Last night, as part of his book tour, James Comey did a town hall-style event with Anderson Cooper on CNN. I didn’t watch it, but my husband did, so I heard bits and pieces as I was puttering around the kitchen. Comey rehashed the same rationales for interfering in the 2016 election that we’ve heard before. I didn’t buy it the first time, still don’t buy it now.
But the town hall veered off in an interesting direction when Cooper or someone in the audience asked Comey to share his impressions of Trump’s leadership style. Here’s CNN’s account of the exchange, with quotes:
Comey portrays Trump as someone who can never think about anything but himself, how he feels.
“His style of conversation was a series of assertions about great things he had done,” Comey said, describing one of his private meetings with Trump, in which he said the President made inappropriate demands for loyalty.
“The challenge I found was that they wash over you like a wave and even if you disagree, the waves keep coming.”
“But that is the style, it’s ‘I’m great, I’m great, I’m great,'” Comey said…
“I saw Presidents (George W.) Bush and (Barack) Obama both use humor effectively to relax, to put at ease, to try and get to the truth. I never saw President Trump laugh even in an almost hour-and-a-half hour long private dinner,” he said…
“His only reference point is internal — ‘what will bring me what I need, what will fill this hole in me — get me the affirmation I crave’ — that is deeply concerning…”
That certainly rings true — what Comey is describing is the behavior of a malignant narcissist. Actually, everything Comey says strikes me as the truth as he understands it — mendaciousness isn’t Comey’s sin; hubris is.
Anyhoo, this morning, Trump did a phone-in interview with the Fox & Friends crew. As John noted, Trump made news for blowing up the prior implausible excuse that he didn’t know Michael Cohen was representing him in the Stormy Daniels case.
But the interview was also noteworthy in that Trump came off as so unhinged that even the three dolts on the couch were talking to Trump in the soothing tones and with the calming hand gestures one might use if confined in a small space with a growling Rottweiler that had a mousetrap clamped to its nutsack.
And we know why: Trump told the sofa squatters he doesn’t watch CNN but admitted that he did watch the Comey town hall last night. That explains why he sounds so rattled and angry that even the sofa squatters squirmed — Comey completely nailed Trump, exposing the yawning chasm of insecurity and neediness at Trump’s core in front of the whole goddamned country. The clip below is a F&F-edited sample of Trump’s much longer rant:
.@realDonaldTrump grades his first year in office pic.twitter.com/MWW1nVPEKR
— FOX & friends (@foxandfriends) April 26, 2018
Here’s a partial transcript for those who can’t or don’t want to watch — Trump’s rant below comes in response to Doocy’s softball — nay, T-ball — question about how Trump would grade his first year in office:
I’m fighting a battle against, uh, uh, a horrible group of deep-seated people, drain the swamp, that are coming up with all sorts of phony charges against me, and they’re not bringing up real charges against the other side. So, we have a phony deal going on, and it’s a cloud over my head. And I’ve been able to do, to really escape that cloud, because the message now, everyone knows, is a fix, okay, it’s a witch hunt. And they know that, and I’ve been able to message it. I would give myself an A+.
Nobody has done what I’ve been able to do, and I did it despite the fact that I had a phony cloud over my head. That doesn’t exist. [Blah blah blah Democrats Electoral College Deep State Crooked FBI McCabe wife campaign contributions McAuliffe blah blah blah]
Our Justice Department, which I try and stay away from but at some point I won’t. Our Justice Department, which should be looking at that kinda stuff, not the nonsense of collusion with Russia, there is no collusion with me and Russia, and everyone knows it.
I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to describe that last paragraph as delivered in an angry shout, to the acute discomfort of the sofa squatters. It’s worth watching, IMO — you don’t even have to look at Trump’s ugly mug since he’s on the phone, and the body language and facial expressions of the nitwits on the couch are something to behold.
I had mostly negative feelings about Comey’s book tour, but if it rattles Trump this badly, maybe it’s a good thing.
Major Major Major Major
Speaking as somebody who switches the radio station when I hear his voice, no it’s not worth watching, for me.
Spot-on post otherwise though I think you might be searching for the word mendacity.
aimai
My god, unhinged doesn’t do it justice. They look petrified and they are unable to shut him off. It boggles my mind that the Republicans can’t put aside their greed and partisan goals and recognize that this man is literally unfit for the office. He is barely functioning. This can’t be hid.
Elizabelle
Is there a link to the full Fox and Fools appearance? How long was Trump bloviating this morning?
I watched a short clip; the woman and Kilmeade looked quiet and concerned; Steve Doocy was still beaming because Trump was hitting all his favorite spots.
boatboy_srq
That tRump tirade reads like something written by Sarah Palin and read by imminent-aneurysm Alex Jones.
germy
– T.D. Williams
Thoroughly Pizzled
Comey is truly a Stalinesque ally in this fight.
Lyrebird
Tipping my hat to you, BC, and also thanking you for front-paging the DACA news yesterday. Don’t know if it’s WP or my internet provider making comments unsuccessful half the time.
boatboy_srq
@aimai: tRump isn’t fit for the office of dog catcher, let alone POTUS.
Yarrow
Comey’s got the goods on Trump and Trump knows it, which is why he fired him.
