching out to the peaceful Muslim community and encouraging them, if they hear of or know of people planning murder, to report that to the proper authorities? That works, AFAIK, a hell of a lot better then collective punishment.
And it’s something that not one f*cking Republican ever seems to get, because, to paraphrase Upton Sinclair, their salary still depends on their not getting it.
Trump is just the latest. He’s hardly unique.
rikyrah
THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 6/2/17
Mueller’s broadening Trump investigation could gain resources
Rachel Maddow reacts to news that Special Counsel Robert Mueller is expanding his investigation to include Mike Flynn’s dealings with Turkey and could include Jeff Sessions and Rod Rosenstein, and will also take over the Paul Manafort investigation.
germy
@magurakurin:
Maybe Issa can give him tips on running up to a rooftop for a great escape.
Major Major Major Major
@NorthLeft12: without having seen the content I find it hard to weigh in, but if we’re talking full-blown 4chan I tend to agree.
rikyrah
THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 6/2/17
Trump attacks birth control amid scandal circus distraction
Ari Melber points out how Donald Trump is set to offer employers a ‘moral convictions’ loophole to offering health care, a move that could affect the birth control coverage of hundreds of thousands of women.
Quinerly
@bemused:
I’m with the commenter who says he looks like a sociopath. It’s something about the eyes. As for the entire clan’s clothing (the men), I just don’t get it. Every suit on every one of them fits poorly. Trump’s are getting worse. Weight gain?
rikyrah
what’s pitiful is that I’m sure England IS NOT SHARING any serious information with our people after what happened in Manchester. Not that I can blame them after that.
Immanentize
@clay: I had a friend law school.whose parents named her “Candy.”. Her last name was Cain. She changed her first name to Candace, but we were not fooled….
germy
I hope Robert Mueller goes full bloodhound enough to make Ken Starr look like a piker.
Skippy-san
Even if one hates Hillary Clinton, it is just mind boggling to me, to see how many people just don’t understand why the things Trump is doing are bad and not in keeping with Democratic process. In that regard, Trump was right-he could murder someone in Times Square and his fans would not be troubled by it all. With the possible exception of Warren Harding, there has never been a President who was so fixated on his own greed and so oblivious to the needs of his country. You are right, this can’t go on.
Trump has no vision other than how to play to the rubes who are his base. As far as he is concerned those are the only people he is President for-those who disagree are just prisoners as far as he is concerned. He is practically praying for his own version of 9-11 so he can impose martial law. After watching the Frontline documentary on Bannon, I am sure of it.
germy
@Quinerly:
No, kevlar vests.
They’re bulky.
magurakurin
@clay: Is she really a lich? They are pretty tough monsters. She seems to be more of a succubus
Immanentize
@rikyrah: Please let Sessions be on the business end of Mueller’s work.
Quinerly
@Kathleen:
Last time I Googled BS’s financials the first article with a screaming headline that came up was the Daily Caller. Refused to click on it. That was in May, I believe. Think a middle May deadline. I would like to see Jane indicted. I would also like to see Ms. Sarandon’s reaction.
clay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: He can’t let anything go, can he? And it seems like the stupider the original statement was, the more he’ll try to justify it.
On Morning Joe they played the clip of the mayor’s statement, then showed Trump’s tweet to show how wrong-headed it was. Everyone on the panel agreed that the mayor’s statement was solid and uncontroversial. (I guess that is “working hard” in Trump’s eyes… explains a lot.)
But instead of backing down or just dropping it, he has to try to paint some conspiracy against him. This reminds me so much of his feud with the Khans last summer. (Hmmm… this is a Khan as well… he probably thinks they’re related.)
Major Major Major Major
@Quinerly: I think he looks like an idiot, mostly. A rich one who thinks he earned it.
Kathleen
@germy: @Quinerly:
Yup. That’s the most current story I found also. Here is a link to the entire article:
http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/333818-sanders-misses-financial-disclosure-filing-deadline
He had 20 day extension from about mid-May so he may have a few more days, since I don’t now if it’s business days or calendar days.
Chris
“The Justice Department should have…” You’ve got to love the spectacle of Trump whining on Twitter about the people who work for him. It’s one thing (though still pathetic) when he does it about Congress or the media or foreign governments, but those at least are things that he doesn’t control. How fucking pathetic do you have to be to go on Twitter and whine about the unfairness of the people under your own command?
(For those who think all there is to foreign policy is blustering around and “not showing weakness” is the most important thing: this kind of whining is how you show weakness. It’s how you signal to everybody watching that you’re not in control of anything, and that there’s no point negotiating with you).
Quinerly
@germy: Well, is he adding one a week on top of the one he is already wearing? Obama lost weight as president. (big sigh, longing look…I so miss that skinny guy. Sometimes I feel like a family member/close friend died)
Brachiator
@germy:
Kushner is Trump’s Michael Corleone. Or is trying hard to be.
Chris
@Quinerly:
Thank God. I’ve been beating this drum for months.
Laura
@rikyrah: I thought that it was obvious that he wants a terrorist attack on American soil.
He’s HAD terrorist attacks on American soil. But white nationalists are merely lone wolves, or part of the loony left, and so we wait for the brown foreignor, hopefully a Muslim radical Islamic terrorist to confirm Trump’s bias and justification for the coming crackdown.
