Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Consistently wrong since 2002

Their freedom requires your slavery.

In my day, never was longer.

No one could have predicted…

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

You cannot shame the shameless.

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

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

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

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

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

Let there be snark.

A Senator Walker would also be an insult to reason, rationality, and decency.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

After roe, women are no longer free.

You are here: Home / Politics / domestic terrorists / Open Thread: At the Trump White House, It’s Always Worse Than You Expected…

Open Thread: At the Trump White House, It’s Always Worse Than You Expected…

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Whoever invented the game of RISK has a lot to answer for…


Reader Interactions

248Comments

  3. 3.

    debbie

    He’s even lost the WSJ:

    The Wall Street Journal editorial board took aim at the Trump White House on Tuesday, calling out chief strategist Steve Bannon for fueling infighting aimed at new chief of staff John Kelly and others.

    …

    The rebuke of Bannon — and, more notably, of Trump’s leadership — comes after reports that media properties owned by conservative mogul Robert Murdoch, including the Journal, have soured on Trump, despite the pair’s reportedly active phone habit.

  4. 4.

    TenguPhule

    Leaving aside means and only looking at outcome, regime change for North Korea would be a great outcome from a humanitarian perspective.

    Leaving aside means and looking at outcome, removing 60 million Republicans from the planet would be a great outcome from humanity’s perspective.

  5. 5.

    TenguPhule

    Whoever invented the game of RISK has a lot to answer for…

    Anne, everyone knows you start from Australia and take over the world from there.

  6. 6.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    @Mike J:
    Thanks shit for brain voters and GOP! You helped destroy American global power because “negroes gettin’ free college and jumping ahead in line, strangers in our own country argle bargle”. God I wish these people would just fucking die in the most agonizing, slow, and humiliating way possible tommorrow.

  11. 11.

    Mike J

    @Adam L Silverman: Did you see my q in the previous thread re wtf is happening with the US embassy in Cuba? Seems odd to ship home people for medical reasons and kick their dips out of the US in retaliation.

  13. 13.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    @TenguPhule:
    I doubt the North Koreans can reach Bumfuck Nowhere, Iowa.

    ETA: And anyway I was thinking, unrealistically, that they would die in such a way that no one else would be harmed. It was just an expression of frustration. They’ve ruined MY country and I want it back.

  18. 18.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Mike J: Okay, I just read the reporting. I got nothing. That is just strange. It is almost like two completely separate events – US diplomatic personnel getting sick in 2016 and being medevaced back to the US for treatment and the US declaring two Cuban diplomatic personnel persona non grata and sending them home – got mashed up into one news story even though they’re not/may not be related.

  21. 21.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    @TenguPhule:
    I have no control over any of it. If it happens, god forbid, than my wish up there would have had nothing to do with it. It would have happened anyway.

  22. 22.

    TenguPhule

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Warning tags!! For the love of anyone’s Deity or Deities or no one’s: WARNING TAGS!!!!!!!!!!!

    Trump: Ivanka, I want you to bark like a seal.

    #Youwerewarned

  23. 23.

    hovercraft

    @TenguPhule:
    Obviously you can leave aside the thousands, hundreds of thousands, or millions who’d be “adversely affected” by a preemptive strike, they would after all be mostly people of color, even if they are the most acceptable non white people. Sometimes you’ve just got to be able to make sacrifices for the greater good. Killing off the GOP base would be a net benefit for humanity, but the loss of that many white people would be unacceptable. Also too, while I hate them more everyday, I refuse to devolve to their level of inhumanity.

  25. 25.

    Roger Moore

    Leaving aside means and only looking at outcome, regime change for North Korea would be a great outcome from a humanitarian perspective.

    Leaving aside the means and only looking at outcome, me having a billion dollars would be a great outcome from a financial perspective.

    This is just begging for a hashtag game.

  27. 27.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Leaving aside means and only looking at outcome, regime change for North Korea would be a great outcome from a humanitarian perspective.

    Smells like 2002 spirit.

  28. 28.

    Adam L Silverman

    The next person that suggests, even jokingly, killing people you don’t agree with is going in time out. Am I clear?

  29. 29.