Elizabelle
A bit OT: I am wondering if Amy Chozick’s shitfest on Hillary might suffer for comparison to Saint Comey’s own book? Because Amy’s already getting taken to task for including stuff that might not have actually happened, and certainly not in Chozick’s presence.
Or will the dissembling in Chozick’s masterpiece make people sniff a bit about Comey’s book too?
I guess the play is, whatever you do, dump on Hillary as hard as you can, because you don’t want people waking up and saying, “hey, look what we could have had.” Albeit, it would be an orgy of rightwing smears and investigations.
I guess we have to live through this shit, to get to the other side.
FlipYrWhig
@aimai: I’m appalled by the way his internal playlist is constantly on shuffle and he just says the same phrases from some story from whenever and can’t let it go and can’t get back on the subject. It’s like a standup who’s been doing the same set for so long that it’s no longer funny, but he doesn’t have any more material so he just gets angry with the crowd, unless it’s one of those State Fair crowds that’s so starved for entertainment they’ll accept the old riffs from long ago and applaud out of nostalgia.
germy
Steve Doocy seemed to get a big kick out of the whole thing. He was beaming at the end (after they cut drump’s mic) and said “he’s really a morning person!”
Doocy’s been at this for decades. It felt to me like this interview was the culmination of his career. He looked thrilled.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Major Major Major Major: I don’t even want to read his words. As with Palin and many other prominent Republicans, the SNL version is the only one I can tolerate.
Shell
Gosh, so MANY witch hunts. Maybe they should change the name of the White House to New Salem?
zhena gogolia
Even if he’s just trying to flog his book, I’m glad Comey keeps going on TV and telling it like it is. He’s the kind of person they’ll invite on. Adam Schiff is never going to get this kind of coverage.
And yes, I’m well aware we wouldn’t be in this mess if not for Comey. But at least he’s doing things to mitigate it. I don’t see other responsible people (lookin at you, Wilmer) doing that.
rikyrah
I found this video of Avenatti at another blog. Along with this commentary. If true…DAMN!
https://youtu.be/Lw2s-uoaCLQ
Gin & Tonic
@Thoroughly Pizzled: Without the 3 million corpses.
SiubhanDuinne
I haven’t watched more than about a minute of the F&F shitshow, but I did have a look at the transcript and see he’s back on this moldy oldie:
I had completely forgotten that Lincoln was a Republican until Trump reminded me. Thanks, Trump!
FlipYrWhig
@boatboy_srq: “There was no stray dog, OK, and everyone knows it, and all the dogs in this town are on long beautiful leashes, the most beautiful leashes you’ve ever seen, and people ask me, this stuff with Trump and stray dogs, OK, and I say to myself, ‘Trump, the dogs, are they on leashes?,’ knowing that there’s no chance they’re strays, OK, stray dogs, I mean, I’ve heard of stray cats, but stray dogs, people are saying they’ve never heard of it before.”
MattF
Sounds like Trump pays close attention to all the RWNJ details, or at least tries to. But he can’t quite manage it. It all makes sense to the devout F&F crew, but if you’re not Steve Doocy, there’s a problem. Actually, several problems.
Brachiator
If this were an ancient Greek comedy, Trump would be a classic alazṓn, the impostor who sees himself as greater than he actually is. Unfortunately, this ain’t no comedy, it’s a freaking farce.
Again, just a step away from declaring the DOJ to be “My Justice Department.” And clearly, he is just itching to do something. I suppose that he wants Sessions or Rosenstein to take the hint because Trump himself ain’t got the balls to take direct action.
Man, this shit is getting old.
Karen Potter
This is off topic; but Senate did something good. Must be mistake. https://www.themaven.net/theintellectualist/news/senate-approves-legislation-to-protect-special-counsel-mueller-from-trump-Js9w7cDS30yjU5QQtOQDow/
Elizabelle
Squatter is right. They are all squatters. They don’t belong where they are.
germy
@SiubhanDuinne:
I wonder how that happened? Someone should do a study…
MattF
@Brachiator: Rick Wilson noted that several dozen Congressional sphincters suddenly tightened in unison at the ‘at some point I won’t’ remark.
Eljai
It’s amazing isn’t it? The press spent countless hours speculating about Hillary’s health in 2016. And yet here it’s glaringly horrifically obvious that Trump is unwell. Every journalist who has normalized his behavior should be shunned.
aimai
@germy: He looked thrilled at first to ask a typical “rate yourself” kind of question, though he was very careful to word it so that it didn’t contain any triggering phrases like “you had trouble with your messaging” –he converted that on the fly to “the white house had trouble getting the message across.” But he looked pretty panicked in the middle of the rant.
zhena gogolia
@Gin & Tonic:
Aren’t you underestimating a bit?
bemused
@Brachiator:
Very old. We’re all exhausted.
We have a serious mental health crisis in this country. A third, more or less, of Americans are off their rockers. The rest of us are suffering from never ending stress.
Josie
Oh, BC, this made me laugh so hard I teared up and scared the dog. You are the best.
Kay
Remember this?
Chyron HR
Man, the neoliberal status quo sure has been shattered. We’re sure to get single-payer health care any day now.
germy
@aimai:
I didn’t notice that part. It must have been when I turned away to vomit.