Quinerly
@Brachiator: That’s an insult to Michael Corleone. You take that back. Right now.?
bemused
@Quinerly:
I did read when he got back from his insult tour that he has gained weight but anon source.
He not only has weirdly long ties but I’ve seen a couple of pics of his ties blown by wind revealing he scotch tapes the backside of the ties.
waspuppet
@Keith P.: They (he) just isn’t smart enough for cynical ploys. He’s just grabbing whatever he can get his hands on and throwing it at whoever he sees.
Skippy-san
Trump will get more dangerous.
http://washingtonmonthly.com/2017/05/30/feeling-threatened-trump-will-become-even-more-dangerous/
clay
@magurakurin: A succubus is supposed to seduce men. A lich performs unholy acts to gain immortality and power. You tell me which one Conway is closer to.
MattF
The Person In The White House just keeps doing the same dumb shit, over and over. The same little tricks, the same ploys to show the royal court who’s the boss, the same disdain for knowledge and expertise, the same reliance on ‘instinct’. The same old same old same old. Anyone who thinks it’s going to change or who thinks there’s a strategy aimed at some coherent goal is beyond help at this point. It’s too late.
magurakurin
@Brachiator: more like Carlo. He should probably stay out of the front seat….
magurakurin
@clay: yeah, okay, lich.
hovercraft
@Gin & Tonic:
I’m waiting for the ban’s on people from, France, the UK, and Ireland, if you look at the last 40 years, no other nations have produced more “terrorists” attacks in the “West” than these nations.
amk
James Powell
@sherparick:
And a few points short of half the voters who show up in general elections. It will probably be just over half who show up for the midterms. We are a nation filled with awful people.
hueyplong
@Brachiator: I think Kushner is Fredo’s Fredo.
Quinerly
@bemused:
We all aren’t being serious enough this AM (see very concerned commenter above) but I’m in a weird mood and killing time I shouldn’t be. With that said, it amazes me that Trump thinks his “look” is attractive. I had to laugh when he was reportedly criticizing Spicer’s suits. I just don’t get it…the ill fitting clothes, the hair, the obvious spray tan or tanning bed. Personality and politics aside, I wouldn’t fuck him for all the money in the world. I love men and for the most part can find something attractive about any man. Plus, Trump has surrounded himself with a downright gross looking bunch of men. It’s kinda against all odds. That’s my rant of the morning. Back to being serious.?
Major Major Major Major
@clay: liches are usually highly intelligent. @magurakurin:
rikyrah
Kushners Hunting Hard for a Loan to Pay Back Chinese Investors
by Sarah Mulholland and Caleb Melby
June 5, 2017, 4:00 AM CDT
The Kushner family real estate company is seeking a $250 million loan to pay back Chinese investors in a New Jersey luxury tower but finding some major U.S. banks wary of the controversies around its White House links and the visa program used to attract the investors.
bemused
I was reading letter to ed Star Tribune from May 27. A former ghost writer wrote of his only encounter with Trump. Publishers send out manuscript copies to celebrities hoping they will respond with comments they can use as jacket blurbs on their books. Trump was on the list and he sent a memorable response on stationary with his signature “Donald J. Trump embossed in letters so high you could have cleaned your fingernails on them”. Trump wrote he received book and he was sending them a copy of a “better” book, The Art of the Deal.
bemused
@Quinerly:
When he looks in the mirror, he obviously doesn’t see what everyone else does.
amk
rk
No it’s not. There’s nothing there in his empty head. He doesn’t have enough brain power for anything even resembling a ploy. It’s all impulsive reaction to events. People who plot at least know when to keep their mouths shut. I’ll grant that Bannon is plotting and scheming, but unfortunately for Bannon (and thank god for the country) Trump will undercut Bannon’s plotting by blabbing everything to the world and undermining everything. He’s proving everyday that stupid outweighs the evil. That may just save us.
Quinerly
@clay:
I don’t think Trump would think she’s hot enough to pass succubus muster. Too boney. No tits. Now that Kimberly Guilfoyle (sp?) chick…she’s succubus material.
Kathleen
@Quinerly: Saw this Obama tribute video linked on Twitter. Made me cry.
https://www.facebook.com/4wardUSA/videos/1409403839150938/
Amir Khalid
@Quinerly:
Think of the Kuwaiti parents who named their sons after George Herbert Walker Bush in the wake of the First Gulf War.
hovercraft
@Quinerly:
Her parents did indeed name her Krystal Ball, and she choose to keep the name when she got married, so she must like it.
She is on your TV because she is a “true progressive”, one who really wants democrats to understand that until they listen to the voices of the WWC, and understand and address their concerns, they will lose.
Quinerly
@bemused:
And, of course, no one has ever told him. I still can’t believe what this country did to itself. Honestly, I wake up some mornings and believe that it has to be some sort of elaborate nightmare.
amk
Has the alt-right gamer bros’ collective heads essploded yet?
magurakurin
@Major Major Major Major:
so, flesh golem?
Quinerly
@hovercraft:
And the maroon cocktail dress? Is that some sort of WWC uniform?
Major Major Major Major
@amk: all day every day a woman does something nerdy, which is every day.
@magurakurin: oh, that’s perfect but for one thing, it implies she lacks agency. There’s probably an awakened template you can throw on.