    TenguPhule

    @hovercraft:

    Also too, while I hate them more everyday, I refuse to devolve to their level of inhumanity.

    I just like to point out the sheer absurdity of what they’re saying.

    Every single one of them is batshit insane.

  31. 31.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Roger Moore: It is also a stupid comment by someone who hasn’t the foggiest clue as to what is likely to happen if/when the DPRK government falls. Regardless of how it falls.

  32. 32.

    TenguPhule

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Right now they can’t reach anyone in the continental US.

    I don’t live in the continental US. I’m out on an island in the middle of the Ocean. Not part of Real America at all. //

  35. 35.

    TenguPhule

    @Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD):

    In the Risk-style game Pandemic 2, if you don’t start from Madagascar you’re pretty much fucked.

    True. Of course the one time I lucked out, I got the “reduced lethality” mutation and ended up infecting the entire planet, but not wiping out humanity.

  37. 37.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @Roger Moore: Actually even the short term outcome of “regime change” or regime collapse in DPRK would be problematic for it’s neighbors(mainly China and the ROK) in a major way. Korean reunification would be Germany on steroids.

    ETA: I see Adam got there first.

  42. 42.

    Adam L Silverman

    @TenguPhule: If Puerto Rico or the US Virgin Islands then you’re good. If Hawaii or Guam or the Marianas they can reach you with some of their other weapons. And I’m not trying to be flippant. The nuclear weapon threat is directly tied to the ICBM threat. Though, to be honest, my take is that Kim wants it for the deterrent and not to use offensively.

  43. 43.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    @Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD): @TenguPhule:

    In Plague,Inc. I always go with the strat of making the disease as infectious and innocuous as possible to avoid detection. Start out in a poor area, try to get as many transmission modes as possible. The hardest places to infect are always Greenland or Iceland, because of the climate.

  44. 44.

    Mnemosyne

    @Roger Moore:

    I vote to use the river otters at the LA Zoo. They’re the most adorable killing machines I’ve ever seen.

    (I hope that doesn’t get me a time out …)

  48. 48.

    TenguPhule

    @hovercraft:

    Too true, I get the need to vent.

    Since I’m going to be even closer to the fireworks then usual, I really didn’t need Trump to increase my chances of being vaporized in an atomic fireball on my vacation by a non-trivial amount.

  50. 50.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @debbie: The WSJ loses it again. There is no “Trump Leadership” to speak of in any way, shape or form.

  53. 53.

    TenguPhule

    @Adam L Silverman:

    If Puerto Rico or the US Virgin Islands then you’re good. If Hawaii or Guam or the Marianas they can reach you with some of their other weapons.

    Yes. And I am going to be in Japan.

  54. 54.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    @TenguPhule:
    I want apologize for my comment above. I didn’t take the recent NK crap into the equation when I said it. I just don’t see T’s supporters going away anytime soon. They’re dangerous.

  58. 58.

    Baud

    The next person that suggests, even jokingly, killing people you don’t agree with is going in time out. Am I clear?

    @Adam L Silverman: How about if they are spirited off the planet by aliens?

    @different-church-lady: Sure, fine.

    The To Serve Man loophole. Nice, different-church-lady.

  59. 59.

    Chyron HR

    Leaving aside means and only looking at outcome, regime change for the United States of America would be a great outcome from a humanitarian perspective.

  63. 63.

    Gelfling 545

    Kelly was surprised? Surely by now he shouldn’t be surprised if Trump said the slithy toves did gyre in the wabe or that he was the emperess of all the Russias.

  64. 64.

    Jeffro

    @Adam L Silverman:

    my take is that Kim wants it for the deterrent and not to use offensively.

    It sure seems that way, although having been bombarded with nothing but “THE NORTH KOREANS ARE NUTS!!1!” messages since forever and a day, it’s the ultimate ‘lift’ to try and explain to the American people now that the DPRK was actually acting pretty rationally in trying to get nukes.

    And that would be *if* we had an administration even slightly interested in conveying that reality – we clearly don’t.

    Would be nice if one of these generals could explain to Trumpov that he’d look even tougher if he told Kim: “Congrats – you have a handful, we have thousands. You’d better behave or we’ll work with China and keep your imports at subsistence levels”.

