Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

In my day, never was longer.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

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

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

“woke” is the new caravan.

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

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

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

The willow is too close to the house.

The republican caucus is already covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

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

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

You are here: Home / Politics / Impeachment / Not the Onion: signing statement edition

Reader Interactions

124Comments

  4. 4.

    ruemara

    I read some of it and I don’t know why I’m sober. I can’t believe anyone looked at this man and thought “president!”

  6. 6.

    EdTheRed

    Also, this statement was obviously dictated by Trump…and the fact that no one, not even “his” generals, could talk him out of issuing it does not bode well for the “pivot!” crowd.

  7. 7.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    This is the kind of stuff that makes me wish that a time machine could be invented so that I can visit Nazareth in the Year Zero bearing a large rock and a note in Aramaic saying:

    “Does she really think you’re stupid enough to buy a line of shit like that?”

  8. 8.

    Shalimar

    It’s like what a high school student would write for Debate class. Pathetically amateur. This is not what a signing statement is supposed to sound like.

  9. 9.

    Litlebritdifrnt

    Just wanted to let you all know I am alive and well and going through more medical tests in two months than I have been through in 25 years in the US. Apparently apart from the heart problem there is nothing wrong with me. I will have Internet access on August 16 and will update everyone then. It is so good to be home!

  10. 10.

    Shalimar

    @Jeffro: For someone who is supposed to be on the verge of getting fired himself, McMaster has been surprisingly effective at rooting out ideologues in the last few weeks.

  11. 11.

    dmsilev

    I love the gratuitous insult about the ACA repeal debacle near the beginning. Man, he really is pissed that he hasn’t gotten to do the big signing ceremony thing for, well, just about any bill. Maybe, and I’m going out on a limb here, he isn’t the master dealmaker that he thinks of himself as.

  12. 12.

    Droppy

    This bill is so great. I am going to sign it, but first, I’m going to give a statement, a major statement: this bill is terrible. I hate this bill. I’ve written some of the best bills, great bills I negotiated, so I know great bills, and this is one when I sign it, but it’s not one when it was written because it isn’t a very good deal, which I could have made it. So I’m signing this bill which is a terrible, terrible deal because I will sign another bill which is tremendous and will fix this bill, the one I’m signing, not the one that will be the what many people will call the winning bill.

  13. 13.

    different-church-lady

    Repeat from the thread below:

    I reached two conclusions this morning.

    a) Trump is insane. (Actually, I reached that conclusion over a year ago)

    b) Anyone who voted for him is also insane.

    It’s (b) that ought to scare us more.

  19. 19.

    Betty Cracker

    The Russians are pissed off that they’re getting no mileage out of the lemon — orange? — they purchased:

    I can only hope this portends the release of the Russian pee hooker tapes. C’mon, Vlad and Dmitry. [Trump bully voice]
    What the hell do you have to lose?

    @Litlebritdifrnt: Glad you’re okay!

  22. 22.

    different-church-lady

    @SiubhanDuinne: Our basic problem here is that roughly 63 million Americans decided that “not normal” was what they quite deliberately wanted.

    I think we can safely assume that at the very least 50+ million still want it.

  23. 23.

    sharl

    @Litlebritdifrnt: Yaaay, good to hear from you, and sounds like good news on the health front! I hope life back in your Great Britain homeland continues to find you well.

  24. 24.

    david spikes

    Thought provoking that this is the only, actual, real, not bullshit major piece of legislation in the last six months. And Trump fought it, hates it now, but has to sign it. The master of deals, the getting things done guy.
    At a certain point, the lies, the delusion, the vainglory, and the craphounds and shitheels who enable it, it just becomes impossible to process-they’re all crazy and they literally don’t care.
    Will keep repeating to self: Fuck them, fuck all of them.
    On a lighter note. Jareds intern speech was billed as part of a summer lecture series. Can we get a list of future speakers and their topics? Certainly Ivanka on being a strong, independent woman who doesn’t let anybody run her life.

  25. 25.

    hellslittlestangel

    Despite the absurd horror of the last 6 months, I still find the “not The Onion” disclaimer to be helpful when current events get this utterly fucking stupid .

  26. 26.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Betty Cracker: Nah, Trump knows the Russians secretly love him after all and are only doing this because they have to. I mean, Vlad is the only one that will talk to him at Summits! They’re besties!

  27. 27.