I remember seeing a clip of Doocy from his early TV days. I think it was an early 1980s clip. He was on a “normal” news show, there to provide commentary. He seemed strange even then. Very odd. He spoke rapidly while the other two anchors stared at him, and when he wasn’t speaking he sat and twitched. Someone viewing at the time might not have predicted he’d have a future in media.
randy khan
I feel sorry for the poor people who have to transcribe what Trump says. They must feel like the tape keeps looping back.
lollipopguild
@Brachiator: Trump sees himself as owning the government-all of it is his and he can do anything he wants. An elected dictator, Bevin in Kentucky has said similar things.
danielx
Betty, you should really write for a living.
germy
@MattF:
And we thought the giant sucking sound from NAFTA was loud.
rikyrah
@Elizabelle:
check the morning thread
Kay
@Eljai:
Clinton identified that this was one of two big lies about her. The other was the lie about how she’s a child sex trafficker.
I was surprised. It seemed so blatantly dishonest I didn’t think people would fall for it. I wonder if the campaign had data to indicate this swayed people. Clinton thinks it did.
p.a.
He’ll be left with no defense strategy but mental incapacity, which he of course will never admit to. As I asked in a previous thread, at what point to Rethugs cUT their ties and turn on him, or do they go down too? (Knowing that if they came back from Nixon & W they can come back from this: as long as stupid people reproduce, the R brand is safe…)
lumpkin
>>>I would give myself an A+.<<<
This made me fall right off the toilet.
Brachiator
@aimai:
Right now, the only remedy would be pulling a 25th Amendment trigger on Trump. But the Republicans and their plutocrat overlords still find Trump useful, and the president is still just shy of total incoherence. Who knows what might send him over the edge.
Gin & Tonic
@zhena gogolia: Estimates of that number are, as you know, all over the park and impossible to verify with any degree of accuracy – even to define as what he was directly vs. indirectly responsible for. I mean, how do you compare sentenced to death and executed, vs sentenced to the Gulag and died there due to malnutrition, vs died in the Holodomor even though not sentenced to anything? I’ve read Conquest and Snyder and Applebaum and others and have heard and read various arguments, so I took the lower bound of what seems to be verifiable in archives and more-or-less directly attributable. This is already too much for a throw-away off-topic line.
germy
What I found strange was the hosts repeatedly telling drumpf how busy he is, and drumpf telling the hosts how busy he is, and yet they cut him off. It sounded like he would have talked for another two hours if they’d kept him on the line.
I would expect an interview like this, the president saying “Look, I’ve really got to go now” and the hosts begging “Just one more question?”
Instead, it ends like one of those call in shows where “Bob from Iowa” gets told “Okay, we need to move along…”
lollipopguild
@Kay: Sometimes the bigger the lie the easier it is for some people to believe it.
david
If you wonder why F&F had the guy in the White House on their show,
remember that this is Take Your Child To Work Day.
cleek
“The Electoral College is set up perfectly for the Democrats”
what a clown
zhena gogolia
@Gin & Tonic:
I include everything, definitely Holodomor.
zhena gogolia
@cleek:
That’s why we’ve had two Republican losers of the popular vote become president in the last 18 years.
MattF
@aimai: I think part of the problem is that Trump alludes (incoherently) to some RWNJ memes that are already incomprehensible to people who aren’t addicted to Fox. I don’t bother trying to ‘get’ it, myself.
Tim C.
@Brachiator: 25th doesn’t work that way sadly. If the “removal vote” of his own cabinet passed, all that he would do is contest it. It takes 2/3 vote of both houses to remove under that circumstance. Impeachment and removal from office is easier. Also unlikely.
efgoldman
@Gin & Tonic: Totally OT, but did you see that Lincoln Chaffee had announced he will run in the Democratic primary (!) for senate against Sheldon Whitehouse
Poor Linc is gong to be very disappointed
Vor
@randy khan: Someone, either Sam Bee or The Daily Show, did a piece on the challenges Trump poses for translators. In general, they were cleaning up his language in an attempt to be more coherent. So non-English speakers may not be aware of his true gibberish.
Brachiator
@lollipopguild:
Was Bevin the guy who said cruel nonsense about teachers?
Kay
This is good:
Republicans are having a vicious primary for governor in Ohio. I heard back to back radio ads thi s morning. They’re trying to out-Trump each other. Kasich’s lt governor is (ridiculously) running against the Kasich record. DeWine, the establishment candidate, will say literally anything to get elected and he’s flailing. He can’t decide if he’s a trusty moderate or a rabid Right winger. The answer is “either/or”. He’s nothing.
Elizabelle
@germy: That is the problem, too.
“Bob from Iowa” got installed as POTUS. And it’s not going very well.
MattF
@cleek: I suppose some WH ‘intellectual’ (Bannon or Miller, I’d guess) said this, and Trump is repeating it. Bullshit, of course.
Elizabelle
@Brachiator: Wasn’t it that some kids probably got abused, because they weren’t in school cuz the teachers were out on strike?
