Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

đŸŽ¶ Those boots were made for mockin’ đŸŽ”

Consistently wrong since 2002

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

“More of this”, i said to the dog.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

I did not have telepathic declassification on my 2022 bingo card.

Infrastructure week. at last.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP

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

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

In my day, never was longer.

I really should read my own blog.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

This blog will pay for itself.

“But what about the lurkers?”

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / Cold Grey Pre-Dawn Open Thread: He’s Decompensating, and None of His GOP Fellows Cares

Cold Grey Pre-Dawn Open Thread: He’s Decompensating, and None of His GOP Fellows Cares

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If you weren’t paying attention during Reagan’s second term, take my word: The old man was visibly falling to pieces, week by week. But unlike the current Oval Office Occupant, Ronnie at least had a wife who cared enough to fight for him, and a moderately competent bunch of advisors alert to the possibility that they themselves might be held accountable some day.

Today’s Repubs haven’t got even that rudimentary sense of self preservation — they’re just grabbing everything they can steal before the whole rotten Potemkin village falls apart.


Reader Interactions

69Comments

  4. 4.

    Mary G

    I think Pence would do a lot of damage, and I wonder if they aren’t hoping to hustle Twitler off stage right – he’s too tired to do more than one rally a day. You know the media would fluff Pence to the max because he speaks in complete sentences and would throw Javanka out on their pampered asses.

  5. 5.

    prufrock

    At same NRCC dinner, Trump says of wind farms: “They say the noise causes cancer.”

    My wife and I are rewatching The Sopranos. I heard that in Livia’s voice.

  6. 6.

    Judy Little

    Daniel Dale said that this is the third time trump said his father was born in Germany. Maybe now that his base loves hitler types, trump thinks it’s cool.

  7. 7.

    JPL

    Trump’s aides will preach to him the importance of using the teleprompter from now on.

  8. 8.

    Spanky

    @JPL: Yeah, with about the same effect as me preaching to my cats the importance of not playing in the toilet.

  9. 9.

    Shrillhouse

    The Mueller report doesn’t address the bananas of investigation. I mean, what about the bananas of it? Seriously, I think if you would have looked at the bananas…

  10. 10.

    montanareddog

    “my father is German, was German. Born in a very wonderful place in Germany.”

    I think we need to see the long-form birth certificate

  11. 11.

    montanareddog

    At same NRCC dinner, Trump says of wind farms: “They say the noise causes cancer.”

    Is this even a thing? I mean, like a meme from 2 Boobs and a Blonde, or Worldnut Daily? I have not heard it before. Is he inventing his own shit now instead of retweeting other morans’ nonsense?

  12. 12.

    Jay

    ReThugs are all in,

    Oranges won’t matter,

    Anymore than 3 new Mexico’s hurts Faux NotNews,

  14. 14.

    A Ghost To Most

    Decompensation is a word that will get increasing usage. He’s come undone.

  18. 18.

    plato

    How casually the scummy pos thug lies, jeez.

    The wind farm butthurt comes from the Scots saying FU to his golf money laundering course there.

  21. 21.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Commander in cheat? Donald Trump’s 18 golf tournament wins examined -an excerpt from a book by Rick Reilly

    So here was Trump caterwauling about 18 golf championships that were faker than Cheez Whiz, and it started to make me think. How much of what Trump says about his golf brilliance does the country believe? During the campaign, when Trump stood up in front of 30,000 red hats and bloviated, “When it comes to golf, very few people can beat me,” did people buy that? Because 50 guys at every course in America can beat him.

    When Trump held endless 18-hole meetings at his Florida courses with this prime minister and that emperor, were these leaders returning home to laugh at OUR president the way they laughed at him at the United Nations? Would they think all Americans cheat at golf?

    It got me thinking …

    Somebody should point out that the way Trump does golf is sort of the way he does a presidency, which is to operate as though the rules are for other people.

    Somebody should explain that facts and truth are to Trump what golf scores and crowd sizes are—“feelings”—malleable and negotiable, flitting this way and that like a car-lot balloon man.

