Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Republicans: “Abortion is murder but you can take a bus to get one.” Easy peasy.

This is dead girl, live boy, a goat, two wetsuits and a dildo territory.  oh, and pink furry handcuffs.

When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty. ~Thomas Jefferson

T R E 4 5 O N

We’re watching the self-immolation of the leading world power on a level unprecedented in human history.

Quote tweet friends, screenshot enemies.

She burned that motherfucker down, and I am so here for it. Thank you, Caroline Kennedy.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

If ‘weird’ was the finish line, they ran through the tape and kept running.

I have other things to bitch about but those will have to wait.

Their boy Ron is an empty plastic cup that will never know pudding.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

The media handbook says “controversial” is the most negative description that can be used for a Republican.

So many bastards, so little time.

How any woman could possibly vote for this smug smarmy piece of misogynistic crap is beyond understanding.

He really is that stupid.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

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

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

They don’t have outfits that big. nor codpieces that small.

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

Giving in to doom is how authoritarians win.

Someone should tell Republicans that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, or possibly the first.

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Imbeciles Abroad

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I haven’t payed close attention to Trump’s doings in Asia, choosing to enjoy the novelty of his absence from this continent and revel in this week’s election news instead. But it’s worth noting that Trump is an ignorant, arrogant dope who is being shrewdly manipulated by his hosts. They must be pinching themselves disbelievingly and giddy with joy that such a smug, empty-headed and credulous sheep has blundered straight into their fleecing sheers. For example, this:

But that’s not how it works, Sarah. Ambassador Susan Rice set Huckabee-Sanders straight:

Even usually informed sources don’t seem to get the scale of the idiocy playing out on the world stage right now. For example, Vox misses a key point in this article, IMO:

China isn’t the first country to flatter its way to Trump’s heart. It won’t be the last.
We may be witnessing the dawn of a sweet-talking arms race.

Chinese President Xi Jinping is honoring President Trump with an unusually lavish reception and one-of-a-kind perks in China this week — the latest example of how leaders around the world are using flattery as a diplomatic tool for influencing the American president…

As heads of state struggle to predict what the leader of the free world is thinking or likely to do at any given moment, they have settled on massaging his ego as a way to nudge his mood in their favor…

We could be witnessing the dawn of a flattery arms race. And while the phenomenon is a reliable source of funny photos, it’s also a troubling development for the US. Foreign leaders are keen on exploiting Trump’s unrelenting hunger for validation and susceptibility to distraction.

As they grew more skilled at sweet-talking the president, they’re also subtly tilting power in their favor during talks where their interests diverge from those of the US. As they cultivate personal chemistry with Trump, they can tug his worldview closer to theirs or convince him they’re making bigger concessions to the US than they are.

“Trump risks mistaking personal flattery for geopolitical realities,” Richard Gowan, an expert on diplomacy at the European Council on Foreign Relations, told me. “Everyone will be nice to the US president — but behind the scenes, they will adjust their political calculations to reflect real-world politics.”

The author almost gets it, but the unvarnished truth is much worse than Trump being fooled about concessions and making bad deals. Through his absurd antics and constant lies, Trump has already squandered “leader of the free world” status.

His hosts are acutely aware of this, and they will pants him (and us) mercilessly and contest one another for the spoils while their bloated fool of a guest lolls around eating hamburgers on a golden chaise lounge from Despot Depot and glories in receiving tributes in the form of parades, lavish spending at Trump properties and gold-plated golf clubs.

Our hegemony is being vaporized for pitifully small bribes. Now, I’ve always been torn about US preeminence. For all our moralizing, we behave like international gangsters more often than not.

But now a soft, flabby, gullible idiot is in charge of the “gang,” and he’s representing our interests in the company of some extremely ruthless and canny individuals. Speaking of which:

Yeah, that’s going to go well. I hope there’s something left to salvage when this idiot is shooed off the stage.

Reader Interactions

98Comments

  1. 1.

    Baud

    A Russian presidential aide says Trump and Putin will meet Friday in Vietnam.

    Oof. This semi-annual performance reviews is going to be brutal.

  3. 3.

    Bill Arnold

    They must be pinching themselves disbelievingly and giddy with joy that such a smug, empty-headed and credulous sheep has blundered straight into their fleecing sheers.

    You are gold. (Smiling.)

  4. 4.

    Frankensteinbeck

    Our hegemony is being vaporized for pitifully small bribes.

    To be fair, some of those bribes are hundreds of millions of dollars. China, Russia, and Saudi Arabia want to be sure Trump STAYS bought.