I don’t speak wingnut, so I don’t know what Bevin was actually saying.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: It would be awesome to turn TN blue. I know the odds are long, but wow, that would be something.
ericblair
@Brachiator:
Impeachment would do it. That’s why I think the people who believe that the Senate, without a supermajority of Dems, will never convict Trump are making a pretty common error: that only one thing at a time will ever change and everyone will act rationally. Trump will lose what’s left of his itty bitty collection of marbles, and the Senate goopers get to decide whether this is what they want to defend.
Gin & Tonic
@efgoldman: I hadn’t seen. I’ve been a bit out of touch on the local front.
Yes, Linc will get slapped hard. It’s funny, because I met Sheldon a couple of times in small settings when he was first running, and my take-away was that he just seemed awkward and uncomfortable (not as awkward as Linc, but still.) I think he’s really grown into the job in many ways. With him and Reed, we have a really good pair of Senators.
lollipopguild
@Brachiator: Yes< Bevin said "kids were abused" because the teachers took a day off. Bevin has also stated that he does not have to answer to the courts in Kentucky because he only has to answer to the voters.
MattF
@Elizabelle: When things get tough, RWNJs reach for an accusation of child molestation. Happens too often to just be a weird coincidence, IMO.
p.a.
@efgoldman: I met him on the Blackstone River bike path when Whitehouse was challenging him, and told him I couldn’t vote for him when the Dems needed the Senate majority. He said (paraphrase) I totally understand. Thanks for your honesty.
Fair Economist
@Eljai:
Once again the refrain: can you imagine the uproar if Hillary had released medical documents claiming she was about 40 pounds lighter than she actually was?
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@Kay:
Yeah, that should work real well for the general.
ericblair
…AAAnd another thing. Who is running the sofa squatters? These dopes are the greatest intelligence targets on the planet. They are the pResident’s daily brief. I would assume that it’s Murdoch directly, but they are also target #1 for any foreign intelligence service to bribe or threaten. I am wondering whether they could be considered part of the criminal conspiracy as well.
MisterForkbeard
@Fair Economist: Do we know this for sure about Trump’s weight yet? I haven’t seen confirmation.
efgoldman
@Gin & Tonic:
Agree completely.
I think Sheldon might have been under consideration for AG in a Clinton administration. Surely qualified.
ETA: What’s the opposite of camera hogs? That’s our guys.
Brachiator
@Tim C.:
We’ve got two paths, both with their own difficulties. Trump is coming closer and closer to acting out badly in public. Impeachment, or course, requires interpreting something he has done as criminal or some clear and convincing evidence. Either way, Congress would get to weigh in.
Barbara
@Brachiator: Yep. That’s the key sentence:
And what point is that Mr. Trump? I think we all know but I think he should be asked. He of course won’t sit down with anyone who would ask him that, not anymore. I don’t think Lester Holt is going to get any more interviews.
MattF
@ericblair: I’d assume that there’s some cutout arrangement between Murdoch and his ‘reporters’.
Amir Khalid
@SiubhanDuinne:
What these people always leave out when they mention that Abe was a Republican is that Abe was a Republican before the Confederates took over the party, and that Abe sure as fuck wouldn’t want to be a Republican now..
Wapiti
@ericblair: I think this is likely. A House majority means that the Dems would do real investigations of Trump: stress on Donald. They’d also do some (probably) damning investigations of some of his cabinet, causing some to resign and maybe some to be charged, which leaves vacancies, which must be filled: stress on Donald. I’d like a committee to invite Pence down to speak about Article 25 and why he hasn’t done anything. Make him go on record that the Dotard is totally fine and everything is normal. Then, depending on what the investigations turn up, and how Donald is reacting, start talking impeachment.
germy
Swinging from the hips?
Gelfling 545
@Major Major Major Major: Turn the sound off & just watch the fox friends squirm.
danielx
@germy:
Hewitt is clearly pressing to nudge Jim Hoft off the top of the manure pile as Dumbest Man On The Internet.
Amir Khalid
@efgoldman:
I remember how Chaffee had so little to offer as a candidate for president that no one, not even he, could figure out why he was running at all. I am, let me put it this way, not entirely confident that this time he can get as far as the primary ballot.
Jazzman
@randy khan:
No need to feel sorry for people. Trump’s remarks are actually transcribed by a hundred monkeys sitting at typewriters in a back room of the White House. They often improve his content. In fact, one of them has already applied for Sarah Sanders’ job.
rikyrah
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“This is a stupid and ridiculous hearing,” Rep. @tedlieu says at House Judiciary hearing on social media, which has featured tense exchanges with Diamond and Silk. http://abcn.ws/2hFejwL
Elizabelle
@Amir Khalid: Agreed. History is not these folks’ strong suit. As it is not Trump’s. Alas …
Roger Moore
@Tim C.:
Yes in terms of the mechanics, but I’m not sure about the practice of it. Impeachment is a purely political process, so it involves making a political case against him. The 25th Amendment is a medical/psychological thing, so it could be strongly swayed by a sufficiently bad medical report. IMO, this is why it was so important for him personally to get RDML Jackson to lie about his health. Having his personal doctor tell the world he had serious medical problems and was in the early stages of dementia would have made a 25th Amendment response a lot more likely, especially since they’d be getting Pence as a replacement.
rikyrah
Bring on the protests!!!