    Somebody should write that the way Trump cheats at golf, lies about his courses, and stiffs his golf contractors isn’t that far from how he cheats on his wives, lies about his misdeeds, and stiffs the world on agreements America has already made on everything from Iran to climate change.

    “Golf is like bicycle shorts,” I once wrote. “It reveals a lot about a man.”

    You could write a book about what Trump’s golf reveals about him.

    Here it is.

    I might actually by this book.

  22. 22.

    PaulWartenberg

    @John Revolta:

    They can’t. 25th is only a temporary salve: trump gets like 21 days to prove to doctors/examiners that he’s fit to serve the office. Half the Cabinet members are grifters like him who know any disruption – even flipping to Pence as Acting President for the 21 day period that trump would be contained – could expose them… and that he’s a vindictive prick who’ll get his Chief of Staff to fire them the moment he gets back into the Oval Office. The only solution right now is impeachment, and there are not enough Republican Senators willing to risk their own skin against their rabid voting base and wingnut media who will clearly side with a dementia-addled trump in spite of all the evidence.

    For the love of God: EVERYBODY has to show up to vote trump out in 2020. I am not joking.

  23. 23.

    Lapassionara

    And then there’s the woman arrested at Mar-a-lago, with a thumbdrive containing malware, among other things, and the Secret Service are all “what, me worry,” about it.

  26. 26.

    Immanentize

    Wisconsin Supreme Court election too close to call. 5000 votes out of 1.2 million cast. Still a bunch of votes to count.

    ETA Very evil Republican is ahead of the Democrat

  29. 29.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Immanentize:

    (did he retire?)

    I don’t know. I have read a lot of his stuff over the years but I haven’t tracked his career. He is always entertaining. If I am going to read about the malware known as trump I need to be able to laugh twice as often as I cry and Reilly just might pull off that feat.

  30. 30.

    pat

    It’s his grandfather who was born in Germany, came to the states, moved to Seattle and became a citizen, then moved back to Germany. . Aaron Blake has an article in the wapo, and I can’t find it now but I just read somewhere else that his grandfather, after returning to Germany, was deported in 1905 because he had illegally dodged the draft in the 1880s before he came to the US.

    His grandmother was pregnant with his father when they arrived in the states after being deported.
    He has repeatedly claimed that his father was born in Germany. Confused, much?

  33. 33.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @pat: I’ve read that too.

    was deported in 1905 because he had illegally dodged the draft in the 1880s

    It’s a family tradition.

  34. 34.

    Skepticat

    Darn, had his father actually been born in Germany, then _____ wouldn’t eligible to be pResident, right?

  36. 36.

    Amir Khalid

    Does Trump lie, or is he detached from the concept of truth? The latter, I think, and in Professor Frankfurt’s book that makes him something worse: a bullshitter. In fact, I figure he’s a combination of bullshitter and early-stage dementia sufferer.

  38. 38.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @Amir Khalid: I agree, and for that reason it’s impossible to know if what we see is dementia or just the way he is. The mangling of words can just be an ignorant person tripping over his tongue. Don’t forget the ignorance as a part of it.

  39. 39.

    Amir Khalid

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    It seems that it’s the judge who is out of order here. To my knowledge, English law says forced sex within a marriage is still rape.

  40. 40.

    Vor

    @Skepticat: yes, he would still be eligible to be President even if his father had been born in Germany. If you are born on US soil and are not the child of a foreign diplomat, then you are a US citizen. Your parents do not need to even be US citizens.

    Off the top of my head, a couple famous people who hold US citizenship this way: actress Saoirsche Ronan and UK politician Boris Johnson.

    Two recent examples which were never tested but assumed to be okay: John McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone to US parents. Barry Goldwater was born in Arizona Territory before it became a state. Then there is Rafael “Ted” Cruz, born in Canada.

  42. 42.

    SFAW

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    English judge says man having sex with his wife is ‘fundamental human right’

    I think it’s kinda sick that any man — let alone a judge — would treat his wife that way. Or maybe he just wants to watch? What a sicko/cuck.

  43. 43.

    A Ghost To Most

    @Another Scott: The difference is, his one trick, lying, isn’t working anymore. He’s lying 4x as often now with less effect. His ego must be gangled.

