The DEDUCTIBLE which comes with ObamaCare is so high that it is practically not even useable! Hurts families badly. We have a chance, working with the Democrats, to deliver great HealthCare! A confirming Supreme Court Decision will lead to GREAT HealthCare results for Americans!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 17, 2018
Anytime you hear a Democrat saying that you can have good Boarder Security without a Wall, write them off as just another politician following the party line. Time for us to save billions of dollars a year and have, at the same time, far greater safety and control!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 17, 2018
It is incredible that with a very strong dollar and virtually no inflation, the outside world blowing up around us, Paris is burning and China way down, the Fed is even considering yet another interest rate hike. Take the Victory!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 17, 2018
Must have doubled up on the crushed adderall this morning.
On the Road and In Your Backyard
chopper
Boarder Security? is he talking like a deposit or something?
Cermet
Good morning Jackals.
See, we can make money by building the wall! What he really means is he’ll make money if a massive new additional wall is built.
The orange fart cloud is starting to realize when he loses come 2020, it will be jail time for him and his family.
Betty Cracker
Spanky’s gonna wish the Fed had something left in the toolkit once the Trump recession gets underway. Or probably not since he’s too goddamned stupid to understand how shit works.
guachi
@chopper: Maybe he’s talking about an Air BnB? Dunno.
dr. bloor
@Betty Cracker: Recessions are good and easy to win, libtard.
Mathguy
I think you should have a trigger warning for orange shitstain tweets when it’s before noon. Just sayin’.
dmsilev
@chopper:
Carronades loaded with canister shot is the traditional approach to boarder security.
Yarrow
I like Betty C’s practice of not embedding the tweets but just copying them. That way we don’t have to see his face.
Jeffro
No way out, Trumpov, there’s no way out of this for you, no sir. Keep tweeting while Rudy does all your confessing for you…
Mike E
@chopper: That boy I SAY that boy is so dumb, he thinks a Mexican boarder pays rent!
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
How much fucking longer do we have to live with this pathetic creature running [sic] the country? Jesus…
Amir Khalid
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
I think you misspelled “ruining”.
Kay
I just love the cavalier recklessness on the part of Republicans re: health care. How fucking long are they going to toy with people on this? They are keeping these people in a constant state of anxiety that they’re going to pull their health insurance. It’s outrageous and cruel to play with us like this.
All of these assholes are safe as houses with their own health care, yet they have been screwing around for 7 years with everyone elses. It’s weirdly authoritarian- dangling health care coverage and then threatening to snatch it away every six months. It’s abusive.
Kraux Pas
Clearly he wants us to be able to get on planes and boats safely.
@Mike E:
It’s early, yet, but I think this is a good early candidate for winner of the thread.
mapaghimagsik
I thought you guys weren’t going to post his marmalade gob.
So, now the obligatory, “Christ, what an asshole.”
Patricia Kayden
“Boarder” “smocking” “covfefe”
Our President don’t spell too good.
Shameful that this moron is in an office way over his head and represents the American people abroad.
Hildebrand
I understand that the Republicans really don’t care what the Orange Idiot says, because, hey, Judges! I get that. But I guess I just can’t wrap my head around how they tolerate his catastrophic stupidity. Further, I really don’t understand how they don’t see that by allowing him to continue spouting his knavery he is going to drag down the whole party for a long, long time.
Don’t they ever wake up and just want to scream at him to shove a sock in his mouth?
Barbara
You did have a chance and you blew it because no one in the Republican Party is remotely interested in health care except as a way of leaching money out of the budget to pay for tax cuts.
As for “Boarder Security,” I hope my local kennel has a lot of it because my daughter’s dog is an escape artist and she will be boarding for a few days after Christmas.
Kay
The other part I love is how everyone on the Right has to pretend their voters and supporters aren’t wholly dependent on the Medicaid expansion. Who are the biggest beneficiaries of the Medicaid expansion? Low wage white people. Trump supporters.
But no one can admit that because it’s important we all pretend they’re wholly self-sufficient, so they all focus on “preexisting conditions” as if they’re all on employer provided health insurance. It’s not true.
The biggest problem for Republicans isn’t the exchanges or the coverage protections in the law. The biggest problem for Republicans is that a shit load of Trump supporters rely on Medicaid. But we all must pretend that’s not true, so as not to offend them.
Platonailedit
Gawd, what a nutjob.
Yarrow
@Patricia Kayden: I doubt he writes all those tweets. I barely look at them anymore but staffers write a significant percentage of them and they misspell and randomly capitalize words to make them sound “authentic.”