And, that would be a NO for the Royal Family.
Charlie Proctor
@MonarchyUK
BREAKING: Donald Trump will visit the UK on July 13. It is unknown at this stage whether he will meet any member of The Royal Family.
The trip will not be a State Visit.
8:38 AM – 26 Apr 2018
https://twitter.com/MonarchyUK/status/989529279439556608
lollipopguild
@Fair Economist: She should have done exactly that and then told all of the critics to kiss her thin ass.
efgoldman
@Amir Khalid:
I can’t find the requirements for ballot access, but they’re pretty easy. I don’t think Linc would have trouble getting signatures. Getting votes is another matter, especially as a Dem
Frankensteinbeck
I think others here are interpreting the Justice Department line as a reference to firing Mueller? I don’t. In the context of the paragraph, while Mueller is obviously on his mind, Trump is venting a different frustration. I am now almost positive that early in his time in office, he told the DoJ to arrest Hillary, and probably some other political enemies. They told him no, because the legal system does not work like that no matter how much the president wants it to. He has resented that ever since, and regularly mentions how she should be investigated.
tobie
It looks like Judge Woods chickened out and appointed a Special Master instead of going straight to a Taint Team, as the prosecution had requested. Trump and Cohen didn’t get to choose the Special Master as they would have liked but they did get to add an extra hoop that will delay the process. Sigh.
trollhattan
@aimai:
“She* would have been worse.”–Every Republican still clinging to the very concept of the Trump presidency.
*We can’t even say her name, but she may be a witch!
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@germy: Is swinging from the hips a thing that’s considered good in some sport like boxing or baseball?
Or did somebody’s broken brain intend “shooting from the hip”?
NotMax
@rikyrah
FWIW, it had been leaked a while back that a stop at Balmoral in July while Elizabeth was in residence had been “pencilled in.”
trollhattan
Hey-oh! Now, how to work this quip into a conversation….
bemused
@Gelfling 545:
I did that too. Aside from I couldn’t take listening the big boob, I wanted to see how they reacted. Not much movement or talking from the three.
Frankensteinbeck
@Amir Khalid:
I thought it was interesting that Trump did allude to how Civil Rights switches the parties. Then, in a classic racist trope, he implied African-Americans we’re finally figuring out that being oppressed was good for them after all and were voting for Trump. I assume his justification there was whatever’s going on with Kanye.
bemused
@rikyrah:
Visiting his Scotland golf courses?
Roger Moore
@rikyrah:
Nope. It will be a golf holiday thinly disguised as some kind of official business.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@rikyrah: Make him fly coach! And endure a terminal change at Gatwick with only a 45-minute connection!
(Still angry about a gate change nightmare there that must have been at least 5 years ago. Cost me half my souvenirs when I forgot one bag at security as we went running for the plane whose doors, we were told, had closed.)
germy
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: I’ve heard of shooting from the hip, but never swinging from the hip. I can’t keep up with these people.
Brachiator
@Elizabelle:
Yes, I think that was it. Thanks.
@lollipopguild:
What a nasty piece of work. I think he had to walk back some of those comments about abuse. But what, he thinks court decisions are advisory, not anything binding?
germy
@Brachiator: I thought The Home was sacred to these types? They really think The State is protecting our children from The Home? Communism!
Snarkworth, short-fingered Bulgarian
a horrible group of deep-seated people
I’m a deep-seated person, but I find the Easy Fit works out best.
mai naem mobile
@Betty Cracker:
@Kay: I would love to see AZ,Tenn and Nev make TurtleMan the minority leader but I am worried about Bill Nelson. I read on the Twitter Machine that the Fed Appeals Court stayed a lower court ruling which would have forced Fl to deal with some massive voter disenfranchisement. What’s the polling on Nelson/Scott?
Amir Khalid
@Frankensteinbeck:
I hear he’s a talented artist, but I get the impression that outside of his art he’s a blithering idiot.
Ruckus
@MattF:
If you are Steve Doocy, you have humongous problems.
Gelfling 545
@Josie: I couldn’t stop laughing at the rottweiler analogy. Hiccups ensued.
LAO
@tobie: Barbara Jones was an excellent Judge.
trollhattan
Well now, once “principled” Rand Paul stopped pretending to have those and set Pompeo free from the committee hearings, he just now sailed through the entire senate.
Will he keep gutting the staff at State like Tillerson?
JustRuss
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Golf and baseball swings use the hips for power. But it’s not a phrase you hear thrown around much. I guess Hewitt means he’s ranting bigly, which is probably a good thing in what passes for his mind. Trump pretty much always shoots from the hip, ie speaks without thinking.
Jeffro
1) I finally got around to watching/listening to that Fox & Friends clip with McShouty going on and on…holy cow. Proud now, Republicans?
2) More importantly, did anyone already link to/comment on this yesterday? I know it’s in That Paper We All Hate, but still: VERY encouraging to see this all laid out there.
Robert Mueller’s Last Resort
Reads like a bad action movie plot, doesn’t it? Here’s hoping it doesn’t come to pass…but if it does, go for it, Bobby Three Sticks. Just get it all out there, no matter what it takes.
