I must say, Team Trump has really tightened up their messaging strategy now that John Kelly is running the show:
Pres. Trump on Charlottesville: "Not all of those people were neo-Nazis, believe me, not all of those people were white supremacists.” pic.twitter.com/quf2s7sYGB
— ABC News (@ABC) August 15, 2017
He not only both-sides NAZIS, he equates removal of Confederate monuments to taking down statues of George Washington.
Good lord, what a staggeringly destructive buffoon.
ETA: Here’s the whole thing:
This WHOLE exchange is a MUST WATCH:
Trump: "What about the alt-left that came charging at them … the alt-right?" https://t.co/bSQB9aCyCc
— Daniella Diaz (@DaniellaMicaela) August 15, 2017
I just don’t know what to say.
*H/T to valued commenter Major Major Major Major
MomSense
Text “Resist” to 504-09 and tell your Senators that it is time to 25th amendment this whack job. He is unfit in every possible way and has to be removed from office.
dmsilev
Does it count as a Pivot(tm) if you rotate around fast enough to drill yourself into the ground?
dmsilev
Also, too, it really frosts him that he was forced to make that statement yesterday, even though the actual Neo-Nazis got the subtext that he didn’t really mean what he was saying.
Roger Moore
Some of them were just people who thought it would be fun to go to another city to riot with a bunch of Nazis and White Supremacists. Seems like a distinction without a difference.
Yarrow
This was something else.
Is this Peak Trump or will things get even worse?
khead
He should have held the press conference in a doorway at the University of Alabama.
mouse tolliver
He can’t not be petty. Even before he debased the office by defending a Nazi rally, he was taking swipes at fake news.
Roger Moore
@MomSense:
Unfortunately, the Senate can’t start 25th Amendment proceedings. That’s up to the VP and the Cabinet.
El Caganer
@dmsilev: The blivit pivot?
dmsilev
@Yarrow: Worse. Like peak wingnut, there is no Trump Nadir.
TenguPhule
@Yarrow:
Yes. SATSQ.
Kay
How does he know? Does he take attendance? “All present and accounted for, sir”
Roger Moore
@Yarrow:
I’m gonna go with choice B.
Trentrunner
@Yarrow: Well, we’re not all dead yet, so, yes, things can get MUCH worse.
RandomMonster
@Yarrow: No way this is peak Trump.
efgoldman
@Yarrow:
Peak Deadbeat Donnie is just like more general peak wingnut: a place never to be reached.
TenguPhule
Gonna need a bigger Derp.
Mike in DC
Next presser: why can black people say it but white people can’t?
aimai
Jeebus–that weird accusation that the confederates are identical to our founding fathers has been going the rounds on right wing/nazi sites. Unbefuckinglievable.
Kay
I think the council members running away from him combined with New Yorkers laughing at him sent him ’round the bend.
He’s not a stable person and that was a double whammy over 24 hours.
randy khan
@Yarrow:
I have some trouble with the concept of “Peak” Trump, as it always seems like a downward spiral. And at the rate he’s going, the Marianas Trench isn’t deep enough to contain him.
MomSense
@Roger Moore:
But they can call for it. Somehow we have to get this thing rolling. The cabinet members never will and Pence is up to his lying eyes in the Russia mess so he won’t do anything.
Villago Delenda Est
There are NO “fine people” who are Nazis, who are white supremacists, who are members of the KKK. They are all scum.
dmsilev
I like the way he compared Robert E Lee and Stonewall Jackson to George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.
randy khan
@Kay:
Donald, Jr. was there incognito, and reported back. He was the guy in the polo shirt and khakis.
khead
I’m not sure how the post “He should have held the press conference in a doorway at the University of Alabama” put me in moderation. So I’m trying again.
Major Major Major Major
I’m valued!
El Caganer
I don’t think he’s smart enough or educated enough to have thought of that phony comparison with the Founding Fathers. This sounds like something Bannon whispered in his ear.
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
@TenguPhule: “A little of Cluster A, a little of Cluster B.”
TenguPhule
@MomSense: The 25th has never been a real option available. Not with this clusterfuck. Our system of government was not designed to handle this level of Calvinball.
rk
It’s amazing how he always makes things worse. Always. Without fail. I feel like I’m in an abusive house and that’s when I’ve not been personally effected by anything. But every single day is awful! How are we going to get through this?
dmsilev
@MomSense: I don’t want him to leave via the 25th A escape hatch. I want him impeached and convicted, because it’s his actions and decisions that need to be condemned and disavowed, not simply “the man himself went crazy”.
rikyrah
@Kay:
LOL?
Yarrow
Okay, no Peak Trump is possible
@randy khan: Perhaps bottomless fire pit of hell Trump?
TenguPhule
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD): The options are not mutually exclusive. Its all downhill from here on out.
Major Major Major Major
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD): Ha!
ETA: that was a personality disorder joke yes?