Patricia Kayden
@Hildebrand: Between voter suppression tactics and limiting the authority of Democratic legislators in various states, Republicans have a plan to hold onto power for the foreseeable future. I’m not seeing Congressional Republicans stepping back from supporting him with the exception of Senator Flake who is out in a few weeks.
Barbara
@Kay: Time for my obligatory push back — low income whites are more likely to vote Democratic than their higher income counterparts. They are less likely to vote, and I am sure you are right that many white people (cough cough, like in West Virginia) benefit from Medicaid expansion and still vote Republican, but I don’t think the overlap is as wide as you are suggesting.
Quinerly
I missed this over the weekend. He can’t even spell “separation.” Doesn’t spell check catch this stuff?
https://mobile.twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1074339834351759363
The Midnight Lurker
Rats!
Yarrow
@Hildebrand: Sure, but when you depend on his voters for your own reelection and are compromised yourself it’s a lot easier to just go along and hope something happens to him, you never have to speak out against his voters, and you won’t have to pay any consequences for your actions.
It’s baffling to me that people can’t see the levers being pulled and pushed behind the scenes. It’s not just that Republicans are dependent on Trump voters. It’s also that many Republican elected officials (and others) are compromised in varying ways. They aren’t just afraid of losing their seats. Why would they be? They can do on the wingnut welfare circuit and be fine. No, there’s more to it than that. They’ve done things are being used to keep them in line and they don’t want those things to become public. Their entire lives as they’ve constructed them are at risk. That’s what they’re really afraid of.
Patricia Kayden
@Yarrow: Authentic? Authentically stupid. I miss the days when we had a President who was authentically decent, well spoken and intelligent. Sigh.
delk
Boarder security is calling the kennel in October to make sure they save a spot for your pet while you go away for the Xmas holidays. Wait too late at your peril.
Gin & Tonic
I know we all love to pile on the NYT’s White House desk, but this Tweet is an instant classic.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Kay:
“If it weren’t for all those inner city welfare queens and young bucks slurping up all the benefits, there be more benefits for me and my family”.
germy
debbie
Doesn’t Twitter have spell check?
Barbara
@Yarrow: The New Yorker profiled Ryan Costello, who is retiring, and provided a lot of context for understanding how many Republicans who loathe Trump are trying to thread the needle. Source
My favorite quote in the entire article because it is is spot on as to how I feel.
Costello has criticized Trump, and then been criticized by his own party, but he voted for Trump (unlike Charlie Dent). Some other gems:
It was after the state’s Supreme Court required fairer districts that Ryan Costello finally gave up his seat. And in case you are wondering, he refuses to criticize any other Republican House member by name, but is not nearly so reticent about Democrats. It’s power and self-serving hypocrisy all the way down. The whole thing is worth reading.
PPCLI
A functioning press would point out, every time Deadbeat Don says/posts anything like this, that Putin’s Puppet promised during the campaign that he would produce a healthcare plan that covers everyone, and does so for less. He’s been in office almost two years, and we don’t have even a hint of what their non-existent plan will look like. So until he actually produces such a plan, just add this tweet to the extremely long and growing list called “Promises Made, Promises Broken“.
meander
I know it will never happen, but how about those high-priced DC journalists learn something about health care policy, and then in a future interview with Trump ask detailed questions about his solutions to America’s health care crisis? Like, “when will your plan be ready for review?” “How will it handle pre-existing conditions? For example, will it require insurers to not only provide coverage, but also make that coverage affordable?” And “In 2017 you said you had a plan ready to go, but it never appeared? Why not?” “Are you aware that a favorite too of the GOP — the high pool — has never worked?”
A hopeless dream…not just getting the questions asked, but getting a comprehensible answer.
Gin & Tonic
@debbie: No.
germy
Lock up the comedians.
Rommie
When you are always right, what are you going to listen to – a spellcheck squiggly or your Gut?
Repatriated
@Kay:
They’re related. Studies have shown that even being made to think about an economic stressor (wage cut, unemployment) increases ethnocentrism. And we have the GOP actively portraying itself as the party of white people.
So, cutting health care accessibility may end up getting them the low-info white voters who don’t connect policy with outcomes.
Gin & Tonic
@germy: If DJT were able to read, he should take a look at some US newspapers from the 19th Century or the early part of the 20th. That was some bare-knuckled writing (and drawing!)
gene108
@Hildebrand:
Have you seen his competition for dumbest Republican? They tolerate a lot of stupidity in their ranks.
zhena gogolia
@Gin & Tonic:
I don’t know, it seems to me like the same mean-girl gossip they love to waste time on. Where’s the hard-hitting journalism? I don’t give a f–k about his hair. What about the dead 7-year-old?