  7. 7.

    gvg

    i think the reason it’s not getting more attention is that Trump doesn’t actually understand how “his” government works and isn’t able to carry through. Its all very well to flatter a President and get a good deal with us, buy something cheap, get us to support some action etc, but Donnie doesn’t and can’t carry through. his offers don’t become laws, we haven’t lifted certain sanctions etc. The reason for flattering him is to keep him distracted. He has managed to effectively isolate us and everyone has to ignore us. we can’t make new deals. He doesn’t know how to get treaties ratified or other things and since his wishes are so far away from most Americans even the greedy fools he has appointed, mostly nobody is telling him any useful info. Heck if China keeps him amused and distracted for awhile, they are doing us a favor. I’d love if they do parades and receptions for weeks while Mueller finishes up investigating and gets going on indictments.
    We are losing money, respect and power, but at least he hasn’t started a war.
    He is setting an example where future Presidents won’t expect to be the ones declaring war because currently a lot of our government is thinking out excuses to legally not get around to actually following war orders if he gives them. His judgement is so bad, I would expect any war wish of his to need resisiting. Strange place we are at.

  9. 9.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @MattF:
    China and Saudi Arabia gave Trump’s family hundreds of millions of dollars in contract approvals they were dragging their feet on when he became president. Russia, of course, is his biggest credit supplier. Sure, he loves flattery, but it’s the quid that gets his pro quo.

  11. 11.

    schrodingers_cat

    @MattF: I would check whether his business is getting kickbacks, he has not divested himself, has? Are any T towers being built in China? He hiked up the fees ta Mara-Lago after he became President and a few of the members there have bagged senior administration positions.

  16. 16.

    Humboldtblue

    Betty, is it’s possible, could you clean up my fuck-laden rant from down below, I used a word you’d rather not see used and I’d rather not do anything that would cross you or insult you.

    You know me, I follow all the rules. Politely and curse-free. With flowers. And bunnies.

  20. 20.

    Adam L Silverman

    Watch this. Pay close attention to the body postures of both Xi and the President. And the expressions on Xi’s face. Sound off works, sound on, given the context, is better.

  21. 21.

    Adam L Silverman

    @gvg: Also, the Chinese are very good at taking credit for agreements and deals that are several years old. Just as we saw with some big Japanese firms shortly after the election in 2016 in trying to flatter the President.

  25. 25.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Amir Khalid:

    Fixed that for you.

    ONE OF US.

    @Betty Cracker:
    Certainly true. China in particular is getting an incredible rate of return on bribing Trump. Russia… harder to say, since Putin’s express purpose isn’t measurable in money, only in fucking shit up within the US. He’s certainly gotten a lot of that.

  26. 26.

    GregB

    Trump went from accusing China of rape while on the campaign trail, to praising how well they grabbed their victims by the pussy when he was face to face with them.

    This is appalling.

    Imagine the delusions that will fill his fat orange head after rubbing elbows with Putin, Xi, Duterte and the the authoritarians running Vietnam?

  29. 29.

    MomSense

    Trump is an idiot who has squandered our reputation for a pocket full of licensing agreements with China for his daughter’s company.

    Follow the money. I’m sure there are more sweet deals.

  30. 30.

    Adam L Silverman

    @GregB: Has to do with personality type. He’s what would be referred to as a double A authoritarian. Double As seek to dominate everyone they perceive they can and then comply with those they perceive are stronger than they are.

  31. 31.

    Matt McIrvin

    This guy’s favorite thing to say is that somebody or other is laughing at us because they screwed us over on a rotten deal. And often it was China that was supposed to be laughing at us. Yet this man is the biggest sucker of them all.

  33. 33.

    Elie

    @Adam L Silverman:

    SUCH A MORON!!!!! OMG. You are so right to point out the body language — he is the submissive school boy meeting with his headmaster. His words make it worse! Moron thoughts about dinners last night and bullshit that should have taken one sentence. He is soooooo uncomfortable in his own skin and has NO IDEA who he is (the role of president of the united states — he has made it all non capitalized letters). OMG he is destroying our prestige and reputation! How can even the Republicans stand this? If they even had only one ounce of pride left, how can they abide this diminution of our country?

  34. 34.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Another Scott: @Elie: His body posture is terrible at all these events he’s at. Whether the photo sprays before cabinet meetings or these bilateral meetings with foreign leaders. And I don’t mean it’s terrible in that it’s bad for his back. Rather what he’s signaling with his posture is terrible. Closed off, uncomfortable, unhappy about doing whatever it is he’s doing and only doing it begrudgingly, sometimes irritated. Or as was the case with the posture, his facial expressions, and the tone, pitch, and timber of his voice in his remarks to Xi this morning signaling that he was a supplicant, that he was subordinate, that he was not an equal or a peer, but someone seeking a favor from a more powerful person.