  44. 44.

    SFAW

    @Amir Khalid:

    Does Trump lie, or is he detached from the concept of truth?

    Por que no los dos?

    or as they say in The Malay:
    Warum denn nicht die beide?

  47. 47.

    Balconesfault

    As someone who has worked on windfarms … Yes, there was a NIMBY movement out of upstate NY which asserted (with some extremely flawed data analysis) that low frequency vibrations from wind turbines cause cancer.

    AWEA had to fund a major study about a decade ago to debunk it.

    Remember that Trump hates wind farms because of his Scottish Golf Course.

  48. 48.

    Ella in New Mexico

    @pat:

    His grandmother was pregnant with his father when they arrived in the states after being deported.

    Guys….guys…what was it that Trump kept saying? That Obama’s Mom SAID he was born in Hawaii, but that she really was in Kenya and slipped him in after he was born and managed to manipulate the birth registration process in order to make it LOOK like he was born in the US?

    You all know that 99% of the time, Trump’s lies about others turn out to be projections of his own crimes, right?

    How many times have we asked ourselves “where the hell did he come up with that crazy accusation” only to find out later it’s what he himself has done? I hope to GOD someone does a little heavy foot work and starts digging into just how solid his father’s US birth certificate is…

    After watching the video of yesterday and how much he struggled cognitively I have to say he acted like someone who was experiencing some kind of neuro event. Whether it was a TIA or some kind of exacerbation of early dementia from all the stress lately or something else is hard to tell.

    One thing is for sure, all people with neuro disorders decompensate under extreme stress. He’s clearly been melting down over the past week or so, because he now knows for sure the Mueller report DOES NOT exonerate him. He’s also had a lot of public activity and travel lately requiring changes in his normally pathetically weak daily schedule, likely also impacting his sleep. Does he take medication to get him through these days and nights? Lots of stress combined with medication side effects would lower his ability to think clearly and expose all his underlying emotional and cognitive weakness. Is that what all the crazy “I’ll close the fucking borders!!” rants are all about?

    Apparently it lasted the entire day, as later that night he told the RNCC windmill noise causes cancer, among other gaffes. On top of the mangling of the word “origins” in that press conference and his mixing up his father’s birth origins, he really could have lost his ability to remember to lie about stuff he’s always lied about.

    And all the people around him stand to benefit so they’ll do absolutely nothing but prop him up. Jesus we are so fucked.

  49. 49.

    Amir Khalid

    @Vor:
    If Barry Goldwater was born in a US Territory that surely makes him Born In The U.S.A. for citizenship purposes, same as for Puerto Ricans. And if memory serves, Ted’s mother is/was American, and one American parent suffices for claiming US citizenship.

  50. 50.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    The irony is in the world of ignorance that is what the Conservative Movement has become it’s almost impossibly to tell dementia from just plan stupid.

  51. 51.

    SFAW

    @Ella in New Mexico:

    And all the people around him stand to benefit so they’ll do absolutely nothing but prop him up.

    Not that anyone in the Lame Scream Media has the cojones to ask the question, but I think it would be interesting for one of them to ask Traitor Turtle “If your president* murdered his mistress on camera, would that cause you to stop supporting him? How about if he announced he was turning over complete control to Putin? What about if he had Speaker Pelosi arrested — with no evidence — for treason? What about if he did the same to Lindsey Graham? John Cornyn? In short, is there ANYTHIING he could do — other than issuing an order for YOU to be assassinated — that would cause you do anything other than completely support him, all because of your own lust for power?”

    Of course, Traitor Turtle would merely claim that the Dems are worse, and go blithely on his way.

  52. 52.

    SFAW

    @Amir Khalid:

    same as for Puerto Ricans.

    Oh, so now you’re trying to claim that they’re US citizens? Next you’ll be trying to claim that Guamanians are, too.

  54. 54.

    CliosFanBoy

    @Amir Khalid: except that Puerto Rico was an “insular” territory, a different category. According to the SCOTUS, that makes them US subjects for whom the Constitution does not apply. Puerto Ricans became citizens because Congress in 1917 said so. Theoretically, a nasty repub Congress could strip their automatic citizenship away. Another reason to make PR a state.