    Bobby Thomson

    Although Richard didn’t do it, this seems as good a place as any to slag the practice of commenting “This is not normal.” after Trump’s every act. It’s a vacuous statement that isn’t even pejorative. If you mean that something is illegal, or immoral, or unethical, or ridiculously stupid, use those words.

  28. 28.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Litlebritdifrnt:

    I’m so glad to see your nym and see you commenting!! I asked about you a few months ago but don’t think there was ever an answer. So glad you’re back safely and sanely on your side of the Pond and hope you will resume your former role as a frequent, caring, sometimes caustic BJ jackal.

    (What happened to all the critters?)

  30. 30.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @dmsilev:

    Maybe, and I’m going out on a limb here, he isn’t the master dealmaker that he thinks of himself as.

    Don’t go breakin’ my heart, dmsilev.

  33. 33.

    david spikes

    @Betty Cracker:” Weak, outwitted, foolish.” Nice.
    There hasn’t been a real Twitter explosion for a few days-when it comes it’s going to be a beaut.

  35. 35.

    Gelfling 545

    @Shalimar: Sister Mary Fabian, RSM would have kicked our butts if we produced anything that pathetic in HER Rhetoric and Debate class. We’d have been rewriting for days.

  37. 37.

    lollipopguild

    @different-church-lady: People voted for Trump for a lot of different reasons. He lied his ass off and people heard what they wanted to hear from him. He promised things that were total opposites of each other so people heard what they wanted from him. He went Full White Racist in a way we haven’t seen since George Wallace back in the 60’s and a lot of people heard what they wanted from him. He made all kinds of BS promises and people heard what they wanted from him. The lying ass Right Wing Media helped him every step of the way. Many of the people who voted for him KNEW he was lying to them and voted for him anyway. A fair number of his voters hate America as it currently exists and want him to burn it all down and take us back to The Golden Age of 1950-1920-1890-1850. Most of these people are going to be disapointed in one way or another. They wanted a Ragegasam and they got it. It is up to us to do everything we can to hold things together and rebuild when the time comes.

  38. 38.

    sharl

    In case it hasn’t already been noted upthread, there was an “unofficial” signing statement – the one in David’s post – and the legal version.

    Daniel W. Drezner‏ @dandrezner

    Confirmed this was a Trump signing statement: https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/08/02/statement-president-donald-j-trump-signing-countering-americas …. But it was one of two. Here’s the legal one: https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/08/02/statement-president-donald-j-trump-signing-hr-3364.

  41. 41.

    Schlemazel

    @Jeffro:
    I know I am just being lazy but when I looked up his story I could not make heads or tails of what this really means. Whats your take?

  42. 42.

    Betty Cracker

    @Bobby Thomson: I disagree. IMO, one of the chief dangers of the Trump era is that the relentless onslaught of illegal, immoral, unethical and stupid behavior so overwhelms us that we get used to it — that we come to regard the daily avalanche of lies and malfeasance as normal. “Not normal” is perfectly serviceable shorthand to remind us that we should never get used to this. It has a separate meaning from calling out the nature of the behavior itself.

  43. 43.

    leeleeFL

    @hitchhiker: not A White House job, THE WHITE HOUSE JOB!!!!!

    Sweet Sister Frances, we are so completely screwed! I cannot even any f’in more.

    I think I need to get a prescription for a anti-anxiety something. And, mind you, I do not watch the news.

  44. 44.

    lgerard

    By limiting the Executives flexibility, this bill makes it harder for the United States to strike good deals for the American people

    That is some Jeffersonian level of discourse right there!

    I am really nonplussed by the new alt-right epithet Cosmopolitan

    Moar Stephen Miller please

  48. 48.

    david spikes

    @Major Major Major Major: Flexibility-is this a Bannon joke?
    “We’ve got the most flexibility the best flexibility, why one of my executive assistants is so flexible. . . . . . can’t go on, visualization made me go blind for a moment.

  52. 52.

    Gelfling 545

    @Betty Cracker: I agree. One pf the greatest dangers of the Trump regime is thst people will no longer find this behavior remarkable. It is good to note that shpuld not be accepted as falling within the norms of rational government.

  59. 59.

    different-church-lady

    @different-church-lady: FYWP won’t let me edit 53: want to add that Poe’s Law is tripping us up a lot in the past 24 hours. We have to be careful about what we run with, because there isn’t anything that’s too absurd to be true anymore.

  61. 61.

    Bobby Thomson

    @Betty Cracker: nope. I’m not normal, and I think most people like to think the same about themselves. And in politics, corruption and inertia are normal. Saying something isn’t normal is a completely empty statement.