    I guarantee that the Chinese and everyone else in Asia has taken note of his posture, facial expressions, and the tone, pitch, and timber of his voice this morning. And they will act accordingly.

  36. 36.

    Elie

    @Adam L Silverman:

    I hear what you say about double As, but he has NO PERCEPTION that who he is not just his own fat fuck stupid self, he represents the honor and dignity of our country. For political purposes, he IS the United States to all foreign leaders and when he looks and sounds like a mope, we become mopes. He is also further weakened in the eyes of other nations and especially competitors like China because they know he just got a slap in the face in the this last election and that his popularity is low .. so they can “jump” him and push him around even more.

    Tell me, how does a person — a general, like Kelly see this and not cringe to his soul, unless he is a total moron like his boss? How can Mattis and McMaster keep themselves from running out of the room screaming!?

  37. 37.

    The Moar You Know

    I heard the audio from his presser with President Xi today. If you’ve done a lot of business in Asia, and I have, it was truly horrifying. Trump has no idea whatsoever just how bad he made both himself and the US look.

    – you never admit weakness
    – you never admit mistakes
    – you never flatter someone for kicking your ass

    He did all three in less than a paragraph. Chinese business culture is all about “face”. Maintaining yours, maintaining your adversary’s. Trump threw all of “America’s face” in a box and set it on fire.

  38. 38.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Elie: The dinner stuff and how great the personal relationships are is all him ad libbing from the prepared remarks (which were bad enough). It is the stuff he thinks is important: how much time did someone want to spend with me, were they nice to me, are we friends? Think about his tweet when heading to Moscow for the Miss Universe pageant: “will Putin be my new best friend?” Same type of thing. It’s why his speech writers, whether Miller or LTG McMaster or anyone else working on a draft always includes something about his electoral college win, his appointing Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, the stock market’s most recent high. They have to give him something to self flatter himself because no one else is going to do it for him in order to get him to be willing to actually read the rest of the speech off the teleprompter and stay reasonably on script with a minimum of ad libs. So they write his favorite ad lib lines into the speech so he won’t get frustrated and decide he’s either going completely off script and just ad libbing everything or he says screw it, I don’t want to do this, you can’t make me do it, I’m leaving.

  39. 39.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Adam L Silverman: Such a stark contrast, yet again, with Barack Obama, who did the opposite in his body language.

    Donald is pathetic and weak, and every leader in the world knows it.

  40. 40.

    Droppy

    @Elie:

    How can even the Republicans stand this? If they even had only one ounce of pride left, how can they abide this diminution of our country?

    This is just what I don’t get about the Republicans – sure, I can see how they want an immoral, misogynistic, greedy, environment-raping, tax-cutting racist – that’s who they are – but don’t they want someone who isn’t quite this stupid? giving away all our stuff to the first guy who demands our lunch money?

  41. 41.

    Shalimar

    @Adam L Silverman: That is hilarious to me. All Trump supporters should be required to listen to 3 minutes of Trump campaign speech rhetoric about how he will treat China, followed by that obsequious nonsense. It is a stark reminder of what an asskisser-to-power Trump really is beneath all the posturing.

  43. 43.

    TenguPhule

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    China, Russia, and Saudi Arabia want to be sure Trump STAYS bought.

    Then they are going to be horribly disappointed.

    He’s not only a cheap whore, but he’s also an easily distracted one.

  44. 44.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Elie: I’m pretty sure no one has ever referred to the President as self aware.

    As to what the retired generals, as well as the still serving LTG McMaster are thinking, I do not know.

  46. 46.

    Elie

    @Adam L Silverman:

    How can all the totally not idiot Republicans stand looking at this kind of performance? I tell ya, I know nothing about foreign and trade policy but I could do a much better job without any coaching! I could sit there in silence and convey more dignity than he did! SAD!

  47. 47.

    TenguPhule

    @gvg:

    but Donnie doesn’t and can’t carry through. his offers don’t become laws, we haven’t lifted certain sanctions etc.

    But he can order pullbacks from the South China Sea, fail to uphold defense treaties with Taiwan and Kowtow to Russian forces in Syria and Ukraine.

    Its not about getting Trump to do deals, they want Trump to fuck up the chain of command.

    And they’re succeeding.

  48. 48.

    Adam L Silverman

    @The Moar You Know: He also doesn’t realize that the Chinese have made a high art form out of insulting people while sounding welcoming and complimentary. He thinks they’re flattering him. They’re not.

  49. 49.