    Then again, that would involve North Korea actually believing that Trumpov could work with China…sigh…

  70. 70.

    Jeffro

    @hovercraft:

    Killing off the GOP base would be a net benefit for humanity, but the loss of that many white people would be unacceptable. Also too, while I hate them more everyday, I refuse to devolve to their level of inhumanity.

    1) Welcome back!
    2) Please hate only the GOP white people.
    3) Keep refusing to devolve even an inch – stay up on the high road with (most of) the rest of us! :)

  73. 73.

    different-church-lady

    BROKAW: Alright, we got it?
    DIRECTOR: No. We’ve got “eaten by wolves”.
    BROKAW: What? Now, come on!
    DIRECTOR: Just read it!
    BROKAW: Gerald Ford isn’t gonna be eaten by wolves!
    DIRECTOR: Taft was.

  76. 76.

    TenguPhule

    Also, Debt Ceiling Crisis.

    The currency markets are betting on a default. Yen is being shorted with big money.

    Fuck Republicans for ruining my vacation. Again.

  84. 84.

    Roger Moore

    @Adam L Silverman:
    Sea otters supposedly also figured into the purchase of Alaska. Hunting them for fur was the Russians’ primary economic activity in Alaska, so when they were hunted out they decided the territory wasn’t worth the cost of defending from an expected British attack in the event of another war. They decided to sell it before it got taken away, and the US was the ideal buyer because it was assumed we’d also serve as a check on British interest in the area.

  87. 87.

    jimmiraybob

    Any chance that “Fire and Fury” is the name of a porn flick? Has anybody checked yet?

  93. 93.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Jeffro: Where this whole thing was blown was when the deserting coward ditched the dialog Clinton had started with NK (because CLINTON!) and then pretty deliberately said “you’re next, slant eyes” to them in the early aughts, then invaded Iraq, giving NK all the encouragement they needed to develop a nuclear arsenal as a deterrent.

    Same thing with Iran.

    Then again, some dipshits on Twitter are very aptly using the US crushing of Iraq’s conventional, large military in 2003 as the scenario for dealing with NK, ignoring terrain, lack of intel on how the NK civilian populace will react, etc and describing a cake walk. Which, it turns out, even Iraq was not.

  94. 94.

    Lee

    @schrodingers_cat:

    A colleague & I have had it about 48 hours.

    I did like that Outlook remembered my pst files (2013 I had to reconnect all of them). Outlook seems to run a bit better than ’13 did (but that is not saying much).

  95. 95.

    JWR

    Just heard a news flash that NK now says they’re planning to attack in the waters around Guam by the middle of either this or next month. (Wasn’t paying much attention, so I may be off on both the time and location.)

    Wait, they’re going to attack water?

  97. 97.

    Another Scott

    Reuters: DPRK to develop Guam strike plan by mid-August:

    SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea will develop a plan by mid-August to launch four intermediate range missiles at the U.S. territory of Guam before presenting it to leader Kim Jong Un who will make a decision on whether to proceed, the North’s state media said on Thursday.

    The unusually detailed report on the attack plan marked a further escalation in tensions between Pyongyang and Washington after U.S. President Donald Trump warned North Korea earlier this week it would face “fire and fury” if it threatened the United States.

    North Korea’s official news agency KCNA described Trump’s threat as a “load of nonsense”.

    “Sound dialogue is not possible with such a guy bereft of reason and only absolute force can work on him,” it said of Trump, adding that it will keep closely watching the speech and behavior of the United States.

    The North Korean army is developing a plan “in order to interdict the enemy forces on major military bases on Guam and to signal a crucial warning to the United States,” the KCNA report said. Guam is home to about 163,000 people and a U.S. military base that includes a submarine squadron, an airbase and a Coast Guard group.

    “The Hwasong-12 rockets to be launched by the KPA (Korean People’s Army) will cross the sky above Shimane, Hiroshima and Koichi Prefectures of Japan,” the report said, citing General Kim Rak Gyom, commander of the Strategic Force of the KPA.