Aleta
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: He’s never seemed more insane. I guess he’s campaigning against Comey’s testimony. The stress of anticipating must be driving him mad. But repeating an obvious lie about the mayor of London…. jeez. Meanwhile his supporters are making death threats against opposition. It’s propaganda to say he’s fighting terror.
Quinerly
@Kathleen:
A friend posted that to my Book of Faces timeline last night. My 9:30 pm cry.
Frankensteinbeck
@Gin & Tonic:
Those coal miners are racist as Hell – but so is the rest of the Republican Party, on every financial level. Economics has nothing to do with it at all.
@sherparick:
In general, I think we should remember that elected Republicans are not a different class than their base. They’re the same insane, spiteful, dumbass racists. Ryan definitely represents the Pure Randian fringe the party contains. I think McConnell represents another small group, the highly intelligent spiteful racist.
@Immanentize:
Does she always get the fuzzy end of the lollipop?
Jeffro
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Yup. Doubling down – that’s all he does (besides play golf, that is). Gee I wonder where he absorbed that trait from?
Major Major Major Major
@magurakurin: @Major Major Major Major: yeah, this will work. http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/templates/lifespark-construct-template/
FlipYrWhig
@hovercraft: IIRC Ball ran for Congress (near where I’m living now) as a run of the mill Democrat, not as a bold populist or True Progressive. I haven’t seen her on TV in a while but used to like her well enough in that moment where there weren’t enough articulate and telegenic Democrats on the airwaves anywhere, like in those Keith Olbermann years in the Dubya wilderness. Her reinvention as a Sandernista strikes me as cynical and opportunistic.
Quinerly
BBC was playing this last night. Gag me: http://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-40154798/bernie-sanders-the-momentum-is-with-us
rikyrah
@Kay:
THANK YOU.
He.is.the.President.Of.The.United.States.
Whatever he says…no matter the platform….
COUNTS
The curve for White men is REAL.
Jeffro
@clay:
I’m sure Twitler thinks “they” are all related…
Frankensteinbeck
@amk:
“Some mysterious, ineffable thing, and definitely not that millions of women and no shortage of men were waiting to get a well made female lead action movie!”
Amir Khalid
@clay:
I am mystified. Just how do you shorten Indiana-Jones to a plausible girl’s name?
hovercraft
@clay: @Quinerly:
My mother swears that she went to school with a kid named Anus. Now in his parents defense, they were born and raised in a village in Rhodesia back in the 40’s and the Rhodesian farmer his father worked for called him Anus so he named his son Anus, it wasn’t till the kids went to the missionary school at age 7, that the missionaries explained what the name meant, and his parents promptly changed his name. Unfortunately all the kids made sure that he remembered that his parents had named him ass.
Jeffro
@rikyrah: I’m telling y’all, a March for Shame could be a hoot (if it weren’t so deadly serious).
I’m trying to figure out if “Trump, You Dumb Fuck! Act Like A Leader, Just Once!!” will fit on a sign in letters big enough that TV viewers can make it out.
Kathleen
@Quinerly: Yup.
Quinerly
I guess I had forgotten this from a year ago. Trump challenging London’s mayor to an IQ test:http://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-36299929/donald-trump-challenges-sadiq-khan-to-iq-test
gvg
I don’t think Trump has a plan. He is just a really stupid racist who really doesn’t understand that the constitution protects all religions and he can’t do what he wants to do. He thinks they must be doing it for political gain because he doesn’t understand that he is wrong. I guess because he is rich enough and has always been stupid, he has not learned to not say it. He is just racist.
randy khan
@Chris:
That’s what caught my attention, too.
And, of course, much of what’s in that Tweet-storm is nonsense. They’re not in any position to defend the old order because they rescinded it months ago.
Quinerly
@Jeffro:
I just suggested it on the local Indivisible St. Louis site. In related news, I’m still killing time this AM. This has to stop.
Frankensteinbeck
@Quinerly:
He can’t be – no, London’s mayor is a minority, so Trump assumes he can’t be as smart as a white man.
clay
@Amir Khalid: India, or Indy wouldn’t be bad, and are even pretty names phonetically. Heck, even Indiana itself wouldn’t be horrible, devoid of context. But no, the parents had to tack on the “-Jones” to show the world that their fandom is more important than their child.
Reminds me of Kevin Smith naming his daughter “Harley Quinn.” (Because a murdering, abused, co-dependent clown is a great character to name your kid after.)
randy khan
There’s so much idiocy in these tweets that it’s hard to unpack it all, but even the part about having extreme vetting in place undermines the government’s arguments, since the purpose of the orders was, in theory, to create some space to revise the vetting standards. If that’s done, there’s no reason for the order to go into effect.
hovercraft
@FlipYrWhig:
When she had the show with the other three, she was as you say fine, but after they got cancelled, she moved to West Virginia or Kentucky, and I guess was surprised when confronted with the suffering of the WWC in Appalachia, she’s from Virginia,so she was susceptible to BS’s BS. Since she has become a basher of Hillary and the democratic party, she’s been popping up on msnbc a lot more.
The Moar You Know
Been reading Shirer’s “Decline and Fall of the Third Reich”. Not a perfect book (totally glosses over/whitewashes what happened in France) but good enough on all the big points. This stage of the takeover goes on for much longer than three years, seven months and 16 days.