    ETA: it won’t persuade anyone not already on your side. A Trump voter hears that and thinks, “Damn right! Normal got all our jobs sent to China!”

  67. 67.

    Gin & Tonic

    @lgerard:

    I am really nonplussed by the new alt-right epithet Cosmopolitan

    An old Stalinist epithet. It means “Jew”.

  69. 69.

    Schlemazel

    @Yutsano:
    I am trying to get a gig in the WHite House, I think I can last 10 days & then fall into some bullshit job at FUX News

  70. 70.

    leeleeFL

    It’s worse!!!!! Rick Perry is being considered for Homeland Security. It’s on TPM, I shit you not!

  72. 72.

    debbie

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    There was also a misplaced comma, but as soon as I saw the lack of commasizing, I stopped reading. This is, once again, an indictment of the American education system. What are those interns good for anyway?

  74. 74.

    sharl

    @SiubhanDuinne: As if we didn’t need another example of the insane twists-and-turns with this Administration, this piece came out just a little over a week ago:

    The Man McMaster Couldn’t Fire
    Thirty-one-year-old Ezra Cohen-Watnick holds the intelligence portfolio on the National Security Council—but almost everything about him is a mystery.

    Another loss by the Bannon/Breitbart faction, from what I can tell. McMaster also recently fired some other (lesser) trash-talking subordinate from the same alt-right’ish camp; I saw reference to that earlier today, but forget where it was (a Pentagon guy is all I remember).

  75. 75.

    joel hanes

    @Litlebritdifrnt:

    there is nothing wrong with me

    That has certainly always been my impression, at least of your online personality.
    Delighted to see you back in the comments.

  79. 79.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    Funny, that signing statement didn’t mention his 6 bankruptcies, how he blew a 200,000,000 dollar inheritance, how he drove 3 ca$in0s into the ground, how killed off an entire American football league, and how he relies on illegal Russian money laundering to stay afloat

    It must of been an oversight.

  80. 80.

    Gelfling 545

    @Gelfling 545: “that it should not be accepted” Apparently I don’t have pernission to edit which makes me wonder who does. Ipad typing takes a lot of editing, at least for me.

  82. 82.

    MCA1

    @Major Major Major Major: So, we’ve got not one, but two separate instances of no apostrophe on a possessive in a single statement, out of the WHITE HOUSE. All of this is not to overshadow the pettiness and whininess in tone. Which itself should not overshadow the basic logical error underlying the whole fucking argument they’re trying to make: it’s a sanctions bill. You don’t “negotiate” sanctions with a foreign country. It’s not a “deal” in any sense of the word. It’s retaliation and incentive setting.

    Just humiliation after humiliation. Morons Are Governing America.

  83. 83.

    debbie

    @Gin & Tonic:

    i didn’t realize that he was the one who leaked to Nunes. Can I assume he was exempted from Trump’s condemnation of leakers?

  88. 88.

    patrick II

    Bernie and Rand Paul were the only senators who voted against this bill and for Bernie it was because of the renewal of sanctions on Iran. So, what are the new sanctions? How are they different than the old ones? I can’t imagine Russia or China joining in — what about Europe? Is there a trigger? Other than generally pissing Iran off, will they have much affect? How do the sanctions in the new bill affect the Nuclear deal?

  94. 94.

    david spikes

    @[email protected]Gin & Tonic: But are they rootless? All the best cosmopolitans are-or is the cocktail the best cosmo, or Christ, you don’t think they’re talking about magazine. . do you?
    Mad, I’m going mad, I tell you.

  96. 96.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    @debbie: somehow he never mentioned being the first black president of Harvard Law, a best selling author, a constitutional law professor at a leading law school, and a Nobel Laurent.

  97. 97.

    Betty Cracker

    @Bobby Thomson: We’ll have to agree to disagree. “Not normal” resonated so strongly with me in the early days of this nightmare that I made a “Not Normal” tag for the blog, and I am usually reluctant to create tags since there are too many already. I’m not alone either; it resonates with plenty of other people, if the frequency with which it comes up in conversation, on signs, etc., is any indication.

  99. 99.

    sharl

    @debbie, @germy:

    The Atlantic story I linked (#74) noted that there is little information, including photos, to be found for this guy. The always diligent Laura Rosen came up with one, which is the only one I’ve seen (though I haven’t been looking).

  100. 100.