Where Facebook Rumors Fuel Thirst for Revenge
Pruitt’s History: Fancy Homes, Lobbyists and a Shell Company
A Memorial Unlike Anything the U.S. Has Ever Seen
Seanly
@rikyrah:
Well, that’s too late for him to crash the royal wedding.
Kind of want to watch the interview to see how off the rails he sounds. But don’t want to watch the video as I hate his terrible voice. For a guy who is now one of the most powerful people on the planet, he sure is still full of a lot of grievances.
efgoldman
@tobie:
To be expected, same as Watergate: they don’t have the facts, their only tactic is delay, delay, delay.
Roger Moore
@trollhattan:
Of course not. Now that Tillerson is done running the competent people out, Pompeo gets to fill all the now vacant positions by promoting the worst hacks he can find.
Mnemosyne
@Kay:
Given what’s obvious about Trump’s health, one can’t help but wonder when the child sex trafficking information will start coming out. We already know that Trump went to parties thrown by a convicted pedophile where underage girls were the main attraction, but somehow the MSM never bothered to follow up on that. ?
Mnemosyne
@rikyrah:
Yep, no State Visit means that the queen can avoid meeting him as head of state.
efgoldman
@Mnemosyne:
It’s probably not wise, politically, for the PM to meet with him either
schrodingers_cat
@Eljai: Put Snooze Hour’s Judy Fucking Woodruff on top of that list.
No Drought No More
“It’s a fix”.
I think Trump just acknowledged that the evidence that will soon be presented to the American people by Mueller Inc. will prove him irrefutably guilty, but for being taken his own word.
I can’t recall ever having met, seen, or heard an individual in public service as transparently dishonest as that sick pissant, and I remember The Trickster in his prime.
tobie
@LAO: @efgoldman: I hear Judge Jones is a straight shooter, and I’m sure she’ll move as swiftly as she can through the seized material. I take some pleasure in knowing that she’s worked on sexual assault issues. Sounds like poetic justice.
Betty Cracker
@mai naem mobile: The voter disenfranchisement has been going on for years, so that ruling keeps us at the (shitty) status quo. The polling is very tight between Nelson and Scott. My feeling is Nelson will hang onto his seat. This will be a wave election, which should help Nelson, and Scott’s two gubernatorial wins were both with less than 50% and under unique circumstances, i.e., uniquely compromised opponents. Scott really is an awful politician — a terrible debater and speaker. I’ve been way wrong in election predictions before, so grain of salt!
TenguPhule
@efgoldman:
That horse already left the barn last year. And May is a fucking moron. Of course she’ll meet with him, assuming she’s still PM.
Betty Cracker
Cosby found guilty of drugging and sexually assaulting women. Good — die in jail, motherfucker.
Jay
@germy:
Beeseball reference,
Elizabelle
@Betty Cracker: He does sound guilty.
I am glad my parents did not live to see this. Or even the allegations. They really liked him. Whole thing is very sad, really. For those he preyed upon, for his family, for those he let down.
For all the good things in his life that he accomplished — and he did — but now, all tarnished.
No Drought No More
Remember how you felt when you realized Trump would be the next POTUS? So do I, which is why I take great heart in knowing that Bill Cosby is having a better day than Donald Trump will ever enjoy again for the rest of his miserable life. The only question today being: how much more damage will Trump- and those who exploit, aid, and abet his transparent treason- inflict on this country before they all are stopped?
prostratedragon
@Vor: I recall this one:
So, maybe non-English speakers are all too aware …
rikyrah
Marc E. Elias
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@marceelias
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BREAKING: Federal Court orders Marion County, Indiana to open satellite early voting sites for 2018 general election. County GOP refused to allow them in Federal elections after Obama’s win in 2008 in violation of US Constitution. Congrats @CommonCause!
4:42 PM – 25 Apr 2018
Fatima Hussein
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This is major news for Indiana’s largest county. Marion County- with over 700k voters-has one early voting site downtown in a virtually inaccessible site, due to local and state Republican efforts to limit early voting in the county after the county handed Indiana to Obama in 08.
TenguPhule
@No Drought No More:
A lot.
cmorenc
The look on the faces of the 3 Fox Stooges-on-a-Couch as Trump rants on is priceless – it’s the sort of mix of astonishment and terror you might see on the faces of employees at a company party watching their drunken boss go off on a drunken belligerent rant, but they are too afraid of losing their jobs to confront him about it, or even to simply leave the room.
oldster
“the calming hand gestures one might use if confined in a small space with a growling Rottweiler that had a mousetrap clamped to its nutsack.”
Okay, that had me laughing out loud.
germy
Attorneys for Former Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein are submitting a letter to the Senate Intelligence Committee stating she will not supply it with all of the information they have requested about the 2016 campaign, calling the request “overbroad.”
According to The Intercept, which received a copy of the letter to be delivered on Thursday, Stein is refusing to turn over everything they have asked for as it related to their probe into Russian activities in the 2016 election.
germy
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Roger Moore: How can the President of the United States go into another country while in office and it not be a matter of state?
trollhattan
@Betty Cracker:
Good riddance, creep. Glad to know his bastard attorney’s attack-the-victim tactic failed, also. Maybe failing in a high-profile case like this will make it less attractive in the future.