MattF
@hovercraft: Reminds me, when I was in college, a roomie who was trying to shed his Catholic upbringing wrote a little essay where he denounced the ‘fundament of the Church’. I had to break the bad news to him that the word didn’t mean what he thought it did.
Quinerly
@FlipYrWhig:
I remember when she ran and I rather liked her. MSNBC gave her an afternoon show with 3 others. She had a baby. The show was cancelled and seems like she just disappeared. I never watch daytime tv so her reemergence is new to me. Was she really vocal when BS was running?
germy
@hovercraft:
If my dog became an outspoken critic of Hillary, he’d be invited on all the talk shows.
Bernie doesn’t get it. He goes home to Jane and says “They’re finally understanding my philosophy! They want me to come back next week for another interview!”
clay
@randy khan: And the ban was only supposed to last for, what, 90 days? So they could “review”? Well, it’s been over 90 days, where’s the “review”? Don’t tell me they couldn’t start “reviewing” until the ban was enacted… that’s laughable on its face.
So now we’re past the point where the ban would have been (supposedly) lifted… what’s the point of all this again?
(Oh, right. Brown = bad.)
Frankensteinbeck
@hovercraft:
If living in West Virginia or Kentucky doesn’t prove to you that the GOP runs on racism and not economics, I don’t know what to say.
Quinerly
@hovercraft:
I guess I should have read this comment first. Thanks.
Steve in the ATL
@Amir Khalid:
Ana
Jim, Foolish Literalist
From what little I’ve seen of her since her conversion, it seems sincere. If she’s really living in WV or KY, I heartily encourage her, along with her Idol, to pick a district and run on a purity platform.
Frankensteinbeck
@germy:
And nobody is hungrier than national journalists to say “See? America is totally not racist!”
magurakurin
@Major Major Major Major:
this part is problematic since she clearly doesn’t have a soul.
hovercraft
@bemused:
Richard Haas said that according to a POLITICO article this morning, the “all for one, and one for all” message was in what was supposed to be the final draft of the NATO speech, but is was pulled at the last minute, so basically after the foreign policy people and experts had completed it, someone got into his ear and changed it, which he said is very dangerous, as damaging as his behavior in Brussels was, they were our allies, imagine if he blunders into something far worse than pissing off our friends the next time.
nightranger
Meanwhile the senate is quetly killing Obamacare and the Russia investigation is still going strong.
Why do some of you fall for these distractions EVER SINGLE TIME???
All he has to do is tweet something about Muslims and some of you are like a cat chasing a laser pointer into a wall!
Immanentize
@amk: I don’t think it’s their heads that exploded….
D58826
Given Der Fuhrer’s latest tweet storm, I think it’s time that his NATSEC team stages an intervention. MM&T, Ivanka plus a secret service team go into the Oval and have Ivanka POLITELY ask for his phone. If he won’t give it up then the secret service team TAKES it from him. After that deactivated the twitter account.
Desperate times call for desperate measures.
Chris
@germy:
Yep. There are reasons why he and not Elizabeth Warren or even Keith Ellison is the one they can’t get enough of, and the biggest one that he’s the one they can rely on to bash Democrats. He fills the Lieberman-shaped hole in the MSM’s political worldview.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
By jingo, you’re right, we really are wasting our votes in congress and the powerful influence this blog comments section exercises over public opinion.
germy
the ghost of christmas past
Kathleen
@Quinerly: Bernie did file extension by deadline and here is story:
https://m.sevendaysvt.com/OffMessage/archives/2017/06/04/walters-bernie-sanders-made-more-than-1-million-in-2016
magurakurin
@nightranger:
if only this blog had a front pager who post almost exclusively about health care issues…
The Moar You Know
@amk: lol they will.
I am not a fan of the “superhero” genre of movie, but my wife is, so I’ve seen a lot of them. Terrible. Simply terrible, every one.
I was expecting at least something better from Wonder Woman, and was somewhat disappointed. It wasn’t “better”. It was fucking fantastic. One of the better movies I’ve ever seen, period.
FlipYrWhig
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Steve Beshear was governor of Kentucky _recently_. West Virginia has had Democratic governors and senators _recently_. Not one was a flaming populist crusader a la Sanders. I don’t understand why anyone thinks this maneuver has any hope at all.
Mike in DC
Comeygeddon is coming. The Comeypocalypse is nigh. It will be Trumps Comey-to-Jesus mom—you get the idea.
Immanentize
@Jeffro: I am liking this idea more every day. But the title has to be tweaked to something like: March! For Shame!”. Like scolding not like it is in support of shame.
Kathleen
@The Moar You Know: Shirer did write a book focused on the fall of France:
https://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Third-Republic-Inquiry-France/dp/0306805626
I only remembered because my Dad had it in his library and I may have read parts of it growing up.
Brachiator
@hueyplong:
Ha! Trying for Michael and ending up a Fredo.
Frankensteinbeck
@FlipYrWhig:
Kentucky is in the peculiar situation of being separated into ‘The Democratic Socialist Republic of Louisville’ and ‘The Hollers.’ Despite the name, Louisville is decidedly not socialist, it’s just ‘center-left’ seems like Marxism compared to the rest of the state.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@FlipYrWhig: I don’t really think it has hope, more just a bloggy, wool-gathery wish that Krystal, Nina and Wilmer would put their rhetoric where their imagined supporters are.