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
How can this be!. Just 14 days ago, our media betters promised us the 71 year old Drumpf would completely change his ways and become responsible after giving office office space to a retired general
Chris
“I think e’s gettin’ worse.”
” ‘e is gettin’ worse!”
khead
Moderation hell for some reason….
Yarrow
Not watching any TV–how are the cable channels handling today’s meltdown?
Stan
@aimai: That’s been going around since 1861
Hal
A former coworker who I’m friends with on Facebook posted one of those I don’t care if you’re yellow, brown, white kumbaya horseshit posts.
She voted for Trump, but yes, we should all just get along. No sense of irony from Trump voters.
Roger Moore
@Major Major Major Major:
Great kid. Now don’t get cocky.
trollhattan
@randy khan:
I’m mindful of “Peek Trump” because I’m deathly afraid to watch him in real time.
schrodingers_cat
@dmsilev: Cosigned.
kd bart
No difference whatsoever.
rikyrah
@Kay:
The New Yorkers cracked me up.
Laura
He’s one of them. Full stop. The so-called president has never not been a racist, sexist, intellectually vacant, lazy, coddled, rampant bully.
He may not be an actual nazi, but he is comfortable hiring them, agreeing with them, giving them political cover, will only grudgingly disavow them with fingers crossed behind his back.
They are his base and he is their leader.
Expecting anything different of him, and those who accommodate him is a fools errand.
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
@Major Major Major Major: Yes
the Conster, la Citoyenne
Dignity wraith is the best description of Trump. He’s Nazi feces who smears it on everything and everyone he touches.
rikyrah
@dmsilev:
Had to roll my eyes at that.
NorthLeft12
Thank Dog that there are disciplined and competent people in the White House or Deadbeat Donald might say something even more ignorant and offensive.
Bring back Reince!
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: The Praetorian Guard would know what to do.
Spanky
Left without comment.
From The Hill:
Laura
@Major Major Major Major: you’re good value at twice the price and half a serving.
Tom Q
@Yarrow: Haven’t checked CNN yet, but MSNBC is unanimous it was a disaster.
rikyrah
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
That pivot didn’t come…?
MomSense
@dmsilev:
He can still be prosecuted once out of office. I’m just seeing someone who is capable of doing something catastrophic if he feels cornered.
jl
@dmsilev: The Pivot Spiral, or maybe the Spiral Pivot? Trump will contribute something to political history.
Spanky
@Laura:
Which means he’s an actual Nazi.
clay
@Kay: What’s the laughing New Yorker thing?
LurkerNoLonger
He’s right. Some of them were neo-Nazi sympathizers and white supremacist adjacent.
Timurid
Don’t be sad, Villagers. Your fuzzy little Pivot has gone to live on a farm upstate.
oldgold
Maya Angelou: “When people show you who they are, believe them the first time.”
rikyrah
He needed the facts?
Since when?
He didn’t need all the facts when he tweeted out that it was terrorism in Nice…or in Manchester….
He called it terrorism in 2.2 seconds
Yarrow
@Spanky: They’re going to have to have 24 hour security on the Lincoln Memorial. Those Nazi white supremacist types are going to try to destroy it. It’s Lincoln’s fault we don’t still have slavery, of course.
bystander
I hope he’s feeling down in the dumps on the 90th floor. Having thousands of people chanting “New York hates you” outside your door can’t make for a good vibe.
TenguPhule
@Spanky:
Nazis had a better dress sense.
He’s a brownshirt. The ones even the Nazis found too dangerous to leave around.
Trentrunner
Kelly’s really shaped up this administration in no time…no time at all…
NorthLeft12
@El Caganer: No I disagree with you, this is exactly what Deadbeat Donald would do. He does not have the intelligence to discern the difference between Confederate traitors/losers and Founding Fathers/Presidents.
They are all old white guys who died a few hundred years ago, amirite?
Spanky
Our Republican(!) Governor:
TenguPhule
@Trentrunner:
What if this is the Kelly Shapeup? What if this is actually less worse then the alternative?
Peale
Is this the “no labels” people again? Those who say “I hate to be called a Nazi, so why do we put them in a box, since label is just another word for coffin and besides I believe that the Chinese are superior to all races because they are the most racially pure so I’m not hectically a white supremacist, so shut up you social justice warrior.”
Betty Cracker
@rk:
My husband and I were just talking about that. We have no fucking idea either.
Villago Delenda Est
@TenguPhule: Indeed. Hugo Boss weeps.
Hoodie
Glad he cleared that up, I wasn’t sure if he is a good Nazi or a bad Nazi.
Trentrunner
@TenguPhule: Nope. There’s a great photo circulating of Kelly on the sidelines as Trump goes off, looking down and bereft and resigned.