Maybe I’ll get my pony, too.
Manyakitty
@Mnemosyne: He has a long, oddly quiet history of sex trafficking, including the rumor that he pimped a very young Ivanka out to John Casablancas in exchange for first pick of the new girls as they arrived in the US.
Frankensteinbeck
@Elizabelle:
What stuck with me about Bill Cosby was his standup about parenting, and how he took physical abuse as a baseline assumption.
Brachiator
@germy:
Well, she is certainly full of herself.
Was St Bernie asked to turn over any documents, as well?
germy
https://www.theroot.com/wait-did-stormy-daniels-lawyer-just-hint-that-a-1-6-m-1825573158
Elizabelle
@Frankensteinbeck: Ah, now you will have to find a clip to illustrate that. Right over my head, but I didn’t watch much more than I Spy, the pudding pop commercials, Fat Albert, guest appearances, maybe half of The Cosby Show …
wow. That’s a lot of watching. And it’s all tarnished now. So sad.
ETA: It would seem Jackie Gleason/Ralph Cramden did not age well either. “To the moon, Alice!” Is that a (comically delivered) thread of violence?
Elizabelle
@germy: Wow. America’s Dad. Not.
Frankensteinbeck
@Elizabelle:
The references to violence were everywhere, more in his discussions of how his parents treated him, but in both. I remember a few. “Worst beating I ever got in my life, my mother said ‘I am just sick-‘ I said ‘And tired!’ I don’t remember anything after that.” Obviously that was a joke, but beatings are just part and parcel of his whole description of parenting. As for “To the moon, Alice!” it was deliberately and satirically a reference to domestic violence.
germy
Elizabelle
@Frankensteinbeck: It was interesting to learn that, in I Love Lucy, only Lucy was allowed to poke fun at Ricky’s accent. I had never noticed that.
John Revolta
Pompeo confirmed.
Tim C.
@Roger Moore: I get what you are saying and I see the logic, but my read is that as long as Trump is still controlling the 25-75% of the GOP voters who show up in primaries, then it’s all moot. The GOP doesn’t ever ever ever ever go against their bigoted base.
germy
http://variety.com/2018/biz/news/bill-cosby-guilty-sexual-assault-retrial-1202788733/
Mnemosyne
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
There is apparently a delicate difference between whether a leader is visiting as the head of government or head of state. We get very confused because our president is simultaneously the head of government AND the head of state, but that is not the case with most parliamentary systems. Justin Trudeau is not the head of state for Canada, only the head of government.
Amir Khalid
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Obama came to Malaysia twice. One was a full-on state visit with all the trimmings, the other was just a “working” visit. i.e. with no ceremonies, just business meetings.
Brachiator
@Frankensteinbeck:
This stuff has not aged well, but I think you are reading too much into it. And there are still people who believe that corporal punishment is an essential, and loving, aspect of parenting. Fortunately, I think that American society is finally starting to abandon this idea.
This has not aged well, either. And more than satire, these lines were uttered when a lot of men felt that controlling their wives with an occasional punch or slap was part of their manly duty.
In any case, all this is secondary to the fact that the women who were abused by Cosby may have finally found some justice.
germy
@Brachiator: In an episode of the Cosby Show, Dr. Huxtable puts a “secret ingredient” into the sauce at a family barbecue. All the quarreling couples get happy and start making out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBDRwiSZSBg
rikyrah
The government logged 16 phones from Cohen?
https://twitter.com/MichaelAvenatti/status/989567719132614657?s=20
The Other Chuck
@david: Your Internet, sir, yours if you want it.
rikyrah
@Thoroughly Pizzled:
I love this phrase. On point.
TenguPhule
North Korea nuclear test site has collapsed and may be out of action – China study
The Other Chuck
@Wapiti:
That would be the 25th amendment, actually, Section 4 to be exact. </pedant>
Nicole
Some years back, I watched “Bill Cosby: Himself” on HBO, as I remembered adoring it in the 1980s when I was a child. On the re-watch, all I saw was how angry he was. I remember thinking, “Man, this is a guy who really does not like his kids.” It does not hold up.
germy
thread:
Kathleen
@Kay: Mary Taylor is just evil.
frosty fred
@Nicole: “I brought you into this world, and I can take you out.” I remember that from his albums, and later addressed to Theo at least once on The Cosby Show.
bemused
@germy:
Horrifying!
germy
germy
@bemused: Well, he did yank the chicken out of the child’s hand…
zhena gogolia
@frosty fred:
Wow, that’s a quotation from Gogol, Taras Bulba.
Frankensteinbeck
@TenguPhule:
I’m shocked, shocked, to learn that Trump’s diplomacy has accomplished nothing on the Korean Peninsula.
bemused
@germy:
Ha, not the right age or sex to have special sauce chicken.
Mnemosyne
@Frankensteinbeck:
And “to the moon!” is supposed to be a demonstration of Ralph’s bloviating and cowardice. They both know he would never do it, and that she would leave immediately if he ever did.