  55. 55.

    Don K

    @pat:
    I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for the draft-dodging German great grandfather in my lineage. The difference is great Grandad had enough brains not to try to back to Germany.

  57. 57.

    Amir Khalid

    @Don K:
    Actuslly, Friedrich the Draft Dodger appealed to the Prince to spare him from banishment, and failed.

  58. 58.

    sdhays

    @PaulWartenberg: Just to add to what you’re saying here, the 25th Amendment is predicated on the idea that Cabinet secretaries are patriotic Americans who take their Constitutional duties seriously without regard to the person who appointed them. That assumption does not hold in the Trump Cabinet. Not one of them gives a shit about this country. They are there to accomplish their missions, be it to burn down and loot their Department or to stomp on the “right” people. They are not there to protect the country, so the thought of shutting the ASSet down, even if he pulls down his pants and starts flinging poo at reporters on national television in the White House Press Room, is not something they would even think about.

    It’s not so much that they’re worried about exposure; it’s that they just don’t care.

  59. 59.

    jimmiraybob

    @Bostonian:

    So Trumpski’s dad was an anchor baby?

    While I don’t like trump’s “anchor baby” term, that’s what I get out of the timing.

  61. 61.

    Mnemosyne

    @Amir Khalid:

    My money’s still on adult ADHD + toxic narcissism + early stages of Alzheimer’s.

    Narcissists lie all the time as a power move, but the Alzheimer’s will make it increasingly difficult to make the lies plausible.

  62. 62.

    Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony

    @sdhays: Why would they worry? A chunk of the public only watches/listens to right-wing media and will never hear about it anyway.

  63. 63.

    J R in WV

    One of my best friends was born in Philly, where his dad ran a tiny sundries shop / candy store / book shop. They lived in the burbs, had two cars, etc. After I visited and saw the tiny shop, I wondered about the profit margin. Years later I realized his dad was a bookie, and all the other stuff was the cover.

    To get back on topic, his grandfather, a Russian Jew, fled the Tsar’s draft just prior to the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-05, in which machines guns were used for the first time. Two empires fighting over who was going to steal which other countries. Evidently Z’s grandfather got out just in time. Tens of thousands of deaths on both sides. His grandparents mostly spoke Russian and Yiddish their whole lives in the Jewish community of Philly… Fine people!!!

  64. 64.

    Brachiator

    At same NRCC dinner, Trump says of wind farms: “They say the noise causes cancer.”

    Coming late to this thread.

    I used to say that Trump was as dumb as his supporters. He is much, much, dumber.

  65. 65.

    JGabriel

    John Revolta:

    *cough*25th Amendment*coughcough*

    I’m not sure why people keep bringing up the 25th Amendment* as a solution to our problems. Removing a President via the 25th Amendment requires a two-thirds vote in both the House and Senate, as well as action initiated by the VP and a majority of the Cabinet.

    Impeachment is much easier, as it only requires a bare majority in the House, two-thirds in the Senate, and no action from the cabinet.

    *I don’t intend to single out John Revolta here, plenty of other people have suggested the same thing – John’s comment was just the most convenient peg to hang this post from.

  66. 66.

    John Revolta

    @PaulWartenberg: @JGabriel: Yeah, I know all the obstacles and the unlikelyhood of the whole thing. I was just indulging in a little late-nite fantasizing that the whole goddamn Government would get off their sclerotic asses and do what was right for the country. Frankly I also think we’d actually be worse off with Pence 8^/

  68. 68.

    Jay Noble

    Uh. What happened to Trump’s Grandpa ran a Brothel in Canada before coming to the US???

  69. 69.

    moops

    @Ella in New Mexico:

    I think we are starting to get closer to Trump going full blown curse words on camera. All the Dems have to do is nominate a woman candidate and it is almost certain Trump drops the C-word on camera. If Obama helps with the campaign he will likely also drop the N-bomb.

    Some of our new female pols could probably get him to drop one, or a dogged reporters, or Ann Coulter.

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