Face
Per my telly, there appears to be shootings in FL. This is clearly fake news, as FL is completely SYG on steroids, with plenty of good guys to 86 the bad guy before he can start shooting. There’s just no way in a state with so many guns that this can happen.
hueyplong
@nightranger: Maybe “some” of us can contemplate more than one subject in the same day.
Frankensteinbeck
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Saint Bernard did, and he badly lost the nomination of the Democratic Party, which is way more liberal than the population at large. I think having it shoved in his face that there is no proletariat waiting for the call to class war made him even more bitter. He just HAS to have been robbed. It’s the only explanation!
Iowa Old Lady
@rikyrah: A tweet is a public statement. Would they prefer we ignore them?
Actually, maybe Kellyanne would but Trump wouldn’t.
Chris
@nightranger:
Because if there’s two topics that you never hear about on Balloon Juice, it’s health insurance and the Russia investigation.
If we really cared, we’d have front-pagers who were professionals in these fields giving us a series of posts specifically covering developments in these issues.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Face: if it’s the same I saw, it’s a workplace shooting (isn’t it special we have a fixed phrase for that), five dead, including the shooter, no connection to terrorism, so let’s all just move on.
Chris
@The Moar You Know:
I’ve heard nothing but good things. Supposed to go with the roommates whenever they have a free night. Sounds like DC finally made a movie that didn’t suck.
“Fezzik… You did something right!”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
and speaking of Wilmerites…
So apparently the Democratic Party elites aren’t pumping enough money in politics, and aren’t top-down enough. Now.
(Stephanie Ruhle just said trump’s trip to SA was a “huge success”, Ali Vashir said “right”)
Fair Economist
@Quinerly:
At least she could go by Polly.
Fair Economist
@Chris:
I love this place.
aimai
@nightranger: I’m not sure what we are supposed to be doing that materially changes either of these things?
raven
@Quinerly: We have an Arrow and a Maypop in out hood.
D58826
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Well it was if you are the king of SA, for the rest of the world not so much
Jeffro
@Immanentize: “March to Shame”? “March to Restore Shame”? I’m open to any/all suggestions, as long as the goal stays the same – these clowns need to feel the heat!
El Caganer
@hovercraft: I thought Anus was the ancient Egyptian God of the Dark Void.
clay
@Fair Economist: Or Ester.
Quinerly
@Fair Economist:
And I think she ultimately did. Now her sister, Dacron….that’s a tragic story.?
SiubhanDuinne
@Fair Economist:
Or Esther.
ETA: I was going to say “Curse you, Clay @187” but the time stamps show we were simultaneous.
SFAW
@amk:
Only because they found out Wonder Woman is Jewish
Quinerly
@Kathleen:
Thanks! I just sent it to my last remaining BS lover on FB. Told him to be sure to check out the killer last sentence of the piece.?
NeenerNeener
@Steve in the ATL: Ana-Jo would work too.
raven
@raven: our
SFAW
@SiubhanDuinne:
Was it as good for you as it was for clay?
Oh, not THAT kind of simultaneous. Never mind.
Booger
@Quinerly: She could take the sophisticated route, with something like ‘D’Acron.‘
Camembert
Those of us who grew up in an abusive household have no difficulty recognizing Tr45’s patterns of behavior. The idea is to wear down the idea of objective truth so that the only decisions that are made are made based on pure personal preference of the dominant personality.
Basically, conservatism but with bruises showing.
satby
@nightranger: Damn, you’re right! I gotta get over to my desk in the Senate right now so I can vote against… oh, wait.
Brachiator
@The Moar You Know:
Good feint, there.
I am a fan of comic book genre movies, and I agree with you about “Wonder Woman.” A fun, refreshing movie. I enjoyed some of the screwball comedy banter between Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman and Chris Pine’s Steve Trevor.
Median
@Quinerly: Polly Esther. A real missed opportunity there.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I was cheerfully unaware that such a thing existed.
Quinerly
@nightranger:
Actually his tweets re his Muslim ban are relevant in the court cases. It’s not like this blog ignores the Russian collusion and healthcare. Not sure I understand your concern, but I will make note of it.?
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@Quinerly:
I hear that, Q. I despise Kushner, too. Unlike Trump at age 36, he is already in “the halls of power” doing damage. Trump will be rotting in a grave in ten years or so; Kushner will be 46 and causing more harm still. Better the devil you know….
SFAW
@The Moar You Know:
Thanks for that switcheroo. Provides more incentive to see it. (Yes, I’m being serious.)
Major Major Major Major
@magurakurin: sure she does. How else can she go to hell?
Immanentize
@Jeffro: how about the “March to Mobilize Shame.”. It has two “M”s.
Quinerly
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Oh, yes. The BS supporters in my Book of Faces feed made everyone (I thought in the entire universe) painfully aware of it….sometimes 6 times a day.
SFAW
@Booger:
Outstanding.
Immanentize
@Quinerly: Dax would have been a good nickname…
SFAW
@satby:
How will you manage to do that without running afoul of your moron office manager? I don’t think I could pull that off.
Quinerly
@Median:
And, you know, that might have been it, now that I think about it. Wish I had my mother to ask. Every so often it would come up and we would laugh…lost my mom in October, 2015.