    TenguPhule

    @Droppy:

    but don’t they want someone who isn’t quite this stupid? giving away all our stuff to the first guy who demands our lunch money?

    You’ve seen quotes from his supporters.

    They’re stupider then he is.

  51. 51.

    TenguPhule

    @Adam L Silverman:

    As to what the retired generals, as well as the still serving LTG McMaster are thinking, I do not know.

    Do we have any evidence they are still thinking after joining the Trump fail parade?

  52. 52.

    cmorenc

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Flattery is not the word you are looking for, its bribery. The President of the United States can be bought. The country is for sale to the highest bidder.

    You’re missing the key point here which is that savvy foreign leaders are using flattery as a way to obtain enormous discounts on the price of bribing Trump. Flattery causes a similar effect on Trump as on a guy starting to think with the little head rather than the big one when a woman starts flirting with him. His narcissistic ego gets a ferocious hard-on.

  53. 53.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Villago Delenda Est: Between the tweets, which give us raw, unfiltered thoughts, thought process (such as it is), and decision making process (such as it is), the body posture, facial expressions, and tone, timber, pitch of his speech, and the other behavioral indicators he’s a treasure trove of information for anyone looking to figure out how to exploit him. The easiest assignment I could have advising a senior leader and supporting that leader’s staff would be doing so if they were dealing/negotiation with the President.

  54. 54.

    Yarrow

    @Adam L Silverman: Mattis seems to be the one who stays behind the scenes the most. Maybe I’ve missed his on-camera blunders and destruction of his reputation, but if I haven’t missed it because he hasn’t done that, then he’s the smartest of the three.

  61. 61.

    TenguPhule

    @Elie:

    If they even had only one ounce of pride left, how can they abide this diminution of our country?

    What is this pride you keep thinking they still have?

  64. 64.

    Adam L Silverman

    @TenguPhule: I think all three are. Regardless of what you may think of them for joining the administration, or in the case of Gen. Kelly the more we learn about the positions he took as Secretary of DHS and now COS, they aren’t stupid men.

    I still think that Secretary Mattis accepted his position to try to protect the DOD, the Services, and screen the Service chiefs in an attempt to protect the military from the President. I would imagine if he had agreed to be Secretary of State or Director of Central Intelligence or Director of National Intelligence that he’d be functioning the same way in those assignments as he is as Secretary of Defense.

    As for LTG McMaster, my impression is still that 1) he’s on active duty and had he refused this it would have meant retirement, which is where he was headed anyway, which leads to 2) burn some of his reputation to ensure that the Interagency is returned to running properly and there is, at the least, an appropriate national security decision making process in place to try to preserve as much of American national power as possible.

  65. 65.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Yarrow: He’s the only one that doesn’t suck up to the President at the photo sprays. And he made it clear to US forces in Jordan that we have to hold the line till the US can get back to where it is supposed to be, not where we are right now.

  66. 66.

    Adam L Silverman

    @schrodingers_cat: Most people from high context communication societies are good at. Especially if they’re also honor/shame dynamic and near/far relationship societies. It’s why you also see it in the south in the US – remnant of an honor/shame dynamic society.

  67. 67.

    Elie

    @TenguPhule:

    Obviously, I was wrong. I was referring to any vestige of personal human pride. The pride that keeps you from pulling your pants down and shitting in the middle of the floor, or watching anyone who has your fate in their hands do that. Trump has our fate in his hands. There should be milliions of people with torches and pitchforks at the gates of the WH! He is destroying our safety and wellbeing with his incompetence and total unfitness. This should not be a partisan observation… Their fate is no different than ours…..

  68. 68.

    The Moar You Know

    He also doesn’t realize that the Chinese have made a high art form out of insulting people while sounding welcoming and complimentary. He thinks they’re flattering him. They’re not.

    @Adam L Silverman: They are treating him the same way that they’d treat a small, favored child. Listening to that, I have never been ashamed of being an American before (embarrassed, yes, but not ashamed). But this? This was fucking humiliating.

    There’s a great Bourdain episode, the one that cured me forever of thinking that Bourdain was either smart or savvy, of him in China. He’s dining with a billionaire and starts asking a bunch of really stupid questions about communism (which has not been “a thing” in China for more than 30 years now). Just comes off as an incredibly dense motherfucker. And his host is trying really hard to let him know “dude, you are being stupid here, knock it off” and he won’t. Finally the guy just loses it and starts insulting the living shit out of Bourdain and he has no idea he’s even being insulted. Thinks he came out looking really good. Agonizing to watch.

  72. 72.