Chris
@Roger Moore:
Yeah. I keep thinking that the big thing about this march is that they broke the taboo by actually being out-and-proud Nazis and Klansmen. Since the nineties, maybe eighties, it’s been basically acceptable on the right to be a full-on fascist loony, as long as you weren’t literally waving a swastika or wearing a white hood. You wore camo outfits instead of brownshirt uniforms, waved Gadsen flags instead of swastikas (Confederate flags were somewhat more risqué but also acceptable), bitched about big government and the UN instead of Jewish Conspiracies, and called yourself something like “patriot movement,” “oath keepers,” “constitutional sheriffs,” or “[something something] militia” instead of the Nazis or the Ku Klux Klan. And then your ass was covered and mainstream conservatives, the media, etc, would humor you in pretending that you weren’t a fascist, just a patriotic, libertarian, Christian eccentric, with controversial but interesting ideas, symptomatic of the arrogant urban liberal elites’ failure to listen to The People…
Only the stars of yesterday’s rally were literal Nazis, waving literal swastikas and doing literal Nazi salutes. Which largely explains why there was so much pushback from conservative politicians. They’ve spent fifty years basically telling everyone that unless you’re literally a Nazi, it’s not fair to call you a racist, but… whoops.
Trump seems to’ve realized this, which is why he’s now working overtime on the #NotAllNazis theme to move the message away from “holy shit, real Nazis” and back to “hold on, let’s be fair and hear out the Reasonable Ones.”
Spanky
Somewhat related, sorta:
JPL
@Betty Cracker: Well I am happy that I bought that bottle of wine today. I’ll deal with the rest tomorrow.
Saying that he’s a narcissistic maniac is being kind.
TenguPhule
@Betty Cracker:
6 months of food, a months worth of water and a full tank of gas are a good start.
Chris
@Spanky:
This.
Villago Delenda Est
From Andrew Stephen’s Cornerstone Speech:
The Confederacy explicitly REJECTED the sentiment of the Declaration of Independence. They were traitors, all of them. There is no question about this, there is no debate.
Timurid
In other news, the alt-white has rallies planned all over the country this weekend, and Dear Leader has just flashed a green light…
TenguPhule
@Trentrunner:
This is why I am a pessimist, every time I try to be hopeful it gets stomped down.
Chyron HR
WAR! The United States is crumbling
under attacks by actual literal Nazis.
There are heroes on both sides.
TenguPhule
@Villago Delenda Est:
And it doesn’t stop those fucking Republicans from doing either anyway.
zhena gogolia
@El Caganer:
If I might try to untangle the twisted logic, people have written about the fact that Washington and Jefferson owned slaves, etc., so this seems to be saying that taking down the monuments to the Confederates is a slippery slope toward taking down statues to Washington and Jefferson.
dmsilev
Have the Downfall parody videos been made yet?
zhena gogolia
@dmsilev:
I’ll take whatever we can get.
bemused
My schedule of things that have to get done today went to hell when the presser started. I’m reading BJ, etc. while listening to msnbc and Rick Wilson on Randi Rhodes show.
Panel on msnbc just exploded in disbelief after presser. One said Trump aides must have wanted to tackle Trump and haul him off stage. Rick Wilson said he thinks Trump is mentally ill. Duh!
schrodingers_cat
@dmsilev: Its not a parody anymore, but a reality.
Chris
@TenguPhule:
Not dangerous – they’d simply served their purpose. IIRC, the Night of the Long Knives was a result of Hitler coming under pressure on both sides, on the one hand from the brownshirts who’d been his early supporters and were actually somewhat economically populist, and on the other hand, the elites that he’d allied himself with to rise to power (the military, the aristocracy, the big industrialists, the clergy) and who wanted that vulgar rabble of agitators gone. He chose the latter.
TenguPhule
@zhena gogolia:
Statues are for winners.
Cheryl Rofer
Some good news
Chris
@Chyron HR:
+ 1 for Revenge of the Sith reference.
Jeffro
@Yarrow:
Worse. The reporters are getting bolder, starting to ask better follow-ups. “Do you think George Washington and Robert E. Lee were the same?”
Betty Cracker
@Timurid: I’m thinking Confederate statue removals will also become flashpoints all over the South.
TenguPhule
@Cheryl Rofer:
I don’t think North Korea or China are going to give us a mulligan for talking as a free action while Trump fucks up at home.
Just saying.
Keith P.
Jeez, Trump’s has had some unforced errors before, but this one is blowing my mind.
TenguPhule
@Betty Cracker:
Like they weren’t already?
Kathleen
@rikyrah: Shhh. Don’t tell Chuckles Toady. How is your sister?
TenguPhule
The only thing I can think of that would make this day worse would be for Iran to start lecturing our country about the need to keep our fanatics in check.
zhena gogolia
@schrodingers_cat:
Yeah, Untergang is getting back its original serious significance.
Mike in DC
27% approval can’t come soon enough.