Repatriated
@Repatriated: What is less clear is whether they can pull that trick when they’re in charge, because most voters (except the hiighly-informed) overestimate how much influence a President has on the economy and will blame Trump for their economic stress.
montanareddog
Thanks, Obama. You should never have given Obamaphones to “those people”
marv
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
Sick sic.
Bostondreams
In other news, the Florida State Supreme Court has ruled that Stand Your Ground also applies to police officers as a defense. That is, cops can use SYG as a defense for shooting someone. This will not end well.
BretH
“We’re going to have insurance for everybody,” Trump said in an interview with The Washington Post. “There was a philosophy in some circles that if you can’t pay for it, you don’t get it. That’s not going to happen with us.”
“I am going to take care of everybody … Everybody’s going to be taken care of much better than they’re taken care of now.”
A press with a shred of self-respect would be asking Trump about these pledges at every opportunity.
The Dangerman
Well, THIS is a fun little read in Forbes.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2018/12/16/mueller-exposes-putins-hold-over-trump/#462eede848f6
Frankensteinbeck
@Yarrow:
You have a point. When I first looked at these, my thought was that he doesn’t sound desperate at all, just grouchy that he’s not being given everything he wants and praised for his genius. Now I’m thinking the focus on issues rather than insecurities is a sign he didn’t write these. They’re too on-message.
@Repatriated:
Studies have also shown that merely showing Republicans a picture of a black person makes them support cutting the safety net. Seriously. Also that the same effect does not happen with Democrats.
Platonailedit
tobie
@Gin & Tonic: I confess I had to google what the fuss was about Stephen Miller’s hair to understand the tweet. Looks like spray on to me. Nice snark from the Times.
A Ghost To Most
He is already worrying about his safety in prison.
JPL
@The Dangerman: The entire article is interesting, but I fear that his base won’t care. As long as they can continue to express their racist views openly and without being shunned, they will stand by him.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Gin & Tonic:
That reminds me. There’s this podcast series called 2038, which is very good, where various writers/experts make many predictions about the future 20 years from now, nearly all of them bleak from an American perspective.
One of the episodes was about the US’ political landscape returning to something similar to the 19th century, where politics were much more cutthroat than they had been during the 20th century, with no common external enemy. I’d argue were already there and have been for at least 10 years.
SFAW
@The Dangerman:
But her e-mails were a crime against humanity, so there!
Elizabelle
@JPL: With all due respect, I do not give a fuck about Trump’s base.
Better to focus on those who are reachable. Do not overworry about those who are not. They just exist, like viruses and rot.
Elizabelle
@SFAW:
Can we retire the emails comment? It is so tiresome, and no longer even amusing.
Platonailedit
@Elizabelle: Yup. His racist base as nuts as he is and will die of attrition. No percentage in chasing that mirage or give a flying fuck about those deplorables.
BretH
Agree that he probably did not write those tweets – because of the obvious misspelling of “Border”. It is a honeytrap, causing people to focus on his “stupidity” rather than seeing the tweets for what has been pointed out here – groomed messaging.
FlipYrWhig
I think Trump thinks that deductibles didn’t exist until Obama invented them for Obamacare. Because he is stupid and knows nothing about anything except, maybe, boobs.
Repatriated
@Frankensteinbeck: Oh, I believe that.
zhena gogolia
@Elizabelle:
No, we can’t. It’s a truth that bears repeating.
What happened to the Russian social media post?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
on days like this I wonder what Jared and Abbe Lowell are up to, and think of the line from The Lion in Winter when IIRC Henry II says to his son Geoffrey, ‘have you figured out a way to sell everybody to everybody else?”
burnspbesq
@PPCLI:
Anyone who works for a business with > 100 employees can probably pull out their open enrollment package and show Lyin’ Asshole plenty of non-Exchange plans with whopping deductibles.
Idiot.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@zhena gogolia: I think we should add “But here WALL STREET SPEECHES!” to the rotation
Elizabelle
@zhena gogolia: It is a truth. FTF NY Times and everyone else who pushed it, relentlessly.
But it is a charmless rejoinder here. It’s repetitive and boring. It’s like a catchphrase for being in the club, and it’s used too often.
germy
Let’s not be too hasty.
Repatriated
@BretH: Similar to the old 419 money-transfer scammers’ practice of using poor spelling and grammar to filter out recpients. People who knew that the writing was garbage would be smart enough to know it was a scam; thus, the only ones to reply were those who could be hooked.