    “They will fly 3,356.7 km (2,085.8 miles) for 1,065 seconds and hit the waters 30 to 40 km away from Guam.”

    […]

    It’s a good thing that there’s nothing to worry about and everyone can sleep well at night, huh.

    :-/

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  98. 98.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @JWR: Well, they apparently are still having problems with reentry details on their missiles, so “in the vicinity of” is the best they can do at this time.

  99. 99.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Villago Delenda Est: It will not be possible for 1AD to make a speed run from Seoul to Pyongyang as it did from Kuwait to Baghdad in 2003. Then MG Dempsey had the terrain on his side. My former boss MG White would not.

  100. 100.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    @JWR:
    Probably just to freak out the US by detonating weapons near Guam. Doubt they’ll have great accuracy. Like Adam said, It won’t be a nuclear weapon. Probably a long range conventional warhead.

  104. 104.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Adam L Silverman: Ayup. You remember M*A*S*H the TV series? The hilly areas of southern California where it was filmed are a pretty good approximation of the actual terrain between Seoul and Pyongyang. Not ideal tank country.

  107. 107.

    TenguPhule

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Then again, some dipshits on Twitter are very aptly using the US crushing of Iraq’s conventional, large military in 2003 as the scenario for dealing with NK, ignoring terrain, lack of intel on how the NK civilian populace will react, etc and describing a cake walk.

    And Iraq’s military was hollowed out by sanctions and lack of suppliers.

    NK, doesn’t have that problem. Mainly because the rulers don’t give a shit about anything but their military.

  110. 110.

    debbie

    Someone needs to sit Trump down and give him a history lesson, pointing out that WWI resulted from a few misunderstood words between friends combined with a stubborn refusal to back down or to compromise.

  115. 115.

    TS

    But.. but .. but the media told me things would be different with Gen Kelly as head of staff – now we would see the “real” President being presidential

    In their dreams

    What will get the media to except the country is led by a madman – and what does it take to get the fool of the morning to stop bringing up Obama and Clinton (both sides) when talking about the trump disaster.

  116. 116.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    @TenguPhule:
    If the worst comes to worst, I’m sure Trump will be such an insufferable asshole in the bunker that the others, probably McMaster, Kelly, Secret Service, will mutiny and kill him and the rest of his WH clowns.

  119. 119.

    dmsilev

    @debbie:

    Someone needs to sit Trump down and give him a history lesson, pointing out that WWI resulted from a few misunderstood words between friends combined with a stubborn refusal to back down or to compromise.

    Trump lacks the calm demeanor and analytic skills of Kaiser Wilhelm.

  123. 123.

    Mnemosyne

    @Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:

    Nice! I actually have his autograph in my Hamilton book — he was at my friend’s recording studio so she had him sign it for me.

    And the author who referred to the Salmon of Correction was Mary Jo Putney, FWIW. She’s jumping back and forth between Regency and fantasy romance right now and just had a short story published in the same collection as Lois McMaster Bujold.

  127. 127.

    mai naem mobile

    @debbie: he thinks he is in a movie or tv series. You can’t teach him history. It would be like teaching a 2 year old history . They don’t understand the significance of historical events.

  128. 128.

    Mike in NC

    @dmsilev: Otto Von Bismarck is supposed to have said that the Kaiser expected to be treated like a child whose every day was his birthday. Sound familiar?

  132. 132.

    dmsilev

    @Doug R:

    Yeah, we don’t want radioactive debris raining down on the west coast either.

    On the plus side, it’d do wonders for the national production rate of Hulks and Spider-men.

  135. 135.

    hellslittlestangel

    @schrodingers_cat: Unless you want to do advanced data analysis in Excel, you’re better off with an earlier, less-resource-hoggish version. I recommend Office 2010, which has the best Help feature.

  136. 136.

    Another Scott

    @schrodingers_cat: I saw downstairs that you have Office 10.

    My personal vote is:

    1) if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Meaning, unless you need to exchange documents with newer file formats with others (.xlsx, .docx, etc.) and need perfect fidelity, there’s little reason to “upgrade”. The new version will be bigger, it will have the “ribbon” interface (which means it takes at least one more mouse click to do anything than it did with the older version, and the ribbon takes up space, etc.), and it will tax your PC more than the older version.