Chris
@TenguPhule:
More to the point, neither Washington nor Jefferson nor their British opponents were fighting over slavery. At the time, the mainstream position on both sides was still pro-slavery, and while the British would eventually abolish it before the Americans, it wouldn’t happen until the 1830s, more than half a century after the Revolution.
The Confederates, on the other hand, not only were seceding primarily because of slavery but wrote exhaustively to leave absolutely no doubt that they were in fact seceding primarily because of slavery.
Lizzy L
I’ve been hosting a conversation on my FB page. Here’s what I said:
Friend #1 responded:
Friend #2 responded:
I hope that conversations like this are happening all over.
zhena gogolia
I can’t watch it, does he seem really unhinged?
germy
“Has anyone here seen Kelly? K – E – L – L – Y”
randy khan
@Yarrow:
I can work with that.
Jeffro
@Kay: I’d call it a triple: forced to repute he ate his Nazi friends then laughed at by New Yorkers and deserted by the business community … remember he always envisions himself ad this super successful businessman, and desperately craves approval in New York
zhena gogolia
@Chris:
I wasn’t trying to justify the logic, just trying to figure out where it came from.
Cheryl Rofer
germy
@zhena gogolia:
He’s every fox news watching uncle or stepdad.
Same talking points, same aggrieved beligerance.
Mike in NC
Hey, it’s entirely possible many of those folks carrying tiki torches thought they were just going to a luau.
TenguPhule
@zhena gogolia:
There is no seems about it.
Jeffro
@Jeffro: dang voice texting…”repudiate”…
(although I do wish he ate his Nazi friends)
zhena gogolia
@Cheryl Rofer:
The guy on the right looks as if he’s saying my little prayer, Господи, спаси нашу бедную Родину!
SimoHayha
@Spanky: Yeah, well. I still want him well gone for screwing up a thousand other things (Baltimore metro line in particular). But how f*ed is 2017 that we have to be happy that Maryland has more than one anti-Nazi party?!
TenguPhule
@Mike in NC:
Hawaii wants absolutely nothing to do with this shitparade. We voted for Clinton.
jl
@Betty Cracker: Impossible to tell at this point where the malice ends and the incompetence starts. Trump is making that problem far worse than it needs to be, and probably guaranteeing that civil disturbance and riots that result from protests and counter-protests have his name written all over them. I hope no one gets hurt. If GOPers in Congress had an ounce of sense, and have more room to distance themselves from racists and fascists than Trump does, they would hold some hearings on it to keep that toxic fool from leading the controversy into dangerous chaos. I doubt they will.
Jeffro
@dmsilev: Oh I dunno…just after impeachment, removal, & conviction, I have “stroke out live on camera during some pro-Nazi rant” as a close second choice for how this ends.
khead
Not All Nazis. I’ve heard that before.
A Ghost to Not
Peak wingnut potentially involves widespread murder and mayhem. We are on the road, but no, we aren’t there yet.
/damnkids
jl
@TenguPhule: They will be worse when a toxic malicious fool is leading the national discussion.on the controversy.
Major Major Major Major
@Cheryl Rofer: Hoo boy.
TenguPhule
@jl:
I knew Trump was going to cause Civil Breakdown. I didn’t think he’d do it using actual fucking Nazis though.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Chuck Todd, and I despise him, seems genuinely shaken
Jeffro
@MomSense:
Nickel bet that he verbally pardons – right there, from the podium – everyone who’s ever worked for him, the Trump Org, or his campaign.
Chris
@zhena gogolia:
Oh, yeah. Wasn’t accusing you – just adding to the “statues are for winners” comment.
TenguPhule
@A Ghost to Not:
So we’re just determining how many victims meets the number threshold now?
Miss Bianca
@dmsilev: Well, they all owned slaves, so no difference, right? Right??
bemused
@zhena gogolia:
Yes. He just let his freak flag fly free and totally undid what his aides tried to pretty up. He could not shut up! You just know he wanted to in the worst way and it was just a matter of time.
zhena gogolia
To quote my liberal friends I had dinner with in June 2016 (scene was then caused in quiet little restaurant):
but. her. e. mails
Chris
@khead:
“Apparently, there were only six or seven Nazis in all of Germany. They must have worked very hard at their jobs!”
germy
@Cheryl Rofer:
They look like the assembled group at the last scene in the movie “Downfall.”
TenguPhule
This fucking guy.
jl
@TenguPhule: In office, as opposed to electioneering, Trump’s genius operates in an the wrong direction.
Jeffro
@Betty Cracker:
Some will probably turn into the next Malheur Wildlife Reserve (or whatever the name of the place the Bundys took over was called). Let ’em camp out at the base of their favorite traitor’s statue for a few months and see if that doesn’t get a little old.
frosty
@Spanky: Yeah, Hogan’s acting like a Republican governor who wants to get re-elected in a Democratic state.