Amir Khalid
@FlipYrWhig:
Trump is so self-obsessed that he knows about boobs only because he has his own pair.
Yarrow
@zhena gogolia: The one at the top of the front page? This one? https://balloon-juice.com/2018/12/17/todays-big-read-russias-comprehensive-disinformation-campaign
PPCLI
Hey Big Talker! You used to love tweeting about how you should get credit for the stock market. Well, what are you going to do about the enormous plunge that wiped out all the gains from all of 2018 and is still spiraling downward?
zhena gogolia
@Yarrow:
X-Files: It was missing for me for a few minutes. This post was at the top of the site.
Quaker in a Basement
Correct spelling and punctuation?
Staff written.
Yarrow
@zhena gogolia: That happens to me a lot. I’ll see the arrow on a post that shows a new post and it’ll also appear on John’s Twitter feed, but if I refresh the front page it’s not there.
chopper
@PPCLI:
that was those…other guys.
rikyrah
@Kay:
I don’t pretend, and neither should any other Democrat.
rikyrah
@Kay:
they also pretend that the biggest recipient of Medicaid DOLLARS,
is NOT the single, poor mother with 3 kids…
But, Bob and Susie’s Grandma and Grandpa in the Nursing Home – THEY should be the poster children for Medicaid.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Amir Khalid: Eric and Jr.?
Ruckus
@Kay:
You just answered your own question. It’s abusive, it causes people to be desperate and that creates a feeling of helplessness which they then can use to actually make you helpless and your expectations are fulfilled, you were smart enough to figure out what was going to happen. Now, what did they get out of this? Money is not being spent on someone else – better for them and their paymasters. Longer term it lowers the numbers of people who will never get those blue collar jobs and makes the numbers look better – “Look everyone we got more of you working”.
It’s the conservative way of “fixing” things. Like every other conservative policy it doesn’t work, and it is as mean as possible, short of just having the police shoot them. Which is of course a conservative policy as well.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
My conservatives friends point out risk is the price of freedom. Better to die on your feet free than on your knees in fear and all that.
Immanentize
@Yarrow: Lamar Alexander announces he is not running again for the Senate in 2020.
Immanentize
@Yarrow: Lamar Alexander announces he is not running again for the Senate in 2020.
trnc
@Yarrow:
His mug is all over the place anyway, so I prefer being able to follow the tweet thread to see him relentlessly flogged by people like Bakatare.
https://twitter.com/plittke/status/1074698696409915392
Ella in New Mexico
A good question popped up on Sarah Kendzior’s Tweeeter today: Why, given all his past dealings with first the NYC mafia and later the Russian Mob, has Donald Trump been spared federal or state prosecution time and time and time again?
Why, it’s almost like he was working with the Feds as a double dealing little snitch or maybe someone inside was under the mob’s control so they just kept “overlooking” his (and his rotten children’s as they grew and thrived) crimes. One of the first involved then US Attorney Rudy Giuliani’s office prosecuting Trump business associates but mysteriously, not Trump. Then look who shows up on the Trump legal team all these decades later?
Man, if only Mueller could find a way to bring Goolio down with Trump…
Hob
@BretH: As with most “it’s a clever distraction” arguments, I don’t see how this is supposed to work. Everyone knows that Trump uses fearmongering about immigrants and “the border” to rile up his followers. The fact that he put out an additional tweet with exactly the same message is neither subtle nor special, and no one is going to magically forget what Trump is doing just because they also notice a dumbass typo.
Shana
@FlipYrWhig: I would bet he has no idea what natural boobs feel like.
Chris Johnson
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: No, because that is a legitimate criticism and ‘butter emails’ is not. And it’s all a moot point by now, so it’s not even a legitimate criticism because who the fuck cares anymore? None of the primary candidates from 2016 are coming back. Among other criticisms, they were all too old THEN.
ruemara
@Patricia Kayden:
@Yarrow:
Both of you are correct.
rikyrah
@The Dangerman:
YES….
YES….
Carol
Airbnb is donating big money for boarder security, I hear.
Hugely
@Yarrow: This is my largest bete noire… the Russians have leverage in multiple places: GOP, NRA, FBI NY Office cointel, the Media. I even think TFNYFT has been compromised. Why has nobody (besides Balloon Juice) posited penetration at all levels? Fucking Lindsey Graham and Yertle the Turtle are dirty depraved cynical treasonous motherfuckers, I dont get it, dont they have a shred of decency?