    2) MS is trying to get everyone to move to their “365” version of Office – which is their online, annual subscription version. Some advantages, but understand the costs and issues.

    3) If you need something newer, look at LibreOffice. It’s a very good free clone. Exchanging XLSx and DOCx stuff between MS and LO generally works very well in my experience. PPTx is a little more cranky, but PPTx is cranky on MS between PCs and Macs, so … :-/

    HTH a little.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  137. 137.

    schrodingers_cat

    @hellslittlestangel: I already have that. I can get it a low price was wondering if it was worth the trouble of upgrading. I do do a lot of data analysis use the Analysis Tool Pack and Pivot tables, write my own macros and all that good stuff. Apparently you can also input handwritten equations in the new Word, that’s a feature I can see myself using a lot and so on.

  138. 138.

    MomSense

    Ok in happy news I just finished the first draft of my children’s story. It is a ROUGH first draft but it’s a start.

  139. 139.

    Betty Cracker

    So this evening, Trump tweeted this video that’s a montage of himself being a big shot in various scenes with Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA” as the soundtrack. Yep! Totally normal!

  140. 140.

    TenguPhule

    @Betty Cracker:

    So this evening, Trump tweeted this video that’s a montage of himself being a big shot in various scenes with Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA” as the soundtrack. Yep! Totally normal!

    Nothing matters anymore.

  142. 142.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @MomSense:

    So, is it a legit typo, or photoshopped? Have you seen the dead-tree edition?

    (ETA: I very much want it to be an actual typo.)

  144. 144.

    dmsilev

    @schrodingers_cat: The equation editor in recent versions of Word will, to some extent, parse LaTeX commands. Seems to work mostly for symbols and the like, but not for structures like fractions, for which you still have to use the icon toolbar.

  147. 147.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Betty Cracker:

    So this evening, Trump tweeted this video that’s a montage of himself being a big shot in various scenes with Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA” as the soundtrack. Yep! Totally normal!

    Henceforth, this video will play on a loop whenever the twice-daily Propaganda File is delivered and reviewed slobbered over.

  148. 148.

    Betty Cracker

    @Baud: I think mine would be “Waters of March.” The Susannah McCorkle version.

    ETA: And I would be pictured waving away boxer farts, burning scones, being mobbed by chickens, etc.

  150. 150.

    gene108

    As bad as Trump is, Bush, Jr landed us in this mess.

    If they did not undo the Clinton Admin deal with North Korea, threaten them, name them as part of the Axis of Evil, etc, they might not have restarted their nuclear program.

    Of all the failures of Bush, Jr, this gets overlooked all the time.

  153. 153.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @sylvania:

    News broke only today, apparently. I have no idea how it was kept quiet for two or three weeks.

    I think it was discussed in comments in one of the earlier threads today but hasn’t been front-paged AFAIK (have been running around a lot and am not yet caught up on the day’s BJ).

  159. 159.

    TenguPhule

    @schrodingers_cat:

    with T we have are approaching a point of singularity.

    I think we’ve already crossed the event horizon and are stuck looking at the naked singularity.

    Or we will, once the tape is finally broadcast.

  160. 160.

    TenguPhule

    @Mnemosyne:

    Look, if I’m no longer allowed to imagine the Trumpsters being eaten by giant river otters from South America, then what’s the point of posting here? //

    Kittens, Puppies and gardens.

  161. 161.

    hovercraft

    @sylvania:
    msnbc has been talking about it all day. Coincidentally on the day of the raid Twitler sent several tweets bitching about Mueller and Rosenstein.

  162. 162.

    joel hanes

    @hellslittlestangel:

    you’re better off with an earlier, less-resource-hoggish version

    That you can actually buy an indefinite-term license for, instead of renting the license yearly.
    That keeps your data on your disk, rather than in the cloud.

  166. 166.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    More Eli Lake-ism

    Jacob Wohl‏Verified account @ JacobAWohl
    The US Military crushed Sadam’s Army (one of the largest in the world at the time) in a matter of days. We can do the same to North Korea

    at least this hump seems to be some sort of finance-douche and is probably only asked his opinions on war and geopolitics by viewers-deserts like Fox Business

  168. 168.