Jeffro
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Chuck always was kind of a weak sister.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Chris: the Confederates thought the Founders got it wrong
TenguPhule
I can’t even……FUCK HIM WITH A FUCKING RUSTY CHAINSAW.
LurkerNoLonger
@Cheryl Rofer: Thought bubble above John Kelly’s head: What the fuck am I doing with my life?
bemused
OMG, Kelly and the others look drained.
I was struck how audible the media questions were during presser. Would I be crazy to wonder if msnbc suspected Trump would shoot off his real feelings and upped the volume for viewers and subsequent videos?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@TenguPhule: Mr “Obama won’t speak the magic words!” said, you can call it whatever you want. Pretty sure that’s a quote.
Peale
@TenguPhule: We should demand that he call it Radical Christian Terrorism. Why can’t he use those words? Christ. The right spent 8 years on the fainting couch over these “matters of semantics.”
Geoduck
Checked the news channels- CNN and MSNBC are of course talking about Trump’s spewing. Fox.. doing a breathless report on how the Obama administration failed to deal with Russian election interference.
TenguPhule
Tell me again how peaceful protests are going to work when this fucker is gaslighting it on national fucking television and his fucking base is going to believe him.
dmsilev
@TenguPhule: This is, let us not forget, the same guy who spent months and months screaming that the semantics of using the phrase “radical Islamic terrorism” was the most important thing ever. I know you know this, but I think it best to be explicit.
Felonius Monk
I do. In case nobody has said it yet (although I doubt that), FUCK DONALD TRUMP with an infected implement.
I’d call him Shit for Brains, but Shit is smarter than he is.
Chris
@TenguPhule:
This from a guy (and a political party, for that matter) that spent the entire campaign saying that Obama’s antiterrorism strategy was awful simply because he wouldn’t say the correct words.
Keith P.
Every time I take an afternoon nap, I wake up to a Trump shitstorm. Do I have some kind of special power, or are there just that many Trump shitstorms? I ask similar questions re my phone’s tendency to ring any time I go to the bathroom.
TenguPhule
@Geoduck:
I am fully in Village’s camp at this point.
Trials are a luxury that FOX is no longer entitled to.
germy
It’s like the comment section in my local newspaper online sprouted legs, ran for president, and won.
gene108
@Laura:
The only reason Trump’s not an actual Nazi is because he’s too lazy to read up on what being an actual Nazi would involve.
Cheryl Rofer
@germy: Excellent! They do!
chris
This fits.
Putin must be chuckling contentedly right now.
dmsilev
@Geoduck: How long until the Fox News feed consists literally of an anchor looking at the camera and shouting LALALALA I CAN’T HEAR YOU!! over and over again for an hour?
October?
TenguPhule
@Keith P.:
Yes.
frosty
@TenguPhule: One ofher thing (and this is important, kids, so listen close) … don’t let anyone else know you’ve got this stuff.
A Ghost to Not
@TenguPhule:
This is bad. It can get MUCH worse. I don’t believe we are at peak anything. The first cards have been played.’ One man showed he was willing to kill people who he considers “enemies”.
Now we find out if they are still the gutless cowards we think they are, or if they go all in. I’m guessing gutless cowards, but preparing for all in.
chopper
@TenguPhule:
i can’t believe it’s 2017 and the president of the united states is bothsidesing a fucking white power rally.
damn.
Mnemosyne
I’ll give Mango Mussolini this — I bet that there were quite a few frat boy Broflakes who thought that this was all fun and games until they got tear-gassed. The video games they play did not prepare them for the reality of being in the middle of a riot where most of the people around them hate their guts, and there were probably many sniveling phone calls to Mommy and Daddy to come make it all better.
Can’t shake the devil’s hand and say you’re only kidding, boys. Man up and accept the consequences of your poor judgement and choice of friends.
Jeffro
@Geoduck: For what it’s worth, the Faux website has the Trump Tower news conference front and center. But yeah, Obama.
(never mind that the info they’re discussing – Russians trying to interfere in our democracy – was ‘known’ by every American president since FDR. No mention of how Trumpov & Co. are the first time Mother Russia had willing enablers)
Quinerly
@gene108:
You just made me snort my afternoon beer. I kinda needed that chuckle. Thank you.
KS in MA
@germy: Amen–may it be so!
Gelfling 545
@TenguPhule: From Marshall’s editorial at TPM
“For any subject of controversy, the first question we should ask is: What is the person known for? How did they earn a place in our collective public remembrance?”
I’d say if their main claim to fame is treason, no statue.
lamh36
“Hilary is the same as Trump” they said. “Both sides are warmongers” they said. “What’s the point of voting” they said. “Bernie or bust” they said. Now we got this orange muthaphuka..DEFENDING RACIST with some “both sides” bullshit.
jl
@TenguPhule: Spouting incoherent BS that is impossible to parse has its limits as a political communications tactic. Some presidents have used it as a tactic. Eisenhower told his aides when he was going to do it. But he could turn it on and off as it suited his purpose. Trump can’t do anything else.