Immanentize
@SFAW: I am colleagues with a woman named D’lorah. Her father’s name was Harold. She describes herself as the only white woman she knows with punctuation in her name. Thanks Dad!
Jeffro
Here’s two quite-funny phrases (in bold) for everyone’s future use, and one salient point to remember (in italics) courtesy of Josh Marshall at TPM: Taking Stock of Trump’s Weekendus Horribilis
I prefer “blathering Fox TV viewer of id” or “babbling InfoWars commenter of id” but ymmv
Quinerly
@Booger:
That little French girl adopted at birth. I like it!
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@germy:
Kushner has greedy, suspicious eyes devoid of deep intelligence. He looks like an obnoxious twerp in his big boy suits. Only a matter of time before he expects two scoops, too.
Quinerly
Trump getting ready to speak. MSNBC breathlessly reporting that “Ivanka just walked in.”
Quinerly
@West of the Rockies (been a while):
Split screen on MSNBC focused for quite awhile on Kushner. He looks quite greasy this AM.
sukabi
@Quinerly: sounds like M. Kelly should have spent some time honing her craft. Being a former “star” on Fox news would hardly prepare anyone to interview a professionally trained liar, especially when your previous job primarily required you to regurgitate gop talking points and propaganda.
Brachiator
@clay:
Life goes on. The kid can use Indy, Di, Jo.
Some people like Harley because she is a vivid character.
Penn Jillette of Penn and Teller named his daughter “Moxie CrimeFighter.” And, of course, there’s this:
Pappa’s Little Super villain.
clay
@Quinerly: This is what WaPo says:
What the hell? Is this what Jared’s been working on with his “reinvention of government”? Is our air traffic control system a pressing issue?
germy
Steve Mnuchin is in the end credits of Wonder Woman as Executive Producer.
Aleta
Quinerly
@clay:
Elizabeth Dole joining Trump at the podium. I have no idea why…..
Quinerly
I just posted this on the new thread. Rather interesting…a stroll down memory lane: http://www.salon.com/2017/06/04/trumps-russia-scandal-is-more-like-iran-contra-than-watergate-which-isnt-good-news/
Immanentize
@clay:. Air traffic control is in huge need of updating and improvements. Has been for over a decade. But any of that would require Congressional action. I assume he wants the airports run by Law Enforcement or the military?
clay
@Quinerly: She was Sec. of Transportation under Reagan, so I guess that’s somewhat relevant….
Major Major Major Major
@clay:
It kind of is, actually. Be a very good idea to modernize it a bit.
randy khan
@magurakurin:
I wouldn’t mind a soccer reffing post every once in a while, though.
Aleta
@clay: I think Indiana was used more as a girl’s name than a boy’s in the past (late 1800s-early1900s ?). (Because it ends in a, traditional in female names.) Same with India.
Immanentize
@clay: Now who is currently the Sec. of Transportation? Just don’t recall…. But has some relative in government? /S/
this is all so odd.
clay
@Major Major Major Major: @Immanentize: Fair enough. Any reason it needs to be separated from the Federal Aviation Administration?
Brachiator
@Jeffro:
And the prominent members of his own party were quick to absolve him of any wrongdoing. The party of family values conveniently forgot about all the accusations.
This is a great, vivid, accurate observation. The only thing it misses is the sad fact that here Trump is exactly in tune with the sentiments of his deepest supporters. As I have noted before, his fear is their fear. his anger is their anger. They want more than anything else for Trump to be their avatar of vengeance. And they are getting impatient with the delays and the institutions and judicial decisions which have so far restrained him.
clay
@Brachiator:
Jenna Jameson is a Vivid character, but I’m not naming my daughter Jenna Jameson Smith.
randy khan
@Major Major Major Major:
I shudder to think what these people would do with air traffic control, though.
The Moar You Know
@clay: Actually, it is. Barely hanging on by a thread, both technologywise and peoplewise – they are desperately short on controllers, nobody wants the job since St. Ronnie, surprise, surprise. But privatizing it is really the very last place we want to go with it. I expect Orange Lardalade will have it spun off to Trump Enterprises, Inc. by noon.
Brachiator
WTF.? Headline saying “Trump plans to privatize Air Traffic Control.”
Where did this come from?
Major Major Major Major
@clay: Absolutely not. Think of it like Trump’s other ‘infrastructure’ proposals: pressing need, but the way he’s proposing going about it would 1) not address the need and 2) serve only to line people’s pockets.
Shana
@bemused: Wasn’t there an interview with someone (Grayson Carter?) a few months ago where he talked about sending Trump small checks worth a few cents over time in smaller and smaller amounts to see if he’d cash them. He always cashed them, even ones worth something like 7 cents.
Quinerly
@Immanentize:
Elaine Chao. Are you watching Trump? WTF is he talking about?
vhh
@clay: Actually, yes. Very hard to upgrade somethng like this while keeping all the planes in the air simultaneously.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@germy:
Carlson looks like a grinning ass in a bow tie. And yet, Bill Nye makes it look good. Oh, and the 11th Doctor, too.
The Moar You Know
@germy: As he is for about a third of the movies coming out of US studios these days. He’s truly rich, unlike his boss. He could buy and sell Trump fifty times over before breakfast.