    TenguPhule

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    The US Military crushed Sadam’s Army (one of the largest in the world at the time) in a matter of days. We can do the same to North Korea

    Adam, does it count if we wish for JacobAWohl to be stuffed into an artillery shell and fired out to sea?

    I’m pretty sure it could be arranged so he survives the experience.

  174. 174.

    hellslittlestangel

    @schrodingers_cat: Well, if you can get a good deal, and you’d really use the advanced stuff (I’m thinking of Power BI in Excel 2016), then go for it. But two definite negatives about 2016: 1) All the Help is online — you have to search, and the results that come back are 90% grossly irrelevant; 2) The interface is seriously ugly — it took me months to accept that there wasn’t something wrong with my graphics card, that they made it that way on purpose.

  179. 179.

    Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism

    @schrodingers_cat: It still really, really wants you to save everything to OneDrive. I just put shortcuts to my most used directories into OneDrive so I could easily get to where I really wanted to be when it had a brain fart and dragged me back there.

  180. 180.

    TenguPhule

    @Major Major Major Major:

    “We have a top-secret plan to attack America. It is nuking Guam, around 5am on August 23rd. This is totally not sabre rattling. p.s. I am not a crank”

    I’d be more concerned that they intend to test fire around Guam.

    Given the displayed accuracy record so far, Guam might actually be safer as the designated target.

    All it takes is one thing to go wrong for everything to go wrong.

  181. 181.

    TenguPhule

    @Mnemosyne:

    I think we’re supposed to avoid wishing harm on specific individuals.

    He explicitly said we’re not supposed to be wishing death on our enemies.

    Nothing was said about crippling injuries.

  182. 182.

    JWR

    @gene108:

    As bad as Trump is, Bush, Jr landed us in this mess.

    Very true. Every time I think of Iran, Iraq, Syria, ISIS/ISIL, (etc. etc.), and now North Korea, all I can think of is Shrub, along with his wrecking crew and their direct responsibility for this sh*t..

    BTW, is anyone tracking Dennis Rodman’s movements? Because once he’s left the country for greener, ie. not yet nuked pastures, it’ll be time to start Duckin’ & Coverin’! //

  183. 183.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    Looks like I picked the wrong week to hide incriminating documents in Paul Manafort’s house.

  185. 185.

    Yarrow

    @jacy: I think it’s two things. One, yes he has flipped to a certain extent, but as was evident by the search that made news today, he isn’t fully cooperating with them or has withheld information. Second, since the National Enquirer’s owner is best buddies with Trump it’s an indication that Trump is throwing Manafort under the bus. They’ll hope that they can blame Manafort for everything and get away without charges themselves. Not going to work, but that’s their tactic.

    If Manafort was hoping for a pardon from Trump the National Enquirer thing is also an indication he’s less likely to get one.

  187. 187.

    TenguPhule

    Why is it that the lyrics from Les Poissons are coming to mind when I watch this Trump flustercuck?

  188. 188.

    TenguPhule

    @gene108:

    As bad as Trump is, Bush, Jr landed us in this mess.

    All the sins of the current decade can be traced to him. Every single one.

    When the next regime takes over, we need to hand Bush and Cheney and all their friends over to the Iraqis to do with as they please. If any group of individuals ever deserved to be stripped of their citizenship, it was them.

  189. 189.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Yarrow:

    Thanks! I even commented, well down the thread. My short-term memory is …

    What was I saying again?

  193. 193.

    gene108

    @ruemara:

    When I read articles like this, I feel like our institutions are broken and need to be wiped out and rebuilt.

    If some folks get abducted by space aliens, I’d be okay with it.

  196. 196.

    TenguPhule

    I’d forgotten how many times he’s done this

    On Tuesday, Trump delivered remarks about North Korea — words we now know to have been off the cuff — that pushed the world toward a nuclear standoff last seen in the Cuban missile crisis: “North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States.” If it does make threats, the president said, “they will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen.”