Problem is that everyone can see that, last weekend, the racists and fascists were clearly the party causing the problems from an illegal demonstration that was the Tiki torch parade at night, to shows of armed intimidation, to initiating violence, to producing a terrorist act from one of their members.
And Trump still cannot give up his ‘many sides’ dodge. Looks bad and is actually probably worse. But from what he actually says, who can know for sure ?As I typed above, good way to create serious civil unrest and controversy with his name written all over it.
FlipYrWhig
@germy: It really is SO MUCH like that. Complete with the stupid argument deployed for the millionth time as though it’s never been said before. “Oh yeah, well, whatabout…” SMH.
Mary G
@Cheryl Rofer: A body language expert would have a field day with all four of those guys, two in the upset stomach position and two in the cover my balls position.
chopper
@TenguPhule:
did he actually use the word ‘semantics’? cause that’s a bit of a stretch for a guy with a 200-word vocabulary. maybe he said something like ‘that’s just a word argument’.
Quinerly
@A Ghost to Not:
It is going to get much worse. I fear something that we haven’t imagined.
Jeffro
@gene108:
True, but that leather-bound Mein Kampf looks bigly awesome on his nightstand, eh? Amirite?
He probably got 10 pages in and had to go look at himself in a mirror or something…
Cheryl Rofer
I’m afraid it’s too late, bucko.
I saw a photo of Trump putting a piece of paper into his jacket pocket with a reasonable statement on it – like yesterday’s, implying that this aide is correct. But anyone on Trump’s payroll is complicit unless they resign now.
Quinerly
@Chris:
Great point.
germy
@Mnemosyne:
WATCH: Panicked white supremacist renounces beliefs the second he’s confronted by masked demonstrator
Jeffro
@Quinerly: Oh, I think we’ve imagined some of it…calls for ‘his’ people to exercise their 2nd amendment rights and visit their local congressmen, media HQs, Dem party HQs…
Whenever you’re ready, GOP…
TenguPhule
@A Ghost to Not:
Unfortunately, the two are not mutually exclusive.
The Nazis just murdered a women is broad daylight. The one time a police overreaction to a march would have been not only justified but fucking helpful, they went in with kiddie gloves. Shit is getting real very fucking fast.
Cheryl Rofer
Ivanka and Jared are, of course, blameless.
germy
I expected trump to start yelling Fegelein! Fegelein!
TenguPhule
@chopper:
This is what he said.
He was doing the sidestep with his bare ass hanging out for all to see.
Mike in NC
General Kelly is thinking “this might be a good time to take up sniffing glue”. The Alt-Right has promised Charlottesville is just the beginning of their crusade against decency, and David Duke just tweeted another thank you note to Trump. Everybody knows he’s shedding crocodile tears. Such a disgrace.
Jeffro
@Cheryl Rofer: We need an atonement scale of some kind, that helps wing nuts know how far they’ll have to go to get right with the rest of the country depending upon how early they renounced Trumpov.
If it’s going to be a color-coded scale, they’re in the dark orange/light red zone, so they might wanna hurry up…
TenguPhule
@Cheryl Rofer:
Resignations are still not an acceptable excuse or defense.
rikyrah
@Kathleen:
She is stable. When I got here today, she was getting dialysis. She is alert and recognized me, which is a relief. One day at a time. Took today off. Will go to work tomorrow, and maybe leave early.
Cheryl Rofer
David Duke got it – I’m not going to embed the tweet, just quoting.
TenguPhule
@Jeffro:
Involuntary servitude at a minimum for them.
Frankensteinbeck
@Chris:
This was Reagan’s great contribution to American culture. He sold white America completely on the notion that racism was such a terrible thing to accuse someone of, people should be given absolutely every possible benefit of the doubt. You basically had to wear a Klan hood or say ‘nigger’ to be racist, and even then ‘I didn’t know’ could get you off. Nobody internalized this more than the national news, which is why it’s stunning they’ve started to even drop ‘nationalist’ and straight out talk about white supremacy.
A Ghost to Not
@gene108:
I read a report somewhere that Rump used to practice Hitler’s speeches in the mirror
Major Major Major Major
@Jeffro: um, you were already in the red zone if you didn’t denounce him before the election.
MomSense
@rikyrah:
I hope you can take some time to rest and be with your sister. Big hug from me.
Frankensteinbeck
I want to add that I called this: Reluctant to condemn, forced to walk back by Kelly, then at some point he can’t hold it in anymore and he spews it all out, making things worse. It’s a well established pattern by now.
Quinerly
@rikyrah:
Thanks for this update. Sending positive thoughts. Was thinking about you today. Hoping for good news in a thread. Hugs from Poco and his kitty advisers.?