Quinerly
@Brachiator:
He’s speaking now. Honestly, I don’t understand a word he’s saying.
Aleta
@Brachiator: Advocated by the Kochs since the 80s Libertarian Party. And break the union.
Immanentize
@Quinerly: I was snarking, sorry. Trump is doing this because it is the only plan his whole hellish administration has put together — McConnell’s plan.
ericblair
@West of the Rockies (been a while):
Not if he’s a VIP guest at the Trump Memorial Greybar Resort and Spa in Leavenworth, Kansas. If we get perp walks of these assholes on YouTube I’m going to drive up the view count substantially myself.
MoxieM
@Fair Economist: She had a punk band, no?
Quinerly
@clay:
I realize that now and he referenced her. Honestly, I can’t follow him. Has something happened to my brain or is he making less sense than usual?
Brachiator
@clay: RE: Some people like Harley because she is a vivid character.
I think that “Christy Canyon” would be a cool name (but not necessarily for your daughter).
Quinerly
@Immanentize: I think my brain is on overload. Couldn’t follow him. And he stuck to a prepared speech.
Brachiator
@Aleta:
Wow. Interesting. Is this another executive order?
Still don’t understand how this improves anything.
Andrea Mitchell says this is part of the launch of “Infrastructure Week.”
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@hovercraft:
Well, there was a ball player decades ago named Enos Slaughter. It sounded a bit like Anus… maybe the Rhodesian (Zaire) parents were going for?
Quinerly
@Brachiator:
I know a guy named Crusty Mudd. I kinda think the Crusty part might be a nickname, though.
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Jeff Weaver is horrible but Democrats have been losing congressional and state races for 7 years. Seven years. One would think they would have a plan by now.
We have horrible, useless critics but that’s separate from the issue of whether some criticism is warranted.
Van Buren
@bemused: It has taken me a while, but I finally know who Kushner reminds me of. Claus von Bulow, as portrayed by Jeremy Irons in Reversal of Fortune . The calm controlled psychopath vibe.
Kay
I can’t tell if the air traffic proposal is a real thing or a fake Trump thing. I’m leaning “fake”.
Trump could tell me we were launching missiles in 15 seconds and I’d have to see one before I’d believe it. Even then I’d want verification that it wasn’t accidental.
MCA1
@sukabi: I’d say it trained her quite well in the interviewing of serial liars, since that’s basically all she did there. It just didn’t train her to interview them in an journalistic or adversarial manner, instead honing her skills in enabling their propaganda.
Major Major Major Major
@Kay: It’s something that’s been percolating around DC for a while now, and IIRC was part of his platform.
D58826
@Quinerly: More GOP normalizing Der Fuhrer
No Drought No More
“Welcome to Crazytown, folks. Every day, it feels more and more like something has to give, that we can’t go on this way for another three years, seven months and 16 days”.
Take heart; “time takes time” (per Ringo Starr). We may very well see a Paul Ryan presidency by the Labor Day, but our system can take it. And insofar as something giving, it won’t be The People of this country. We’re all lumberjacks and we’re OK, but above all we’re not going anywhere. To be sure, there is fed up, War in Vietnam kind of vibe-in-the-air between Americans today that is similar to the angrier strains of November 1972, but they are no where near as intense. And while the Fall of Trump appears to be moving at a snail’s pace, it’s not. Quite the contrary, in fact. It was a sad, sad day when The Trickster took the presidential oath in in January 1973 rather than George McGovern, but remember the man was out on his presidential ass a mere 18 months later, with damn near everyone in the country relieved he was gone..
Anyway, Ben Franklin gave us all fair warning when he famously noted that we now had a Republic, “if you can keep it”. Lincoln too knew whereof he spoke when he wisely counseled Americans of his bleeding times, “it is well to be humble”. We’re currently in the process of defending it all over again, that’s all. The people of the United States can handle it.
Shell
Lordy, who was that cyborg on CNN this morning. Sebastian Gorka, trying to defend Donalds tweets by blaming Obama.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kay: sure, but the criticism here is specifically about money, and assumes that the money is there, or can be easily gotten, and that kind of thinking drives me crazy. Ossoff (I believe) broke fund-raising records, and is still being swamped by corporate/billionaire cash.
Also, nationalizing races, at least in the three or four districts we’re talking about these days, tends to work for Republicans and against Democrats. Maybe that will change as the trump scandals metastasize, but a decade or more of demonizing Nancy Pelosi and “San Francisco Democrats” plays right into the kind of districts in play, and the voters who show up for these elections.
D58826
@Quinerly: I didn’t watch it and am no fan of ‘Jesus is White’ kelly but why any one thought that she would lay a glove on him is beyond me. I suspect Clarence Darrow would have had a hard time getting a straight answer out of Putin. Lying is what he does.
DCrefugee
@Kay: ATC privatization in one form or another has been around since the 1980s. It’s a bad idea, and this week’s effort is made worse because Trump. There’s no good reason to turn over the best air transportation system in the world to a contractor. Dems should continue saying no to Trump on this and everything else.
Shana
@clay: Didn’t one of Zappa’s kids change their name?
MCA1
@Brachiator: People can name their dogs that sort of crap if they’re that concerned with the entire world knowing their aesthetic preferences.