    Many noted that the wording echoed Harry Truman’s warning at the time of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. But then came Tillerson, a former ExxonMobil chairman, to assure us that there is nothing to see. It has become a familiar exercise: walking back, cleaning up and outright contradicting crazy things uttered by the man with the nuclear codes.

    Its a little stunning when he goes on to list how many times this orange sack of shit has done this same song and dance on every other topic.

    Our international credibility is shit now.

  198. 198.

    The Dangerman

    So, the Cantelope Caesar is riffing about “fire and fury” with the new and improved Comms team. What would have happened if Mooch was still there?

  202. 202.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Betty Cracker:

    I’ve always wanted somebody to do a montage of police brutality scenes, urban poverty, Abu Ghraib abuses, the aftermath of Haditha and the aftermath of Mahmoudiya set to that song…

  207. 207.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @TenguPhule:

    I look at their threats of attacks on Guam as giving a six year old a pool cue, setting the cue ball on the table next to the rail, and telling the kid to do a double bank shot the length of the table.

    If you don’t have global tracking systems, a six decade history of experience with rocketry testing and a lot of real estate to practice with, I think it to be a near impossible task.

  210. 210.

    TenguPhule

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:

    I look at their threats of attacks on Guam as giving a six year old a pool cue, setting the cue ball on the table next to the rail, and telling the kid to do a double bank shot the length of the table.

    If you don’t have global tracking systems, a six decade history of experience with rocketry testing and a lot of real estate to practice with, I think it to be a near impossible task.

    And as I said before, I’m not worried about them intentionally hitting Guam. I’m worried they’re going to aim in Guam’s general direction and something goes horribly wrong. Their “goal” is to hit the waters about 20 miles off shore. Given their current track record, I’m concerned they will miss the water.

  211. 211.

    Mnemosyne

    @Major Major Major Major:

    I should have stayed home, but I had to buy a birthday cake for the office and I couldn’t back out because the person whose birthday it was made a special point of being in the office this afternoon. I went home right after that.

  214. 214.

    SFAW

    @schrodingers_cat:

    I used to be a cosmopolitan elite and now I am country bumpkin.

    Um, Stockbridge, Barrington, Northampton, etc are not exactly Hicksville, you know. (Although I get the sense you’re probably closer to Quabbin than to those places.)

  215. 215.

    p.a.

    Unsourced, from Motif Mag (alt RI biweekly. Yeah, I know, but believable):

    When in Rome…

    It wasn’t reported in the US press, but the classless and tasteless Ivanka The Terrible showed off her cultural acumen and grasp of reality whilst in Rome after the papal visit by the abhorrent extended Trump family.

    The phony Jewess, who converted so her clueless and dimwitted grinning chimp of a husband Jared wouldn’t be cut out of his overbearing Daddy’s will because his bride wasn’t kosher, took a tour of The Eternal City, and at one point saw a picture of a face on a wall. It was that of locally beloved former soccer player Giorgio Chinaglia, who starred for one of Rome’s two biggest clubs, Lazio, hated foe of Roma (think Red Sox-Yankees here, kids). Chinaglia then came to America to continue his career as a headliner for the New York Cosmos, alongside the legendary Pele, but his legacy endures in Rome.

    Asked the deeply religious advisor-to-the-president Ivanka of one of her companions, “Which saint is that?”

    Mazel tov, genius! That’ll be 10 Our Fathers, 10 Hail Marys, and 10 rosaries. Look it up.

  217. 217.

    Captain C

    @Mnemosyne: I think today’s daily Internets go to you for that analogy. Where would you like them sent?

    (That was the first movie we ever taped on our VCR back in the early ’80s.)

  219. 219.

    Captain C

    @p.a.:

    Asked the deeply religious advisor-to-the-president Ivanka of one of her companions, “Which saint is that?”

    Saint Giorgio, patron saint of soccer players who thought they were better than Pele but were laughably wrong.

    ETA: Shouldn’t that have been 9 of each, as that was Chinaglia’s uniform number during his playing days?

  220. 220.

    TenguPhule

    Disclaimer: This was not from the Onion. Seriously.

    In their first and only meeting, President Obama explicitly warned Donald Trump days after the election about the urgency of North Korea’s nuclear weapons threat.