    TenguPhule

    @schrodingers_cat: Quite nice. Except for the part where I got caught by the typhoon in Tokyo. Trump and news free for three glorious weeks, great food, cute penguins and the world’s greatest mass transit system. And hot springs!

    Also, when you can find them, their modern toilets are the absolute best.

  74. 74.

    TenguPhule

    @Elie:

    Their fate is no different than ours…..

    Unfortunately they think they’ve got tickets to escape.

    And they are wrong. Because they’re morons.

  75. 75.

    TenguPhule

    @Adam L Silverman:

    And he made it clear to US forces in Jordan that we have to hold the line till the US can get back to where it is supposed to be, not where we are right now.

    Asking them for another twenty years of service sounds a bit harsh.

  79. 79.

    Adam L Silverman

    @schrodingers_cat: High context communicators (high context societies) do not speak directly. Rather they talk around problems or issues or concerns. Most Americans and Europeans are low context communicators. The purpose of conversation or communication is to convey information directly. To get to the point. In the case of ethnic minorities in the US or Europe who come from high context communication backgrounds they are often low context communicators in public and in their professional/work lives and a mix of high and low context communicators in their private/personal lives.

  80. 80.

    Yarrow

    @Adam L Silverman: Agreed. We are stuck with Trump for the time being. It’s good that some people like Mattis are doing the hard work to hold things together, even if it’s with baling wire and duct tape. I hope our allies understand. I get the impression they do from the intel cooperation that’s been going on. Unsung heroes.

  81. 81.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Adam L Silverman: I had to learn to work around this in Korea, because direct communication with the Korean civilians we worked with was difficult at best. Verbal communications were, to Americans, positive, but not followed through with actions because the of the high context culture. Also the KATUSAs had this habit of not looking superiors (particularly NCOs) in the eye, which the NCOs took as disrespect, rather than respect.

  82. 82.

    Bill Arnold

    @Adam L Silverman:

    High context communicators (high context societies) do not speak directly. Rather they talk around problems or issues or concerns.

    Is there a primer that you recommend for quickly understanding the basics of the dimensions for society types.

  83. 83.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Villago Delenda Est: Yep. One of the reasons GEN Dempsey instituted the cultural advisors program was to have someone like me at every Army school house and/or academic center to make sure stuff like this was built into the curriculum and then integrated across an enterprise and coordinated back to and with the higher headquarters at TRADOC. So that Soldiers didn’t have to learn it via experience. CAC had other priorities, as it always does, and leveraged the sequester to defund the program. So now there is no one like me at every Army school house and/or academic center.

  84. 84.

    Shalimar

    You’re extremely lucky to have someone you can actually be proud of. My congressasshole is Matt Gaetz, new contender for dumbest and most offensive member of that august body.

  85. 85.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Bill Arnold: I’ve got teaching materials I built to prep Soldiers in predeployment on this. Other than that I’ve never seen a specific primer. Let me poke around and see what I can find. If I don’t find any one thing, I’ll likely just post my prep materials. Please shoot me an email to remind me.

  86. 86.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Shalimar: RUMINT on Florida political twitter is he’s got liability in the scandals breaking out of Tallahassee from his time in the Florida legislature.

  88. 88.

    Adam L Silverman

    @schrodingers_cat: These descriptors aren’t universal. Within societies and cultures there are always variances. And they are usually/often invisible to outsiders. So what to you seems like nuance and differences within different Indian subcultures and regional variation, these would not necessarily be readily apparent to non Indians. Whenever I teach a module on anything I always start with: “everything I’m about to tell you is true, except when it isn’t”.

  92. 92.

    Shalimar

    @Adam L Silverman: I can’t recall the statements, but my strong impression was that Gaetz is a misogynistic pig, so it wouldn’t surprise me at all that he had issues in Tallahassee.

  93. 93.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Shalimar: He’s also a chronic drunk driver. Seven arrests. No convictions though. Just as was the case with his Florida state legislative seat and now his congressional seat, daddy bought him out of the convictions.

  95. 95.

    Raoul

    Our hegemony is being vaporized for pitifully small bribes

    Bribe part notwithstanding, I’m not sure I mind the larger point.

  96. 96.

    Shalimar

    @Adam L Silverman: He has never represented me in any office, I live in the next county over, but Don Gaetz has a terrific reputation locally among members of both parties. In one sense, it would be a shame if Matt destroyed that reputation. On the other, though, Don has agency in what he has done to help Matt and should be held responsible for the results. And Matt is a horrible human being.

  97. 97.

    Mnemosyne

    @Raoul:

    Russia and China are replacing us as the global hegemons. I’m not sure that’s going to be a huge improvement for anyone, including us.

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