Kay
@Frankensteinbeck:
It’s just this hopeless “what is now always should be” that drives me crazy. People beat children in the past. Fewer people beat children now. People could stop hitting children completely. Not hitting children could be a social norm, just like hitting children was once a social norm.
Getting bullied in school was completely acceptable when I was in school. Now it’s not. Kids adjusted. I don’t think anyone really misses it. They probably won’t START accepting bullying again- like “oh, that was so great we should go back to that”
Elizabelle
NY Mag: Trump’s Fox & Friends Interview Is Already Creating Legal Problems
He undermined his claims to attorney-client privilege.
He admitted that Cohen represented him in the Stormy Daniels deal.
He admitted to staying a night in Moscow.
He threatened to upend the DOJ.
He graded himself.
Personally, having gorged on Fox & Friend faces, I would love to see his attorneys’ when they got a load of this morning’s Trumpalooza.
Brachiator
@germy:
Yikes! Now, there’s an episode that will probably be yanked from any syndication package.
One local tv station showing Golden Age tv programs recently showed “I Spy.” I wonder if this show, and other Cosby programs have or will be pulled from circulation.
TenguPhule
@Frankensteinbeck: Your winnings.
TenguPhule
West, Diamond & Silk.
There is a very bad name for people like them who aid the slavecatcher’s agenda.
NY Robbin
@Elizabelle:
Re The Honeymooners: FWIW in the shows I’ve seen (a marathon on New Years Day), Kramden never lays a hand on her. In fact he seems more afraid of her than she of him.
marv
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
“Swinging from the heels” is an old baseball expression meaning trying to hit a home run. I think it was used more by sportswriters than ballplayers. I think Hewitt meant something more like “shooting from the hip”, but like someone else said here – I don’t speak wingnut
TenguPhule
@NY Robbin:
That was part of the joke.
For all the blustering he did, he (and the audience at the time) knew she’d kick his ass.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Elizabelle: My mom and grandma really enjoyed his comedy. I grew up with his stand up on vinyl records. Watched Fat Albert after school. It’s all been tarnished for a while now, and this is the final nail in the coffin. There are lines you cannot cross, and raping people is definitely a big one.
MCA1
@Jay: What? In 30+ years of being a pretty big baseball fan, I’ve never once heard that phrase uttered. Swinging from his heels, yes, but not hips. I think Hewitt just mixed his metaphors of “came out swinging” and “shooting from the hip.”
Kay
@Elizabelle:
It’s even crazier than that because Hillary Clinton isn’t his political opponent. I know the raving loonies want her imprisoned, but it isn’t even “political”. They’re just raving hateful loonies. They want her in prison. No particular reason, that’s just what they want.
TenguPhule
@Kay:
She opposed him. That makes her his enemy. Q-E-D.
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
@Kay: My hairdresser is a RWNJ and she brought up how sickly Clinton was. I didn’t even know how to respond because the whole premise just seemed loony to me.
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
@MattF: I wonder if anyone has ever tried to explain to Trump that the allotment of two senators per state gives power to low populations states that’s out of balance with their population. The allotment of votes based on the House is much more equal, but in no way is the EC weighted for the Ds.
Ruckus
@Mnemosyne:
I always thought that Alice would have kicked Ralph’s fat ass.
trnc
@Mnemosyne:
Leave? Hell, no! She would have cut him up into little pieces and scattered them in the bowling alley if he tried to lay a finger on her.
Geeno
@Elizabelle: The guy I feel for is Malcolm-Jamal Warner. Those Cosby show residuals were going to be his retirement income – now, through no fault of his own, they’re worthless, because that show won’t be airing anywhere.
craigie
That happened to me once!
StringOnAStick
@germy: Anybody else here recall listening to Cosby’s records? Anyone else besides me remember the “Spanish Fly” bit? As a early teen I knew what Spanish Fly was purported to be, but I was also young enough to think that’s not a nice thing or idea. I share the same birthday as Cosby, and until this stuff started coming out I thought that was kind of cool. I first started losing my fondness for him after watching him on The Daily Show and I thought his behavior was strange and arrogant.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@StringOnAStick: Cosby records were a staple of my childhood. Every kid I knew could recite huge swaths of “Noah” and “Chicjen Heart”.
Aleta
I remember Obama in interviews would refer to his team and to Michelle’s work in explaining the direction they were taking, the result they were after, as a matter of course. Pointing out shared achievement from shared effort and making it seem natural as he did it. Of course it’s not surprising that T doesn’t do this. But sad that so soon after Obama worked to normalize that (in a political/ professional culture where individuals take sole credit even when it’s not true) we don’t even expect it because it’s T.
it’s barely noticeable T doesn’t do it; there are so many other wrongs to notice when he talks. But it was a fundamental that Obama stressed and taught.
JustRuss
@cmorenc: O indeed. The Fox News Blond is wearing the FNB poker face while blinking SOS in Morse code, Kilmeade has his “I can’t believe this is happening dear god make it stop!” face, and Doocy is pretty much oblivious. THAT is good television.
TenguPhule
@craigie:
You sat on a mousetrap?
RobNYNY
@Brachiator:
That has happened before. When I lived in Germany in the early 1980’s, Alexander Haig was known as “der Hofnarr,” “the court fool.” His rantings were considered to be untranslatable.