    A few weeks later, it was clear that Obama had made an impression: Trump raised the matter out of the blue in a telephone conversation with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, according to an Asia expert at the State Department who reviewed a transcript.

    “What Tsai Ing-wen knows about North Korea could fill a thimble. It’s not the focus of her world,”

    We are in so much fucking trouble.

  224. 224.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Mnemosyne: I thought everyone knew that. Seriously though, I thought the Field only had one of them. I remember it as a rather disappointingly small and mangy looking thing.

  226. 226.

    Mnemosyne

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    I haven’t been to the Field in over 20 years, so I didn’t remember them being there. They definitely have both of them now, if they didn’t before, along with an iPad explaining their story.

    They were young lions, so they’re not very big, but that makes their murder record even more impressive.

    ETA: The Field also brews their own beer with a local brewery, if you’re into that kind of thing. G liked their IPA but didn’t want to pay $4.50 per bottle for a 6-pack when my brother had already given him a 12-pack of New Glarus to take home.

  229. 229.

    Mnemosyne

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Yup. That’s what makes big cats so dangerous — once they figure out how easy it is to catch humans, they go, Why am I wasting time and energy chasing these deer/antelope around? and start preying on humans.

  231. 231.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @TenguPhule:

    this orange sack of shit has done this same song and dance

    This is why every time Trump declares something horrific, I don’t get excited. With bellicose threats, at this point I take it for granted he’s running his mouth and will do nothing. I noticed long ago that he verbally declares war, then gets on the phone and whines for them to surrender so he doesn’t look bad, then goes and takes a nap and forgets it all.

  237. 237.

    Jeffro

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Where this whole thing was blown was when the deserting coward ditched the dialog Clinton had started with NK (because CLINTON!) and then pretty deliberately said “you’re next, slant eyes” to them in the early aughts, then invaded Iraq, giving NK all the encouragement they needed to develop a nuclear arsenal as a deterrent.

    Same thing with Iran.

    I think the past 7-8 US president have been kicking the NK can down the road for a while…eventually, there is a reckoning. But yes, W didn’t help the acceleration any when he threw NK in with the ‘axis of evil’ and then went on to demonstrate what happens to countries w/o nukes when we get our hackles up.

    Then again, some dipshits on Twitter are very aptly using the US crushing of Iraq’s conventional, large military in 2003 as the scenario for dealing with NK, ignoring terrain, lack of intel on how the NK civilian populace will react, etc and describing a cake walk. Which, it turns out, even Iraq was not.

    The difference being, just with regular artillery, NK can level Seoul in an hour or two, killing millions, and launch missiles at Japanese cities that will kill tens of millions. This wasn’t a factor in Iraq.

    Plus we took what, almost a half-year to build up a conventional invasion force (and logistics/supplies) in friendly countries before invading Iraq? Not seeing how we do that here.

  240. 240.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Mnemosyne:

    Also, too, I discovered on this last trip to Chicago that the famous man-eating lions that they made the movie The Ghost and the Darkness about were taxidermied after they were killed and ended up at the Field Museum. Who knew?

    Me, for one. My brother worked on the SFX team (Foley) for The Ghost and the Darkness and every time we have a family reunion in Chicago we have to go to the Field Museum so Steve can get a photo of himself next to the exhibit.

  242. 242.

    Steeplejack

    @hellslittlestangel:

    You can buy whatever version of Office you want (or use the version at the new job or situation). You can save your Office 365 documents on your own computer, so you’re not going to lose anything.

  243. 243.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    Wonder if they have any at the Page Museum(aka the La Brea Tar Pits).

    Is there an entry fee? If I need cash, I might have to stop at the nearest automatic ATM teller machine.

  245. 245.

    CaseyL

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: How long ago did you take those pictures? That area looks to be in really good shape for a TV show that ended over 20 years ago. Does someone take care of the place?

  248. 248.

    Porlock Junior

    @SiubhanDuinne:
    The hoi polloi are doing that all over the state, from the El Camino (Silicon Valley etc) to La Callecita Street (San Diego); of course they have to remember their PIN numbers. And they may need to use a GPS system to get there.

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