    Shalimar

    @different-church-lady: We aren’t getting played in this instance. This is something the White House put out. There is no such thing as an “unofficial signing statement.” That is called a press release. This isn’t normal. None of this is normal.

  101. 101.

    debbie

    @NotMax:

    And they spent like a week to refine this deathless brainless prose?

    I’d bet it was very last minute. I’d bet Trump was storming around and refusing to either sign or veto. I’d even bet he was thinking of not signing it, but letting it be enacted without his signature. It must have taken lots of convincing to get him to see that that would be not be perceived as the act of a tough negotiator but a sly wink at his own complicity.

  105. 105.

    sukabi

    @hitchhiker: I’ll guarantee the ONLY part of that statement that Drumpf wrote is the bottom sentence….and any other instances where there is an invocation of biggest crowds ever.

  106. 106.

    jimmiraybob

    Are we sure that the error isn’t from running a Russian document through Google translates?

  107. 107.

    Bill Arnold

    @Betty Cracker:

    …one of the chief dangers of the Trump era is that the relentless onslaught of illegal, immoral, unethical and stupid behavior so overwhelms us that we get used to it…

    Yes. In geek-ese, that would be something like 3 sigma outlier not normal, in several dimensions. IMO.
    Also, the Goldwater rule exists for a reason, but oh my is it hobbling current discourse[1]. (To be clear, I think he should resign for health reasons for his own good (trying to care, here), i.e. the job appears to be damaging his health, including brain health.)

    [1] e.g. why not something like an anomymized large poll of practitioners. (details to be worked out.)

  113. 113.

    sharl

    @sharl: Hah, here’s the deal on that other, lower-ranking NSC staffer I couldn’t recall above (#74), who McMaster actually fired a couple weeks ago; I still had that browser tab open with that story.

    An NSC Staffer Is Forced Out Over a Controversial Memo
    The document charges that globalists, Islamists, and other forces within and outside the government are subverting President Trump’s agenda.

    A top official of the National Security Council was fired last month after arguing in a memo that President Trump is under sustained attack from subversive forces both within and outside the government who are deploying Maoist tactics to defeat President Trump’s nationalist agenda.

    His dismissal marks the latest victory by National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster in the ongoing war within Trump’s White House between those who believe that the president is under threat from dark forces plotting to undermine him, and those like McMaster who dismiss this as conspiratorial thinking.

    Rich Higgins, a former Pentagon official who served in the NSC’s strategic-planning office as a director for strategic planning, was let go on July 21. Higgins’s memo describes supposed domestic and international threats to Trump’s presidency, including globalists, bankers, the “deep state,” and Islamists. The memo characterizes the Russia story as a plot to sabotage Trump’s nationalist agenda. It asserts that globalists and Islamists are seeking to destroy America. The memo also includes a set of recommendations, arguing that the problem constitutes a national-security priority.

    Oy, nuts and wack-a-loons as far as the eye can see…

  114. 114.

    TenguPhule

    @hellslittlestangel:

    Despite the absurd horror of the last 6 months, I still find the “not The Onion” disclaimer to be helpful when current events get this utterly fucking stupid .

    The day is coming when reality and the Onion will be impossible to tell apart.

  116. 116.

    TS

    @debbie:

    I don’t remember any of Obama’s signing statements including a single syllable about Obama’s perceptions of his own excellence. Did I miss something?

    The world fully recognizes President Obama’s excellence – trump has to keep bringing up his brilliance cause no-one else has reason to mention same.

  119. 119.

    Bobby Thomson

    @Betty Cracker: it is used a lot, but I haven’t seen it gain traction outside the set of usual suspects and other DFHs. So yes, agree to disagree.

  120. 120.

    Gvg

    @Bobby Thomson: you missed the back story and this phrase short hand for warnings from experts on how authoritarians took over their societies. Journalists from Russia, academics from various other countries, etc. They began befoe the election when I was still sure Trump would lose in a blowout and thought they were alarmist, but here we are. They said the insanity of bullshit fountaining was deliberate and made normal busy people overwhelmed so they lost track of what used to be normal. They said you needed to keep track of what we used to consider normal descent behavior or we would find ourselves changed for the worse. Other people took it to heart and I have noticed many people on many sites saying that phrase a lot. So much IS happening just like we were warned too. It’s just tying to keep track of how we used to expect government officials to behave without having to be arrested to stop. Used to, 6 months ago…so long, another life. I think one of the warners was Sarah Kendizor (spelling?)

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