TenguPhule
@Mike in NC:
I thought Heroin was the drug of choice for the army?
Gelfling 545
@chopper: Really, I don’t think he would know semantics from his left foot.
JCJ
@jl:
Like an airplane spiraling down? The crash will be something to behold. Possibly the best ever.
jl
@Frankensteinbeck: Reagan did have political skills and vision, which most of the time he put to bad ends. He really set up an effective template. Even a guy like Pence knows what to say, and Sessions knows what he has to do in order to keep the GOP race dodge going. Trump can’t wrap his head around it, and you can see that a few of the dimmest Congressional GOPers can’t either. Sorry if my comment seems very cynical, but it is GOP political wedge product, wasn’t my idea.
FlipYrWhig
@Cheryl Rofer: The sources of every story that make Kushner and Ivanka look good are Kushner and Ivanka.
lamh36
President Orange Menace, and ENTIRE ELECTED REPUBLICAN PARTY are disgusting…
Chris
@Frankensteinbeck:
Yep.
And Nixon, before him. He created the modern Republican Party by running as the “I am not a racist, but…” candidate. A reasonable, moderate, common sense alternative between the wide-eyed Real Racists who followed George Wallace, and those dangerous social engineering Marxist extremists who followed the Democratic Party leadership. But Nixon’s career kind of futzed out, and he didn’t have Reagan’s (I’m told; I don’t see it) charm.
Jeffro
@Major Major Major Major: I meant on their side … not ours .
Gelfling 545
@Cheryl Rofer: One would certainly think so but in that Trump crowd who knows?
A Ghost to Not
@Gelfling 545:
To be fair, he probably hasn’t seen his left foot in some time.
Jeffro
@TenguPhule: how about they just lose their franchise for a generation or two ?
Gelfling 545
@rikyrah: We will hope for continued progress and healing.
Mnemosyne
@Geoduck:
They have to. They can’t let their viewers know that they were in on the scam the whole time. They now have to claim that they were fooled just like the rest of us.
Bobby Thomson
The problem isn’t Trump. It’s the millions of people who were just nodding along to this shit.
Quinerly
@Jeffro:
That part is nothing to imagine. He already won an election saying that someone might Second Amendment HRC and people still voted for him and against HRC by writing in BS or voting for Jill Stein. Need to Google to find his actual quote from the campaign. As I recall the Secret Service was called in to investigate it as a threat on Hillary.
Found it: https://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/08/10/us/politics/donald-trump-hillary-clinton.html
Comrade Luke
Great job normalizing “alt-left”, so that they could co-opt it and use it against anti-Nazi protesters, guys.
Real good job.
Major Major Major Major
@Jeffro: I meant on their side, too. A number of wingnuts disavowed him before the election, and they avoided this particular red zone, the rest did not and are pushing far into the invisible parts of the spectrum.
@Comrade Luke: The hell are you on about, this would be like saying “great job normalizing ‘fake news’ so that Trump could use it as a cudgel against the mainstream media.”
zhena gogolia
@Cheryl Rofer:
God I hate Glenn Thrush.
TenguPhule
@Jeffro:
Then they wouldn’t learn anything.
And all those fruits and vegetables would remain unpicked, the trash wouldn’t be cleaned up and all those potholes would remain unfilled.
These fucking Republicans have always argued that backbreaking labor installs moral fiber. I say, let’s see if this is true. And even if it isn’t, at least the proper backs will be broken.
FlipYrWhig
@jl: Exactly. It’s really not that hard to break out the Official Presidenting Manual and follow it. Even noted dimwit playboy doofus George W. Bush was adequate at it. Trump can’t do it _at all_. He’s stupid, he’s hateful, he can’t see, he can barely read, he doesn’t take constructive criticism, and he’s convinced himself that he can always follow his gut. What’s remarkable, looking back, is that his BEST performances as a credible president were during the debates–performances that were, graded against anyone else, terrible. That was his _peak_ at being a passable head of state.
chopper
@TenguPhule:
wow, he actually used the word ‘semantics’. guess one of his idiot sons gave him a word-a-day calendar for christmas.
Mnemosyne
@rikyrah:
Phew! I hope she continues to improve. We are all pulling for her.
Mike in DC
It just occurred to me now. (More) People are going to die because of this. He just gave these racist shitbags the thumbs up to let their freak flags fly.
If there is a hell, may he suffer there a very long time.
Dr. Ronnie James, D.O.
There is no Peak Trump, only Trough Trump.
Roger Moore
@TenguPhule:
They’ve been points of contention up to now, but they’ve been slow-burning fuses because the removals have been done officially with the kind of deliberate process- meetings, votes, etc.- that official action usually has. Yesterday, people got fed up with the slow action and decided to take matters into their own hands. If the statues are in danger of vigilante removal, it’s going to make things that much nastier and more contentious.
Quinerly
@Mike in DC:
And that same Hell for all that have enabled him, supported him, and the press who fluffed him for two years leading up to his election.