Their children, on the other hand, will have to endure sneering and teasing and eventually make a decision whether to formally repudiate their own parents’ choice of a name for them, or work around it in daily life while being forced to feel like a jerkoff every time they’re at the DMV. It’s one thing to name your kid after a particular virtue you hope they might embody, or a Greek deity, or the location of their probable conception, or whatever. And I suppose at some point people looked at the first parents to name their kid “Hope” or “Apollo” and groused the same way I am. But, c’mon, Indiana f’ing Jones? That’s just a supremely selfish act.
These kids are, at some point, going to think to themselves “Wait, of all the choices my parents had in the entire universe of names, they went with an emo teen from a space movie who murders his own father? WTF is that supposed to even mean? And then they tell me it has nothing to do with their movie fandom; they just thought the name sounded cool. Right.”
Jeffro
@Immanentize: @clay: @Brachiator:
This is all about doing anything and everything to avoid raising any taxes whatsoever (as well as giving themselves and their grifter friends a chance to skim some serious dough out of the system.
The air traffic control system needs updating…ok, so let’s update it…wait, it requires money and we’re busy trying to cut taxes for millionaires, not raise them…gee, I guess we’d better sell the fucking thing off to private interests, then, rather than commit heresy against our no-tax-increases-ever religion.
2019: Here you go, newly-formed Vampire Squid Air Traffic Control Corp: the nation’s air traffic control system is now all yours! Thanks for “updating” it (I’m sure that will happen, right?) and for providing better service at lower salar…er…cost! (take that, controllers!)
Jeffro
@D58826: Would have been fun watching Al Franken interview Putin…Seth Meyers…someone with a serious streak of snark in ’em…
a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)
@NorthLeft12: This is because things like that–being called to account for their actions–are things that are supposed to happen to Other People, not to them or their friends.
Quinerly
OT and why am I not surprised: http://www.tennessean.com/story/entertainment/music/2017/06/05/espn-bringing-hank-williams-jr-back-monday-night-football/369018001/
Tarragon
@Shana:
Yes to Moon Unit. The story as I hear it is that the hospital refused to put what they wanted as her name on the birth certificate, when she found out she changed it.
At one point Frank Zappa was asked if he was worried his children would have problems with their unusual names. He answer was something along the lines of “You think they’ll have problems because of their first names?
bemused
@Quinerly:
No one surrounding him would dare. He’d make them suffer bigly.
I think we are all suffering from trumpy induced PTSD.
@Shana:
I think so but not 100% sure. Graydon has a long history with him.@Quinerly:
Rand Careaga
@Van Buren: You have no idea.
TenguPhule
@Archon-seven:
Even incompetent boobs can get enough people hurt and killed if they try hard enough.
TenguPhule
@ruemara:
Hey! That’s my personal hope! Give it back!
hovercraft
@West of the Rockies (been a while):
Rhodesia is now Zimbabwe, and sadly the father just didn’t realize that his boss was insulting him. The asshole boss was probably tickled pink that his kafir was so ignorant that he named his son ass. Everyone involved except the boss was mortified, the poor kid had to grow up with everyone knew that he started out with that name, fortunately for him, he did move away and so didn’t need to deal with it every day.
TenguPhule
@ezra abrams:
No.
This has been another edition of SATSQ.
TenguPhule
@Gin & Tonic: You need a sarcasm tag. Poe’s law.
TenguPhule
@Major Major Major Major:
She really can’t resist stepping on her dick, now can she.
Brachiator
@MCA1:
How about Indiana Joan? Of course naming a kid is a selfish act. Any name. Following family or ethnic tradition, naming a kid a Jr after yourself, there’s an element of selfishness and ego involved.
Yeah, the parent’s choice is kinda goofy. But unless the name is ugly or (in some countries) illegal, it usually works out.
nightranger
This whole daily obsession with his tweets is perplexing to me. Every day you people just post his tweets. If we want to read his tweets then we can go there and read them. Why do they need to get reposted, and then post a link to some other story somewhere that is writing a whole story about his friggin tweets.
This may be news to some of you but social media is a dying form of communication. It’s been trolled and bot’ed and propaganda’d to death in it’s current form. It’s maybe 75% just noise now with the signal to noise getting worse daily.
Unless and until the twitters and facebooks of the world get a handle on all the fakery, it’s a dying medium imo.
I think NYT’s is on to something by getting rid of the Public editor and doing more things with public comments. Remains to be seen what they are doing but if it’s more of a highly moderated comments type thing there might be some potential there. Anything that can reduce the noise in the signal.
TenguPhule
@nightranger:
Perhaps you need spectacles, comrade.
Denali
In college I knew a girl named Harolyn. She was from Kentucky.
No One You Know
@rikyrah: I never understood why he aspies to be the mayor of Pittsburgh. Is this what they mean by politics making strange bedfellows?
J R in WV
@germy:
From news reports (not sure which one, I’ve heard and seen several this afternoon and evening) one of the participant members of the group was disgusted, printed out the msgs, and sent them to the admissions office. Well done I say! Get rid of the competition early!
I kid. These racist fucks are getting what they deserve!
J R in WV
@Major Major Major Major:
Well, it is a good thing that the minority party in control of a minor nation like England isn’t in charge of the Internet, isn’t it?
I thought she was stupid (s dumb git!), and this proves it beyond any shadow of a doubt.