Tazj
@Gelfling 545:
Exactly, this isn’t hard people. Lee committed treason and fought to protect slavery, statues are for those who’ve done something heroic and admirable. I know there were brave Confederate soldiers, but there were also brave German soldiers and the Germans don’t have statues of Hitler.
Twitter is often insane but today seems especially crazy. People defending Trump’s remarks about George Washington(he owned slaves tomorrow will his statue be taken down?) to others claiming the alt-left is outside of Trump’s NYC residence plaining a purge of white people.
JPL
@Tazj: Some folks confuse the revolutionary war with the civil war. SAD
MisterForkbeard
@Cheryl Rofer: This. Maybe it’s time for his cabinet to make a public statement and get out, for the sake of their own souls. Alternately, 25th amendment his ass as a clear and present danger to the country.
@Cheryl Rofer: “Per Jared/Ivanka”, I think this is supposed to say.
MisterForkbeard
@Major Major Major Major: Now, now. He’s just making the very reasonable point that we can’t ever talk about anything because Trump might take it out of context and lie about it on national TV.
Clearly, we need to just stop all discussions of anything.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Chris:
They were in a twist because they couldn’t impose slavery upon the North – that’s what the Fugitive Act and the Dreed Scott ruling were supposed to do and Lincoln wouldn’t do it. The right to tell others what to do what was the State’s Right the Confederates were fighting for.
West of the Cascades
@Dr. Ronnie James, D.O.:
There is no Trough Trump … it’s Trumps all the way down.
Chyron HR
@Comrade Luke:
Great job staying home on election day and surrendering the country to literal Nazis, Luke.
This is presumably the part where you start shitting yourself and screaming about the doughnuts.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Jeffro:
He should have asked to refundiates them then.
My god, that’s a horrific though; even Sarah Palin would make a better president than Trump.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@germy:
That would make an awesome press question if they had the wit to ask it
“So Mr President, are we correct to understand Fegelein was organizing the Counter Protesters at Charlottesville?”
And see if Trump bites and goes full Downfall.
Yarrow
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Anyone, and that especially includes our media, who didn’t know this is who Trump is was seriously ignoring everything that happened throughout the man’s life and especially during the campaign. The media is guilty because they did not highlight any of it and treated him as a joke or hand-waved it all away in pursuit of ratings.
Kathleen
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: May Chuck Todd rot in hell. And whatever Villago Delanda Est says. All of them.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
BTW; WTF is an “Alt-Left?” , there are the Greens, Anarachists and the Bernebros, but I have never heard anyone call themselves no would I call anyone “Alt-Left”.
VFX Lurker
@Major Major Major Major:
I just sent him straight to the pie filter.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Mnemosyne:
Hey, at lest they aren’t agreeing with Trump on this rubbish, Small mercies.
Mike in DC
@West of the Cascades:
It’s a recursive pattern, jumping the shark continuously while asymptotically approaching closer to but never reaching Absolute Zero.
VFX Lurker
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Vanity Fair did a write-up on the alt-left back in March. They’re few in number, but loud in volume.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/03/why-the-alt-left-is-a-problem
Villago Delenda Est
So, is General Kelly Keitel, or von Stauffenberg?
History will judge either way.
a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)
@Keith P.:
1. There are that many Trump shitstorms
2. You are experiencing the results of a natural law involving telephones of any description and plumbing–baths, showers, toilets, dishwashing, whatever, if water is involved the phone will ring, typically when you are at the least convenient point in the process–leg-shaving, shampoo, holding a well-soaped casserole dish that needs two hands to manage, and so on.
gorram
@Chris: Uuuuuhhhh, unfortunately, a lot of the Revolutionary War “heroes” were in fact quite vocal about anxieties that the UK government could take away their slaves just as easily as it could raise taxes. The inciting issue for the revolution, arguably, was the restriction against “settling” indigenous land. I get not wanting to give these fascists credit, but there’s a very real way that both the framers and the confederacy had horrible, racist motivations that we need to structure society ot pull us away from.
sukabi
@Roger Moore: they can start impeachment proceedings though…
J R in WV
@zhena gogolia:
But that perspective is twisted. None of the founding fathers (slave holders or not) ever declared war on the United States of America. Lee, and Jackson, and Davis, etc, etc all did.
The founders of the Confederacy were active traitors to their oaths of office, to their nation, the United States. Treason is different from mere immorality, that is, holding slaves. Both crimes against humanity, but not the same crime at all.
BroD
“They came charging, clubs in hand, swinging clubs.”
I was there on the back nine. I saw it. it was ghastly.
J R in WV
@TenguPhule:
No, no. They issue uppers, meth type drugs, so you can fight for days and days. How do you think those pilots fly 30 hours missions?
tybee
@TenguPhule:
lofl
TooTall
@oldgold: Amen to that